Monstrous sparks arced away from the end of the arm piece, bouncing from the ceiling to the walls and floor. Ignoring them, blinking at the sweat filling his eyes, tasting the blood running down the side of his head, Hawkes worked at calming his heart rate and keeping the pile driver aimed correctly. As recoil tension tore through his arm, he gritted his teeth against the pain and redoubled his efforts. He knew by now that alarms would be ringing below. There was no doubt he had enough air to last until help arrived.
Dina Martel's fate, however, was another question.
That thought firmly planted in the front of his mind, he kept ripping at the air-lock seal, until suddenly, "Yes!"
Broken chips of titanium steel broke away from the hatchway lip. In another second a spiderweb of cracks splintered outward from the ambassador's attack point. In another, his arm attachment broke through the hatch.
Instantly Hawkes was hurled onto his back by the fresh rush of air being pulled from the inside of the colony out into the air lock. Fumbling his way to his knees, the ambassador cursed the slow-moving compression suit as he struggled to turn around. After a handful of yearlong seconds, he had made his way to his feet, had turned the suit, had found Martel.
From the looks of the bloody tangle her body had made when it snagged against the opposite doorway, it did not appear that Hawkes's efforts had been completed in time.
24
AN UNSHAVEN BENTON HAWKES SAT IN THE STIFF-BACKED but comfortable woven-fiber chair off to the side in the white room. The ambassador had refused to leave the intensive-care unit, even though he had been assured repeatedly that Dina Martel would live.
Oh well, of course, she'll live, Hawkes had thought bitterly as the medical staff cooed their never-ending reassurances. He stared down at the slight, broken body in the bed before him with the death white skin. After all, all the damn machines you have attached to her say she'll live, so she'll just have to. Right?
The ambassador had dismissed the staff, saying that he would sit with her . . . by himself. Postponing the negotiations, he took his meals there, slept sitting up in the single chair, and washed his face off occasionally in the room's duty sink.
He did not hamper the medical unit's personnel as they passed in and out to perform their duties, but he was quite adamant about not desiring any company. His was a solitary vigil—except for the two security men outside the door, assigned to stay with him at all times for the remainder of his stay on Mars.
About time, his cynical side chided him. How long did you think your luck was going to hold out, anyway?
"Longer than hers . . . I guess."
Hawkes whispered the words with angry regret. He had chastised himself incessantly since two days earlier, when the last attack had been made.
What did you think you were doing? Where did you think you were? Bad enough wandering around in the middle of the night and almost getting yourself killed . . . but to risk her life . . . to risk her . . . .
The ambassador turned his head back toward Martel's bed. Her limp body was still pale, still unmoving. Hawkes turned away, ashamed of himself. It had been his decision to go out without security people.
Staring down at her, he remembered her face without any bruises—laughing, shouting, scowling at him, arguing—bright and glowing and filled with an energy most women could only dream of possessing. And then, staring down at her, suddenly he had his answer.
True, he mistrusted both Red Planet's and the Earth League's security people. But the real reason he had taken Martel and gone off without anyone else was simply because he wanted to be alone with her.
Ah, me, the noble Ambassador Hawkes, his cynical side sneered, lusting after another man's wife. Mick Carri would be so proud of you.
Hawkes turned away, but did not leave the bedside. For the ten thousandth time his mind replayed the nightmare of their escape. Blowing the door had flooded the air lock with atmosphere—sucking it up from the lower levels— and had immediately brought scores of emergency workers. He had saved them—saved her—by the merest of seconds.
Collapse crews had filled the ruptured door with a quick spray of plastic foam to stabilized the leak. Even before they were finished, Hawkes and Martel had been spirited down into the lower floors of the colony. Hawkes had stayed as close as he could the entire time they had worked on her, waiting out the desperate hours, fearing she might die because of his foolishness eating at him every moment.
Once her most obvious injuries had been treated, the worst part of the waiting began. The ambassador turned back toward the bed, wondering what the final outcome for the brave woman before him would be.
Brain damage? Possible—there was no guarantee she had received enough oxygen during the last moments of his assault on the door. Full use of her hands? Fingers? Legs? Who knew? Blindness? Deafness? Full or partial? No way to determine. Not in her present condition. The doctors all agreed there would be no way of knowing for certain until she woke up. . . .
If she wakes up. If I don't send her back to her husband a vegetable, or a corpse.
There was so much science could do—and so little of it had been shipped up to Mars.
Why bother? It wasn't like it was a world or anything. It was just a factory. Just another section of real estate owned lock, stock, and barrel by another band of banks and corpor/nationals. Not a place where people lived . . . just where they worked.
Worked and bred and died.
Hawkes stared down at Martel. With all the tenderness he could manage, he reached down and brushed a
