“Quite easily, but if it triggers an alert, or otherwise attracts Hsontlosh’s attention, he is likely to—once again—shut down the ship’s systems. Except for the shift drive—he would isolate that to operate autonomously. That way, the fob cannot access and stop it.”
Riordan nodded. “My plan will keep the fob under the radar.”
Duncan hunched forward. “So exactly what is this plan, Commodore?”
Riordan leaned back far enough to see all their faces. “Here’s what I was thinking…”
* * *
Fourteen minutes later, a tone began chiming in sync with a pulsing light that appeared on Eku’s commplex. He stood quickly.
“What is it?” Riordan asked.
“Countdown sequence for standing shift! Hsontlosh may have detected our meeting, could be fearful that—”
“Forget Hsontlosh.” Riordan snatched the Ruger off the table, tossed it to Dora. She caught it in midair, went low, led the way out the door. As she did, Riordan asked, “How much time do we have?”
“It varies. There could be—”
“Best guess, Eku. And right now.” The room was already empty except for them.
“Ten, maybe twelve minutes. It—no! Wait!”
Riordan had grabbed Eku by the collar and was already dragging him out of his stateroom toward their first objective: the utility storage locker and its paint supplies. “No time to wait. Time to act.”
“But we weren’t finished. The plan isn’t complete!”
“They almost never are, Eku.”
“Then what do we do?”
Riordan smiled. “We improvise. As usual. Get moving.”
Chapter Sixty-Seven
MARCH 2125
DEEP SPACE, BD+13 778
The final “ready” signal—sent by Ayana’s assault team—chirped from Riordan’s collarcom. He activated the fob’s door override, muttered, “Go.”
Two bounds and he was across the passageway separating the maintenance utility locker from the now-opening iris valve of the prohibited compartment. Duncan, Newton, and Eku—who, like Caine, were stripped down to their underwear—followed him into the compartment, paint sprayers in their hands.
Rather than the open space that Eku had told them to expect, they discovered twelve cryopods, six against both the fore and aft bulkheads, stacked in two layers on purpose-built racks. Covering the entirety of the far bulkhead were ten very narrow semitransparent doors. Although appearing like very compact shower stalls, they seemed to be storage units. Riordan ran to where the left-hand bulkhead met the back, and started scaling the cryopod rack toward his objective: the sensor cluster high in that corner, just where Eku said it would be.
Duncan, who was making the same climb toward the high right-hand corner, swore beneath his breath. “Just our damned luck. No tools or weapons.”
“Maybe in the storage units,” Riordan said as he raised his sprayer and coated the sensor in smart paint. “Check them when you’re done.”
He dropped to the ground as Yaargraukh entered the now-blind room, carrying an outsized paint canister in one hand and a bulging duffel bag in the other. He set the duffel down, pulled out a belt—the tough, woven one from Craig Girten’s old fatigues—and began lashing it to the canister’s handle, which was already locked in the extended position.
An unmistakably Dornaani klaxon started groan-hooting.
Eku clambered down from one of the corners closest to the iris valve and stated the obvious. “Hsontlosh has discovered the breach, knows what we have seen.”
As Newton hopped down from the last of the blinded corner-sensors and began scanning the cryopods, Riordan checked his wristlink. “How soon can we expect a response, Eku?”
“It is already on its way.”
Riordan’s collarcom emitted a quick sequence of three tones; they repeated. He spoke so everyone could hear. “Two repair bots just came out of the engineering section, heading forward along the starboard passageway.”
“How quickly are they moving?” asked Eku.
Riordan shook his head. “Not part of the codes we set. But not fast enough to warrant a report over open comms.”
Duncan put his face up against one of the lockers to get a glimpse of its contents through the frosted panel. “Some kind of standard pack in each one, along with a few personal effects. Probably for the coldsleepers.”
“Any way to get in?”
“Nope. No handles or locks. Just a small black control tab that doesn’t respond.”
Eku halted in surprise when he saw the units, moved over to them with a growing frown. “They are activated by a dedicated fob. But…”
“But what?”
“I know these storage units.” Reaching a locker, he peered inside. “And I know those packs. They are ours.”
“Ours?”
He turned toward Riordan quickly. “Standard issue for factotums. What you would call a survival kit or go-bag. But that means…”
Riordan followed Eku’s suddenly horrified gaze toward the cryopods, called out to Newton as the factotum approached them. “Are any of those ’pods our models?”
Newton was kneeling alongside the one nearest the iris valve, inspecting it closely. “No. The manufacture and writing is Dornaani, but the occupants—”
“Are human,” Eku finished for him, staring through one of the fogged observation panels. “They’re all factotums.”
Duncan finished trying the last storage locker, crossed behind Riordan to join Yaargraukh, who was waiting and listening at the open entry.
“So what the hell is Hsontlosh doing with these cold cells?” Caine murmured, mostly to himself.
“I don’t know, but they didn’t come with the ship,” Newton muttered. “Look at the dust pattern on the floor, around the rack. These cells were all shoved in here recently.” He moved rapidly from pod to pod. “The occupants are elderly. Very. Advanced geriatric degeneration. They wouldn’t last five minutes without full life support.”
Duncan was helping Yaargraukh tie a hand loop into the loose end of the belt knotted to the paint canister; human fingers were faster and better at that job. “So why move these people around? What does Hsontlosh have to gain?”
Eku leaned back from one of the cold cells. “Factotum genetics are groomed to remove all congenital flaws, but they are otherwise unchanged from the first population, taken almost twenty millennia ago. The Ktor are said to have an intense interest in original human genecodes.”
Riordan’s collarcom chirped out a new sequence of tones. He relayed the message to the others. “The first two repairbots passed the airlock. ETA here is ninety seconds. The third bot just came out of engineering, following the same path.”
Eku stopped as he passed the last of the cryopods, frowned at what he saw. He put his face close against its misty panel, and then started back, incredulous. “I know this sleeper! He…he chose to go into Virtua decades ago. What…why does Hsontlosh have him here?”
Riordan hadn’t the heart to say what Newton blurted out. “This isn’t about genetics. This is about information.”
“But…?”
Riordan spoke rapidly; there wasn’t time for anything else. “Eku, you factotums know Dornaani technology. You learn the Custodians’ capabilities, their secrets.”
Newton’s voice was harsh as he added, “And this bunch is just another black market commodity that won’t be missed. Which is perfect for Ktoran purposes.”
“Movement at the bend in the corridor!” hissed Duncan. “Five seconds!”
Yaargraukh stepped back as the humans crowded behind the bulkheads flanking the iris valve, Riordan and Eku to the left, Newton and Duncan to the right.
As they did, a smooth hum of multiple roller-spheres became audible out in the corridor, grew rapidly louder. Without any pause, the first repairbot glided over the valve’s threshold—
Riordan and the others swarmed it, spraying paint into its sensors at close range. The smart fluid worked like pl
aster amoebas; each blast cohered, clumped, and then rapidly hardened.
As it did, the bot thrashed in the direction of the paint streams, but the humans had jumped away. A moment later, they darted in again, smacking it with their chair-leg clubs, always from a different direction. Except from the extreme right flank.
That was where Yaargraukh stood, legs braced, both hands swinging the belt-leashed paint canister around his head. Two fast spins and it was already making a low, lethal moaning sound—right before the Hkh’Rkh stepped forward and stretched his arms further into the rotation.
The canister finished its arc by crashing into the top-mounted processing cluster that was the bot’s head. Its arms twitched in unison, roved more wildly as Riordan waved the others back and Yaargraukh got the can swinging again.
Still in the corridor, the second repairbot attempted to press forward, but its damaged mate couldn’t move aside quickly enough to let it enter the fray.
Yaargraukh grunted as a last vicious yank to the belt-handle added a pulse of extra force to the canister just before it smashed into the bot’s head and disintegrated. Metal fragments flew everywhere. As did the paint, most of which splashed in a wave against the near wall and spattered across the lower chassis of the second bot.
But part of that wave sheeted across Newton’s torso and legs. A torrent of smaller droplets sprayed Duncan. Riordan discovered few specks on his arm, felt them start to congeal…
Damn it, when the paint hardens… “Into the corridor! Next attack! Now!”
* * *
Unit Three, the third repair robot, was running a self-diagnostic when a priority alert preempted all other functions. The passengers were endangering the ship’s systems. Unit One was already disabled just beyond the ingress to compartment 17-B. Four humans were attempting to work around it to reach Unit Two, which was preparing to attack them with its actuators.
The ship’s computer instructed Unit Three to support Unit Two, ordering it to follow the same route and relaying real-time images of the starboard corridor leading to the airlock and the left-hand turn just beyond it.
Unit Three sped forward and engaged its retrofitted defense protocol.
As it approached the deceleration point for navigating the bend beyond the airlock, the corridor video feed alerted it to an anomaly. The inner hatch of the airlock was ajar, as was a nearby suit locker. The airlock’s interior sensor was functioning, but was apparently covered. However, Unit Three’s own records indicated that the passengers had left the hatch ajar numerous times over the past three months. The repairbot dismissed the supposed anomaly as an established trend and remained focused upon reaching Unit Two.
As Unit Three drew abreast of the airlock, its audio sensors detected a faint sound from its rear right flank. An instant later, the corridor sensors showed the airlock hatch swinging inward, opening more fully.
Unit Three’s threat assessment subroutine engaged, but was abruptly overridden by a priority warning from the ship’s computer. The same instant the passengers acquired access to compartment 17-B, the security archive had ceased recording and the preceding 389.1 seconds had been wiped. In consequence, the computer lost prior locational data on the passengers. It instructed Unit Three to turn and attack one or more humans that were presumed to be approaching from the airlock.
Unit Three turned, arms extending in accord with its new orders…
…and its video sensors discovered a vac-suited female passenger—the one labeled Veriden—in contact range. Helmet open, the human’s face was seamed in the expression known as a “smile,” which was occluded as it raised an object to within fifteen centimeters of Unit Three’s sensor cluster.
The object was a sprayer.
The last useful video data Unit Three received from its sensor cluster was a sudden, expanding bloom of paint.
* * *
As soon as the bot was blinded, Dora leapt back, just a moment ahead of the first defensive scissoring of its arms. Bannor raced out of the airlock, vac suit open, both hands wrapped around the straps of a rescue airpack he held cocked behind him. He sidestepped to the robot’s far right flank, swung the pack as hard as he could.
The impact sent a jolt all the way up his arms and into his shoulders. A few pieces from the robot came loose as the pack rebounded and he hefted it for another attack.
The bot swayed in his direction, righting itself, manipulators extending. Stepping into the growing momentum as if he were throwing the hammer in the Olympics, Bannor put his full weight behind the second swing.
* * *
Yaargraukh dropped the remains of his makeshift flail, reached back into the duffel bag. Newton was cursing, limbs already sluggish as the paint stiffened. He wasn’t going to be fast enough to slide through the narrow gap between the first bot and the side of the iris valve, not before the second robot smashed him or gutted him like a fish.
Riordan waved Newton back. “Duncan, take his place. We go together. It can’t cover both gaps at once. Eku, you’ll follow me—”
But Eku jumped forward at the sound of his name, not waiting to hear the rest of the orders. He misgauged the angle between the inert bot and the side of the iris valve, took a moment to angle sideways, and then slipped through.
Damnit! “Duncan, go!” Riordan yelled as he snaked through the gap after Eku.
The factotum’s momentary pause had allowed the second repairbot to swing toward him, right arm pivoting outward as Eku raised his chair-leg club.
The robot’s arm crashed into Eku’s, mashing it against the chassis of its motionless mate. The chair-leg left flew out of the factotum’s hand as he bounced off the first repairbot with a high-pitched groan.
But Duncan had already dodged through the slightly wider aperture on the other side of the dead bot. He whacked the active one with his own club.
It rotated toward Solsohn, just as Riordan slipped through on the other side, hopping over Eku to bring his own club down on the back of the second machine. When Duncan retreated hastily, it spun toward Riordan.
Whose cheeks were aching from a wide, savage grin as the robot came forward. Ever play monkey in the middle, Tin Man?
* * *
Bannor’s second swing slammed the airpack directly into the third repairbot’s sensor cluster, rocking the whole unit. A quick duck and roll as its arms flailed momentarily, and then Bannor was beyond its ready reach. It followed his movements awkwardly, now guided solely by images relayed from the passageway sensors.
For that same reason, it was unable to react in time when Dora leaped out of the airlock again, paint sprayer in one hand, asteroid pitons in the other, and a prospector’s mooring hammer hanging around her neck. She slipped past the bot and tossed the sprayer to Bannor, who caught it and leaped toward the nearest bulkhead’s sensor cluster. He set the sprayer to full power, raised it, and coated the passageway sensors with a blast of paint.
Dora, behind the reach of the bot’s manipulators, jammed the point of a piton into the louvre of its rear exhaust vent. According to Eku, a slightly down-angled penetration there would reach the primary processor.
The repairbot was starting to roll backward, probably in an attempt to crush Dora against the bulkhead behind it, when she brought the hammer down. The bot quaked, then haltingly resumed its rearward motion.
Just as Dora drove in a second spike. The unit froze in place, inert.
She slipped out of the narrow space left between the back of the robot and the bulkhead, cursing.
“I thought you were all about one shot kills,” Bannor quipped as she slid the hammer into a smart ring on her vac suit.
“Go to hell,” she muttered. “Couldn’t punch a hole in the processor until the first piton opened a gap.”
Bannor thought she had lisped at the end of the last word, then realized it hadn’t been her: a faint hissing sound was rising…
Dora looked up sharply. “Here comes the gas.” She slapped her helmet closed and sprinted toward the second bend
of the passageway’s dogleg, where Caine and the others were probably still fighting the second repairbot.
Bannor ducked back into the airlock. Sealing his own helmet with a downward snap of his chin, he grabbed the waiting bundle of four more lightweight Dornaani spacesuits and ran after Dora.
Now, assuming Ayana remained alert for any sign that the ship’s computer was beginning to compensate for the fob’s erasure of its recent security data, this crazy plan just might succeed.
* * *
Ayana Tagawa, leaning over the commplex in Eku’s room, saw a shuddering glitch in the ultrahigh-definition images being streamed by the astrography program she was running; the ship’s computer had briefly shifted a huge part of its processing resources. “Jam the hatch!” she shouted over her shoulder.
Craig Girten triggered the iris valve and pulled a chair into the opening, just as the valve reversed into a high-speed contraction. Which it automatically aborted as soon as it encountered the obstruction.
Tagawa dragged another chair with her, heard a series of faint snaps along the corridor in either direction. “Security protocols,” she said in response to Craig’s perplexed expression. “The computer will lock every hatch it can until it reestablishes full control.”
Girten leaned back into Eku’s quarters, handed out the lead of a knotted chain of bed sheets and blankets. Ayana took it, nose wrinkling at the uniquely nauseating combination of odors: several different thinners and solvents from the maintenance locker mixed with sugar, syrup, and cooking oil from the galley. Girten picked up a wad at the middle length of that same string of sodden linens, glanced back to make sure that the last third was spread widely enough on the stateroom’s floor that it would feed smoothly. “Ready,” he said.
Tagawa nodded, turned, and sprinted up the passageway, unreeling the knotted band of cloth and linen in her wake. From well behind, a cacophony of clangs and flat crashes told her that the ambush on the robots was in full swing.
As if pushed on by that din, she ran harder, had a momentary vision of herself doing some bizarre sprinter’s version of the carmagnole, unfurling tapestries of death and anarchy.
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