On the beach five figures were racing over the dunes.
Ione said: Kill her.
The serjeants pulled laser pistols from their holsters. Alkad Mzu already had her foot on the first rung.
Udat s maser cannon fired.
Monica Foulkes pounded hard across the sand, neural nanonics commands and boosted muscles meshing so that her body ate the distance effortlessly, a hundred and fifty metres in nine seconds. The prime order of the ESAs Tranquillity operation was to prevent Mzu from leaving, that took precedence over everything. It didnt look like Monica was going to get to the blackhawk in time, Mzu had started to claw her way up the rocking ladder. She reviewed which of her weapon implants would have the best chance; the trouble was most of them were designed for unobtrusive close-range work. And that bloody Lunar SII spacesuit didnt help. It would have to be a microdart, and hope the tip penetrated. She was aware of the serjeants off to her left pulling out their laser pistols.
A metre-wide column of air fluoresced a faint violet, drawing a line from a silver bubble on the blackhawks lower hull to a serjeant. The bitek servitor blew apart in an explosion of steam and carbon granules. Fifteen metres behind it, where the beam struck the beach, a patch of sand became a puddle of glass, glowing a vivid rose-gold.
Over-hyped nerves sent Monica diving for cover the instant the beam appeared. She hit the loose sand, momentum ploughing a two and a half metre long furrow. There were two near-simultaneous thuds behind her as Samuel and Pauline flung themselves down. The second serjeant erupted into a black-grain mist with a loud burping sound as the maser hit it. Monicas mind gibbered as she waited, head buried in the sand. At least with that power rating itll be quick ...
A wind began howling over the dunes.
Samuel raised his head to see his worst expectation confirmed. A wormhole interstice was opening around the nose of the blackhawk. Alkad Mzu was halfway up the rope-ladder.
You must not take her from here,he pleaded with the starship. You must not!
The interstice widened, a light-devouring tunnel boring through infinity. Air streamed in.
Hang on! Samuel shouted to the two women agents.
COME BACK!tranquillity commanded.
Meyer, his mind twinned with the blackhawk, quailed under the habitats furious demand. It was too much, the storm voice had raged inside his skull for what seemed like days, bruising his neurons with its violence. Welcome surrender beckonedto hell with Mzu, nothing was worth this. Then he felt local space twisting under the immense distortion which Udat s energy patterning cells exterted. A pseudoabyss leading into freedom opened before him. Go,he ordered. the cold physical blackness outside invaded his mind, plunging him into glorious oblivion.
A small but ferocious hurricane set Alkad spinning like a runaway propeller at the end of her precarious silicon-fibre ladder. Wait! she datavised in mounting terror. Youre supposed to wait till Im in the airlock. Her digitalized vehemence made no impression on Udat . The air buoyed her up as though she had become weightless, swinging her round until the ladder was horizontal. Oscillating gravity was doing terrible things to her inner ears. Screaming air tried to tear her from the ladder. Neural nanonics pumped muscle-lock orders into her hands and calves to reinforce her grip. She could feel ligaments ripping. Collar sensors showed her the fuzzy rim of the wormhole interstice sliding inexorably along the hull towards her. No. In the name of Mary, wait! And then Dr Alkad Mzu was suddenly presented with every physicists dream opportunity: observing the fabric of the universe from the outside.
Monica Foulkes heard Samuels shouted warning and instinctively grabbed a tuft of reedy dune grass. The wind surged with impossible strength. Gravity shifted round until the beach was above her. Monica wailed fearfully as sand fell up into the sky. She felt herself following it, feet pulled into the air and sliding round to point at the interstice surrounding the blackhawks nose. The grass clump made an awful slow tearing sound. Her hips and chest left the ground. Sand was blasting directly into her face. She couldnt see, couldnt breathe. The grass clump moved several centimetres. OhdearGodpreservemeee!
A long-fingered hand clamped around her free wrist. The grass clump left the sand with a sharp sucking noise, its weight wrenching her arm out towards the blackhawk. For an eternal second Monica hung splayed in the air as the sand scudded around her. Someone groaned with pained effort.
The wormhole interstice closed behind Udat .
Sand, water, mangled vegetation, and demented fish cascaded down out of the sky. Monica landed flat on her belly, breath knocked out of her. Oh my God, she wheezed. When she looked up, the haggard Edenist was crouched on his knees, panting heavily as he clutched his wrist. Youthe words were difficult to form in her throatyou held on to me.
He threw her a nod. I think my wrist is broken.
I would have ... She shuddered, then gave a foolish jittery laugh. God, I dont even know your name.
Samuel.
Thank you, Samuel.
He rolled onto his back and sighed. Pleasure.
Are you all right?tranquillity asked the edenist.
My wrist is very painful. Shes heavy.
Your colleagues are approaching. Three of them are carrying medical nanonic packages in their aid kits. They will be with you shortly.
Even after all this time spent in Tranquillity, he couldnt get used to the personalitys lack of empathy. Habitats were such an essential component of Edenism. It was disconcerting to have one treat him in this cavalier fashion. Thank you.
I didnt think voidhawks and blackhawks could operate in a gravity field, Monica said.
They cant, he told her. This isnt gravity, its centrifugal force. Its no different to the docking-ledges they use outside.
Ah, of course. Have you ever heard of one coming inside a habitat before?
Never. A swallow like that requires phenomenal accuracy. From a strictly chauvinistic point of view I hate to say this, but I think it would be beyond most voidhawks. Even most blackhawks, come to that. Mzu made an astute choice. This was a very well thought out escape.
Twenty-six years in the making, Pauline said. She climbed slowly to her feet, shaking her cotton top, which had been soaked by the falling water. A fat blue fish, half a metre long, was thrashing frantically on the sand by her shoes. I mean that woman had us fooled for twenty-six goddamn years. Acting out the role of a flekhead physics professor with all the expected neuroses and eccentricities slotting perfectly into place. And we believed it. We patiently watched her for twenty-six years and she behaved exactly as predicted. If my home planet had been blown to shit, Id behave like that. She never faltered, not once. But it was a twenty-six-year charade. Twenty-six goddamn years! What kind of a person can do that?