Kill Station

by Diane Duane; Peter Morwood

  He watched the dust puif up from where his boots scuffed the surface—not real dust, of course, but the remnants of micrometeorite impacts over days and years. Not nearly enough people to handle an area of this size, he thought.

  What kind of police force are we supposed to be running out here, anyway? Poor Noel must have something like sixteen million cubic kilometers that he's responsible for. And a shoestring to run it on, poor kid.

  Joss paused for a moment, checking his tracker to make sure he was headed the right way. Even on a body this small, it was too easy to get lost. But Joss was Moon-raised, and had the habits and reflexes of someone who had seen friends of twelve and thirteen go out, get careless, and not come back. In one case not even the kid's body had been found. At the bottom of some crater, Joss thought, or buried under some fall of moondust, I guess. But it had tended to make the survivors careful.

  He checked his tracker again. A little to the left, he

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  thought; sunward— He bounced off that way, and came over the short apparent horizon to see the dump.

  What a mess, he thought. There, in a hole in the ground, was a tumbled pile of twisted-up metal: boxy bits, round bits, struts and pads sticking up in the air like the feet of dead bugs, all extremely untidy, looking like the toy box of an extremely destructive child giant. Going to be the devil's own business looking at the stuff that's buried farthest down, Joss thought. Oh well.

  He bounced on over to the hole. It was nearly an eighth of a mile wide, and no more than about a hundred feet deep.

  He paused a moment to wake up the small reference pad mounted on the forearm of his pressure suit. It had stored in it all the makes and registration numbers of the ships whose disappearances had been suspicious, and its link to his main datapad, back in the ship, was wide awake and working.

  Now, then, Joss thought, and hopped cheerfully down into the hole to start doing more clerical work.

  For about three-quarters of ah hour he strolled around the edges of the pile, pausing every now and then to peer more closely at something. There were about thirty ships here at the moment. According to Noel, it had been about two months since there had been a collection—something about a very large salvage find further along in the Belts, which had kept the assessors from arriving as scheduled. There was an astonishing assortment of junk here: VW's that had to be forty years old, Ladas that had to be fifty. Heaven only knows how they lasted that long, Joss thought, since Lada was really not the best of the brands; there were more jokes about Ladas than about any of the others. Then again, Joss thought, maybe this one did break down fifty years ago. ... It looked likely enough. The thing didn't have a mark on it except for the usual slight collisions and bumps. Joss noted its number down on his pad and moved on to the next dead ship, wondering how a brand could go on so long when its craft had a rep for being so poor. / guess there are always people who're

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  willing to buy something cheap that works, and take their chances on when it might stop working. . . .

  Slowly he worked his way around the pile, pausing about halfway through as the Sun suddenly came up, throwing long black shadows over everything and momentarily confusing his directional sense. The asteroid had a slow longitudinal tumble; this "day" wouldn't last for long. May as well make the most of it, he thought.

  Joss paused near the wreckage of an old Skoda medium-range cargo hauler and looked it over. Its engines had been cannibalized—no surprise, that: engine systems were the most adaptable parts of most of these craft, and could be fitted to almost anything if you had the know-how. The big squarish cargo shell was all that was left; its landing struts were broken off halfway by another craft, a Chevy, which had been dropped on top of it. The engine module was broken open like an eggshell, and cables and connectors dangled out of it, frayed and dusty. Joss leaned in to look at it, brushed some dust aside, and saw on the hull metal the scrapes and pinchmarks of a large waldo that had torn the module open.

  He nodded to himself, referring to his notes. There was a Skoda of about this age missing. He climbed in among the wreckage, out of the light, and looked for the forward bulkheads of the thing, where the registration numbers should be engraved.

  Hmm, he thought then, for the bulkhead had been shorn off. Well, that wasn't unheard of either. Many people who did salvage work were afraid that they might accidentally try to move a vessel that had been wrecked by foul play rather than misadventure, and rather than take the chance of prosecution, they burned off or otherwise lost the reg numbers.

  But still ... He looked again at his notes about the Skoda. Like this one, it was a '38, and with the same cargo module.

  But he had no absolute proof that this was the one that had been lost. And besides, if it were, it would have come here from halfway across the Belts. Who

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  would haul a piece of salvage so far? he wondered. Doesn 't make sense. . . .

  He stood there a moment, then looked deeper into the pile. It was hard to see anything much; his helmet lamp wasn't nearly bright enough to give him much detail, and its dull shine fell on twisted metal and showed very little about how it had been twisted.

  Joss sighed. Going to have to come back here and tear this pile apart with a lifter, he thought, stepping back and starting to work his way around the pile again. He kicked his way through the dust, noting more VW's, a Rolls— that was a bit of a surprise. Must have been pretty completely destroyed, he thought, peering at it. Usually their warranty covers anything short of the power plant blowing And that seemed to be what had happened to this one. He clambered in over a few broken struts and touched the hull of the Rolls. It had been sleek once. Rolls was one of the manufacturers who had not gone modular, and had built its own craft, with long, surprisingly graceful lines, and all in one piece. Even its cargo craft had been good to look at. This one, though, had holes blown in its hull in three places.

  The metal was bent inward in strips and ribbons, like a cartoon firecracker. Bombs, Joss thought. Or rather, projectile weapons. Big ones, too. Who out there would be carrying such things ? And why would they use them on a mining vessel?

  His curiosity was getting the better of him. He pushed into the pile again, past the Rolls, where there was a sort of alleyway between ruined pieces of metal. Carefully Joss squeezed between them and leaned up against the next craft, a very beat-up-looking VW Box. He was near the front end of it, and within reach of the front bulkhead with the reg numbers. Bending, he checked them, and found them on his list. This vessel had been reported lost halfway across the Belts, as had the Skoda he was suspicious of. And this time he had proof.

  Joss worked his way further down the Box's body, being very careful of his suit—it was quite tough, but a rip would 82 SPACE COPS

  be hard to patch quickly in this tight place, and could kill him. He came to the engine pod. At first sight, much to his surprise, the engine appeared to be still in it. But then he looked into the hole in the side of the engine pod* and saw the truth of the situation. About half the engine seemed to have been simply scooped out. Not literally, of course; someone had used some kind of energy weapon on the side of this ship. The engine had vaporized; parts of it on the fringes of the effect had slagged. Nearest the edges of the hole, the slagging of parts of the hull had preserved bits of engine behind them, and the occasional piece of cable or chunk of bus bar had survived.

  Joss leaned there against the beamed ship and sucked in a slow, contemplative breath. That's no weapon that miners have access to, he thought. That's military level, that is.

  Better than we have. Possibly better than the Space Forces have.

  Who has weapons like that?

  Very carefully, he turned around and began to work his way out of the darkness.

  The light started to change. There was no sound with it, of course, but the change in the light alone was quite enough to send a flush of pure shock right through Joss. It was not the Sun goin
g down, though that would happen soon. It was the shape of the pile of wrecked ships changing.

  Stupid, he thought instantly, holding quite still to see, just for that second, what was happening. Stupid, to come out alone, to broadcast where you were headed, on an open channel. After this, I swear to God, I send them notes on little pieces of paper. In code—

  He looked ahead of him, back out toward the light, and saw the shape of the pile of ships visibly change.

  Someone was out there, in a good spot, pushing. Someone intended to see him extremely buried. At the moment, Joss was feeling more anger than anything else, and that was a good SPACE COPS 83

  thing. Fear would come later. Right now it would be a nuisance.

  They can't have a very good idea of where I am, he thought. There's that comfort, at least. Let's just see if I can get out in time to surprise them. He paused, leaning on the hull of the Rolls for a moment.

  This time he did hear something—not with his ears, but with the way the vibration through the hull of the Rolls felt through his hand—a long, low, groaning rumble. Something nearby was shifting, a lot. This time the panic hit him, and he scrambled for the light.

  It went out. The Sun had gone down, at exactly the wrong moment. Oh, come on, now! Joss said in great annoyance to whatever deities were listening. In the same moment, though, he tossed his head to turn his helmet light off. He might be blind, but at least whoever was out there trying to kill him would be no better off. Without hearing, or seeing him, they were helpless. So was he, but at least it meant the odds were even.

  Meanwhile, the important thing was to get the hell out of the salvage pile, before the whole thing shifted in some new and exciting way and trapped him. Even as he started pushing and twisting his way toward the thin hole in the darkness that contained stars, there was a movement, and the Skoda and the Rolls started to squeeze closer together. He quickly turned sideways, pulling his arms in tight to him. This was a good thing; from the other side, with a sudden wrenching bump, a VW pushed over into the Rolls. He could feel the rustle and crunch of it right through his pressure suit. He winced, as if something with a lot of legs had run over his flesh, at the awfulness of what would have happened had that VW managed to pin his arm against the Rolls. The arm would have come right off, and it would have been a good question whether he would have died more quickly of blood loss or lack of air.

  He panted for a second, and then started to squeeze past the Skoda. It had gotten a lot tighter. He could feel the rough edges of metal poking into the back of his suit,

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  pressing in hard, scraping at him in a very pointed way. Oh, please, hold together, he prayed briefly to the suit and to B. F. Goodrich, and moved slowly and steadily, on the principle that he would be less likely to pick up a tear that way than by moving quickly. All the same— how recently was my patch kit replaced? And how fast can I put it on my back when I can't see what I'm doing?—

  As far as he could tell by his last judgment of the distance, there were about three feet to go between him and the open space before the lights went out. He twisted and turned carefully, and edged his way forward. There was another movement, one that he again felt rather than saw. The mass of metal settled. He was being poked from both back and front, now, and one of the pokes was right in front, under his breastplate, where there was a lot of sensitive electronic equipment and piping under the plas-sealed fabric. All his life support hardware and software was there, and the insulated feed from the lox pads on his back. He was well and truly pinned, like a bug. Through the pieces of metal pinning him he could feel more motion, the remote groan of mass moving against mass—

  Ever so carefully, despite the sharp pressures fore and aft, he kept edging forward. The pressure in front speared right into his solar plexus as he tried to slide past. He resisted the urge to throw up, since any sudden movement could tear the suit quite as thoroughly as a slow one. There was another movement around him, of something settling—then, abruptly, the pressure on his back lessened. Something was still pressing down on his helmet from on top, though, and there was an ominous growling resonating through it. Joss leaned back away from the pressure on his abdomen, and slowly, carefully, but as quickly as he dared, edged and squeezed and twisted forward. Another foot or so would do it. Just a little further—

  —and then he took the plunge, throwing himself forward into the open space, twisting as he did so to make sure he didn't land on his faceplate.

  Instead, he came down hard on his side, bounced, rolled

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  away from the pile. He managed to stop himself after just a couple of rolls, and saw the pile settling on that side, squashing down with a puff of dust that turned silvery as it rose high enough to catch sunlight over the horizon of the asteroid.

  Right, Joss thought fiercely, and scrambled to his feet. Crouched over, he began bouncing around the pile, choosing his steps carefully in the dark. He reached into his holster as he went, drew the Remington, and thumbed the safety off.

  Normally Joss did not like shooting people. But at the moment, he was willing to like it a little. It might improve his aim.

  He paused at one point, leaning up behind the bulk of one of the trashed ships that had splayed somewhat out of the pit proper, and peered around it. Nothing. Come on, he thought. Come on, aren 't you going to come and see what you killed?

  No movement. Then again—was that a puff of dust around the corner of the pile? Just more settlement, or a trick of the darkness? Or something else? He edged around the ship behind which he had been hiding and paused a moment, for even though his eyes were more or less used to the dark now, it was still almost as black as the inside of a cat.

  Light: a flicker of light.

  Oh, God, thank you for stupid perpetrators, Joss thought, at least as thankful as he had been to B. F. Goodrich a little while before. He edged forward a bit more. The light vanished, came back again, then vanished once more. A hand torch, and a fairly powerful one. Idiot! Joss thought with delight, as the torch bobbed away around the pile. Now what? Go around the other way and take them head-on? Or slip up from behind?

  Joss occasionally had romantic tendencies and loved the old courtesies and traditions of the past, especially those about fair play. But he wasn't stupid. From behind, he thought, and started after the light, moving as quietly as 86 . SPACE COPS

  he could, even though in this environment it wasn't strictly necessary. It was just that old habits were hard to break.

  The light appeared again, and flickered over the pile.

  Yes indeed, Joss thought. Looking for something. And the reflected light from the pile showed him what he was looking for: one figure in a well-patched suit, with blacked-out helm. Joss would remember the arrangement of those patches when he saw them again, even though the colors were iffy in lighting this faint. Come on, sun, he thought, as he edged around, hiding behind pieces of torn metal. Come on, I want a dear look at what I'm shooting! For Joss knew that his aim wasn't always of the best, and he didn't want to kill this person, not at all. An arm or leg shot, something quickly patched, would do him just fine.

  The torch flickered away from the pile, leaving the figure that held it dark again, scarcely there except for some slight reflection of light from the ground. Joss bit his lip and edged closer while the figure stood there, pondering who knew what, then moved on around the pile again.

  Joss sighed. We're not getting any younger here, he thought, and made his move, bouncing forward.

  The dark shape came into view, its helmet turned away from him. It was about a hundred yards away. Joss lifted the Remington, not daring to use the radar sighting for fear that the other's suit had a passive warning system working.

  Leg, he thought, legs are better than arms—arms are too close to the important parts— He squeezed the trigger gently, and a white line lanced out—

  —and went right by the suited figure's kneecap.

  It was pure chance that the
person in the suit was looking down: otherwise Joss would have had a chance for another shot before he—or she, perhaps, for the suit was on the small side—moved. But the target started at the sight of the Remington's beam, turned hastily and swept the torch in all directions. Joss dodged behind a twisted half-WV and ducked as the beam flashed by over his head, then away. He popped up and took another shot.

  But the target was moving. There's panic, if you like,

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  Joss thought, with a mixture of relief and annoyance, as he saw the suited figure go bouncing away from the salvage pile at high speed. Dammit! He raised the Remington again, bracing it against the wrecked VW, increased the power to compensate for distance and narrow the spread, and fired again.

  The figure hopped straight up, came down hard and bounced several times. What the hell, Joss thought, and then realized he'd scored a hit; the pressure of air escaping from the suit had knocked his assailant straight up in that first moment. Bingo! Fumbling for his patch kit, Joss went after his victim.

  But the the victim had other plans. One leg held out stiffly, he—or she—went off at high speed, kangarooing with considerable skill across the bumpy terrain, and vanished over the horizon—which, on a body this small, was only about two hundred yards away. Damn it to everything! Joss thought, and followed. But when he had made it over the horizon himself, there was nothing to be seen. His quarry was probably two horizons over by now, and had likely gone to ground, possibly in one of the tunnels that led to the station. Joss knew that they were there, but hadn't had time as yet to investigate them.

  He stood there with his gun in his hand, feeling very annoyed, but also somehow elated. There was at least one pressure suit in the station that he would recognize on sight. It would be easy enough to pick it out of all the suits in the place—but that could wait for later.

  Right now, the situation had changed radically. He and Evan were obviously investigating something that made at least one person anxious to try to kill Joss, just on the off chance that he might find out something sensitive. He had information that some people would obviously much prefer that he didn't have. He was bruised in a few places, but no matter, at least, there were no holes—and what he needed to do right away was get back and send a note to HQ on the Moon,