"The hell I will. Fire, sweetheart!"
He fired, and the hacksaws followed suit.
In ten seconds it was clear she was right. Tarik lay R-ward. Ahead were the poached eggs, the mosquito netting, the flimsy, feathery vessel of Yiribia. Yiribia was Alliance, and at least one of the Invaders knew it because he fired at the weird contraption hung up on the sky. Rydra saw the Invader's gun-port cough green fire, but the fire never reached the Yiribians. The Invader cruiser turned into white-hot smoke that blackened and dispersed. Then another cruiser went, then three more, then three more.
“Out of here. Brass!” and they swung up and away.
"What was—" the Butcher started.
"A Yiribian heat ray. But they won't use it unless they're attacked. Part of the treaty signed at the Court in '47. So we make the Invaders attack. Want to do it again?"
Brass' voice over the speaker: "We already are, Ca'tain."
She was thinking in English again, waiting for the nausea to hit, but excitement held it back.
"Butcher," came from Jebel now, "what are you doing?"
"It's working, isn't it?"
"Yes, But you've left a hole in our defenses ten miles across."
"Tell him we'll plug it up in a minute as soon as we drive the next batch through."
Jebel must have heard her. "And what do we do for the next sixty seconds, young lady?"
"Fight like hell." And the next batch of herded cruisers disappeared before the Yiribian heat ray. Then from the underspeakers:
Hey, Butcher, they're out for you.
They got the idea you're spearheading this thing.
Butcher, six on your tail. Shake 'em fast.
"I can dodge them easy, Ca'tain," Brass called up. "They're all on remote control. I've got more freedom."
"One more and we can really put the odds on Jebel's side."
"Jebel outnumbers them already," the Butcher said. "This spider-boat has got to shake those burrs." He called into the mike, "Hacksaws disperse and brake up the cruisers behind."
Will do. Hold onto your heads, fellows.
Hey, Butcher, one of them's not giving up.
Jebel said: "I thank you for my hacksaws back, but there's something following you that may be out for a hand-to-hand."
Rydra questioned him with a look.
"Heroes," the Butcher grunted disgustedly. "They'll try to grapple, board, and fight."
"Not with those kids on this ship' Brass, turn around and ram them, or come close enough to make them think we're crazy."
"Maybreakacou'leribs. . ." The ship swung and they were flung hard against the straps of the shock-boards.
A youngster's voice through the intercom. "Wheeeee . . ."
On the view-screen the Invader cruiser swerved to the side.
"Good chance if they grapple," the Butcher said.
"They don't know there's a full crew aboard. They have no more than two—"
"Watch out, Ca'tain."
The Invader cruiser filled the screen. Clannnggg sang in the bones of the spider-boat.
The Butcher yanked at the straps of the shock-board and grinned. "Now to fighting hand-to-hand. Where are you going?"
"With you."
"You have a vibra-gun?" He tightened the holster on his stomach.
"Sure do." She pushed aside a panel of her loose blouse. "And this, too. Vanadium wire, six inches. Wicked thing."
"Come." He slapped the lever on a gravity inductor down to full field.
"What's that for?"
They were already in the corridor.
"To fight in a space suit out there is no good. False gravity field released around both ships will keep a breathable atmosphere to about twenty feet from surface and keep some heat in . . . more or less."
"What's less?" She swung behind him into the lift.
"It's about ten degrees below zero out there."
He had abandoned even his breeches since the evening they had met in Tarik's graveyard. All he wore was the holster. "I guess we won't be out there long enough to need overcoats."
"I guarantee you, whoever is out there more than a minute will be dead, and not from overexposure." His voice suddenly deepened as they ducked into the hatchway. "If you don't know what you're doing, stay back." Then he bent to brush her cheek with amber hair. "But you know, and I know. We must do it well."
In the same motion that he raised his head, he released the hatch. Cold came in for them. She didn't feel it. The increased metabolic rate that accompanied Babel-17 wrapped her in a shield of physical indifference. Something went flying overhead. They knew what to do and both did it; they ducked. Whatever it was exploded—the explosion identifying it as grenade that had just missed coming into the hatch—and light bleached the Butcher's face. He leaped and the fading glow slid down his body.
She followed him, reassured by the slow motion effect of Babel-17. She spun as she jumped. Someone ducked behind the ten foot bulge of an outrigger. She fired at him, the slow motion giving her time to take careful aim. She didn't wait to see if she hit, but kept turning. The Butcher was making for the ten foot wide column of the Invader's grapple.
Like a triple clawed crab, the enemy boat angled away into the night. K-ward rose the flattened spiral of the home galaxy. Shadows were carbon-paper black on the smooth hulls. From the K-ward side nobody could see her, unless her movement blotted a fugitive star or passed into the direct light of Specelli arm itself.
She jumped again—at the surface of the Invader cruiser now. For a moment it got much colder. Then she struck, near the grappler base, and rolled to her knees as, below, someone heaved another grenade at the hatch. They hadn't realized she and the Butcher were out yet. Good. She fired. And another hiss sounded from where the Butcher must be.
In the darkness below, figures moved. Then a vibra-blast stung the metal beneath her hand. It came from her own ship's hatch and she wasted a quarter of a sound analyzing and discarding the idea that the spy she had been afraid of from her crew had joined the Invaders. Rather, the Invader's first tactic had been to keep them from leaving their ship and blow them up in the hatch. It had failed, so now they had taken cover in the hatch itself for safety and were firing from there. She fired, fired again. From his hiding place behind the other grapple, the Butcher was doing the same.
A section of the hatch rim began to glow from the repeated blasts. Then a familiar voice was calling, “All right, all right already. Butcher! You got them, Ca'tain!"
Rydra monkeyed down the grapple, as Brass turned the hatch light on and stood up in the light that fanned across the bulkhead. The Butcher, gun down, came from his hiding place.
The underlighting distorted Brass' demon features still further. He held a limp figure in each claw.
"Actually this one's mine." He shook the right one. "He was trying to crawl back into the ship, so I ste “ed on his head." The pilot heaved the limp bodies onto the hull plates. "I don't know about you folks, but I'm cold. Reason I came up here in the first 'lace was Diavalo told me to tell you when you were ready for a coffee break, he'd fixed u' some Irish whiskey. Or maybe you'd 'refer hot buttered rum? Come on, come on! You're blue!"
At the lift her mind got back to English and she began to shiver. The frost on the Butcher's hair had started to melt to shiny droplets along his hairline. Her hand stung where she had just missed a burning.
"Hey," she said, as they stepped into the corridor, "if you're up here. Brass, who's watching the store?"
"Kippi. We went back on remote control."
"Rum," the Butcher said. "No butter and not hot. Just rum."
"Man after my own heart," nodded Brass. He dropped one arm around Rydra's shoulder, the other around the Butcher's. Friendly, but also, she realized, he was half-carrying both of them.