Deep Storm

49

Roger Corbett lay in a spreading pool of his own warm blood, wrapped in a fog of pain. At times it seemed he was dreaming; at others, as if he were already dead, floating in some limitless dark oblivion. Thoughts, feelings, associations drifted in and out, seemingly without his ability to control them. A minute might have passed, or ten; he didn't know. There was only one thing he was certain of: he could not let the crouching figure with the gun realize he was still alive.

The pain was intense now, but pain was good: it helped him fight against the terrible lassitude that kept trying to drag him down forever.

As he lay there, he felt a pang of regret. His three o'clock appointment would be waiting for him. She was probably there now, tapping her foot and glancing at her watch. She'd been making such progress in anger management it seemed a pity that…

Then the faintness returned, washing over him, and he surrendered to dark dreams. In them, he was a diver who had swum too deep. And now the surface was a mere smudge of faint light far, far above, and his lungs were already bursting as he kicked his way upward, swimming as fast as he could, yet with so very much farther to go…

He forced himself back to consciousness. The figure in the corner was done.

She rose in the darkness and turned toward him, her eyes shining faintly with the light from the adjoining chamber. Corbett held his breath and lay motionless, his own eyes mere slits. Leaving the duffel where it lay, she took a step toward him, then another. Then she stopped once again. There was a dull gleam as the barrel of her gun rose toward him.

Suddenly she turned sharply. A moment later, Corbett heard it, too: voices, sounding faintly over the whine of compressors.

Others-two at least, maybe more-must have entered the first compartment of Environmental Control. Sudden hope brought a measure of clarity back to him, helped steady his flagging senses. His gambit had worked. Bryce was sending help.

The voices came closer.

She stepped over him, gun at the ready, and slid up to the hatch leading to the second chamber. Opening his eyes a little wider, Corbett watched her peer carefully around the corner. The curved line of her hair, the barrel of the gun, were silhouetted by the yellow halo of light. Then she slipped through the hatch into the second chamber, ducked behind a turbine, and was lost from his view.

The voices continued. They no longer seemed to be getting any closer. He guessed they were still in the first compartment, somewhere between Bishop and the main exit from Environmental Control. From the few words he could make out, they sounded like maintenance workers, checking one of the innumerable pieces of equipment.

That meant the cavalry hadn't arrived-at least, not yet. Maybe it wasn't going to.

Corbett put out a hand, tried to raise himself to a sitting position, but his hand slipped and skidded on the bloody floor. A spear of pain lanced through his chest, and he bit his upper lip savagely to keep from crying out.

He lay there, breathing shallowly, letting the pain ease somewhat. Then, planting his feet on the metal floor, he pushed himself forward, slowly, toward the far bulkhead.

It was agonizingly slow. One foot, two feet, a yard. Bloody bubbles frothed in the back of his throat. His shirt and coat were sodden with blood and acted like a dragline, slowing him still further. Halfway to the far wall he stopped briefly when faintness threatened to engulf him again. But he could not stop for long; if he did, he knew he would never start again. Once more, he planted his feet, forced himself a few inches at a time across the floor.

Now at last his head bumped against the far wall. With a sob of pain, he forced his gaze upward. Just above were the fat ropes of Semtex, four in all, pressed against the metal bulkhead in parallel lines. Into each had been set a detonator.

Focusing his strength, Corbett lifted an arm, fumbled for the nearest detonator, and plucked it from the shaped charge. Searing pain filled his chest again and he fell back, gasping. He could hear blood dripping from his elbow and wrist onto the bare floor.

From his supine position he examined the detonator. He could dimly make out a battery, a manual timer, two thin plates of metal separated by foil, a coil of optical fiber. Everything was miniaturized. He knew only a little about explosive ordnance but it looked like a long-period-delay "slapper." When the timer went off, the foil would be exploded electrically, and the plates would deliver the initial shock to the charge.

He placed the detonator as gently as possible on the floor. Ten minutes, she'd said; he figured he had maybe four or five left.

Three detonators to go.

Marshaling his strength, he lifted his arm again, strained for the next detonator, plucked it free-careful not to accidentally readjust its timer-and fell heavily back again.

This time the pain was much worse and he almost slipped into unconsciousness. The blood boiled in his throat and he choked and coughed. A minute passed while he recovered enough strength to continue.

The third shaped charge was out of reach. Digging in his heels once again, he pushed himself along the floor until he was near. Then he looped his hand upward a third time, pulled the detonator free, swung it back to the floor.

The pain was now so intense he did not think he could move to the fourth. He lay in the darkness, struggling to remain conscious, listening to the low murmur of voices. They seemed to be involved in an endless argument over some bit of engineering trivia.

How much time did he have left? A minute? Two?

He wondered where, exactly, Bishop was. No doubt she was crouched behind some piece of machinery, listening impatiently to the chitchat, waiting for the workers to move on so she could safely escape.

Why hadn't she just shot them? The gun was silenced. There could be only one reason: the hybrid weapon had a small magazine, maybe just two rounds. And she couldn't run past them; that would give the game away. She still had a chance to escape. But not if two more people took up the hue and cry…

No. She wouldn't run past them. She'd retreat to the Semtex and readjust the timers on the detonators, buy herself some more time.

He realized he'd been too preoccupied with his task, too overwhelmed by pain, to grasp this before. She'd be back-and at any moment.

Desperation gave Corbett renewed conviction. With his last reserves of energy he swung his arm up one more time, his hand closing over the fourth and last detonator.

Just as he did so, a shape appeared in the hatchway to the second compartment, silhouetted in deep black relief. Catching sight of him, she gave a muttered curse and leapt inward.

Corbett jerked in surprise and dismay. As he did so, his fingers pinched together involuntarily; there was a crackling sound and a tiny puff of smoke from the detonator-a terrible suspension of time that lasted a millisecond, yet that to Corbett seemed to go on and on and on-and then, with an unimaginably violent scream, the universe came apart in an apocalypse of fire and steel. And water.