Ambasadora (Book 1 of Ambasadora) (25 page)

David ignored him and watched
Mari assess Soli’s condition with her wrist reporter. Part of Mari’s biological
studies had been medicinal, though she seldom had to use her training aboard
the
Bard
. When Mari ripped off a piece of her own dress to wrap around
Soli’s wound, David’s heart swelled a little.

“She needs a med
facility.”

A bare-chested host ran by, his
sash hanging loose and dragging on the puddled floor. David grabbed his arm.
“Show us the quickest way to the monorail station.”

“Are you crazy? Half the
people in here are bleeding or dead. Find your own way out.”

David tightened his grip. “
You’re
leaving, aren’t you? We’ll just follow you out.” He let go and grabbed one
end of a stretcher Geir had fashioned from some table linens and a piece of a
pedestal.

“Are you planning to push us
all the way back to the ship?” Kenon asked.

“What?” David snapped.

“The monorail will be out,
too. No power, no trip back to the berths.”

“I have the situation under
control, Kenon. I don’t need any insubordination.”

“Insubordination?”
Kenon clucked. “I don’t see either of us wearing a military uniform.”

“I’m trying to get us out of
here.”

Geir spoke up. “Kenon, do me
a favor and shift Soli’s leg back onto the board here. Don’t want that pretty
skin of hers to get scratched.”

Kenon moved to Soli’s side,
keeping his eyes averted from the bloodied tourniquet around her shoulder.
“What about Sean and Sara?” He looked back at the water.

David didn’t look. He wouldn’t
see them anyway. Sara was quite capable of taking care of herself. And, Sean
was a survivor.

“They’ll meet us back at the
Bard
‘s transport,” David said, a quiver in his stomach making him
doubt the statement. Maybe he should send Soli with Kenon and Geir while he
searched for the others. Looking at Mari made him abandon the thought. His
responsibilities lay here…with her.

A rumble shook the Tredificio and
threw David into a wall. He managed to take the brunt with his shoulder and
save Soli any unnecessary jostling.

Kenon helped Mari up from the
floor. The gala host pushed himself to his feet. “You’ll never get out of
here in time carrying her.” He took off down the commonway ahead of them.

“Wait!” Mari called.

“Forget him,” David
said. “We’ll take the magno to the station.”

“It won’t have power
either,” Kenon said.

“That won’t be a
problem.”

“It’ll be tricky in the
dark.” Mari looked at Soli’s small, unconscious form. “I guess we
don’t have much choice.”

The group made a careful descent
down the inert magno. Mari moved ahead while David and Geir carried Soli.
Kenon clung close behind them.

“I’ve made it to the next
level,” Mari yelled from the descending curve of darkness. “And we’re
in luck because it’s the Temperate Biome.”

David looked to Geir and Kenon
before asking, “Does that sound lucky to you?”

A cerulean glow appeared from
below and illuminated Mari as she ascended the curve. In her hands she held six
objects that looked like balloons.

“It’s lucky,” she said,
“because these grow in the biome. Luminosa ampules. Now we can see.”
Mari handed over three ampules to Kenon, but his shaking hands dropped one.

David watched it blink out and
fall dark to the magno’s smooth surface.

“Sorry,” Kenon said.

“It’s not broken.” Mari
stooped for the ampule. When she grabbed its stem, the globule began to glow
again. “Static electricity excites the gas inside.”

“Good thinking. It should be
easier going with some light,” David said. He admired Mari’s poise. Many
women would have been paralyzed with fear, but she kept calm, used her brain.

They wound their way down the
magno. Geir slipped but managed to keep Soli’s stretcher in the air.

Kenon called from ahead, “We
have an uprooted tree blocking the way. We’ll never make it over this with the
stretcher.”

“We’ll have to clear it.
Geir, let’s set her down.”

They all pushed repeatedly, but
only managed to break off a few of the weaker branches.

“This could take some
time,” Geir said.

“Maybe we can go over the
side.” Mari held an ampule out over the magno’s railing. “The station
is just one tier down. It looks pretty deserted.”

“Because it’s worthless
without power,” Kenon said. “This is ridiculous! We’re going to die
down here.”

“Calm down, Kenon.”
David glared at him until he turned away. “Geir, we’ll need to tear apart
this stretcher to make a rope.”

The building shook again. A loud
rumble thundered through the monorail tube below. Metal screeched and concrete
groaned. David, Mari, and Geir worked through it all to tie the cloth into a
viable rope.

When the tremor subsided, David
asked Geir to give the rope a test.

“Kenon. You’re next.”

With a less than graceful
attempt, Kenon slid over the side. David waited until Geir had hands on Kenon,
then pulled Mari into a deep kiss. “You’re everything to me, Mari. Don’t
ever doubt it.”

“Ready up there?” Geir
called.

“On my way,” Mari said.
She squeezed David’s hand before scampering down to Geir. David lifted Soli
onto his shoulder and hoped the expensive cloth would hold both of their
weights.

“Easy does it.” Geir
took Soli from David when he neared the station landing. David dropped the last
meter.

The area was still. Damaged
pillars surrounded them. Rows of track showed signs of buckling and warping. A
faint smell of fire filtered through the station.

“Now what?” Kenon
asked.

“They’ll be here soon.”
David scanned the station. The light from the emergency ceiling units didn’t
quite reach the monorail tracks a meter below him.

“Who? Everyone else from the
gala?” Kenon asked. “Do they know to bring their own table cloths or
did everyone but us remember to pack climbing equipment for this evening?”

Sick of Kenon’s mouth, David
rounded on him, but let it go when he saw the smaller man could barely hide his
fear.

A low hum floated through the
concrete and vibrated in David’s chest. The sensation entered his blood and
flowed to the tips of his fingers, into his groin, and out the bottoms of his
feet. The sound lowered an octave as it rolled through the station and shook
the floor.

“Another tremor?” Geir
asked.

David stared down the monorail
launch tube at the backside of Tampa One in the northern sky. Ash fell from the
sky like dark snowflakes against the starry night. A huge shadow snuffed out
each sparkling dot one by one, then completely eclipsed the moon. The intense
vibrations consumed his body.

“It’s the
Argo Protector
.”
David wanted to cry at the sight of his old ship. It was like meeting an amour
after a long separation.

“Ouch.”

Sara landed on her wrist, but at
least this new surface was spongy, not the bone-crunching concrete she expected.
Her hands sank into wet springy foliage as she pushed herself upright. She
could see by the scant emergency lighting how the plant material darkened
wherever her skin made contact. There was only one plant which turned from snow
white to space black at a touch,
corpselia
. The pungent smell of sulfur
should have given it away.

A few meters from her on top of
the immense corpse hedge Sean lay face down and motionless.

“Sean?” She gave his
shoulder a quick shake, the wet fabric of his shirt clinging to her fingers.

No response. She shook him
harder. “Sean!”

His reactive groan put her mind
at ease. “What the…?” He struggled to push himself up from the softly
latticed leaves.

“You okay?” she asked,
noting several bloody scratches on his neck and face.

“Yeah. What did we land
on?”

“I think it’s the top of a
corpselia maze.”

“Lucky landing,” he
said.

She followed his gaze to the pool
above. “Most of the debris…and people plugged up the breach. We happened
to get sucked through first.”

Sara shivered at the sight of
bodies smashed among lily pad tables and stabilizers. A few faces were pressed
against the pool’s glass bottom and stared wide-mouthed with vacant eyes, their
expensive clothing swirling about them.

“I’ve never been lucky
before,” Sean said. “Maybe it’s you.”

“I’m not sure I believe in
luck.”

Something zipped between them and
stuck into the spongy surface. Sean plucked the small metal cylinder from the
corpselia, then dropped it like it was poison. He grabbed Sara and rolled them
off the top of the hedge. Her left hip hit hard, but she knew Sean had taken
most of the impact.

“What was that?” she
whispered.

“A dart. They carry a
quick-acting poison that’s difficult to trace. Used to be a contractor
weapon.”

Sara scanned the muted darkness
above.

A tremor rumbled through. Her
grip tightened on Sean as they lay together next to the spongy corpselia wall.
It lasted longer than the previous quaking.

“We should be able to follow
this thing to an exit,” Sean said.

“Some of these mazes cover
an area the size of a sports fie—.” She heard a squish from above and
held her breath. Someone was walking along the top of the maze. She looked down
at her glowing arm. Tracking them would be pretty easy.

“Come on.” Sean helped
her up, and they took off into the darkness.

Sara slid her fingertips along
the corpselia wall to her right in order to navigate the maze and to hide her
intra-tat as best she could. The massive three meter tall hedge towered over
them. Moving quickly, they curved around corner after corner. They should be
nearing an exit soon. A hedge wall blocked their path.

Sean swore. “Was there
another turn off on that last left hand curve?”

“I don’t remember.
Maybe.”

She hated to backtrack. The
assassin following them could be anywhere. With every step back the way they
came, Sara prepared to take a dart to the neck or an eye.

Sean put a hand on her arm to
stop her, then pulled her to the left. She curved into another extension of the
maze. Her bio-lights provided just enough light to discern an intersection. She
prodded Sean to go left.

Something slammed into the
sopping hair piled on the back of her head.

“Hold still.” Sean
untangled another projectile from her hair and threw it to the floor. They ran
through the darkened corpse maze, bouncing off the spongy walls until finally
reaching another confluence. Sara grabbed Sean’s shirt and pulled him left
again.

Once they rounded the bend, he
pressed her against the hedge wall and covered her glowing arm with his. Then
he covered her ear and whispered, “Gotta get back on top. I saw a damaged
section back on the right.”

The already scant emergency
lighting dimmed further. Someone blocked the light coming from the confluence.

An explosion shook the building,
more violent than the preceding tremors. A deafening blast shattered the
windows on every cantilever around them. Sara looked at Sean, and he nodded in
understanding.

They waited for the figure to
pass through the confluence and disappear around a curve to the right. Sean
slid out of the passageway and went left. Sara moved on his heels, willing
herself not to look back. As she followed him around the curving maze, she lost
her sense of direction. Sean grabbed her hand and pulled her around a sharp
right turn. The damaged section waited in front of them.

After a quick glance behind him,
Sean steadied Sara as she climbed. The extra weight of her wet gown strained
her muscles. Sean pulled himself up next to her. Their feet padded along the
spongy surface awkwardly. Sean was having a worse time of it because he still
wore his waterlogged shoes; Sara had left hers in the whirlpool. Though they
could see the way out from this vantage, getting there would prove time
consuming.

“There.” Sean gestured
ahead where the corpse maze came within a meter of a blown out window and a skywalk
connecting this pyramid to another. She thought it was raining until she
realized ash fell from the night sky. Screwing up her courage, Sara hopped
across the expanse to the walkway. When she hit the synthstone flooring, it
shifted under her weight, spilling her forward.

She got up to warn Sean of the
damaged bridge, but he had already landed next to her.

A series of booms staccatoed
around them from the walkway’s buckling supports. It dropped down three meters,
cutting off their way back into the aqua biome. They had no choice now but to
continue to the other pyramid.

They started across before
several more pops sounded. Scrambling along the collapsing walkway, they made
it little more than halfway when the railing on the left gave out and threw the
whole skyway off-balance. As she pitched over the side, Sara grabbed for the
dislodged railing. A section of it pulled away from the bridge with the
addition of her sudden weight. Sean dove for her, landing on the dangling
railing just below her. Hundreds of meters below them, the waterfall rushed in
the darkness.

Their wet clothes made the ashy
build up on the metal slippery. Sean stopped Sara’s sliding foot with his
shoulder. She intertwined her arms within the railing as though it were rungs
on a ladder. Sean kept a tight grasp on her ankle.

“You okay to climb?” he
asked.

“Yes.”

He released her leg.

Sara ignored the railing’s
groaning protest and climbed. It took effort to drag her body back onto the
twisted walkway. Once she made it, she crawled to a section where the supports
still anchored it to the other pyramid. Sean moved more slowly. The creaks from
his heavier frame made him more cautious about his foot and hand holds. She
helped pull him up to the stable part of the walkway with her. They still had a
few meters to go. Moving as quickly as they dared, they finally made it to the
other end.