This Day All Gods Die (88 page)

That made sense. He was beyond saving: Vestabule had accomplished that, if nothing else. He was the logical candidate.

Angus should have been glad. He was glad. He needed Dios' helmet. Nevertheless the man he'd become felt the loss of something more precious than an undamaged faceplate. He was afflicted by the same cutting sense of bereavement which had confused him a long time ago when he beat up Morn: the sense that he diminished himself by exacting his own fear from someone else.

"We're out of time, Angus," Vector put in tensely. "That module wasn't made for maneuvers like this. And even if Captain Ubikwe can hold his position, one of our ships might hit him.

"We've come this far. Let's finish it."

"No," Davies contradicted at once. "He won't get hit.

Director Donner said she'll hold fire until we're clear."

Maybe he still hoped they could think of some way to save Dios.

"That's a lot to ask," Vector murmured dubiously.

"She's ED."

"But she keeps her promises," Dios stated without hesitation. "That's one of at least six things I love about her."

He sounded oddly cheerful, almost happy, like a man whose attempt at restitution was nearly complete.

He tossed the laser cutter back to Angus; then approached Vestabule's corpse and hunted in the Amnioni's pockets until he found a small vial. A wry grin twisted his mouth as he showed the vial to Angus, Davies, Vector.

It contained at least half a dozen small capsules.

"Things aren't as bad as they look. Each of these lasts an hour. I'll stay human long enough."

Long enough to reach UMCPHQ, where DA had more of the antimutagen Hashi Lebwohl had given Nick.

Oh, shit, Angus groaned. Shit and damnation. Abruptly his relief and regret flip-flopped; became stark panic and resolve.

Dios wanted to go with them.

Someone else would have to stay behind.

Or Angus would have to take a risk so desperate that the mere idea made his guts slosh like water.

The man he'd become seemed to have no choice. In one swift motion he unslung the extra EVA suit from his back, tossed it to Dios. "Put this on," he ordered through his teeth.

"Fast. Vector's right. The fat man won't be able to hold his position for long."

And Vestabule must have called for help.

"Wait a minute," Davies objected. "Does that mean you want Vector to stay behind?"

The tension in his voice suggested that he thought he should volunteer for another sacrifice.

"No," Angus snapped bitterly. "It means I want you to shut the fuck up and let me concentrate."

He knew everything the UMCP knew about his EVA suit; every tolerance and molecule. According to his databases, he should be able to—

His EM prosthesis was useless now. He would have to trust his human sight—

and the machine accuracy of his com-

puter. A millimeter too much, and his faceplate would be too weak to hold. A millimeter too little, and the cracks wouldn't be sealed. Either way, the plexulose would blow out at the first touch of vacuum.

Either way, he would be effectively blind when he died.

Gripping his helmet in the crook of his arm, he set the cutter to its lowest power, its widest beam, and began to stroke coherent crimson across the surface of the faceplate, melting and fusing plexulose along the worst of the cracks.

God, this was stupid. No way in hell it could ever work.

His databases insisted this kind of plexulose could be laser-formed. Sculptors used it because they could cut and shape it without stressing the molecular lattice. But no one had ever tried to restore a faceplate's integrity by hand.

And whether he succeeded or failed, the plate's polarization was ruined. If Mikka had been forced to raise Trumpet's dispersion field, he would be defenseless against the EM agony of the boson storm.

He wanted to believe he'd never done anything this stupid in his whole life. The idea conveyed a peculiar reassurance.

Nevertheless he knew this was only the culmination of a long series of terrified decisions and cruel mistakes. He wouldn't be where he was if he hadn't done that and that and that; if he hadn't fled from violence to violence across all the years of his life.

Whatever happened now, he would have to face it without the comfort of a convenient lie.

In a minute he was done. Live or die, there was nothing else he could do. He put the laser in a belt pouch so that he could reach it easily.

Dios had already suited himself; sealed his helmet; adjusted his hips in the jets' waldo harness. He, Davies, and Vector were ready to go.

Fiercely Angus set his own helmet in place, locked it to the suit's neck-ring, and powered up his systems, filling the thin material with atmosphere and circulation.

Status indicators inside his helmet came to life. Most of them flashed danger at him. But the integrity blip showed green.

For now.

"Angus." Davies' voice crackled in his speakers. "Can you see?"

"No," Angus admitted. His faceplate was almost completely opaque: it blinded him like a cataract. "There's a strip along the edges I can use," enough visibility to let him deal with the airlock, "that's all." Words stuck in his throat. He had to force himself to say, "I'll need help."

Help finding his way across the gap to the command module.

"No problem." Dios sounded like he couldn't stop grinning. "What are friends for?"

Angus wanted to explain exactly what he thought of the UMCP director's "friendship." But he didn't have time. And he'd forgotten that part of himself.

He'd taken too long, concentrated too hard. He knew the danger, but he'd ignored it. He was helpless as a child when he heard servos open one of the far doors of the hold.

He yelped a warning; tried to wheel away from threats he couldn't see. Bodies blundered against him, blocked his way.

Vector yelled, "Look out!" His cry rang in Angus' helmet, carried on the leading edge of impact fire.

Insanely precise, Angus' computer sorted through the roar and identified three guns, all blasting at once.

Hands shoved him aside. Simultaneously he heard a raw shout from Warden and the hard punch of return fire from Davies' rifle. Then a wall of force seemed to land on him out of nowhere. It drove him backward until he slammed against the bulkhead. Something—

or somebody—

seemed to hold him

there.

"Cover, Davies!" Dios howled. "God damn it, get to cover!"

Davies' gun blazed incessantly, as if he were laying down a barrage.

Angus couldn't see. They were all about to die because he'd taken too long; and he couldn't fucking see.

Desperation and his zone implants filled him with a transcendental rage. In an instant he crossed the gap between mortality and violence.

With one blow of his fist, he shattered his opaque faceplate. Shook shards of plexulose out of his face.

Found himself hidden against the bulkhead behind what was left of Vector's body.

Blood sprayed everywhere from Vector's shattered limbs and crumpled chest. Wounds like bomb craters gaped in his torn suit, his mangled flesh. He must have been hit by the combined force of all three enemy rifles.

Must have jumped in front of Angus to protect him because he couldn't see—

With his peripheral vision Angus saw Warden emerge from the airlock, take hold of Davies, and heave him by main strength toward the thin cover inside the iris. Impact fire answered furiously, slashing the air, scoring the bulkhead. But Davies' return fire had forced the Amnion to dodge and scatter. He and then Warden reached the airlock intact.

Curses Angus hardly heard bubbled in his chest, frothed in his throat. Vector was already dead; beyond pain. Angus reached up, unsealed Vector's helmet and stripped it aside.

Then he strode unarmed away from the bulkhead toward his assailants, holding up Vector's corpse as a shield.

His computer was right: there were three of them. As he advanced they shifted their attention from the airlock. Blast after blast, their rifles pounded Vector to pulp in his arms.

He'd used a weapon like that to kill Captain Davies Hyland, Morn's father.

He knew what impact rifles were for.

One of the guns lay on the floor no more than ten meters ahead of him, beside the body of the Amnioni which had carried it earlier. He felt the power of every blow that struck Vector; but he stalked forward remorselessly, augmented by rage. When he reached the rifle he stooped to snatch it up.

Then he activated his suit jets, released Vector, and jumped.

Davies fired wildly to cover him as he arced into the air.

His jets weren't strong enough to overcome the defensive's thrust g; but they lifted him higher than the Amnion expected.

Taken by surprise—

and distracted by Davies—

the Amnion

aimed too low. Their beams slashed death beneath Angus'

feet.

Quick as a machine, and accurate as targ, he picked them off from above before they could recover. Riding the pressure of his jets, he hit them onetwothree. Killed them all. They were dead by the time he passed the top of his arc and started downward.

The Amnion will not forget it.

The sight of their spewing blood left him as cold as deep space. He checked their bodies to see if they carried PCRs and pickups. They didn't. So they hadn't called for more help. Too bad. He was in the mood to kill any number of them.

You will never be safe.

But Warden shouted across the hold, asking him if he was all right. Davies cried out Vector's name, then swore and sobbed as if something inside him had broken.

Angus didn't have time for more killing.

He used his jets to help him hurry toward the place where he'd discarded Vector's helmet. When he saw that it was undamaged, he replaced his own with it; sealed it to the neck-ring of his suit. At once the status indicators began to flash green as they took power from his suit.

Vector had volunteered to stay behind once too often.

"Angus, " Davies cried softly. "Oh, Vector. God, Vector!

Angus, he saved—

"

Angus took his son by the arm, shook him roughly. "Tell me later!" he snapped. "We don't have time for this!"

"He's right, Davies." Warden's voice found an echo of loss in the helmet speakers. "We need to go."

Angus didn't wait for them. Grimly he moved into the airlock.

The inner iris was still open: he'd done so much damage to the wiring earlier that Calm Horizons couldn't override it.

But that posed another hazard. When he opened the outer seal, explosive decompression would vent the entire cargo hold through this relatively constricted passage. He and Davies and Warden would be hurled outward like rounds from a projectile cannon. If the blast itself didn't kill or stun them, they would be in danger of shooting far past the module and Trumpet; or of colliding with those vessels hard enough to crush ordinary human tissue and bone.

Nevertheless Angus didn't hesitate. He was too angry for doubt; too cold. As Davies and Warden joined him, he positioned himself in the center of the airlock and focused his EM

vision on the circuitry which controlled the outer iris.

Dios Stood beside him and clipped their belts to each other; fixed his fate to Angus'. Davies did the same on the other side.

There was nothing else they could do; no other precautions they could take. In the small space of the airlock the constant fury of Calm Horizons' matter cannon barrage mounted like endless lightning.

Angus grabbed the laser from his pouch; sighted his prosthesis; ran calculations and adjustments through his computer.

As if he were committing murder, he pressed the firing stud.

As soon as the iris began to cycle open, a hard fist of atmosphere flung him and his companions like debris out into the embattled dark.

exhaustion and loss, her

physical pain and tearing sorrow, Mikka Vasaczk found the will to survive.

To some extent she was held together by drugs. She'd taken enough stim and hype to convulse a weaker woman; pushed her body far past her normal limits with chemical enhancements. But that only helped her stay awake. It didn't make her strong.

And her efforts to accept Ciro's intentions didn't give her strength. She recognized that his need to follow the logic of his distress to its conclusion was more compulsory than life.

Yet he was her brother: he was all she had. Letting him go did little to help her live.

In part she was sustained by the companionable sound of Captain Ubikwe's voice. By intercom from the command module, he talked to her constantly, feeding her information and commentary in a deep, comfortable rumble which soothed her strained nerves. Apparently the last of his personal concerns had been relieved by Ciro's departure. He gave the impression that he was no longer worried about anything.

He couldn't possibly be as sure as he seemed. She refused to believe it. Nevertheless he projected nothing but confidence and relaxation as he described Angus' progress toward Calm Horizons' airlock; or UMCHO's attack on Suka Bator, and the withering fire of Min Donner's response to the station; or Ciro's awkward—

but effective—

journey with his grenade. He

warned Mikka cheerfully when he was ready to break the grip of Calm Horizons' docking seals so that Angus could reach the airlock. He told her everything she needed to know in order to power up Trumpet's drives safely; charge her guns; prepare the dispersion field generator.

He couldn't restrain a fierce cheer when the Amnioni's proton cannon abruptly exploded, shattering itself to scrap in a hail of quantum discontinuities and debris, as well as ripping a brutal hole in the big defensive's hulls. And after that he was briefly silent while Calm Horizons' matter cannon roared violence at every human target they could reach. Instead of talking he routed scan and status data to her screens so she could watch the assault; so she could see that Min Donner kept her promise not to strike back while Angus tried to rescue Davies, Vector, and Warden Dios. At the same time he brought up thrust to hold the module and Trumpet close to the Amnioni's airlock—