Doom Star: Book 02 - Bio-Weapon (13 page)

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.

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.

Had the Training Master known about the dust? Is that why he’d killed Bock? Hansen dreaded the pain booth and even more, he dreaded the, the… He groaned. He didn’t even want to envision the punishment worse than the pain booth, no, not for a moment. The Highborn were unbelievably cruel and savage. Oh, why had he ever agreed to help Bock make and sell dream dust? They had money, lots and lots of money, that’s true. They were almost millionaires now—well, Bock
had been
a near millionaire—but that was meaningless before the wrath of the Highborn.

“Why, Bock?” whispered Hansen. “Why tell the Training Master?”

He swallowed, straightened his uniform once more and knocked on the Praetor’s door.

A stern-eyed woman with ponderous breasts ushered him down a hall where others strode this way and that. She brought him to a steel chair and told him to sit. He did, and he fidgeted, sweated and gritted his teeth whenever a cramp came.

“Monitor?”

Hansen almost yelped in terror. Instead, he sat straighter and nodded.

“This way, please,” said a husky, uniformed man.

Hansen followed him down another plain hall. The man pointed at an open office door. Hansen peered in, gulped and tiptoed into a spartan room. The huge Praetor in his stiff uniform, with his back to him, sat behind a mammoth desk with a model of a Doom Star the only thing on it. The dull blue walls were bare. Nothing hung on them, no paintings, mementos or plaques, nothing. The Praetor spoke softly into a wall-phone. It sounded like the rumblings of a tiger. Suddenly, the huge Praetor turned and stared at him with those eerie pink eyes. The eyes tightened, and menace, a near hysterical rage barely held under control swept into the room.

Hansen was horrified to realize that he stared at the Praetor. He immediately looked at the floor, at his feet. He almost apologized, but then he would have spoken first, a taboo breaking of the worst sort. The Praetor’s presence, his vitality and excellence seemed to expand and roll against him. Hansen felt smaller and smaller, and his knees quaked and the worst cramp of all roiled in his gut.

“Monitor Hansen.”

“Yes, Highborn.”

“You have heard of Chief Monitor Bock’s death?”

“Yes, Highborn.” Hansen oozed sweat and fear.

The Praetor paused. “Are you ill, Monitor? You sway and your pulse races. I detect abnormal fear.”

“I’ll be fine, Highborn. May, may I speak?”

“Speak.”

“I’m awed to be here, Highborn. I truly am not worthy. Perhaps that is the ‘abnormal fear’ you sense.”

“Hmm. Perhaps. Training Master Lycon slew the Chief Monitor.”

Hansen remained silent, as he hadn’t been directly addressed.

“Did you know the Chief Monitor well?”

“Yes, Highborn,” Hansen whispered.

“Speak up, preman.”

“Yes, Highborn,” Hansen almost shouted.

“Would you like to avenge his death?”

Hansen looked up in surprise. The Praetor stared strangely at him. Hansen dropped his gaze and peered at the spotless floor.

“When I ask a question, preman, I want an answer.”

“Highborn, I-I would never dream of doing anything against one of the Master Race.”

“Have you ever seen the Training Master?”

“No, Highborn.”

“He is not a true Highborn. He is an original, a beta.”

Hansen said nothing. He didn’t understand what was going on.

“A beta slew my Chief Monitor. Now I lack. I have studied the files and I find that Chief Monitor Bock relied heavily upon you. You will be the new Chief Monitor.”

“Thank you, Highborn,” Hansen said, his mind racing.

“Your first order of business will be to watch the shock troops. I want you to find anything out of the ordinary. By doing this, by finding treasonous action, you will break the Training Master for me and gain your revenge. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Highborn.” Hansen wondered if this was a trap. Was this the moment he should spill the information about the dream dust? Could he put it all on Bock’s shoulders? Then he could tell the Praetor about Marten Kluge and give the Highborn the traitorous action he apparently craved. Hansen opened his mouth.

“That is all. You may go.”

Hansen hesitated. Then it registered he’d been dismissed. That meant the Praetor didn’t know about the dust. That meant that he, Heydrich Hansen, had control of it. He spun on his heels and marched out the room. He didn’t realize it, but his stomach no longer cramped or hurt.

Now he would have his revenge on Marten Kluge and then… Ha! Then Kang would die screaming, pleading for life.

“We’ll see who is the maggot,” whispered Hansen, hurrying to his new office and wondering where Bock had stashed his hidden credits.

Two days later an exhausted Marten Kluge slipped from barracks to work on the repair pod. He’d lost several pounds and the skin under his eyes sagged and had an unhealthy tinge. He had a rattle in his throat whenever he breathed too deeply. No, matter. Work until you drop, sleep in the grave. If they gelded him, he’d rue every second he’d rested.

While wearing the bulky vacc suit he took out the old fuse box and installed one rebuilt by his mother over five years ago. He checked and double-checked the wiring of the flight panel. Sweat forever dripped into his eyes, stinging them, making him blink. He made mistakes and had to go over procedures he should have gotten right the first time. Everything seemed to take twice as long as it should, and Nadia kept getting in the way. He’d point there. She’d go there and watch him. Then he’d float beside her, bump into her and point outside. Finally, she tapped his shoulder and signaled that she was returning to the hab. He gave her the okay signal, and it seemed that she whirled around a bit too suddenly. He shrugged. He didn’t have time to keep her happy.

He double-checked fuel. Luckily, the pod still had propellant in the tanks. With the extra Nadia had brought each day, the tanks were a third full. That wasn’t great, but at least he had some.

Then came the moment Marten feared. Everything checked, so he carefully put away each tool and secured the kit to his belt. He settled into the pilot seat. The controls for the three outer arms—the clamp, laser-welder and riveter—were to his left. The flight dials and switches were to his right. A glance around showed him the shadowy inner side of the habitat, with lights shining from observation decks. Cratered Mercury dominated his right. The background stars where dulled by the thousands of spacecrafts’ running lights and exhaust plumes. He studied the flight board. His gloved index finger hovered over the ignition switch. If the pod didn’t work… He crossed his fingers, said a prayer and flipped the switch. The little repair pod shuddered, quivered and then the hydrogen burner purred into life.

Marten sagged into the cramped pilot’s seat. If it hadn’t worked—maybe then he wouldn’t have to slip out the barracks anymore and he could rest. Rest and sleep and rest and… he shook his head, poked outside the pod and made a thumb’s up sign to Nadia, who watched from the observation dome.

Several minutes later she space-walked outside and detached the anchor from the hab and clamped it to the pod.

He squeezed over and she wedged beside him.

They clinked helmets together.

“Ready?” he asked.

“Let’s go.”

They didn’t have radios or comlinks, but they could speak by shouting and letting the metal of their helmets carry the sound waves.

Marten engaged and the thrusters spewed a fine spray of hydrogen particles. Below them in a subjective sense, the Sun Works Factory’s inner skin passed underneath the pod. Their pod had no running lights, although their tracker worked.

It was a gamble, but better than being gelded.

He glanced at Nadia as she pressed against him. This was much better than being gelded! He squeezed her arm. She faced him and he imagined her smiling. It made him smile. Then he concentrated on flying.

The kilometers went by. He checked the fuel. He slowed and read huge numbers painted on the habitat skin and dared take them into an area that four and half years ago he’d never flown in for security reasons. He had realized several days ago that he couldn’t build a ship like his parents. It was either this or highjack a shuttle, which would be desperation indeed.

He braked, slowed and stopped. They secured the pod with the anchor and floated onto the habitat, switching on their magnetic boots. His heart thudded as they clanged across the surface. So many memories… his eyes turned watery. Clang. Clang. Clang.

Marten stopped at an ordinary looking hatch. By careful observation, one could see the welded lines of a much bigger opening. This hatch was akin to a portal in a castle gate. As soon as he pressed the 4, it all came back. 4-8-8-2-A-1-1-2-3. He felt the hatch shudder. If someone had punched in the wrong code, well, he was certain that his Dad’s rigging would still kill the unwary or overcurious, if it was still operative.

The hatch swung open. Marten couldn’t breath. He didn’t dare believe that, that… He grabbed the float rail and drew himself into a dark shaft, with Nadia behind him. Here. He reached for a flashlight that long ago… yes. His heart pounded harder as he wrapped his hand around the flashlight. He turned and groped for Nadia’s hand, clenching it tightly. Then he turned on the flashlight and washed the beam into the darkness. His eyes boggled. It was going to work. They really could get off the Sun Works Factory.