Wasteland of Flint

The Palenque

A pressure gauge mounted into the green, then steadied as standard atmosphere was established — at last — in the shuttle bay. Gretchen waited impatiently, one boot tapping against the heavy door. She could see shuttle one resting in its cradle in the bay, windows shining with cabin lights, the forward lock cycling through its own regulatory process. Her door opened first and Gretchen kicked off into a sharp, distinct smell of heated metal, ionized gasses and ozone.

Brushing a tangle of hair out of her eyes, Anderssen clung to the cargo netting around the landing bay while the shuttle lock opened, spitting red dust, to let Bandao help a tired, worn-looking woman in an old-style z-suit and tan-colored poncho across to the passenger airlock.

"Doctor Russovsky?" She put out her hand in greeting. "I'm Gretchen Anderssen, University of New Aberdeen. Very pleased to meet you."

The Russian gave her an odd, exasperated look, hands hanging at her sides. "I'm very busy," Russovsky said. "I have no time for your meetings and weekly updates. I'll turn in a proper report when I'm done with my survey."

Gretchen withdrew her hand and gave Bandao a surprised look. The gunner shook his head slightly and subvocalized on his throat mike. She's been this way since we picked her up.

Anderssen took a moment to look the geologist over. The older woman seemed physically fit. Her face was much as the Company holos had represented — weathered by too much sun and wind, marked by the calloused grooves of goggles and respirator mask, her hair turned to heavy straw — and her suit, though battered and worn, was obviously in good repair. Gretchen was surprised at the state of the woman's boots and the sand-colored poncho — given the effects of the Ephesian dust, they were in excellent shape.

Only her eyes belied a sturdy, no-nonsense appearance. Though as sharp and blue as the holos recorded, they stared coldly past Gretchen, past the wall of the ship, past everything in her immediate vicinity. Anderssen had a strange impression the woman was viciously angry, though nothing else in her demeanor or the line of her body suggested such a thing.

"Take her up to Medical, Magdalena's waiting," Gretchen said to Bandao. The gunner nodded silently and took Russovsky by the arm. The woman allowed herself to be led away.

"That was a stupid thing to do!"

The sound of Parker's voice sharp with anger, real anger, swung Gretchen's head around, eyebrows raised in surprise. She hadn't known the pilot for very long, but he seemed eternally calm. To her further surprise, she found Parker and Fitzsimmons glaring at each other in the shuttle airlock.

"…hang around for hours while you dink about recovering some salvage!"

Fitzsimmons's face grew entirely still as Gretchen approached, the corner of one eye tightening. Parker wasn't bothering to restrain his temper, his voice ringing through the entire shuttle bay. Heicho Deckard was watching from the top of the stairs, his face split by a huge grin. Gretchen looked behind her and was relieved to see none of the scientists had wandered into the bay.

"We don't leave equipment behind," Fitzsimmons replied in an entirely emotionless voice.

"Well, that's great," Parker snapped, "but we don't have unlimited fuel, like the navy, or some armored shuttle that can eat stone and bounce right back up!"

"What happened?" Gretchen settled on her stoic management-is-displeased face and shouldered in between the two men, looking up at Parker. To her disgust, she realized though the pilot was only a few inches taller, Fitzsimmons was head and shoulders above her. Despite her disadvantage, both men backed off a little — not so much as she'd have liked — but enough to put them at arm's reach.

"Your Marine," Parker said in an acid voice, "decided we should recover the Doc's Midge from down a freakin' hole today. I spent far too long juggling our wingtips between cliffs. We barely got back to base and I was flying on fumes the whole way. I don't think that was a good idea!"

"Her ultralight?" Gretchen turned and stared up at Fitzsimmons. "Why? Do we need it?"

The sergeant gave her a look — a considering, not-quite-baleful, not-quite-outraged look. "Fleet does not leave working equipment behind, ma'am. We recovered Doctor Russovsky and her Midge without incident and in a timely fashion." His voice was very clipped and precise. "Ma'am."

"We didn't need the u-light," Parker had calmed down a little, but Gretchen could feel his body trembling and she realized the pilot was coming down from a massive adrenaline shock. "All we needed was the doctor, whom we had extracted in two minutes, no muss, no fuss! Not thirty-five minutes wallowing around on top of razor-sharp stone with canyons on either side! Not thirty-five minutes with the air heating thinner and thinner every second!"

"Mister Parker." Gretchen managed to chill her voice appreciably and caught the man's eyes with her own. A baleful stare usually reserved for naughty children worked equally well on the pilot, who abruptly closed his mouth. "The cameras and geological sensors on the u-light are Company property, as is the aircraft itself. It is incumbent upon us — as specifically stated in our contracts — to recover any misplaced, lost or stolen Company property with all due speed. Failure to do so will — in some cases — result in the cost of the equipment being deducted from employee salaries, as appropriate."

She paused, watching an expression of disgust spread across Parker's face. How does that taste? She thought. Tastes bitter — realizing the Company cares more for the contents of a camera crystal or sensor pack than for a human life. Very bitter. "But I'm glad you came back alive, Mister Parker, with Doctor Russovsky and our Marines. And I'm glad you didn't have to walk home."

Gretchen turned to the sergeant. "I'm glad no one was killed, Gunso Fitzsimmons, and I am glad you brought back Russovsky's Midge. Her cameras and sensors might explain a mystery that's cropped up this afternoon." She smiled a little, seeing a glint in the Marine's eye. "But please don't risk your life this way again — you see how much you've upset Mister Parker." Gretchen patted the pilot on the arm. "He cares, you know. He'd weep to see your broken body scattered across some lava flow or field of calcite ash."

Deckard broke up — a big horse laugh — but neither Parker nor Fitzsimmons did more than stare at Gretchen in disgusted amazement. She didn't wait to see if they renewed their argument — she wanted to be in Medical. Russovsky, and the answer to so many questions, was waiting.

In comparison to the acrid heated-metal and testosterone smell in the shuttle hangar, Medical was quiet, cool and a little dim. The soft overheads had lost their matching pastel wall coverings during the "accident" and the bare metal of the ship's skeleton drank up what little light fell from the panels. Russovsky was sitting on an examining table in the main surgical bay, her pale hair glowing in a shaft of heavy white light. Gretchen paused at the doorway of the nurses' station. The geologist seemed entirely and unnaturally still to her.

"Doctor Russovsky? Victoria Elenova? Kak vui chuvstvyete?" Gretchen tried another smile.

This time Russovsky turned to look at her, brow crinkling in puzzlement. For some reason, she seemed tired now, her formerly straight shoulders slumped, her skin a little ashen. The light in here? Or is she starting to relax after so many weeks alone? Gretchen knew how hard a homecoming could be.

After her first tour on Mars, she'd taken a commercial liner home to New Aberdeen. After sixteen months crawling around on the ice, the thought of her mother's farmstead — of seeing her children, the gray sky pregnant with rain — the thought of domesticity had been overwhelming. A hunger she couldn't quench until she was in her own bed upstairs, listening to real spruce limbs brush against the roof, all three of her children packed in around her like loaves in an oven, so many quilts on top of them all, she could barely breathe. Mars had been bitterly cold.

For two days, she'd been entirely happy — able to smile again, able to feel safe again. Able to walk under an open sky without a respirator mask, without a z-suit chafing against her skin…feeling little hands clutch tight in hers.

On the third day, she'd come down sick. The rest of her vacation was spent shivering in bed, overcome with a succession of illnesses — flu, a cold, a sore throat, pneumonia and a racking cough. For three hundred and twenty days she'd lived and worked under terrible conditions at Polaris, never suffering any kind of sickness. Not so much as a sniffle. Then everything had caught up with her at once.

"I need," the geologist said, staring fixedly at Gretchen, "to get back to work."

"Of course," Anderssen said, nodding. "There are just a few things…were there more of the cylinder-shaped objects where you found the piece of limestone you gave Doctor McCue? Or just the two?"

"If," Russovsky said, in an inflectionless voice, "Clarkson wants me to do something useful, then he should let me do my work. I need to get back in the air."

Gretchen forced herself to remain standing at the edge of the examining table. She looked over to the nurses' station and was greatly heartened to see Bandao and Magdalena watching her with uneasy expressions. "Maggie, can you fire up the diagnostics on this table? Thanks."

"Gagarin could use more fuel," Russovsky said, as if to herself. "I'll top him up before I leave."

Gretchen turned back to the geologist, watching her intently, as if the woman were a particularly fragile artifact dredged from the bottom of a deep trench. "Victoria? Do you know where you are?"

Russovsky looked up sharply, her eyes glittering. The strange anger Gretchen had seen in her eyes down in the hangar returned, and now the lean old face was tight with fury. "Here's your geld for the water, Master Clarkson, and I hope you've the talent to find a return on your investment!"

The woman's arm blurred up as if tossing something away. Anderssen tried to jerk herself back, but a cupped hand smashed her head to one side. Gretchen flew into the bulkhead with a crash, and then fell heavily to the deck. Russovsky stood abruptly, her face in shadow as she stepped out of the light over the table. "I'll top up," she said in a conversational voice, turning toward the door. "And be on my way."

"Stop!" Bandao was in the doorway, the flat metallic shape of his automatic gleaming in the dim light. "No farther."

Russovsky stared at him, puzzled, hands hanging limply at her side again.

Gretchen blinked, stunned, then tested her jaw. Not broken! "Maggie, what is it?"

There was a long moan of a hrrrwwwt from the Hesht. Magdalena looked up from the display surface of the nurse's station, ears napped against her skull, the short hairs on her shoulders and back raised in a stiff triangular ruff. "Not human," she growled, shaking her head in confusion. "Something else…like a…living crystal."

Bandao took two steps back, his thumb flipping some kind of switch on the side of his gun. There was an answering beep! "The thing in the sand Sinclair was talking about?"

"The microfauna?" Gretchen stood uneasily, swaying slightly. Her medband hissed cold at her wrist. The woman, or the thing which looked so much like a woman, did not react, remaining as still as a statue. "But why…and how? Maggie, does she have bones, blood vessels, internal organs?"

"Yess…" Magdalena hissed, her claws skittering across the unfamiliar medical display. "The shapes of things are there — but body temperature is even throughout — there are no fluids — no movement. It's nothing more than a cold copy."

Gretchen's lips parted, her entire attention focused on the marvelous creature poised on the far side of the table. "But she can walk, speak — she remembers bits and pieces of her life… The duplication must be at almost a cellular level!"

"They ate her," Bandao said, his voice tight with fear. The automatic in his hands was steady as a stone itself, but the gunner's face had grown paler by degrees. "They caught her somewhere — maybe she was sleeping and they came at night — and they ate her up, cell by cell. Like she was fossilized all at once."

"Mister Bandao," Gretchen's voice echoed his fear with a harsh tone. Sweat beaded her face. "Lower the gun and get out of the doorway. Maggie, cycle the isolation door closed."

"Sister, you're still in there!" Despite her outcry, a single claw stabbed the emergency isolation glyph and Bandao had to skip back to avoid being caught in the swift rush of the glass-and-steel door. A dull thump signaled the room sealing. "What are you doing?"

"I was out at night, in the dig." Gretchen said, circling the immobile Russovsky and climbing onto the examining table. "The ground is alive, you know, filled with tiny life… Sinclair has video of them reproducing, expanding, building their geometric hives. Am I infected?"

"What?" Magdalena stared through the heavy isolation glass. "What are you talking about?"

Bandao stepped to her side, quick brown eyes sweeping across the medical display. "I can't tell," he muttered. "It's been too long since I used one of these… Wait, Magdalena, load up her medical record from Company files. Then we can compare." The gunner looked up, mouth tight. "What about the scientists from base camp?"

"Oh, crap!" Gretchen stiffened, then tapped her comm. "Parker, where are you? The bridge? No, I'm not mad at you anymore — listen to me! Seal the ship, we need pressure lock between each ring right now! Then get on the surveillance cam and find all the scientists we just brought up from the surface. Yes, all of them, even in the showers." Gretchen keyed another channel open with shaking fingers. "Fitzsimmons, Deckard — we've got a problem."

In his dim cocoon of glowing displays and quietly chuckling comps, Hummingbird reacted immediately to the events in the Medical bay. His fingers slashed across the main input panel. There was a questioning chirp. "Four Jaguar," he said in a relaxed, unaffected voice. "Four Jaguar."

Palenque main comp immediately locked out every panel and sub-comp on the entire ship. In some areas, like Engineering, a low hooting alarm went off, signaling a communications failure. At the same time, a direct channel to the Cornuelle unfolded on Hummingbird's main panel. Captain Hadeishi stared out in surprise, his private cabin silhouetted behind him, a cup of steaming tea held in one hand, a paperbound book in the other. His mouth moved, surprised, but Hummingbird heard nothing — the channel was only one-way at the moment.

A tiny image of an outraged Parker jumped in one corner of the secondary panel. Hummingbird ignored him as well, lips tight, his eyes fixed on the v-feed from Medical. A preset routine spun through the civilian ship — even as the two Marines herded a gaggle of frightened, outraged scientists into the hab ring — closing hatches and ventilation ducts, sealing airlocks, isolating each section of the ship with brisk, invisible efficiency. Another preset shifted nearly sixty percent of Palenque main comp to flinging the data flowing from the examining table in Medical into a broad-spectrum search against the databanks in both Hummingbird's Smoke-class comp and the navy system aboard the Cornuelle. If those sources failed — the blue pyramid, which was shining softly in a golden nest of whisker-thin wires, stood ready as well.

The tlamatinime's thumb was poised over a sturdy red glyph — this was Four Wind — the sign of the Second Sun which had been destroyed so long ago, when all living men were swept away by terrible winds and gales, leaving only monkeys as their descendants.

"We're matching…" Bandao muttered, face screwed up in concentration, his fingers gingerly moving the controls on the medical display. Maggie had a paw tight on his shoulder, the white arc of her claws digging into the padded armor hiding under his jacket. "What does this mean?"

Gretchen crossed her legs and took a deep breath, head in her hands. Russovsky had not moved. Whatever lived inside her, whatever motivated her to action, to sudden motion, seemed puzzled by the closed door. The distant hooting of alarms, and the way — apparently unnoticed by either Bandao or Maggie — the main door to Medical had sealed itself, apparently without orders, was of more concern. She tapped her comm quietly, but there was no answer. No channel opened, no soft green light indicating the shipside comm band was awake and taking messages.

Now what? Gretchen waved at Magdalena, drawing the Hesht's attention. She tapped her comm and made a face. Maggie checked, finding her comm dead as well. The Hesht fiddled with her settings and was rewarded with a blinking light of some kind. Moving very quietly and staying away from the Russovsky-copy's line of sight, Gretchen slipped from the table and moved to the observation window. Magdalena held out her comm, letting Anderssen see which channel she'd changed to. Ah, a local suit-to-suit circuit.

"…hear me?" Maggie's soft voice echoed in Gretchen's earbug. Anderssen nodded, moving back to the far side of the examination table. "Dai says your readings are okay, but there's some kind of khu-shist energy pattern permeating the Russovsky and you have something like it in your boots."

Gretchen looked down. Aw, crap. The sides of her soles were discolored and shiny. Bet that doesn't come out with spit and a cloth, either.

"Okay," Gretchen subvoxed, "can you tell what's happened on the ship?"

"I don't know," Maggie hissed. "Something's locked us out of main comp."

Gretchen stared around in mounting panic. The chamber was sealed and now she realized the air vents had sealed up. An ozonelike odor tickled her nose and she backed away from the Russovsky-copy again. What a day to decide not to wear my z-suit. "Can you do anything in here with just that panel?"

She saw Bandao lean over and speak into Maggie's comm. "Control the examination table, the lights, do an emergency atmosphere dump — "

"I don't want that — hey!"

Russovsky moved, reaching the glassite door, one arm swinging back. Before Bandao or Gretchen could react, the copy smashed a fist into the clear material and there was a resounding crash! The glassite flexed, spiderwebbed with cracks and rebounded with a singing, clear note. The copy staggered back, staring at its fist in wonder. Gretchen hissed in surprise, seeing the knuckles crumbling away like sand, spilling shining blue particles to the floor.

"She's breaking down," Gretchen hissed into her comm. "She's been getting weaker the longer she's been aboard the ship. Bandao — what's her energy field reading?"

"Weaker, but still hot!" The gunner snatched up his automatic from the display.

The copy smashed into the door again, this time with both fists. Metal squealed, glassite splintered violently, sending tiny flakes whirring past Gretchen's head, and the entire door frame creaked. More blue sand scattered the floor and now deep rents split the copy's arms and shoulders.

"Is there radiation shielding?" Gretchen shouted into the comm, scrambling back away from the blue dust winking on the floor. Some of the particles flickered with an inner light. "Cut her off, cut her off!"

Bandao stabbed a series of glyphs on the panel. The copy wrenched at the side of the hatch, grainy fingers digging into the twisted frame. There was a sound of metal tearing, then a deep basso hum welled up, filling the entire room. Secondary panels slashed down from the overhead, cutting off the observation window. One panel, over the hatch, ground down against the buckling frame, then stopped with a whine. Gretchen switched on her hand lamp and was greeted with the sight of the copy turning toward her, shining bluish-gray sand spilling away from massive wounds on its hands, face and arms. Even the z-suit and the poncho were breaking down. The copy lurched blindly toward Gretchen.

"Lort!" She cursed, flinging the hand lamp away. The copy swung, tracking the spinning light, and lunged toward the flare of illumination. Gretchen dodged sideways, heard a crash as the copy slammed into a medical cart, then leapt to the deformed hatch. Bandao was on the other side, kicking at the twisted frame, trying to clear the jam.

Gretchen caught the door frame, then pulled hard, foot braced against the wall. The distended frame squealed, then popped back toward her. With a thud, the radiation shielding dropped, sealing the hatchway.

There was a sigh behind Gretchen and she jerked out of the doorway. Her boots skidded on gravel and sand, but she managed to catch herself. There was no sign of the copy, only disordered bluish dust everywhere. Even the color was fading, moment by moment, leaving only a dull gray residue on the floor.

"Uhhhh…" Gretchen slumped against the wall, dizzy, her heart racing. "Maggie?"

There was no answer from the comm. Even the blinking light of the local suit-to-suit circuit had gone out.

Hummingbird looked away from the jumbled image on his display panel. A tiny Anderssen had her head between her knees, back to the bulkhead of the medical bay. He tapped open the comm channel to the Cornuelle.

"What happened?" Hadeishi had put away his tea and his book, and leaned forward, dark hair — unbound and loose, as he was off duty — framing a thin, concerned face.

The tlamatinime rubbed his jaw, feeling the wrinkled seams of age under his fingertips. "Anderssen's ground team recovered the missing scientist today," he said, eyes drifting across his panel. Everything had come to a standstill on the Palenque, all of the compartments sealed, everyone isolated and confused. Only Fitzsimmons and Deckard remained on the loose, and they were in their quarters, hurriedly donning full combat gear. "But she was not what they expected."

"She was a cartel agent?" Hadeishi's brown eyes had gone hard and cold.

Hummingbird laughed softly. The so-efficient Sho-sa Kosho had made her views known to him, in her direct way. However, the woman had access to only a fraction of the information known to the tlamatinime. "No, she was not in the pay of Norsktrad Heavy Industries or some other pochtecatl." He stopped and raised a temporizing hand. "At least, not anymore. The — ah, how to put it? — the shape the ground team returned to the Palenque was not human. It was, instead, an entirely lifelike copy — at least to the human eye. They took the shape to Medical and tried to examine her and there was some trouble."

"Was anyone killed?" Hadeishi's jaw twitched slightly, which made Hummingbird wonder who the naval officer would worry about on the civilian ship. Certainly not me, or his Marines.

"No. Though the shape — some kind of mobile crystalline lattice — has been reduced to its essential components. The immediate danger is past."

Hadeishi nodded and his shoulder shifted a fraction. Hummingbird realized the Fleet officer had prepared his own response, much like the tlamatinime's own. In the crucible of the moment, as the shape had tried to escape the medical bay, Hummingbird hadn't hesitated to initiate a destruct sequence for the civilian ship. Now the moment had passed, now Chu-sa Hadeishi had taken his hand away from a similar glyph, the tlamatinime was filled with a chill sense of relief at escaping annihilation.

"There is a possibility of infection," Hummingbird continued. "But I believe Anderssen and the Marines have matters in hand. If not, then we will have to sterilize this ship."

Hadeishi nodded, black eyebrows beetling together. "What about you? We can relocate you in five minutes notice — "

Hummingbird shook his head. "There are more pressing matters than my safety. First among them is the matter of the mining refinery ship. Is it still in the system?"

The captain sat for a long moment considering the matter. "Perhaps. Hayes and Kosho are reviewing the sensor logs, looking for a transit spike — so far they've found none. Our arrival may have caught them by surprise, in which case they are hiding somewhere in the system, waiting for us to leave. Or they may have left before we arrived. We have been making a detailed survey of the system — those logs could be examined for traces of their passage or presence."

"Do it." Hummingbird stared at the Nisei captain for a moment, wondering how much to tell him. Hadeishi is well regarded, a loyal and able captain. He's done me good service in the past, but…He shook his head slightly, deciding to fall back upon the traditions of the Mirror. There is risk enough already, and the Chu-sa is reliable. "This situation could become very dangerous, Hadeishi-san. Not only to those of us in this system, but to the Empire. I am going to take care of matters both here on the ship and below on the planet. I must rely on you to deal with this mining refinery ship. But you must do so quietly."

Hadeishi started to speak, then stopped, eyes narrowing. Finally, he said, "By quietly you mean in such a way no one will notice, or know, the miner was here, or we were here, or even the civilian expedition."

The tlamatinime nodded. "Even so."

"Without," Hadeishi continued, slowly stroking his beard, "the use of atomics, or antimatter weapons, or even — I venture — anything which might leave a lasting and detectable residue in the system, much less that which might be observed from the surface of Ephesus Three."

"Yes."

The captain straightened in his chair, tugging his tunic straight. He met Hummingbird's eyes with the slightest smile — barely a crease at his eyes, no more than the faintest twitch of his lips. "So the Mirror commands," he said, making a bow in his seat, "so we obey."

A sharp bark of laughter escaped Hummingbird, and he nodded, making a wry smile. A cold thread of fear was trying to wrap around his neck, but he kept such phantoms away by a concentrated effort. He hoped the blue pyramid did not reveal something beyond his power to comprehend, though the bits and pieces of this puzzle were assuming a dreadful shape. "But quietly, Chu-sa Hadeishi, quietly."

"What about you? To find the whereabouts of this miner — or even to discover if the ship is still in the system — will take us out of orbit, well beyond easy reach if you need retrieval."

Hummingbird suppressed a further laugh, for he was long familiar with the ways of men, and with the Nisei in particular. The captain was not asking about Hummingbird, but about the men and women on the Palenque. He was asking about his Marines — would they live to return to the Cornuelle? — and even perhaps about Anderssen and the scientists. Delicately phrased, the Mйxica thought, very…what is that word? Ah, kotonakare-shugi — the willful disregard of troublesome matters.

"Anderssen," Hummingbird said, trading time — which he felt pressing — for politeness, "is taking her own steps, even now. She has a quick wit, in her light-haired way. If she fails, then I will do what must be done. I hope," he added, "to return Thai-i Isoroku, Gunso Fitzsimmons and Heicho Deckard to you at the earliest opportunity."

Hadeishi made a sharp bow in response and the tlamatinime knew the man was a little embarrassed to have his concern referred to openly. The thought made Hummingbird a little sad. The Chu-sa obviously cared for his crew, as a grandfather did for even the meanest member of his clan. And I would trade all their lives for the Empire, he thought. Vague memories of a time when he had maintained such romantic notions threatened to surface and he made a sharp effort to keep them from distracting him. They are knights, as I am, in the service of a greater power. Like flowers, we are nothing but a fleeting moment of duty and service.

"Is there anything you need, before we cut comm and boost out of orbit?" Hadeishi's attention was already far away, calculating angles and fuel usage and a dozen envelopes of detection. Hummingbird shook his head, then made a shallow bow of his own.

"The road is long, crags above, ravines below," the tlamatinime said, raising his hand in parting.

"But our feet are swift, our eyes eager to see the home hearth," Mitsuharu said, and closed the comm.

Hummingbird rubbed his face, wrinkled fingers bronze in the glow of the comp displays. Fleet and civilian records had no record of a mineral or crystalline lifeform which so deftly replicated a living human being. Too, he was intrigued by the degradation of the copy as time passed. It seemed, to his eye at least, the creature drew its strength from the planet in some undefined way. Travel to the ship, and then isolation behind the radiation barrier, had robbed it of the ability to move and hold shape.

"But what made you?" He wondered aloud, replaying the arrival of Russovsky on the ship at half-speed. "The world below was destroyed so long ago — has such a complex organism had time to flower in this barrenness? Or are you something left over from before — a ghost out of a dead epoch?"

There was a cheerful chirp from one of his sub-panels. Hummingbird looked over, a sudden feeling of unease stealing upon him. The blue pyramid had seen fit to reveal one of its secrets to him. He pulled himself to the display — which sat apart from the others, and was only connected to his comps by a series of cutout buffers — and tapped a convoluted glyph showing a flayed man's face draped over the blackened head of a priest.

A v-pane unfolded and Hummingbird began to read, his dark face barely illuminated by the soft lights playing across the glassite surface. In his eyes, a queer twisting flame burned, reflecting the images dancing before him in the depths of the pyramid.

"Urrrh!" The tip of a metal bar scraped under the ragged edge of the radiation shielding. Maggie twitched her fingers aside — barely avoiding a bad cut — and then squeaked her own makeshift lever into the narrow opening.

"Together," Gretchen shouted, hoping Magdalena and Bandao could hear her. Anderssen bore down with all her weight and the pleated metal groaned. An inch of bright lamplight was revealed and there was an answering grunt from the other side. "Again!"

They'd managed to lift the radiation barrier nearly a foot when the main lights suddenly flicked back on and the medical comp beeped to announce it had reconnected to the rest of the shipside network. Gretchen looked up, feeling the cold breeze of the air circulators on her sweat-streaked face.

"Oh, that feels good…" She stood up, wiping her brow, and stabbed a forefinger at the hatch controls. She was rewarded with a screeching sound, and the broken panel ground up toward the overhead. The radiation panel hissed back as well and she ducked through the opening into the nurses' station. "You two all right?"

Maggie nodded, her face contorted as she queried main comp through the medical display. "We've only got local power and environment back. The main system is still restricted — someone's dropped a shipwide lockout on us."

"Who ordered that?" Gretchen examined a secondary panel controlling the medical bay environment. A thought had occurred to her and she wanted to just check one thing…

"I can guess," Maggie snarled, exposing her incisors. "A cursed carrion bird watching us from the branches of a dead, rotting tree!"

"Who?" Gretchen found the control set she wanted and tapped out a series of commands. A pale violet light flickered on in the examining room. "A bird? Oh — you mean a hummingbird." She glanced up at the surveillance camera. "He's just making sure our guest doesn't get out. Dai — does the outer hatch work?"

The gunner shook his head. He'd been trying to get the lock to override for five minutes — all to no avail. The door out of Medical into the rest of the hab ring was sealed tight. "We're still trapped," he said, running his hand over the metallic surface. "High-ex rounds from this Luger might penetrate."

"Not inside the ship," Gretchen said in a sharp voice. Her whole attention was fixed on the examining room, where the slow pulsing violet glow seemed to etch every surface in sepia tone. "Well, now…"