Event Horizon (Hellgate)

by Mel Keegan

  A hypogun thudded against Vaurien’s right arm, the moment Travers and Marin lifted off the armor segment; another shot fired into his right leg as the boot, shin, knee and thigh segments came free. The breastplate was not so simple; it was fouled at the shoulder, where the tale of woe began.

  Coherent data was scrolling on the scanner display now, and Marin muttered an oath as he saw it. “Left arm is broken in eight places, plus twice as many breaks in the hand bones and fingers … six broken ribs, and they’re broken in several places each … and the collar bone’s broken in four places.”

  “But the lung didn’t puncture,” Grant added. “He’s a lucky boy. From what Tully Ingersol’s told me, he always was. You know he was caught between two tractors in a collision, five or six years ago? Smashed both his legs, almost severed the right one. And he burned his left hand to a stump in a lab fire – it’s a clone, it and the forearm.” He stood back to aim a handy at Vaurien, and grunted at what he saw. “The nano’s working. I don’t think we’ll see thrombosis.”

  “And if you do?” Marin wondered.

  “Cryogen,” Grant said harshly. “I’m not qualified to tackle anything in his head. He can sleep his way home, and I’ll let Colonel Rusch or General Shapiro recommend a specialist.” He paused to watch the nano work. “But I don’t think it’ll come to that. The ’bots are doing good. He’s shocky as all hell. Thank Christ he’s on life support – the bottom fell right out of his BP, his heart’s tried to stop twice since we got him in here!”

  Travers’s belly turned over with sudden nausea. He had been in Fleet when Richard’s legs were smashed – and again, like the hand, Vaurien had never mentioned it to him, as if it did not matter once the injuries were healed. It did matter, and Travers was sick to his gut as he said, “Curtis, Mick, give me a hand here. We’ll have to jimmy the seals to get him out of the rest of armor.”

  And the injuries were inside the ruined segments. Marin was watching the display as the scanner rolled on, reaching the pelvis and legs, and he whistled. “His left leg’s in about a million pieces, Bill.”

  “I know. And his pelvis is broken,” Grant added, “But look on the bright side. He rode the hit way off-center. His nuts didn’t even take a bruise.” He looked up at Vidal. “The luck of the draw, Mick, my old son.”

  “Tell me about it,” Vidal muttered, and hunkered down beside the sled to work on the seals around Vaurien’s shoulder while Travers and Marin tackled the leg segments.

  All hardsuit seals could be opened manually, but the failsafes were multiple, redundant and annoying. These were worse – fouled, on minimal power, and unresponsive to the signals aimed at them from almost zero distance by a powerful handy. Travers swore as he tugged off his gauntlets and attacked them bare handed.

  “Careful,” Vidal whispered. “There’s still a bunch of residual radiation on the suit surface.”

  “Tell that to Bill,” Travers grunted as he worked the seals. “And Richard’s lying in a bloody puddle of it. I’ll scrub up later.”

  Piece by piece, the armor came off. The medical nano were working, synthetic blood was pumping into Vaurien now. Grant took a few moments to dump his own armor. He threw a hazmat blanket over it and summoned a drone to take it away. The gaudy shirt he had worn beneath it was sweat soaked, like his hair. He tied a bandana around his brow, shrugged out of the shirt and threw it away before fetching a pair of surgical scissors.

  The breastplate and arm segments lay on the deck now, and Vaurien’s left side was propped on a second sled. As Vidal stepped back to make space for him to work, Grant methodically cut through Vaurien’s shirt to lay bare his skin. Travers swore bitterly. He was black with bruising, ruddy with internal bleeding from neck to fingertips, and the arm and hand were distorted with swelling. The leg, Neil knew, would be much worse.

  “That looks bad,” Marin said softly.

  “It is bad.” Grant reached for the hypogun, reloaded it with fresh nano and punched several shots into shoulder, upper arm, forearm. “These bones will have to be welded, soon as I’ve got rid of the old blood. There’s a load of internal bruising … spleen, heart, liver. He was crushed. Looks like he was hit by a truck.”

  “Fixable?” Travers heard the hoarseness in his own voice as he looked down into Richard’s face. He was pale, waxen, but not blue about the lips and the life support monitor swore his heart and lungs were functioning, even if it took mechanical support to make them behave.

  “The organs? Sure.” Grant stepped back to watch as Marin lifted off the left boot and moved on to the shin and knee segments. “Be very, very careful,” he warned. “The leg is … well, I’ll give it a crack.”

  “Give what a crack?” Vidal had thrown a hazmat blanket over Vaurien’s ruined armor, and picked up a handy to take readings off his own hardsuit.

  “Putting the puzzle back together,” Grant said candidly. “The arm and hand – I’m pretty sure I can weld the bone properly. The leg – it’s not so simple. It’s not just bone. He has neural damage, too. See this?” He gestured at the monitor, where data was accumulating, resolving, with each pass of the machine. “There’s stuff in here that I wouldn’t dare mess with.”

  Vidal’s brow clenched as he frowned at the display. “Micro-surgery.”

  “Yeah. I’m not there yet.” Grant sighed heavily. “I’m still about six weeks short of final exams, if you want the gods’ honest truth, and the license they’ll hand me at the end of it doesn’t qualify me as any kind of neurosurgeon! Which is what he needs right now.” His head shook slowly. “I got three choices. One: I try it, and stuff it up, wind up making a mess and taking his leg off. Prosthesis, cloned limb. Two years to get a fresh leg grafted into place – and Richard would just love that. Talk to Roark! Two: I don’t even try, I just take the limb, start the clone culture, and scan him for the prosthesis. Ditto. Three: I shove him headfirst into cryogen and hand the job to specialists back home … but we need him, don’t we? Right here, right now.”

  “Yeah,” Travers said grimly. “We do. I don’t think tanking him is a valid option, Bill, unless something’s so wrong, he won’t make it.”

  “Okay.” Grant ran both hands through the shaggy mass of his hair, massaged his scalp, worked his neck around. “So, do I try to mend the leg, or just take it off and start the culture?”

  The question was barbed. Travers, Marin and Vidal were silent for several moments in mute conference, and it was Jazinsky’s voice, over the loop, which said, “I’m his partner, Bill … in a lot more than business. If you’re asking anyone except Richard, I’m the one to make the decision. But why don’t you wake him, ask him?”

  She made a good point, but Grant was emphatic. “Ibrepal. He won’t know where he is, what day it is, what’s happened to him. Sorry, Barb, but this is one you’ll have to carry yourself.”

  “I bloody knew you were going to say that,” Jazinsky said resignedly. “We’re decontaminated, Bill. The ship’s still at zero pressure, but the drones are cleaning up the passages and the service lift. You mind if I come into the Infirmary? Jude and Tim have the other two out here.”

  “Clean?” Grant demanded. “Be sure!”

  “As a whistle,” she assured him, “or we wouldn’t be here. And according to Mark and Harrison, the Zunshu stopped shooting a while ago … they’re just sitting there, like they threw everything they have at us, and there’s either nothing left or they’re busy rolling out their doomsday bomb.”

  “Their what?” Travers demanded too loudly.

  “If you’re clean, come on in,” Grant invited.

  “Thanks. Oh, a doomsday bomb was something theorists used to play with, back in the days of some bullshit they called ‘mutually assured destruction,’” Jazinsky said acidly as she, Fargo and Inosanto began to cycle the quarantine lock-in, lock-out capsule at the side of the Infirmary. “Both sides armed right up to the back teeth, till no war could ever have a winner, so nobody ever pushed the button to start one. Back on Earth,” s
he added.

  “Where else would one expect such insanity?” Shapiro said acerbically. “And Lai’a has been searching for any sign of this so-called doomsday bomb. Lai’a?”

  The AI remained tranquil. “There is no hint of any such weapon, General Shapiro. I estimate that if it existed, it would have been triggered before this time. The first swarm strike on target alpha will take place in 40 seconds.”

  “Stream data to Physics 2 – redesignate as Operations,” Shapiro said in an odd voice, devoid of emotion. “That’s where we’ll be. Mark?”

  “I’ll join you there directly.” Mark’s own voice was bleak.

  “Doctor Sherratt, I repeat the query,” Lai’a said in a musing tone, “do you wish to transmit to the platform where life signatures were detected?”

  “Of course.” Mark paused. “But, do we want to transmit at this moment? I believe I’d prefer to wait until repairs have been made, Number 3 generator is online, ammunition stores are up to at least 80% … and, ideally, Richard is conscious.”

  “Swarm strike on target alpha,” Lai’a announced. “Standby.” Several seconds passed and Travers held his breath, listening to each hammer stroke of his heart before the AI added, “Target alpha is eliminated. The moon has partially imploded; mass remains identical but its volume has decreased by 22.4%. Swarm strike on target beta will take place in 35 seconds.”

  “Lai’a,” Jazinsky called sharply as the inner lock opened, admitting her, Fargo, Inosanto and the sled carrying Hubler and Queneau in a muddle of armored limbs. Tim Inosanto went to work on Hubler immediately, while Queneau asked only for her helmet to be removed. Fargo manhandled her into a sitting position against the wall and was lifting off the helmet as Jazinsky said tersely, “Lai’a, if the Zunshu are ever going to deploy some kind of super-weapon, some doomsday bomb, this would be their chance.”

  “I am alert to the possibility,” Lai’a acknowledged. “At this time neither tracking nor sensory data provide any substantiating evidence for your hypothesis.”

  The Infirmary was suddenly full, little space left to move. Vidal aimed the handy at the newcomers, but they were fully decontaminated. Grant gave him, Travers and Marin a dark glance. “You guys want to strip, or bugger off out of here?”

  “Got to go,” Travers told him. “We ought to be in Ops … give us one more minute, then we’ll ... bugger off.”

  The last armor segment released almost as he spoke. It fell to the deck as Lai’a announced, “Swarm strike on target beta. Standby.” Again, several seconds lapsed while data transmitted over enormous distance before the AI added, “Target beta is eliminated. Number 3 generator will restart in four minutes. All guns are online. All Arago projectors are viable.”

  “Ammunition stores?” Mark asked.

  “At 52%,” Lai’a told him. “I have noted your desire for 80% capacity before contact is attempted. Is your concern that deliberate comm establishment may inspire a further barrage, or the deployment of a weapon such as Doctor Jazinsky hypothesizes?”

  “Yes.” Mark said baldly. “In fact, as I said, I’d like to wait for Richard to be conscious.”

  Grant made a face. “Conscious is one thing. Coherent is something else. The way he’s busted up, he’s going to be out of his head on Ibrepal, and even with accelerated healing you’re looking at days, minimum, before he makes much sense.”

  “Neural damage, shattered bones, haemorrhage – we heard,” Mark mused. And then, in a tone of pure speculation, “Bill, did you ever read the materials I sent you?”

  “The, uh, the papers on synthetic neural grafting?” Grant’s brows rose, creasing his forehead. “Sure, I read them. Page-turners, every one of ’em, couldn’t wait to see how they turned out. But I couldn’t do the work, Mark, not if you held a gun to my head.”

  “Perhaps not,” Mark allowed. “But I believe Lai’a could.”

  The suggestion fetched a sheen of fresh sweat across Travers’s face. He had not considered the proposition – that the surgery could be performed remotely by drones under the control of a Resalq AI whose database was loaded with very different and much older technologies.

  “Lai’a?” Jazinsky had lifted off her helmet and was dragging her fingers through the tangle of sweat-damp hair. “Is this right? You could wrangle surgical drones to do this?”

  “Quite correct, Doctor Jazinsky. Synthetic neural grafting is a well understood procedure among Resalq surgeons, and equally applicable to human tissue, with high degrees of success. Synthetic materials are spun according to scan patterns, and transplanted before the grafts are fused in accelerated healing techniques by purpose-specific nano. In Captain Vaurien’s case, the process may be too delicate to be attempted by a living surgeon, who would require more than 20 hours to complete the procedure. However, six surgical drones under my control could complete the same procedure in approximately four hours.

  “The nerves connecting the surgical sites can be temporarily severed to discontinue pain during healing; these nerves can be reconnected with synthetic bridging when healing is complete, after which residual pain may be controlled with low-level drugs permitting proper brain and physical function.”

  The loop had lapsed into silence which Jazinsky broke at last in a voice like a whipsaw. “You know this, Mark, for sure – in humans? No gaffes – healing isn’t something unique to the Resalq biology?”

  “Healing is healing, in both species. The process is the same, as is neural function.” Mark was terse with stress and frustration. “There are never any absolute guarantees, Barb – even among Resalq, sometimes surgery just won’t work. Lai’a, can you estimate the probability of the procedure succeeding in the case of Captain Vaurien, given the severity of his injuries and the resources at your disposal?”

  “At least 75%,” Lai’a said shortly.

  “Based on what?” Travers demanded.

  “The Infirmary is configured as impeccably as a major hospital,” the AI said without hesitation, “and Captain Vaurien is exceptionally strong for a human. He is in excellent health; his biosigns are acceptable and he has been on life support since arrival in this facility. His brain does not appear to have been compromised by an estimated 2.75 minute discontinuity in life function; nano administered by Doctor Grant are currently restoring cerebral tissue to optimal function.

  “Also, Captain Vaurien has successfully undergone similar procedures. His cloned hand and the repair of his right leg involve similar techniques, including neural bridging, albeit using cloned nerve tissue rather than synthetic. However, the difference between cloned and synthetically generated tissue is too little to be registered by the human body. Synthetic tissue is currently used in seven out of ten procedures involving humans. The surgery should be successful, with failure potential less than 25%.”

  Jazinsky cleared her throat with an odd choking sound. “And if the surgery isn’t successful? Options, Lai’a.”

  Again, the AI did not hesitate. The information was given frankly. “His left limbs will be removed. Collar bone, ribs and pelvis will be welded. Nano will remove bruising from internal organs. Body and brain chemistry will be balanced artificially. Prostheses may be fitted to serve him until limbs are cloned. If his life functions collapse, he will be transferred to cryogen pending cloned organs and glands.”

  “Like Jai Serrano,” Marin whispered. “And Roark, with his biocyber legs. Like – do you remember Avi Hersch, back in Hydralis, missing an arm, hoping to get a cloned limb after the war.”

  “Oh, I remember,” Vidal said softly. He looked gravely at Jazinsky. “What are the risks of life functions collapsing, Lai’a?”

  “Minimal but not insignificant,” Lai’a said bluntly. “He will be suspended in cryogen for up to sixteen months, waiting for cloned organs. He would not be allowed to perish, but resuscitation in the immediate future would be impossible.”

  “Cryogen’s not an option,” Jazinsky said harshly. “We need him now, not two years from now.”

  “Synth
etic organs?” Inosanto wondered.

  “Risky,” Marin mused. “They offered me synthetic organs as a quick fix after I … the Argos. Everybody knows the story, right? They also told me, the organs have a nasty failure rate. If they go bad when you’re way out of reach of a hospital or a cryotank, you’re history. Given a choice, nobody in his right mind would accept synthetic organs – and Richard has a choice. He’s on life support in a Grade One medical facility.”

  “Bottom line alternatives.” Vidal’s lean face might have been carved from stone. “Lai’a?

  “Double amputation,” Lai’a told him without preamble. “Severed nerves curtail pain. He can be functional in a day. Prostheses in three days, after accelerated wound healing.”

  “Maimed.” Jazinsky closed her eyes. “Jesus Christ, Mark, can I do that to Richard, to get him functional in a day? This is Richard!”

  “You’re asking,” Travers said, “how badly do we need him? Do we need him so bad, we’ll maim him to get him back to work?”

  “I … yeah.” She looked from Travers to Grant and back, and spoke to Sherratt over the loop. “Lai’a says four hours, Mark, and a 75% chance of success.”

  “It’s got to be worth a shot, kid,” Vidal whispered. “Richard wouldn’t hesitate to option the work. The left hand, the legs – he’s done it before.”

  “They’re good odds,” Marin said almost soundlessly. “Better odds than I had, or you, Mick. We both came back. And you have to believe Richard wants to live. He’ll fight for this, tooth and claw.”

  “I believe he will,” Mark said readily.

  Jazinsky was looking down at the pale, waxen face. Grant had slid a pad under his head, caught up the red hair, bound it, and covered the bruised torso with a silver thermal sheet. In the Infirmary’s unforgiving lights, Travers saw threads of silver in Vaurien’s hair, and his heart gave a peculiar lurch. Richard Vaurien had always been one of life’s constants, a value, not a variable. Neil had never given a thought to Richard’s mortality, but seeing it now, here, made him feel his own mortality keenly.