“Certainly they fought savagely,” said Lycon.
“Which is exactly what we need.”
“But why are they castrated?”
“Why is that bad?” asked the Praetor.
“It will ruin the morale of other premen.”
“Ah. I see your point. Already you’ve been helpful. Good, good. Now, I propose that only space soldiers be converted. Leave the FEC Armies alone for now. But in space, our very special preserve, here we inject only the Neutraloids and none of the other lesser species. Of course we keep the making of Neutraloids secret from the FEC masses.”
“It won’t stay secret for long,” Lycon said.
“The trick will be in doing it for long enough.”
“Not that I agree with you,” Lycon said, “but I understand your reasoning. My second objection is the new gland.”
“Meaningless. Only the space soldiers will be so converted. The others will not have to fear it.”
“It isn’t the reaction of the premen I was thinking about. Rather, the cost, time and effort to plant these organs into these… these Neutraloids.”
“Hmm. Any other objections?”
“They attacked us.”
“They had been ordered to do.”
“Will they obey orders not to?” asked Lycon.
The Praetor frowned, hesitated and then admitted, “Their worldview has become distorted. They are pessimists. Hate dominates their thinking and a certain feeling of futility. A right combination of drugs will correct that.”
Lycon nodded thoughtfully.
“Any other objections?”
“Praetor, as I see it you mean drugs to replace ideas as the motive force.”
“Drugs are more trustworthy.”
“I’m not so certain. In any case, they’re more expensive. With ideas we’ve pried millions of Social Unitarians onto our side.”
“Fear did that,” the Praetor said.
“Fear helped,” agreed Lycon.
The Praetor expanded his chest. He seemed to consider his words. “Are you with me?”
“I am not against you.”
“Let me rephrase. The shock troops will make perfect test subjects. This week we should begin to convert them into Neutraloids.”
“But the shock troops are trained and ready to deploy,” Lycon said.
“Let me be frank, Training Master. I do not trust premen in space. On planets and at this point in our conquest we need them. In space and in our spacecraft, we must have utterly loyal soldiers. Space is the high ground. We dare not take chances there.”
“I tell you that shock troops are loyal.”
The Praetor stared at Lycon. “For your sake you’d better be right.”
15.
“We can’t do it,” whispered Omi. “Not with those new spy-sticks the Training Master put in.”
The 101st lay asleep in their bunks, Kang already snoring. Several days had passed since their return from the Pleasure Palace. Yesterday the entire shock troop regiment had been marched onto the training field. Lycon had stepped onto a stand and addressed them in his deep voice. He told them about the spy-sticks, about rumors of disloyalty and that nothing would stand in his way of making their names shine among the Highborn. They, the shock troopers, could climb in rank and privilege as long as they remained loyal. Disloyalty, traitorous actions after they had been given so much—no, the Training Master couldn’t envision that from any of them.
“Why doesn’t he tell us about the upcoming gelding?” Marten had whispered to Omi.
The Training Master had warned them that when they were away from the barracks they should be careful. Not everyone in the Sun Works Factory wanted them to succeed and gain rank. However, even given that, such things shouldn’t concern them. Excellence alone was what every one of them should strive for.
“We can’t do it,” Omi whispered from his bunk.
Marten rolled out.
“They just put in spy-sticks,” Omi hissed. “The watchers will be alert.”
“I have a timetable to keep.”
“Because of Nadia? Because you want to see her again?”
Marten eased into the slick-suit he’d secreted under his bunk. It was a smooth piece of body-fabric that clung to every muscle. He picked up the barcode eraser and ran it over his tattoo.
“Madness,” whispered Omi.
Marten leaned near. “It’s better if I do this alone.”
Omi stared at him in the darkness, rolled over and pulled the blanket over his head.
Marten crept out of the 101st’s sleep zone and through the 910th and 52nd’s. He checked both ways, slid open a window whose tripwire he’d spliced yesterday and rerouted. Crawling through, he shut the window and removed a floor-piece outside. His body ached and he craved sleep. Shock trooper training went apace with brutal intensity. He slipped a stim-pill and waited. Chemical strength soon flooded. He was going to pay one of these days, but hopefully on the long trip to the Jupiter Confederation and not as a gelded neuter here.
He took the sucker climbing equipment from the hidden floor space, the elbow, kneepads and gloves, and like a fly—pop, pop, pop as quietly as he could—climbed the tall barracks building. The brown-colored cube rose over a track and field area where the Highborn ran them like dogs every day and night. He couldn’t cross the area on foot with the new spy-sticks in place.
He reached the top of the barracks, his muscles quivering from the exertion, and rested for a moment. Then he shucked off the climbing equipment and crawled to the barracks’ flagpole. He shimmied to the top, unclipped a line from his belt, swung the hook twice and threw it. With a soft click, it latched to the ceiling vent. He tested it, closed his eyes as he muttered a prayer, and then hoisted himself to the vent. The fit between the grilles was tight, but he crawled through, coiled his line and hooked it to his belt. Then he put his back against one side of the shaft and his feet against the other and climbed like a crab. By the time he reached the joint where the shaft leveled, he dripped with sweat.
Ten minutes later, he dropped from a vent in a maintenance area. He donned a previously hidden maintenance uniform, opened a door-lock and jogged down a utility corridor. Five kilometers later, he opened another hatch and walked briskly past other maintenance personnel with their mops, buckets and spray kits. Soon he passed dockworkers and shuttle mechanics. He entered a huge hanger buzzing with lifts removing shuttle engines and yellow-suited mechanics working on the engines or shuttles. Foremen shouted. Welding equipment created bright arc-glares. Marten hurried, nodded at a man who yelled at him and pointed at Marten’s bare head. Everyone else wore hardhats. Marten stepped through a door and walked down the carpeted corridor. He passed men and women drinking coffee in a cafeteria and opened a door with a restricted sign.
He jogged again and entered a different hanger. This one was empty, with a dusty floor and feeling of disuse. He hurried down rows of fifty-foot shelves made of girders and steel sheets. Finally, he reached his destination. Up four shelves sat two boxes. One should be marked: sealant.
He lacked a forklift, so he climbed the shelves. At the box, he balanced himself and crowbarred the lid, looked in and smiled.
“I knew you’d do it,” he whispered.
Marten removed the baggies, stuffed the vacc-suit and helmet into a duffel bag and returned to the floor. He checked his chronometer. Lycon might call an emergency drill in another hour. That would be cutting it tight if he tried to make it back in time. But the Training Master might not call one. He’d hope for luck.
Marten exited the empty hanger, strode to a new utility corridor and set off on the six-kilometer jog. Halfway there he palmed another stim, knowing the price his body would soon demand, or even worse that he would give himself a heart attack. Maybe that was the price of freedom, or attempting freedom.
“Don’t think, Marten. Do.”
He wondered if Nadia would keep her appointment. He hoped so. Then the stim kicked in and he increased the pace.
17.
Marten staggered, caught himself and leaned against the wall as he wheezed. He shivered and wondered if he was sick.
“Marten?”
He willed himself upright. Nadia looked better than he remembered. Her hair was combed, her face clean and not disheveled. She seemed worried for him. He liked that, and smiled.
“You look awful,” she said.
He used his sleeve to wipe his forehead.
“And you’re shivering,” she said.
He felt cold, that’s true.
“Are you sure you can do this?” she asked.
“How have you been?”
“You’re kidding, right? I’m hunted. I’ve lost my job. If I get caught I’m dead. Oh, I’ve been fine. You?”
“Did you bring water?”
She stared at him before handing him a flask.
He drained it despite the queasiness in his stomach. He needed fluids. “Do you have any more?”
“You’re a camel,” she asked, handing him a second flask.
He drained that one too, although he almost threw up. The sweat on his face started to dry. He shivered, feeling colder than before.
“I don’t think you can do this,” she said.
“I’m not dead.”
“Is that supposed to be funny?”
“When I’m dead I’ll quit. Until then it’s simply mind over matter.”
“Oh, you’re one of those. You can think things into existence. Like bullets in the belly wouldn’t stop you, not if you will-powered them away.”
He grinned. “It’s good to see you, Nadia.” He opened the duffel bag, pulled out the vacc suit and started donning it. She already wore hers.
“Do you really think we can do this?” she asked.
“Did you bring the line and the magnetic anchor?”
“It was all where you said it should be. How did you get it? That’s what I kept wondering.”
“It was stashed several years ago,” he said.
Interest flickered on her face. “Who put it there?”
“Me.”
“You lived here before the war?” she asked in surprise.
“My parents were Unionists. PHC got them both.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
He shrugged. “That was several years ago.”
She stepped closer and touched his face. “You were a Nonconformist?”
“The square peg,” he said bitterly.
“When you say that, your eyes…” She nodded. “Maybe we can do this.”
“Ready?” he asked, with the vacc helmet in his hands.
“Do you have stims?” she asked.
“If I take another one, my heart will explode. But I still have a lot of will power.”
She shook her head. “If you can joke about it, it can’t be that bad.”
“Right,” he said, putting on the helmet and snapping the seals. He still felt nauseous and shivered, but this was the time to do it. He hefted the magnetic anchor, a long flexible coil-line and the tool kit she’d brought that his mother had once made. All this was backup equipment from a time he would rather forget. He sighed. He’d better remember if he wanted off the Sun Works.
A valve hissed and oxygen flooded his vacc suit. Nadia was ready, so he moved to the hatch.
A few minutes later, they exited the airlock and switched on their boots. With a metallic clang, clang, clang they walked outside the Sun Works, the magnetic attraction keeping them on the shadowy side of the station. The Plexiglas dome was to their right, but now they were looking into the hab, not out. From their subjective sense, Mercury loomed above, while all around in the distance moved a myriad of lights that indicated repair pods, shuttles and various spacecraft, hundreds, maybe thousands of them in an ever moving, shifting pattern.
Marten pointed. Nadia nodded. They didn’t have radios or comlinks. This was going to be done with hand signals. She came beside him. He couldn’t see into her helmet. Like his, the visor was polarized against sun-glare. She grabbed his free hand. He smiled, but all he saw was her dark visor.
Hand-in-hand they moved one hundred meters. He checked his bearings, stopped and pointed at the dead pod floating above, the small engine with a dome built around a pilot’s seat and that had three arms, a clamping arm, a laser-welder arm and an arm that riveted. The pod had the same velocity-spin as the habitat and therefore stayed at exactly the same relative position. It was nearly a hundred meters out of reach.
Marten attached the anchor to the Sun Works and snapped the line to it. The other end of the line he snapped to his belt. He switched off his magnetic boots, judged the distance and leaped at the dead pod. He floated from Nadia. He looked back and waved. She waved back. Then he watched the nearing pod. Closer, closer, he stretched and tried to claw it. Then he relaxed and sighed as he floated past the pod by several arms-lengths. He started reeling himself back to the magnetic anchor, looping the line as he went. Nadia reeled him from her end. In time, he was back on the Sun Works. He studied the pod, gauged his earlier failure and remembered that both the satellite and the pod moved as he sailed through space. He leaped again, floated toward it, closer, closer—his fingertips brushed across the pod’s skin, sliding, sliding. Then his fingers curled around a float rail. He hung on. His momentum pulled him and his forearm strained. He used his other hand and pulled himself to the pod, and switched on his boots.
Marten whooped with delight, the sound loud in his helmet, and he no longer shivered. He began to explore.
The pod wasn’t locked, which was a big break. He wedged himself into the tiny cabin. The controls looked fine. He tried turning it on. Dead. Nothing. Okay, he hadn’t expected it to work. He used tools from the kit and pulled out a panel. A blown fuse box. He hoped that was all that was wrong with the pod.
He moved outside, attached the line and hand over hand hauled himself to Nadia. Together, very gently, they tugged the pod toward them. Its mass was several tons, so they didn’t want to build up momentum. Instead, they waited fifteen minutes until it arrived. Then they used gentle pressure to stop it and they dragged it with them and secured it near the airlock. That was all they could do for now, so they entered the airlock, waited for it to pressurize and soon stepped into the observation pit.
He took off his helmet.
“You did it,” she said, hugging him.
They laughed. He peered into her eyes and that was a mistake. She was beautiful and he kissed her.
She arched her head, staring at him in surprise.
A mixture of impulses surged through him. He ignored the ones that said slow down, this might not be wise. He put his hand behind her head and kissed her again. She responded, and then both his arms were around her.
“Marten,” she whispered.
He pulled back, blinking, finally thinking about what he was doing. “I have to go,” he said.
“Not now.”
“I’m late already.”
“But…”
“Don’t worry. Tomorrow—”
She kissed him. “Are you really sure you want to go?”
“I don’t want to go.”
“Let’s hide together like the Nonconformists.”
It wasn’t a bad idea. “What about my friends? I won’t be able to slip into the barracks and get them if the Highborn are hunting for me. Especially now. The Training Master is worried about something.”
“Is Hansen—?”
“There’s no time to explain. I need a class 5a fuse box and a cylinder of hydrogen propellant. The way you’ll get them—I’d better write it down so you won’t forget.”
She disengaged, stared into his eyes and turned away. “…I don’t know if can do this.”
He put a hand on her shoulder. “We’ll have the trip to the Jupiter Confederation together.”
“With all your friends along?” she asked.
“Nadia!”
She turned and forced a smile. “What do I need?”
She wrote as he removed his vacc suit, telling her. He then stored the suit in a locker by the airlock.
“Tomorrow, same time,” he said.
She nodded, but brooded.
He shouldn’t have kissed her. He turned to go, came back, hugged her and kissed her again. They lingered.
“I’ll come back,” he said.
“You’d better.”
He touched her face, pulled free and hurried for the barracks.
18.
Hansen’s stomach cramped, so he popped another pill and suppressed a groan. He hurried down the same street where Chief Monitor Bock had been slain. Pain creased Hansen’s sly features. The doctors said he couldn’t feel the stitches in his abdominal region where Marten Kluge had shot him. Where the ice slivers had melted and drugged him. But he didn’t trust the doctors. He felt those stitches all right.
Hansen mopped his face with his sleeve. He would have scowled, but that increased the pain, the eternal cramp. Ah! It tightened. Hansen leaned against a holo-pine on the wall, breathing heavily.
Here in this very street Chief Monitor Bock had spoken with Training Master Lycon. Hansen had talked to a monitor who had witnessed everything. He had warned Bock against bringing the charges to the Training Master. Highborn were notoriously touchy about their areas of authority. Stubborn Bock, outraged at how the shock troopers had stolen from him and killed one of his top operatives in the cutting room, Bock had claimed he had them. Shootings in public, assaulting policemen Bock had ranted. Well, Bock was dead, slain by the Training Master. It was amazing really. The files said that Lycon was a paragon of Highborn virtue. Yet he had killed the Chief Monitor in order to protect Marten Kluge and his allies. It was very strange and unusual. Despite his warning to Bock, Hansen still couldn’t fathom it.
And now he’d been summoned to see the Praetor.
Hansen mopped his face and dared touch his stomach. Pain flared. He groaned. The Praetor—why did the lord of the Sun Works Factory want to speak with him?
He popped another painkiller, straightened his uniform and hurried down the street.
Doom Star: Book 02 - Bio-Weapon Page 9