Outland (23 page)

The first gunman was making his way slowly down yet another empty aisle. He passed close to Lazarus, who backed through the shower room toward the rear entrance. She didn't make a sound.

The hunter's senses were unusually acute, however. Even the soft brush of shoe against floor brought him up short. He held his breath, listening, the gun, ready to swing in any direction.

Lazarus moved her foot again to make sure that he'd heard her, then broke for the access hatchway. She opened it, hurried into the corridor beyond, and opened the next hatch.

The gunman swept the light-gathering sight across the area, found nothing. That's when Lazarus chose to shut the hatch cover. She made certain it closed noisily.

It didn't provoke the gunman. He turned to look toward the source of the sound. Using the sight first he made his way through the shower area, then into the corridor.

Lazarus was running toward the far end of the accessway. She opened the hatch there, forced herself to stand and wait, her heart beating too fast.

O'Niel continued to make his way down the side of Building C. Only the light gravity made the awkward descent possible. Fortunately he didn't suffer from vertigo or even the gentle climb might have paralyzed him. There was a sheer drop of hundreds of feet only inches away.

He reached the edge of the roof, jumped carefully and landed on the top of the accessway linking the two major structures. For a second he almost overbalanced, but caught himself and started forward. Metal bands encircled the corridor, marking the places where the prefabricated sections of the tube were joined together.

Then he turned to look back toward Building C, and waited . . .

When the gunman entered the accessway the first thing he saw was the figure at the far end. It was distant and indistinct, but it reacted to his appearance by frantically swinging wide the hatchcover at the far end. The man reacted in turn, touched the light trigger.

Lazarus jumped through the opening the moment she saw the gunman appear, closing the hatch just as he fired. Tracers rattled like wasps off the metal, only slightly louder than the pounding of her heart.

The noise didn't reach O'Niel, crouching above on the top of the accessway, but he saw the subdued sparkle of the tracers. Cursing the clumsy pressurized suit he started to loosen the emergency bolts that held the two sections of corridor together.

The gunman had started down the accessway, and he was frowning inwardly. The figure which had fled from him seemed too small to be the Marshal. But it had reacted to him on sight. That implied some kind of connection with his designated target. Possibly the Marshal was with the smaller person and had preceded him through the hatch.

In that case the chase would end soon. What troubled the gunman was that he'd been assured the Marshal would have no help. He didn't like surprises. Not that it would make any difference in the end—an amateur ally or two wouldn't save O'Niel

As to the problem of explaining two or more deaths instead of one, well, that wasn't his department. His wasn't the expository end of the business.

Two more, O'Niel thought nervously. Just another pair. He could see the silhouette of the gunman moving toward him in the corridor below. He'd better not look up, better concentrate on Lazarus. There was no way O'Niel could retreat to the safety of Building C in time if the gunman noticed him working above. He wouldn't be stupid enough to blaze away through the ceiling of the accessway, but a single small caliber shot wouldn't pose much risk and it could finish O'Niel.

Lazarus sealed the far hatch. Seconds later the alert hunter thought he saw something moving overhead. His frown deepened. At first he thought it might be the shuttle, but it was still too early for it to depart. No way it could have finished on-loading so soon.

Then he thought it must be some maintenance worker busy at some routine task. Except . . . there wasn't anything to maintain Outside. An accessway carried no live conduits or piping—it was just a tunnel between structures. What could the man be working on?

His gaze traveled to the far hatchway, now tightly sealed ahead of him, then back to the similarly closed barrier he'd just traversed. There was no way he could reach either hatch and open it in time.

He had just enough time to panic.

He raised his gun and started to reset the velocity and charge. There was a faint hissing sound. With an inarticulate cry he turned and raced for the nearest hatch just as O'Niel unlatched the last bolt.

The two accessway sections separated a couple of inches. O'Niel fell backward as a thin stream of red and white gushed out into space. The white was frozen oxygen. The red was what remained of the man who'd been trying to kill him. He gripped the thin reinforcement ridge running the length of the corridor to keep from being blown off by the blast of escaping atmosphere. Killer and cloud dissipated toward Jupiter.

Lazarus was leaning against the sealed hatch. A red light was blinking on the door and a readout was flashing angrily:

DANGER! CORRIDOR LEAK—NEGATIVE ATMOSPHERE AND PRESSURE. EMERGENCY LOCKSEAL IS NOW IN PLACE. NOTIFY MAINTENANCE IMMEDIATELY. NOTIFY MAINTENANCE IMMEDIATELY.

Maintenance would have to wait until she caught her breath, she thought exhaustedly. And perhaps longer than that.

Breakfast was proceding smoothly in the Administration Ward Room. Conversation had picked up from the previous day and appetites, the cooks noted, appeared to have improved. In the Club, business was brisk, liquor and propositions flowing freely.

O'Niel had left the unbolted corridor and made his way back to the top of Building C. He'd allowed himself five minutes to gain strength, had ingested as much of the liquid nutrients the suit carried as his stomach could stand. Nothing remained of the first gunman.

Lazarus reached the squad room, burst in and hurriedly checked the automatic surveillance monitors. They continued to function.

She hesitated over the unfamiliar bank of controls. The designations were different, but the system was similar enough to the medical monitors she used daily for her to give the instrumentation a try. She touched controls a buttons, trying to locate the second gunman.

O'Niel had gained the inspection catwalk that ran atop the building and was making his way back toward the Hydroponics station. If his guesses proved correct, the remaining gunman should be somewhere in the general area of the Greenhouse.

The second hunter was closer than that, having just entered the far end of the glass dome. It was still dimly lit and he was using his scope to sweep the grounds.

Lazarus hadn't found him yet, continued fooling with the monitor instrumentation. A shadow suddenly fell on the screens. She whirled, eyes wide.

"Can I help?"

Not yet, heart, she told herself. It was deputy . . . now sergeant, she note . . . Ballard. She relaxed, then found herself snapping at him.

"Terrific timing. Here comes the cavalry. You're a bit late, you know."

"Better late than never, right?" He was trying to see around her, peering anxiously toward the screens. "Is the Marshal all right?"

"So far. Shoulder wound, but it's not bad."

Ballard moved toward the monitors and she stepped aside. "Where is he now?"

Lazarus' frustration was clear in her voice. "Damned if I know. I've been hunting for him myself. He's Outside someplace."

Ballard frowned. "Outside? Where Outside?"

"How the hell should I know? I told you, I've been looking for him." She gestured at the console. "This is your toy, not mine. Maybe the Greenhouse. That's close by where he went out and there's another entry port near there."

O'Niel had spotted the second gunman, outlined against the gridwork lighting in the Greenhouse. Now he was making his cautious way up the glass side of the dome, crawling slowly so as not to attract the attention of the man with the gun.

His position was much more vulnerable than it had been atop the accessway. The roofing material here was transparent, not translucent. He'd make an easy target. Only the branches and leaves of the larger plants helped to conceal his presence.

His situation was the same in that the gunman could only fire a single shot or two at him. But this time he was the one without the margin of retreat. The gunman could move to the hatchway and stand next to it when he fired, instead of having to rush the length of a long corridor.

He continued making his way along the surface of the dome, heading toward the catwalk that crossed it lengthwise. There was a small platform at the apex full of repair material, and O'Niel had an idea.

Ballard studied the monitors, wished he had O'Niel's facility for operating the remote cameras. "So you think the Greenhouse?"

Lazarus turned to him uncertainly, a question poised on her lips. But he was already running from the squad room.

O'Niel paused to glance over the sheer side of the Greenhouse. The lower mine platforms were a field of tiny lights far below. They looked like small night-blooming flowers. Nearby were the enormous solar collectors, a rippling field of dark surfaces pointed toward the distant Sun. They dwarfed the power plant they served.

Below him, the second gunman was slowly making his way through the dome.

Ballard reached the small elevator bay and found an atmosphere suit. It wasn't his but it fitted reasonably well. He started to struggle into it.

O'Niel reached the catwalk platform, climbed onto it. The catwalk was a length of spider silk strung across the crest of the dome. Among the neatly stacked material be found several repair panels, self-adhering and flexible. They were used to make quick, temporary patches of small air leaks.

Each panel was roughly four feet square. He selected one, handling it easily in the light gravity, and checked the adhesive strips along the edges to make certain they weren't activated. The last thing he wanted was for the panel to stick.

Moving carefully along the catwalk he leaned over the side until he had a clear view of the gunman prowling beneath. Then he raised the panel and heaved it toward the Greenhouse. It struck the roof and began to slide down the side of the transparent dome.

Inside the Greenhouse the gunman heard the scraping noise overhead, whirled and adjusted his weapon in the same motion. He was extremely fast. A single shot was fired at the dark silhouette sliding across his sights and then he was racing for the hatch as escaping air began to whistle through the tiny hole.

O'Niel put all his strength behind his next throw. The heavy tank of liquid sealant struck the bullet hole sharply. The impact on the already weakened glass panel was devastating.

The gunman's hand reached for the hatchway handle a second too late. Above, the tank of sealant shattered the entire weakened panel. The whistle of escaping atmosphere became thunder.

Plants, troughs, lights, and writhing water pipes exploded out through the gap in the dome roof as O'Niel crouched down against the protective metal of the catwalk. Seconds later the rest of the interdependent panels followed, sending a shower of glass skyward. Jupiter light turned the glistening fragments orange and yellow.

Mixed in with the ruined plants and machinery was the body of the second gunman, the bones of his hand still outstretched toward the forever unattainable hatchcover.

O'Niel allowed himself to collapse on the catwalk, exhausted, sore, and relieved.

Ballard had finished filling his tanks and entered the waiting elevator.

Lazarus was still fooling with the surveillance monitors, searching for O'Niel, when one of the monitors unexpectedly showed her Ballard entering his elevator. She stared at the screen, her hands trembling.

More than anything she was angry at herself. A doctor's hands shouldn't shake, no matter how desperate the circumstances. And a doctor's perception of the human condition should be better.

She had no way of identifying O'Niel's suit frequency. It had been selected by the suit's original owner. There were hundreds of possible combinations. Her chances of hitting it as she ran through the spectrum of audio possibilities were next to impossible.

Still shaking she made a hasty examination of the complex security console. There was a panel marked EMERGENCY WARNING SYSTEM. Two columns, one for internal, one for Outside.

Her eyes ran down the long list of buttons. There was a warning light for every section of the mine. She found the line for Elevators, pushed the one alongside the legend NUMBER SEVEN.

A red and blue strobe light began flashing above the elevator shaft near the power station feeds. O'Niel was sitting up now, but his back was to the lift shaft and he didn't see the light. Nor was it likely to attract his attention. The sky around the mine was always full of flashing lights.

Ballard's elevator was on its way up. He had the riot gun out and ready. He hadn't bothered to check it because O'Niel had done that earlier.

Lazarus hit the console several times with a tiny fist, her lips tightly clenched. Then she ran from the room.

The elevator slowed, stopped. The doors opened and Ballard stepped out, looked around. He was as high as it was possible to get within the mine complex without flying. Far below and to the right was the shuttle dock, vapor rising from around it.

O'Niel still sat slumped on the catwalk, his back to the elevator and the urgently flashing strobe. Time to move, he thought. There was one more thing he had to do. He started to rise and turn toward the elevator shaft.

Tracers whizzed silently around him. Some struck the solar collectors and their transfer cables and boxes. Blue sparks fled into nothingness and electric arcs jumped nervously in all directions.

Only the tracers gave O'Niel reason to react. If whoever was firing them had stopped long enough to have thought to remove them he could have sat patiently wherever he was and fired away until O'Niel was hit. In the absence of sound he glow of the tracers gave the gunman's presence and approximate location away.

Now flattened out on the catwalk O'Niel could see the flashing security light above the elevator shaft and knew that someone had used it to come after him. He wondered momentarily who had activated the warning light, then silently blessed Lazarus, wherever she was. He started crawling.