by David Coy
She squared her shoulders.
“One. The mercenaries leave the planet. That goes without saying. They leave immediately for Earth or one of the other projects. We shall not surrender our weapon until the mercenaries have departed and evidence of their arrival elsewhere provided to us.
“Two. A joint Council shall be formed once the mercenaries leave. One half will be contractors' representatives and one half from the rank and file of The Sacred Bond of the Fervent Alliance. We don’t care what influence the Council imposes on the Bondsmen’s representatives, but the existing Council shall have no direct representation on the new Council.
“Three. All issues regarding the health and welfare of the planet’s occupants shall be decided by majority vote after being properly introduced as items to vote upon.”
“Would that be parliamentary rules, then?” Ryder asked.
“What?”
Ryder sniffed long. “Parliamentary rules. You know.”
“No, I don’t, but it doesn’t matter, does it?” she replied and stared at him angrily until he turned away.
“Four. A joint police force shall be formed to keep the peace, enforce the will of the new Council and to insure the safety of the planet’s occupants. The details of how this is to be done is to be voted upon.
“Five. No more executions without due process of the law. And no more torture. And Jacob is to be imprisoned—contained—in a shelter, locked, until we decide what should be done with him.”
She stopped talking and waited for his response. When it came, it wasn’t much. But she hadn’t expected much.
“Is that all?”
“For now. If we think of something else, we’ll let you know. You have twenty-four hours to get the mercenaries off the planet or I’ll blow up the project. And get those search squads out of our section right now.”
She broke the connection and Ryder’s face, with its pale blue eyes and tiny mouth, vanished.
Ryder looked at the blank screen and scowled. She would
Do it, he was sure of that.
“Who was that rude woman?” Elizabeth asked.
“A problem. A very big problem,” Ryder replied.
“Should I call the captain?”
“No. Not yet.”
“What should we do?” she asked.
“Get my coffee.”
Ryder leaned back and thought about how he would convey the news. He thought about how he would phrase the words to Jacob and about the faces he would make.
He bowed his head and prayed. Then he dialed Jacob’s number.
* * *
When Joan put the detonator back in her pocket, she looked over at the two soldiers on the floor and wondered if either of them would have the guts to use it. They would, she decided, as long as it didn’t kill them when it went off. They’d want to do it from a safe distance, from a hilltop kilometers away or from space. She could see them, counting down through big nasty smiles, hunched over and pounding the air like referees do in boxing matches. Men like these could set the bomb off under a schoolyard.
“Now what?” Rachel asked.
“Let them chew on it awhile,” Donna said. “It’s their move.”
Exhausted, they fell into the chairs and bench seat like debris washed ashore.
They sat silently for some minutes. Joan picked up the phone to call Bill. She was sure he’d be pleased with their progress. She headed for the hall for some privacy.
“Hey,” Joan said to Fabino as she passed. “You’re going back to Earth. What do you think of that?”
“Better’n this place,” he said, with rank contempt.
“You think so?” she said. “I think it’s a lot worse. It’s gonna be Hell. You’ll be lucky to live out the year. And once you get back you’ll never be able to leave because there won’t be any way to leave. No transport out. One way trip. This place is no picnic, but compared to Earth it’s quite pleasant. I kind of like it here, except for you bastards.”
“I don’t like you either,” the soldier said.
Joan chuckled. “You’re gonna die.”
John stepped to within a few feet of Fabino. “Hey, kid,” John said to him, “call in again and tell them B13’s clean, too.”
“Good idea,” Donna said.
Fabino switched the transmitter on and called in.
The voice at the other end sounded perturbed. “Hasn’t your radio been on? They’ve called off the search,” it said. “The captain says get the hell out of the ghetto right now. They’re gonna e-beam B9.”
They all exchanged looks, even the soldiers.
“What’s that mean?” Donna asked Fabino.
“It means you gotta get us outta here . . . now!” he shouted.
“Why?”
“Just get us outta here!” Fabino sprang to his feet and made for the door.
John headed him off with a rifle butt to his midsection. Fabino slumped back down.
“They’re planning to use an e-beam weapon on us,” John said.
“What’s that?” Donna asked.
“It means they’re gonna cook us in our skins!” Fabino said. He reached for his transmitter and turned it on again. “Jones! Jones!”
“What?” the voice said.
“Tell them me and Harvey are in B9! Tell them to stop! Tell them to stop!”
“I don’t think I can. What are you doing in B9 anyways? Get outta there!”
“We can’t!” Fabino started to turn in circles like a captured animal. “We gotta get outta here!”
“Maybe he’s right,” John said, stepping to the window and looking out. “Maybe we should get out now.”
“Not yet,” Joan said.
“What are you gonna do!” Fabino said. “There’s nothin’ you can do!”
“Yes, there is,” she dialed Ryder’s number. Ryder picked up almost immediately.
“The minute I feel even a little warm,” she said evenly. “I’m pressing this button.”
“I’m afraid it’s out of my hands,” Ryder said.
“I’ll do it,” she said. “Stop them, Ryder.”
“I wish I could. I really do.”
“You’re making a big mistake.”
“Sorry.”
“I’ll blow it up.”
“You do that.”
“I’ll blow it up.”
“So do it.”
She took the detonator out of her pocket and armed it. “Stop them,” she warned.
“I don’t think so,” Ryder said with a sick little grin.
Joan gritted her teeth and put her thumb over the button. Her eyes found the face of each one in the room in quick succession.
“Joan!” Rachel screamed. “Don’t!”
“Stop this . . .” Fabino said.
“Stop, Ryder!” Joan screamed into the phone.
“So do it,” Ryder said without feeling.
Joan pressed the button.
“Joan!”
“God . . .” Harvey said and fell to his knees. Fabino closed his eyes.
She pressed it so hard her arm shook. There was no white flash, no instant oblivion. There was just a room full of terrified people. Joan’s thumb worked the detonator’s button.
“Go off . . .” she said. “Go off!”
She heard Ryder’s laughter coming into her ear. She held the phone away from her head like it was something horrid. Ryder’s tinny voice laughed out at her from the little speaker. Slowly, she brought it back to her head. In spite of herself, she grinned a wide, ironic grin.
“How . . . ?” she smiled stupidly.
“We jammed the frequency. The technology is decades old,” Ryder laughed. “You could push your little button all day with the same result. You really would have done it. For what it’s worth, I’m not surprised. Amazing. God be praised, God be praised. Hallelujah, God be praised.”
“Fuck you . . .” she said weakly.
“Feeling warm yet?” Ryder chuckled.
“Fuck you . . .”
>
“I hear it’s a horrible way to die,” he said.
“Tell them we’re coming out,” she said weakly. “Tell them to stop, Ryder.”
“Sorry.”
Joan threw the phone against the wall. It shattered into pieces. Then she threw down the detonator and stomped on it three or four times. Then she shoved past Donna, pushed Fabino out of the way and threw open the door with a bang. She held up her hands and started down the steps.
“Oh, God…” Rachel groaned.
Donna, her senses on high alert, seemed to look at everyone in the room at one time. “This is just fucked!” she blurted.
“Hold your fire!” Joan yelled from the steps. “We’re coming out!”
From John’s vantage, he could see through the open door and down the street some fifty meters to where a knot of soldiers had gathered. In their dirty, ragged uniforms they looked like the stumps of plants jutting up into the morning slant light. Something about the way they were standing was odd, and it took him a moment to make out that one of the men was attached to the largest portable weapon he’d ever seen. It hung off his torso by a frame-like affair that looped over his shoulders. He was bouncing slightly, adjusting it while the others tightened the straps on either side of the frame. They were working fast.
“Joan!” he yelled. “Come back inside!”
Joan walked a few more paces toward them, then stopped, her arms still high in the air. “Don’t shoot! It’s okay! We’re coming out!”
“What’s happening?” Fabino asked.
“Shut up! Joan! Come back!”
“What’s that?” Donna asked, looking out. “What is that thing?”
“Oh, man!” Fabino said. “They’re gonna cook us!” He dashed by John’s rifle and hit the stoop running. He leaped off and hit the ground, stumbled and fell, just a few meters behind Joan. As he was getting to his feet, the air was filled with a deep thump sound, followed by a thrumming that reverberated through flesh and bone.
Joan’s arms went out in front of her as if to ward off some invisible attacker, then they started to flap at the air as if the thing was right on her. She turned and tried to run but the broad beam of the weapon was all around her and stayed on her as she dodged back and forth, stamping her feet and waving her arms. Her scream was high-pitched, pitiful and blessedly short. She fell to the ground, flailed for a moment, then died. Fabino screamed, too, as the beam splashed over him, searing him from the inside out—quite by accident.
John could see the slight interference pattern, like heat waves, but horizontal, as the weapon’s energy filled the air in front of the shelter. The beam drifted over Joan’s steaming body, heating it like meat in a cooker.
They’d seen it all from the window. “Christ!” Donna screamed. She turned in a circle, not quite sure which way to bolt.
Rachel went to her knees and scooted under the table.
Suddenly the beam and the sound were gone. John could see the team marching forward as if invulnerable. The one holding the heavy weapon was slightly ahead of the other two, his feet pointed out and his legs wide. They were moving up to get a better angle on the shelter, to broadside it. The one in front had a big smile on his face. It crossed John’s mind, just briefly, that a big, ugly and fearsome weapon like that might make you stupid with a sense of power—very stupid.
He moved quickly to the doorway and shouldered his rifle. He put the crosshairs in the leading man’s chest and fired a single shot. A red mist filled the air behind the soldier, and he crumbled forward, his arms and torso tangled with the weapon. John fixed his sights on the one on the right and fired. The first shot hit the man’s face and his head burst with a cloud of blood and bone. As he was falling, the second shot hit him high in the chest and he fell flat. The third soldier was already running for cover. John put the crosshairs on his back and fired. The man fell while running, limp and dead.
Fabino was still alive. He lay there, legs splayed, his body vibrating from shock. John put the rifle’s sights on his head and fired. Next, he trained his rifle on the horrid cannon itself. He shot a dozen rounds into it, sending pieces of it flying, leaving it smoking and throwing sparks.
The truck was just outside the door and a few meters west.
They could make it if they moved now. John grabbed the soldiers' weapons and tossed one to Eddie and one to Rachel.
“What am I supposed to do with this?” she asked.
“Just hold it for me, goddamn it!”
He gave a quick look up and down the street. It was still clear, but wouldn’t be for long. “Get in the truck! Go!”
They scrambled under his rifle, down the steps and into the truck. He ran out after them and clamored into the driver’s seat. He turned the vehicle on, jammed the wheel right and the accelerator to the floor. The tires raised a cloud of debris as the truck sped off.
“Where to!” Donna yelled over the tire’s scrabbling.
“Anywhere!” he yelled back.
The truck bounced over the uneven ground, sending the occupants banging against the ceiling. When he reached the end of the street, he turned east and headed out across the clearing. Two soldiers watched the truck speed by with mild interest, too ignorant to know the quarry they sought was inside it. “Slow down!” one of them yelled.
“Where are we going?” Rachel yelled.
“As far away as we can get!”
They’d gone about half a kilometer when the armored transport raced up on them from behind. It came up so fast Rachel would have missed it if she hadn’t been looking behind them. The craft buzzed past low enough to touch. The suspensor fields raised their hair and dragged across their skin like rough cloth.
“Damn!” John said.
The craft swung out and circled around in a long arc, finally coming up alongside the speeding truck. John tried a few maneuvers, zigging and zagging this way and that, but the shuttle wouldn’t be so easily shaken.
“Shit!”
“What are we going to do?” Rachel asked, in complete panic.
Before anyone could answer, the side door of the shuttle slid open, revealing two soldiers braced in the door, rifles aimed squarely at them. It was useless.
“Stop the truck!” one of the soldiers yelled.
John slammed on the brakes. “Shit!” he said.
The shuttle reared up its nose and stopped right next to them. “Get out!” the one yelled.
“What do we do?” Donna asked, her hands stiffening on the rifle.
“They’ve got us. We give up.”
“Bullshit,” Donna said. “I say we go for it.”
“They’ll cut us to pieces,” John said.
“Get out of the truck, now!” the soldier ordered.
Donna spoke quickly. “The jungle’s just a hundred meters away,” she said. “If we can make it, we stand a chance. They’ll never be able to follow.”
“Get out and get on the ground!”
“Okay, we’re getting out,” John said raising his hands.
He did a mental calculation. He could swing the truck under the shuttle and be headed out the other side in three seconds. He knew the shuttle model; it was sluggish out of the gate. It would take a full five seconds for it to turn and get up to speed. By then, they would be halfway there.
He stomped on the accelerator, cranked the wheel and jammed the truck under the shuttle. The suspensor fields cloyed at the truck, slowing it slightly. The sound of rifle fire mixed with the hammer blows of the bullets in the truck’s bed made Rachel yelp.
“Get down!”
The truck burst free of the suspensor’s mud-like fields and sped toward the green. They were almost up to full speed as the jungle approached. Rifle fire reached them, and John heard the hiss of bullets flying past the cab.
The truck raced toward the solid wall of green. There wasn’t a lot to choose from, but he picked the softest looking spot and hoped there were no heavy roots or tree trunks in it.
“Hang on!”
&nbs
p; The truck crashed into the jungle with a tremendous sound of branches and heavy vines slapping and banging against metal. John kept the accelerator down as the truck bounced and crashed and groaned through the thick undergrowth. He glanced into the mirror and saw the shuttle turn sideways and slide to a stop just meters from the hole the truck had punched out.
The escapees crashed forward. The tunnel closed behind them as the foliage partially reclaimed the space.
The truck slowed, then came to a stop with a bump against something solid, tossing all of them forward. John’s head banged against the steering wheel, stunning him.
The jungle had swallowed them whole.
“Get out . . .” he said. “Run . . . they’ll be coming . . .”
11
It was a dream. It had to be. Nothing could really be this good. Betty had felt this kind of pleasure many times, but never like this! This brand of pleasure was her favorite thing. Before her conversion, it had been the thing she sought in secret, and the thing she dreamed about. She’d been doing it since her teens with one group or another. But it was so strange—she couldn’t be sure—she didn’t know if she was alone or not. It was the strangest feeling. All she knew for sure was that this was almost too much. She giggled in her head and felt wetness. This was the best!
Oooooo . . . more . . . more . . . more . . .
The pleasure wriggled against her from inside like a thousand slippery tongues, making her smile wide and bite her lips. The pleasure was all around her and in her, too. She felt as if she were floating.
Ooooooooo. .
At first she thought she might be masturbating and dreaming of the others because the touches and tickles were perfectly placed and perfectly timed. She was puzzled but the mystery vanished in the darkness, washed away by wet delight.
It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. She smiled again and stuck out her tongue.
She wanted to see and blinked, but she saw only darkness. Still, her tongue snaked out to taste something she knew was there, without seeing it. Her tongue went way, way out, farther, and impossibly farther, it stretched and she felt the nerves in it come alive in the damp air. She tasted the air like a reptile and found warm musk. Her tongue pierced something warm then coiled and uncoiled, coiled and uncoiled inside something sweet.