by R. M. Meluch
The stars dimmed away as the lights came back up. The room returned around her. Donner smiled at her. He pulled the crystal from the player and pressed it into her hand. “If you want it, I should be very happy to give it.”
“Thank you,” she whispered. The boffins ought to be able to jury-rig something to play this thing back.
Wait till Colonel Steele saw this. Steele thought she was a screwup. She would show him. She made one bitch of a spy.
She tucked the crystal into her bra. Let Donner watch her do it.
Finally—finally—he brought her to the bedchamber. She did not recognize it as such at first. It was big, with an ornamental fishpond sunk in the middle of the floor. The bed was built level with the floor, so she overlooked it on first glance over. Guess she didn’t have to worry about falling out of it.
Donner closed the door.
He touched some switches. Nothing happened. A clearly vexed look crossed his face. Something was not happening that ought to be—probably opening the windows. The air was stuffy in this room. He pressed the switch with more force.
Kerry moved toward the fishpond. Males never liked females watching them when they were experiencing any kind of technical difficulty.
She waved her hand over the water. Jewel-colored fish (well, they looked like fish) rose to the surface and gaped.
Kerry saw her reflection on the water, her lizard plant peering over her shoulder, her own smile flashing back at her with the sudden sense of the fantastical. When she signed on to the corps, she had been told to expect the unexpected. They got that right. Who could have ever predicted she would be here, now?
Cowboy. Lordy, but he seemed a million years ago. Someone from her past life. She wished she could take all her tears back. Wished Cowboy were alive, but only so that lyin’ cheatin’ bastard son of a dead skunk could see her now. Wouldn’t he just die?
She heard a sudden rushing. Air in vents. Guessed Donner got the air conditioner working.
A squeal and a splash made her jerk back with a reflexive yelp, not quite realizing what had happened until the water surface cleared and she saw her plant swimming to the bottom of the pond.
She reached for it—
Her feet left the floor. Her back slammed against the wall, hard. She stood pinned by Donner’s hand clamped over her mouth and nose. His face before her was unrecognizable. His own mouth was shut in a tight line. And with his free hand he held his own nose. His onyx eyes beetled with dire warning: Do not breathe!
She stopped struggling, and he guided her hands to make her hold her own nose and mouth shut, not trusting her to the strongest of living instincts, to inhale.
Then he ran from door to window, finding them all locked. Something yellow breathed from the vents.
Poison.
Kerry hefted a rock out of the fishpond and hurled it at the window.
It bounced. Of course, a head of state would have bulletproof windows.
She was going to have to inhale. Blood pounded in her temples. Head hot. Lungs burned.
She reached for her dog collar. Tried to remember the evac code.
Hell, there were no LDs from which to be picked up!
She met Donner’s stricken eyes.
He strode to her, purposefully, seized her, dragged her to the fishpond and pushed her head under water.
Icy coldness enveloped her, trickled into her ears. Something slimy and finned batted her cheek.
She had to breathe. She fought him.
Like fighting a tree.
Did he have gills that he thought she could breathe down here? She thrashed. Screamed in her throat. Urgently tapped at his arms, as if to signal a sparring partner to let go. Panic crowded in on her. She could not last another second. Writhed wildly.
Inhaled.
Convulsed, gagged. Coughed, and drew in more water. Iciness filled her chest. Floundered. Slapped the water. Her body gave two last spasms of protest, then quieted into a peaceful tingling calm.
Head cottony. Limbs floating away. She settled into darkness and weird serenity. She didn’t even feel cold anymore.
And well, glory be, there was the infamous light.
6
AUGUSTUS’ VOICE INTRUDED in Steele’s earphone without signal or preamble: “Your girl’s in deep sushi.”
Steele’s throw went sailing wild over first base. He nearly collided with the base runner as he sprinted to the nearest landing disk and bellowed for evac.
Because Augustus had reacted the instant his surveillance detected the first miasma of yellow issuing from the vents in the Archon’s locked room, Colonel Steele displaced aboard Merrimack in time to see the Archon on the monitor, shoving Kerry Blue into the fishpond.
The image blurred, refracted through water and bubbles, as Kerry’s head went under.
John Farragut arrived in the displacement bay immediately behind Steele, found the lieutenant colonel parked on a disk and roaring to be displaced down so he could kill Donner.
“Belay that,” Augustus told the displacement specialist.
Colonel Steele barked, “Belay that. Send me now!”
The D-spec offered by way of apology to Steele, “Sir, we don’t have an LD down yet.”
Displacement required the most precise measurements, which required three synchronized readings— one from the sender, one from the receiver, and one from the traveler’s collar. Displacement without an LD was only eighty percent accurate. The only thing you ever displaced without an LD was an LD.
“I’ll take my chances,” Steele growled.
“You shall do no such thing, Lieutenant Colonel,” said Augustus in maddening calm. Lieutenant Colonel. Augustus pushed Steele’s short rank up in his face with that one.
Steele turned to John Farragut, just arrived on the displacement deck, “Sir!” But Farragut silently confirmed Augustus’ order with a slight shake of his head. Didn’t want to cross his Marine out loud, but his frown said, No way, TR.
Augustus continued, indicating the haze on the monitor, “That is poison gas, and you are going to wait.”
“The yellow.” Farragut saw it. “The infamous yellow gas?”
Augustus gave a brisk affirmative with a single nod, while, on the monitor, the image cleared enough for him to make out Kerry Blue’s face, floating, slack, under the water. Her eyelids hovered, corpselike, at half-mast.
Steele roared, “Then get me an exo-suit! What the hell—?”
There was a splash on the monitor. Swirling water. A glimpse of a second face under the water. Donner’s. Contorted, drowning.
“Who got him?” the D-spec cried.
“Donner did,” said Augustus.
Incredibly, the Archon had dived into the pond of his own accord.
Augustus did not seem the least surprised. “He’s buying some breathing room, so to say. No doubt he hit an alarm to summon his security guards. All dictators have them. But he cannot afford to breathe during the time it will take for the cavalry to arrive to rescue him. Even in concentrations measured in parts per billion, yellow gas causes brain damage. And no, our differences in physiology will not protect us. Yellow gas is inorganic.”
“Get me a breather, then!” Steele ordered. “Why aren’t you doing anything!”
“I am,” said Augustus, his voice never changing. “I have ordered you a full suit. Ah, here it comes now. Yellow gas can be absorbed through the eyes or through cuts. You are going to secure all your seals before you go down.” The Roman was giving orders now.
Steele already had two legs into the suit. Kept glancing at the seconds flying off the chronometer.
“I’ve got a read, sirs,” the D-spec announced, trying to imitate the Roman’s dead calm. Failing. The young specialist was nearly jumping out of his seat. “Ready to send a landing disk.”
Farragut signaled affirmative with a closing of his eyes, and Augustus ordered, “Go displacement.”
The disk vanished from the chamber with a clap.
“God bless!�
� The specialist hissed.
“What?” Steele demanded, testing his seals.
“It’s a miss. It’s a miss.” The D-spec looked up from his console. His upper lip blossomed wet beads. “LD’s buried in the floor. No good.”
“Again,” Augustus ordered without emotion as Steele swore and yelled, “Get it right, you mechanical Roman spy! You’re supposed to be a patterner!”
Augustus spoke dispassionately: “Chaos happens.” And to the feverish young specialist, “Again. When you are ready.”
“Recalibrated,” the D-spec reported.
“Check for jammers,” said Augustus.
“Checking, aye. And . . . negative jammers.”
“Go.”
“And . . . sending.”
The second LD vanished with a hammering rap of converging air.
Dire seconds tripped away. On the monitor Kerry Blue’s image drifted at the bottom of the pond, her brown hair floating around a deathly bluish face.
The specialist: “We are down. And . . .”
“And?” Steele bellowed.
“We were five centimeters high, sir. We are spinning, and . . . we’re . . . we’re down and . . . we’re right side up and. . . . we are functional.” The young specialist’s eyes were glassy bright. “All green.”
Steele closed his eyes, stiffened, motionless on the sending disk, gripping the equipment pack. He felt an extra dog collar bulging in there. He was meant to save the Archon, too.
Heard the trailing end of his booming arrival onto the planet’s surface.
Steele jumped off his LD, hefted it up and tucked it under his arm as he pulled a dog collar out of his pack. He turned full around in the yellow haze. Sighted the ornamental pond sunk in the floor.
Rushed to slide the LD under Kerry Blue’s floating body. Felt/heard his sleeve snag on something, a rock, a twig.
He held his breath, but did not stop to check his suit’s integrity. He swept silken waves of Kerry’s hair aside and snapped the dog collar around her cold, rubbery neck, steadied her limp form over the LD.
“She’s in place. Do you have a read?” Steele’s voice bellowed back at him within the confines of his bubble head helmet. Realized how loud he’d been shouting. “Evac Blue! Evac Blue!”
He glimpsed the flicker of green lights on her collar and in the LD beneath her just before the water smacked in on itself with her vanishing.
Only then did Steele check his sleeve to see if he was about to die.
His suit was still intact.
He attended to the Archon with less urgency, taking great care what his sleeves contacted. He made sure his gloves were clear of the dog collar as he snapped it shut. May have got some of Donner’s skin. Too bad.
As he readied to signal the ship, he spied a familiar set of saurian eyes peering up at him from under a clump of pondweed. Steele grabbed the lizard plant, closed Donner’s arms around it, and ordered the second evac.
Water slapped into the sudden vacuum and sloshed back over the edges of the pond in the recoil.
Steele touched the switch at his collar to transmit. “How’s Blue?”
“Calling geese,” Augustus reported.
Steele could hear Kerry coughing in the background—big, honking coughs, gargled curses. Swearing like a stevedore. That was his girl.
“Your MO says we got her in time,” said Augustus.
Anger dizzied Steele. Fear. More than he could feel for any other of his Marines. And for what? Kerry Blue was just a slut.
A pretty, funny, sexy slut. What Steele tried to pretend was scorn—those black feelings that choked him when he saw her draped on a crewmate—wasn’t scorn. It was jealousy.
Everything about that woman called to him. Rough and ready. That easy smile. Her live-for-the-moment courage. Her crude honesty. Made him hurt. Made him want her for himself.
Made him crazy.
He took big breaths, as if he were the one drowning. Trying to breathe out the anger. She’s okay. She’s okay. Listened to her cough.
A voice in his helmet—the young displacement specialist: “We are ready to bring you up, sir. Take a position on the LD, please.”
“No. I’m staying.”
“Not advisable.” The voice unmistakably Augustus’. “One tear in your suit and your brain is fried. Not that one would notice given that yours is all meat, but I would suggest you evacuate.”
Steele made no move toward the LD. “Just somebody tell me if this yellow shit degrades into something harmless and how long does it take?”
Something this rare and lethal could not be stable.
A moment’s pause for consultation, then Dr. Shah confirmed, sounding some distance from the com, probably kneeling on the deck, tending Kerry: “This is being true, Colonel Steele. Yellow gas is taking forty-five minutes to be degrading.”
Augustus: “What’s on your muscle-bound brain, Lieutenant Colonel?”
“Whoever booby-trapped this room thinks he’s killed the Archon. They’re going to wait till it’s safe, then send someone in here to collect the body. I want to greet whoever comes through that door and beat the living crap out of them.”
“Better idea,” Augustus countered. “Plant a force field down there and cage the perps when they come in, and hand them over to the Archon. He’s breathing up here. He can doubtless do something vastly more cruel and unusual than you are allowed even to think about.”
Dr. Shah looked up from where he knelt on the floor tending to Kerry Blue. Cried, “God, the Roman mind!”
But Steele transmitted: “Wait a minute, Mo. I like that idea.”
There fell another pause. That kind of silence waited on John Farragut to weigh in.
Farragut said, “It’s cruel and sadistic.”
“And?” Augustus prompted.
Steele waited. Heard Kerry’s lung-wrenching coughs over the com.
The captain spoke at last: “And I don’t have a problem with it.”
“Cut your own line of communication and walked into an ambush, didn’t you, Marine.”
Oh, he was all heart, Steele was. Stood there like a marble block at her bedside in sick bay. Kerry had been stupid, and the Old Man was here to tell her about it.
The other patients in sick bay seemed to be all victims of nitrogen narcosis, from when the captain squeezed the ship to five atmospheres. Mo had those all breathing heli-ox in a static-free chamber.
Colonel Augustus ducked through the hatchway behind Steele. “You got a visitor, Blue.” And the tall Roman curtly dropped her lizard plant onto her cot. It scuttled to huddle under her chin, wrapping its tail round her upper arm.
She burst into tears. Not in front of Steele, you idiot. Not in front of Steele. Oh, hell.
She stroked her pet’s leaves, and sniffled. Tried to talk. Her voice croaked out rawly, “Captain Farragut tells me I got you three guys to thank for my life.” Mohsen Shah, the Medical Officer for reviving her, Augustus for keeping an eye on her and sending up the balloon, and Steele for getting her out of there.
“Four guys,” Mo Shah corrected her. “Donner. Without Donner, we would have lost you. He kept you from breathing the gas. And the cold of the water bought us seconds we were really not having. I am seeing how he came to being master of his universe.”
Steele snarled, “Seems to me Donner is who got her into the situation.”
“And I was rather more interested in saving the Archon,” Augustus excused himself. “A grateful dictator is never a bad thing to have.”
“Oh, you gots to know I know a crock when I hear it, sir.” Kerry sat up, dragged Augustus down to her level by his collar, and bussed the Roman’s cheek. “Where’s Donner?”
Donner had already displaced back down to Arra, as soon as he was awake, still coughing, in a tearing haste to punish his would-be assassins and his incompetent guards. When Farragut asked him if Donner knew who his assailants were, Donner had replied tersely, “Criminals. Not your concern.”
“He gave me s
omething,” said Kerry, hands to her chest searching for the crystal.
The crystal was gone. Someone had undressed her and left her in a hospital shift. “It was a recording. Crystal thing. Big as a lipstick. I stuck it in my bra. It’s a recording. Did you get the recording? Can you make it play back?”
“We got it,” said Augustus.
“Is it good? Is it useful? Can you find Origin from it?” she asked, eager for praise. Kerry Blue could go for parsecs on an atta girl.
Augustus’ reply was neutral. “It is in analysis.”
Steele’s reply was a snort.
Kerry slumped back into her cot. She pouted, petting her lizard. Lotta brass here. None of her flight mates had come to see how she was doing. That stung. “Where’s Reg?”
Colonel Steele left abruptly, so she could not see his face.
Captain Farragut waylaid Steele on his exit from sick bay. Beckoned Colonel Steele in close with a jerk of his head.
Here it comes.
It was brief, calm, private. “It’s getting obvious, TR. Handle it.”
And that was all.
The first flash of anger and denial quickly rose and quickly burned out. Steele swallowed the lump of resentment in time to appreciate the lack of sermon or any meddling suggestions of how to fix it. When a bone tumbles out of your closet, Farragut toes it back for you to make it go away.
Steele acknowledged thickly, “Sir.”
Steele stalked to his station. Had his distraction surrounding Kerry Blue caused him to overlook something he should have seen? Cause him to lose track of an entire flight of Swifts? Something that would have let him answer that question: Where’s Reg?
Where was Reg Monroe? Where was Dakota Shepard? Hazard Sewell? Carly Delgado? Twitch Fuentes?
Alpha Flight had gone from late to officially missing.
Steele stared at all the majestic stars on the monitor.
God, if you’re out there, where are my people?
No beginning. No end.
Flight Sergeant Reg Monroe had gone to sleep twice in hopes of waking up from this nightmare. Twice she awoke to utter nothingness beyond the confines of her Swift. A space without form. No light. No stars. No air. No readings. No gravity. No burps in her inertia field, as if there were no inertia here. No motion. Felt as if she were parked.