John Maddox Roberts - Spacer: Window of Mind (17 page)

The pain subsided a tiny bit, and Kiril assessed her damage. If she could just stay conscious for a few more minutes. She had only one thought:
Thank God it was the left arm.

They came within a few feet of the converted storeroom. "Stop here," Lang ordered. He held his gun at the ready and pointed to Finn. "You. Go peek into that room and tell me what you see. No fast moves." Finn nodded and crossed to the door, which was slightly ajar. Very slowly, he stuck his head in. After a few seconds he withdrew it. His expression was distinctly shaken. "Where are my two men?" Lang said.

"Actually," Finn answered, "they're sort of all over in there. I hope you brought a mop."

Lang didn't change expression. "And the Vivers?"

"K'Stin's standing there with a heavy-duty beamer in each fist."

"There are supposed to be two Vivers," Lang said, his face a mask.

"B'Shant's probably taking a snooze," Torwald said. "Vivers don't get too upset over a pack of trash mercs, especially Belisarians."

With a snarl, Lang turned on Torwald, his finger tightening on the trigger.

"Wait, Lang," Kiril said. "We need to talk." She could barely speak above a whisper, but it was enough to distract Lang. She knew by that how desperate he was.

"I'm listening."

"Look, this thing has gone sour. You can't take this ship aboard the Supernova with a pair of beamer-armed Vivers aboard. They'll turn that tub into a junkheap in minutes." She staggered away from Michelle and walked up to Lang, her left forearm cradled in her right hand. "Look, Lang, give me a break. We can salvage this. Izquierda will listen to me. We'll say that my arm was hurt accidentally and somebody from the Supernova tipped the
Angel
about the raid. You cover for me and I'll cover for you. What do you say? I'm gonna be close to Izquierda, Lang. I can make it worth your while to help me out."

The mercenary gleam came into Lang's eyes. "Yeah, what're you gonna give me, little girl?"

She was close enough now. "This." Before the word was finished, her knife had gone in below his jaw. She had never used one to kill before, but she knew how it was done. She got it right the first time.

The mere who had spoken to Kiril aboard the raider reacted almost instantly, pulling down on the prisoners, but Finn's boot cracked into his chin just as Ham backhanded another mere onto a knife that Torwald had pulled from somewhere.

The last got olf a short burst, but it was cut off when four feet of Viver arm burst through the metal bulkhead next to him and the spiked fist hit him with the power of a pile driver. All four men crumpled to the deck at about the same time.

"That man continues to underestimate me," the skipper said. "Imagine it, sending a half-dozen garbage meres to take a free freighter." She raised her voice. "K'Stin, what's the situation in there?"

The huge Viver appeared at the hatch. Kiril blinked. He looked as if he had been painted red. "One of them managed to get off a shot before I killed him. I am sorry, Captain, 1 failed in my duty. A mere human, too. I shall be humiliated forever."

"You did fine," the skipper said. "Just be glad you've got forever to be humiliated in. Which direction did the shot go?"

"Toward the engine room," K'Stin said. The skipper looked at Achmed, and he hurried off, trailed by Lafayette.

Torwald looked into the access chamber and pulled his head out quickly. "K'Stin, that was just plain redundant."

"I do not often get to have fun in this ship," the Viver protested.

"How did you know where that man was standing?" Ham asked.

"Homer was observing from the bridge and told me where everyone was. My hearing did the rest."

Achmed came running back. "Skipper, we have a four-foot gash in number two thruster. Fuel is everywhere and it's getting hot in there. The
Angel
will start tearing herself apart soon. If we land now, before the thrusters get too far out of synch, we might have a chance. Or else we must abandon ship."

"Ham," the Skipper barked, "send out the distress signal."

"Don't do it," Kiril pleaded. "Izquierda has backup plans and he must have that covered. He'll blow us out of space. You've got to land now. He's gonna start a
war\
And he's gonna blame you for it—that's what the duplicate ship is for. We have to get away
now\"

"Everybody back to the AC lock right now," the skipper said. She faced a comm plate. "That means you, too. Homer."

When Homer arrived, she laid it out for them. "I'm taking the
Angel
in. Maybe we can find a lake or something for a belly-landing. 1 don't recommend that the rest of you ride her down. Whatever happens," she pointed at the raider, "I want that piece of Satsuma trash off my ship. If the
Angel
augers in, she dies clean." She left them with their decisions.

"I am too old to go about adventuring," Bert said. "I stay with the
Angel."
He left as well.

"She will never land without me to nurse the engines," said Achmed, heading for the engine room.

Lafayette looked at Kiril for a moment. "Kiril," he said.

"however it turns out, I'll never forget what you did." Then he went to follow Achmed.

Ham looked at the two remaining men and nodded. Torwald picked Michelle up and tossed her into the raider. Finn did the same with Nancy. Gently, Ham helped Kiril into the little vessel. Then he waved and gave them his big grin. "I stick with Gert, as always." He left.

"Torwald, you idiot!" Michelle said, as she checked Kiril's pulse. "I can't pilot this thing and neither can Nancy. One of you will have to do it."

"Get in," Torwald said to Finn.

"It's got to be you, Tor, me lad," said Finn. "In case you didn't notice in all the excitement, I caught a ricochet from that mere's burst." He pointed to his thigh, where blood was seeping from a hole in his coverall. "You'll have to run when you reach ground; get away from this raider. Izquierda can probably trace it. I can't run."

Michelle tried to climb out, but Torwald shoved her back in. "Don't worry about him. It always takes more than one bullet to kill an Irishman. I swear, Finn, you'll find an excuse to get out of anything. All right." He climbed into the pilot's seat. "Button us up and close the hatches."

"Saint Patrick watch over you all," Finn said as he limped out. Within a minute the inner hatch was buttoned up and the outer one open.

"Hang on, folks," Torwald warned. "I've never handled one of these little babies, but what I lack in experience I make up for in enthusiasm." The raider shot out of the lock with teeth-jarring force.

"Why didn't Homer come along?" Kiril muttered, barely conscious. "And the Vivers?"

"K'Stin won't abandon B'Shant while he's helpless," Torwald said, "and Homer can survive a ship crash."

"There goes the
Angel,''
Nancy said. Through a port they saw the glow as
Space Angel's
thrusters cut in, much brighter on the port side than on the starboard.

"That looks bad," Torwald muttered, "but if anybody can bring the old lady in, it's the skipper. Right now we've got our own problems. I wonder what the aliens will think of us coming in like this?" He chuckled. The man can laugh about anything, Kiril thought, groggily.

Torwald turned around in his seat. "Well, nobody's shooting at us yet. Hey, how about the way the kid saved our hides? Kiril, that was the slickest—" But Kiril was unconscious.

"Kiril, wake up." She could barely hear the voice. Somebody had her by the chin and was shaking her head. Managing to pry her eyelids open, she could see Michelle's face hovering above her. Behind Michelle she could make out some green, shifting shapes, but didn't know what they were. Michelle looked in another direction. "She's coming around."

Another face swam into view. It was Torwald. "Kiril, how are you feeling?"

She thought about it for a while. There was a terrible, dull ache in her left arm and her stomach was churning. She felt feverish and just generally hurt all over. "Not too bad, I guess," she said.

"I'm afraid it's going to get a lot worse." Michelle said. "I'm going to have to set and splint this arm. That's why I had to bring you around. If you woke up while I was setting it, you'd probably go into shock."

"There was an aid kit on the raider," Torwald reported, "but no painkiller drugs. I figure the meres were using them for recreational purposes."

"Go ahead and set it," Kiril said. "I been hurt before." A lew seconds later another burst of pain put her under again. The next time she woke, she was much clearer-headed and the pain was at a manageable level. She looked around. She was lying under something big that sprouted a lot of fronds. She decided it was probably a tree. The ground she was lying on was bumpy and covered by some kind of soft growth. There were a great many odd smells in the air. All in all. it wasn't her cabin, but it beat waking up in Izquierda's ship. She risked raising her head. Nearby she could see the two women asleep on the ground. Torwald was sitting with his back against another tree, his head sunk on his chest. On his knee, his hand gripped a hand beamer. She wondered where he had found that, then decided it must have been in the raider.

Very carefully she shifted herself until she was sitting against the tree. She decided that if she could get a little food in her, she just might make it. Her surroundings were a new experience. She had never been in the open countryside before, at least that she had any memory of. There was a lot of noise: clickings, buzzings, chirps, and chatters. That made her a little apprehensive. There were animals out there, and they might be dangerous. She was glad that Torwald had found the beamer. At least she was alive. That had not been a likely prospect for some time now. And she wasn't alone. That made it even better. Things could be worse.

After a few minutes Torwald awoke with a start. He swept their little clearing with the beamer, then relaxed. He grinned at Kiril. "Glad to see you back among us, kid. What woke me up?"

"I sneezed," Kiril said. "There's lots of dust or something in the air. I never been out in the woods before. Is it always like this? It's kind of nice and peaceful."

"Every planet's different. At least we can breathe here. So far we've encountered nothing threatening, but that doesn't mean much. Back on Earth in the old days you could wander around a long time without meeting a tiger, but you had trouble on your hands when it happened."

"You think there's something here that might want to eat us?" Maybe this place wasn't so peaceful, after all.

"It's pretty rare that a species that's evolved on one planet can eat one that's evolved on another," he assured her.

"That's good to know."

"Of course, sometimes they'll kill you and only discover later that they can't eat you." He grinned. "But we'll worry about that when the time comes. As it is, we've got plenty of other things to worry us."

"Where are we?" Kiril asked. "Where'd you leave the raider?"

"We're about ten kilometers from where we ditched it. I kind of hated to leave it. It's a sweet little craft, even if the skipper has a dislike of anything Satsuma. Anyway, it might've been spotted by the Satsuma ship, or by the aliens."

"That mere captain, Lang, said it had some new masking process." Mention of the name brought her a vivid picture of

the man's face. Had she really done that?

Torwald caught the sudden widening of her eyes. "Easy, kid. You did what you had to. We'd all be dead if you hadn't. You did all of humanity a favor. God knows how many that bunch had murdered over the years. It's done."

"Yeah, I guess so." She knew it wouldn't be that easy, though. "Did you carry me all this way?"

"Part of it," he said. "You staggered along some of the way. I carried you the last five or six kilometers. It's a good thing you don't weigh much."

Michelle was stirring. She smiled when she saw Kiril. "You seem to be making a fast recovery." She shook Nancy, and the comm officer sat up as well. Kiril thought that Nancy looked dazed. No real surprise there. She had lost her planet, now she had lost her ship. This is probably harder on her than on me, Kiril thought.

"What's our next move?" Michelle asked. "We've no idea where we are. We're stranded on an alien planet. We don't dare even try to eat anything here for fear of poison, and I've no way of testing anything. We don't know who's friendly and who's trying to kill us. We have to make some decisions fast."

"Not too fast," Torwald said. "That's been our problem, lately: things have been happening too fast. Kiril, if you feel up to it, how about telling us just what happened from the time you left us yesterday evening."

Had that been when it was? Had only a few hours passed since the latest installment in her nightmare began? "I'm up to it," she said. She went through the whole sequence of events, leaving nothing out. It didn't take long. At the end of it the others were staring at her in near-shock.

"I'd thought I was pretty hardened by this time," Michelle said, appalled, "but until now it never occurred to me just how awful one human being can be."

"He
proposed
'?" Torwald said, a near-hysterical edge in his voice, as if he were about to burst into wild laughter. "He really wanted you to be Mrs. Izquierda?"