Time slowed as Marten screamed, “NO!” He swiveled toward that exit. Combat-suited PHC personnel—police in bulky, red-colored armor—poked their carbines through the door. Slugs whined around Marten, shattered screens and
Marten’s tangler made exploding popcorn sounds as he fired back. Then he ran and slipped a bomb out of his pouch, flicking the activation switch. The bomb hit the floor with a thud, rolled. Marten’s chest felt hollow as his receivers picked up curses from the entangled PHC officers. He dove through a different door. It swished shut and an explosion shook the room. Hot shrapnel tore through the door. A moment later Marten leaped up and raced down the corridor. Tears burned in his eyes.
“Hey, you!” shouted a technician. Marten tangled the man.
Soon he was back at the compression chamber. Klaxons wailed and emergency codes locked all hatches. Marten overrode his and floated outside where a million stars and a dead planet provided him background. A glance showed him that the planted bombs hadn’t blown.
“Marten?” he heard over his com-line.
“Mom!”
“What happened, Marten?” She waited back in their cubbyhole HQ, an abandoned shaft near the station’s outer Sun-shield.
“They got father, and the bombs didn’t work. What are we going to do?” As Marten talked he wrestled with the thruster-pack.
For a time she didn’t speak. It was long enough for him to don the thruster-pack and jump off the habitat wall.
“I want you to listen carefully. You can’t come back here. Not…”
“Mom! What’s happening?”
“Shhh. You must keep calm, Marten. The outer locks just blew, which indicates they’re coming for me. Simon gives it a ninety-four percent chance it’s over.” Simon was her name for the bio-computer.
Marten swallowed hard as his thruster burned, and he sped like a speck across the face of Mercury below and between the inner surfaces of the Sun-Works Ring.
“We always knew this might happen,” his mother was saying. “I want you to listen closely, Marten. I love you. Your father loved you.”
Why was she talking like this?
“Check your last card, the black one.”
Marten fumbled with his tech-kit, almost spilling it and sending the contents tumbling into orbit. Then he saw it, a black credcard.
“Go to A-Twenty-three. Do you understand?”
He was being monitored, that’s what she was telling him.
“But—”
“Good luck, Marten. Go with God.” He heard an explosion in her background—the inner locks being blown—he heard shouting, gunfire and a scream.
He almost howled like a beaten dog. Instead, a hard knot formed in his gut. Much of their iron, their fire and resolve lived in him. So he slipped the black card into his hand computer. What he read on the tiny screen astonished him. His mother’s brilliance had almost insured them a new future in the Jupiter Confederation.
Marten readjusted his flight path and zoomed toward the inner curve of the habitat. Soon numbers and markings flashed underneath him.
The fifth Doom Star battleship had just been completed. Now more space-welders were needed around Earth to make another farming gigahab. Since the sixth Doom Star was still in the planning modification stage, welding wouldn’t begin here for another year. That freed enough space-welders so five transports would leave the Sun Works Ring and head for the Earth System. Marten wondered if one of those transports was the vessel with the reactor leak.
Alarm codes rang in Marten’s helmet. That meant the alert had gone station wide. PHC officers hunted for him. To listen to the alarms was more than he could handle. So he shut off the com-unit. Despite his best efforts, he could no longer control his emotions. On his arm-pad, he punched in a command to his vacc-suit’s medical unit. A hiss sounded in his ears, the suit’s hypo-spray. A cooling numbness spread over him and the awful agony in his chest faded. The double dose of tranks allowed him to breathe normally and relax clenched muscles as he rode the thruster-pack a bare few feet above the habitat.
In the distance floated bulky transports, boarding tubes snaking out of the Sun-Works Factory to them. Farther a-field winked the blue and red work-lights of space tugs and their accompanying bots.
Marten concentrated as he slowed his momentum. Then he unhooked himself and set the thruster-pack on auto. He pushed himself down, sending the pack one way and he in the opposite direction. A moment later, the empty thruster-pack burned for the last time, shooting off at a tangent. Marten watched it go as he readied himself. He bent his knees and turned on the magnetic clamps at minimum power. As he drifted fast onto the station’s plates, he ran lightly, using his boots’ weak magnetic force to slow his speed. Finally, he increased magnetic power and brought himself to a halt. He was sweating from the exertion and his conditioners hummed at overdrive.
He studied the nearest markings, turned forty degrees and walked, making the customary clank, clank, clank of a magnetic stroll. Sixteen minutes later, he came to an emergency hatch. He entered a small utility tube and shed his vacc-suit. From there he traveled through narrow maintenance shafts. He floated faster than a man could run in normal gravity. In time, he found Junction Z-321-B and felt under a girder for his stash pod. He extracted a welder’s gray jumpsuit, boots and traveling kit, along with a wallet that contained a single ID card. It was one Simon had carefully created. Marten stuffed his old clothes into the pod and carefully weighed the tangler.
For three years he’d carried it, kept it under his pillow at night.
He broke it in half, slipped it into the stash pod and attached the pod back under the girder.
He swallowed. Without the tangler, he felt naked. Fortunately, the double dose of tranks kept him easy. He began to float-travel.
After several kilometers, he slipped into a main corridor with light-gravity. Brown Earth tones, soft music and the occasional shrub changed the feel of this corridor. The usual arrows pointed out the nearby destinations.
He waited, sitting on the lip of the pot that contained a shrub. Finally, a group of welders marched past. They were hard-faced men with thick necks and gnarled hands. They wore regulation gray jumpsuits; a few of them had synthetic-leather jackets, most had hats. Each welder carried his kit and had his ID ready. Marten rose with a grunt and jointed the back of the group. A welder glanced at him, taking in his clothes and kit, maybe wondering about his youth.
Marten nodded, keeping his features even. “Got lost in this maze,” he said. “Been waiting for you guys to show up.”
The welder shrugged noncommittally. It wasn’t wise to ask too many questions. He ignored Marten.
The noise level grew and the group marched into Docking Bay Thirteen Terminal It was circular-shaped and, spacious, with tall palms, several modern sculptures and a fountain in the center. Along the sides stood lockers, restrooms and waiting cubicles. It seemed packed with welders, technicians, bureaucrats, military personnel and bulky-armored, red uniformed PHC officers on the prowl. Overhead, plexiglas windows five stories up allowed everyone a view of the nearest shuttles and the twinkling stars behind.
Marten slipped from his group and sat hunched on a stool at a refreshment booth. He ordered a beer and sipped, waiting for announcements. His dark thoughts threatened to overwhelm him. Deciding he’d better stay clear-headed, he ordered a cup of coffee.
“A-Nineteen,” called a bored docking clerk over the PA. “Report to Area Eight.”
Marten drained his coffee. His stomach tightened as he saw the long line of welders. They snaked toward a small booth and the entrance to the boarding tube. Two PHC officers at the booth checked IDs. Marten stepped into line and advanced slowly. Would PHC simply kill him? His tension increased. Simon had picked up rumors of a new experimental station for political undesirables. Would they send him there?
Marten deliberately recalled why he was in line, why he’d been forced into this long shot. “Bastards,” he muttered.
A tall welder with dark eyebrows glanced at him.
Marten bared his teeth in a savage smile, a parody of his father’s combat grimace. As the tall man jerked
