The City Who Fought

by S. M. Stirling

  She opened her eyes.

  03:01.

  She was midway between the receding colony-ship and the station.

  “I estimate that you’ll run out of air three minutes before you reach the station,” Simeon said. “But, if you take the most direct route, that unfortunately will take you right through the thickest concentration of spilled ore.”

  “Shit!” Patsy hissed. “Tell me somethin‘ Ah don’t know!”

  Channa fought down an oxygen wasting sigh. “Play safe?”

  “Then you’ll fall short by four minutes, eight seconds.”

  “Play safe. Don’t want a shell full a holes.”

  Simeon was silent for a moment, feeding the pilot instructions for avoiding the worst of the ore-meteor cloud.

  “You’ve got more guts than sense, Channa.”

  Patsy closed one eye and laughed. “Mind now, Ah didn’t say Ah didn’t like it, Ah was just remarkin‘ on it.” She opened her eye. “Y’hold on now, we’re goin’ through like a scalded armadillo.”

  Channa’s breathing began to rasp; psychological, but it wasted air.

  Oh, God, don’t let her die, he thought. That shell’s hanging out there. Is the mass of the tug enough to shield him from debris?

  Even one pebble of ore at the right angle and all her sacrifice would be for nothing. Simeon knew Channa was about to undergo an experience that would feel like dying. Humans could survive for several minutes without air—hours, sometimes, in cold water. The length of time to brain death was utterly unpredictable but oxygen deprivation might cause brain damage.

  Despite a very real and intense anxiety about Channa, his thoughts inexorably returned to the shell . . . to Guiyon. He’s alone in the dark, Simeon said to himself, Channa’s got Patsy, and me. Sensory deprivation would make every second feel like a subjective hour, and the backups would keep the shellperson conscious until the last precious molecules of nutrient were gone. Simeon wished desperately that he could spare hum the nightmare.

  “Headache,” Channa gasped. “Hurts.” Her head lolled, would have fallen forward if the savage high-G acceleration had allowed it.

  Her breathing was rasping louder now and not psychosomatic. It was instinct—the hindbrain telling the lungs that they were suffocating. The readouts showed an adrenaline surge, just the wrong thing. Reflexes older than her remote reptile ancestors were preparing the body to fight free of whatever barred it from air.

  “Hang on, Channa, hang on,” Simeon chanted. Then: “Can’t you go any faster?”

  “Not ‘lessn you want this here tug smeared all over the loadin’ bay,” Patsy said grimly.

  “Isn’t inertia wonderful?” Gusky muttered to himself, looking down again at the readings, fourteen kps and building. Not very fast, but the battered remnant of the hulk still massed multiple kilotons.

  “Bit of a paradox,” one of the volunteer miners said. “I want this thing as far from the station as I can get it—but I want to be as far away from it as possible myself.”

  “Ho. Ho. Ho,” Gusky said. “Number three, you’re a little off synch. Don’t waste our delta-V.”

  “What’s our safety margin, Gus?”

  “That depends on when Simeon tells us to cut and run.” I’m really, really sorry I got you mad at me, Simeon! “I’d like to get twenty klicks from the station before we drop the thing. But, what can I tell ya? If she blows without warning, if the explosives don’t do what they’re supposed to, if we don’t get far enough away before she goes . . . actually, I don’t think we have a safety margin.”

  “Sorry I asked.”

  “Hmph.”

  Simeon’s voice broke in. “Prepare to drop in one minute seven seconds from mark. Mark. Get it right, Gus.”

  “Yeah,” said one of the miners who had rigged the charges, “that thing has to stay in the same attitude. Charges won’t be half as effective if it’s tumbling.”

  “Roger that,” Simeon said. No time for a linkup. They’d have to listen, really carefully. “Everyone got that mark?”

  A chorus of affirmatives. Gusky licked sweat from his upper lip. He’d never told Simeon, exactly, but his five-year hitch in the Navy had been pretty uneventful: patrols, exercises, showing the flag, mapping expeditions. The most nerve-wracking moments had been the fleet handball competitions and surprise inspections.

  “You pull the trigger, right?” he said.

  “You got it, buddy,” Simeon replied. His voice had less timbre, less humanity to it than usual.

  “I hate being reassured in a voice that calm.”

  I’ve got other things on my mind. “Channa’s suit got hit. She’s running out of air.”

  “Oh.” I screwed the pooch again, goddammit. “Sorry.”

  “Get ready.”

  The tugs were arrayed around the great tattered bulk of the intruder ship like the legs of a starfish, linked by the invisible bonds of the grapnel fields. Gusky kept the rear-field screen on at a steady 25x magnification. When the fields released, the image of the hulk seemed to disappear into a point-source of light in less than a heartbeat. Vision went gray at the edges, before the engines cycled down to something bearable. Tugs necessarily had high power-to-weight ratios. Then the shrinking dot of the derelict blinked with colorless fire.

  Gusky cycled the screen to higher magnification. “Phew,” he said gustily. The charges had cut the remaining forward section loose from the half-melted engine compartment and its core. Joined to the power module, whatever parts of the ship did not vaporize would be hyper-velocity shrapnel in all directions. With a klick or so distance and a vector away from the station, much less could go wrong. Blast is less dangerous without an atmosphere to propagate in. There is nothing to carry the shock wave except the actual gases of the explosion and they disperse rapidly. Given minimal luck, the explosion would just kick what was left of the hulk further away.

  “When will it—”

  The screen blanked protectively. So did his faceplate and the forward ports of the tug’s cabin. Beside him the copilot flung his hand up in useless reflex. Even from the rear, the intensity of light was overwhelming.

  “Did it work?” Gusky called as visibility returned. That was not as reassuring as it could have been. Half the sensors and telltales on the board were blinking red.

  “Sorry.” This time Simeon did sound sorry. “That ship . . . the engines were so old, the parameters were different . . . There’s a lot more secondary radiation and subflux than I thought there would be.”

  “Thanks,” Gusky said facetiously. “All right, people, report.”

  “I’ve got a flux in my drive cores I can’t damp,” one of the volunteers said immediately. “Induction, I guess. Getting worse.”

  “Let me see it,” Gusky said, surprised at his own calm. This was much better than waiting; there wasn’t time to be worried. “All right, you’ve got a feedback loop there and it’s past redline. Set your controls for maximum acceleration at ninety degrees to the ecliptic with a one-minute delay, then bail out.”

  “Hey, this is my tug.” the volunteer wailed.

  “It’s going to be your ball of incandescent gas in about ten minutes,” Gusky said grimly. “Or hot gas that includes you. Take your pick.”

  Simeon cut in. “Station will pick up full replacement costs.”

  “Lobachevsy and Wong, you’re closest,” Gusky said, “pick ‘em up!” Gusky’s pickups showed the luckless volunteers jetting away on backpack and their craft streaking for deep space on autopilot. “The rest of you, dump me some data.”

  “Yessir, Admiral,” one replied dryly.

  The information dutifully came in. “Okay, Lobachevsky, Wong, you look functional, sort of. Take the others with overstrained drives in tow, and we’ll go back nice and slow and easy.” With several millions’ worth of tug that just became so much scrap. Suddenly boring routine becomes very attractive as a way of life. War games are excitement enough.

  He touched the control surfaces to establish a
tight line circuit to the station. “Simeon, what about us?”

  “Let’s put it this way, Gus. None of you are going to die. But some of you aren’t going to be very happy for a while, either. Sickbay will be crowded.” A long pause. “Congratulations.”

  Gus grinned; half of that was relief from raw fear. Everyone who lives in space is afraid of decompression, which is why many become agoraphobic planetside. Those who do much EVA work or serve on warships develop a similar fear of radiation, which has the added terror of killing insidiously. On the other hand, most dangers in space either kill cleanly or let live.

  “You’re welcome,” the big man continued. “What about Channa?”

  Patsy’s voice joined in. “She’s gonna be fahn. Hey, Gus,” she went on lazily, “you thaink people will respect us for this?”

  Gusky keyed for the visuals. He got a double view, overhead from the docking chamber where the tug rested in its cradle and from the vehicle itself. Both showed Channa Hap being carried off in a floating stretcher.

  “Phew. Glad she made it okay.”

  “Yayuh, mah sentiments exactly. Got a good one thar.”

  Gusky nodded. On station, Channa acted like a cryonic bitch, he thought, but she’s there when it comes down to cases. This was the worst emergency SSS-900 had faced in the time he’d been here. SSS-900-C, he reminded himself.

  “I dunno,” he said, “I never respected anyone who led from the rear.”

  She laughed. “Hey! This might get us a nice rest cure somewhar pretty. We could go tagetha.” She made the last a question.

  “If any two parts of us are still stuck together when this is over, Patsy, you got a date.”

  “Unh-hunh!” she said enthusiastically.

  Hey, first base, Gusky thought. After thirty months of ritualized sparring so routine it had gotten to be as comfortably low-key as playing war games with Simeon. That is, if I’m not sick as a puke once sickbay gets through with me. Doctor Chaundra believed in repairing you rapidly. In some circles he was known as “Kill or Cure Chaundra.”

  “I need a drink,” he said solemnly.

  “Ah’ll buy,” Patsy said.

  Chapter Seven

  Channa woke to an excruciating, high-pitched wailing.

  The engines! she thought. I’m still on the derelict! I’ve got to get out of here!

  She lifted her head with a gasp and laid it back down again with a heartfelt groan. This has to be a fatal headache, she thought, nobody could feel like this and live.

  The ceiling overhead was a soothing pale blue as were the privacy screens around her. There was a vase of flowers on the bedside table and a bank of portable equipment on the other side, quietly talking to itself and occasionally waving a sensor probe over her body. A suit of working clothes, overtights and jacket and belt, were draped on a clothes stand at the foot of the bed. The air had a slight, pleasant scent of cedar.

  Sickbay, she thought. The ambience was unmistakable.

  The wailing went on and on, sometimes breaking into sharp yelps. I hope I live long enough to kill whoever is making that racket.

  “Who is that?” she finally demanded.

  “Ah, Channa,” said Simeon in a voice as soft as rain water.

  Channa sighed and closed her eyes again. It was restful, and her body was beginning to accept that she was alive and in no danger. Which was a difficult thing, if you’d gone under deeply concerned about your chances of ever waking up again.

  “Welcome back to the living,” said a flatter voice with a lilting singsong accent. There was a sound of movement.

  She opened her eyes to see Doctor Chaundra leaning over her. He had his professional expression on; a sort of antiseptic smile, nothing like the genuine enthusiasm he showed in a social situation talking about his specialty. Channa managed the complex procedure of smiling and wincing simultaneously.

  “My head,” she said in a croaking voice, feebly raising a shaking hand to rub her brow.

  “Got just the thing,” he said. He touched the angle of her throat with an injector. It hissed and she felt a touch of cold.

  Almost instantly, the pain boring its way into her brain began to fade. “Oh, Ghu! that’s better.” She licked dry lips.

  “No, I have merely blocked the pain,” the doctor said pedantically. “The organic damage is minimal but will take several days to heal.”

  “Thirsty?” She raised her brows in pathetic query.

  Chaundra poured a glass of water from a bedside carafe, put in a straw and handed it to her.

  She sucked greedily on the straw, mindful of her head position, and handed him the empty glass. “More,” she demanded. He refilled it, and she drained it again almost as soon as he handed it to her. The wailer took off again. Channa frowned. “Who’s that badly hurt?”

  He grimaced. “She’s one of the people we evacuated from the ship; the first one awake. We don’t know who she is. She’s done nothing but shriek since she woke up. To answer your other question, no, she’s not badly hurt. She’s dehydrated, and probably has a headache like yours from that, and she had a bloody nose from the abrupt deceleration.”

  There was an especially violent shriek and the sound of something metal tipping over and of things scattering. Voices murmured soothing words in edged tones.

  “If she can scream like that with a headache like the one I woke up with, she’s crazy,” Channa said.

  Chaundra nodded. “That, too, is a possibility, but I feel that she is presently venting hysteria as a by-product of coldsleep.” He sighed. “The earliest methods sometimes had the effect of suppressing basic inhibition.”

  “Can’t you give her something?” Simeon asked from a wall mike. “That sound has just gone from pathetic to seriously annoying.”

  “No,” the medical chief replied. “Or rather, I’d prefer not to immediately. They drugged themselves rather heavily, indeed, presumably to keep their oxygen consumption down. I’ve no idea for how long a period of time, but from their physical condition, it must have been too long.” He gave another of his sighs. “I’d really rather not put anything else into her system. Especially since many of the substances they used seem to have been past recommended shelf life, or discontinued types, or both.”

  “They say that if someone gets hysterical, a simple slap across—” Simeon began.

  Chaundra interrupted him. “I am thinking that has more to do with relieving the frustration of the listeners than the distress of the patient,” he said with a resigned smile.

  “You’re a saint, Doctor,” Channa told him. Actually she knew that he was a pacifist widower with a passion for surgery, but no matter. “But I’m not. So, before I’m compelled to go over there and knock the little git through the wall, I’d like to get out of here.”

  He smiled and touched the machine. It waved more probes over her, prodding in two or three sensitive places. The readouts had him nodding almost at once. “Yes, you can be going now.”

  She stood with a satisfied sigh. “Um, is there anyone coherent awake yet?”

  “Yes, a young man. He’s still more than a bit groggy, so we haven’t let him up yet. He wants to help this girl.”

  “Can’t you put him on a pallet or in a chair and push him over there?” Simeon asked. “It might help both of them.”

  “Depends,” Chaundra said, “on how he’s doing.”

  “Just seeing him might help her,” Channa suggested.

  “Worth a try,” Chaundra shrugged and grabbed a float chair from a cluster of them by the door. “Over here,” he said and Channa followed, pulling on a dressing gown.

  The man in question was the beautiful lad she herself had packed up. Simeon watched Channa’s pupils enlarge and decided that she was probably responding even more enthusiastically than she had on the ship. Pheromones, he told himself wisely. And fewer distractions.

  The young man had raised himself up on one elbow, a slight sweat glistening on his shapely brow. He looked at them with distress in his light blue
eyes.

  “Please, let me go to her,” he pleaded. His accent was exquisite, his voice a light baritone. The language was recognizable Standard, although the vowels had an archaic tonality.

  From the look on her face, Simeon decided that Channa would have taken him to hell if he wanted to go. Simeon wanted him off the station.

  Guys like him cause more trouble than beautiful females, Simeon thought. On the other hand, if he can shut that screamer up, I’ll put him on the payroll.

  Channa and Chaundra helped the Adonis into the chair and pushed him over to the pallet where the young woman lay. He reached out for her hand and began stroking it.

  She had waist-length dark hair and a pale, bony face with plain features and high cheekbones. Long, gold-lashed eyes of a dark blue that was almost black stared at him, her screeches cut off for a blissful moment of silence. Then the whites showed all round the iris of her eyes, and before Channa or Chaundra could stop her, she had grabbed the carafe from the table beside her and was swinging it at him.

  “You did this! You could have killed me! I almost died!”

  The metal carafe connected with his temple in a sickening smack. The young man slid bonelessly from the chair while, not content with the damage she’d just inflicted, the girl strove to climb over the safety railings on the side of her pallet, shrieking that it was his fault, all his fault. Then she began to sob with equal vigor. “My love, my love, what have they done to you?”