The Aftermath (32 page)

Kirk looked at Nicco, who made an affirmative shrug.

“Fair enough?” Valker asked them.

“Fair enough,” said Kirk, grudgingly. Then he added, “Uh, which of the women do we get? Or do we take turns with the two of 'em?”

*   *   *

With Valker directing them, Kirk and Nicco set up a flexible access tube that connected
Vogeltod
's main airlock with the zero-g hub of the wheel-shaped
Syracuse.
Now they didn't need space suits to transfer from one ship to the other. Valker was the first to glide through the spongy tube and enter
Syracuse,
with his two crewmen close behind him.

Without much enthusiasm Theo greeted them as they floated through the inner hatch of
Syracuse
's airlock. Speaking hardly a word he led them along the tube tunnel to the lockers that fronted the main airlock, where Pauline was waiting for them.

“Welcome aboard, gentlemen,” she said, forcing a minimal smile.

“Where's your lovely daughter?” Valker asked, his teeth showing.

“She's been taken ill,” said Pauline. “Some sort of a fever. I've confined her to her quarters.”

Valker's grin didn't diminish by a millimeter. “That's too bad. Awful sudden, wasn't it?”

Looking more serious than ever, Pauline said, “I don't know what it could be. I'm hoping it's not contagious. Once you get an antenna working I can query the medical people at Ceres about her.”

Valker nodded understandingly. Turning to his two crewmen, he ordered, “All right, you heard what the lady said. Let's get the materials aboard and start building a new set of antennas.”

Neither man moved.

Then he said to Theo, “You'd better get into your suit, son. We have a lot of work ahead of us, outside.”

“Right,” said Theo. He turned to the row of lockers and began pulling out his own hard-shell space suit.

“Still using those?” Valker asked.

Pauline replied, “We're not rich enough to afford the nanosuits, I'm afraid.”

“Too bad. If I had an extra one I'd loan it to the lad.”

Theo sat on the bench and began tugging on his leggings.

“Nicco, give the boy a hand. Kirk, you get back to our ship and start transferring the antenna materials.”

Kirk started to say something, but a glance at Valker made him shut up and head back to
Vogeltod.

Theo obviously did not appreciate being called a “boy” or a “lad,” but he said nothing as he reached for his thick-soled boots.

“I useta work in a suit like this,” Nicco said, tapping his knuckles on the torso of Theo's suit, still hanging in the locker. “The nanosuits are a lot better.”

“I suppose they are,” Theo said guardedly.

Valker said to Pauline, “I can get a diagnostic handset from our infirmary, maybe find out what's ailing your daughter.”

“I think not,” said Pauline. “If she has something contagious I don't want you and your crew coming down with it.”

“I understand,” Valker said, thinking, You don't want me to see the girl in bed, eh?

Nicco held the space suit torso high enough for Theo, crouching, to get his head and arms into it.

“You take care of him,” Valker told his crewman, “then go back to
Vogeltod
and help Kirk bring up those supplies.”

With a sly grin, Nicco touched one finger to his brow and said crisply, “Aye, skipper.”

To Pauline, Valker said, “I'll have to see your communications setup if we're going to rebuild your antennas.”

“That's up in the command pod,” she replied.

“You'd better lead me there.”

Pauline shot a glance at Theo, who was pulling his glassteel bubble helmet over his head.

“I'll be all right, Mom,” Theo said.

“Nicco will take good care of him, don't worry,” Valker assured Pauline.

Without another word, Pauline went through the hatch that led into the family's living quarters and, beyond that, to the tube tunnel that connected with the command pod. Valker followed behind her, close enough for her to feel his breath on the back of her neck.

SMELTER SHIP
HUNTER
: GALLEY

Elverda held both her gaunt, bony hands around the mug of hot tea, feeling the warmth seep into her palms. She stared at her hands: all bones and tendons, like a bird's claws, their skin mottled with age spots. Once, these hands carved monumental sculptures, she said to herself. Now they can barely lift a cup of tea.

Rejuvenation therapies have their limits, she thought. So do old women who've outlived their usefulness. Then she recalled the vision the artifact had revealed to her. One last sculpture, she told herself. A final tribute to him. Can I hang on long enough to do it? How much longer can I go on? And once I'm dead, what will happen to Dorn?

As if on cue, the cyborg stepped through the hatch and sat heavily in the chair at the head of the table. He stretched out his prosthetic leg and flexed it several times, slowly.

“Are you all right?” Elverda asked.

“The leg feels stiff. The bearings need lubrication.”

She started to get up from her chair. “I'll find—”

“No need,” Dorn said, stopping her with one upraised hand. His hand of flesh. “I can handle it later.”

Elverda settled back in the galley chair. “You're certain?”

“Yes. Thank you anyway.”

“De nada,” she said. She picked up the mug of tea again, then asked, “Did your radar sweep turn up anything?”

“Nothing.”

“No bodies?”

“Not even any debris.”

“Are you sure we're at the right location?”

He nodded ponderously. “I checked with Ceres. The battle took place here. I wasn't in it, but I was given to understand that at least a dozen mercenaries were killed.”

“Which corporation did they serve? Astro or Humphries?”

The human half of Dorn's face frowned slightly. “What difference does it make?”

“We could check their corporate headquarters. Perhaps they've already picked up the bodies.”

“No,” he said, flexing the leg again. “The corporations never picked up their dead. They simply wrote them off their accounting ledgers.”

“Inhuman,” Elverda murmured.

“Humans often perform inhuman acts. I myself am the foremost example of that sorry fact.”

“That wasn't you,” Elverda said quickly. “That was someone else. Another person. Not you, not who you are now.”

“Still…” He bowed his head briefly, as if uttering a swift prayer. Then, “The fact remains that there are no bodies to be found at this location.”

“Which means?”

“Which means that they have drifted much farther than I anticipated.”

“Or they were destroyed in the battle.”

Dorn seemed to consider that for a moment. “We'll do a spiral search pattern.”

“For how long?”

“A few days, at least. If we don't find anything we'll move on to the next battle site.”

“That would be the last one, wouldn't it?”

“The last one that I know of. I'm certain there are others.”

Elverda hesitated, then plunged ahead. “What if there aren't any others? What if we've found all the bodies that there are to find? What then?”

He stared at her, one eye an unblinking red camera lens, the other all too human.

“Then my mission is finished,” he said.

“And what do you do then?”

He didn't answer. He can't, Elverda said to herself. He's built his life around this mission and once it's over his life will have no purpose, no meaning.

Then she realized, Nor will mine, once I finish his sculpture.

*   *   *

With Nicco beside him in his nanosuit, Theo hung at the end of his safety tether and surveyed the gashed length of hull where
Syracuse
's antennas used to be. He could see the ship's innards through the long rip, the torn and empty fuel tanks that had once held hydrogen propellant for the fusion drive.

“Hafta patch that up,” Nicco said over the suit-to-suit radio link, “before we transfer any fuel to ya.”

“We have other fuel tanks,” said Theo. “Undamaged. On the other side of the wheel.”

“Oh. Okay, good. But the antennas come first,” Nicco said. “Skipper wants them antennas workin' before we do anything else.”

Nodding inside his bubble helmet, Theo said, “Fine with me. But we can't put them here, the skin's too torn up.”

“Where, then?”

Pointing with an extended arm, Theo said, “Over on that section, by the command pod. That way gives us the shortest path for the circuitry.”

“Show me,” said Nicco.

Theo felt distinctly nervous about disconnecting his safety tether. The suit's propulsion pack can jet you around the ship for hours, he told himself. You can always jet back to an airlock, the tethers are just an extra safety precaution. He knew it, but he still felt edgy about being outside the ship with this scavenger.

And Mom's in the pod with their skipper, he realized.

“I'm coming out,” said Kirk's voice in Theo's helmet earphones.

“Wait,” he replied. “We're moving to the next section of the hull. Bring the supplies there.”

“What the hell am I supposed to be, a donkey or something?” Kirk complained. “How come I have to carry all this junk?”

“Too heavy for you?” Nicco jeered.

“Just 'cause it's weightless don't mean it's easy to handle, wiseass,” Kirk shot back. “Come on down here and give me a hand.”

“Okay, okay,” said Nicco. Theo could see his teeth grinning.

“I'll be over at the next section, by the pod,” Theo said, pointing. “I'll see you both there.”

“Yeah.” Nicco pulled himself hand over hand along his tether, heading for the open airlock hatch where Kirk waited with the materials to paint a new antenna set onto the undamaged section of the hull.

Theo unclipped his tether and squeezed the control stud at his waist. The jet pack surged against his back and he lunged across the slashed section of hull, heading toward the backup control pod.

Once there he clipped the tether to a cleat and looked inside the pod. His mother and Valker seemed to be in earnest conversation. Wish I could hear what they're saying, Theo thought. If he tries anything with Mom I'll …

You'll what? he asked himself. What can you do? Bitterly, he thought that it would have been better if they'd never seen Valker and his crew of scavengers. If I hadn't been in this suit when they hailed us …

Suddenly an idea popped into his head. The suit radios don't have much range, but we're closer to Ceres now. If these scavengers found us there might be other ships close enough to hear me!

But so would Valker's crew. So what? Theo asked himself. We can't be in more trouble than we are now.

Realizing that he had to act fast or not at all, Theo raised his gloved hands before his face so he could see the keypad built into his suit's left wrist. He punched up a different frequency from the suit-to-suit freak he'd been using with Nicco and Kirk.

He licked his lips, then said, “This is ore ship
Syracuse.
We are damaged and need assistance. Three people aboard. Propulsion system down. We are adrift and need assistance urgently.”

He saw Nicco and Kirk sailing toward him, towing a mesh net bulging with cans and tubes: the materials to spray new antennas onto the hull.

Kirk came up close enough almost to touch helmets with him. “That wasn't smart, kid,” he snarled.

*   *   *

Back on
Hunter
's bridge, Dorn sat heavily in the command chair. Elverda took the smaller seat beside him.

“I've been thinking about your question,” he said slowly. “About what to do once we've recovered the last of the bodies.”

Elverda looked at him questioningly. “What will you do?” she asked.

The human side of his face almost smiled. “I suppose what I will do is try to find a way to die.”

“No!” she snapped. “You mustn't!”

“What point—”

The comm computer's message light began blinking. Elverda touched the
RECEIVE
key.

“This is ore ship
Syracuse,
” came a weak voice, barely audible over the crackling hiss of interference. “We are damaged and need assistance. Three people aboard. Propulsion system down. We are adrift and need assistance urgently.”

“Syracuse?”
Dorn gasped.

“You know the ship?” asked Elverda.

It was several moments before he replied, “Dorik Harbin tried to destroy it.”

ORE SHIP
SYRACUSE
: FAMILY QUARTERS

“He was using the alternate frequency on his suit radio to call for help,” Kirk said, his face set in an angry grimace.

Theo stood between Kirk and Nicco like a prisoner under guard. Valker lounged, completely at ease, in the big armchair that had been his father's. Pauline was on the sofa, sitting tensely, her fists on her knees, her eyes on her son.

“I do that whenever I'm in the suit,” Theo improvised. “It's my normal routine.”

“Is it now?” Valker asked, one eyebrow cocked dubiously.

“We didn't hear any distress call from you when we found you,” Nicco said.

“I was just about to send out a call when I heard your message,” Theo said.

“Why call for help when we're already here?” Kirk demanded.

Valker answered before Theo could reply. “Because he's scared of us, that's why. Isn't it, son? You see a gang of roughneck scavengers and you're worried about your mother and sister. Right?”

Theo hesitated, then admitted, “That's part of it, I suppose.”