Lindsay slithered out into the airlock, still grappling, and
jacked his foot into Fazil's crotch. As Fazil convulsed, Lindsay
seized the man's leg and bent it double, jamming one arm
behind Fazil's knee. He braced himself against the Shaper's
body and yanked upward, wrenching the man's thighbone from
its socket.
In agony, Fazil scrabbled lor a hold. His hand struck the edge
of the hatch and slammed it shut. The launch ring's circuit
sealed and the ready-light came on.
Lindsay held the leg and twisted. Two globes of his own blood
floated up within his faceplate. He sneezed, blinded, and Fazil
kicked him in the neck. He lost his grip, and the Shaper attacked.
He threw his arms around Lindsay's chest with the panic
strength of desperation. Lindsay wheezed, and black uncon-
sciousness loomed close for four loud heartbeats. Then he
kicked wildly, and his foot caught the edge of the airlock's
support trellis.
They spun, grappling. Lindsay slammed his elbow into the side
of the Shaper's head. The grip loosened. Lindsay swung his free
arm over Fazil's head and seized his neck in a hammerlock.
Fazil squeezed again and Lindsay's ribs bent in the power of his
Shaper-strengthened arms.
Lindsay locked eyes with him through his blood-spattered
faceplate. Lindsay's face rippled hideously. Fazil went wall-eyed
in terror and tried to claw his way free. Lindsay broke his neck.
Lindsay was panting. The suits had no air tanks; they were for
brief exposures only. He had to get out into air.
He turned for the airlock's exit. Kleo was there. Her eyes were
dark with fascination and terror. She held the zipper's outside tag.
Lindsay stared at her, blinking as a microglobe of blood clung
to his lashes. Kleo pulled her favorite weapon: a needle and thread.
Lindsay kicked off from Fazil's body. He fumbled for the tag.
With a few deft moves, Kleo sewed the zipper shut.
Lindsay pulled at it frantically. The slender pink thread was
like steel wire. He shook his head: "No!" Vacuum surrounded
him. He was cut off; the words that had always saved him could
not leap the gap.
She waited to watch him die. Overhead, the LED raced
through its readout. The lights were dimming. A launch off the
ecliptic required full power.
Lindsay pulled left-handed at the hatch. There was a faint
vibration through his fingers. He kicked the hatch, savagely,
three times, and something gave. He pulled with all his strength.
The hatch opened, just a finger's width.
Safety fuses tripped. And all the lights went out.
The hatch opened easily, then. The darkness was total. He didn't know how long it would take the circling launch cage to grate to a stop within the ring. If it were still whirring by at klicks per second, it would shear his arm or leg off as neatly as a laser.
He couldn't wail long. The air inside the suit was thick with his
own breath and the reek of blood. He made up his mind and
thrust his head into the ring.
He lived.
Now he faced another problem. The cage was resting within
the ring, somewhere, blocking it. If he reached it on his way to
the Outside, he would have to turn around, wasting air. Left or
right?
Left. Breathing shallowly, favoring his arm, he leaped along theinside of the ring. He cradled his arms against his chest, using
his legs, bounding, somersaulting, skidding.
Three hundred meters-that was half the length of the ring. All
he would have to go. But what if the camouflage plastic was
sealing the ring's launch exit? What if he had already passed the
exit in the blackness, noticing nothing?
Starlight. Lindsay leaped upward frantically, remembering only
at the last moment to catch himself on the rim. ESAIRS' gravity
was so weak that his leap would have put him into circumsolar
orbit.
Once again he was outside the asteroid, amid streaks of
charred black and off-white blast sumps.
He leaped across a buckled crater, almost missing the far rim.
When he grappled along a stretch of pumice, rock powdered
under his fingers and went into slow orbit just above the surface.
He was gasping when he found the second airlock: plastic film
dappled with camouflage, inset into the surface of ESAIRS where
the Family's first drill had bitten in. He brushed the film aside
and twisted the hatch wheel. His right arm was bleeding steadily. It felt broken again.
The hatch popped free. He slipped into the airlock and
slammed the outside hatch behind him. Then there was another.
He was panting steadily; each lungful offered less, and he tasted
inhaled blood.
The second hatch opened. He pulled himself through, and
there was a sudden flurry of movement in darkness. He heard
his suit rip. Cold steel nicked his throat, his legs were seized,
and he screamed as hands in the blackness grabbed his wound-
ed arm and twisted.
"Talk!"
"Mr. President!" Lindsay gasped at once. "Mr. President!"
The knife against his throat drew back. He heard a deafening
buzz-saw grinding, and sparks flew. In the sudden gory light
Lindsay saw the President, the Speaker of the House, the Chief
Justice, and Senator 3.
The sparks went out. The Speaker had held the blade of her
small power saw against a length of pipe.
The President ripped the head from Lindsay's suit. "The arm,
the arm," Lindsay yelped. The Chief Justice released it; Senator
3 released his legs. Lindsay breathed deeply, filling his lungs with air.
"Fucking preemptive strike," the President muttered. "Hate
'em."
"They tried to kill me," Lindsay said. "The equipment- you
destroyed it? We can leave now?"
"Something tipped 'em off," the President growled. "We were
in the launch center with Paolo. Learning how to smash the
launch controls. Then Agnes and Nora show up. Supposed to be
sleeping. And all of a sudden, black as fire - "
"Power blackout," said the Speaker.
"I yell ambush," said the President. "Only it's black. They
have the advantage: fewer of them, less chance of hitting their
own. So, I go for machinery. Sleeve knife into the circuitry. We
hear Second Senator howl, meat breaks open."
"Something wet touched my face," the Chief Justice said. His
ancient voice was heavy with doomed satisfaction. "The air was
full of blood."
"They were armed," the President said. "I caught this in the
scuffle. Feel it, State."
In the darkness, the President pressed something into Lindsay's left hand. It was the size of his palm -a flattened disk of
dense stone, wrapped in braided thread. Part of it was sticky.
"Had 'em taped to their ribs, I think. Swinging weapons. Bludgeons. Stranglers. Those threads are thin enough to cut. Opened
my thumb to the bone when I caught it."
"Where are the rest of us?" Lindsay said.
"We got a contingency plan. The two Reps were cleaning up
after lan -they're aboard the Consensus now, getting ready to
lift."
"Why'd you kill Ian?"
"Kill him?" the Speaker said. "There's no proof. He evap-
orated."
"The FMD don't take a wound without returning it," the
President said. "We thought we'd be gone by morning, and we
thought, Hah, let 'em think he defected with us! Cute, huh?" He
snorted. "The Senate were with us but two got lost. They'll show
up here, 'cause this is rendezvous. Justices Two and Three are
looting, lifting some of that hot Shaper wetware. Good loot for
us. We figured -we seize the exit. If we have to, we jump to the
Consensus, naked. We could make it with just nosebleeds and