Switching off his back-pack, he knelt, turning Kim over and quickly scanning the readouts at his neck.
"No," he said softly. "That can't be right. I checked this suit myself."
According to the readouts, Kim's suit was leaking air. Not only that but his air-supply was faulty, too. For the past five minutes he had been surviving on half the normal supply.
"Air," Kano said, calming himself, knowing that the only way to survive a situation like this was to think clearly and act calmly. He had to get air to Kim as a matter of priority, and there was only one other supply of air down there at the foot of the bore-hole, his own.
Leaving Ikuro at the rim, Jelka hurried back to the airlock. She knew now. Something was wrong. The fact that they couldn't speak to Kano was evidence enough.
As the inner door hissed open, she began to run back to the control room, undoing the catch of her helmet as she ran.
Inside it was empty. Wen Ch'ang was nowhere to be seen.
Aiya, she thought, a tingle of fear running up her spine. Assassins. She was sure of it. And they had taken Wen Ch'ang.
Slowly, looking about her all the while, she crossed the room to the control panel. Through the clear reinforced ice of the view window she could see the tiny figure of Ikuro at the rim. Looking down, she began to scan the various readouts, noting with concern that Kim's were now glowing red. But Kano's were okay ...
She frowned, checking once more. If Kano's were all showing green, then why couldn't they speak to him. What the hell...
The force of the blow almost smashed her into the board. She staggered up, stunned, her arms raised instinctively in a defensive posture, facing her assailant.
"Wen Ch'ang?"
The second blow would have killed her had she not moved her head slightly to the right. Even so, it knocked her back again, so that she lost her balance and fell onto her backside, banging her head a second time against the edge of the board.
Wen Ch'ang had changed. No.. .hewasirans/0wz0d.Theman she'd known for so long was barely recognisable in the creature that now stood over her, arm raised. It was only the clothes, something vague in the face, that allowed her to identify him.
"Wen Ch'ang:"
But she knew it was no good. She knew she was dead. As he drew his hand back, she saw how his fingers were positioned in a killing blow and closed her eyes.
There was a grunt of surprise; a noise that made her eyes jerk open. Wen Ch'ang was staring past her suddenly, his teeth clenched in a rictus of pain, his neck muscles strained. As she watched he tried to pull the Osu spear out from his chest, yet the harder he pulled, the deeper the barbs dug into him. Finally, with a great groan of agony, he staggered back and fell.
Jelka shuddered, unable to take her eyes from him. It was a moment before she realised someone else was standing there behind him.
Focusing, she looked up and met the eyes of her saviour.
"Hans?" she asked, not sure suddenly whether she were dreaming this or not. "Hans Ebert?"
"It's okay," he said, stepping over the twitching figure on the floor. "You're safe now."
But Jelka was no longer listening. Her eyes rolled in her head, then, with a tiny shudder, she collapsed, her head sliding down the side of the board and thudding against the carpeted floor.
Alarmed, Ebert crouched over her. "Jelka? Jelka?"
The pain was excruciating. Where he had opened the outer wrist-seal to make the link, his hand had died. It had happened in an instant, the blood vessels neatly cauterised at the moment his hand was exposed to the vacuum and decompressed. It floated close by now, barely recognisable as a hand any more, the tissues frozen even as they imploded, long streaks of iced blood jutting from the pallid lump like ruby icicles, or like some obscene exploding star.
Kim, too, had lost a hand, but at least he was breathing now, linked at the right wrist to Kano's left, the two of them sharing the depleted air supply.
Kano closed his eyes, fighting the pain, letting the shock pass from his system, then opened them again.
"Okay," he said, speaking as much to himself as to Kim. "Now let's get you back up top."
The wrist-seal had saved Kim. Years ago, after a similar incident had left one of Kano's uncle's suits damaged, another of his uncles had attempted a similar rescue to today's. But the vacuum is unforgiving. When his uncle had tried to get air from his own suit to his brother's, he had breached his suif s seals and died instantly in a moment's sudden, violent decompression. After that the suits had been redesigned. Like ancient Han junks, they were now compartmentalised, with tiny inner seals that clamped tight the instant the suit was breached. After all, it was better to lose a hand, a foot, or even a whole limb, than to suffer total decompression.
Holding Kim close, careful not to jolt him, Kano gently activated first his own and then Kim's back-packs, lifting them. Slowly, very slowly, they began to climb the bore-hole.
There was enough air for them to get back. Just. Providing nothing further happened.
Kano spoke into his lip-mike. "Jelka?. . . . Jelka?"
But there was nothing. He was cut off. No matter, he would keep going. Four minutes, five at most, and they would be safe.
Kim was slipping. Not much, but enough to make things difficult if it continued. Reaching further round him, Kano put a hand through the strap of his air-canister and pulled him closer.
It was while doing this that he noticed the lump.
Frowning, his fingers traced the shape of it. It was small and definitely rectangular. It was also definitely not part of the canister's normal apparatus.
Slowly, careful not to let Kim fall - each tiny movement making the blood pulse at the nerve-ends of his damaged wrist - he turned Kim round.
There! He could see it now. It was a mine. A tiny limpet, like those they used to break up the larger blocks of rock into fragments.
Kano closed his eyes, all of the hope he'd been feeling drained from him in an instant. He had glimpsed the tiny blue figures on the timer.
Four minutes, thirty-eight seconds.
They'd never make it. Not to the airlock, anyway. And even if they did, it would be cutting it so fine that they'd be in serious danger of destroying it. And then they'd all be dead -Kano and Kim, Ikuro and Jelka and . . .
His decision was made in an instant.
"Jelka? Jelka can you hear me?"
This time there was the crackle of static before Jelka's voice came through clearly.
"Kano? Kano! What's happening? How's Kim?"
"Kim's safe," he answered. "We had an accident. But he's okay. I'm sending him up."
"Kano, what.. .?"
Kano switched off the mike. In the silence that followed he could hear his own breathing inside his helmet.
It was said by some that the number of breaths a man was to take in his life was predetermined at birth. Had he had the time or inclination - or even the mental skills for it, come to that - he might have calculated that number for himself. But right now there was no time for such trivialities.
Three minutes, fifty-three seconds.
Moving much quicker now, he turned Kim about. Then, gritting his teeth, he put his damaged arm down to Kim's side, to secure him there as best he could, his movements made awkward by the fact that Kim's arm was attached to his own.
Satisfied he had a good enough grip, Kano moved his other arm, using his good hand to unstrap his back-pack and fit it onto Kim.
Briefly he smiled. He had spent the greater part of his life -from three years on - practising such procedures, never really thinking the time would come when such practice would pay off. But now it did.
In his head he was counting. Three minutes left. They were rising toward the mouth of the great shaft, yet still it seemed a long way off.
Reaching out, he twisted the nozzle of Kim's air-feed tube and tugged at it violently. It gave with a tiny pop, ice forming instantly about the exposed aperture. But the suit was fine. Kano breathed out, relieved. His own supply would keep them both alive now. Two minutes, thirty.