Barabadar, studying the recordings of the attack, had noted that the asteroid’s defences rose out of the rock from beneath hidden hatches. She had ordered a close survey of the asteroid’s surface to see what else might be concealed there, and the entrance to this cavern had been found. From there, the searchers had located the inner entrance and backtracked through the maze of dark, airless passages to the occupied area of the asteroid. This was one of the unpressurized areas and everyone was suited up.
‘It’s the answer to my prayers,’ Barabadar said. ‘Loyal Son?’
Oomoing recognized Stormer’s battle-fit shape in the armoured figure that approached.
‘The area is secure, Martial Mother,’ he said. ‘As far as we can tell there are no outlanders on board.’
‘You’ve been on board?’ Oomoing interrupted. She caught his sour glance through his visor.
‘There’s an airlock and what looks like a simple control panel on the inner hatch, Learned Mother, but I don’t want to start pressing buttons just yet.’
Oomoing could see his point. The extraterrestrials had been quite thorough about making sure none of their superior technology fell into Kin hands. The lifeboat was probably rigged to blow if any unauthorized entry was attempted.
‘So how did you check for outland-extraterrestrials?’ she asked.
Stormer glanced at Barabadar, as if for permission, then back at Oomoing. ‘We attached listening devices to the hull and we looked through the windows,’ he said. ‘There are lights on inside. I’d surmise it’s under its own power.’
‘And the inner hatch would have shut the moment it detected the pressure drop,’ said Barabadar, ‘so the interior is probably pressurized too.’
‘So it will have their optimal environmental conditions.’ Oomoing felt an ever-rising excitement. ‘We could learn a great deal about their world if we could get on board.’
‘Maybe,’ Barabadar said. ‘But if our two outlanders can operate it – and two Kin could certainly operate a ship of ours this size – then this could be the best way of returning them to their own people.’
Stormer and Oomoing both looked at her as if she had just renounced the battle gods. Stormer was probably thinking things it would be lethal to say out loud. Oomoing had no such compunction.
‘Return them? You’re . . .
returning
them?’ she said, delighted.
Barabadar ignored them both. ‘Third Son,’ she said.
‘My Mother?’ said Fleet.
‘Go and fetch anything that you know belongs to the two captives and bring it here. Stormer, have the captives and the dead bodies brought to this place at once.’
She turned away from the question in Oomoing’s eyes.
Joel looked at the suits, then at the XCs, then back at the suits again. The nearest XC pointed at him, then at the suits, then back the way they had come. The two XCs continued to stand there, waiting.
Joel kicked over to the human-shaped suit, grabbed it in transit and ended up on the other side of the chamber. Then, though he saw one of the XCs flinch when he did it, he activated the control panel on the left sleeve. The suit ran a quick diagnostic and announced that it was intact, the breathing equipment had the same air reserve as when he was captured, the thruster unit was ready for use . . . in fact, it was fully functional, with one exception. The radio had been disabled, as Joel could see with his own eyes. The unit had been dismantled.
‘Wow,’ he said.
Boon Round glanced in his direction. ‘It’s a trap. They intend to lure us into a sense of false security and gun us down without mercy.’
Joel felt his exasperation rising. ‘And that’s why they don’t just walk in here with guns at the ready and do it more simply?’
‘They’re sadistic animals. They like to play with our minds.’
‘Fine,’ said Joel. ‘Hold me steady while I put this on and go out to my death.’
Boon Round airswam over to him and helped him suit up. As they connected the air hoses to the helmet, the Rustie said, ‘Perhaps I will join you. We can die together.’
And so the two of them made their way under armed guard through the passages of SkySpy to a makeshift airlock. They passed through into the airless zone.
‘Not that I have to explain anything to you, Learned Sister,’ said Barabadar, in response to the question Oomoing had carefully not been asking. Fleet was off fetching the extraterrestrials’ belongings and Oomoing’s camera. ‘But, as you surmise, I didn’t expect to encounter outlanders here. Now, supposing your sons had planted an observation post in another solar system, and the natives there fell on it as we did here, without challenge, and a few of your sons got away to tell you about it. What would you do?’
Oomoing felt a sudden thrill as battle hormones started to flood into her bloodstream.
‘Investigate,’ she said.
‘Exactly.’ Barabadar’s eyes still caressed the lifeboat and Oomoing suddenly sensed just how difficult this was for her. She
wanted
it, so badly. But . . . ‘I’m assuming the survivors have somehow left our solar system – I’ve got remote probes crawling all over Firegod’s orbit and there’s no sign of them. I don’t know how long it would have taken them to get back home, but it seems a reasonable supposition that at some point we’re going to get a visit from a well-armed, technologically superior outlander warship with vengeance on its mind. I would of course welcome a one-to-one battle, but a battle like this would by no means be certain.’
Marshal of Space Barabadar, thinking of defeat? Oomoing felt strangely disoriented. But, logically speaking, Barabadar was right, and just because she was a military leader didn’t mean she couldn’t use logic.
‘Even worse,’ Barabadar said as if reading her mind, ‘we might bring them down upon Homeworld. And so, we’ll remain here. If they come, they come; if we can communicate with them and convince them it was a mistake, then so much the better. If they want to fight then –’ she looked Oomoing in the eye; Oomoing guessed she was still smarting from Oomoing’s entirely accurate evaluation of her unprovoked, unannounced attack – ‘
then
I’ll challenge them to the Ritual of Contested Land. Either way, we’re going to stay here for the time being. But in the meantime, I hope to avoid even that much chance of a conflict we can’t possibly win by returning their sons to them; the living and the dead.’
‘The bodies as well?’ said Oomoing.
‘Naturally. They’ll want to consume their dead.’ Barabadar sounded surprised that Oomoing could think otherwise, and Oomoing refrained from pointing out that the customs of the extraterrestrials might be different. Indeed, consuming was part of Sharing and Sharing was an integral part of Kin biology, so why should extraterrestrials have the same features? For that matter, why should they have such a thing as the Rituals of Combat, which had surely arisen to meet the specific circumstances of life on Homeworld? But all that would be more evolutionist claptrap to the Marshal of Space.
‘They still might kill us all,’ Oomoing said instead.
‘They might try, and if they try, we’ll resist. I’m ordering all my people here to make Sharings to send back to Homeworld by message capsule. I expect you’ll want to do likewise. And here comes Third Son, good. Make what observations you can of this vessel because it will be your last chance.’
Joel couldn’t believe it. It had occurred to him that now might be a good time to try and make a break for the lifeboat bay, and he was so determined to get as close as they possibly could before making a move that it took a moment to sink in: they were heading there anyway. And then they were in, at the inner end of the rock-hewn chamber, and the smooth matte hull of the lifeboat was stretching away into the distance. A crowd of XCs still stood around.
Joel groaned and looked wistfully at the lifeboat’s airlock. It was only a matter of yards away, but still somewhere he could never get with all these XCs about. As far as he could tell, the lifeboat was fully charged and untampered with, though an XC was clambering about the hull with what looked like some kind of recording equipment, maybe taking pictures. From the markings on the suit, Joel thought he recognized the large female that had supervised his brief moment of freedom, but he had other things on his mind and he turned his gaze back to the lifeboat. Just a few elementary commands were needed to make it whisk them away from here for ever.
A smaller XC, another one which Joel thought he recognized, came up to him and Joel almost yelped when he saw his aide in its hand. Then the suited figure held it out to him. Joel’s mind seemed to detach from his body and it was as if a stranger watched him reach out and take it. No fuss, no XCs going for their guns. This was all official, kosher, above board. The XC ostentatiously let go of it once Joel had a firm grip; yes, it really was his to keep. Then the XC jetted over to the lifeboat to help the one with the camera.
‘Thank you,’ Joel said. He keyed in the command for a general self-diagnostic. The display lit up:
A-OK
.
Did XCs know these things could communicate? Well, he would have to find out. He changed functions and again keyed:
Open channel to Boon
Round
.
Channel open, cue BR
, said the display. So Joel keyed:
Tx BR: Do you read me?
A pause, then:
Rx BR: Yes.
Boon Round’s suit radio was also out but the Rustie was wearing his translator unit; which, like an aide, doubled as a communicator.
More letters appeared on the display as Boon Round asked a question.
Rx BR: What are we doing here?
Tx BR: Don’t know
, Joel replied.
Rx BR: Do they intend to let us on board?
Tx BR: Search me
.
Rx BR: For what?
Joel glared at the latest message, then quickly looked up; how were the XCs reacting to all this longhand chit-chat? Still happy?
Still happy. The XCs were looking at him closely but they had made no effort to interfere. Yet they must have realized what was happening. Didn’t they mind that their two captives were standing here, next to a fully functioning lifeboat . . .
It sunk in suddenly and took Joel’s breath away. Were the XCs actually letting them go?
Boon Round was on again.
Rx BR: Can you interface
your aide with the lifeboat systems?
‘I don’t think we’ll need to,’ Joel said. More slowly:
Tx BR: I don’t think . . .
More movement out of the corner of his eye. Two XCs were entering the bay with – Joel swallowed – a body bag between them. A dead human. Behind them, two more with a dead Rustie. Behind them, more bodies.
‘They really are sending us back!’ he exclaimed. ‘All of us!’ Surely, even Boon Round couldn’t complain about this.
The XCs towing the dead Rustie entered the bay and Boon Round went berserk. His suit thrusters blazed and he dived into the small cortège on full power, sending the XCs flying.
‘
No!
’ Joel howled. The dream scenario, the magical answer to his prayer, was evaporating before his eyes. Boon Round ricocheted of the wall and flung himself at another XC. One of the Rustie’s flailing limbs caught hold of the safety rail on the catwalk and he swung round to crash into two more of the XCs; two more out of the crowd that was converging on the disturbance.
And Joel, to his horror, saw weapons being raised.
He set his aide to audio pickup and pressed it against the visor of his helmet, hoping it could detect the vibration of his voice.
‘Lifeboat systems command! Recognize Gilmore, J., Lieutenant!’
A couple of XCs with guns were trying to get a clear shot at Boon Round, but several more of them were grappling with the Rustie, trying to get him under control.
Words on the display . . .
Gilmore, J., Lieutenant, recognized
.
‘Lifeboat systems command!’ His throat was already aching with the need to shout. ‘All systems override, open inner airlock hatch!’
Complying
.
A cloud of vapour erupted from the lifeboat entrance. A couple of XCs were picked up by the blast and sent spinning along with items of loose equipment and the unsecured contents of the lifeboat cabin.
Joel set his own thrusters to full and dived into the maelstrom of condensing gas. He cut thrust as he felt the artgrav field take hold of him and his feet touched down on something solid. He reached out blindly for the handholds he knew were there and hauled himself into the main cabin.
Tx BR: Get into the lifeboat!
he keyed.
No answer. Joel repeated the command as he ran past the rows of seats, forward to the flight deck.
Rx BR: I am coming.
‘Yes!’ Joel shouted. He dropped into the pilot’s seat and entered the commands that put all lifeboat systems on standby, ready for immediate launch. He felt the vibration through his feet, a distant hum as the flight systems powered up and the bars on the power displays moved up out of the red and into the green. The default destination, the step-through generator, appeared on the display and he punched another key to accept it and lock it into the nav computer.
He twisted round in his seat to look back through the hatch and down the cabin to the airlock at the end. His hand was poised over the flashing red ‘launch’ button on the pilot’s desk in front of him. The hurricane was thinning out and the cloud of vapour was almost transparent now. The familiar shape of a Rustie appeared in the inner hatch, braced against the outrushing air.
Joel’s hand came down. A slight vibration, the dizzy blur of the lifeboat bay rushing past the viewports, and the lifeboat was out into space.
‘Your four-legged moron, what were you doing?’ Joel shouted. He strode back down the cabin and the shout was futile because the lifeboat was still airless, but it relieved his feelings. ‘They were letting us go! They were . . .’
The words dried up in his mouth. Behind Boon Round, he could see a spacesuited hand grasping the edge of the inner hatch. He moved slowly, cautiously forward, and angled round so that he could see into the airlock. An XC was clinging on for dear life with that one hand, and it was the upper arm – the one that didn’t have fingers as such but did have claws. Only the XC hadn’t been able to extend its claws, because that of course would puncture the suit. Its hold was precarious.