uncouple the end truck. The pin jumps out, and she snatches the plasteel case from the ground and clutches it hard to her chest as she throws her jetpak to full throttle.
The force of the thrust hurls Mei, the cinder-laded truck, and the demolition androne across the giant vault toward the geodesic dome. Spewing ash, the
jet-powered truck hurtles through the ripped gap in the dome, shoving Aparecida ahead of it and crashing violently into the towering column of a power coil. Lightning rigs a thundery harp between the smashed coil and the vault's dark peak, and clots of blue fire geyser through the chamber and crawl wildly over the naked ground.
Mei tumbles free of the collision and scrabbles with quavery legs toward the open portal of the command pod. Throwing off the dented truck, Aparecida leaps after her. A scourging hiss rips the air as tapers of steel claw the air at
Mei's back. Flung forward again by her jetpak, Mei bounds with shock fright into the command pod, drops the plasteel case, and throws herself at the switch box.
The portal wrinkles shut before Aparecida's flailing blades narrow close enough to find flesh, and Mei collapses in a quaking heap. Three hot raps vibrate through the pod, and then there is silence but for her frantic breathing. She gropes for the comlink in her shoulder pad and splutters, 'Mr. Charlie?'
'Mei Nili!' Charles is agog with fear. When she cut him off, he was sure
Aparecida had killed her and he was on his way to the dissector. 'I-I thought..
. Are you all right?' 'Yes,' she gasps.
'What happened? Where are we?' 'We're back-back in the pod.'
''What about Aparecida? Is she still after us?'
'Yes. My escape-I couldn't get away. I had to come back.' 'We're still trapped?'
'For now.' Mei pushes herself to her feet and leans against the switch box. Her fear-buzzing fingers steady only under the greatest concentration, and she manages to transmit a hailing frequency to The Laughing Life. But there is no response. From that she knows that the cruiser is either destroyed or maintaining strict silence because it has drifted within striking range of Wolf Star. 'We'll have to wait a while before Munk can contact us again.'
'What are you going to do?'
Mei picks up the plasteel case and notes the smudges where Aparecida's projectiles impacted. An open, lonely feeling-a tender sense of
vulnerability-replaces the dazed and jangled aftermath of her terror-stricken flight. This remarkable being-a man from a lost era a thousand years gone-has been reduced to this-an object of barter, useful as an ore-factory controller or a shield-a thing that she has risked her life to steal. 'You've got your ears, Mr. Charlie. Now I'm going to give you your eyes.'
'You can do that?'
'I think so.' She places the case back in the crystal frustum and returns to the switch box. By channeling to Charles the input from the light sensors in the ceiling that monitor the interior of the pod, she opens for him a rainbow-tinted vision.
'I can see! It looks like I'm floating above you.'
'There are ground-level light sensors, too,' Mei says. 'I'll connect you to them as well. These are what the jumpers use to scrutinize the controller plates by remote.'
'Yes! I've found the reflex. I can will it myself now.'
'There are also light sensors outside the pod. If you try...'
'There it is,' he says in a cold whisper. 'Is that Aparecida? She's huge-grotesque-'
'What is she doing?'
'Squatting in front of me. She's got these thick, barbed cables waving slowly around her-and her face, it's-'
'I know. We've met.'
'How long can we stay in here?'
'Not long. Wolf Star will break the codes soon and then usurp control of the pod.'
'What are we going to do?'
Mei smiles, and the sensation is so unfamiliar it startles her, opening her lungs to a giddy sigh.
'Why are you laughing?'
'Mr. Charlie, you said 'we.' I just think it's funny that we're in this together-me and a thousand-year-old man.'
'Actually, Mei Nili, I'm scared shitless, as we used to say in my time.'
'I am too, Mr. Charlie. I am too. And for a long time I wasn't.' She settles
to the floor and leans back against the jetpak. 'For a long time I really didn't care if I lived or died.'
'You were depressed. Why?'
'That doesn't matter. It would sound silly to you-a man who already died once, who lived in a time when everyone had to die.'
'You lost someone you love,' Mr. Charlie surmises.
