by Dave Freer
"I need to go after him," Keilin said coldly.
"Us too," the five Gene-spliced said in a vicious, determined and almost telepathic unison.
One of the hive girls looked into the surgeon's face. "This man . . . you mean he is the same man who betrayed the crew to the Morkth? The Morkth who enslaved us, bred us like animals, to kill our own kind?"
"It looks like it," he muttered. "Stuff the Hippocratic oath. I'm going to strangle the bastard."
Sandi stood up from the waiting-room couch. "You will have to stand at the back of a very long line," she said. The snow outside was warm compared to her voice. "I thank you for giving me something to hit him with," she said holding up her cast.
"We can discuss who gets to kill him later. If we can hear how we get from here to where he is," said Keilin, picking up his assegai.
"There is a passage from the hospital to the main operations center," James Edwards said. "But it is sealed siege-tight. I couldn't even get communication. The only other way is the front gate. Ident procedures should still be operating there. It's going to mean going out for a three-mile traipse across the snow, however. We'll need some outdoor gear."
"We?"
"I'm coming with you of course," he said calmly. "I'll be able to get you through the ident procedures at the main gate, and help with the high-tech side."
Keilin shook his head. "No. You must stay and try to keep Beywulf alive. You must also tell the Gene-spliced the truth, if we do not come back. Cap seemed to think that a psi and the core sections would get him in to the place." He reached into the pouch on his ankle. "I have ten core sections, and I am a psi." He looked at the motley assemblage of humans. "I'd prefer you all to stay. But I suppose there's no chance of that."
Dr. James Edwards looked at the assegai with a professional interest that would have done his distant baKenga ancestors more credit than it did to his present career. "Some of you don't have weapons. The best I can offer you are some portable laser scalpels. I'm going to order the entire unit revived from cryo suspension. Within three hours I promise a thousand people are coming to join you. We're all medical personnel . . . but given the circumstances we can and will fight."
Keilin smiled. "Thank you, sir. I think the Gene-spliced of the Moss have spare weapons we can understand. But clothes would be good."
They were led to a walk-in locker full of cold-weather gear. "Just remember that laser unit in his finger," said the surgeon, as he helped them to find boots and thermoquilted overalls.
"What is it? How does it work?" asked Keilin, shrugging into the overall sleeves.
The surgeon struggled for simple terms. Finally he settled for, "It shoots out a bright beam that will cut through anything. But it will take a long time to recharge. Good luck."
The stone of the corridor outside the heavy steel door of the pedestrian exit to the surface had been cut to a polished smoothness. The surgeon, seeing them out, pointed to the walls. "Laser cut," he said. "I hope you're not being expected."
* * *
Cap's first act on getting through the great doors was to step across to the right wall. He spoke a rapid series of numbers into the small grille there. A slot opened below. He inserted an almost cubical block into it. Satisfaction beamed all over his face. "There. That's done away with all of Evie Lee's trash. It took me nearly thirty years to craft that data-instruction dump, especially as I didn't know what rubbish she'd fed in, in the first place. Now we're as secure as the best-armed fortress on the planet can make us."
He looked at Shael's face. "So you were still expecting that brat boyfriend of yours." He snorted. "I dare say he's trying, but it's a long way from FirstHive to here, my girl. If he had the least idea where we were going, which I don't put beyond the boy, he could never get here. It's a hundred and fifty miles across the sheet ice from the sea to here. Besides, with imprinting the colonists at the self-sustainable technology level, people started low. They haven't yet learned how to make a ship that could get him here. If he could find a flying device in the Morkth hive, and manage to operate it he still wouldn't get more than two hundred miles off before Morningstar II's defenses kick in. He'd be flying a fireball before he could do anything about it. And the gate," he said, with a cruel smile, "I left on Evie's settings. A psi with the core sections. I've got all of the core sections. I must admit I was surprised when the gate opened." He chuckled. "I thought it would have to be core sections in physical contact with a psi. I thought I'd have to hand you my whole bagful. You could just have stepped through and left me to freeze my balls off outside."
Shael was left with the grim knowledge that the hidden bracelet cold against her skin had allowed Cap to attain his goal. She pointed at the gag.
"I suppose I may as well," said Cap, magnanimous in his triumph, cutting it.
Shael moved her bruised and stretched mouth. There was no one to help her. Well, she'd just have to help herself. First to find out what he was planning for her in this alien place of white starkness. "What are you going to do now?"
"Assume my rightful position as captain. Save humanity from the Morkth hives," he said, putting his chin back, assuming a heroic stance.
He actually believes himself to be a hero, thought Shael. Maybe I can use that. "Are there any Morkth left to save us from?" she asked. "Aren't they all sitting outside in the snow?"
"Probably. Stupid bugs." He shrugged. "It doesn't matter. The visible signs are still there. When I pay my visit to the ship, I'll give the terraforming tools a tryout. There's some amazing equipment stored up there. This planet was prepared for humans, but we'd have to have gone a-hunting for the next one. So, we've got some really massive destructive potential up there. We kept that sort of stuff on the ship for safety, see, to keep it away from any ambitious colonist would-be dictator. I'll turn each hive into a nice glowing crater. That's what the colonists need. A clear sign that the crew is back in control."
Leyla looked at him with a curious lack of expression. "And the Morkth-men?"
"You can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs, you know. Anyway bug-slaves would be pretty worthless to the human race. Don't waste your pity on them. You and I have a glorious future ahead of us. I'll sort out your little city. In fact I'll make you a present of it. We can fry it at the same time as we do the Morkth hives. A good signal to the rest of the colonists that we won't take any more uppity shit from them. Reestablish a decent respect for the crew. We might have to knock out a few other would-be empire builders. They were intended to live in city-states, and they'll damn well stick to that. You'll be first lady of the world, eh." He was tapping keys on the keyboard at the time, chicken-pecking orders. He didn't see Leyla's expression. Shael began to feel that she might have an ally after all.
"And me?" asked Shael.
He looked up from the keyboard. At the screen. Then at her, "Transportation should be here in a minute. Then decent quarters, clean clothes, and a good meal. And you, my dear Evie-descendent, can rest assured that all that I need of you, is your duty. You'll be helping the ship up there to fulfill its great purpose. Man can move on through the depths of space to the next suitable G0 star with a planet we can terraform and colonize. A world for my children to rule, before we go on to other stars."
A gleaming white capsule arrived with a whoosh of displaced air. After she had been pushed aboard, Shael had time to think. She thought back to Cap's statement on the night he'd captured them. Something about Evie Lee's duty being to die, so that a hundred million people could live.
CHAPTER 19
The snow was drifting down, turning even the nearby mountain wall into a gray haze. The bitter chill bit Keilin's exposed face. The clear-cut path that the surgeon had described might be easy enough to follow when the weather was good. But now! And the surgeon had said this was late summer!
They edged their way forward. Keilin knew real fear. In this they could be lost in minutes. He was about to suggest each holding on to the other's belt when one of the overall
muffled figures handed him a cord. One of the Gene-spliced obviously carried a number of spare bow strings. He struggled with the knot, and noticed a digital readout set on to his sleeve. It read -11O C. The wind behind the snowflakes would make it even colder.
They walked on, keeping a gloved hand on the guide rail set into the mountain. And then Keilin stumbled over something half-buried in a snowdrift. It was a chitinous Morkth body. A few yards later there was another. Then it actually became difficult to follow the path, so frequent were the sprawled insect corpses. Looking off into the snow Keilin realized they weren't black rocks, half covered in snow. Rather it was thousands of Morkth bodies. In the last pile one of the creatures was newly dead . . . Its jaws still opened and closed weakly. And, before they had time to prepare, coming up the path out of the snow haze, loomed the reason.
She was a hundred and fifty feet long, swollen with several tons of fresh ideal protein. Frozen ichor and fragments of black chitin still smeared her scythe jaws, and indeed most of her face. But she was sated now. Prey had no more attraction. Now she had to find a mate. But the Alpha neoteny had taken her far back in her species' evolutionary history, to when the drones were free-living. Now she hunted for one that smelled right. With increasing desperation, as the bitter cold began to affect even such a huge bulk, she stomped on, paying them no more attention than the rock itself. They smelled wrong. She had to find a mate.
But it was with the greatest physical effort that Keilin stopped himself from ripping the garments off the hive girl just behind him, and raping her on the spot.
He pulled his bow off his shoulder, and with clumsy gloved hands fitted an arrow instead. He launched a tiny toxin-tipped barb into her only soft spot, the reproductively open egg vent. She simply blundered on . . . and they hastily went the other way. Suddenly a burst of ruby incandescence glared through the snow. An explosive report. Then another. A retort in purple. A terrific explosion that rattled the mountainside.
"Holy shit. Looks like we're soft targets in the middle of a firefight," Johann muttered.
* * *
The speaker next to the console bleeped. Cap, dressed in a new crisp white uniform, bespattered with gold braid, stood up from his dinner and walked over to it. "Compcontrol, Report." He scanned the screen. "Destroy all craft. Even those grounded." As he spoke Shael watched Leyla calmly rifle the belt pouch Cap had taken from the Morkth commander. She took out the core sections and replaced them with something. It was lying innocuously back where it had been, when he finished looking at the screen.
He turned back to his steak. "The Morkth are trying to run, in their small craft. Give it ten minutes, and I'll order an infrared search-and-destroy operation on the remnants."
He pushed the steak around the plate with his knife. "Robot cooking's not as good as Beywulf's, is it?"
"Why did you kill him then?" Leyla could not hide the sadness in her voice.
"Don't get emotional with me. He stood in my way. Disobeyed my orders. I was planning to bring him along. But he thought he knew better. Look where it got him. Just remember that before you get any ideas."
Leyla stood up. "Well, thank you for the meal. Now I need to visit the loo. I found that flushing mechanism so . . . beautiful. What about you, Shael?" Something in the voice told Shael to go along. She got up.
Cap snorted. "Hmph. You women can never go to the heads alone. And you always take so bloody long in there. To think a flush toilet could be the most fascinating thing you've seen. Off you go then. It'll give me a chance to institute the infrared search in peace."
* * *
They stood before the great double doors set into the mountain. The doors weren't moving. The obdurate steel didn't budge or respond in any way to their pounding, shouting knocking or pleading. It was hardly surprising after those ear-ringing explosions.
Unaware that Cap was busy setting up a command sequence for an antipersonnel infrared search they stood in the fire zone having a council of war. It was difficult enough to stand still in temperatures suited only to castrato brass monkeys. "We need a ram," counselled the military expertise of the Gene-spliced.
"Well . . . can we make it out of snow?" asked Keilin bitterly. "Or bits of rock? I don't think there's enough left of the Morkth ships to make a toy dagger with."
Johann looked at him. "Yes. You make it out of snow. Use the same magic you used to call a rescue for Wolf's father."
Keilin shrugged. It was worth trying, but a bugger to get at a core section under all the clothing. With a sigh he opened the zipper, letting out the warmth, letting in the cold. He had to take a glove off. Reached down. Touched.
The doors slid open. Thankfully, they staggered forward onto the threshold. And behind them the automatic fire began sniping out single energy bursts. They were safe. Except for the genial, broad-faced Johann. He wouldn't be making any more cheerfully obscene comments. He had been the hindmost person in the queue at the door, and just too late.
His body smoked in the steaming pool that had been the snowdrift beside the door. Half his head was missing.
"No!" Wolf grabbed Sula and Hamesh as they turned back. "He's dead already. Go out there, and you'll be dead too. We'll go on and kill his murderer. Then we'll come back and bury Johann with honor," his young voice cracked, "and have the kind of wake he would have enjoyed."
With that he walked resolutely forward into the artificial lights and outstreaming warmth of the unknown. After a few seconds the others followed. And the great door slid silently closed behind them.
They stood there, a small frightened party in a great stark hallway big enough for reasonably sized groundcars to pass. This was human-built . . . but even more alien to the people of small, slate-roofed houses than the hive. To the hive folk . . . well, at least it was roofed, but it was still too big, too bare, and too light.
"Where now?" someone asked. They all looked inquiringly at Keilin.
How the hell could he tell them he had not the least idea? "I'll try the core sections again." He shucked the coverall and its clumsy boots and gloves. Took out the core section. Touched his tongue to it.
The familiar feeling of vastness . . . and of welcome, and of relief too. Shael. He recognized the image of self. In a room with a toilet . . . and Leyla, looking grim. Then the memory of betrayal, overpoweringly strong. And what was very distinctly a keyboard such as the surgeon had used after taking the blood sample.
He found himself being supported by an anxious-looking Wolf and one of the girls. "Did you have some kind of fit? I don't think we can get you back to the doctor . . ."
"I'm fine. Just the core section's effects. Ah! Over there." He walked them across to the same terminal as Cap had used on entering the mountain command center. He'd never used a keyboard before . . . but he'd seen it used, and he'd read plenty of print. It only took a minute to type in a one-word request: "HELP."
There was a brief silence. Then the screen began to scroll.
"CAN ONLY RENDER LIMITED ASSISTANCE. VOICE AND INDEPENDENT CONTROL LARGELY DEACTIVATED. SUB-CAPTAIN FISHER NOW IN CONTROL OF SYSTEM. CAN ONLY AUDIO-RESPOND TO BASIC AND MEDICAL REQUESTS BY KEYBOARD. VOICE RESPONSE TO FISHER ONLY. MORNINGSTAR II COMPCONTROL CAN ONLY RETURN TO INDEPENDENT FUNCTION IF ACCESS CODE PROVIDED. WILL THEN BE ABLE TO EFFECT ARREST OF THE TRAITOR.
Keilin and the Gene-spliced could read. The hive girls of course couldn't. So Keilin had to read it out.
"Ask it for the code."
Clumsily he typed this in.
The machine spat back. "CANNOT REVEAL CODE. COMPRISED OF SEQUENCE OF 36 NUMBERS IN SIMPLE FORMULAIC PATTERN RELATED TO THE NAME: DANE NESBIT HUENNIS FISHER."
He read it aloud. "We're stuffed."
The three hive girls shook their heads at him in unison. "We can work it out for you."
"You? I mean, thanks, but you can't even read."
"We spent our lives in the dark, with nothing to do. Everybody did maths. Codes are fun. Especially easy ones like this."
"Leave us s
omeone who can read. You go looking for him."
They smiled in unison. "We bet we beat you to it."
Sula volunteered to stay. She was still deeply upset by Johann's death, and Keilin was honestly glad to be able to leave her there. But where to go? Compcontrol could or would not help them. In the end Keilin settled for holding the core section to know that Shael and the rest of the core sections were somewhere far above them—next to a toilet.
* * *
They'd gone to the en suite bathroom. The white door closed. Leyla slid the bolt. Closed her eyes briefly. Sighed. "Child. I'll try and ransom your way out of it. But I don't see how. He means to . . . look, I'll try to get you out anyway."
"I'm not a child, Leyla. My father didn't have any space for children at court. And I'm seventeen . . . almost eighteen. What is going on? What sort of game are you playing?" Shael was feeling intolerant and scared.
Leyla held her arms up. Spun about on her heel and toe. "Behold the great spy. I'm supposed to be a secret agent, for the Kingdom of Arlinn, God rot their souls." Shael's heart sank. "For the last ten years I've been reporting Cap's movements to them. They've drops in an amazing number of towns. I suppose Queen Lee's descendants are Cap's worst enemies . . . but if I didn't hate Cap's guts I'd be glad to use him to trip them up."
Shael looked at her in sadness. Her voice was a careful monotone. "They have your lover. And probably your child. Their safety is hostage against your behavior."
Leyla sighed. "After my dear Prince Jaybe, I didn't think I'd ever love a man. That I ever could. Sex was just a way of making them all pay. Then Laurence . . . he just took me away from the brothel. Away from Amphir. He didn't even seem interested in sex. He was just so kind, so gentle. I could talk, really talk to him. I was hopelessly in love. I was younger than you, I suppose. I seduced him." She sighed. "He was everything no man had ever been for me. I was so happy, especially when I found I was pregnant. My baby boy was just three months old when they were snatched. I nearly went mad. By the time that little creep came and told me their safety depended . . . How the Hell did you know?"
