Event Horizon (Hellgate) (107 page)

“And we,” Mark said in a voice like crushed velvet, “are coming back to you.”

“But, Mark,” Dario began, gesturing sharply at the stasis chambers.

“They’re not going anywhere,” Shapiro said reasonably. “Lai’a knows exactly where they are – and they’re nowhere near the nest. Judging by the state of decay in this part of the platform, the Zunshu don’t get down here, or if they do, it’s to harvest crustaceans from this swamp underfoot. They never lifted a tentacle in interest when we came here. We can come back for the chambers. Lai’a?”

“Correct, General. I have the coordinates, and the route charted. The stasis chambers appear to be of no interest to the Zunshu. I have not observed these Zunshu interacting with any machinery, anywhere in the structure. They may well be a primitive sub-species, or a lower caste to which machinery might even be proscribed. Analysis of the data return from the computer core has begun. Information will be available shortly.”

“You know the AI’s language,” Rusch observed.

“It is the same, with very minor differences, as the language of the control core of the Kjorin stasis chamber,” Lai’a affirmed.

“We’re on our way.” Mark turned his back on the five stasis chambers which sat in the murk and detritus, utterly forgotten. He drove Dario and Midani ahead of him while the gundrones took point. “Ten minutes, Lai’a. As soon as we’re aboard, seal the hull and withdraw the boarding tube.”

“Your priority,” Shapiro added, “is to redock the transspace drive and put us in the sensor blind behind either of the two moons we hit on the way in.” He paused. “Then … share data.”

“Tell us,” Mark Sherratt whispered. “Tell us the Zunshu story.” A story he had waited all his long life to hear.

Marin’s belly clenched as he fell into step with Travers, back the way they had come, following the navigation plot through the labyrinth. It might have made sense to the Zunshu mind but even Curtis, with the years of Dendra Shemiji training, had to confess that he was hopelessly lost.

Chapter Nineteen

He was awake, pillows behind him, the bed raised to a half-sitting position. His eyes were dilated, his skin pale under the spacer’s tan, and Travers thought he had never seen Richard Vaurien so exhausted. So physically frail. The strength on which he had always traded had been sucked out of him – the price of survival. He was off the IV but a small meddrone hovered at his shoulder, monitoring him constantly, ready with, drugs, medical air, nano. Bill Grant was asleep – comatose, Travers thought, face down on the bed at the end of the Infirmary’s single ward, closest to his office. Vaurien’s eyes flickered open as Travers entered but the muscles of his face did not seem to have the energy an expression would have demanded. He was naked under a sheet; the Infirmary was slightly too warm for Travers. The lights were comfortably dim and the loudest sound was the subtle whirr of the drone standing by Vaurien.

“Hey.” Richard’s voice was a croak.

“Hey.” Travers approached the bed with all due caution. As he came closer he saw the last faint mottling of bruises from neck to left hand, and around the ribs. “How’re you doing?” He gestured back toward the door. “They wanted to come in, but Barb and me … we said, one at a time. Barb would have been here, but she, uh, they called her to the lab. Lai’a and …” He stopped himself, knowing he was talking for the sake of it. “Richard?”

“I’m alive,” Vaurien said in an exhausted whisper. “I don’t remember anything, Neil. Nothing. We were taking a hammering … holding our own. Lai’a … a hit in the starboard bow quarter.” He closed his eyes for a moment, took three, four deep breaths. “Bill said … Ops was hit.”

“Ops was destroyed,” Travers told him. “A gravity weapon, way too close for comfort – the Zunshulite armor plate twisted, Aragos collapsed for maybe a second. Less, but it was enough. Ops is gone. We’re running Operations out of Physics 2.”

“
Merde
.” Richard blinked up at him. “I guess I caught a lick of that gravity.”

“I guess you did.” Travers reached out, took his right hand, held it. “Did Bill tell you what, uh, what happened?”

“No.” Vaurien licked his lips.

“You want a drink?” Travers reached over him for the glass, and held it to his mouth. Richard took several sips before exhaustion sent him back to the bank of pillows. “You should sleep.” Travers set the glass back on the tray table.

“Tell me.” Vaurien was slurring, and cleared his throat. “For godsakes just tell me what happened. Anyone else hurt?”

“Yeah.” Travers took his right hand again. The left lay immobile on the bed at his side. “Tor’s in cryogen. Scheduled for surgery in a few hours – internal injuries, bad ones. That’s the end of his hopes for having kids of his own, until he’s had the cloned organs. You know how it works.” He looked away and swallowed hard on a dry throat, wondering where he would find the words.

“Someone died.” Richard could see the truth. “Who?”

“We lost two.” Travers felt an acid prickle in his eyes, and scrubbed them away. “Jon Kim just … vanished. He’d have caught a real lash off the gravity weapon, it’d crush him like a bug. The deck warped, buckled up. You were scissored in it. Jon would have been caught in the same gravity surge, and he’s – I don’t know, Richard. Buried under the deck, where the structural members smashed in on themselves. We looked, but there’s no way to get to him, what’s left of him, without drydocking.”

For some time Vaurien digested this without a word, and the tired eyes brightened with tears. “Harrison –?”

“Coping the way he does. He’s shut it out, clamped it down, gone back to work. But I don’t know how much he’s going to be able to do here – worry about all that later, Richard. You need to rest.
Harrison’ll
find a way to get through, same as we all do.”

Vaurien struggled to push himself up against the pillows. “I don’t feel anything down my left side. Nothing.”

“The nerves were severed to stop pain,” Travers told him, “or you’d be doped right up to the eyeballs.”

He was lucid – certainly dizzy, hot, nauseous with the after-effects of so much nano therapy and the shock that had actually killed him several times while he was in surgery – but he was thinking. Nothing short of his actual, final death was likely to stop Vaurien thinking for long.

“You said … two,” he whispered. “We lost two.” Travers nodded. “Who?” Vaurien’s mouth compressed, the lips whitening.

“Tonio. He got into the fallout off the transspace drive, pulling you out of the deck. The Aragos were fluttering, you were already dead, Bill couldn’t even get into Ops, Bravo had to cut through the armordoors. It was … bad,” Travers said thickly. “But Tonio was in there so fast, all he wanted to do was get you out, away from the radiation stream. He didn’t live long after …”

“Oh, Christ.” Richard passed his right hand over his face. “I didn’t want that, Neil. I cracked down hard on the kid on account of the drugs, the mess he was making of his life, everything, but …”

“No one would have hurt him,” Travers said with a stoicism that surprised himself. “Every time he was read the riot act, it was to help him – protect him from his own nasty habits.” He took Vaurien’s hand again. “Be proud of him. In the end, he did good. You’re alive because of him. Or,” he added, “I am. Somebody had to be the one to get into the radiation stream. Tonio or me, Curtis or Mick. The four of us were pulling the deck apart, but
someone
had to pull you out. There was no time, no way to get equipment in there, and the only place to reach you from …” He shook himself hard. “I owe Tonio. Big time. Four hours in surgery, and you’ve patched up nicely, and me –? I’m still here, gods help me. It was Tonio or me, Richard.” His throat clenched. “Nobody should have to make the choice. But he did – he made it, and all I feel for him right now is respect.”

The tears shed, and Vaurien closed his eyes. “He has parents, back on Lushiar. I’ll contact them. There’s a load of back pay and bonuses … and they need to know he died well. They can’t know
where
, but they can know how, and why.” He stirred fretfully. “I want to get up.”

“Bill would paralyze me if I let you,” Travers protested.

“Why? I’m not in pain,” Vaurien growled, once again struggling to sit up properly. “There’s no bruises. Look.” He threw back the sheet to display his left leg, and Travers was impressed. Only a faint mottling of old blood remained, and the faintest swelling around the knee and ankle, both of which were reconstructed. The long scar left by the tissue weld was a silver line that might fade away, or might not. If it lingered Vaurien would wear it like a badge of honor. “I’ve had transfusions by the bucket,” Vaurien said hoarsely, “and the nano’s deactivated. The nerves are severed – if you’re thinking I’m in pain, relax. I can’t feel any damn thing.”

“Just wait there,” Travers insisted. “Richard –
wait
. I’ll get Bill.”

In fact Grant was already awake and sitting on the side of the bed where he had snatched perhaps an hour of sleep. His voice was thick, his tongue uncooperative. “If he wants to get up,” he grumbled, “he can ride a hoverchair. He shouldn’t try to stand – you hear me, boss? No standing. No solid food. No booze. And when you turn tired, dizzy, sick, you come back and rest in zero-gee, or I’ll cuff you to a bloody bed till you do.”

Vaurien blinked at him. “You’re quite the dungeon master.”

“Don’t push your luck,” Grant said tartly. “I can order you to zero-gee bed rest and make damned sure you stay there till I decide you can twitch!” He gave Travers a smug look. “I’m the CMO of this flying asylum. I have the authority.”

“Flying asylum?” Travers echoed. “It’s what we used to call the
Intrepid
.”

“Yeah.” Grant sobered. “And this ship ain’t much better. Christ, Neil, every time I think about where we are –”

“Where
are
we?” Vaurien asked sharply. His head was clearing as he got moving, forced his thoughts to order. His energy levels would not last long, and when they crashed he might sleep for hours, but was awake now and Travers had known his mind would click back into gear.

“We’re parked in the sensor blind of one of the two moons we hit with gravity swarm strikes,” he said baldly. “Lai’a estimates engines and ordnance are close to optimum. Ammunition stores and drone bunkers are at capacity, all three generators are purring and all three drives are available.” He took a breath, lifted a brow at Richard. “You haven’t been told anything about the, uh, the mission?”

“Mission?” Vaurien was exploring his left side with careful fingers.

“Ah.” Travers shot a glance at Grant and then set one light hand on Vaurien’s shoulder. “I’m going to ask Harrison to come in and bring you up to speed. Mark and Dario are buried in work – they called Barb into the lab, or she’d have been here with me. Curtis, Mick and I were along, but Mick’s asleep, and – Harrison needs something to
do
. He doesn’t have time to grieve. None of us does. Not here.” He leaned over and drew a kiss across Vaurien’s lean face. “Stay where you are. I’ll call him.”

A frown creased Vaurien’s brow. “Tell me you people didn’t do something really bloody stupid.”

Travers permitted an acid chuckle. “We did what had to be done, with every safety and security protocol we could lock in place.” He returned to the door, which stood open now, and hesitated for a moment. “Hey, Richard …”

The too-dark eyes looked hauntedly at him. “I know.”

“Welcome back,” Travers whispered, and stepped out.

Voices issued from Ops and Physics 1, the big lab where the Sherratts, Jazinsky and Rusch were taking apart the ocean of data, but Shapiro was not there. Travers wondered if he had gone back to the quarters he had shared with Jon Kim, until he heard other voices from the crew lounge.

“We’ll find them,” Marin was promising. “You have an address?”

“In Marak City. Actually a property just outside the city,” Shapiro remembered. “It’s
Mariel
and Matt Kim, and Jon had a sister, much younger … Amanda, I believe.” He sighed heavily. “They’ll probably flay me alive.”

Marin was less certain. “A lot of people were killed in the war. Ulrand suffered a great many casualties, like Omaru. Jon was killed on a covert assignment in the service of the Deep Sky. His family should recognize duty and service; it’s pride they ought to feel, and honor.”