It was so soft and painless that, if their hyperengine functions anywhere near as well, I can think of one good reason why the Qhigarians were in a hurry to leave: the Qhigarian mental con game is no match for this system.
We’re inside an empty terminal half a kilometer in diameter, according to my sensors. Our comms are cut, of course. The unsullied white of the whole place must make Yotuel feel right at home, as obsessed with cleanliness as he is. I can barely make out his suit: it’s the exact same shade.
The air around us is perfectly breathable, and the pressure is correct. Well, a little low, to tell the truth. And—huh. Helium instead of nitrogen. We’ll be squeaking like a bunch of Donald Ducks when we try to talk. That’ll make it hard to sound like serious ambassadors.
The weird thing is, we’re still floating. Don’t these visitors use gravity control?
We’re still arranged as before: a few dozen meters apart from each other, Yotuel in the middle, me on the right, Jürgen to the left. My two rivals look at each other, make an almost imperceptible signal, and promptly remove their helmets in perfect synchrony.
The empty helmets float like abandoned satellites, while their owners briefly activate the inertial micromotors on the suits and come at me, with the coordinated decisiveness of football linebackers in a slow-motion replay: colorful monochrome uniforms bearing down inexorably on the quarterback from the other team who’s got the ball…
I was expecting this. Lucky I didn’t end up between the two of them. Fighting isn’t my thing; I prefer “Here is where he turned and ran” to “Here is where he died.” But hey, if you’re not going to give me a choice, let’s play ball, guys.
I remove my helmet, too (if there are extragalactic bacteria or viruses that our reinforced immune systems can’t deal with, we’ll figure that out later), and hold it between my hands. Not tight against my chest, like a football player trying to break through the defense and score a touchdown, but slightly away from my body, at eye level, like a basketball player about to shoot a free throw.
I was never any good at football. Standing barely five foot seven and 145 pounds, I wasn’t beefy enough, though I’m a fast runner. But I’ve got a good jump, so I was a better than average basketball player; almost a champion. And now I’m planning to show off some of my skills to this pair.
The helmet is made of light but very hard material. And I was always pretty good at making baskets. A little luck and, first guy that gets near me, I might just break his nose. No, I’d better strategize this. It doesn’t matter who’s in the lead; I’ll go after Yotuel. Jürgen’s nanos are made for shifting his body shape, but they also help him to heal disconcertingly fast.
It really is too bad there’s no gravity. When I throw the helmet, I’ll logically go flying in the opposite direction. For every action there’s an equal and opposite reaction: it’s the law. Plus, it won’t hit him with the classic 9.8 meters per second squared of acceleration force it would have on Earth.
But speak of the devil… The gravimeter tells me we’ve got microgravity now. We’re all settling gently to the floor, which is as white as the walls. It has the soft, strange (and a slightly repulsive, I might add) consistency of jam or gelatin. Luckily it isn’t sticky, though.
I flex my legs and keep my grip on my helmet, waiting as the gravity slowly increases, bit by bit. The helmets that my two adversaries tossed aside hit the floor and bounce a little. Jürgen’s red helmet rolls almost to my feet. Perfect. If I grab it in time, a second projectile will give me even more opportunities. Why would they throw away such obvious weapons?
Maybe because they’re sure they’ll easily beat me without them.
My suspicions are confirmed as soon as their feet touch the gelatinous flooring and they continue advancing on me. Their long, weightless leaps remind me of the old recordings Abel showed me one time, about the first humans to land on the moon, in the middle of the twentieth century, on the Apollo 11.
And, yes, I’m a fan of old-time astronauts. I was bound to have some sort of shortcoming, right? Nostalgia for the olden days. I hope Nu Barsa will forgive me. There are worse flaws, after all, even for a condomnaut.
Jürgen pulls a long, thin chain from a compartment in his suit, unwinds it, and holds it up before him with both hands, a meter apart, in the classic pose of a strangler.
A mistake, I think. He could have hurt me more easily and from farther away if he’d used it as a lash.
Yotuel, for his part, is more traditional or orthodox about evildoing. He’s gone for a large screwdriver. Good for stabbing, good for slashing: pure Rubble City style. I’ve got to keep my eye on both of them. In my triple-armored suit, the only part of my head that’s really vulnerable to a stabbing by my old pal is my eyes, but if I let myself get distracted by protecting them, the nanoborg could easily take advantage, sneak up from behind, wrap the chain around my neck, and strangle me.
Maybe I shouldn’t have taken off the helmet. Too late now; no time to put it back on.
Speaking of which, I can feel its weight in my hands now. The gravity keeps getting stronger. I don’t need the gravimeter; my bones and muscles tell me it’s almost up to Earth level. Hopefully it won’t rise much beyond Earth gravity.
Here they come, running with all their might, white and red. A killer Polish flag against the flag of Libya. Nice image, or colorful at least.
Damn, like I care about flags. Is the air getting to me? Muddling my brain? I’ve seen stranger things happen.
Let’s test it, just to be sure.
Self-examination. What color was the flag of Kiribati?
No idea. That’s good: I’m still the same old Josué. And I’ve got more important things to worry about.
Yotuel will get to me first—and with that screwdriver in his hand, he’s also going to find it harder to block or dodge a helmet missile than Jürgen will with the chain.
“Fuckin’ bastard!” screams Yamil’s little brother, the aspiring murderer, as he pounces with his deadly weapon raised high. I can’t help noticing how ridiculous his high-pitched nasal war cry sounds in this helium atmosphere. Revenge of Duckman?
I keep my cool. I’ve been waiting years for this….
When he’s two meters away, I hurl the helmet straight at his face with all my might. It does no good: my hard, green helmet travels all of one meter and stops cold, suspended in midair, as if held by an invisible barrier.
Same thing with Yotuel’s huge screwdriver, when he tries to drive it into me with all the force of the years he’s spent dreaming of vengeance. A second later Jürgen is caught in the same barrier when he lunges for my throat with the chain.
They both struggle to free their improvised weapons, but they can’t get them loose. Seeing this, I don’t even try to recover my helmet, which remains stuck in midair. Instead, I calmly walk over to Jürgen’s and pick it up (no problem). Good thing the ultraprotects we condomnauts use are all a universal model. Maybe a red-green combo only looks good on parrots, but better safe than sorry. I won’t survive long in outer space in a suit without a helmet.
My would-be executioners in red and white are still struggling in vain. They’ve given up on their weapons; now they’re just trying to get at me with their bare hands. First they jump as high as they can, then one stands on the other’s shoulders; they’re trying to see how high the transparent but invulnerable barrier goes. Now they’re running away from me in both directions, trying to find a way around it. But no doing: not only is the wall invisible and solid, it seems to divide the entire terminal in two, from side to side.
I’m intrigued by its nature. My instruments detect no force field or electromagnetic waves. But here it is, impregnable, though my stubborn enemies refuse to admit it.