SMELTER SHIP
MAIN PASSAGEWAY
“Ow!” Nicco yelped, wringing his hand. “That’s hot!”
Valker laughed. “What do you expect? The circuit’s been melted by a laser beam. Put your gloves back on.”
Nicco scowled at the blackened hole in the bulkhead where the hatch’s control pad had been. Kirk pushed past him, wiggled his nanogloved fingers in the air, then reached in and found the manual switch.
The hatch popped open a crack. Kirk kicked it all the way open, then made an exaggerated bow. “This way, gentlemen.”
”That’s three,” Nicco said, still wringing his burned hand as the scavengers trooped through the open hatch. “How many more?”
Valker turned to the wall screen display of the ship’s layout, “Four… five… and then the galley and finally the hatch to the bridge itself. Six more to go, men.”
“And then we’ve got ’em!” one of the crewmen exulted, waving the laser pistol he carried in the air.
“And then we get the women!” shouted Kirk.
Back on the bridge, Theo saw his father’s jaw clench as he watched the main screen’s camera view of the scavengers advancing along the passageway. And then we get the women, Theo repeated silently. He’s one of the dog turds that tried to murder me. Dad’s perfectly right: Kill them or they’ll kill us.
Dorn still stood with his arms locked across his chest, immobile as a statue, except that his head swiveled back and forth from watching the main screen to staring at Victor. What’s going through his mind? Theo wondered. He said he’d killed a lot of people and now he doesn’t want us to kill these scum. But what else can we do?
Suddenly the cyborg let his arms drop to his sides and started toward the closed hatch.
“Where are you going?” Victor demanded.
“To them.”
“What? What do you think—”
“You’re going to kill them. Kill me, too.”
Before he realized what he was saying, Theo blurted, “That’s crazy! You’re not one of them!”
“I was, once. Just like them. Worse. I’ll die with them.” Dorn reached the hatch and started to tap out the command code with his prosthetic hand.
Victor said, “You’re going to warn them?”
“No,” Dorn replied. “I’ll simply join in their fate.”
Elverda protested, “They’ll kill you as soon as they see you!”
“What difference does that make?”
Pushing herself up from the command chair, Elverda crossed the bridge to Dorn’s side. “I can’t let you kill yourself.”
“I’m going to die anyway,” he said softly. “We all will, sooner or later. Why prolong the misery?”
“Because I need you,” Elverda answered. “If you die, I’ll die too. I’ll have no reason to go on living.”
Theo stared at them. The cyborg with his death wish. The old woman trying to save him from himself. His mother and sister, frozen speechless. And his father in that fierce beard he’d grown, looking as implacable as death itself.
Turning to the main screen, Theo said loudly, “They’re through the third hatch. They’ll be entering the section we mined next.”
Everyone turned to the screen.
Theo went to the command chair. “Might be a good idea to pump the air out of the passageway before we blow the grenades,” he said, leaning over the control panel.
Valker himself was now taking a turn at lugging the laser welder. Trotting up the passageway behind him, Nicco toted the power pack.
“How’re we doing on juice?” Valker asked over his shoulder.
Nicco peered at the colored bar of the indicator. “ ’Bout halfway down. We can recharge off the ship’s current if we hafta.”
Valker said, “That’d take some time. I don’t want to keep those ladies waiting.”
Nicco laughed. Behind him, Kirk was leading the other seven men. They stopped at the closed hatch. Nicco lowered the power pack to the deck; Valker propped the bulky welder on one hip and aimed it at the control pad.
“Warning,” said a deep voice. The men all looked up at the intercom speaker set into the overhead. “Warning. This passageway will be evacuated to vacuum in thirty seconds. Air pressure will be reduced to zero.”
“Bastards!” Kirk snapped.
Valker was grinning inside the inflated hood of his nanosuit. “Seal up or breathe vacuum, boys,” he said, almost cheerfully.
“They think they can stop us?”
“They’re gettin’ scared.”
“Desperate.”
“They can’t think of anything else to do, I guess.”
Should be enough air in the suit tanks for an hour, at least, Valker thought. Plenty enough to get through the last of these hatches and into the bridge. I’ll let Kirk lead the charge: that guy with the beard took my pistol. Let Kirk go in first. He’s a hothead, he’ll charge right into the gun. Then we can cut the bearded one down and the kid and the cyborg, too.
“Everybody okay?” Valker asked. They heard him through their suit radios and nodded.
“Then let’s get through these frigging hatches!”
“The entire passageway is in vacuum,” Dorn announced, his eyes on the control board, his back to Victor.
“Why’d you warn them?” Angela asked.
Dorn glanced toward Elverda, but did not answer.
“They’re going into the section where we planted the grenades,” Theo said, feeling perspiration trickle down his ribs.
Dorn started toward the hatch again.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Victor demanded.
“Dorn!” Elverda said sharply. “No!”
“I have to,” the cyborg replied.
Victor stepped between Dorn and the hatch. “Stay here. You can’t stop this.”
For a long silent moment Dorn stood eye to eye with Victor, un-moving. Then he said, “I belong with them. Kill me too.”
“I don’t want to kill you,” Victor said.
“Yes you do. You simply don’t know it yet.”
“They’re entering the section we mined,” Theo said, turning from the main screen to the two men confronting one another. “If we’re going to blow those grenades we’ve got to do it now.”
Before Victor could reply, Dorn said, “I’m the man who attacked your ship. I am Dorik Harbin.”
“What?”
