"How long?" Amos ben Sierra Nueva said desperately

pallets on the deck or to the bunks. Evidently someone

had foreseen that the interior gravity fields might go.

Simeon imagined walking into one of those chambers

and finding die putrefying bodies floating loose....
"This one N" Channa began, swallowing and bend-

ing over a body that was either still alive or only

recendy dead. Drifting maggots brushed the surface of

her faceplate and clung wedy, writhing. She retched,

then forced herself to brush them away.
A chuwngggg sound echoed through the still air.

"What was that?"

Simeon split his viewpoint yet again. TTie rescue ship

hovering off the side of the hulk had launched a missile

carrying a large-diameter hose and attached to a

pumping system: a force-deck system which punched

through the hull and sealed itself.
<4Airharpoon,"hesaid. "WeTlbepumpinginasecond."
"I kin hear it," Patsy said from the corridor. Her arc

gun crashed, opening a sealed door. "More in heah.

Bout the same."
"With fifty living, we should have no trouble," the
doctor was saying to Simeon in the safe, clean sickbay

office. Chaundra tapped for a closeup on one of the

recordings, looking at the life-signs readouts beside the

wasted face of a refugee. "Coldsleep dosed, the old par-

tial method; very^ unsafe dosage, and oxygen

deprivation. Dehydration, starvation, but mostly

inadequate air. Hmm."
He blinked. "Physical type? Sometimes there is

genetic divergence on isolated colonies. I must check.

These look to be of sudeuropan race N archaic type,

very pure.. We should evacuate them as soon as

possible."
"I'm working on it," Simeon said with controlled

passion, fm never going to look at battlefield reconstructions

quite the same way again, he thought
Through Channa's ears, he heard feet clacking in

the corridor outside, stickfields in the suit shoes sub-

stituting for gravity. The volunteers came in briskly

enough, inflatable rescue bubbles in their hands, then

halted in disbelief One tried to control his retching for

a moment and then went into an excruciating and

dangerous fit of vomiting inside a closed helmet. His

squadmates removed it, only to have his paroxysm

grow worse as the stink hit his nostrils. The luckless

volunteer went into the first of the bubbles.

"Get moving!" Channa ordered. Only Simeon could

hear the tremors in her voice beyond the range of nor-

mal ears. "The living ones are marked with a slash of

yellow from a cargo checker. Use plasma feeds, the

emergency antidotes, and get them out of here. These

people belong in regeneration. Now."

Raggedly, then with gathering speed, the stationers

moved to their work. Channa escaped back into the

corridor, exhaling a breath she had not been conscious

of holding. Simeon was profoundly thankful she had

not tried cracking her suit seals when the air hose went

in. It would take months of vacuum to get the stink out

i
102
Anne McCaffrey fc? SM. Stating
of this ship. Much more time than the vessel had. The

final fire of the interior coils would at least cleanse it

"How long?" she asked.
"Not less than an hour, not mc-re than three," he

replied. "I think the pirate hypothesis is out."

Channa nodded jerkily; too many families and

children. Pirates were much more common in fiction

than in feet, anyway. Bodies floated in the next cham-

ber down, and medics working over the three living

before transferring them to life bubbles.
"Ms. Hap, I'm !Tez Kle." The Sondee worea medical

assistant's arm-flash on his suit.

Channa glanced at him in surprise. Not many aliens

chose Co specialize in Terran medicine. Of course, Son-

dee were rather humanoid, if you managed to ignore the

four eyes N two large and golden about where eyes

should be, and two more above the whorled ridges that

served as ears; you could not sneak up on a Sondee N

and the lack of any facial features apart from a nostril slit

and round suckerlike mouth. They had lovely voices,

with far more vocal range and control than a human.
She came up beside the bubbles. "You're in charge?"

He nodded. "Let me give you a hand," she said.

The first figure she turned to had reddish-black hair,

a short muscular man with a square face. She released

his restraints and lifted him, then gave him a gende

shove into the body-length sack, sealed it and activated

it. His color seemed to improve immediately. She

turned to his companion and froze.

"Channa, your vital signs just did the strangest little

jig. What's the problem?" Simeon asked.

This young man was tall, dose to two meters, broad-

shouldered and slim-hipped, shapely and muscular as

an athlete. He had a clean, classically perfect profile,

with firmly molded chin and sensitive mouth. His deli-

cately curving cheekbones were brushed by long dark

lashes, the corners of his eyes tilted upwards. His long

THE CITY WHO FOUGHT
103
hair was blue-black, curling back from his high intel-

ligent forehead to fell almost to his shoulders.

Channa sighed in admiration, then caught herself.

This stud is so handsome even being sick makes him look good.

"Oh ho," Simeon crowed. "Very nice, Channa, but if

you don't put AHorys there in his sack, he's going to go

a very unflattering shade of blue."
"Em ... right" She unbuckled the man and sealed

him in his sack, connecting the two bags together. Then

she tugged them behind her to the lock where she

turned diem over to the waiting med-techs. The goods-

transporter's hold was filled with floating, jostling sacks

while Channa and the med-tech chief stood in the lock,

checking their sensors for heart-beats.
"Guess we got them all," !Tez Kle said. "But I don't

think we can save them all. We left those we were cer-

tain we couldn't help," he said apologetically.
"Nothing else you could do," Channa told him. "We

don't have time for anything else. Go," she said, and

slapped his shoulder, "I've got a tug outside." She

sealed the end of the caterpillar lock behind him and

waited impatiently for the pilot to retract it "Damn, I

wish we could have gotten to the bridge."

"You and Patsy give it a try," Simeon answered.

"Every bit of data wUl help, but we're cutting it a little

close. I'm positioning tugs to push that wreck away

from the station and soon"

Channa looked up sharply. "It's still a danger to you?"
"Nothing this brain can't handle," Simeon said

blithely. "You do what you can, brawn."

She looked down at the notescreen tethered at her

waist, studying the map of the ship's interior which she

had managed to acquire from its own data banks,

archaic as they were.

"I'll try through here," she said, struggling with the

toggles of the hatch. "It'dbe the more direct route, if it's

open. If it isn't, I'll rendezvous with Patsy immediately."
104
Anne McCaffrvy &? 5M. Stating
THE CTTY WHO FOUGHT
105

"I need some people for tug and detonations work,"

Simeon announced. "It's going to be dicey."
The assembly room beneath the-south-polar dock-

ing bay was full of second-wave volunteers, those not

needed or qualified for the emergency medical work.

Every single one stepped forward. Despite the serious-

ness of the situation, Simeon found time for a grim

internal smile. That old line's worked its challenge since GO-

gamesh, he thought, proving that even the oldest books

on military psychology were right. People were very

reluctant to appear frightened in front of others, espe-

cially their friends. He called the roll of those he

needed. They were already suited up, helmets under

their arms. Gus, of course, and six of the more

experienced tug pilots, with six of the mining

explosives experts who had been taking R & R on the

SSS. "Thank you and I thank all the rest of you, too."
As soon as the room emptied of all but the par-

ticipants, he began the briefing with the truth.

"That ship is going to blow. The engines, by the

sound of them, are critically unbalanced, redlining far

off scale. We've got the survivors off her. But we've got

to get her far enough from the station so that when she

goes, she won't take us with her. That's not the only

problem. We've got to be sure she'll break into the

smallest possible fragments and that they are thrown in

a favorable dispersal pattern."

The explosives men grinned at each other. "Easiest

thing in the workl, Simeon," their spokesman said with

a rakish smile. "If you know what you're doing."
"We do," one of the others said, thumping the

spokesman jovially on the back. The man didn't so

much as rock on his toes.
"That's good to know, guys! Can you tug pilots

match their skill by redlining your engines a little to

putt her as far away from us as you can?"
i
"Hell, Simeon," Gus said, "you oughta know we'd

have no trouble doing that little thing for you."

Til be monitqring and should be able to give you

fair warning to get yburselves clear." He paused a

moment, anxious despite their obvious disregard for

the inherent danger^. "Have 1 made the situation

clear?"
Gus grinned. "Couldn't be clearer, station man," he

said, giving his broad shoulders a preparatory twitch in

response to the challenge. "And we don't have much

time for further chatter!"

Another voice broke in: Patsy's. Simeon keyed her

visual transmission to one of the ready-room screens;

she was back in the control seat of her tug.
"My, ain't the machismo level high around here? You

got one tug already in place, Simeon N mine. Count

me in, too."
Gus winced. "Look, Patsy, we're in very deep, ah N"
"Very deep shit," she finished, grinning at him. "Ah

know the words, Gus."

Everybody laughed. Simeon looked them over and

stifled a wave of bitter longing. A military commander of

any stature led his troops from the front, not from an

impervious titanium column. Don't worry, if they fail you'll be

the only one left to say what happened, thanks to thai sametitanium

column. Ifyoucan buewithyowconseience, thatis.

"I'll keep my eye on the coils and give you enough

warning to peel oS," Simeon promised.

Almost simultaneously, helmets covered the faces of

this small band of heroes.

"This is taking more time than it's worth," Channa

said in disgust, giving the control panel a final thump

with her fist. The door valved open,
"Damn! And I thought that was a station legend,"

she said. "Does it work for you, Simeon?"

"Having a servo whack me with a wrench to make
106
Arme McCaffrty & SM. Stating
me work properly?" he asked. "No, not often. The

bridge ought to be right down there. And hurry"

"How are we handling the demolition?" she asked

him, stepping through the half-open door and trotting

down the darkened way, her helmet light fanning

ahead. Mercifully, no bodies floated about this section.

"I've got a team rigging explosives all around the

ship to blow it to," he paused, his own nerves making

him play the down, "smithereens. Real, genuine, non-

station piercing smithereens. It would be disgraceful,

utterly disgraceful, to get holed by flying debris after

surviving this morning, don't you think? Ah, the tug

volunteers are in place, ready to grapple. Ah! They've

broken her out of orbital inertia."

Movement was not obvious this far in the bowels

of the dying ship. "Who's in charge of the team?"

Channa asked.
"Gus."
"Patsy said he was a good pilot," Channa com-

mented. "Soon as I finish here, I'll join her. Is she still

standing by at the hatch?"
"She is, to pick you up and bring you straight back to

the station with any information you discover."

"I can scan the info back to you, Sim-mate, but first I

have to find it, you know.1 She stumbled over some

jumble piled in the corridor and recovered herself.
"You and Patsy getsfra^jAi back here. I can't have my

brawn risking her neck when..."

"Simeon," she said reasonably, "brawns are supposed

to risk their necks far their brains. And if you, the station,

are at risk, / am required to reduce that risk any way pos-

sible. This time I can do it by helping tug the risk away

from here. Have I made myself clear on this point?"
"I don't like it," Simeon said in a disgruntled

mumble. "Foolish risk."

"Thank you for your input, but Simeon..."
"Yeah?"
THE CITY WHO FOUGHT
107
"Don't you ever try to forbid me to do the job I'm

here to do. You got that?"

"Right in the forehead, sweetheart"
"Not quite where I was aiming, but it'll do," Channa
said.
"If you get thronghte the bridge of that ship, can I

ask you for a download?" Simeon said plaintively.

"Why else1 am I penetrating this about-to-blow-up

wreck?" Channa said. "Patsy, you read me?"

"Welcome to the pahty, Channa," came Patsy's

cheerful wice.

"You don't mind my crashing?"
Patsy laughed. "Watch yoah choice of words, girl."
"I just noticed something," Channa said, slowing her

pace.
"What?"

"Paper. What's all tiuspaper doing around?" There

were sheets of it drifting down the corridor and sticking

with static attraction to the rubbery walls.
"This lumbering hulk must be filled with gear so

ancient it's exotic," Simeon said.

"Paper storage?" she said dubiously.
"Maybe they regressed."
"Could it originally have been piloted by a shellperson?"

Channa asked, suddenly jumping to some conclusions

mat ought to have been more obvious to both herself and

Simeon. Ifshegottheedgeonhimonthisone...

"Highly unlikely," Simeon said patronizingly. "B & B

ships weren't that common then. All of these little back-

of-beyond colonies were literally a shot in the dark, too

risky to expend us on. C'mon, forward is to your right,

one more passage to reach that control room."
"Aye, sir," she said. She worked her way forward,

past leaking pipes and the occasionally sparking con-

trol boxes, ruptured by the overloads of the

catastrophic deceleration.

108
AnruMcCaffrey & SM. Stirting
"Paper," Channa said in wonder, wishing she could

touch the valuable substance with her bare hands.

"And books! At least I think that's what I saw when

you glanced into that corner. Nor further right. Yes!

Books!"
"No time for browsing now," Channa said firmly.
"Right," he said. "Antiquarian refjex, sorry."
"Ah, I am now at the control room," she said.
It was large and circular; most of the consoles were

under shrink-shrouds of plastic that looked rigid with

age. Raw, hasty jury-rigs had restored a few panels to

functionality. She had to duck under festoons of cable

which were draped to and fro with no noticeable pat-

tern. In the dimming light, she saw jury-rigged control

boxes taped to consoles. The whole bridge seemed to

have been reconstructed with mad abandon.

"Ghu! They flew this thing?" Simeon exclaimed.

They must have been crazy, he thought and cocked a

weather-ear to the sound from the engine. "The log,"

Simeon reminded her. "Though I'm inclined to doubt

that this outfit has anything that fancy. Strip the data

bank, too. We want any information we can get,"

"You tell me how to retrieve information from this

archaic mess and you've got it," she answered, peering

from workstation to workstation, trying to figure which

one might access the main banks.

"I've got to go a long way back in my own files to find

something comparable," he said. "There're only three

centuries of buggering-up to decode but... ah, try the

second console to your right. About the only one they

hadn't been trying to use."
She drew the information feedline out of her glove

and pressed it over the inductor surface. The screen

beside it clicked to life and began flowing with a

spaghetti-complex web of symbols.

"Oh, my oh my," Simeon muttered.
"Problems, Sim?"
THE CITY WHO FOUGHT
109
"Nothing oT Simeon can't handle," he said. "But the

code is old. I don't have anything that esoteric on file.

Nothing I can't eventually decipher."
"Don't let your modesty run away with you," she

muttered, looking down at her wrist chrono. Plenty of

time, she thought ITwpe?
"I'm just cracking the interface and downloading it

to decode at leisure," Simeon replied. "Don't get your

tits in a tizzy."
"What did you say?",
"Old slang," he replied blandly.
"Another antiquarian reflex, no doubt," she said archly.
"Touched Okay, got it," he said, "Get out of there."
"Gawd-dawm this thing!" Patsy said in frustration.
The tug was presenting its broad rear surface to the

ancient colony ship. Channa scanned carefully on

visual and deep-magnetic, looking for a place to

engage their grapple.

"Time is a factor here, Ms. Hap." Gus's voice was a

little testy. Aligning an extra tug in the pattern had

taken more time than anticipated.
"I just got up here, Mr. Gusky. I'm looking for a flat

spot among these struts. I can see why you gave it a

pass. It's a mess. Wait, I think I see something now,

it's..." She looked again and increased the magnifica-

tion. "Bloody helir she cried.
"Crap!" Simeon's voice overrode hers. It took the

others a few moments longer.

"I don't believe it," Channa whispered.
"What?" Patsy demanded. "What do you see?"
"It's a shell. There's a shellperson out there,

strapped to the hull."

"Are you sure?" Gus voice cut in. "Look, everyone

else is in place, we have to get this thing away from the

stationN"
Simeon ordered in a roar that nearly fractured
110
Anne McCaffrey fc? SM. Stilling
eardrums. "BELAY THAT, GUSKY!" A moment of

stunned silence followed. "Check it out, Channa. Now!"

"Aye, aye, sir," Channa said even as she strobed a

landing spot where Patsy could set the tug down. "Yes,

Mr. Gusky, it's a shellperson all .right. Granted, it

doesn't look like anything you're likely to have seen,

but brawns learn to recognize em.a)L"
She hoped Simeon never had occasion to bellow like

that again, with the decibels going off the gauge.

Understandable, of course, or at least to her. If brains

had a collective nightmare, it was being cut off from

their equipment and left helpless. Attached to their

leads and machinery, a shellperson was the next thing

to immortal, a high-tech demigod in this world. Cut off

from it, they were cripples. Spam-in-a-can, as the

obscene joke had it. Neither Simeon nor she were

capable of abandoning a shellperson, even if its

occupant should prove dead.
"Gus, why don't you set the haul in motion," Channa

said, knowing her priorities had just shifted. "Patsy and

I will get this shellperson off."
She anchored the grapple just above the shell and as

quickly as possible, reeled the tug to it. She studied the

shell in the monitor as she drew closer. "It's inward

feeing, they did that right at least."

"Fardlingr^fo?" Simeon cursed. "Did it right? There

is nothing right about this. What kind of shit-for-brains

did this? That shellperson was lodged on the exterior of

the huU\ Anything could have happened to him or her!

Bastards, bastards, bastards. Get him out of there!"
Channa heard the cold passion in Simeon's voice

and recognized another aspect of him, one his often

diffident manner and sometimes boyish enthusiasms

had masked. Shellpeople were as individual as nor-

mals. Why had she thought him shallow, even trivial?

Because of his fascination with ancient wars and

weaponry?
THE CTTY WHO FOUGHT
111
"I'm on my way, Simeon," she said. "Gusky, step on

it. We'll get out of your way. This won't take long."

"It had better not," the ex-Navy man said, his voice

still carrying a trace of resentment. "Wilco. Out"

The surge of acceleration was feint but definite as the

bulky vessel began-to idt>ve. Channa locked a safety line

to her suit before s$ie swung down to the pitted, cor-

roded surface of the_hull and began to thread her way

through the crazed jungle of beam-fused girders that

covered it like fungus. The light had the absolute

white-and-shadow of space, but the froth where

vaporized metal had recondensed looked out of place.

Tm too used to things being new and functional, she told

herself at a level below the machine-efficient move-

ments of hands and feet. Fear coiled at a deeper level

still, shouting that she was risking two living humans

for a shellperson who could have died long ago. Brawn

training overrode that trickle of fear almost before she

noticed. A shellperson could not be left, not while a

brawn could remove him.

"Is the brain alraht?" Patsy asked.
"Can't tell yet," Channa told her. Off to her left a white

light flashed and the metal toned beneath her feet-

"What was that?" she half-squawked.
"Iron ore," Gus said. "She's moving into the disper-

sal cone of that load of balled ore. There's a lot of that

crap out here. Hurry."
fm hurrying, Tm hurrying, Channa thought. The shell

was a shape like a metal egg split down the middle, with

a tangle of feed lines and telemetry jacked into opened

access panels. Three more winks of light as ore struck

at hundreds of kps further down the derelict's hull,

then a whole cluster. Debris flipped away into space

with leisurely grace.
"Channa..." Simeon began. Tne rage was out of his

voice, replaced by fear for her. Somehow that wanned

Channa despite the cold clamp she'd put on her feelings.
112
Anne McCaffny &? SM. Stilting
"Can't be helped," she said and planted her own

grapple at the top of the shell, just beside the lugs.

"It's a different design from mine," Simeon told her.

"I'm doing a search now to see where you can put a

heavy magnet without interrupting anything vital."
"Fine," she said distractedly. "Looks like they just

took a dozen loops of wire cable and tack-welded it to

hold the shell down. Talk about improvisation!"
Simeon watched her hands as she used a small laser

to cut through one of the cables lashing the capsule to