'Ready to roll,' Carl replied.
To Pramer and Skyril she said, 'Cut him loose and give him some clothes. If he tries anything, break his arms, but don't kill him. We want to have a talk with him back at base.' She glanced at Carl. 'A long, long talk.'
Back at base…
When they cut the ropes tying him to the chair he could not have attacked anyway, since he had enough of a problem just standing up. Skyril stood back while Pramer brought over a bundle of clothing and dumped it on the chair. Cormac struggled into a pair of jeans and a black T-shirt with a holographic logo over the right breast. The only other item was a worn hat with a wide floppy brim, which he left. Though his feet were hard from combat training he would have liked boots—it was easier to run if your feet were well protected. Pramer picked up the hat and jammed it on Cormac's head.
'Move.' Skyril prodded him in the back with the flack gun, then stepped out of reach. As Samara opened the door, Carl came up behind her, clutching that brushed-aluminium case.
'If you look up,' said Skyril. 'I'll cut out your right eye.'
Cormac now understood the reason for the hat. They were worried about satellite surveillance and recognition systems that would certainly be on the lookout for him. If he looked up, there was a small chance he would be spotted and a Sparkind unit would be sent to rescue him, but was that chance worth an eye?
'He won't be looking up,' said Carl. 'Cloudy day today.'
Skyril caught Cormac's shoulder and shoved him towards the door, while Pramer watched, his expression neutral. He and Cormac had been in combat together, so maybe that made a difference. Keeping his head down, Cormac stepped out after Samara and Carl. A glimpse from under the hat brim confirmed the cloudy sky, so there was little chance of him being spotted from up there. They turned left to where a large, old hydrocar limousine was parked across the end of the alley. Beyond that he recognised the top part of a statue surrounded by scaffolds and realised he wasn't far from where he had first met Samara. Glancing to the right he saw that the alley stretched for thirty feet, beyond which lay weed-choked ruination. He could run, but doubted he would get ten feet before someone brought him down.
Carl placed the case in the limousine's boot then walked round to climb inside. Only as he drew closer did Cormac realise that the driver was Sheen. Pramer climbed in beside her, while Samara climbed into the back next to Carl, where sets of seats faced each other. Skyril waved Cormac in next and followed him in.
'Move up against the door,' he instructed, flack gun pointing down at Cormac's legs.
The man wasn't going to make the mistake of sitting close again.
With the whining note of a turbine imbalance the limousine pulled away. Cormac decided to relax as best he could since he was in no condition to attempt escape at that moment. He'd taken the full brunt of a neurotoxin stun grenade and now felt extreme sympathy for the ECS agent he'd hit earlier with a pepperpot stun gun, which fired the same toxin. Without intervention, it apparently took the toxin sixteen hours to clear from the bloodstream. Medium functionality, as the combat lecturer had informed the class Cormac once attended, returned within two hours. If no other option was available, take vitamin supplements and drink plenty of water.
'Do you have something to drink in here?' he asked.
Carl grinned at him. 'Like some vitamin supplements too?'
Cormac turned to gaze through the window. After a moment he asked, 'Was it you who killed Yallow?'
'Certainly,' said Carl. 'That woman has been the bane of my life since I entered basic training three years ago.'
The frustrated rage growing in Cormac seemed too much to bear, and he knew it was that, and not the aftereffects of stun that now made him feel sick. He wanted to throw himself at Carl but, suspecting this was what the man would have liked, he controlled his rage and tried to turn it to ice.
'Understandable.' He nodded. 'She pissed on you in hand-to-hand combat and, despite all your claims, was the better marksman.'
Carl's grin remained in place, but it lost its sincerity and after a moment he folded his arms and turned to gaze out the window. Reaching under her seat Samara pulled out a squeeze bottle of mulljuice and tossed it across to Cormac. Carl glanced back and frowned at this, his gaze focusing on Samara, then after a moment shrugged and returned his attention to the passing scenery. Clamping down on nausea Cormac drained the entire bottle then placed it down on the seat beside him, where Skyril retrieved it and jammed it behind him. But it wouldn't have been any use as a weapon, it being flimsy plastic.
'Thank you,' said Cormac to Samara.
'You're going to need all your strength,' she said unpleasantly.
Cormac folded his arms, made himself as comfortable as he could, and stared at Carl, just trying to figure him out.
'How old are you?' he asked.
'I was killing ECS soldier boys before you appeared in your daddy's testicles.' Carl glanced round. 'That's if you are what you appear to be.'
It sounded so utterly wrong coming from the recruit Cormac had known for over two years, so wrong from someone he thought his own age. He tried to think of something else to ask, but it was almost as if the juice he had just drunk was alcoholic, for abruptly he just could not see straight. Perhaps he had been drugged, but it was just as likely the aftereffects of the toxin. He closed his eyes and drifted…
'Out!'
He fell backwards, just managing to catch hold of the door frame to stop himself from tumbling out of the car, swung his feet round and staggered out. It was dark, but not so dark he could not see Skyril's grin. Though he might hesitate to kill Pramer, Cormac felt he would not hesitate for a second if the target was Pramer's partner. Utterly weary, Cormac stood, shoulders hunched, and seemingly without the strength to even lift his arms. They were in the midst of a skarch forest, with only the odd glimpse up through the foliage of cloudy sky backlit by the glow of the orbital debris ring.
'Get in.'
Skyril was holding open the hatch to the luggage compartment of a corroded ATV with worn bubble-plas tyres. Cormac walked over slowly, gazed into the oily space and hesitated.
'Wasn't the instruction clear enough for you?'
Something prodded him in the back and he glanced back to see Samara brandishing a pulse-rifle, probably his own. A few paces back from her Carl stood holding a thin-gun—probably the one Cormac had stolen earlier—his expression glacial. Beyond him Pramer was driving the limousine away, Sheen sitting beside him. Cormac was glad to see the both of them go, for, should the opportunity arise, Sheen was another he might hesitate to kill. He climbed into the luggage compartment whereupon Skyril slammed the hatch shut on him. He closed his eyes and tried to make himself as comfortable as possible in the cramped space. In a surprisingly short interval he drifted into sleep, but was then snapped out of it by the first bump—a sequence of events that was to repeat for a nightmarish time.
6
The diving suit felt clammy and sticky but that was due to the internal gel layer. The top half of the suit was ribbed and padded since it incorporated a haemolung and a breathing-assist formed of artificial muscle. Fortunately all this equipment had been positioned to flatter the wearer so when Cormac donned it and clicked his room's viewing window to its «mirror» setting, he gazed upon an eight-year-old who was either heavily into weight-training and steroids or had been boosted. There were gill slits positioned at intervals down either side of his chest, signs of the additional ribcage within the suit for deep water work, but the joint motors for that same work were artfully concealed.
Next Cormac pulled on the gloves, engaged them at the wrist and flexed his fingers. He ran a finger down the palm of one glove and it felt to him almost as if there was no intervening material as the glove transferred the pressure of his touch inside. After a moment he toggled a touch control at the base of his forefinger with his thumb, and webbing extended between his fingers, another touch and it receded. Now he pulled the hood up over his head, felt the pressure phones ooze into his ears, then pressed the face mask into place. Air was fed to him from the
