"How long?" Amos ben Sierra Nueva said desperately
Part of his attention had been on Serig's interroga-
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| Part of his attention had been on Serig's interroga-
tion of the prisoners. He brought his head up, smiling at the executive officer's wit
vermin Serig had been taunting, "that he will explore your internal environment, Environment Systems Officer Coburn." No\ Channa thought hard at her. Don't resist, Patsy! The older woman's broad fair fece was flushed, red spots on her cheeks showing her rage. The pirate reached a hand down her shirt and squeezed a breast casually.
culated toe into her bruised stomach. She collapsed to the deck again. The pirate grabbed her ear in strong, almost prehensile toes and forced her head around. "Watch, scumverpiin," he said pleasantly. "And learn not to defy the High Clan." Behind her there was a flurry as Amos tried to rise again. A Kolnari pounded her heel into the small of his back over the kidneys and he collapsed with a stifled shriek, thrashing. Nobody else moved. Simeon, she thought desperately. Simeon! Serig touched his face where the spittle ran and spoke in his own language. The other Kolnari laughed or grinned, watching with bright-eyed interest. Patsy took advantage of his inattention, lashing out in a kick at his groin. A fist snapped down and met the rising foot with a sound like a mallet hitting rock. Patsy gave a sharp gasp of pain. With bound hands, she was thrown off-balance and staggered back against the coffee table. The Kolnari laughed as she almost fell, stripping away his harness and tossing it aside. The briefs came away with it, memory-plastic rolling up into the belt. The stationer's clothes followed, torn away as if they were paper while one hand held her immobilized, clamped to her jaw. He stepped back and stood like a licentious Greek statue, gestured.
end, this one is mine. But not at once. With subtlety. As a child, Belazir t'Marid had been the despair of his mothers and nurses. For all their whippings and shock- rod treatments, for all the day-cycles spent locked in the hotbox, they could never break him of the nasty habit of toying with his "food."
distant mountain, another wing of the castle crumbled and fell int^ the gulfs below with an earthquake rumble of rock. The worm screamed tri- umph and wound itself further around the central tower as flames billowed into the darkening sky. A tiny figure stood on the battlements above the monster, waving a bat that glowed iridescent green. Queasy, Simeon switched viewpoints, just in time to see the open maw engulf his pseudo-construct duplicate. The gnashing teeth ripped it into shreds. The illusion faded and his last sight from it was a rushing universe of light and onoffonoffonoffonoff- onoff as the code was disassembled and "digested" by the intruder.
side around again. That ought to hold km. For a while, at least. The worm would be here, always probing and testing, as long as the Kolnari battle-computer stayed clamped to the SSS-900-C's system. Even if he destroyed the program and purged his system, that would merely ring every alarm the enemy had. They'd only launch another worm immediately, with a dif- ferent configuration. Despite its self-modifying abilities, he knew this one now! Gently, stepping backward, brushing his footprints out of the sand, he faded from the blasted landscape of cinders, where pustules in the soil spewed line after line of questing wasps. "The Knight came home from the quest; Muddied and sore he came. Battered of shield and crest, Bannerless, bruised and lameN" Charma was weeping. "Jliat was his first thought, as his "other" awareness flared back. Everything was a little murky, but he could see dearly enough down into the lounge. She was sitting on the sofa next to Amos, head cradled against his shoulder, sobbing with slow misery. Both of them looked battered, as if they'd been thrown from a moving vehicle. Amos winced every time he moved.
a scan told him the room was safe. A little further adjustment put an innocuous scene on the security sys- tem the Kolnari and their computers were monitoring. "Channa, are you all right?"
"Where were you, Simeon?" "I wasN" Simeon noticed what was playing over the general channel, again and again, locked in from the command circuits. Nearing the end of one loop, Channa was kneeling by Patsy's side, trying to staunch the hemor- rhage with the scraps of her clothing.
doctor?"
reasonable people." Abroad smile. "As you see, you were wrong. / am the 'bad pirate.' Serig is the worse pirate."
matic feeds cut in, damping down hormonal flows and adrenal glands, filtering his blood. Even so, he came as dose to feeling faint as he ever had. "I ... oh, God, God" he whispered. "Shit." There were no words adequate in any lexicon. S14 Amu McCaffny 0? 5M. Stir&ng "Where were you, Simeon?" "Fighting," he said. "Channa, they put a worm pro- gram into die station system. I had to fight it, it wasNis N a monster. If I hadn't, it would have burrowed right into my brain and eaten me. I'd ako be under their con- trol and telling them everything they wanted to know. I couldn't even self-destruct!" i " I see," Channa said, "Not that there was anything you could have done for us. Excuse me." She walked quickly into her quarters: he could hear water splashing.
"Though they be thieves from their birth, for this, they shall pay," he said softly, almost to himself. "For Patsy, for Keriss, for my sister and my father's house and for all they have done, by the living soul of God, they shall pay in full, every jot and tittle." Channa came back, her face set harder than Simeon had ever seen it. She waved Amos back and turned to the pillar.
professional tone. "Nothing crucial N yet," Simeon said. "I've got to keep a fair share of my attention and the system's capacity involved in just watching and waiting. That worm program mutates like a retrovirus: the sort that never gives up. I could dean it out N if I dared. Apart from that, I've lost about a third of the memory and computational capacity. That's what could be termed 'occupied territory at the moment. With luck, their computer will keep thinking that's all there is. It's powerful but specialized. They haven't hooked up their ship computers to the station, yet Probably afraid of us hacking in to them. "But," he went on, "I've got to be really careful Any action I take in what they think is safe territory has to be elaborately screened. I can jimmy the records. How- ever, even I can't make the impossible convincing." THE CITY vmo FOUGHT S15 She narrowed her eyes. "Could you take back those functions in a hurry?" "Somewhere from seconds to minutes. They'd know pretty quick, and that battle-computer they've got jacked in could ... hmm. Come to think of it, I could probably take that over too. But they'd know." "No problem.. .later. Can we conference?" "Yeah, I've got all of their people under continuous surveillance." "We'd better get moving as soon as we can," she said. Simeon made an affirmative sound. "Our people are going to be pretty shook up," he said. I sure am. "We've got to get things in hand, before they start lashing out It'll take some time though, for a cycle when they're all available."
leaders, and N" Amos began. "Everyone's gone," Seld Chaundra said in a low and careful voice. "You sure we oughta do this, Joat? Joseph saidN
she whispered. "Now keep that thing running, hey?" He nodded and bent again over the two modules and the jack clipped to the main conduit above them. This way was very narrowNan adult would have to be a dwarf to get through N but it came in conveniendy over the sickbay entrance.
still breathing hard from the effort of crawling up the axial ventway. "Look, maybe Ms. Coburn doesn't need someone else talking to her right now? It's been less than a day, and N"
Seld had feinted. His meets weren't doing him as much good as they should. "You stay here."
was a panel just like all the others. The only real difference was that it was selectively permeable and much thinner. It recessed obediently and Joat looked down into a darkened room. One float bed, the usual Jurnhure, and a figure under the sheet She curled herself into a bafl and somer- saulted slowly through the opening, holding on with her fingertips and then dropping the final meter to the floor. "You awake?" she said, moving to the bedside. "It's Joat"
they tracked through the darkness. Joat shone a small light under her own chin. She had procured for herself a very expensive coverall, made of adjustable light- fibers. Simeon had gotten it for her because it was fashionable, but with a little creativity you could rig it to mimic the ambient background color, which was right now a mottled charcoal gray. Her face floated above it in the lightstick's feeble low-setting glow. "Go 'way, Joat," the woman said in a dull voice. Her face looked old, under the sealant bandages. "I don't need any more sympathy. Leave me alone."
you," Joat said. She brought her face closer to Patsy's, and her own eyes held the same flat deadness. "Let me tell you something about me." She explained, in a flat, matter-of-fact tone all about her father, her uncle, the captain.
anyone else's said. They don't know jack shit But Joat, she knows exactty how you feel. And like I said, you don't need sympathy right now. I know what you do need."
would that be?" Silently, Joat reached around and opened her haver- sack. Her gloved hand came out with Patsy Sue Coburn's gunbelt and arc pistol.
it's gonna beN" The medical-storage room had its own surveillance subloop. That made i^a good place for the clandestine .-neeting. It was alsq chuly, bare, and crowded. The walls were gray metal bins outlined with fluorescent paint Appropriate, given the state of our morale, Channa thought
the virus," Chaundra said. "The symptoms are spec- tacular but not life-threatening, as long as they stay hooked to the machinery. I have also treated sixty-four patients for traumas and wounds of various sorts. No fatalities, so far. One or two are in critical condition, but they should recover. This total includes several of my medical aids who have been assaulted by Kolnari com- ing to check up on our 'sick.' They seem to find the sight disgusting and ... exciting at one and the same time. Several of Outpatients have been assaulted." So much for scaring them off with the virus, Channa thought "Patsy?" she asked aloud. She's my friend. Patsy hadn't wanted to talk to her or anyone else, which was understandable. Bid I want to know about her. "She ... there were no broken bones, apart from the foot. I internally splinted that N" gluing the bones together in a synthetic sheath stronger than the original material, to give them a matrix to heal "N replaced the lost blood, and plas-sutured all the softtissue injuries. Ms. Coburn is mobile although in some .. . physical. .. discomfort. With the usual growth stimulators, full recovery should take no more than a week."
mental state. I fear catatoma. I have administered the usual psychotropics, but the mind is more than the brain and its chemistry." 318 ArmeMcCaffrty &? SM. Starting Channa nodded jerkily. "Anything else?" "Yes. I now have ... abundant tissue samples from the Kolnari. There are things we should discuss privately."
planned," he said. "The enemy are pushing you to work. Be as stupid as you dare. Make mistakes as often as you dare. Above alt, keep as much material half- disassembled as you can."
out. "You and Simeon, talked a good fight, about Cochise and the Viet Gong N" Gong, Simeon corrected silendy "N so far all we're doing is rolling over!" "There is the virus," Simeon said. "That's working, they're catching it. I've begun psychological opera- tions. Most important, I've deciphered their language." That brought a rusde. "It's not much like the ones in the survey files N both are pidgin Sinhala- Tamil, but... anyway, I've got it. They've ordered sixty units here."
not just going to strip the station of everything they can carry in their warships and then blow it up. You can't kill a cow and milk it. It'll be at least a week before the transports arrive. There ought to be about sixty of them. You know how long it takes us to load sixty freighters with homogenous ore when we're trying to work fast. Imagine what it will take to remove and load fixed equipment, with everyone dragging their feet. And the more of them that are here, the more will be caught when the Fleet arrives."
can be more direct in the interim. Do not worry, my friends. They, too, will suffer, know fear and pain."
considerable desire in that direction himself Amos lifted a hand. "Wait We want to lure as many of them into the station as possibleNas Insurance, and so we can wear them down. JBut we cannot risk key people who know a good dea^l about our plans and our station prisoners being dragged in for interrogation because they thought they could be clever. No action is to be taken save on my express orders. The personnel to effect those orders will be fitted with a suicide tooth and have psych profiles which assure its use. Wait until you receive orders. We have a fine general N" he nodded in Simeon's direc- tion"Nand wemust follow his words."
atrocities," Channa said. "Say it's reducing working efficiency N that's true enough. Stay tight, endure! We'll see them all fried yet! Out." One by one the faces vanished from the screen, except for Chaundra's. "The bad news, Doctor," she said. This meeting was a fleeting thing, time stolen as they were all supposedly on their way somewhere else. They could fool the sensors for a while, but nobody could explain being in two positions at once, one of them under the real-time eyes of the enemy. Only the fact that there were fifteen-thousand odd of the stationers and less than a tenth that number of Kolnari made it possible at all. That and the invaders' imperfect control of the surveillance computers.
she asked him. He scrubbed his face with both hands and shrugged, exhaustion in his voice. "It's not working." "What is not working?" Amos asked impatiently. "The virus," Chaundra said. "They are infected N somewhatNbut it hardly bothers them at all." 320 Anne McCaffny & SM. Stating "Shit!" Channa swore. She had hoped die illness would make the Kolnari shun civilians of their own volition. "Doesn'tit have any effect?"
rhea for a day or so. All in all, much l|ss than our people have experienced even with the immunization. The afflicted individuals act embarrassed^jiot frightened, and their companions laugh at them." Chaundra shrugged in despair. "I move that we discontinue this plan. Our people are getting raped, beaten, humiliated and catching the flu while the Kolnari just have^fun. I tested their tissue samples N the Kolnari immune system is barely human. If some of the rape victims were not pregnant, I would doubt that the Kolnari are human. No, I correct that Of human origin. Their actions certainly are not," he added bitterly.
fallopian tubes. This despite slow-release implant contraceptives." Those made the body's own immune system treat sperm as foreign matter until counteracted.
other contaminant levels that should make every one of them stone sterile. Instead, their sperm are a whole order of magnitude more motile than the norm. The rest of their systems are built the same way. Their antibody response is... their bodies use the poisons to kill bacterial or viral invaders. Their DNA is locked into position with redundancy and self-repair mechanisms like nothing I have ever seen, resistant both to radia- tion and to viral contamination." "I refuse to believe these animals are supermen," Amos said. "Oh, they're not that," Chaundra said. "From their DNA, I'd say they have shorter lifespans than ours. I imagine the degeneration past early middle-age is ...
foils. Several other disadvantages; for example, they could not live without dioxin and arsenic compounds in their food. An equivalent of scurvy would strike them."
Channa said quietly. Amos sat more erect, glancing narrowly from the woman to the screen, "Tell us!"
Chaundra's pupil dilation and breathing. "There is a possibility," Chaundra said, looking aside from the pickup. "Another virus." A long pause. "The one that killed Mary. It is of unparalleled virulence. Possibly the worst natural... unnatural disease ever to be discovered."
tion this before?" he asked harshly. "Because it killed my wife!" Chaundra shouted sud- denly; the more startling coming from so mild a man. "Because it is killing my son!" More softly, more ration- ally: "Because I swore that the filthy disease should never kill another human being. I no longer classify the Kolnari under that heading." "Still," Channa said, "the virus is a good plan. The enemy don't have much medical capability at all And Chaundra has lucidly explained why they don't need it For our purposes they are medically ignorant Little expertise beyond treating wounds and broken bones, really. I get the impression they just sort of.. .junk anyone who's sicker than that"
petence taking over despite himself. "I do not have the live virus, you understand. But I have the information on a rninihedron. The protein is nothing, the replicator can produce it immediately. But modifications... yes. What sort of disease did you have in mind?" 322 Ame McCaffrey W SM. StrrKng "Something scary," she said. "Something fetal," Amos added. "If possible," she agreed. "But at the least, spec- tacularly incapacitating, disgusting, horrifying. Something with mental deterioration? We want them terrified, and what's more terrifying than madness?" "Whoa now, I dunno," Simeon .said. "Do you really want a stationload of crazy Kolnari? Crazier than they already are, I mean."
paused. "As Channa suggested, we could target only those who've had the virus. They catch it. It's just not capable of getting much beyond the first few cells. Antibody response is very quick. That's a manageable part of the Kolnari force, enough to hurt and rattle them without driving them into a killing frenzy. It would be cumulative, spread among themselves. Close contact is needed, and I could increase that Immunize our people stealthily, under the guise of normal treat- ment. It can be done. I'm sure of it."
image had faded: "That takes care of that!" Simeon's image nodded. It was less mobile than usual, with so much capacity tied up. "This is a war of morale. Guerilla war always is. We have to demoralize them, and much more important, maintain our own morale."
went unspoken among them. "Speaking of which," Amos said, rising. "Must you?" Channa said quietly. Yüklə 2,81 Mb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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