The Aftermath (38 page)

Pauline glared at him.

As Valker started up the tube ladder toward the ship's hub, Angela asked her mother, “What can we do?”

“Wait,” Pauline said, in a hushed voice.

“Wait for them to come and get us?”

“Wait until that smiling ape gets back aboard his own ship. Then we go over to the main airlock as fast as we can and get into our suits.”

“The space suits? Why?”

“We're getting off this ship.”

“But you heard him,” Angela objected. “They're going to take the ship that's approaching us. It wouldn't do us any good to—”

“We're not staying on this ship with that gang of rapists waiting to get their hands on us,” Pauline said. “I don't care if we die of asphyxiation in the suits, we're getting away from here!”

*   *   *

On
Hunter
's bridge, Theo slid into the communications chair. “We're close enough for a tight laser beam transmission,” he said. It was a statement, not a question.

“You want to speak to your mother and sister?” asked Elverda.

Theo nodded. “I want to let them know I'm alive, without that Valker or his crew hearing me.” Silently he added, But I don't know how long I'm going to stay alive. The two of us—Dorn and me—against ten of them.

Dorn was standing behind Elverda, in the command chair, moving his prosthetic arm in a circle, testing its bearings.

“Do you know how to activate the laser?” Elverda asked Theo.

“Yes ma'am,” he replied, his fingers playing across the console's keyboard. Looking up at the comm screen he saw the battered hulk of
Syracuse
looming close enough almost to touch. A tiny red dot showed where the laser was aimed. Theo played the controls, marching that red dot across the vessel's curving hull until it locked onto the optical receiver built into the backup control pod. The dot suddenly changed to green and Theo pressed the key that opened the communications link to the receiver.

Okay, he said to himself. Nobody hears this except Mom, on the receiving end of the laser beam.

“Mom, Angie,” he called. “It's me, Theo. I'm on
Hunter.
They picked me up after Valker's thugs tried to kill me. I'm okay. I'm coming back to help you.”

No response. Theo pressed the
REPEAT
key, but still there was no answer from
Syracuse.

“They're not in the control pod, I guess,” Theo said, as much to himself as to Elverda and Dorn. “But the intercom should relay the message.”

*   *   *

Victor was weighing the possibilities. That's definitely another ship attached to
Syracuse,
he told himself. On his main display screen he could see the smaller vessel linked to
Syracuse
like a lamprey eel that's attached itself to a hapless fish.

And there's
Hunter,
heading in.

He couldn't be patient any longer. He got up from the bridge's command chair and went to the communications console.

“Attention
Syracuse,
” he said, his voice brittle with tension. “This is
Pleiades.
I heard your call and I'll rendezvous with you in…” He glanced at the digital clock readout on the screen. “… in seventy-eight minutes.”

*   *   *

Pauline was in the locker area just outside
Syracuse
's main airlock, checking the seals and connections of Angela's suit, when the intercom speaker in the overhead announced, “
INCOMING MESSAGE
.” She ignored the statement. Getting Angie suited up and ready to escape the ship was more important.

“Another message,” Angela said. “That makes two.”

Satisfied at last that her daughter's suit was spaceworthy, Pauline reached for the leggings of her own suit and sat on the bench that ran in front of the lockers.

“Never mind the messages,” she said. “The important thing is to get off this ship before Valker comes back.”

Angela stood stiffly in the cermet suit, the visor of her bubble helmet raised.

“But aren't you going to check the messages?” she asked.

“They're probably for Valker, from his crew.”

“But—”

“There's nobody out there to send messages to us, Angie,” Pauline said, grunting with the effort of tugging on her heavy boots.

“Maybe it's from that other ship heading toward us,” Angie insisted.

Pauline almost smiled. She's still young enough to hope for a miracle.

“That's the
Hunter.
The only people aboard her are an old woman and a priest. I'm hoping that we can get to them before Valker seizes their ship. Maybe we can get away on their ship, if we're lucky.”

Angela gave her mother her stubborn scowl and clomped to the comm panel mounted on the bulkhead. “It wouldn't hurt to hear what they're saying,” she said, holding her gloved hand up to the panel.

She's right, Pauline realized. Shrugging, she said, “Go ahead, then.”

Angela pressed the comm unit's
ON
button and said, “Play first message, please.”

They heard, “Mom, Angie. It's me, Theo. I'm on
Hunter.
They picked me up after Valker's thugs tried to kill me. I'm okay. I'm coming back to help you.”

“Theo!” both women cried in unison.

“He's alive!”

“He's coming back!”

Pauline redoubled her efforts to get into her suit. “We've got to get to him before Valker's crew takes over that ship,” she said.

“We should send him a message,” said Angela. “Warn him.”

“No, we can't do that,” Pauline countered. “Valker and his people would hear any message we sent, unless we used the laser unit and that's back in the pod.”

“Besides, we need
Hunter
close enough for us to get to,” Angela agreed.

“That's right.” Pauline added silently, But not so close that Valker and his scavengers get to her first. She slipped into the hard-shell torso and Angela came away from the comm panel to help her seal it to the leggings.

*   *   *

Back on
Vogeltod
's bridge, Valker listened to Victor Zacharias's message.

“Pleiades!”
he exulted. “That's a fine ship. And there's only one man aboard her, a thief, at that.”

“Unless he's picked up a crew,” Kirk muttered.

“Good point,” said Valker. “Let's break out the weapons.”

Like everything else aboard
Vogeltod,
the weapons supply was a hodgepodge of pieces stolen, scavenged, or bartered from other ships. There were four genuine laser pistols, complete with compact power packs attached to their belts. There were two cumbersome laser welders that could cut metal and easily slice flesh, although it took two men to carry each one of them and their bulky power packs. There were a variety of tools such as cordless drills and wrenches that could be used as knives or bludgeons. There was even an old-fashioned air pistol that fired tranquilizing darts, although Valker wondered if the tranquilizer was still potent after all the years the darts had lain unused. Finally, there was a belt of minigrenades, powerful enough to blow down an airlock hatch.

Valker looked over his grinning crew, each of them now carrying sidearms or tools-turned-weapons strapped to their hips. Two of the men hefted one of the bulky laser welders and its power pack between them. Valker himself had taken a laser pistol and flung the belt of minigrenades across his broad shoulder.

“You look like a band of real fierce pirates,” he said, laughing.

“We're ready for anything,” said Kirk, brandishing a power drill whose bit was almost as long as his forearm.

“Yeah!” Nicco agreed. “And after we've taken these two ships, we get the two babes. Right?”

Valker had to force his smile, but he said, “Right.”

SMELTER SHIP
HUNTER
: AIRLOCK

Standing at the lip of the open airlock hatch, Theo saw clearly the curving flank of
Syracuse,
the long ugly gash in one of the fuel tank sections, the stumps that had once held the missing command pod, the new antennas he had painted on the adjoining portion of the hull, the backup command pod.

They were approaching the ship from its top, the side opposite the place where
Vogeltod
hung mated to
Syracuse
by the flexible connector tube.

Theo was in his hard-shell space suit with a new backpack that Dorn had provided; the cyborg stood beside him in a nanofabric suit.

“The living quarters are on the other side of the pod,” Theo told the cyborg, pointing with an outstretched arm. “The main airlock is—”

He saw that the airlock hatch was open, subdued red light glowing from it.

“Is Valker using our airlock?” he wondered aloud.

“I doubt it,” said Dorn.

“Then who…?” Theo saw two space suited figures outlined against the airlock's dim red lighting.

“Mom?” he called over the suit-to-suit frequency. “Angie?”

“Theo! We're coming over to you.”

“Okay! Great! Make it quick!”

Theo turned to Dorn. “Tell Ms. Apacheta to goose the fusion drive as soon as we get them aboard. Maybe we can take them in and get away from here before Valker's crew can board us.”

Dorn shook his head inside the inflated bubble hood of the nanosuit.

“Too late,” he said, pointing.

Half a dozen nanosuited men were jetting up from between the spokes of
Syracuse
and heading straight for them.

*   *   *

Standing at
Vogeltod
's main airlock in his nanofabric space suit, Valker heard Theo's call to his mother and sister.

“The kid's still alive,” he growled.

“And the women are trying to jump over to
Hunter,
” Kirk said.

“Let 'em,” Valker snapped. “We'll get there first. Come on.”

He squeezed the knob that controlled his suit's propulsion unit and jetted out of the airlock. Five of his men followed him. He had left Nicco and three others behind to take over
Syracuse.

As they maneuvered through the spokes of the big wheel-shaped
Syracuse,
Kirk laughed maliciously. “Nicco's gonna crap himself when he finds the sugarpots ain't on the ship.”

“So what?” said Valker. “Once we take over
Hunter
we've got the women, too.”

He could see
Hunter
hanging in the emptiness, rotating slowly. There's the airlock, Valker said to himself. And two people standing in it.

“Hey, there's the women,” one of his crew called out.

Turning slightly, Valker made out a pair of figures in hard suits jetting toward
Hunter
's open airlock hatch.

“Good,” he said. “Let 'em get to the airlock first. We'll hit 'em while they're all crammed in there together.”

“What about hitting one of the auxiliary locks, too?” Kirk asked.

“They'll be sealed tight. Why blow a locked hatch when we've got one wide open and waiting for us?”

Then Valker thought a moment. Turning to the two men handling the big welding laser, he said, “Slice a chunk out of the main thruster cone. I don't want them lighting off their fusion engine and getting away from us.”

*   *   *

“Elverda,” Dorn was saying into his suit microphone, “as soon as I give the command you must push the main engine to full thrust.”

“I understand.” Her voice sounded tense in his earphones.

The two women were a scant hundred meters from the airlock hatch and coming on fast. But the half-dozen scavengers were not far behind them.

“Crank the command chair to the full reclining position,” Dorn told her. “You'll be able to take the acceleration better that way.”

“Don't worry about me,” she replied immediately.

But Dorn did worry. She can't take a full g's acceleration, he thought. Even with the stem cell therapy she received, her heart can't take the strain. But if we don't get out of here before those men come aboard …

“I'm programming the propulsion system for a one-g acceleration,” Elverda was saying, her voice tight but calm. “Tell me when.”

“Crank the chair down,” he repeated.

“Yes. Certainly.”

Theo nudged him with an elbow. “Here they come!”

In their space suits, it was impossible for Dorn to tell who was the mother and who the daughter.

Close behind them six other figures were speeding toward them: the scavengers from
Vogeltod.

“Hurry!” Theo urged.

Dorn saw two of the scavengers peel off, away from the others. They were carrying some kind of bulky equipment. A weapon? he wondered.

“I'm ready to light off the fusion drive,” Elverda's voice reported.

Theo was attaching a tether to one of the cleats on the hull just outside the airlock hatch. Before Dorn could ask him why the youngster jumped out into the vacuum and reached for the nearer of the two women. He pushed her toward the airlock, then stretched his arms out toward the other one.

Dorn grabbed at the woman as she coasted into the airlock and helped stop her headlong rush. “You're safe now,” he said.

He could see the frightened expression on her face through her glassteel helmet. “For how long?” Pauline asked.

Theo clutched at his sister's outstretched hand and tugged her toward the airlock.

“Thee! Look out!” Angela screamed.

One of the scavengers was speeding toward them. Theo pushed Angela toward the airlock hatch and turned to face the approaching man. He could see Kirk's face through the bubble of his nanofabric suit, lips pulled back in a savage grin. He was brandishing a long, deadly looking power drill.