stims into the dying man. The colonel’s eyes flickered. He shuddered and drew an agonizing gasp.
Deep in thought concerning the colonel, Marten reclaimed the medkit.
The colonel groaned as he dragged his hand from his wound and examined his own blood.
“Can you tell us what happened?” asked Marten.
“Help me sit up,” whispered the colonel.
Marten found him surprisingly light as he propped the colonel against the wall. Blood soaked the colonel’s pants and half his shirt. Marten never knew so much blood could be in a man. A gaping wound in the colonel’s gut kept pumping out more.
“Bastards couldn’t even shoot me face to face,” the colonel wheezed. “Had to do it to me in the back.”
“Exploding bullet,” said Omi with professional detachment. “You should be dead.”
“I am,” the colonel said wearily.
“Who did it?” asked Marten.
“PHC.”
“Why?”
A great and final weariness seemed to settle on the colonel. Before their eyes, he aged into a brittle old man. The drugs gave him a final burst, but at a terrible cost.
“I thought you were them,” he said, “coming back.”
“Where’d they go?” Marten asked.
“Down.”
Marten frowned at the others. Then he told the colonel, “They’ve shot everyone.”
“Wretched villains, murderers, scum. They don’t want to leave anybody for the Highborn.”
“What do you mean?”
The colonel made a supreme effort to focus. With his bloody hand, he clutched Marten’s wrist. “Sydney’s lost, son. All Australian Sector is lost.”
“That’s no reason to go on a murder spree.”
“Don’t tell PHC that.” The dying colonel coughed blood. His pale skin turned sickly yellow.
“You said they headed down,” Marten prodded.
“To the deep-core station, the bottom one.”
“And?”
“And they’re gonna blow it.”
Marten was puzzled. “They’re going to destroy the mine?”
“No!” The old, old man wheezed air. He had maybe ten seconds left. “They’re gonna let it spew, geyser. They’re gonna use lava to destroy Sydney.” His eyelids fluttered and his head almost drooped for the last time. He kept it up with an iron will. “Use the heat flats to the flow canal. Elevator there goes to level forty. There’s an emergency drop to the deep-core station. Stop them. Stop them or everyone in Sydney’s dead.”
They glanced at each other for about three seconds, long enough for the colonel to die.
“We gotta get out of Sydney,” whispered Turbo.
“How are you gonna do that?” asked Stick.
Fear washed over Turbo. He began to tremble.
Omi rose, his face hardening.
Marten considered the colonel’s information, turned it over and thought about the implications. “We can’t go up, right?”
“Not with the Highborn coming down,” said Stick.
“We don’t know that,” said Turbo.
“If you don’t then you’re an idiot,” Stick told him.
“Or a junkie,” Omi added.
“Yeah, that too,” agreed Stick.
“Okay,” said Marten. “Then we have to down.”
“Meaning what?” asked Stick.
“I mean to stop them like the colonel said,” Marten told them.
Surprise and then comprehension filled the knifeboy. He seemed bemused rather than fearful. Turbo kept shaking his head.
“If we don’t stop them nobody will,” Marten said.
“You can’t know that,” Omi said.
“That’s right,” Marten said. “So we hide and cross our fingers and hope somebody else stops them. Is that it?”
“What else can we do?” Turbo whined.
“We can stop them,” said Marten.
“You’re crazy,” said Turbo.
“Crazy is better than waiting to die,” Marten countered.
“I don’t know,” Stick said. “It sounds like quick suicide to me.”
“It’s like this,” Marten said. “Either we do it ourselves or it’s not going to get done. Now we can sit tight and hope the State sends someone else to do the job. Only right now the State is dying and turning on itself and wants to die in a pyre of immolation.”
“What?” Turbo asked.
Marten stood, glancing at each of them. “You coming?”
The three slum dwellers wouldn’t meet his eyes. But as the moment stretched into silent discomfort, Omi finally shrugged.
“Yeah, why not, it’s as good a way as any to die.”
13.
Transcript of Directorate Interrogation of Secret Police General James Hawthorne #7
10.13.2349
Page 11
Q. General Hawthorne, I’m concerned about the wording of one of your statements yesterday. Hmm, let’s see…. ‘Civilian sacrifices cannot be too great for Highborn unit destruction of company or higher.’ Please elaborate on that statement.
A. Director?
Q. Please don’t be evasive, General.
A. I believe the wording is as accurate as I could state it.
Q. Do you? Do you indeed? Then let us see if we can narrow the definition. By ‘cannot be too great,’ does that mean up to and including a million people?
A. Most definitely.
Q. (pause) For a company of Highborn?
A. Yes.
Q. And a company is how large?
A. A Highborn drop troop company’s estimated strength would be approximately two hundred and fifty soldiers.
Q. You would willingly trade a million of our people for two hundred and fifty enemies?
A. A million civilians, Director.
Q. Civilians or soldiers, either way the comparison is incredible.
A. I disagree, Director. A million civilians are largely useless. Two hundred and fifty Highborn are deadly in the extreme.
Q. (coldly) I see. Then you would trade a city perhaps for a battalion of these heroes?
A. It would depend on the size of the city.
Q. Let us say a major city. One hundred million civilians?
