The Space Between (35 page)

She collected the tape that Meledrin had
ignored earlier and used it to bind Airman Dongoske's feet. He
started to struggle before his hands were secure as well, but
Meledrin stepped in to assist, even going down on her knees to grab
his flailing fists. She grabbed one of his wrists in both her hands
and twisted. Not too much, but just enough. He went suddenly still,
grimacing with pain but not willing to react lest she decide to
complete the maneuver.

"You do not lay your hands on a woman
without her permission," Meledrin hissed in his face. "Under any
circumstances."

Kim bound his wrists while
Meledrin spoke an
Ending
.

"How stupid do you think I am, Dongoske?
Jesus, did you and the General really think I'd fall for it? And do
you really think I'd go around attacking elite American soldiers if
I thought they'd be serious about fighting back?"

Airman Dongoske grunted and laid his head on
the floor. "You're just making it hard for yourself, Kim, and you
know it. How far do you think you'll get?"

Kim shrugged. "I guess we're about to find
out. Come on you lot, let's get out of here." She taped the mouths
of the three soldiers and pressed one of the buttons on the
wall.

The two big doors slid open and they entered
the lift. Kim was swearing before the doors had even closed.

"What is the matter?"

Kim sighed. "We want to go down, but we need
a key for that."

"Down?"

"Yes."

"But are we not trying to escape from this
complex. Going down will merely take us further from the
surface."

"Yeah, well apparently I have a problem with
authority even when it's making me do exactly what I wanted to do."
She hit the wall. "Stupid damn lift. Up it is then."

But as she was reaching out to press one of
the buttons on the wall, Keeble reached past and pressed a
different one. The doors opened, and Keeble marched back out into
the room.

"Keeble, where are you going?" Meledrin
asked. She wanted to be away from this place. She wanted to see the
sky. She wanted to breathe fresh air.

"Come on, Keeble," Kim said, stabbing at a
button to keep the doors open. "I want to go down, but up is the
second best option."

The dwarf stepped over airman Dongoske, who
rolled onto his back to watch, and started going through some
cupboards. He didn't find what he was after, apparently, for he
went out the door into the hallway. Meledrin noticed that Kim was
staring after him stupidly. Apparently chasing him was not part of
her plans, but she had just started to do so when he returned with
a small plastic box in his hands.

"There's a utility closet just down the
hall," he explained. He returned to the elevator, set the box down,
and opened it up. There were all manner of tools inside. He
selected one, waited for Kim to release the button she was still
holding, and went to work on a small panel close by. "I think we
are going to have some company very soon." He was seemingly more
lucid than he had been for a long time. Perhaps the prospect of
manual labor had calmed him.

Kim swore again, and
Meledrin waved her fingers in a
Greater
Changing
.

24: Deeper

Kim watched for a couple of minutes as
Keeble worked on the elevator. "Do you have any idea what you're
doing?" she asked. She could imagine half the personnel in the
complex gathering in the small room outside.

The dwarf had a screwdriver in his mouth but
answered anyway. "This is just like a computer. I pulled one of
them apart in Colin's office. And I talked about them on the
plane."

Kim shook her head. "I could pull the thing
apart too, doesn't mean it would do anything after I put it back
together."

But Keeble snapped the panel closed and
pushed the down button. The lift started to move. Kim smiled and
stopped herself just before she ruffled his hair. "Way to go."

"So why do you wish to go down?" Meledrin
asked from her spot in the corner.

"Three reasons. A spaceship, a captured
alien, and because Hilliard didn't want me to."

Meledrin sniffed and Kim shrugged in
reply.

The journey down didn't take long. When the
doors opened, Kim expected to be confronted by a dozen armed men.
There was only one, and he looked slightly surprised. Hadn't they
worked out what she was doing?

"Ahhh, hi," Kim said.
"Don't move." The problem was, she said it in Tuki's language. She
said everything in Tuki's language unless she thought about it
first. While she raised the gun, she gave the instructions again in
English. "
Don't move.
"

It didn't look as if the young man was about
to disobey.

"
Take me to your alien,
" Kim
said.

He swallowed.
"
I can't.
"

"
Why not?
"

"
I've only been beyond this room a couple of times. I don't
know where the alien is, exactly, but I know there are more guards
and more security systems to get through before you can get to
it.
"

Kim shrugged.
"
Well, this next door will have to do for
now.
"

The guard nodded before using a key and
scanning his hand on a panel beside the door. Kim took the key and
led the others through into the hall beyond. Still no people. Tuki
didn't say anything but nervously adjusted the pack on his back
while he gazed into the gloom. Kim knew how he felt.

Keeble was still carrying his toolbox,
gripping it in the metal prongs of his left hand. "Where is
everyone?" he asked.

Kim looked over her shoulder at the guard
and asked the question in English.

"
They have better things to do than stand around in hallways,
I suppose,
" he said.

"
But that's what guards are made for,
"
Kim said.

He shrugged.
"
If you can get through everything above,
a couple more down here won't make all that much
difference.
"

"
How long until some arrive?
"

"
A
couple of minutes.
" He looked over his
shoulder as the elevator doors closed and the lift started to go
back up. "
Or less.
"

Kim let the door close.
"
Right.
" She
looked back down the hall and hefted her gun. Surely this wasn't
part of Hilliard's plan. How was she supposed to tell? "Damn it.
Can you fix this door, Keeble?"

The dwarf immediately set to work, awkwardly
working his hand loose so he could put the tools down. He undid
four screws on a panel beside the door and carefully placed
everything in a pile on the floor. He scratched his head and
muttered to himself as he looked carefully amongst the wires and
circuits in the wall. Then he took up some pliers, reached
carefully into the hole, and ripped out and cut everything he could
grab in one go. For good measure he smashed a circuit board as
well.

"Huh." Kim was so hyped up and expecting
everything to be nearly impossible that she wouldn't have thought
of something so simple. "Will that work?"

Keeble shrugged. He didn't
look particularly happy. "Can't see why not." He looked into the
hole as if thinking maybe he
could
have found the one correct wire to do the job.
"I'm not an expert on that type of thing."

"You fixed the elevator."

"Yeah, but it took me a few minutes. I
didn't have time for fiddling here."

Meledrin sniffed, though Kim thought it was
probably more out of habit than anything else.

"Right," Kim said. "Of course. Come on
then."

Heart pounding, she led the way quickly down
the hallway, stalking through the soft light. Tuki and Keeble, tool
box in hand again, crept along behind like boys playing hide and
seek while Meledrin came at a leisurely stroll. Colors and patterns
swirled through the walls, and there was a slight rut along the
center of the floor. The air was heavy and still. There were no
people.

"There should be more people," Kim
muttered.

"Is it night time?" Tuki asked softly,
looking around as if he expected the missing people to magically
appear at any moment.

According to Kim's watch it was just after
midnight, but she would've expected this place to be buzzing with
activity at all hours. With the war going on above there was no
time for resting.

There were Tuki-sized brown metal doors off
either side of the passage, and Kim checked a couple at random. She
didn't expect to find anything significant in such a nondescript
location and wasn't disappointed. Quiet, dark offices. Neat storage
rooms. A kitchen.

Before she closed the door on this last
room, Kim called Tuki forward. She took the pack off his back,
tossed out most of the clothes and filled the newly created space
with tins of nonperishable food and bottled water. The odds of them
needing the supplies were slim but it was no use getting onto the
spaceship if they just had to let Hilliard in tomorrow when they
got thirsty.

Kim could hardly lift the pack, but the moai
had no trouble.

When they finally saw someone else, they
found the spaceship. A tired looking woman with wisps of loose hair
and a crumpled white coat stepped out through a door. She was
examining papers on an overloaded clipboard and didn't see them as
Kim ducked down a branching passage with her companions close
behind. And when footsteps came in their direction, they opened
another door and slipped into the room beyond.

Holding her breath, Kim listened at the
door. "I don't think she's coming this way," she whispered. For a
moment, nobody replied.

Eventually, Meledrin said, "I am wondering
if that is the ship for which we are searching."

Kim turned to look around her. There was no
spaceship. "Pardon?" The room was long and narrow, barely two
meters across and almost completely filled by a gallery of chairs
that looked out through a window. Tuki had taken off the pack and
was sitting, but Keeble and Meledrin were both standing beyond
that.

"I have never seen a spaceship," Meledrin
said, "unless those bats count. But I believe that could well be
one." The elf pointed out through the window.

"I think she could be right. It's a bit like
a plane, but not really."

But by that stage Kim could already see. She
leaned against the window as if every centimeter could make the
difference. Tuki went to stand a small distance away, looking
silently down into the room. The ship was about the size of a small
bus and shaped something like an egg sliced length wise, small end
forward. There were two stubby wings and a tall pointed tail. It
squatted low to the ground on four articulated legs. Spotlights and
scaffolding tied it in a web of shadows.

Kim thought it would have people crawling
all over it, but the room was empty of life.

"It isn't very big, is it?" Keeble said.

"No, not really."

Meledrin sniffed. "It is large enough."

"Are we going to steal it?" Keeble wound the
gears on his hand.

"Steal it? How the hell would we get
out?"

"Well, they got it in there," Keeble
said.

"I do not believe it is a good idea to give
her any ideas, Keeble."

Kim followed the dwarf's gaze upwards. Far
above, probably at ground level, she guessed, was what looked like
a trapdoor. She smiled.

"Come on. We can spring the
alien, then steal the ship."
Why
not?

Keeble was nodding as if it were all a
foregone conclusion. He collected his tool kit from near his feet
and headed for the door.

"I do not think it is worth the risk."

"What are they going to do?" Kim asked.
"Kill us?"

"Perhaps."

Maybe they would. Kim wasn't sure, but she
was going to find out. She licked her lips.

"So why do we need the alien?" Keeble asked.
"I thought Dongoske said it was a human ship."

"He did, but I want to talk to the alien and
find out what the hell is going on."

Tuki followed Kim out of the room without
complaint or question. He'd probably been following women without
question all his life and wasn't about to change now. Kim didn't
really care if Meledrin followed at this stage, though she doubted
the elf would go off on her own.

"We need some stairs or a lift," Kim said
once she was back out in the main passage. There were no doors
leading directly into the hangar from this level, but there were
several others on the other side of the hall. The second door
contained a stairwell.

Keeble started through. "No. We should look
for the alien up here first. Come on."

But it was just more offices and more
utility rooms, so a few minutes later they made their way down to
the next level. Straight away there was more activity. When Kim
opened the door, she found herself face to face with the same
harried woman who had almost caught them earlier. They both stared
stupidly for a moment.

Kim reacted first, grabbing her and dragging
her through the door. Keeble slammed it shut behind them, hopefully
cutting off her shout.

"Shut up," Kim said, centimeters from her
face. She said it in Tuki's language first then again a moment
later in English, but the woman kept shouting. Kim slapped her.
That did the job. Kim didn't know what she would have done next.
Punching her didn't seem right. "You got any tape in that box of
tricks, Keeble?"