Viking (39 page)

If she hadn’t, she would pay. But good.

* * *

Rafa gazed at his captor with desperate vigilance. He felt like he was clinging to
consciousness by fingernails only. His head was pounding, and if it hadn’t been for
molded seats, he could not have remained upright. The skin of his arms and torso felt
like one giant mottle of blisters.

The cabin of the skimmer was a trap, but it had been the only refuge his befuddled
mind could come up with. As soon as Heward got brave enough to try one of the lockless
doors, he’d discover that Rafa had no weapon and was too weak to use one anyway, and
then it would all be over.

The lights were his only hope. If he could wake up some witnesses, maybe Heward
would be forced to back off. Too bad there was no horn or siren to blow, and no key to
power the craft up. Just a discarded biosuit and a pair of muddy boots.

His lips formed a whispered prayer.

Then stillness fell as an idea began to form.

* * *

It had been a couple minutes without a move inside the cabin. Heward continued to
inch forward. His eyes were mostly adjusted to the brilliance, and he could now see
that the jungleward hatch was slightly ajar.

Sloppy, Orosco. Never give the enemy an easy way in.

Without warning the lights died, leaving ghostly after-images that made his eyes
completely useless. The door he’d been watching creaked open—that much he could tell by
sound alone—and he had the vaguest impression of a bulky form hurtling outward toward
the tree line. He sprang after, fear forgotten now that the quarry was on the run,
confident that his vision would recover before Orosco was halfway to cover. Then it
would be a quick flick of the wrist and a hilt buried in a dead man’s ribs. He hadn’t
exaggerated that skill.

After a dozen steps the purple flash receded, and he skidded to a stop, confused.
Orosco had pulled a vanishing act again.

Even as he whirled back to the skimmer and spied the crumpled biosuit, he heard a
click from the far door. There was no time to go around the bulky vehicle; Heward
vaulted onto the deck and angled across in three running strides, once again cursing
his stupidity. After Orosco was dead, he would make Chen pay for sure. He would make
the whole crew pay, even if they didn’t snicker behind his back at the broken nose.

He dropped to his feet outside the far cabin door, knife ready for a quick throw,
scanning expectantly seaward for Orosco’s hobbling silhouette. But again the beach was
empty.

Once more he whirled. Or attempted the motion, at any rate. The unyielding heel of a
heavy boot smashed behind his ear as effectively as any blackjack. He crumpled without
a sound.

* * *

Rafa was shuffling unsteadily forward on hands and knees when a square, bulky toe,
crusted with sand, swam into view.

It had taken him almost ten minutes to summon the strength to attempt the crawl.
Now, only halfway to the distant forms that he surmised were tents of his crewmates,
the apparition kindled a spark of surprise.

He squinted up into a flashlight.

Jerry Whemper’s voice, thin and gravelly, laughed in foul amusement.

“Going somewhere, Rover?”

Orosco closed his eyes gratefully, oblivious to sarcasm, and worked to keep the
tremble out of his elbows. “Attacked...” he panted. “Heward.”

“Now why would you do a thing like that?”

Orosco waited dumbly, not comprehending the insinuation. Then a steel-plated toe
caught him cruelly in the ribs. He collapsed with a grunt, too feeble to spit the sand
out of his mouth.

Whemper snorted. “I’m surprised. Why confess? If you’re that weak, you could have
reversed the story and fooled everyone.”

Rafa attempted to shake his head in negation, but Whemper went on.

“Oh well, I suppose nobody really understands the criminal mind. Good thing I
happened along to deal out some justice. I’ve been babysitting Heward, you know, sort
of watching in the shadows. I knew he was up to something. Well, imagine my surprise
when I discovered he was moonlighting for the boss!”

A chuckle rasped softly. “Or partly for the boss, anyway. And partly for himself,
same as me. Thanks for taking him out, by the way—I wasn’t happy about tackling him on
my own. It sure opens the door of opportunity. First I finish you off, to show that I’m
a man of action.” For a dozen heartbeats, an explosion of spasmodic coughing filled the
darkness behind the flashlight. “Then if I tell earthside where Heward’s private stash
of goodies is, they’ll be doubly grateful.”

Rafa made an attempt to rise, but the swirling disorientation was worsening, and his
arms felt like lead. He heard Whemper’s feet step back a pace in the sand, and wondered
what was coming. A blow to the head? A bolt of plasma?

Abbott’s voice, soft with Jamaican overtones, floated out of the blackness.

“Put down the axe, Whemper.”

There was a long silence.

“Do it. Or I’ll burn you like a bug in a fry lamp.”

A soft thud in the sand near his ear was the last sound Rafa heard as he slipped
back into intangible nether.

Oristano had been thinking furiously for the past twelve hours, when she wasn’t
vomiting. Her stomach did not take well to weightlessness.

Things were not as bad as she’d first imagined. In fact, she could come out of this
smelling like roses, if she played her cards right, and got a little help from lady
luck.

The search warrant she’d requested for MEEGO headquarters came through soon after
the pilot made their first jump; she’d dispatched a team at once with orders to seize
and hold anything remotely related to the Erisa mission.

Score one.

Geire was still clueless, though by now he was no doubt fidgety about her overdue
end-of-the-day report. Let him growl; when she made the bust of the century right under
his nose, he’d look like the out-of-touch old fool he was, and she’d be promoted out
from under him. She’d deliberately left no clue of her whereabouts.

Score two.

Just after their last jump, the pilot reported blinker field residue on an orbiting
asteroid, and Oristano’s spirits rose again. She and Bezovnik really did think alike;
he’d been smuggling, just as she predicted, but he hadn’t taken things to Earth yet.
Pour the champagne and double the headlines.

Score three.

Maybe she could look over the booty and relocate a few choice items. If she let a
suitable interval elapse, scientists would no doubt prove the items safe, and then she
could nip out here unobtrusively to finish what Bezovnik began, with nobody the
wiser.

Score four.

Now her long wait was finally over. The pilot had pinpointed the vikings’ surface
location and picked a convenient landing spot on the beach; planetfall and a welcome
return of gravity was seconds away. Behind her, the two junior agents she’d drafted as
backup were already fastening their harnesses.

* * *

He should have been resting. The narcotics in his bloodstream were mostly gone, and
his heel and arm and head each ached abominably. Scabs were beginning to form all over
his skin, the aftermath of boils from his beetle bite. Packs of pufferbellies seemed to
be hovering everywhere, filling his mind with dread. But Heward was back at the tents,
looking and sounding murderous despite heavy doping; Rafa wasn’t about to convalesce
with him around.

Chen’s hands were shaky and ill-controlled; she had done a terrible job with
Heward’s nose. The crew thought it was on purpose, and laughed silently when they
thought their commander wasn’t looking.

Rafa knew better.

He pulled her aside during their five-minute lunch break and demanded to know where
the morphine was.

“You can’t get it,” she said.

“Don’t be a hero.”

“You can’t. Earth changes the combination every time the drug box is opened. Nobody
gets in without asking them.”

“How long do you have?”

Chen shrugged. “It’s been building all day. I can feel it. Probably I’ll be raving
in an hour or two if I don’t get some medication. After that, who knows? I think I’ve
seen my last sunrise, though.”

“They’ll give you something if you’re sicklisted.”

“Maybe. Unless they figure I’m a lost cause and it’s better to save supplies for the
rest of you.”

“They’re not that cruel.”

“No?”

Rafa couldn’t bear to hold her steady gaze.

* * *

Heward crouched in the shadowy green at the edge of the forest. His nose and cheek
and lips were swollen and purple, and scab and suture zigzagged through the mess—but it
was his eyes that were most ugly. They burned with hatred and anger.

He would make Orosco pay for this public humiliation.

Then he would make Chen pay for her Frankenstein surgery.

Then he would make Whemper pay for his insolence.

Then he’d make the rest of the crew pay for laughing about it.

And then he didn’t care what they did with him.

One hand gripped his knife. The other worked neurotically at the commander patch on
his shoulder, caressing and re-caressing its outline like a blind person savoring
braile poetry.

Sloppy. They’d all been so sloppy, so careless, so sure that he’d sleep off the pain
killers like a soft, cringing moron. It hadn’t been hard to retrieve the weapon,
especially since Earth didn’t watch vike feeds from those on the sick list.

Lunch break was almost over. Orosco was getting closer.

* * *

Without warning, a ring of lilac fire began to coalesce above the beach, directly in
front of the tallest cluster of alien buildings.

A murmur of astonishment went up from the crew. Rafa and Chen both turned and saw it
at the same time, and for an instant their minds filled with images of bizarre aliens
returning home to discover unexpected trespassers. Would they be angry?

Then the squat, familiar lines of a battle-scarred, military-style cruiser dropped
out of nowhere as wind whipped wildly and kicked sand into their eyes.

Rafa’s ears popped. Incoming waves from the sea whipped to a froth. The blink
point vanished.

In the ensuing silence, the hydraulic whine of servos on the ship’s hatch sounded
loudly. Two fully-suited figures marched down the gang plank. They were carrying
heavy-duty automatic plasma weapons, and the muzzles were pointed in the direction of
the vikings.

The lead figure advanced up the beach to within a dozen paces of the nearest viking.
Her face was visible through helmet glass. She looked cool and self-possessed. Then her
lips moved, but no sound came out. She frowned, turned around and gestured
incomprehensibly toward an unseen watcher in the ship. After a minute, she tried
again.

This time, her voice came through loud and clear.

I’m Agent Oristano from the FBI. You’re all being taken into custody pending the
outcome of an investigation into criminal practices by MEEGO.

* * *

Heward struck.

Whether it was intuition or a subconscious disquiet that heightened her reflexes,
Chen seemed to sense the flash of movement behind them in the trees. She lunged into
Rafa, throwing them both off balance. The knife, long and deadly, thudded into the sand
half a dozen paces beyond.

Rafa staggered, regained his balance, and looked down to see Chen, twitching weakly
on the ground. He sank to his knees, not understanding what had happened, then whirled
at the sound of a wild shout. Heward was rushing forward, brandishing a stick.

A bolt of green fire licked out from one of the suited figures, and the scream cut
off.

Rafa turned back to Chen, whose face and hands were now shuddering spasmodically.
Her skin had gone white as a sheet, and her eyelids fluttered. “Help!” he screamed.
“Tell Earthside to unlock the pharmacy. Now!”

Chen arched her back and groaned, her heels digging furrows in the beach, her back
forming a bridge that cleared the ground by half a meter. Her jaw was clenched tight,
and there was no sign of respiration on her rigid diaphragm. Rafa and Abbott, who’d
come running up, gazed at one another helplessly.

After what felt like forever, she suddenly went limp. Rafa felt her neck for a
pulse. She flinched at the touch of his fingers and opened her eyes.

“Implants kicked in,” she whispered weakly.

Abbott looked blank, but Rafa’s eyes darkened. “She crossed the pain threshold that
triggers the self destruct,” he murmured.

Abbott swore, but Chen smiled feebly. “It’s why I enlisted. No guts for suicide, no
guts to take the pain. Only way out.”

Rafa’s eyes blurred, and then he felt the trembling touch of Chen’s fingers on his
cheek.

“Pray for me, Rafa. I need a friend.”

Suddenly her eyes went wide, and her hand dropped.

“You have one,” Rafa whispered.

Abbott kicked morosely at the sand and turned away.

1291 could tell that the supervisors of her exploratory party were restless. It was
not in the nature of their kind to fret overmuch when the sun shined and chlorophyll
drove greenly through their outer skin. Having received the mandate to investigate,
they patiently obeyed.

But from 97 and 293’s perspective, they’d accomplished nothing substantive since
they arrived, except to get a nice close-up view of the chattering phenomenon. It
looked no different from the other creatures—the ones that squeaked a mindless monotone
and showed no signs of intelligence.

Were they the same kind of animal?

It was a compelling question for 1291, but the adults were no longer content to
ponder. Bad weather was imminent, and they’d never planned to hover near the
speaking earthbound so long.

It was past time to go.

The problem was, the younger members of the group had become convinced that 1291’s
assertions actually had merit. This was a creature trying desperately to communicate.
Normally skyfriends gave little thought to the mindless, short-lived creatures that
crawled the world’s surface; they were good for little other than the occasional nibble
or diversion. But this was a special case. It needed help. They’d all taken a turn
beaming its babbling up to the strange, indifferent siren in The Cold.