The Aftermath

“That’s all right. Just don’t open any others.” Victor waved the squat gray cylinder of his spot welder in Valker’s direction. “Get moving.”

Valker climbed to his feet and went without protest, his usual smile gone, replaced by a glum resignation. But just as he was about to step over the hatch’s sill, he looked back at Pauline for just the flash of an instant. Elverda saw her cheeks redden.

Dorn locked Valker in the nearly empty storage bay, then hurried to catch up with Victor and his son.

“They tried to kill me,” Theo was telling his father. “Punctured my suit’s main air tank and pushed me off into space.”

Dorn could see Victor’s fists tightening. “But your mother, Angela, they haven’t hurt them, have they?”

Theo shook his head. “Not that they didn’t want to. We hid Angie in the storm shelter.”

“And your mother?”

Theo hesitated a heartbeat before answering, “Nobody attacked her.”

They strode down Hunter’s curving main passageway in silence for several moments. Then Victor turned to Dorn, “We’ll have to find a weapon for you.”

“No,” said Dorn. “I’m a priest, not a warrior.”

Theo began to object, “But we’re going to need—”

“I will fight to protect my companion,” Dorn said to Victor, “or you and your family. But I will not willingly kill anyone.”

Victor stared at him for several paces along the passageway. At last he said, “Don’t get in our way, then.”

As they approached the main airlock, Victor said to Theo, “This spot welder puts out a stream of high-energy pulses. Doesn’t carry very far, though. That pistol you’re holding is more powerful.”

Theo glanced at the pistol. It bore the imprint of Astro Corporation. Valker must’ve taken this from a ship he captured, he thought.

“Both those men are in space suits,” Victor went on. “Puncture the suits. Rip them open so they can’t get off the ship.”

“Right,” Theo agreed.

Dorn said, “Wouldn’t it be better to let them get off this ship? Let them have Pleiades and leave us in peace.”

“So they can steal other ships and kill their crews?” Victor snapped, almost snarling. “No. There’s no law out here. It’s up to us.”

“Vengeance is not justice,” Dorn murmured.

Victor glared at him, then answered, “This isn’t vengeance. This is extermination. You heard what Valker called them: cockroaches. You don’t let cockroaches go free. You kill them.”

Dorn stopped walking. “I can’t help you do that.”

“Then go back to the bridge,” Victor said.

“I could take those two men for you. Without killing them.”

Victor stared at the cyborg.

“If I succeed, you will have them without risk to yourself or your son. If I fail, then you can attack them your way.”

Theo tapped Dorn’s prosthetic shoulder. “Is your arm working okay?”

Dorn lifted the arm, turned it in a full circle. “Your maintenance work is holding fine.”

“Let him try it, Dad,” Theo urged. “What do we have to lose?”

Victor looked from his son to the cyborg and back again. At last he reluctantly murmured, “All right.”

CARGO SHIP PLEIADES: BRIDGE

Suspicion smoldering in his mind, Kirk flicked through Pleiades’s internal camera views. Every section of the ship seemed empty, abandoned.

“There’s nobody here,” said the scavenger at his elbow. “This’s a ghost ship.”

“Your great-grandmother’s a ghost ship,” Kirk growled. “He’s aboard somewhere. He’s hiding.”

One of the other crewmen piped up. “He sure don’t have a crew with him. He musta been alone.”

“He’s in here someplace,” Kirk insisted, watching each camera view intently for a few moments, then skipping to the next. “We’ve gotta find him.”

“It’s a big ship, Kirk. There’s only the four of us. It’ll take a day or two to search every compartment.”

“So it takes a day or two!”

“Yeah, but while we’re playin’ hide-and-seek with the bastard, Valker and the other guys got the women.”

Kirk glared at the crewman. Gritting his teeth in indecision, he finally admitted, “Maybe you’re right.”

“Least we can call Valker and tell him the bum’s hiding out someplace.”

“Yeah. Let’s call Valker.” The others all agreed.

Kirk tried his suit radio. No answer. Grimacing with anger, he turned to Pleiades’s comm console.

“Valker, this is Kirk.”

No reply.

“Valker, this is Kirk. We can’t find anybody on Pleiades. We’re coming back.”

Still nothing but the hiss of the comm signal’s carrier wave.

Kirk snatched up the power drill he’d lain on the control board. “Something’s wrong. Let’s get back to Hunter.”

* * *

Nicco, meanwhile, was feeling equally frustrated aboard Syracuse. He and the two scavengers with him had searched the living quarters, the command pod, and even the storm cellar. No sign of the two women.

“They ain’t here,” Nicco said as he stepped out of the radiation shelter’s cramped womblike interior.

“They’ve gone?”

“Looks like it.”

The other crewman said, “This is a pretty big ship. We’ve only searched a quarter of it.”

“The rest is in vacuum,” Nicco told him. “No air. All shut down. They can’t be in there.”

“Not unless they’re in suits.”

“Suits only hold a few hours’ air; they can’t stay in ’em for long.”

“Maybe they can hold their breaths for a couple hours,” said the first crewman. “I bet they both got big lungs.”

Nicco did not laugh. Frowning with frustration, he said, “C’mon, we better get back to Valker. Maybe he can figure this out.”

* * *

Dorn stopped a good fifty meters before the airlock area.

“You two wait here,” he whispered. “Give me three minutes, then come ahead.”

Victor nodded. Theo licked his lips, thinking, If this cyborg can’t handle those two scavengers I’ll kill them both. I’ll cut them up with this laser. I’ll chop them into pieces.

Then he saw the look on the human half of Dorn’s face and remembered the priest’s words: Vengeance is not justice.

Dorn walked slowly, deliberately, toward the main airlock. The two scavengers that Valker had left were