Osadar clenched her teeth and turned on the laser. It harmlessly beamed past him. For with his arms alone, on the rifle that reeled him in, he swung his body forward, out of the way of the laser, and let go. He propelled himself through space. He wore no security line or any pack other than a slim breathing tank. If he missed them, he’d sail off into space. The risk—no spacer could do that so effortlessly and without a change of expression.
With a pry bar that he’d taken off her suit, the commander jabbed at the man’s faceplate. Their enemy latched onto the bar and pulled himself upon the commander. He slid something thin and bright into the commander’s suit.
Osadar twisted within her rigid cylinder to see what was happening. The commander’s face grew slack. His eyes fluttered.
Grimly, she swung the work-laser.
The man pulled another of his uncanny maneuvers, and sailed upside down over the laser-arm and above her helmet. She craned her neck to look up at him. His fingers were long and spider-like. He reached out. She flinched away from his fingers. Then she grinned tightly. His would be an effort in futility to try to latch onto her bubble helmet. Then, to her horror, small adhesive pads on his fingertips pressed onto her helmet top. With a jerk, it stopped his flight. Gracefully, like a perfect killer, he brought himself parallel with her as if they were lovers. He stared at her. There was no gloating or triumph, no ‘Did you see that?’ in his eyes. He stared impassively. Anyone but this obvious non-human would have crinkled up the corners of his lips. She’d never see such flawless, uncanny, zero-G maneuvering, and she’d been around plenty of hardened space-hounds.
Although vomit burned the back of her throat, although she knew it wouldn’t matter, she brought up a waldo clamp to try to crush him. It wasn’t in her to go down without a fight.
He shoved a gleaming steel needle into her elbow. She yelled. Then a great weariness settled over her.
5.
Like some obscene, overgrown monkey, Toll Seven rode the zero-G worksuit, braking with particles of hydrogen spray as he brought both captives to his ultra stealth pod. The vessel was as black as night and spherical, and only a little larger than an old-style garbage Dumpster of the Twentieth Century. The ceramic hull gave the lowest sensor signature of any vessel in human space, and it was crammed with the latest Onoshi Electronic Counter-Measure equipment and decoys.
He floated them into the cargo bay. The Suspend would keep them in the suits, so he simply latched them to a rack and then went back for the others in the ship.
An hour later, he closed the cargo bay. Except for the slain security officer and the technician he’d let vacuum explode, all of IH-49’s crew lay like wood in his ship. He entered his command module and set course for home. He timed his burst with the first long burn of IH-49’s famed ion engines. The ice hauler would make the trip to the Oort Cloud, but without any crew.
Toll Seven shut off his engine. He would coast for a week. He shut down contemplation mode and instantly entered deep sleep.
6.
Much of Greater Sydney burned out of control. The rest was shambles. Millions wandered the tunnels and ruined levels. Millions more hovered on the brink of dehydration, ready to join the hundreds of thousands of dead. To rebuild Sydney would take months. The Highborn presently fought a cunning campaign to save what they had.
First, they accessed the city’s backup computers. Then they declared a general amnesty. Surviving police and SU bureaucrats could keep their old jobs, provided they came to Highborn Mobile HQ in the next two days and declared themselves. Most did, thankfully. It was so much easier to plug trained personnel back into their old jobs than to train someone else who had no idea how to lead. The returning police officers were immediately put in charge of the clean-up crews: which consisted of any able-bodied person healthy enough to work. The former ward, block and hall leaders found themselves given a day’s stiff indoctrination, and then set in charge of fabrication and housing. Superintendents and all former SU secretaries ran the new government under Highborn dictates. “Excellence brings rewards,” was the first basic slogan, “Life goes on,” the second.
The Highborn divided Sydney’s populace into three categories. Category one, the highest ranked, was all Free Earth Corps (FEC) volunteers, munitions workers and deep-core personnel. Category two was police, housing, clean up and transport. Category three was everyone else. Rations and chits were given accordingly.
After several days, a semblance of order settled over Greater Sydney. That’s when Marten slipped out of the temporary FEC barracks. It happened after the Highborn took Ah Chen. They’d found out she was deep-core. The new rulers only had a few of those and they desperately needed to keep the deep-core mine running.
“You’ll be shot,” said Stick, after Marten told them he was leaving.
“I’ve got to find her,” Marten said.
“Why?” asked Turbo.
“They didn’t ask her if she wanted to go,” Marten said angrily. “They just took her.”
“So?” asked Turbo. “What can you do about it?”
“That’s what I’m going to find out,” Marten said.
Omi held out his hand. “Luck.”
Marten solemnly shook the ex-gunman’s hand. After that, Stick and Turbo shook his hand.
“Stay alive,” said Stick.
Marten nodded, and then he turned and walked out of the barracks. It had been as easy as that. The Highborn had posted all the names of the FEC volunteers. They had warned the volunteers that if any of them were caught outside the barracks they would be shot. But Marten had a plan. It was tested two hours later when a police sweep caught him in the middle of a rubble-strewn street, four levels down from the barracks.
“Name?” growled a heavyset, sweating cop. He had a shock rod on his belt, but no stunner or needler. Those had been deposited in Highborn vaults. Two other cops waited behind the older, bald man. They had large plastic shields, batons and wore riot helmets and grim scowls. Dust and sweat slicked their faces. Their uniforms smelled like smoke.
Marten hesitated.
“Give me your name,” repeated the heavyset cop as he wiped his sleeve across his forehead. The main air- conditioners worked at ten percent power. From level ten down, the air was stale and much too warm.
“I’m in maintenance,” Marten said, and he tried to stroll away.
The two cops with the plastic shields stepped in his path, one of them shoving him back.
The sweating, heavyset cop scowled and took out a rag to mop his face. “Are you a troublemaker?”
Marten shook his head.
“Then give us your name,” said the cop who’d pushed him with his shield.
Hoping this worked—it had better—Marten gave then a fictitious name, from one of his mother’s forged passports from the Sun-Works Factory. The Highborn had downloaded Sydney’s computers and those computers had been linked throughout the Inner Planets.
The older, sweating cop stuffed his rag in his back pocket and unhooked a hand computer, punching the fictitious name into the database. He squinted at Marten as it processed.
Realizing suddenly that this might not work, Marten sidled near the cop who had pushed him. His heart beat faster as he tensed.
The unit beeped and the sweating cop examined it. “This is odd. It says you work in food processing, not maintenance.”
Marten went limp. The old names still held.
