In the Company of Others (21 page)

Was the project worth dying for?
Gail listened to the steady, patient breathing of the others, trying to ignore the sounds of violence from the near distance.
Her life?
She knew herself too well, flaws as well as strengths. Death hardly seemed a high price for vindication of her work and ideas. Gail understood, without any pride, that the reason her mouth was so dry and her heart pounded inside her chest as if trying to run away itself was her dread that dying here, now, meant losing everything she'd done. Of being forgotten or, worse, being remembered as a fool.

Their lives?
She turned her head, keeping it against the wall, to look at her guards—her companions. They could care less about the place in history of Dr. Gail Veronika Ashton Smith.
They were better than she was
, Gail thought, echoing Malley's judgment of his friend. They were prepared to spend themselves in order to free humanity—ironically, the very ones threatening to rip them apart—from the Quill.

She rolled her head straight, staring at the opposite wall. In the end, Gail decided with abrupt clarity, it didn't matter what motivated any of them. That prize was worth this risk and more.

Tau's voice was steady: “They're in, Commander. Air's up to pressure. Ready to open the inner door on your mark. Wait—”

“What's wrong?” Grant demanded, using hand signals to bring Peitsch and Mitchener forward, keeping Loran near Gail.

“They aren't alone in the air lock,” Tau reported. “A station worker was coming in at the same time—indicated some problem with his gear—Sasha takes responsibility, sir.”

“Sasha can take latrine duty, when we're home,” Grant muttered darkly. “Okay, give the word—and make sure they keep the civilian out of the way. This has to be fast and smooth, people. Keep weapons out of view. Dr. Smith—will you need assistance with your suit?”

Gail translated that as:
do I need to waste anyone?
and almost smiled. “I'm capable, Commander. Deploy your people the best you can.”

A curt nod.

Then, it was happening. Grant moved them at a brisk walk and Loran stayed with Gail. Just as well, because as they came around the final bend in the hallway the scene ahead would have made Gail run back the other way if she'd been alone.

The docking ring expanded in front of them, its floor and lofty roof curving away in the distance, one wall seeming to disappear into shadows and gantries to Gail's left. To her right, the various air lock doors began, the nearest of those a heart-stopping distance still to cover.

No one stood between them and that safety.

An irrelevant detail, since more people than Gail had ever seen in one place before stood just on the other side of the air lock.

They'd never make it.

HE'D made it. Easy as rations. Pardell stood inside the 'lock, waiting for the air to cycle, studiously ignoring the six in those achingly perfect suits.

There'd been the risk they'd recognize him from the surveillance tape the 'bot must have made—but minimal. Why would everyone on the ship be privy to such information? No, he'd marched right up behind them, switching on his wrist and helmet lamps as Thromberg's comforting, chill shadow caught up with him as well, then waited patiently as the Earthers fumbled to open the outer door. He'd almost offered to help.

He'd startled them, all right. When an Earther finally spotted him waiting patiently behind the group, there'd been a great deal of gesturing, likely a bowel function or two, and doubtless frantic chatter on whatever comm link they used among themselves. He'd heard their questions to him on the open frequency, of course, but tapped the side of his helmet with one gloved hand and shrugged, mouthing silent words they could see by the light under his chin. They'd seemed to have no problem believing his suit was malfunctioning. Likely, they'd looked at its patches and cobbled together parts and wonder how it worked at all, compared to theirs.

Pardell came close to forgetting his situation in his envy, running his eyes over what was to his suit what the
Seeker
was to the
'Mate.
He held Malley's behind him and as low as possible, likely out of their field of view.

Not that these were people interested in him. Quite the contrary, they were every bit as focused and tense as Pardell could imagine a team about to enter hostile territory would be. He'd debated whether to move right to the inner door, so they'd let him out first and he could scamper out of the way, or whether to hang back. They'd decided for him, lining up in pairs and leaving him in the rear, the suits they'd brought lying on the two side shelves inside the 'lock, the ones once used to keep luggage and parcels from underfoot as passengers waited to disembark.

However, they appeared to be planning to keep their own suits on, even their helmets.

Pardell wasn't about to tell the Earthers what to do, but he disapproved. Stationers had learned long ago how easily suits could be cut, hoses ripped apart. If the Earthers anticipated trouble inside the station, they'd be better off to leave their gear in the air lock, with a guard.

While fervently hoping for no such problern, Pardell knew he'd attract far too much attention—of the wrong sort—if he waltzed in looking like a lost 'sider. As soon as the air was halfway cycled, Pardell began stripping out of his suit, fingers fumbling as he rolled up and stored his pieces of tape, clamping on his emerg tank so its supply would be accessible immediately. He didn't expect to have time to spare on his exit. He shook out as many wrinkles as he could from his best fifthhand coveralls and ran fingers through his hair, finding it soaking wet with sweat. Some of the ends were still frozen. Pardell sighed wistfully, looking at the racks now filled with suits—he really could use a new one.

The Earthers looked even taller once Pardell took off his mags and straightened to his full height. Probably as tall as Malley. Their suits had some play to sleeves and girth as well. Not that the Earthers were likely to want to replace Malley's suit with one of their own, Pardell admitted to himself. But he could use their help getting the reluctant stationer into either. All of them.

Something to worry about later.
Pardell braced himself as the inner door unlocked, the air cycle done, feeling cold drops sliding down his neck as the rest of his hair thawed out, and shivers that had nothing to do with cold at all.

ON some level, Gail felt numb, as if her limbs were chilled but unable to shiver for warmth. She waited for Grant, putting her trust in him because she had no other choice. By some quirk of mob psychology, no one of the multitude filling the floor ahead of them was looking their way. It appeared they were struggling to get past one another, to join in whatever was occurring farther down the ring.

Where the
Seeker
was docked.

“Grant,” she said quickly. “What if Tobo threatens to cut the ship loose? That should clear the ring.”

He kept his eyes on their destination, but answered: “If they believe him, they'd have to evacuate this way. We'd be trampled.”

Gail pressed her lips tightly together, keeping back other suggestions, likely as useless. The man knew his job. She hated others interjecting their notions into her work—
you'd think she'd know better.

Grant turned and faced them all. His olive skin didn't reveal much, whether a pallor or flush, but that was made up for by the deep lines stretching from nose to mouth. His voice was confident, with a harsh undertone. “We get Dr. Smith inside that air lock. The stationer was right to say it only takes one thing to turn the beast against us—make no mistake, that many people together can't think, can't reason, only react. We keep it calm. We keep it normal. No eye contact—no talking. If it gets ugly, use whatever force is necessary. Clear?”

Loran and Tau echoed the word. Mitchener merely nodded. Peitsch turned her dark eyes on Gail and said gently: “We'll get you there, Dr. Smith.”

“Get us all there, Grant,” Gail said, trying to keep her voice steady. “That's an order.”

He sketched a salute. “We'll do our best, Professor.”

They walked out into the open, hugging the right wall, Gail tucked within a fragile shell of blue-uniformed flesh moving with the nice, easy pace Grant had stipulated. Between Loran's elbow and Mitchener's waist, Gail could see the edge of the mob growing closer, backs to her still. The sound they made rebounded in the huge expanse of the ring, turning what might have been a chant into a loud, inchoate roar. Grant's analogy of a beast was a little too accurate. Gail fixed her thoughts on a niggling statistical problem she'd been dealing with on the trip to Thromberg.

The air lock door was opening, slowly, slowly.

Still the beast seemed unaware what was happening.

Five more steps. Gail lost her concentration as her tiny group reached the spot where they were as close to the air lock as the nearest part of the mob. They gained five steps. Ten more. A pair of faceless suited figures stood in the open doorway; one waved to them to hurry; she could see others behind.

A shout, clearer than the rest, yet wordless. They'd been seen!

Grant refused to hurry, keeping them to a walk.

Another shout, a chorus.

Gail kept her eyes on the air lock, now so temptingly close. They might make it.

It began in slow motion, like a vid she was replaying for details. A group sprouted from the mass ahead, coming as if to intercept them—the suited figures erupted from the air lock. The two groups blended into confusion, helmets rising well over the heads of the stationers. One by one, the helmets disappeared as more and more stationers realized what was happening and sought an available target.

No more walking. Even as the battle was joined, Gail was grabbed by both arms and lifted as her guards raced for the still-open air lock.

One man stood in their way, raising his arms and moving quickly to one side as three Earther weapons aimed at him. The unfortunate stationer who'd been in the air lock, Gail remembered, feeling a rush of sympathy even as her own arms felt as though they were being torn from their sockets. Then she was tossed inside the air lock, scrambling on hands and knees to reach the nearest suit. She tried to ignore what might be happening behind her.

She couldn't, when all sound outside the air lock abruptly ceased.

Gail turned, still crouched on the metal floor, suit half pulled up one leg, and looked out.

Grant, Loran, one of the suited Earthers—that suit sliced open and useless, as well as leaking blood—and Tau stood with their backs to her, weapons out and ready. There was a motionless, perfectly symmetrical arc of mob only paces beyond a line of crumpled shapes. Bodies. Too many. Gail didn't look at them closely, knowing she'd recognize two and should know more.

Why the standoff?
she thought almost hysterically. The mob could overwhelm them in a heartbeat. Gail spotted Grant's hand making a push-behind gesture. He wanted her to close the hatch. She couldn't. Her mind told her it was necessary, but she was frozen in place—terrified any movement would restart the killing. She was capable of abandoning them, not of murdering them.

The mob's lips began moving. Not loud, this time, but one word, softly, as though it named something they feared and had to rouse themselves to attack. Gail strained to hear it, then didn't need to as she realized no one in the mob was looking at the Earthers—they were looking at the lone stationer still standing beside the air lock. Gail leaned forward slowly until she could see him clearly.

Aaron Pardell.

AN oddly useful time for his mind to disengage
, Pardell told himself with approval, feeling his thoughts spiraling wider and deeper with every pulse of his name on the lips of strangers. If he wasn't contemplating the patterns of energy within a cohesive mob—seeing the edges as weak, volatile things, the core as helpless inertia, the front as the line of directed force—he would likely be gibbering with terror and curled up in a fetal position on the floor. Since that would be an embarrassing way to face death, and doubtless Malley would tease him for eternity in whatever afterlife friends shared, Pardell clung to this analytical frame of mind with all his might.

The Earthers. He felt no pity. They'd done this—turned reasonable, courteous individuals into this raving monster—and earned the consequences. Anguish for the stationers and immies motionless on the floor, yes. He could feel that. And for those who would wake from madness and find blood on their hands. There'd been suicides after each of the Ration Riots; there would be more tomorrow.

He was curious how they knew to name him. If it was possible to pick faces from the mass, were any those he'd recognize in return? Had the Earthers labeled him, somehow, or was it as simple as his walking out that air lock, in that company? Pardell turned the alternatives over, examining each, seeing how the results varied based on preconceptions.

A blast of fear laced with hate slammed against his detachment, ripping it to shreds. Pardell gasped and found himself back against the wall. No one had touched him. He could only assume it was so many experiencing the same emotions at once.

What were they waiting for! Did they want him to run for the air lock and his suit? Was that it? To prove he was dealing with the Earthers before tearing him apart? Would the Earthers turn their weapons on the crowd again, on his behalf?

Pardell seriously considered pretending to attack the nearest Earther guard so she'd shoot him and end the suspense.

“Pardell . . . Pardell . . . Pardell . . . ”