The Aftermath

Pauline hardly recognized the fiercely bearded man who had come aboard Hunter as her gentle, thoughtful husband—until the moment he failed to kill Dorn. Victor, she thought. Despite everything, despite the years of anguish, he couldn’t kill the man who’s caused all our troubles. Not in cold blood. Not Victor. He couldn’t.

But she saw that Victor was perfectly ready to do whatever he had to in order to protect her and Angela. What would he do if he knew that I’ve slept with Valker? How will he feel about me?

She looked at Angela, standing beside her, and at the elderly woman who tried to save Dorn from his own guilt-ridden death wish. Angie knows about Valker now, Pauline told herself. But she won’t tell her father; she won’t breathe a word about it, not to Victor or even to Theo. It’s our secret. I’ll have to talk to her about it, explain what happened. Make her understand. If I can. If I can.

She realized Theo was asking something of Dorn. With an effort, she forced her thoughts aside and focused on the others on the bridge.

“Do you have suits for yourselves?” Theo was asking Dorn.

Elverda replied, “Nanosuits, yes. There are several in the locker by the main airlock.”

“Why should they need suits?” Victor demanded.

Theo jabbed a thumb at the main screen. The scavengers were floating out of the twisted wreckage of the severed hull section.

“They’re going to be coming here. We’d better get off this vessel and into Pleiades.”

Victor grinned with understanding. “Pleiades has propulsion. Her fusion engine works and she’s got enough fuel to get back to Ceres.”

“Right,” said Theo. “Let those dog turds have this ship. It can’t move. It’s a derelict, thanks to them.”

“And we’ll get away on Pleiades,” said Victor.

“But we’ve got to be quick,” Theo urged.

“Wait,” Pauline said.

The men turned toward her.

“They’ve got their own ship: Vogeltod. Its main engine works and they’ve got fuel for it in her tanks.”

“I know,” Theo said. “I’ll have to take care of that.”

Victor bent over the control panel. “We’ve got to put some distance between us and those scavengers.”

Dorn came up beside him. “With only the maneuvering jets, we can’t go far.”

Theo told him, “Move us toward Syracuse.”

“Syracuse?” his father demanded. “You mean Pleiades.”

“Syracuse,” Theo replied. “And their ship, Vogeltod.”

SPACE RACE

“Anybody hurt?” Valker asked again.

He was clinging by one hand to a cleat on the outer skin of the broken hull section, spinning slowly in the middle of nowhere, with nothing but the emptiness of the universe all around him. Along the curve of the section he could see his men pulling themselves out of the wreckage, slowly, still in shock from the explosion.

“Well?” he demanded. “All you huskies in one piece?”

“My hand still hurts,” Nicco complained.

“I twisted my leg.”

“My insides don’t feel so good.”

“That’s the zero-g,” Kirk’s scornful voice countered. “Don’t upchuck in your hood.”

A scattering of snickering laughs.

The broken hull section turned enough for Valker to see the rest of Hunter gleaming in the sunlight, one section of its wheel-shaped hull gone, the shattered ends blackened by the explosions.

“All right, all right. Pull yourselves together. We’ve got to get back to that ship and give those pissants what they deserve.”

* * *

Once they got to the auxiliary airlock, Theo saw how simple it was for Dorn and Ms. Apacheta to get into nanosuits. Just like pulling on a set of coveralls. He hefted the new backpack that Dorn had given him, feeling its weight settled on his shoulders, then went to his sister.

“I’ll check out your backpack,” Theo said to Angela.

“Let your mother do that,” Victor said. He was still in his nanofabric suit, its hood pushed back against his shoulders.

“You sure you know what you’re doing?” Victor asked as he checked Theo’s backpack.

“Yes, sir.”

“I ought to be doing this myself,” Victor muttered. “If anything goes wrong…”

“Nothing’s going to go wrong, Dad. It’s my idea; I’ll do it. You take care of Mom and Angie.”

Despite his father’s beard Theo could see the uncertainty, the anxiety in his face.

“I can do it, Dad,” he insisted. “You can trust me.”

Victor looked up into his son’s eyes, then clasped him on the shoulder of his bulky hard suit. “I know you can do it, son. It’s just that… if anything should go wrong—”

“Then you’ll be with Mom and Angie, protecting them.”

Theo lowered his bubble helmet over his head, sealed it to the suit’s collar, but left the visor open. Dorn had volunteered to stay aboard Hunter in Theo’s place, but neither Theo nor his father completely trusted the cyborg. He’s too fond of death, Theo said to himself. This job needs somebody who wants to live through it.

“It shouldn’t take long to wreck the controls,” Victor said.

“I know,” said Theo.

“They’ll come straight to the bridge as soon as they see you’re ramming Hunter into their ship.”

“If they’re smart they’ll jet back to their own ship and get out of here before Hunter smashes into them.”

“No, they’ll come after you. They’ll want to prevent the collision so they can keep Hunter for salvage.”

“I’ll zip out before they can get to me.”

Victor nodded minimally.

Theo could feel the eyes of his mother and sister on him. And the cyborg and the old woman, too. He remembered a word from his history lessons: kamikaze.

* * *

“Is it just my eyes, or is Hunter moving away from us?” Kirk asked.

The ten scavengers had floated free of the torn-out section of Hunter. Gripping their makeshift weapons, they were jetting back toward the vessel. Valker had appropriated the laser pistol that one of the men had carried.

“Hard to judge distance out here,” he muttered.