Song of Scarabaeus (12 page)

Edie stepped out from behind Finn, hoping it would show she trusted them. They both took half a step back. Perhaps they were worried they'd walked into a trap. A cypherteck had just landed in their laps and they must be wondering if someone was setting them up.

“I'm not a medic,” Edie said. That sounded too negative. “But I'll see what I can do.”

She drew the unit to the edge of the table and used a
hardlink to jack in. It was a jury-rigged piece of equipment, patched together from half a dozen models, some Crib, some not. The biocyph matrix growled with discontent as she explored it. Its function was to create nanofinds—custom-built DNA machines to be injected into the body to seek out and destroy damaged tissue and tumors, clean up burns, and stimulate healthy growth.

The problem was incompatibility between the components. Nothing a few subroutines couldn't fix. Edie fired up the sequencer and coded a patcher that would do the job for her, tracking down the broken links and distorted layers created by the haphazard melding of circuitry from various sources.

“Leave it running a couple of hours,” she said, disconnecting the line. “Then we'll flush it out and run a live test.” She spoke as though she was going to be doing the job herself—as though they'd already agreed to take her on.

Tilda didn't look convinced. She glared at Finn, as though Edie had tricked her and it was Finn's fault, and then she took a diagnostic rod out of her jacket pocket and jacked into the biogenerator. The readout seemed to satisfy her. She gave her sister a nod, closed up the unit, and handed it to Amma. Amma cradled the unit like a baby. Her hands and nails were filthy.

“What's your name?” Tilda said.

Edie flashed her ident, which read Beata Szwaja. The client's infojack must have a sense of humor because she had no idea how to pronounce it.

“Call me Bee,” Edie said.

Tilda's lips thinned into a tight smile. So she knew, and didn't care, that the ident was fake.

“We got a bay full of broken biocyph doohickies on the
Drakkar
,” Tilda said, “Keep you busy. After that we got an ecosystem that's six months from turning to mash.”

“Mash!” the little girl piped up.

To Edie's surprise, the child had come right up to her without her noticing. She offered Edie one of the colored
disks. It had become a flower. Edie took it, turned it over in her palm. The flower melted back into a flat disk. The girl took it back, gave it a twist, and it blossomed again. Some sort of memory-plaz.

“Inga!” Tilda snapped.

The girl heeded the warning note in Tilda's voice and moved away to sit on the floor.

“I'll do whatever I can for you,” Edie said, and she meant it. Finn's plan was to make their own way as soon as they were free of the Crib and the rovers, but looking at Inga playing with her pathetic toy, at the child's unwashed hair and torn-up boots, Edie wondered if she'd be able to bring herself to leave these people to their desperate plight. Maybe she could make herself useful to them, to others like them whose equipment was failing, whose worlds would only survive with the help of a cypherteck. Maybe she could make a life out there.

“Okay, passage to the Fringe if you help us. You.” Tilda looked at Finn. “You're a lag.”

“I'm Garrison Wyle,” Finn said.

“Yes, Garrison Wyle.” Tilda repeated the name with a mocking lilt. “We're not looking for labor, Mr. Wyle.”

They were so close to freedom. There wasn't time for this—they wanted Edie, needed her, and she wanted to be on board with Finn and safely away from Port Neuchasley. She wasn't going to let Tilda call the shots.

“He protects me. The deal is both of us, or neither.” She debated whether to tell the whole truth—that he'd die if she left without him. But she couldn't risk them knowing that and using it against her.

“C'mon, Tilda, we got room,” Amma hissed, eager to get back to her ship, to stow her precious biogenerator, to bring home a cypherteck.

Tilda gave Finn another hard look. It was understandable that she didn't want a runaway serf on her ship, but she couldn't pass up a cypherteck. Edie watched her expression change as she relented, first mentally, then verbally.

“Okay, okay, we'll take your man.”

Amma sighed with relief. She reached out her free hand for the child, and Inga gathered up her toys and went to her. As Amma turned to the door leading to the docking bays, a figure suddenly loomed into view in the corridor beyond. A man with shaggy hair and bloodshot eyes. For a brief moment Edie wondered if it was another crew member from the
Drakkar
, someone who wanted to check out this alleged cypherteck for himself, but as soon as the man's eyes swung in her direction, piercing her with pure hatred, she knew who he was. What he was.

An eco-rad.

Tilda sensed the danger immediately. “Who the hell—?”

The man shouldered open the door and lunged into the tiny room. Amma darted to the corner with the little girl, still cradling the biogenerator.

Edie felt Finn's hand close around hers and he yanked her backward, toward the other door. She turned, instinctively pressing close, but he pulled up sharply. Another eco-rad appeared there, a huge man, bulk and muscles, heavier than Finn. And behind him, a wiry woman with cropped hair.

They were trapped.

“Get down!” Finn pushed Edie to the floor.

The room erupted into chaos. All three eco-rads lunged for Edie, without weapons but with an obvious intention to kill with their bare hands. Edie scrambled underneath the table as Finn knocked back the wild-haired man with a powerful punch and confronted the second one. The two grappled, colliding into the wall.

The woman rad dived under the table and grabbed Edie's ankle—the nearest body part she could reach. Edie kicked out sharply with her free leg, connected with air, and forced herself to think instead of react. A moment later the woman reached in farther, and now her head was within range. Edie
let her advance, kicked again, felt the satisfying crunch as a connection was made. The woman retreated with a yelp, but not because of the kick. Finn had grabbed her from behind.

The first eco-rad was back on his feet and heading for Edie. From underneath the table, she saw Tilda running across the room, toward her sister. The eco-rad stood between them. He grabbed the edge of the table and upturned it, throwing it against the wall. It bounced off the little girl's body in Amma's arms.

“No!” Pure instinct pulled Edie to her feet and she tried to reach them, to help them, despite Amma's accusing glare in her direction. The eco-rad pounced, bringing her down. She rolled and slithered out of his grasp, but he was quickly on her again, grabbing her in a choke hold. In the confusion, she saw Finn fighting off the other two rads. The woman had something in the palm of her hand, and as the large man held Finn in a lock, she slapped it against Finn's neck.

A tranq dart, or perhaps poison. Edie gasped his name in anguish. If he died…if he was put out of action, she had no hope. She couldn't expect Tilda and Amma to help her, especially with the child injured.

As Edie struggled against her attacker, she realized he, too, was trying to connect his palm with her bare skin. She jerked her head back sharply, catching him on the bridge of his nose. He grunted, his grip loosening momentarily. Edie slipped through his arms, swinging her legs as she fell, tripping him up. He dropped heavily and blood spurted from his nose. He would be back on his feet in seconds…

Her throat aching from the eco-rad's grasp, Edie staggered across the room to help Finn. She was vaguely aware of Tilda lifting Inga's limp body, of Amma's sobs, and of the precious biogenerator that had been smashed to the floor in the mayhem.

“Run,” Edie choked.

Much as she needed their help, it was too dangerous, and it wasn't their business or their fault. The rads weren't after them and wouldn't harm them if they stayed out of the way.

Edie leapt onto the woman who had poisoned Finn, and pulled her back. At the same moment, Finn lashed out, using the man who held him as leverage, and kicked the woman in the chest. She and Edie were flung against the window, which shattered around them, and they tumbled onto the catwalk outside the booth.

Edie took the brunt of the fall, but the woman on top of her took the shards of plaz-glass. As Edie pushed her off, she felt the woman's slick blood on her fingers.

Seconds later, two men crashed out of the window and Edie crawled out of the way just in time. Finn and the larger eco-rad were locked together in a struggle. Finn managed to disengage himself. Ignoring the shards of plaz that sliced into his jacket, he grabbed the man's lapels and threw him over the railing of the catwalk, taking part of the railing with him.

It was a four-story drop. Finn didn't wait to see the outcome. But as he turned to the second man, Edie realized there was something very wrong. Finn's movements were slow, as though his arms weighed too much. He blinked sweat and blood from his eyes, shaking his head as though he couldn't focus properly. He reeled even before the eco-rad's fist connected to his jaw. He wavered against the railing, almost losing his balance. A second punch drove him to his knees. A third, to the deck.

The eco-rad turned to Edie where she crouched on the catwalk. His face was wild with fury and marred with small cuts where he'd been hit by pieces of plaz. Behind her, she was aware of the woman hauling herself up and staggering along the catwalk in the other direction, crying out someone's name. The name of the man who'd gone over the railing.

The remaining eco-rad loomed over her. Confronted by a man intent on murdering her, Edie's basic training fled and her mind went blank, paralyzed by pure terror. He moved toward her as if in slow motion, a lumbering, shaggy beast with bloodied outstretched hands.

She was aware of footsteps pounding the metal stairs.
More eco-rads? Or someone coming to help? Security must be aware by now that something was going on, but it was just as likely that the eco-rads had backup. No, the footsteps were receding. It was the woman, running away to help her friend. If he was seriously hurt, which seemed likely, there would be questions, and Edie and Finn would never get off the station.

In the brief moments of silence, Edie heard the woman calling for backup over her comm.

That jump-started her brain into action again. She gathered her muscles into a tight knot and darted out of the man's path, through the broken window, back into the booth. Her boots crunched and slipped on the broken plaz and she almost lost her footing.

She raced for the far door, hearing him stumbling along behind her. Grabbing a chair, she turned sharply and smashed it into his head. He slipped on the broken shards and went down. Using the few seconds of time she'd gained, she pressed her fingers against the control panel of the door of the booth as she left the room. The door slid shut behind her and locked.

She hoped Finn could still defend himself if the eco-rad went back for him. Eco-rads weren't supposed to kill indiscriminately. She was the target. It was even more important to get herself to safety than to stay and help Finn, because her death would kill him anyway.

She had to get to the docking bays, where there were people to help her, or at least to deter the eco-rad. She had to shake him off long enough to find her way back to Finn, or hope he found her. If he hadn't been knocked out by whatever drug they'd used on him.

To her surprise, Amma and Tilda had made it only a few meters, the child draped against Tilda's shoulder. Unlike the scaffolding of catwalks on the far side, the docking bay side of the booths opened into wide platforms with elevators at the other end.

To Edie's relief, Inga was screaming—at least she was no longer unconscious, although she was terrified and in pain.

“Get away from us!” Amma yelled over her shoulder as they struggled toward the elevators. Edie hesitated. A nearby
boom
startled her and she turned to see the eco-rad launching himself against the door of the booth, trying to force it open with his shoulder. He left streaks of blood on the plaz.

There was one elevator car waiting, and the women entered it. Edie opened her mouth to call to them, to ask them to hold the door, to let her escape. But she said nothing. She didn't want to involve them—they'd already lost too much.

The adjacent elevator door opened. Two men burst out of it and Edie's heart caught in her throat. More eco-rads, she was sure of it. One was no more than a teenager, the other a burly man with bright red hair and a complexion to match. What the hell were eco-rads doing at the port? At that moment it felt to Edie like they were here just for her, but that was impossible. There were any number of reasons for them to be here—what station or colony didn't have something going on that the eco-rads objected to? From bombing mineral mines to raiding medfacs that engaged in gene jiggling, wherever human technology advanced beyond what the rads deemed appropriate they would be hiding somewhere, planning a lethal disruption. They must have been monitoring the comm channels. That was the risk Finn had taken when he sent out a message to find a ship. The rads would have had only minutes to launch an attack, but that was all they needed. Poison darts were old-fashioned and clumsy, but easy enough to smuggle past the sec-check.

As the newcomers surveyed the scene, there was no disguising her identity. Her jacket was torn, her clothes scuffed with dirt, her knuckles bleeding. They looked at her and knew what had happened and who she was. Their target.

The elevator door swished shut on Tilda and Amma and Inga, and they were gone.

Frantically, Edie looked around for a way out. The corridor
was enclosed. Several doors led to booths within reach, but they would be either locked or occupied. If there was anyone else around, so far they hadn't emerged to offer help.

The eco-rads could see she was trapped. They moved with purpose but didn't hurry. When they were five meters away, she saw that the red-haired man had something strapped to his fingers. She stared at the tiny pea-shooter that was going to kill her.

Behind her, the plaz door shattered. She spun around, expecting to face the other eco-rad, but it was Finn. He held a metal pipe in his hands—part of the broken railing from the catwalk. He looked toward her as if he didn't see her, staggered a couple of steps, stopped and tried to focus his eyes again. He was fighting poison meant to kill her, and looked like he might fall over at any second. The other eco-rad was nowhere in sight. Finn must have disabled him.

The teenage boy rushed Edie. She had a split second to anticipate his attack and used it wisely, swinging to the side and lashing out with a kick to his groin. He stumbled back with a yelp of pain. The other rad ignored his plight and kept coming.

Edie backed up against Finn. Despite his being in no condition to fight, her veins flooded with a new wave of adrenaline to replace the abject hopelessness of moments earlier. Whatever state Finn was in, she was glad he was here. She'd already be dead if she'd faced these people alone.

The eco-rad leered at Finn, as if Finn was already out of commission—despite the raised metal pipe.

The rad lifted his hand and Edie heard a small
ping
as something was fired from the weapon on his hand.

Finn took a sharp step backward, looking in disbelief at the dart in his arm. Unlike the other rads who'd wielded handheld darts, this man had a simple trigger in his fist that enabled him to attack at range.

The boy had recovered enough to try again. With a frown of anger and determination he rushed at Finn. Barely looking at him, Finn swung the pipe in a wide arc and struck the
boy in the stomach. He dropped, curling into a fetal position, groaning.

The pipe clattered to the deck and Finn sagged against the wall of the booths, clutching his arm. He plucked out the dart, pushed off the wall, and lurched toward the eco-rad. Every instinct told Edie to drag him away, to run. But Finn hadn't given up yet. He swung at the eco-rad, punching the man in the jaw with surprising force. With the rad off balance, Finn lunged, this time knocking him to the ground. Finn went down with him.

The
ping
again. The eco-rad shot Finn in the chest at point-blank range, but he couldn't throw off Finn's weight. Finn brought his knee up and pressed it on the man's throat with the full weight of his body. The man's eyes bulged, his arms flailing, but Finn ignored the blows. Edie dived onto the eco-rad's right arm, the one with the dart gun strapped to his knuckles, and wrenched it up over his head to point it away. Finn had taken three hits of the poison, or whatever it was, and he was still alive, still conscious, still fighting for his life—for her life.

“Stand down!”

Edie looked over her shoulder to see a security guard a few meters away, his spur aimed at Finn.

“Don't shoot!” Edie yelled. “This man attacked us. He's armed.”

She didn't want to release the rad's arm, knowing his only objective was to kill her with the dart gun. It would take a split second to shoot her, regardless of Finn's pressure on his windpipe or the guard's weapon trained on them all.

The boy got to his feet and started to run, using the closest exit—the broken door of the booth—ignoring the guard's commands to stop. The guard let him go, deciding to deal with the three battered people on the deck instead.

He approached them warily. Edie focused on Finn, hoping he could remain conscious long enough to get the eco-rad safely dealt with. Hoping he wouldn't kill the rad, and hadn't killed the one in the booth. It would be impossible to avoid
the scrutiny of the Crib if they were detained or if charges were laid.

“Finn, back off,” she hissed. He didn't seem to hear her at first. She risked releasing one hand from the eco-rad, who was lapsing into unconsciousness, and grabbed Finn's shoulder. He looked up, eyes glazed, brow drawn low as though in great concentration. “It's okay, Finn. Back off.”

She pushed his shoulder and he eased up, leaving the eco-rad choking though his compressed windpipe. Edie worked the dart gun free from the rad's fingers and threw it aside. Only then did she feel safe enough to release the man's arm. She stood on shaky legs and tried to haul Finn up. The guard was only a few meters away now and could see they were unarmed, no threat to him.

Edie heard the thud before she saw what happened. The eco-rad from inside the booth, the one she'd locked in and thought Finn had dealt with, had emerged, bloody and limping, and had knocked down the guard with one wild swing to the head.

And the guard had a spur. The rad struggled to rip the spur off the guard's forearm, and in those few seconds Edie knew she would have to tackle him. Finn was crouched on the deck in a daze, breathing heavily, as though forcing himself to stay conscious.