The Dark Imbalance
Page 16
“Everything I have said is true,” Roche stated patiently, although she could feel her patience crumbling. “Your life is in danger, and inaction on your part only increases that danger. But I’m not the one threatening you. It is the enemy—our common enemy. It’s this person, and many more besides, that we should be fighting—not each other.”
“So you say,” Jans remarked dubiously.
“Because it is true,” insisted Roche.
“Then show me the proof.”
“It’s all around you! The death, the destruction, the distrust, the disorganization...” She struggled to remember the name she’d heard just hours before. “And what about Guidon?”
“The cause of that accident has yet to be verified.” The administer looked uncomfortable, but was unwilling to take the point. “None of this is proof. Your words are empty, Roche. Why should I believe you over one of my own advisers?”
“Because one of your advisers may well belong to the enemy!”
The administer smiled wryly. “As might you,” she said. “Your reputation precedes you, Roche. It is said that wherever you go, trouble follows. If I were to give you the help you request, how could I be sure that the Vax won’t become your next victims?”
“Nothing could be further from the truth!”
“So you say.” The administer held a palm outstretched, silencing Roche, who had opened her mouth to object again. “I have no desire to put my people at risk on such flimsy evidence! A few disputes and the threat of war, an accident, and a failed assassination attempt closer to home—it will take more than this to convince me, Roche. And if you cannot convince me, you might as well leave.”
The administer’s words sent a chill down Roche’s spine. She knew, then, that there was no chance of convincing the woman to change her mind—not on that score, and especially not on the matter of Alta Ansourian.
“Very well, then,” Roche said, backing away toward the secret exit. “We’ll trouble you no further, Administer.”
The woman watched them leave, a wary expression on her face. “Wait,” she said, just as Roche pulled the sun-motif wall hanging aside. “Who told you about this entrance?”
Roche thought fast. She really had only two options, given that she didn’t want the administer to know the truth. She could refuse to answer, or she could lie. How to do the latter convincingly was the trick.
“It was Councilor Egarr,” said Roche a second later. “And I tell you that now only to demonstrate my openness and honesty with you. His intentions were good, I assure you.”
The administer’s broad smile was cut with cynicism. “I bet.” Then she nodded. “Go now,” she said. “I shall allow you five minutes grace before I send my guards after you. And I do this now to demonstrate my magnanimity.”
Her smile dissolved as she glared at Roche.
Whether she was serious or not, Roche could not tell. But she couldn’t afford to take the chance. With Maii ahead of her, she slipped behind the wall-hanging and back into the cramped confines of the maintenance infrastructure.
9
Perdue Habitat
955.1.32
0600
Ansourian led them quickly through the tunnels, taking them by a different route from the one they had followed on the way in. Maii was directly behind him with Roche close on her tail, glancing back uneasily now and then to see whether they were being pursued.
Ansourian stopped suddenly, ushering both Maii and Roche through a hatchway; he closed the heavy bulkhead behind them.
“That’ll stop them,” he said, belligerently punching some commands into a keypad. “I’ve let the air out of the tunnels we just came through.”
“I don’t think it’ll stop them,” said Roche. “At best it will only slow them down.”
The small man shrugged but said nothing. Roche could see the hurt in his eyes.
“You heard what she said, didn’t you?” she asked. He didn’t need to reply; his expression spoke volumes. Failed assassination attempt, the administer had said. Roche could believe that she had guessed it was an assassination rather than simple patricide—but how could she have known it had failed if she hadn’t been a party to the attack in the first place? At the very least, she had known about it.
“I’m sorry,” Roche said.
“Don’t be,” he said. “It has made my decision easier. Escape seems the surest course, now.”
“What about Alta?”
“As I said earlier, there are blind spots in the security system. I will try to get her away first.”
“More secret doors you put in place?”
“No, just exploitable flaws,” he said. “Even the best security system has its weaknesses—I simply have the advantage of knowing what those weaknesses are. I am confident that I can get into the holding cells. Getting out will be more difficult, but not impossible.”
Roche followed him along the corridors while conducting a conversation via her implants with her crew back on the Ana Vereine.
asked Haid.
Haid laughed. <1 can’t deny that I could use the change,> he said.
<1 agree with Uri,> said Cane.
Roche paused before replying. <1 appreciate what you’re saying, but—>
Roche smiled to herself.
* *
*
Ansourian looked surprised when she offered to help.
“Why?” was the first question he asked.
“Because if I just let you rescue Alta and leave, it’s tantamount to handing the enemy this station along with everyone in it. The same if I let you try and you fail. You’ll be dead, and that doesn’t serve anyone. If we’re to stand any chance of fixing this, we’re going to need you alive.”
“What difference does it make to you, either way?”
That wasn’t so easy to answer. “It makes a difference to how I feel about myself,” she said. “It’s a matter of pride. This mission is a test, if you like; maybe metaphorically rather than literally, but a test all the same.” She shrugged. “I don’t want to fail.”
He nodded slowly. They had stopped to rest in an unlit stores cubicle; the only light came from the necks of Roche’s and Maii’s hazard suits, lending their heads a surreal, disembodied look.
“So your crew will create a diversion while we get Alta,” he said. “Then what?”
“Then you help us get back to the Ana Vereine,” she said. “You know your way around this place; I’m going to need a less obvious way to get off the habitat than the main docks. The ship will have to cast off once things heat up, but it can send a scutter to get us when we’re ready. Just name the place and we’ll head for it.”
“Okay,” he said. “There is a way, but it will be tricky. And I’m going to need pressure suits for myself and Alta. There are—”
Roche relayed the information to Ansourian, who simply nodded. “It doesn’t surprise me. Frane Yugen has been itching to move on Inderdeep since she rejected his offer to form a partnership against Tocharia 13. With me out of the way, it’s a perfect opportunity.”
“Can she hold him off?” Roche asked.
“That depends. I’ve kept the defenses well-stocked over the years, and made sure the staff know what to do. If she doesn’t interfere, they’ll manage well enough.”
That sounded ominous. “Can you guess how she’ll respond?”
“Again, it depends on what the enemy are telling her. If they want to increase conflict, they might feed her inappropriate advice.”
“Then we can’t assume things will go well,” said Roche. She switched to her implants.
“How far is it to where they’re keeping Alta?” she asked Ansourian.
“Fifteen minutes or so, going the back ways.”
“Then let’s get moving before things start heating up.”
“Not without the pressure suits,” he reminded her. Roche nodded and indicated that he should lead the way. They left the cubicle and headed off through the labyrinth.
A siren sounded in the distance, echoing along the winding corridors like the baying of an enormous beast. “What’s that?” Roche asked Ansourian.
“Security alert, level 5. Ambient gravity will drop by twenty percent to conserve power.”
Even as he said it, a wave of dizziness rushed over Roche, leaving her feeling somewhat lighter after it had passed. “Does that mean the habitat is under attack?”
“No, not yet. You’ll know if that happens. Perdue is designed to absorb the energy of an impact and spread it across its structure.”
“Meaning we’ll feel it regardless of where we are?”
“Yes, but it shouldn’t be too bad. Habitats like these tend to absorb almost anything up to a point, and fall apart completely only if you cross that point. That’s what happened to Guidon; it was pushed too far. Since a ruined habitat will be of no use to Yugen, he’ll play it fairly safe.”
“And if he does want a ruined habitat?”
Ansourian looked sharply at her. “You think the enemy might have got to him, too?”
“It’s a possibility we can’t ignore.”
They stopped at a locker, from which Ansourian produced two transparent pressure suits. “We call them OSFA suits,” he explained, slipping one over his uniform. “One Size Fits All. They’re designed to maximize survival through a wide range of conditions—heat, cold, vacuum, pressure, etcetera; they’ll even stop a measure of coherent light—but they won’t last long in combat.”
“Do you have access to weapons?”
“They’ll be in the armory. We won’t get in there at a time like this.”
Roche touched the pistol at her side. An identical weapon rested on Maii’s hip; unlike most reaves, the girl had proven herself more than capable of killing on Sciacca’s World. By looking through her victim’s eyes and aiming along the barrel from the other end, she made quite an effective fighter.
“We’ll have to make do, then,” Roche said, hoping the distraction would be enough.
Ansourian finished sealing the suit, leaving only the hood open, then continued to lead them along.
A deep vibration rippled through the tube surrounding them. Ansourian placed a hand against one wall.
“It has begun,” he said. “That one hit the shields. Maybe nothing more than a warning volley. If there are more, then we can assume Inderdeep isn’t going to give in without a fight.”
They headed off along the corridor. The floor still moved slightly as the energy of the attack ran through the entire habitat and dissipated, ultimately, as radiant heat. In theory, Roche could see how such a passive defense might pay off; she could also see, however, how disastrous it might be. One sustained attack could ruin everything, decisively.
She explained what had happened to Ansourian. “We’ll need a rendezvous point. Can you give us one away from the docks?”
“Yes, but it’s too complicated to explain how your friends should get there. They can access a map using Quare’s security code.” He rattled off a string of letters and numbers, which Roche memorized. “They want to reach the maintenance airlock at the end of corridor 14 in Sector Green-D. It’s not far from the holding cells in Sector Blue-J. Tell them to wait for us there. We shouldn’t be more than an hour.”
Roche relayed the information through Maii, using the girl as a medium the way she had earlier.
She could clearly taste the worry in his mind, and the tangle of plans and counterplans as he mentally prepared for any contingency.
Using mental shorthand, he sent her a list that included shaped charges, compact percussion rifles, pressure mines, and flash- bombs—anything that would fit into the relatively low-key armor the two men had donned in order to enter the habitat. Dock security hadn’t been especially tight, not since they’d been given approval to disembark, but cannon and full combat suits would have attracted attention.
<1 wish we had some of that,> Roche said,
Haid mentally nodded and went back to studying the map Vri had accessed via a wall terminal. That left Roche with half a mind on where Ansourian was leading them, and the other half in n-space. Again she experienced a moment’s disorientation as she simultaneously saw through her own eyes and those of Maii, who was also looking through her eyes.