The Sheriff of Yrnameer (16 page)

That meant he couldn’t just hole up in his room and wait for help to arrive. He had to get out, now, and find a way off the satellite. He’d already tried each of the seven accessible escape pods; none of them was functioning. The only hope was the recently arrived Benedict 80, the one covered with all the advertising logos. Malfunctioning door or not, he had to find a way to free the humans and convince them to take him along with them.

And he had to do it within eighty-seven minutes, because that’s when the satellite would hit the outer edge of the atmosphere and disintegrate.

He glanced up at the monitor. Now why, he thought, is that human playing cards with the Qx”-x-’–’?

“What is he doing?” whispered Nora between gritted teeth.

“Losing, I think,” said Bacchi.

It was true. In very short order Cole had lost all his money, then Teg’s jacket, then his right boot. His left boot was on the table now.

“We don’t have time for this!” said Nora.

“He said he’s got a plan,” said Bacchi.

“Do
you
think he’s got a plan?”

“No.”

˙  ˙  ˙

Fred was running as fast as he could. He’d made an unpleasant discovery: the humans had now decided that he was of interest to them.

There were about five of them in pursuit, clomping after him in their hard-soled dress shoes. Fortunately they were middle-manager types, years of expense-account meals taking a toll on their foot speed. He easily outpaced them, giving him enough time to reach the bulkhead door at the end of the corridor, punch in the keycode, and seal it behind him before they arrived. Two more doors to go.

“He’s starting to win,” said Joshua.

Cole was. He’d dropped the first few hands as quickly as he could without making it too obvious, going deep into the hole. He wiped his sweat and bit his lip and swore, made bad bets to cover other bad bets. They responded magnificently, their wagers growing increasingly confident, then reckless, then stupid.

He knew from studying the Greys that they weren’t very skillful players. He also knew that he himself wasn’t that skillful, either.

He was, however, a
great
cheater. And his heart was singing, because he’d never cheated so well.

Cole won another hand, raking the pot in front of him.

“Can you believe the luck?” he said. “I’ve never played like this in my
life
!”

One of the Greys muttered something to him and he nodded, listening in through the AT they’d lent him.

“Well, deal ’em up again, then,” said Cole.

Casino bosses were never happier than when a new shipload of Greys arrived. Their fixation on wagering was legendary. Cole had seen it before, a focus so deep and complete that it blotted out all rational thought. He hoped.

He had a healthy pile of money in front of him, but for the first time in his life he barely cared about it. He was working toward a far more important prize.

Fred had reached the third and final door. They were getting closer, more of them now, and the keycode wasn’t working.

He had to go to the nearby subcontrol panel and access the main system via the keyboard, trying to override the lockdown.

“Is everything all right?” said a voice. He turned. It was a female. She looked about fifty years old. Fred noted that she was wearing one shoe and had bright red lipstick. She licked her lips. He turned back to the keyboard and began typing hurriedly.

“Whatcha up to?” she asked. “Can I help?”

He didn’t answer. He kept typing.

“… by eating you?” she added.

He hit a final key. The door slid open silently and closed behind him.

Had he lingered to examine the display screen, he would have seen that two other doors also opened elsewhere on the satellite. One was to the men’s bathroom in sector E of the purple level.

The other was to Charlie’s room.

“An IOU? I’m sorry. I just can’t,” said Cole.

He sat back, waiting.

Four of the Greys had cashed out, completely broke. Cole had kept the fifth one going, bankrolling him, but now Cole had no more money to lend. The fifth Grey, the one with the gun.

The Grey glanced at his cards again, thinking.

Cole knew what the Grey was thinking. He was wondering if Cole would be able to beat a full house, jacks high. Cole knew he was thinking this, because that’s the hand he’d dealt him.

The answer to the Grey’s question was yes. Cole knew this because he’d dealt himself a straight flush.

The Grey hesitated, not wanting to fold, but he had nothing else to put up to match Cole’s raise.

Nora realized she was holding her breath.

“There’s no way,” she whispered to Bacchi. “He’s not going to bet
that
.”

The Grey placed the Firestick 17 on the table in front of Cole.

Gambling like a Grey, thought Cole.

They raced back to the ship as fast as they could, retracing their steps down the long corridor toward the docking station.

Soon Cole, Nora, and Bacchi were gasping and heaving for breath, their velocity sputtering up and down from a run to a jog to a painful walk and back up to an even more painful jog. Joshua
raced ahead like a rabbit, stopping and waiting for them impatiently each time their progress flagged.

“Come on!” he shouted back at them.

They stumbled and staggered on, Cole clutching his side, Bacchi taking hits off an inhaler.

“Go on … without me,” gasped Bacchi, lagging behind.

“Okay,” said Cole.

“Hey, wait!”

When they arrived at the air lock, Philip was waiting for them at the base of the ladder, dancing around in agitation.

“Where were you? What happened? We’ve got to go, we’ve got to go, we’ve got to go!”

“Calm down!” said Cole. “What we have to do is figure out how to refuel.”

“Warning,” announced the calm voice of the shipboard computer, “nearing planetary atmosphere.”

“We’ve got to go!” said Cole.

“We can’t go,” he said four minutes later.

He was in the escape pod of the Benedict with Nora and Bacchi, watching the altimeter drop, trying for the tenth time to trigger the disengagement sequence. The Success!Sat wouldn’t release them.

“What’s happening?” said Nora.

“The satellite is holding on to us. It’s a safety feature to keep anyone from disengaging prematurely before the satellite seals its air locks.”

“Warning,” said the computer again, “nearing planetary—”

“All right!” shouted Cole and Nora.

“It’s going to pull us down with it,” said Bacchi.

“Yes,” said Cole.

“How much time?” said Nora.

“An hour? Maybe a bit longer?” said Cole.

“What do we do?” she asked.

“If someone can get to the substation control room, they could disarm it,” said Bacchi.

“Where’s that?” said Cole.

“The Apria B model boasts a substation control in each ring, each arrayed with—”

“Okay, fine. So it should be close.”

“Actually,” said Bacchi, “each highly engineered ring of the Success!Sat has a circumference of nearly three kilometers, meaning that—”

“Bacchi.”

“I’m just saying, it might take you a while.”

“Me?” said Cole. “Us.”

Before they set out, Cole found the survival kit in the escape pod and rapidly dug through it, hoping his hunch was correct. It was.

“Here,” he said, handing the Firestick to Bacchi. Bacchi gave a low whistle, turning the elaborately inscribed pistol back and forth to examine it, the jewels catching the light.

“Look at that. A 25, right? The limited-edition Teg model.”

“Yes.”

“Let’s see … ‘Shoot Handsome,’ right?” said Bacchi.

“Can we just get going?”

“Cole,” said Nora, “you think there’s more of them? More like Charlie?”

Cole checked the clip on the Firestick 17. “Probably.”

Joshua followed them back to the air lock.

“Let me go with you.”

“No.”

“I can help you!”

“Bacchi knows how to handle a gun. You don’t.”

“I could handle a gun. I’m not afraid.”

“I know you’re not afraid. That right there is reason enough not to let you go.”

“Mr. Cole …”

Cole stopped. “Look. Look at Bacchi. See him? He’s a heartless, mean, amoral bastard.”

“Hey,” said Bacchi.

“And so am I. You’re not. You’re nice and honest and a decent person. If we don’t make it back, Nora’s going to need your help. Go help Nora.”

˙  ˙  ˙

The corridor lights were fluttering erratically as Cole and Bacchi made their way back toward the conference room where Charlie had kept them. Cole could feel Bacchi glancing at him periodically.

“You know,” said Bacchi, “we could still take the escape pod from the Benedict.”

Cole’s eyes barely flickered at him.

“Oh, come on!” said Bacchi. “Listen, just let me know that you at least considered it, even just for a second.”

Cole kept walking for a few moments without responding. “Just for a second,” he said finally.

“Phew. I was getting worried about you.”

Cole was a bit worried, too. He wasn’t sure he recognized this new Cole, and he was concentrating very hard on not concentrating too hard on what he was doing. He felt like a man who’d never been on a tightrope who suddenly found himself crossing a very deep chasm, and the moment he realized he had no business up there, the magic bubble would go pop and down he’d go to the very pointy rocks below.

“I gotta say,” said Bacchi, “this is not the Cole I—”

“Shut up,” said Cole.

On the walls the words continued their silent exhortations:
Imagine and Achieve. Analyze-Decide-Implement. Best of Breed
. But now there were typos appearing, too, strings of gibberish:
xwjwkndsa3.s. …

They had gone about two hundred meters when a Grey stepped out from one of the side halls. Cole and Bacchi raised their guns. The Grey raised his hands.

The Grey said something. Cole flinched, surprised when the forgotten AT started talking in his ear. “Follow me to place of control. Must need fast fast. Others coming. Others like Charlie.”

They struggled to keep up with Fred, who moved with surprising speed. At one corner he paused suddenly, holding up a hand. They stopped. Then Cole heard it: footsteps, voices, laughter. Someone howled.

Fred gestured toward a door, opening it with a swipe key. They followed him inside and he beckoned them silently to the video peephole.

Cole watched in horrified fascination as a group of four men passed by, bloody, their business clothes torn and ragged. What was worse was their cheerfully crazy expressions. They went staggering and lurching by, two with their arms around each other. One of them let loose the howl that they’d heard before, and the other three laughed. A bachelor party from the bowels of hell.

They waited until after the men had gone, peering out through a crack in the door until they were out of sight.
Vision and Teamwork
, said the walls.
Mission-Centered. Wsxosszzx93#
.

“Follow,” said Fred, this time in New English.

They followed.

Three more times they had to hide from roving bands of men, ducking out of sight into rooms and once into a side corridor. Each time Fred motioned them forward, leading them confidently through the satellite.

“You’re not like the other Greys, huh?” said Bacchi.

“Not Greys,” said Fred in New English again. “Qx”-x-’–’.”

“Riiiiight,”
said Bacchi.

Fred switched back to his own language. Cole listened to the AT.
“Other Qx”-x-’–’ are slug slime excrement excrement dung excrement.”

“I don’t think he likes the other Greys,” said Cole.

“Qx”-x-’–’,” corrected Fred.

“Right.”

The subsection control room was dark, the illumination coming from the single functioning 3-D display monitor. It flickered, waves of static rippling up and down the green-tinged holo-image of the satellite, projecting a jittery, unsteady light on the jumble and disorder in the large, windowless chamber.

Fred said something in a low voice.

“What did he say?” asked Bacchi.

“He says they’re close, and we need to be quiet quiet like deep ocean bunny kelp friends.”

“Huh.”

“Nora,” said Cole quietly into the radio handset, “we made it to the control room.”

It took a moment for her to respond. “Cole, we’ve only got thirty-four minutes until we hit the atmosphere.”

In the background Cole heard the voice of the Benedict’s flight computer: “Warning. Entering planetary atmosphere in thirty-three minutes.”

“Sorry. We’ve only got—”

“I heard.”

He checked his watch. “How long did it take us to get here?” he asked Bacchi.

“Maybe fifteen minutes?”

“We better hurry.”

Cole stepped around an overturned chair and pushed a table out of the way, heading toward the main control console. Broken glass crunched under his feet. As he went to step forward, Bacchi grabbed him by his jacket and pulled him back.

“What?” whispered Cole.

“I can see better in the dark than you. You were about to step on a …”

“A what? There’s something there?” Cole squinted at the shadowy floor.