“But I’m awful thirsty,” announced Sam wistfully, staring at his drink.
“You gave him beer on top of Phytomine?”
“No.”
“I stole it. All by myself,” said Sam proudly. “Nobody saw.”
They both looked at Sam. He bleared back ferociously.
“I reckon you’ve got about half an hour before he passes out.” Mark basely turned away from Harris to scan the crowded bar. “We really need a fast diversion.”
Chapter Forty
Harris returned, toting a pungent aroma attached to a wild-eyed boy wearing a wet-coat that tripped him up. Jenson was naturally disappointed. “That’s not my drink.”
“Sorry,” apologised Tam. “It was a bit of a scrum and I bumped into Sam’s guardian. Remember Ellis’ boyfriend? He was at the bar and needs us to look after Sam while he gets a bit busy. This is Sam. Sam ran off and somehow ended up here.” Harris threw himself down with a weak smile, and stretched out his legs. “We’ll have to give him a lift home too.”
“I don’t babysit.”
“You do now.”
“Yeah?” A sceptical brow arched.
“He’s a good kid.” Not daring to look Jenson in the eye, Tam pressed on. “Sam, this is HStJ Jenson, all right? And this,” pinging a smile off Minon, “I didn’t catch your name?”
“Minon,” supplied Minon automatically, mesmerised by Sam.
Donating his audience a lopsided stare, Sam fell into a chair. He’d lost the beer as per instructions but he’d defiantly downed half first. It was the bitter end, the point when front-brain says good-night-see-you-same-time-tomorrow. Someone was operating his limbs but it probably wasn’t Sam. One eye was mostly closed, his nose had started to throb again, and the back of his head was joining in. A real visual delight, only willpower kept him going.
“Who hit you?” asked Jenson, unashamedly fascinated by Sam’s eye.
“What?”
Jenson pointed. “Ouch?”
“It was on the ship. Before I got in the pod…”
“You’ve grown,” cut in H stonily.
“What?” Mental fireworks exploded.
“He walked into a door,” chipped in Harris swiftly. “A real clumsy one is our boy Sam. He’s really taking on the family business though, he’s a real chip off the block.”
“You don’t say?” Jenson subjected Sam to a moody appraisal. One minute there was only one surviving Donn in the galaxy the next they were springing up like weeds. And this had to be the filthiest, smelliest and most unlovely weed ever. “Now there’s a novelty.”
Sam scowled at him.
Jenson deadpanned back. Then he smiled, timed it, and dropped back to deadpan.
It was fairly obvious they weren’t forming a mutual admiration society.
Tam was relieved when the missing waitress finally reappeared carrying a loaded tray. As she leaned over to place tankards and jug on the table, Dyssa managed to bend far enough to whisper urgently in his ear. “Go. Message from Ellis. Go now. Get out.”
He blinked, not catching the soft words in the din, but Dyssa didn’t have time to do more because Minon swayed forwards and she cringed. Sick, thought Harris, the man had to be sick. And, yes, catching a glimpse, that was a streamer he had, unhitched and ready, too.
Sam looked at Dyssa and saw Hannah through the end of a slowly revolving dim and distant tunnel. One reality pierced his fug, only one solid truth. “She’s frightened.”
Dyssa froze.
Minon cracked a coarse laugh. “Don’t think so. Not in the job specs.”
Sam bridled belligerently. “Frightened of you. Why?”
Jenson sat up. He knew the danger signs.
And then, right on cue, and virtually simultaneously...
...the massive Tri-D of the overblown blonde, the Dimitrion and their Psamin friend lurched unsteadily off its tracking and, hovering over their heads, beginning to twirl unsteadily, gathering momentum and speed. A low-pitched angry humming issued from the heavy secondary image-fazer, and the arrangement swiped the ceiling. As the pitch got higher and higher so the Tri-D span faster and faster and the whoom got louder and louder…
...Jenson stood up, dashing his chair to the floor, goggling at Sam in wide-eyed awe...
...swaying giddily, Sam also rose, glaring malevolently at Minon...
...Minon gawped at the Tri-D, grabbing for his streamer...
...Tam nudged back his chair, and tilted the table with his knee...
...the Tri-D tipped. For the first time in ages the blonde was vertical...
...behind the bar, Sheek’s precious top shelf of liquor bottles exploded as if they’d been machine gunned in strict sequence. The wine-rack below popped cork after cork after cork, pelting random customers. Barstaff leapt over the bar and bolted for cover…
...the bar, bouncers and customers rocked with pre-shock...
...some enthusiastic fool jabbed a stunner between Jenson’s shoulder blades...
...someone else hollered, “Look out!”...
…the Tri-D exploded, in a shower of multi-coloured splinters.
The bar was stabbed by a yowl, Sheek bawled in blind rage. Another rare bottle popped its cork, shot him in the stomach and he folded like a greeting card. Patrons appraised and processed the situation. The possibility of free booze and a free-for-all swept over them like a wave and nobody who drank at Tye’s could fail to recognise that opportunity. A couple, more sober than others, paused, entranced by Sheek’s slow sideways collapse. As he hit the floor, the rest leapt for the bar and the most ruthless stock-take of their lives.
The stampede swept many of Minon’s men with it.
Life speeded up. Again everything happening more or less at the same time.
Swinging like a professional fighter Dyssa smashed her tray into Minon’s face.
He said, “Oof!” and dropped the streamer, which skittered into a forest of legs. A breath later there was a muted bang and a high-pitched yelp as it was smashed.
Harris kicked the table over and launched a flying tackle at the man who’d drawn a stunner on Jenson. Bowling him over, Harris grabbed the stunner, and knelt on his chest, thumbed the setting to a low-order charge, he fired. Job done, he staggered upright.
Dyssa bolted for the exit.
Sam stared at the flailing Minon, clearly befuddled. Some weird demon perched on his shoulder told him exactly what he needed to do. He brought back a hand that didn’t quite remember how to make a fist, and tried to assume a threatening pose. Of course, Mark hadn’t actually bothered with any posing in the forest; he’d just sort of melted into the shadows and next thing Sam knew the bodies had landed, but all the same... “I don’t like you, I...”
Jenson saw, lunged and grabbed. “Bad, no! Stop it.”
Sam spun, aiming a vicious kick at his captor’s shins.
Losing balance, they toppled to the floor.
Minon had got tangled up as the falling table had more or less flattened him. Using it as a makeshift climbing frame, he levered upright. Tam shot him. He lay down again.
Harris lobbed the stunner into the forest of stamping boots.
Jenson staggered to his feet dragging Sam by the scruff of his neck. Sam’s nose was bleeding and his puffy eye was closed and red, but part of his brain had revitalised.
He fixed Jenson sourly with the eye that worked. “I wouldn’t have hurt him.”
Jenson was unimpressed. “Then why bother?” Twirling the boy to face the main entrance, he saw it was relatively clear of bouncers who seemed to be mostly earning their living in the volcanic belly of the room. “When I let you go,” he ordered, flinching as a glass whizzed past his ear to crash somewhere close. “You go to the door. See? Door. D-O-O-R. Exit. You leave. You take a left up the street into the next alley and you wait by the rain-butt. You do not deviate or stop. You make no more silly-bugger threats. Got that?”
Something about Jenson balked natural protest. Sam nodded.
Wi
th a generous shove in the right direction, Sam was released. Jenson sidestepped and grabbed a body behind which he’d glimpsed something tall and Harris shaped. Getting into the spirit of the thing, he brought back his arm, calculated angle and stopped. “Sorry.”
“I’m with you,” panted Harris. “Are we leaving now?”
Jenson elbowed a nuisance ribcage coming up behind. “Definitely now.”
The owner of the ribcage crashed backward onto his friends.
Harris gestured courteously at the door. “After you.”
* * *
Dodging wildly, Dyssa had already reached the inner door. If she had any plan it was to hide outside and follow Harris and Jenson. Somehow she kept her nerve and didn’t trip over any scuffling patrons. At the archway she ground to a halt, and hung back, assessing possibilities. A clumsy body rammed her. It was the idiot boy, the idiot stinking boy.
He grinned at her slackly like the loony drunk he was. “I’ll handle this.”
Stepping out into the entrance hall, he plonked himself in front of the last doorman.
There he stalled, swaying blankly, with absolutely no idea what to do next.
The doorman looked down, clearly bemused.
It was unbelievable, but idiot or not, he was obviously on the right team. Elbowing him aside, Dyssa grabbed the doorman’s arm. “Quick, quick!” A thumb jerked over her shoulder at a bar scarcely visible over a tumult of looters. “Sheek needs help.”
Snatching Sam’s hand and towing him like a trolley, she sprinted for freedom.
Chapter Forty-one
Carolli, in his stolen MPV, had arrived at the Dome.
There was good news and there was bad.
Good: the neo-Autocracy troops had rallied and had been deployed. There were now far more Tokkers on Harth Norn than even Dandy Minon could have guessed. Two extra squads had just touched down, lifting off from moonbase when it ducked behind the planet.
The room with the flight-deck controls was alive and throbbing.
At the rear was the huge tank, its thick, protective shields locked.
Bad: Carolli’s access was still barred.
Without the second key Carolli could not release the creature, nor gain access to essential controls. Without it the experiment might yet fail as vital sonic architecture linking the wheels depended on the creature as master control. Blasting in was out of the question, possibly damaging delicate circuits. There was nothing to do but fume and wait and rage.
Nothing could now prevent or delay the countdown.
Above Harth Norn the Seven Sisters slid into their predetermined orbit.
They confirmed their position. That was the trigger the beacons were waiting for.
They called, vented their guts.
Long and piercing and shrill, the signal raced to wake any viable Domes on Harth Norn. As predicted by the on-planet tests only nine completely roused, the ancient machinery connecting with hisses and groans and screams and clangs. Others mouldered in disarray.
Amplifying her nets to try to catch any more strange signals emanating from the planet (the test calls), or anything from the Sisters or, most crucially from General WuVane, Imperious caught the signals head on. The backlash flattened half of AE’s temporary banks, and four standard comms-terminals shorted, smacking operators with static mini-bolts.
The echoes hissed for a sibilant second.
Everything on the bridge went ominously quiet.
* * *
They swerved round a corner and into a nearby alley, mostly to let Sam recover while he clutched the glugging pipe of the overflowing rain-butt. Dyssa acted as look out, poking her head round the corner to see if anyone was after them. After a while it became glaringly apparent that Beven’s was a very busy place, also loud and noisy and chaotic.
But nobody seemed to be leaving. They weren’t being followed.
Dyssa pressed against the damp stone. Ellis had told her to stick to Harris and Jenson like glue but this prat would have to do in the interim. “What now?” she panted.
Sam peered through a hazy fug. “Rain-butt, wait.”
The girl began to shake, sinking down on the damp slabs of the alley and cowering behind the butt. A strange fever circled from her toes into her head via her burning spinal cord. Her limbs were limp elastic and the light glistening on mizzle cast a dark spell.
Strange sounds in the night, strange and stranger... “What’s that?”
“What?” Sam cocked his head like a worried hound. The drizzle thickened.
She shook her head and, with an effort, put her fingers to her lips. “Shhhh, listen.”
Sam knelt up, pushing her to one side the better to peek.
Troopers, marching footsteps, splashing up the street, drawing ever nearer.
“Don’t move...” he hissed urgently, whirling back to Dyssa, and stopped.
She lay with her head in a puddle staring blindly into the night, limbs twitching.
* * *
Precise orders pelted into Introven-riddled brains.
On nine of the surrounding islands decrepit pneumatic systems forced mammoth storage units to lift while the revivification process began. Four failed to rise, though in those four, horribly, some inmates partially revived but could not escape and died raking metal, fingers bleeding to bone. Five islands bellowed simultaneous response and their Domes rose and began to disgorge their cargo of pre-programmed troops. Amongst the five, Long Island’s Dome erupted from its pit only eight hundred metres from the toppled Air Traffic Control tower. First the quake, then the Dome and then a brutal hand-to-hand combat.
Any hope of reinstating communications shattered like sugar-glass.
The best the Groundhogs could do was fall back and hold what ground they could.
* * *
Ellis hung back in an alcove by the side stairs and dourly surveyed chaos. Her efforts with the Tri-D, she allowed, had worked well enough but it had been the dramatic fifty-bottle salute from behind the bar that had really tipped the scales. That probably meant the arrival of an angry male Donn was imminent. Though at the moment she couldn’t make out any physical evidence, he had to be out there, though she was reasonably sure Harris and Jenson had slipped away in the confusion, and had seen Dyssa at the door with the boy. Bits of her head felt hot and her ears and eyes were melting. Her brain was giving orders but her body was deaf. Run, yelled common sense, run like crazy. Get out while you can.
Something stopped her. Something weird nailed her down.
An uncanny fever crawled up her spine, shooting red-raw tentacles on the way.
From the opposite side of the heaving floor, Mark had finally tracked her down and saw the bizarre hesitation when it was least needed. He promptly lost the mask together with the last shreds of his hard-pressed temper. Battling his way through the heaving mob towards her, he couldn’t have told you what he was going to do when he arrived. Any other woman, he snarled to himself, would have got out, not stood there like a lemon taking notes.
Finally he reached out, grabbed her shoulder and spun her round.
For a second she saw him, recognised him, and light flared in her eyes. Then, with a soft gasp, she crumpled, ending up a limp and sagging body in his shocked arms.
In the street outside a squad of neo-Autocracy troops halted.
From the door someone fired three Autocracy cannon-blasts at the ceiling.
And achieved absolute and unqualified hush.
Apart from plaster trickling onto the stupefied Macluan’s nose.
* * *
Imperious’ disrupted main communications system was in recovery, dealing quickly with what turned out to be minor equipment casualties. Eban Krystie was bleakly satisfied to note that Boole had managed to reinstate two out of the four damaged banks to activity within three minutes of the incident. He skirted frantic AE banks, aiming at Boole and command.
“Any news from below?” Looking at the Commander’s stony face he read the answer.
The
man shook his head wearily. “It’s a silent world, Sir. Apart from the recent low-frequency pulse patterns, there never was a lot of spare traffic on any channel we could easily decode. Scans show the General might be on a hotspot of some kind of seismic activity.”
Krystie nimbly backtracked. “Timmis? Anything from UC?”
Timmis looked up from a scorched control board that was actually a lot healthier than it, or even he, looked. Beside him he could feel Kent bristling in his defence and mumble not-fair-you’ve-been-trying under her breath and the support strangely buoyed him. “No, sir.”
“Let me know as soon as they make contact, Timmis.”
As if he wouldn’t.
Next the Admiral docked on the dais next to Terrin Stanson.
They looked out of the View at the heaving battlefield, felt the pitch and throw and braced. Less than half the Glo-white fighters had made it back from WuVane’s drop.
Too many losses and they were mounting by the minute. They were Krystie’s fatalities. The Seven Sisters mocked him cruelly and he loathed them back.
There was a flash as a ship exploded, too close. The countershock rocked Imperious.
“I think that might have been theirs,” murmured Stanson optimistically.
“It was one of ours,” growled the Admiral.
Chapter Forty-two
“Right,” panted Harris. “I think that’s quite far enough. Take a break.”
It was a crude byre, a three-sided, beaten-up, semi-fenced cowshed without cows but it was shelter from drizzle and prying eyes. Tam had noticed it on the way into the village, never dreaming he’d be so pleased to reach it on the way back. As they dodged through the once deserted streets it hadn’t been townsfolk they’d had to avoid, it was foot-stamping patrols of neo-Autocracy troops homing on Beven’s inn and they’d been forced to scurry up snaking alleys to avoid them. Harris, draping the unconscious Dyssa over his shoulder, had struggled. Jenson wasn’t doing so badly with Sam, who was vague and inclined to stagger, but even semi-conscious seemed to have an innate sense of direction which had proved useful once or twice. After a quick glance around, Harris gently set down the girl on a relatively dry patch and dropped to his heels, gratefully leaning against damp wood, gulping down cold, wet night air. With a relieved sigh, Jenson squatted next to them, dangling one hand loosely on his knees and massaging his weary eyes and temples with the other.
The Horseshoe Nail (The Donn Book 1) Page 29
