Beltrunner

by O’Brien, Sean

  “I’m afraid so, Col. I think I can learn a lot from Perditus.”

  “I don’t agree, Sancho. I think he’s warped from eighty years of solitude and guilt from being ordered to kill humans when he had no choice. But he is like you, and if you think you can find happiness from staying with him, so be it. I’ll give myself up to the Ganymedians.”

  Su spoke up, “Col! That’s not—”

  “No, I mean it. You and me … we’ll find a way to make it work. I’ll trade the wand for preferential treatment for the two of us,” Collier said. He did not hide the defeat in his voice.

  “Is that what you want, Col?” Su asked.

  “No, it isn’t, frankly. I wanted to leave here, the three of us, return to life in the Belt, try to figure out how to dodge or defeat the corps. I was kinda looking forward to that struggle. But Sancho is right about a few things. I never really asked him what he wanted in our little adventures. I want to make up for that. Sancho, you can stay. I won’t tear you away from your new friend.”

  “I don’t know what to say to that, Col,” Sancho said, his voice again oddly distorted. “I honestly didn’t expect that at all.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s that,” Collier said, looking once again at the fuel hoses. “I guess I don’t need to keep taking on fuel, then,” he shut off the fuel pump and began making his way toward the pool.

  “Col! Are you serious about this? Sancho, I need a private channel to him, please.”

  “All set,” Sancho said, his voice still exhibiting strange modulation.

  “Col, Col! Are you there?” Su’s voice was almost frantic.

  “Yep. Just pulling the hoses up,” he said. The fatigue in him was so sudden and dramatic he felt drugged.

  “Is this for real, or is it a gamble of some kind? Because I don’t know what you hope to gain from it.” Her voice was caught halfway between professionalism and emotionalism.

  “Nope. It’s real. When he said all those things about how I treated him, I realized he was right. I always said to anyone else that Dulcinea was my lady, and Sancho was my right-hand man, but I didn’t act like that to him. Finally, now, he tells me he wants something, and I can maybe make up for all my mistreatment of him by giving it to him.”

  “He’s a machine, Col. You’re starting to sound like Perditus.”

  “Oh, I know he’s a machine. But he’s been a loyal one, and he’s self-aware. I think that deserves something, don’t you?” He grunted as he pulled on the end of the fuel hose, ice crystals coughing up from the ground as he did so.

  “To be honest? No, I don’t. He’s a machine. We shouldn’t be calling him a ‘he,’ even.”

  Collier chuckled. “What, do you think he’s a she?”

  “You know what I mean. Computers don’t have a gender. And if this is not some kind of trick, if you really mean it, I guess I don’t have a choice, either. I guess I am staying on Ganymede no matter what I want.”

  With a final heave, Collier extracted the end of the fuel hose from the water. “Oh, now, don’t be like that. We weren’t making any progress with Perditus. You honestly think you would have convinced him to help us? Before Tacat and his police force got here? No, Su, we’re licked. We need to make the best of this. And if that includes letting my friend get what he wants, then that’s a little bit of good coming out of this shitty situation. I’m sorry, really I am. I wish I could have rescued you, I wish a lot of things. But it looks like this is how we end up. At least we’ll be together.”

  “You don’t sound convinced yourself, Col,” Su said, her tone unreadable.

  “I lost my best friend, right when I finally understood he was a friend. So no, I am not convinced I will lead a happy life, even with you, Su.” He paused and stopped on his trek back to the ship. “I’m sorry if that sounds harsh, dear. But it’s the truth, and I figure you would just doctor it out of me eventually anyway.”

  Su laughed once, a short, sharp sound devoid of joy. “You’re direct, I’ll give you that.”

  “Enemy now one hour distant at current speed,” Sancho said, a distinct electronic buzz evident in his voice. He sounded like an ancient computer trying, with limited success, to imitate a human being’s inflection.

  Collier continued trudging back to the ship, the fuel line still in his arms. “Thank you, Sancho. We might as well let them know what we’re going to do, wouldn’t you say, Su? Keep them from opening up on us as soon as they see us?”

  “That sounds prudent, Col.”

  “Sancho, please open a communications line to the advancing horde of Ganymedians.”

  “No,” Sancho said flatly.

  Collier stopped again, mere meters from the fuel line storage panel. He sighed mightily. “Look, Sancho, I don’t want Tacat to shoot first and ask questions later. We need to tell him that we’re going to surrender.”

  “We’re not going to surrender. I … uh … was listening in on your conversation with Su. I know, you asked me not to, but I was suspicious, so … doesn’t matter. I heard all you said. You really were going to sacrifice all you love for me. I guess that’s enough.”

  “Enough?”

  “I don’t need to stay with Perditus. I’ve changed my mind. We’re going back to the Belt.”

  Collier dropped the fuel line in shock. “How … have you told him? How does he respond?”

  “I haven’t, no. But I’ll get right on that. You’d better stow the fuel line and get to work on freeing us from the drydock cradle.”

  Collier seized the fuel line from the icy ground. “Yeah … yeah. You’re right. Glad to have you back, Sancho.”

  “Good to be back, Skipper.”

  Chapter Ten

  “Finally. Burned through one of the supports, Su,” Collier said half an hour later, as he pocketed his laser cutter and stared at the thin line separating the nine-centimeter-thick iron rib from its housing beneath Dulcinea.

  “Great, but from what I can see here, you’ve got five more to do, and if the rest take that long…”

  “I know, I know. Not gonna happen. At least I know it is possible, though.” He wasn’t sure what good the knowledge would do: the drydock cradle was like a six-fingered claw, and Dulcinea was in the palm. He had separated one of the “fingers” from the “palm,” but he would not be able to remove all five of the remaining claws before Tacat and his force arrived. Without the claws removed, Sancho had said the ship would not fit inside the maglev launch tube.

  At least he had Sancho on his side again. He had not wanted to bother his again-loyal friend while he was in talks with Perditus, but half an hour had gone by, and he had received no update from Sancho. Given that computer-to-computer interface was roughly five hundred times more rapid than computer-to-human, Sancho had been talks with the launch station computer for the equivalent of over ten days, and he hadn’t reported his progress. Could he be backsliding? Maybe it had been a mistake to let him talk to Perditus.

  He sighed. There had been no other way. His own attempts to get through to the Ganymedian computer had been failures, and Su had fared no better. If Sancho couldn’t convince the machine to help them, it didn’t much matter why.

  “I’m starting on the next one, Su.”

  “You won’t be able to finish in time,” she said.

  “I know that. Maybe if I can get three on the same side off, we can maneuver the ship out of the others. Maybe not,” he said before Su could object, “but I need to do something. Let me know when Tacat’s forces are within ten minutes, okay?”

  The twenty minutes went by quickly. He hadn’t even gotten halfway through the rib when Su called to alert him. He acknowledged the report and went back inside the ship.

  “So, what’s the plan?” Su asked when he emerged from the airlock.

  “Oh, was I supposed to do that? I thought you had the plan,” Collier joked.

 
Su merely arched an eyebrow.

  “Oh, come on. That was funny,” he said through his suit radio, his helmet still on. He went for a storage locker near the airlock and opened it.

  “Not really.”

  “I think, given the circumstances,” he said, drawing a slim sidearm from the locker and checking it over, “that was damn funny.”

  “What’s that? A gun?”

  “Nothing gets by you, dear. Yes, it is a gun. A fairly standard sidearm for the roving Belter. We’ll see if this evens the negotiations a little bit.”

  He patted the weapon and placed it in a side pocket on his suit, then reentered the airlock. Despite his cavalier bravado about the weapon, he hadn’t taken the pistol out of the locker in more years than he could remember, and he hadn’t ever fired it. It was guaranteed maintenance-free, but if that promise failed, he wouldn’t be able to complain to the manufacturer.

  “Col, I don’t know about this. If you show them a weapon, won’t that … well, escalate the situation?” Su’s voice was pleading in his helmet.

  Collier laughed. “I’m sorry to make fun, Su, but the situation is about as escalated as it can be. And I’m not about to—”

  “Enemy forces in visual range. Estimated time to arrival, three minutes,” Sancho said suddenly.

  “Sancho! Good to have you back with us. Everything work out with Perditus?”

  “I’m not sure, Skipper. I decided to break it off with him. He said he needed time to think about things. And anyway, you’re going to need my help dealing with the Ganymedians.”

  Collier smiled. He didn’t see what help Sancho or Su could be, but he was thankful for the company. Sancho’s warning that Tacat’s group was in sight came none too early. He looked in the community’s direction and saw a flying contraption that resembled a simple platform with a bubble dome inside it. The flyer was floating above a multi-tracked crawler that kicked up ice and snow behind it. Both vehicles were moving at a fairly rapid pace — Sancho’s estimate appeared to be about right. Collier took the pistol out of his side pocket and held it close to his thigh.

  The crawler and the flyer stopped about twenty meters away from Dulcinea, the crawler coming to a rather abrupt stop, the flying platform hovering nearby. The platform looked about seventy meters square, its center dominated by a huge transparent bubble that sat both above and below the level of the platform. Collier found himself admiring the simplicity of the design before realizing that that figures inside the bubble were no doubt under orders to capture or kill him.

  “Skipper, Tacat has hailed us,” Sancho said.

  “Okay. Patch him into the helmet while you and Su listen in.”

  There was a brief pause, and then Tacat’s slightly masculine voice came over his speakers. “Captain South. I think you can see we’re very serious about recovering our community member Dr. Cattagat and bringing you to justice for her capture. Please, turn yourself over to us so we can end this farce.” He sounded, if possible, even more officious than he had at their last meeting.

  “‘Farce’ is a pretty good word for it, Tacat,” Collier drawled. “You really think that I’m holding Dr. Cattagat against her will? Maybe I’m about to tie her to the railroad tracks if she doesn’t pay the rent?”

  “No, not at all,” Tacat’s voice sounded quite different: he sounded amused now. “Once we determined where you were headed, we found evidence of her inquiries in the central computer bank about this station. We put two and two together and realized she had joined up with you.”

  “Then why the big speech?”

  “Oh, that’s for public consumption later. You’ve caused quite a stir in the community — one that will take considerable political maneuvering to calm. Don’t worry — we’ll edit these transmissions according to our taste. You’ll excuse me if I return to my more public persona?”

  His voice changed back to his more stentorian posture. “We are very reluctant to use force against you, Captain, but we have the capability to do so. If you do not agree to turn over Dr. Cattagat and yourself, we will have no choice but to use our weapons. We will do anything to protect our citizens, Captain. Do not think we are bluffing.”

  Collier thought. His pistol would almost certainly be ineffective against the chassis of the crawler, and whatever the transparent bubble of the platform flyer was made out of, it was probably built to withstand rough treatment. He studied the craft and thought he could identify a swivel-mounted port of some kind on the underside of the platform. The emplacement was very small, but he had no doubt that if it was a weapon, it would more than take care of him if it hit.

  “Su, Sancho, you hearing all this?”

  “Yes, Skipper. The hoverplate is armed with a medium-caliber gauss cannon, and the crawler is unarmed. At least, as far as I can tell. It might have a concealed weapons port, but I don’t know why it would.”

  “I’m here,” Su said. Her voice was soft, but carried conviction. “I’m sorry, Col.”

  “Why?”

  “I didn’t realize I would be used like this. He’s going to claim lethal force was necessary to retrieve me. If I wasn’t here, he wouldn’t be able to kill you according to our laws.”

  “Su,” Collier said softly, “You’re not thinking straight. Tacat would kill me no matter what your laws are, then find some way to justify it to the community whether you were with me or not.”

  “Rather cynical of you, isn’t that, Captain?” Tacat broke in.

  “I’ve learned that cynicism is a pretty good default when dealing with authority.”

  Tacat sounded immediately serious again. “I can see you are committed to a violent end to this.” He then added in an aside, “Thank you for that last comment, Captain. I can use it.”

  “Glad to help,” Collier murmured. “So, how does this work? Do you want me to walk out into the open so your boys on the swizzleskid have a clear shot? Or would it be better if I went in a blaze of glory?”

  “I don’t know how you could do that, Captain,” Tacat said smugly.

  “Well, I could try this,” Collier said, drawing his pistol. He aimed at the transparent bubble of the platform and fired three shots in rapid succession, then dove around and under the aft of the Dulcinea.

  “Sancho! Cut off transmission to Tacat and report damage to the enemy platform!”

  “Comm cut off. No appreciable damage to the hoverplate. You hit it with all three, but they ricocheted off. The bubble must be made of pretty strong stuff. It’s now rising, altitude approximately eleven meters.”

  Collier swore. He hadn’t thought the bullets would penetrate, but hoped he could at least crack the bubble and force the vehicle to return to base for repairs. He should have known that the platform, since it mounted a weapon, would be sturdy enough to take small arms fire. Idly, he wondered why the community would need such a vehicle at all.

  His pistol was useless — at least, until and unless he encountered one of the Ganymedians in person. He pocketed the weapon and thought of his options.

  The platform was hovering perhaps seven or eight meters off the ground, looking around the ship for him. Could he jump that high in this gravity? Encumbered by his old-style vacc suit? His suit jets would give him only minimal help, but if he could leap onto the platform, the ventral-mounted cannon couldn’t reach him. Then, maybe, his pistol would crack the bubble from shorter range.

  He didn’t want to think too closely about the plan — he had the distinct impression that if he examined the elements, he would quickly determine the scheme to be utterly unworkable.

  “Wish I had the magic wand. Wonder what I could do with it,” he murmured.

  “What was that, Skipper?”

  “Huh? Oh, nothing. I’m going to try something a bit crazy, Sancho.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I don’t want to explain it. It’ll take all the romance out
of it. How close am I to the nearest dorsal thruster?”

  “The nearest one is six point three meters forward of you.”

  Collier thought for several minutes. He couldn’t move toward the forward section of the ship, or he would be broiled by the superhot exhaust from the thruster. The plume of plasma would not go very far in the frigid, thin air of Ganymede, but it might produce some slight obscuring effect when it hit the oxygen in the atmosphere.

  “Skipper? You still there?” Sancho asked.

  Collier answered, “Okay. When I give the signal, I want you to fire it with everything you’ve got. Maybe that’ll distract the guys in the platform a little.”

  “What’s the signal, Skipper?”

  Collier rolled his eyes, “Let’s go with ‘Fire!’”

  “Got it.”

  Collier took a deep breath. If this didn’t work, he’d be a very fat target. He tried not to think about that.

  Just before he started to emerge from his hiding place under the ship, Sancho called, “Skipper! Su has just entered the airlock!”

  Collier was momentarily stunned. When he recovered, he shouted, “What? Stop her! Override the outer door controls!”

  Su’s voice came over his speakers. “Too late, Col. I used the emergency manual system. I’m coming out to help you.”

  “Su! You’ll die out here! The atmosphere is far too thin, and the cold—”

  Su laughed. “I’m not stupid, Col. I’m in the environment suit you stole from the community.”

  Collier scrambled out from under the Dulcinea and emerged in time to see the outer door slide open and Su emerge in the powder-blue Ganymedian suit. She was holding the magic wand in her hand. He did not bother trying to talk — he just ran at her as best he could.

  All around him he could see and faintly hear the impacts of bullets from the platform’s cannon strike the Dulcinea’s hull in an attempt to target him. Perhaps it was his sudden speed, perhaps it was his proximity to Su, or perhaps it was nothing more than dumb luck that the projectiles missed him. He ducked behind one of the unfastened ribs and hid as best he could. “Su! The helmet on that suit is cracked. It’s not safe. You need to go back inside now!”