Devil to the Belt

CHAPTER 18

THE emergency speakers said, from every other store front: This is a full security alert. Go to your residences immediately. Go to your residences immediately. Clear the walkways for emergency vehicles.

Sal said: “So what are we supposed to do, go home or clear the walkways? Stupid shits!”

“I don’t like this,” Ben said. “Seriously time to get down to the club.”

The wires sparked and melted, the door opened, Meg whipped a chair into the doorway and ducked back. Shots spattered. Dekker kept his hands steady: the toilet paper caught, the cloth fibers caught, the cloth caught, blue fire in the folds; Dekker lit the next and Meg snatched the bottle and threw it into the hall.

It shattered. Dekker lit a third vodka bottle, passed it, and Meg lobbed the second out the door and ducked back as somebody screamed in pain.

The Shepherd was on a chair with another bit of burning cloth. The smoke alarm went off inside. The fire system started spraying, the door tried to shut as shots spattered off the edge and blew hell out of the chair-back. They were down to gin bottles.

Fire-spray started outside, white chemical clouds billowing up.

“That’s got it,” Meg said, pulled her mask up, trod on the chair and cleared it into the smoke outside as shots went past the door.

No notion whether she’d made it, no knowledge how to dodge or duck—he just deafened himself to the shots, cleared the chair and hugged the wall in the neon-lit smoke—running shadows rushed out of Scorpio’s, screaming in panic.

Shots slammed into the crowd. Bodies flew; voices shrieked above the wailing siren. He sprinted past the restaurant’s blue glare, dodged runners in the mist, not caring right now if the Shepherd was behind them or not—Meg was ahead of him trying for the Emergency Shaft, Meg had the Shepherds’ key, and people who’d been taking cover in the restaurant were running every which way through the mist and into the gunfire.

He saw Meg stop, saw her trying to get the key in a slot.

A shot blasted a gouge in the wall beyond her—he flinched, pressed himself as flat to the wall as he could.

“Take the lift on the next level,” the Shepherd gasped, clutching at his shoulder, beside them. “They’re bound to have our cards blocked—Use your own. Berth 18 if we get separated—”

People were bunching up around them in panic—somebody in a waiter’s uniform had a key, shoved Meg aside. The door opened. Meg slid in with the crowd and he pushed after her, he didn’t care who he knocked out of the way—there were more and more pushing at their backs, the rush shoving them past the second door and up the steps. He pulled his mask down for air, grabbed the rail to keep from being shoved down and pushed all the way into the clear, with the Shepherd close behind, around the turn and up.

“3-deck damn door isn’t going to work!” the Shepherd yelled out of the clangor behind them in the stairwell. “Door’s still open down there! Go for 4-deck, get a door shut behind us!”

Dekker turned his shoulders, grabbed a handhold, forced his way past panicked, flagging clerks and restaurant help—the Shepherd yelling “Go!” and shoving him from behind.

A hundred feet each deck level. No way clerks and waiters could outclimb spacer legs—on the end of four months’ gym time. Meg was out of sight above them.

A siren had started in the distance—around the curvature of the ‘deck. Ben couldn’t see where—but, God, it was the direction of the club—where they were going.

“Come on,” Sal cried, trying to hurry him—grabbed his hand and pulled him through the crowd coming out of the Amalthea, but steps raced behind them. “Hold it!” a shout came from close at their backs: a hand grabbed Ben’s shoulder and spun him around and back, bang up against the plex front of the bar. He found himself nose to nose with a cop, with a stick jammed up under his chin.

“Pollard, is it?”

Shit, he thought, struggling for air.

Out of nowhere, Bird’s voice said, “Hey! Hey, what do you think you’re dealing with?” Bird came up and caught the cop’s shoulder, another cop grabbed Bird and somebody in the crowd spun the cop around face-on with a beer mug.

“Hold it,” Ben tried to say, “wait, dammit,— Bird!”

Something banged, the plex window shook to an impact, and there was blood all over—he slipped, and the cop’s riot stick came away as he hit on his knees, Bird was lying there with a bloody great hole in his sleeve and a look of shock on his face. All else he could see was legs and all else he could hear was people cursing and screaming. He scrambled over, grabbed Bird’s coat and dragged him up close against the frontage, Bird fainting on him, people trampling them until he had a moment of clear space and Sal grabbed his arm to pull him to his feet.

“Ben! Come on!”

He scrambled for his feet, pulling at Bird. Sal hauled, Bird tried to get his legs under him, and they threw arms around him and ran with the crowd, battered and staggered by people passing them, Bird doing the best he could, Sal shoving him up from the other side—gunfire and shouts echoed at their backs.

Screaming broke out ahead of them, and the crowd ebbed back at them without warning, shoved them the other way. The PA said, echoing over the shouting and the distant siren, This is not a test. This is a real emergency—

“Stairs,” Bird gasped, and Ben thought, God, where are they? You passed them time and again, the utility accesses—between the frontages, back in the bars—

—used to use them in the Institute, up and down the dorms, you used to duck under the security cameras—

One was right next to The Hole, that was where.

His lungs were burning, Bird was losing his footing, stumbling with every step as they reached the alcove and Sal shoved at the door.

“Mike’s got a key,” Bird gasped.

“Hell with that,” Ben said, and hit #, /, and 9 simultaneously, 8, 0, and /. Management Emergency Access.

They weren’t the only ones that wanted the stairs—”Get out of my way!” Ben snapped at Sal, feeling the panic in the crowd as they pushed for the opening door—God, they couldn’t climb and carry Bird between them: he got a shoulder under him and carried him solo, with Sal running the stairs ahead of him. Hysterical people shoved him from behind, shoved past, nearly knocked him down, and then somebody with sense, thank God, pulled him square again and shoved him forward when his balance faltered.

“Lock through, dammit!” Sal yelled—downside door shut was the only way the door up on 3-deck would open; and the guys ahead of her got out. Ben saw it through a black-rimmed blur, heard it through the ringing of the steps and the pounding in his chest, one thin feminine voice, “E-drill, ten at a time, you dumbass bastards!”

They had a human wave behind them. Sal was holding the door open. Sal screamed at them to get in, and the guys behind—thank God, must have had the sense to turn around in the lock and shove the tide back. The doors shut, the hallway door opened, and they had the clear cold air of 3-deck.

“Core-lift!” Sal yelled, grabbing him. He didn’t know how he could do it, but Bird wasn’t in any shape to carry himself. His knees and his ankles were giving and wobbling with every step, his vision was nearly gone—people were scattering past them in every direction, piling into the Trans, any way in hell they could get away. He couldn’t get enough wind, he knew his knees were going, but it was close… he knew it was close.

He couldn’t see anything but blurs—didn’t even know where they were, except Sal kept him straight, and Sal hit the button when they got there and propped him on his feet—he kept blinking sweat out of his eyes, couldn’t hear anything but his heartbeat and distant screams, was scared mindless the core-lift was shut off at 3 with the alarms down on helldeck, but the door opened, welcomed them with white light and cold air.

She got the door shut. He stooped, eased Bird down from his shoulder, held on to him til he could lean him against the wall—Bird’s face was white even after the head-down carry, Bird’s blood was soaking him, but Bird breathed something coherent about the door.

Sal was trying to card it to move. He staggered to the panel to try the E-code, but abruptly the power cut in without his touching it and the car rose—

“What did you do?” he gasped—but then the car slowed down again, on 4, and the door opened, on an out-of-breath Meg, Dekker, and a Shepherd with a key—

“God,” Meg said. And: “Bird?”

The Shepherd shoved them in ahead of him and keyed them from the core as fast as Ben could get his next breath—bent double with the pain in his gut, while Meg and Sal were kneeling and trying to take care of Bird.

“We waited,” Dekker panted. “Long as we could—”

Ben nodded. He didn’t have the breath to tell Dekker he was an ass and it was his damned fault, he wasn’t sure he could get his next gasp. He waved a helpless gesture at Bird, meaning take care of him, fool, do something for him: he couldn’t straighten—while the car shot for the core and the Shepherd said, “We don’t know what’s going to be waiting for us up there. The minute the door’s open, out and hit the handlines. If he can’t hold the line—” A breathless wave of the hand in Bird’s direction. “There’s no way to take him.”

“Screw you!” Dekker said. “We’re taking him.”

“There’s guards on the dock up there!”

“Then screw them too!” Dekker yelled.

“Listen, kid,—”

“Shut up!” Meg yelled, and Ben saw the way Meg was holding Bird—how of a sudden Bird had become weight in her arms and his eyes and his mouth were still open. No, Ben thought; he couldn’t move, just stood there, waiting for Bird to move, bent over with the ache in his gut, until Sal got up and took hold of him and a handhold, because they were approaching the null-zone.

Meg said, between breaths, Bird still locked in her arms, “We got a shuttle at 18, clear down the far end of the mast, dumb shits couldn’t park it closer—going to take us out to a Shepherd ship. They got that carrier coming this way from the shipyard, don’t know if it’s got guns mounted.”

“It’s fast,” the Shepherd said. “Too damn fast.”

Their talk went past Ben’s ears. It ran through his brain, as a set of facts explaining where they were going and that their chances weren’t good. He thought he ought to come up with a better idea, but his brain wasn’t working right—he just felt the lift reach that queasy spot and felt his gut knot up.

Bird wasn’t dead, Bird couldn’t be gone—it didn’t make sense to him. He’d done everything he could and somehow Bird just—went out on them and he didn’t know what to do with him. It wasn’t damned fair, what had happened—he’d carriedhim, dammit, til his gut was full of knives, and Bird wasn’t friggin’ dead, he couldn’t go like that—

Dekker reached in slow-motion after his arm as the car clanked into the interface. Dekker held on to him until the car stopped and the doors opened. The Shepherd made the first swing from the lift’s safety grip to the mounting bar and hand-over-handed himself toward the line. Meg had let Bird go, and Meg went next—

Nothing else to do, Ben thought, with an anguished glance at Bird drifting there so white and different, among beads of blood, and grabbed the mounting bar and went, fast as he could. Without Bird.

Eerie quiet in the core. The chute was silent. You could hear the line moving in the slot, you could hear the low static hum of the rotation interface. Couldn’t see anything for a moment but the line’s motor housing slipping past them.

He looked back, to be sure it was all real. But Sal and Dekker were reaching for the line, blocking his view of the inside of the car.

Meg was on the line behind the Shepherd, he was three spaces back. They passed the housing out into the open, out where the core spun to a dizzy vanishing point and tricked the eye and an already aching stomach. He held on—just held on, while muscles cramped in the cold.

Past the customs zone. He kept thinking—what if someone had a gun—what if they know where we are? Nothing they could do up here. Nothing but go at the pace of the line. Cold chilled his blood-soaked clothing and turned it stiff. Fingers lost all feeling, eyes teared from the cold, more bitter than he’d ever felt it, and the line moved at the same steady pace, clank, clank, clank—with his teeth chattering and the only thought in his head now just keeping his fingers closed on the hand-grip. Meg had said berth 18. 18 was hell and gone at the end of the mast. Shuttle out to a ship that was going to take Dekker and the rest of them out of here, he guessed, but the only thought that kept replaying, over and over again, was that gun going off, Bird getting hit—

He hadn’t had time to stop the bleeding, dammit. Hadn’t had time—Sal had known where she was going, Sal had known about the shuttle—hadn’t told them, God, he should have told her to go to hell, taken Bird to the Trans, taken him to the hospital—Bird shouldn’t be dead…

It was Trinidadthey were passing, now, Way Outmated to her for the trip they weren’t going to take. They’d been so damn close—

Movement caught his eye, against the steady spin of the core, big supply can drifting free—hell! he thought, shocked by the sight, damned dangerous, a thing the size of a skimmer floating along like that with no pusher attached—

He thought—as clearly as he was thinking at all—that’s wrong.

That’s wrong, that is—

The line jolted and stopped.

“Shit!” Sal gasped, loud in that sudden silence, and Dekker thought—we’re not going to get there, it’s not going to work—we’re hanging up here and we can’t reach the shuttle—can’t reach the dismount lines…

“Hand off the line!” Meg yelled of a sudden, juvie lessons, old safety drill. He reached for Sal, caught her hand—saw, all of a sudden, the whole line bucking, a wave coming toward them.

Dekker yelled, “Let go!” and threw everything he had into the chain they made, hand to hand—he threw his whole body into that snap-the-whip twist, aimed as best he could and let go—

A moment of floating free, then, nothing they could do if that line hit them, if they missed the dismount-line—

The wave sang overhead and passed. The Shepherd snagged a dismount line with his foot and hauled them all toward it.

Meg called out, “Center-mast! We can’t make the shuttle, we got our ownship there. Her tanks are charged!”

“Won’t dock!” the Shepherd yelled back. “Won’t mate, dammit!”

“Take what we can fuckin’ get,” Sal yelled. “They’ve turned the line loose, there’s no way we can get there, Sammy, move your butt!”

Fire popped, somewhere, Dekker had learned that sound. “They’re shooting at something,” he called out, following Sal and Ben down the line that connected along the dockage.

Something sang past him. He thought, God, they’re fools, there’s seals where we are and they’re shooting bullets—

Another ricochet—he saw Meg kicked sideways, blood spraying—thought she was going off the line, but her left hand held the line, and Sal caught up and grabbed her jacket. He made a fast catch-up to help both of them, but Meg had caught Sal’s coat with her left hand, blood floating in great dark beads near her other arm. Sal screamed at Ben to get out of her way, get the hatch open.

Ben scrambled along the line and overtook the Shepherd at Trinidad’sentry. Sal took a swing and floated free toward them and Dekker hurled himself after, caught Meg’s arm and got his hand over the bleeding as Ben and the Shepherd grabbed their clothes and hauled them into the open hatch.

“Get it closed!” he gasped, stopping with a shove of his foot on a touch-pad. “Meg,—”

Meg’s own hand shoved his aside, clamped down on the arm. “I got it, I got it,” Meg said between her teeth. “God, just get me a patch—get us the hell out of here! Get us to the shuttle, 18, this guy’ll tell you—”

“We can’t mate with a shuttle-dock!” the Shepherd cried. “We’ve lost it, dammit, all we are is under cover. Aboujib, get com, get contact with the Hamilton, tell them our situation, see if they can talk us out of this—”

“Severely small chance, Sammy.”

Severely small, Meg told herself, couldn’t move her arm for Ben to get a wrap on it, sleeve and all—spurting blood everywhere, real close to going out.

Like Bird.

No fuss, not overmuch pain, just—going out.

“Hang on,” Ben said, and hurt her with the bandage. “Damn it, Meg, pay attention! Hold on to it!”

Grapples banged loose. She thought, Good boy, Dek…

… Bills every damn where on the table, Bird excused himself up to the bar, talked to Mike a minute, Bird about as upset as she’d ever seen him during the days when they were trying to fix that ship. Bird was working himself up to a heart attack. Meanwhile she sat there looking at her fingernails, telling herself she was a fool for staying with this whole crazy idea.

Old anger, she told herself. So the company won another round. So another kid died. A lot of them had died—

She kept hearing the gunfire behind the rattle of glassware. Watching the rab go down. Kids, with shocked looks on their faces. The company cops with no faces, just silver visors that reflected back the smoke and the frightened faces of their victims.

Lawless rab.

Property rights. Company rules.

“We got to fix this,” Bird said the day Dekker came to them. “What they’ve done isn’t fair.” And she thought, sick at her stomach, Dammit, Bird, they’ll kill you…

Trim jets kept firing. She felt the bursts.

The shuttle’s mains kicked in, in the high lonely cold above Earth’s atmosphere, the transition she loved. You knew you were going home, then, the motherwell couldn’t hold you—

Up, not down—

Black for a while. She felt the push of braking, had Sal’s arm around her, the aux boards in front of her, Sal trying to get her belted in. She reached with the arm that didn’t hurt, took the belt and snapped the clip in, solid click. Tested it for a rough ride. She told Sal: “Get yourself belted, Aboujib, I got it, all right…”

Another burst of trim jets. Dek was maneuvering, Ben was fastening his belt for him while the Shepherd—Sammy, Sal called him—was filling in at the com, saying, urgently, “They’re warning us to pull back in. That carrier’s moving in fast. The Hamilton’spowering up now—we can’t make it, there’s no time for them to pick us up—”

Trim jets fired constantly at the rate of one and two a second, this side and that—she had the camera view, a row of docked skimmers blurring in the number two monitor as they skimmed along the mast surface— damnclose, there, kid—

Static burst from the general com: the Shepherd had cut B channel in. “ AMC Twenty-nine Hamilton, this is FleetCom. You’re in violation of UDC directives. Stand down—”

“Cut that damn thing off!” Ben snarled. “We got enough on our minds.”

“We can’t dock,” the Shepherd yelled. Sal was belting in. Ben was. Acceleration was increasing in hammer blows from the main engines. The mast whipped past faster and faster—

Then nothing. Sudden long shove from the bow stabilizers and the mast swung back in view, retreating now—going for decel—another burst of Trinidad’smains…

No, she thought— Way Out’smains… we’re coupled. Double mass.—Are we giving up? Going back? Shuttle’s on the mast, Dek, did we miss it. Don’t get rattled, kid…

Ben said something. Dek said something, and the trim jets fired another long burst, taking the ship—God, felt like a right angle to the station.

God, he’s going after the Hamilton—

Mains again, hardpush—pain, from the arm, real pain—

This is interesting, she thought, feeling the accel, figuring vectors. Hell of a ride, Dek,—you tell ‘em we’re coming?

Big shove. Dark again. She could hear the beeps from the distance indicators, the higher ready-beeps from systems on standby—she thought: that’s nice, nicesound, that, everything’s optimum config, that sumbitch interface back there worked, didn’t it?

Loud argument, and the whine of the forward bay hydraulics.

“What the fuck are you doing?” a man’s voice shouted. “They’re ready to move, dammit, we’re in their blast pattern—they got a carrier on intercept—”

Sal’s voice, clear and sane: “Shut up, Sammy!”

Thank God, Meg thought, listening for the beeps and tones, easier that than keeping her eyes open. Plenty of information there: bay was open, manipulator arm was working—Sammy was saying, “God, you fool, you damned fool…”

Worth a look. She blinked the blurry monitors clear, saw an irregular surface, slotted with dust-deflectors and bolted-onto with tether stanchions—the arm extending out in front of them, white in the spots, shadowed onto the irregular plating—

“Go for it, go for it!” Sal said, “you got it, Ben!”

Neat touch. Hardly felt it.

Attached. To a tether stanchion. The manipulator grip closed and locked.

“ Nicejob,” she said. She wasn’t sure anybody heard.

The Shepherd yelled, “ Go!”

Acceleration started, built and built.

Better dump those tanks, Dek, better just uncouple Way Out, let her go, and just hope to hell the arm mount holds—no way we can decel off what a Shepherd can put on us, anyway…

Ought to tell the kid. But just hard to get organized—hard to get the mouth to work.

Unstable load. Lot of push on. Pressure built in her arm and deserted her brain.

Going up, guys, going up, long and hard as we can…

Quiet. Couldn’t even hear the fans. But no more g.

Taste of blood.

Explosion—

But they weren’t tumbling. Wasn’t the way it had been. He opened his eyes, got the board in focus in this peaceful drifting—neck was stiff, muscles sprained. He turned his head and saw Ben out cold—the Shepherd beside him, headset drifting loose. If there was sound he couldn’t hear it, except the fans.

Then he remembered shutting down. Remembered Meg—tried to move. There wasn’t a muscle that didn’t hurt. But he unclipped, pushed off and turned, getting to Meg’s position.

Blood made a fine mist. She was white as a ghost and cold when he touched her face. She looked dead.

But tension came back, dead one moment, then unconscious, but there, by some subtle change that wasn’t even movement until the eyelids showed stress. Ben was moving—number 2 boards and the best place, his and Ben’s, to ride out the push.

“She make it?” Ben asked fuzzily.

“Yeah,” Meg mumbled, speaking for herself. At least that was what it sounded like.

“Are we still grappled?”

“I don’t know,” Dekker said. “We seem stable.”

Ben freed himself and drifted over to see to Sal—Sal was coming to. The Shepherd was still out. Dekker reached for the headset, heard faint static and a thin voice before he held it to his ear. “… alive in there?” he heard, and: “I’m hearing voices. Their com is open…”

“Yeah,” he said, pulling the mike into line. “This is miner ship Trinidad. Is this the Hamilton?”