Shadow of the Warmaster

17

The curved wall of the massive sphere was a gray-black chimera behind the container shield, there and not there, ominous though not quite tangible, the mass of a small star prisoned in gossamer. Parnalee brought the dolly to a gentle stop before it, lifted the link from the seat beside him. “Open,” he murmured, then waited for the Dark Sister to coax an opening for him.

The surface shimmered, a black pinhole appeared, dilated swiftly until it was wide enough to admit the dolly then pulsed like a wet black mouth, a mouth that could close on him if it chose; he eyed it with distaste, but the bulk of the Bright Sister was in there and there was no other access. He edged the dolly toward the opening, took it through.

Thinking he was a repair tech, the Bright Sister brought up the lights so he could see what he was doing.

He eased the dolly and its burden as deep into her heart as the narrowing serviceways between the Brain’s components would let him go. Then he cycled down the power of the liftfield, let the dolly sink to the floor, gently, gently, don’t crack the egg, not yet. Not. Yet. Off. Yes. He slid the link into his belt pouch, climbed over the bench back and squatted on the bed beside the torp. He activated it, set its timer for an hour on; he needed an interval to get back to the interface where he’d be in touch with and protected from the fury of the Dark Sister. Before he touched the triggering sensor and started the timer humming, he set his hand on the casing of the torp and savored the triumph that was going to be his. One hour. He patted the bomb. Gently. Very gently. “Yes.” He set his forefinger on the sensor and felt the hum in his bones. “Yes.” He slid off the dolly and trotted for the mouth.

As soon as he was outside, he touched on the link. “Close,” he said.

The hole in the sphere grew smaller, smaller, swiftly smaller, was a pin prick of darkness again, was gone. He put the link away and began the long run to the interface, buoyed by the knowledge that nothing could go wrong now, nothing could stop the explosion that killed the Bright Sister. All he had to do was sit and wait.

I looked round the interface. “Yeh,” I said. “This is it. He was here.”

Jamber Fausse nodded. Store cabinets were open, some of their contents spilled onto the floor, evidence of a hasty search, there was a bottle of brandy on the console with about an inch of liquid left in it, a bubble glass beside it with a brown smear drying in the bell; the stink of the brandy was thick in there, along with a stale smell that clung despite the labors of the fans in the ducts. “Where is he now?”

“Who knows? It’s a big ship. Keep an eye on the door, will you, the two of you? I’d better get to work. We don’t have that much time.”

I let the bed down, started arming the torp. Didn’t take long. When I finished, I thought a minute, then I opened up the dolly’s motor casing and removed a few vital parts. If-when-Parnalee got back, I didn’t want him driving off with our little surprise. There wasn’t much else I could do. Even if the three of us could muscle the torp off the bed without fatally herniating ourselves, there was no place in here where we could hide the thing.

The young raider left, but Jamber Fausse stopped me at the door. “What if he comes back before it blows? What if he disarms it?”

“You want to stay and argue with him, be my guest,” I said. I wasn’t all that happy with that antique timer; I was sure it’d trigger the torp sometime, I just wasn’t sure when. And I didn’t want to be anywhere around when it turned over. “Look,” I said. “It’s a randomized circuit and not all that easy to counterprogram. Not like pulling a few wires on hope and a prayer. I’ve set the thing to blow in half an hour. If he gets here in a minute or two, maybe he can do something; if he’s later than that, no way. We take our chances, that’s all we can do.”

He didn’t like it, but he was no more into suicide than I was, so he nodded and we took off for the tubegate.