Brik shook his head. He waited politely while Korie continued to think aloud.
“See, here’s the thing. Now that we know what kind of a danger he is, we know that we have no choice but to scuttle the Burke. So what he did was force our hand. We couldn’t possibly be stupid enough to keep trying to save the Burke while he’s still alive. Suppose we did respond fast enough. Suppose we really did kill him—then he’s failed. Or has he? At most, he’s only cost us two or three hours. Maybe that was his purpose? Would a Morthan willingly sacrifice himself as part of a larger plan?”
Brik glanced down at Korie. His look said it all.
With a cold flash of fear, Korie realized the implication immediately. “Oh, shit. That means that the Dragon Lord has to be a lot closer than we thought. Close enough that the delay is crucial.” Korie considered the possibility for a moment, then looked up to Brik’s taciturn expression. There was only one possible conclusion. “You’re right. We have to scuttle the Burke now. It’s our best option, isn’t it?”
Brik shook his head. “It is the best option not because it is a good one, but because it is the least bad one.”
“Excuse me?”
“Keep thinking. You haven’t seen the whole problem yet.”
Korie frowned. What am I missing? He stopped himself abruptly, a new expression spreading across his face. “Wait a minute. You said he knows what we’re thinking. Then he knows we’re having this conversation too. Scuttling the Burke won’t work either. He won’t let us, will he?”
“He knows what our choices are, yes,” Brik agreed. “The charges we placed on the Burke probably still show green on the Bridge monitors, but I doubt very much that they will respond to a detonation command. That’s why I suggested a torpedo. If he’s still alive, that will be his next immediate goal—to disable our torpedoes. In fact, he could be doing it right now.” Brik added, “You might have had a chance if you had torpedoed the Burke immediately instead of evacuating her, but—” The Morthan shrugged. “—That would have meant sacrificing eighteen crewmembers. Humans do not do that sort of thing.”
“No. Humans don’t. You think that’s a weakness, don’t you?”
“I think it is a human thing. It is definitely not a Morthan thing.”
“All right, all right. Drop it. Let’s game out some alternatives. Let’s leap ahead to the end. What’s it going to look like when they win? They’ll be in control of the Burke—and very likely, this ship too. And we’ll be dead or prisoners or—”
“Lunch. We’ll be lunch,” corrected Brik.
“Okay, but before that. How will he take over this ship?”
“How did he take over the Burke?”
Korie shrugged. “He killed everybody.”
“Then that will be what he does here—unless there is a compelling reason not to.”
“I wish we could plant a few traps of our own.”
“Can you think of a trap that a Morthan can’t?”
“Can you?” grinned Korie.
Brik gave him a look.
“Sorry,” said Korie. “I couldn’t resist. What about nested traps? Decoys? Would that work?”
“Maybe. If they were clever enough.”
“Okay. Help me here. If you were a Morthan—and you are—and you were planning to take over this vessel, how would you do it?”
“I’d kill everybody who wasn’t essential to the running of the ship. I’d start with you. If I was in a bad mood, I’d torture you and make your death last a long time.”
“Why would you let the others live?”
“I’m not stupid. I might have to bring this ship home. I couldn’t do it alone.”
“You mean, maybe the Dragon Lord isn’t coming . . .?”
“There is that possibility too. You are not the only one who thinks in terms of nested traps and decoys.”
“So—” said Korie. “If I was thinking like a Morthan now—I should be planning both a defense against the Dragon Lord that might not really be coming, and a trap for a Morthan who might be already dead.” Korie glanced at his wristband. “And I have less than twenty minutes to figure it out. Right?”
Brik nodded. “That is correct.”
Korie considered the size of the problem. “Okay,” he deadpanned. “What’ll we do with the time left over?”
“You could pray,” said Brik. He wasn’t joking.
Korie scowled upward. “Sorry. I don’t do that anymore. The price is too high.”
Provisions
“All right, HARLIE—” Korie gave the order.
The hatches of the Burke slid easily shut and air began hissing back into her from her huge regeneration units.
Sound came back to her corridors first. Some of the debris began to flutter. On her Bridge, the consoles lit up again, flashing from red to yellow to green as the atmospheric pressure rose, and as the mix of gases slid toward normal.
In the forward access of the LS-1187, Korie and Brik and a heavily armored security team were waiting impatiently. They all wore helmets, cameras, security vests, and armor. Bach and Armstrong were carrying stun-grenades and rapid-fire launchers. Nakahari was carrying a case of equipment modules to install on the Burke.
Quilla Theta was double-checking Armstrong’s security gear and the weapons pack on his back. “Be careful, Brian—please?” she asked.
“Uh—” Armstrong turned to look at her. “Theta, yes. I’ll be careful. Count on it.”
“Yes, please. We would like more ‘wow.’ All of us.”
“I promise—I’ll give it my personal attention. To each and every one of you.” Armstrong looked past the Quilla to see Bach looking at him, eyebrow raised. “Well,” he shrugged. “A man’s gotta please his public, doesn’t he?”
The Quilla thumped Brian on the back twice—her “all’s-well” signal. Armstrong turned and gave a thumbs-up to Korie.
“Okay,” said Korie. “Let’s go.”
The airlock door slid open—
The team stepped through cautiously. Armstrong and Bach led the way, followed by Korie and Brik. The shuttle bay looked dry and brittle. The blood on the floor had turned to powder. Some of it had blown away. Some of it hung in the air, giving the chamber a dusty red quality and a vague, unsettling, salty odor.
Brik and Bach went through the starboard corridor toward the engine room and the Bridge. Korie and Armstrong took the aft side. Nakahari followed at a cautious distance.
The Burke’s engine room was no longer an abattoir. Now it was a chamber of horrors. The bodies hanging on the singularity framework had been mummified from their exposure to vacuum. Their tongues were swollen and black, protruding from their mouths like some kind of creatures trying to escape. The eyes of the crewmembers had burst. Their blood had boiled out their ears and their noses and spurted across themselves and the deck in front of them. Their organs had pushed out through their wounds—and then everything had hardened and shriveled in the merciless vacuum.
There was no mercy here.
After death, desecration.
Korie wanted to weep. It wasn’t fair.
Instead, he bit his lip and pushed forward. He’d do his crying later. That was the way things always worked. He went down the ladder and into the forward keel toward the Bridge. Brik followed him grimly. Nakahari looked around, shuddered once, and went to the engine room’s main console. He plugged in a portable terminal and began bringing the system back to life.
Korie stepped up through the Operations bay, onto the Operations deck—and froze.
He didn’t know how he knew, but he knew he wasn’t alone. He turned around—it seemed to take forever—and stared.
In the captain’s chair—
—it was Hardesty.
Korie flinched. Brik came up beside him.
The captain was stuffed inside a large transparent plastic sack—an airtight transfer bag. Green mist floated around him.
“He’s not dead,” said Brik.
There was a medical monitor uni
t on the captain’s chest. Its screen glowed. Even from the Ops deck, Korie could read the graphs.
The captain’s eyes flickered open. They moved. They focused, but ever so slowly.
“Oh, no—” Korie moaned. He leapt up the stairs to the Bridge.
Hardesty’s voice came to him as if from a great distance. Very faint and very feeble, the captain spoke. “Help . . . me . . .”
Korie couldn’t help himself. He was simultaneously horrified and fascinated. The captain’s skin had a hideous gray-green cast. He looked like a zombie.
“He’s transmitting,” Brik explained. “His body functions are suspended, but his brain augment is still active.”
“What is it?” Korie couldn’t tear his eyes away.
“Phullogine,” Brik explained. “It’s a very heavy, very inert gas. It’s used for hibernation.” And then he added, ominously, “As well as for preserving food.”
Hardesty spoke again. The words wheezed out slowly and almost inaudibly. “The assassin . . .” And then he faded back into unconsciousness, his thought still incomplete.
“A trophy to take home,” said Brik. “Or provisions.”
“Oh God—no. This is hideous.” Korie spoke to his headset. “We found the captain. Bridge of the Burke. Send a med team. Now!” And then, abruptly remembering their mission, he added, “And send the work crews in.” He looked back to Brik. “Can we save him?”
“I don’t know enough about it. Maybe Dr. Williger—but I doubt it.” He turned away. Bach and Armstrong were just stepping up onto the Ops deck; they looked toward the captain with rising horror. Brik pushed them away. “Come with me. I want to find the assassin.”
The three of them exited through the forward access, leaving Korie caught in the focus of the captain’s yellow staring eyes.
Med Station
Molly Williger might have been angry. Korie couldn’t tell. He’d never seen her when she hadn’t been swearing. Korie was glad he didn’t recognize most of the languages she used, although he suspected that some of her most elegant curses were composed in ancient Latin.
“—no way to treat a human body!” she was saying. “Why the hell do I spend so much time patching them up, if they’re just going to go play tag with monsters—?!!”
Korie followed the med team carrying the captain’s stretcher all the way back to the LS-1187, into the forward keel, halfway along it to the sick bay, through the anteroom and into the primary medical station—the one that also served as an operating room. He stood back against the far wall and watched as Williger, Fontana, and Stolchak quickly removed the captain from the body bag and hooked him up to the life-support systems. Stolchak, the new one, was particularly efficient, her hands moving expertly from point to point, installing monitors, inserting tubes, punching up programs, starting the blood-cleansing system, and having utensils ready for the doctor even before she asked for them.
Korie glanced up at the monitor board overhead. Some of the lines were almost flat. The captain’s heartbeat was seriously depressed. His oxygen usage was near zero. The captain’s eyes were shut and his pallor had worsened since they’d removed him from the bag.
His autolobe was still functioning though. In fact, the autonomic side of it was quietly advising Williger of the condition of the captain’s organic functions in a soft silvery voice—until she grew annoyed and switched it off. “I know what I’m doing, dammit.”
Korie wanted to ask, but he knew better than to interrupt Molly Williger while she worked.
“No motor functions at all,” she said, not only for her staff, but for the medical autolog. “Heartbeat, respiration, EEG—all at hibernation levels. This one’s going to make the textbooks. I’ve never seen phullogine used on a human before.” She straightened up, took a step back, and studied the overhead monitors, squinting in concentration. She said a word that Korie was glad he didn’t recognize.
“What about his mental condition?” Korie asked.
Williger shrugged. “He can communicate, but only slowly. I don’t know if he’s in pain or not.”
“Can he command?”
Williger glared at him. “Do you want the center chair that bad?”
“Doctor—” Korie spoke carefully. “If Hardesty can command, he’s the captain. If he can’t, it’s me. But it has to be one of us, and you’re the only one qualified to determine if he’s capable.”
“His brain-augment is working fine,” she admitted. “If there was nothing else here but his augment, I’d have to say he’s mentally able. But you and I both know that the captain is more than his augment and there are larger questions that I can’t answer yet. Like, how well is the augment integrating with the rest of his personality? I don’t know. Can he balance? I don’t know. How long will he be this way? I haven’t the slightest idea. I can’t be any clearer than that.”
“I need a decision from you, Doctor. Even a wrong one.”
And then Korie was sure—she was angry. She whirled on him, pushing him back against the wall. “Not now, dammit. Don’t you understand? He can hear us!”
“Even better. I don’t want to do this behind his back. We both know what kind of a captain he is.”
“You don’t get it, do you? Hardesty knew what was happening to him, every minute. He understood what Cinnabar was doing and why. The shock to his system is still happening. For most people—” Williger stopped herself in mid-sentence, grabbed Korie’s arm and dragged him out through the anteroom and into the corridor and halfway down it. “Listen to me. For most people, dying is over quickly—for Hardesty, it could take months. Or even longer. And he could be conscious the entire time. How would you like to lie in bed feeling yourself die for a year or two?”
Korie opened his mouth to answer, then closed it again. He considered his response as he stared down into Williger’s angry face, then he lowered his voice and said carefully, “When this is over, I will have the time to be horrified by the situation and by all of the difficult decisions that you and I are having to make. In the meantime, in case you hadn’t noticed, we are at war and this ship needs a commanding officer. There are orders I need to give and I need them to be legal.”
“You know the possible consequences to him—and to you—if I guess wrong? What if he’s fully recovered in six hours? What if you’ve started some irrevocable course of action?”
“If he recovers, then declare him fit for command and I’ll be glad to return the baton. I promise you, I’ll try not to get us killed before that happens. Now then,” he asked pointedly, “are you going to declare the captain incapable of command—or not?”
Williger’s face hardened. At this moment, it was obvious that she didn’t like Korie very much; but finally she nodded. “You’re in command.” She started to turn away, then turned back just far enough to to add, “Don’t fuck it up.”
“Thank you, Doctor,” Korie said to her back.
“Don’t mention it,” she growled, walking away. “Ever.”
Korie touched his headset. “Brik?”
The Morthan’s voice rumbled in his ear. “Yes?”
“Did you find the assassin?”
“No trace of him yet, sir. There are a lot of places he could have hidden.”
“Well, we can always wait three days until the body starts to stink,” Korie proposed.
“And what if it doesn’t—”
“You’re suggesting?”
“I hope you acted fast enough. But you might not have.”
“Do you need more searchers?”
“They wouldn’t know what to look for.”
“Where are you now?”
“Inner hull. Forward quadrant.”
“Stay there. I’m on my way.”
The Forward Observatories
There were a few places on every ship where a person might find a real window. There were two forward observatories on the Burke, one on the upper hull back of the airlock, one on the lower hull. They were clear glass domes protruding from the cera
mic hull.
Korie found Brik at the lower observatory. It was a wide circular well, framed by neutral gravitors. You flipped over and pointed yourself down into it. Once inside, you would be floating in a deep free-fall bubble and you could observe the stars around the ship. Usually, there wasn’t much to see that couldn’t be seen better on the big forward viewer on the Ops deck; the observatories were the only real windows in the hull of a liberty ship and although rarely used, they were still considered an essential part of the vessel.
Brik was shining his beam in and around the crawlspaces where the thin metal tubing butted up against the inside of the outer hull.
“Anything?”
Brik shook his head.
“And you don’t expect to find anything either, do you?”
Brik grunted. After a moment, he lowered himself back down to the catwalk and said, “If I could figure it out, so could he.”
“Mm,” said Korie. Abruptly, he levered himself over the railing and floated down into the observatory. Brik followed. The two of them hung together, floating face to face under the bubble of stars.
“The last time I did this,” said Korie, very softly, “my partner was much prettier than you.”
“The last time I did this,” replied Brik, “my partner was much less fragile.”
“Touché.” Korie smiled.
“Thank you.” Brik lowered his voice to the barest of whispers. “I have not completed my search of the inner hull.”
“I didn’t expect you to. Did you put on a good show?”
“The best.”
“Good. Do you think you’ve searched long enough to fool him into thinking he fooled us?”
“No, but we can’t risk any more time.”
“Unfortunately, you’re right.”
“That’s why I’m paid the big bucks.” Brik smiled. At this close a distance, Korie wished he hadn’t. “Did you talk to HARLIE?”
The Voyage of the Star Wolf Page 23
