I willed him to stay still. There’d be no point in trying to swim away. None of us could move faster than those robots. Nicolosi must have worked that out for himself, or else he was paralysed with fright, but he made no movements as the robot cruised up to him. It slowed, the spread of its tentacles widening, and then tracked its spotlight from head to toe, as if it still couldn’t decide what Nicolosi was. Then it reached out a pair of manipulators and brushed their sharp-looking tips against his helmet. The machine probed and examined with surprising gentleness. I heard the metal-on-metal scrape through the voice link, backgrounded by Nicolosi’s rapid, sawlike breathing.
Keep it together…
The machine reached his neck, examined the interface between helmet and torso assembly and then worked its way down to his chest armour, extending a fine tentacle under the armour itself, to where the vulnerable life-support module lay concealed. Then, very slowly, it withdrew the tentacle.
The machine pulled back from Nicolosi, turning its blunt end away, apparently finished with its examination. The other three robots hovered watchfully with their prize of skin. Nicolosi sighed and eased his breathing.
‘I think…’ he whispered.
That was his big mistake. The machine righted itself, gathered its tentacles back into formation and began to approach him again, its powerful light sweeping up and down his body with renewed purpose. The second machine was nearing, clearly intent on assisting its partner in the examination of Nicolosi.
I looked at Sollis, our horrified gazes locking. ‘Can you get the door—’ I started.
‘Not a hope in hell.’
‘Nicolosi,’ I said, not bothering to whisper this time, ‘stay still and maybe they’ll go away again.’
But he wasn’t going to stay stilclass="underline" not this time. Even as I watched, he was hooking a hand around the plasma rifle, swinging it in front of him like a harpoon, its wide maw directed at the nearest machine.
‘No!’ Norbert shouted, his voice booming through the water like a depth charge. ‘Do not use! Not in here!’
But Nicolosi was beyond reasoned argument now. He had a weapon. Every cell in his body was screaming at him to use it.
So he did.
In one sense, it did all that he asked of it. The plasma discharge speared the robot like a sunbeam through a cloud. The robot came apart in a boiling eruption of steam and fire, jagged black pieces riding the shock wave. Then the steam — the vaporised amniotic fluid — swallowed everything, including Nicolosi and his gun. Even inside my suit, the sound hit me like a hammer blow. He fired once more, as if to make certain that he had destroyed the robot. By then the second machine was near enough to be flung back by the blast, but it quickly righted itself and continued its progress towards him.
‘More,’ Norbert said, and when I looked back towards the stack of skin sheets, I saw what he meant. Robots were arriving in ones and twos, abandoning their cutting work to investigate whatever had just happened.
‘We’re in trouble,’ I said.
The steam cloud was breaking up, revealing the floating form of Nicolosi, the ruined stump of his weapon drifting away from him. The second time he fired it, something must have gone badly wrong with the plasma rifle. I wasn’t even sure that Nicolosi was still alive.
‘I take door,’ Norbert said, drawing his Demarchist weapon. ‘You take robots.’
‘You’re going to shoot us a way out, after what just happened to Nicolosi?’ I asked.
‘No choice,’ he said as the gun unpacked itself in his hand.
Martinez pushed himself across to the big man. ‘No. Give it to me instead. I’ll take care of the door.’
‘Too dangerous,’ Norbert said.
‘Give it to me.’
Norbert hesitated, and for a moment I thought he was going to put up a fight. Then he calmly passed the Demarchist weapon to Martinez and accepted Martinez’s weapon in return, the little slug-gun vanishing into his vast gauntleted hand. Whatever respect I’d had for Norbert vanished at the same time. If he was supposed to be protecting Martinez, that was no way to go about it.
Of the three of us, only Norbert and I were carrying projectile weapons. I unclipped my second pistol and passed it to Sollis. She took it gratefully, needing little persuasion to keep her energy weapon glued to her belt. The robots were easy to kill, provided we let them get close enough for a clean shot. I didn’t doubt that the surgical cutting gear was capable of inflicting harm, but we never gave them the opportunity to touch us. Not that the machines appeared to have deliberately hostile designs on us anyway. They were still behaving as if they were investigating some shipboard malfunction that required remedial action. They might have killed us, but it would only have been because they did not understand what we were.
We didn’t have an inexhaustible supply of slugs, though, and manual reloading was not an option underwater. Just when I began to worry that we’d be overwhelmed by sheer numbers, Martinez’s voice boomed through my helmet.
‘I’m ready to shoot now. Follow me as soon as I’m through the second door.’
The Demarchist weapon discharged, lighting up the entire chamber in an eyeblink of murky detail. There was another discharge, then a third.
‘Martinez,’ I said. ‘Speak to me.’
After too long a delay, he came through. ‘I’m still here. Through the first door. Weapon’s cycling…’
More robots were swarming above us, tentacles lashing like whips. I wondered how long it would take before signals reached Nightingale’s sentience engine and the ship realised that it was dealing with more than just a local malfunction.
‘Why doesn’t he shoot?’ Sollis asked, squeezing off one controlled slug after another.
‘Sporting weapon. Three shots, recharge cycle, three shots,’ Norbert said, by way of explanation. ‘No rapid-fire mode. But work good underwater.’
‘We could use those next three shots,’ I said.
Martinez buzzed in my ear. ‘Ready. I will discharge until the weapon is dry. I suggest you start swimming now.’
I looked at Nicolosi’s drifting form, which was still as inert as when he had emerged from the steam cloud caused by his own weapon. ‘I think he’s dead,’ I said softly, ‘but we should still—’
‘No,’ Norbert said, almost angrily. ‘Leave him.’
‘Maybe he’s just unconscious.’
Martinez fired three times; three brief, bright strobe flashes. ‘Through!’ I heard him call, but there was something wrong with his voice. I knew then that he’d been hurt as well, although I couldn’t guess how badly.
Norbert and Sollis fired two last shots at the robots that were still approaching, then kicked past me in the direction of the airlock. I looked at Nicolosi’s drifting form, knowing that I’d never be able to live with myself if I didn’t try to get him out of there. I clipped my gun back to my belt and started swimming for him.
‘No!’ Norbert shouted again, when he’d seen my intentions. ‘Leave him! Too late!’
I reached Nicolosi and locked my right arm around his neck, pulling his head against my chest. I kicked for all I was worth, trying to pull myself forward with my free arm. I still couldn’t tell if Nicolosi was dead or alive.
‘Leave him, Scarrow! Too late!’
‘I can’t leave him!’ I shouted back, my voice ragged.
Three robots were bearing down on me and my cargo, their tentacles groping ahead of them. I squinted against the glare from their lights and tried to focus on getting the two of us to safety. Every kick of my legs, every awkward swing of my arm, seemed to tap the last drop of energy in my muscles. Finally I had nothing more to give.