“Are we still heading for this ‘base?” Tusite asked.
“We are,” Muddy confirmed. Then, in a rare display of manners for a de Towaji of any sort, he stuck out his hand. “I don’t believe we’ve formally met, by the way. I’m Muddy.”
“Tusite,” she returned quickly, accepting his hand into her own dark fingers with a reflexively dainty, ladylike grip. “No last name.”
“Me either,” Muddy said.
She looked puzzled by that—clearly she thought he was another Bruno, or at least another de Towaji. But what she said, albeit somewhat brusquely, was, “Charmed. I… apologize for screaming, a minute ago. It’s frightening, all this running and fighting and dying. But I do owe you my life.”
“Oh, none of that,” Muddy clucked. “We’ve all had our share of b-bad moments on this trip. Anyway, you owe him,” He nodded sideways at Bruno.
Tusite looked in Bruno’s direction and inclined her head. She looked as if her fright were only barely contained, but she nonetheless turned back to Muddy. “Mercury is hostile wilderness, true?” she asked. “So hot it’s full of molten metal? If we come down in the wrong spot, it could mean our deaths.”
“Indeed,” Muddy agreed. “But we’re aimed right for the center of the Declarant’s base. As we approach, I’ll be scanning for dangers. I’ll look for hollows beneath the rock, too— natural or otherwise—because that’s where we’ll find him. I’ll do my b-best to set us atop one of them.”
“Steering how?” she pressed anxiously.
“The guidance algorithm adjusts its course by sliding the grapple target to different parts of the sun.”
“I’ll bet we’re disrupting that, as well,” Deliah noted. “It’s illegal to grapple the sun because it can whip up flares and proton storms which affect the entire Queendom. I doubt anyone has ever given our poor photopause the sort of thrashing we’re giving it now.”
“Indeed,” Bruno said, “we have much to answer for.”
Everyone burst out laughing at that. Tight, anxious laughter, it was true, but still it surprised Bruno—he’d been serious. All week, he’d been tearing up the solar system as if he owned the place, grappling to anything handy regardless of consequence, helping mainly his own friends… But even Hugo, strapped as ever to the cabin’s floor, made mewling noises that were quite a good imitation of amusement.
“I’m sure we could all use a rest,” he grumbled, and everyone laughed at that, too.
“You’re planning to melt through solid rock?” Shiao asked. “He could be buried quite deep, couldn’t he?”
“Unlikely,” Deliah said. “For the same reasons already cited. His equipment needs to be on the surface—or to stick up through the surface, at any rate—and he’ll want to be close to it. It’s the same reason your eyes and ears are up next to your brain—so the signals don’t have far to travel.”
“So how deep should we expect to burrow?”
She shrugged. “Less than fifty meters, at a guess. Of course, at the rate this ship tunnels that could still take a pretty long time.”
“Three minutes to touchdown,” the ship noted.
“There’ll be a-a-access ports at the surface,” Muddy said, finally climbing onto his acceleration couch. His hands and voice were shaking, Bruno saw. He was going in to face his personal Satan. Was there ever a better reason to be terrified? “He never uses his ports, but they’re always there. I’ve seen his secret f-facilities elsewhere in the solar system, and I doubt he’d deviate much from pattern. We should be armed, by the way; we can expect a stiff resistance from robot guards. Captain Shiao?”
“Yes, sir?”
“Can you recommend some hand weapons to our fax machine, please?”
“Certainly.” From his folding couch, Shiao rattled off a series of model numbers, technical specifications, magazine sizes and battery capacities, piezoelectric coefficients and physical dimensions. Beside him, the fax hummed and glowed.
“Acknowledged, sir,” Sabadell-Andorra replied a few moments later. “Weapons are ready.”
With shaking hands, Muddy snapped his couch harness in place. “Right. Well, everyone should pick one up on the way out. I don’t suppose we have sufficient mass in the reservoir to make’s-spacesuits?”
“Only two complete ones,” the ship replied apologetically. “We are low on certain key elements, notably oxygen.”
“We could send two of us ahead in full armor,” Cheng Shiao suggested. “I will, naturally, volunteer.”
It took Bruno a moment to realize the suggestion was aimed solely at him. He was the commander of this expedition, in every conceivable sense. Such a decision was clearly his. He considered it. Would dividing their forces leave them vulnerable? Would the ship be safer with people aboard to guard her? Did it matter, two people, or four, or six? He wanted no more deaths on his conscience, but wasn’t at all sure how to accomplish this under the circumstances.
He did know, in a low, cold-blooded way, that Shiao was the one person here—other than himself—that he’d be most willing to sacrifice, if such sacrifice could not be helped. Shiao was the person most willing to sacrifice himself, and also the one most qualified—far more qualified than Bruno— to break into the fortress of a mad genius.
The sun moved out of the bow window, which turned clear again, showing stars and a few wispy tendrils of solar corona. Their little ship could be anywhere, really; looking up there gave no impression that they were about to land on a planet.
“All right,” Bruno said finally, “Shiao and I will don space suits and attempt to seize control of Marlon’s study, wherever it may be. I’m not sure whether we can reverse the damage he’s done, but if so that will be the likeliest place from which to accomplish it. The rest of you stay with the ship.”
“I object,” Vivian said immediately, from her little couch beside Shiao’s own. “I am a Commandant-Inspector of the Royal Constabulary.”
“Also a sixteen-year-old girl,” Bruno and Shiao said together.
“I didn’t have any heroics in mind, thank you,” she said, with a cool stiffness that belied her age. “I’m thinking of Declarant Sykes’ household control systems. There must be an interface somewhere, and if I can find it I may be able to issue law-enforcement overrides to the resident intelligence. If not, I may at least be able to sabotage it in some way.”
Bruno thought about this. In no way did he wish to further endanger Vivian’s life. There was danger enough, without sending her off to the mercies of armed robots and other household security systems.
“None of us have backup patterns we can rely on,” he reminded her. “Our actions here carry the sting of permanence. If you die, you’ll die.”
“I’m aware of that, Declarant.”
“Hmm. Yes. Well, I leave it up to Shiao. He seems quite protective of you.”
“I—” Shiao began, but was immediately interrupted.
“I order you to agree,” Vivian said.
Shiao reddened; his protective instincts were suddenly frustrated, bottled in. He didn’t like that one bit.
“Cheng,” she warned, her copper eyes flashing angrily, “this won’t look good on my report. Physically, I’m sure you could prevent me, but you do not want to refuse a direct order. Nor would you want, in any way, to endanger this mission. Would you like to be the cause of our failure?”
“I… would not,” he said, with visible effort.
“I’ll take every precaution,” she said, softening. “I have no desire to upset you.”
He slumped back into his couch. “I’ll agree, Commandant-Inspector, on the sole condition that you not go alone.”