Rue grabbed Herat's arm. "Professor. Laurent! We have to go!"
Herat whirled. His face was a mask of anger. " — Shot Henry. Just shot him down!"
"I know. Come!" She hauled him through the door after Harp.
"Status," she said to Harp as the door closed behind her. Rue found that as soon as she stopped moving she drifted to one wall of this new chamber; might as well call that direction down, she decided. This new room was packed with supplies like the one on the other side of the hibernation chamber.
"They seem to have wrapped hab chambers like this around the nose of the cycler," said Harp. "That'd mean there's about ten of them—"
"Twelve," interrupted Corinna Chandra. She was actually smiling, a rarity for her. "We're continuing to accelerate, Captain, and not all of these people were able to bring their helmets." About half the science staff had made it out.
"Anyone want to stay and take their chances with Crisler?" shouted Rue. No one moved. "All right. These balloon-habs are anchored to the cycler somehow. We're going to detach this one and float away. Got it? Get moving!" She clapped her gloves together, and was rewarded by a wave of pain from her injured hand.
She could see shadows of movement on the other side of the door: Crisler's marines. They could have cut through the wall separating the two habs in a second, but doubtless they or Crisler had realized that this little ring of balloons was their only chance of survival if they were to ride the cycler out of here. They couldn't afford to damage it.
Rue's crew were swarming over the floor and staring out the hab's one small window, looking for the points where the balloon-hab was attached to straps glued onto the cycler's skin. Harp turned his laser on the lowest setting and at Evan's command, made several quick cuts through the floor. Rue's ear's popped as air hissed out of the hab for a few tense seconds before the hab's skin repaired itself.
"Now we're only held by the doors," said Evan. They set to work on those.
Mike Bequith had been huddled with Herat in one corner. Now he floated over to Rue. "I count twelve. We should be able to get everyone safely into the interceptors…" He trailed off, looking around in obvious puzzlement. "Rue… where's Barendts?"
"Your little rebel friend? I don't know," she snapped.
"But he was one of the first ones out," said Mike.
She sighed. "So?"
Mike took her by the shoulders— she was about to protest, when he said, "Rue. Where is the cycler mother seed?"
"Look, I think we have more important things to think about right now."
"No, Rue, I don't think we do," said Professor Herat, who had come up behind Mike.
"The seeds are the key— they're the real treasure of this world, Rue. With them, Crisler might learn how to make his self-reproducing warships. And with them, you could make any number of Jentry's Envys…"
Corinna and Evan had detached their side of the door through which Rue had entered this hab. The whole hab shifted a bit; it was now hanging from the cycler only by the other door.
"Barendts took the seed," said Mike.
"Took it?" Rue laughed wildly. "Took it where?"
Mike looked at her. A look of shocked comprehension dawned on his face. "Of course!"
He dove for the hab's other door, elbowing Corinna aside as he closed his faceplate. Before Rue could react, he had opened the door and swung through.
The door hissed shut. Rue turned, gaping, to Professor Herat. Herat had put a hand over his mouth, fingers trembling.
"Laurent? What is it?"
"Crisler's not the only one who might be able to resurrect the Chicxulub weapon," said Herat. "The rebels could do it… if they too had a seed…"
Suddenly the hab let loose and began to tumble. Rue barely felt the motion. Barendts was making for one of the interceptors with the seed in tow. And Michael Bequith had gone to join him.
MICHAEL FOUND ANOTHER airlock and cycled through it. He was too busy inventorying his supplies to think about what would happen next. He had a laser rifle, reaction pistol, and those autotroph bees that had survived their diversionary attack. Those huddled in one of his belt pouches now as he opened the outer airlock door to hard vacuum.
Osiris loomed above him. Below he saw nothing but stars— no, that wasn't quite true. One bead of the necklace of habs had fallen from the cycler. He watched it tumble, intact so far, away into the dark.
Between them, he knew Rue's crew and the science team would be able to find a way to signal her interceptors. They would be all right, he told himself as he braced himself, preparing to leap into the void.
Funny— not too long ago, he had stood on Dis, facing just such an empty sunless sky. Then, Michael had made sure he was tethered at all times; the prospect of drifting off into endless space had terrified him.
There was not a whisper of that old terror now as he stepped off the cycler into the void.
The cycler shot up past him, a moving graffiti-scrawled wall visible only by faint starlight. Michael got the light-enhancers in his helmet working, and turned away from the now-bright starship.
The stars were sharp points; as the cycler passed, the exhaust from its engines was blinding. He jetted away from twin columns of light that speared into the night. As he turned again he saw the oval glow of an aurora crowning Apophis.
He knew in general where he was going, so began jetting toward the ruins of the Banshee. Barendts wasn't visible yet; he might never be unless Michael got a lucky glimpse of his reaction pistol firing. Uncomfortably, that suggested that Michael might miss him and go to the wrong interceptor.
He couldn't afford to think about that. Michael recited a mantra to calm himself as he flew through the darkness. All was silent, and he had no sense of motion at all. Only the faint whirring of his suit's systems, and his own breathing, told Michael that he was still real, a physical man and not a spirit drifting in the void.
Part of him was bracing for an onslaught of despair from the kami of Dis. Surely they were still there? But no, they had gone silent. Michael realized this with a kind of shock— when had that happened? When had his constant companions, who had dragged him down all these months, evaporated?
It must have been his decision to rejoin the rebels— to take back Kimpurusha, or die trying. Was that it? He tried to remember his days on Oculus… but no, they had been there then.
Perhaps it was the battle that had just passed. The immediacy of it, the adrenaline. Wasn't this his natural environment now? The battlefield?
Michael frowned, and shook his head. He was no soldier. He might make a credible spy, but he'd had no stomach for hurting anyone, even the marines who had tried to kill him today. Barendts, a trained fighter, had carried most of the attack that got them out of Crisler's clutches.
Far ahead of him a tiny star flared to life, then died. That must be Barendts. Michael lined himself up and made the difficult course correction that would take him that way.
They were approaching the construction shack now. In enhanced light, he could see the white spindle-shapes of the interceptors. Barendts was making for the one on the right. Good.
If both Crisler and the rebels had the secret of the Chicxulub ships, at least there would be a level playing field. Maybe the ships would clash among themselves, ignoring the humans until there was a victor in space. Maybe they could spare lives, not take them that way.
Sadly, though, the halo worlds would lose either way. Without more Jentry's Envys, they were doomed to increasing isolation and irrelevance. Rue's civilization, which he had been born into and still loved, would come to an end.
Barendts was a faintly visible star-shape struggling with a cylindrical white seed at the airlock of the interceptor. The marine hadn't spotted Michael yet.