He put his hand to Kim's neck, as if strangling him, his fingers at full stretch as he simultaneously squeezed the studs on either side of Kim's helmet. Unclipping the canister, he brought it round to the side, then let it fall.
If he'd had more air in his own canister, then it might have worked. If he'd only had more air ...
But there wasn't enough air to get back - not for the two of them, anyway. Now that they'd jettisoned Kim's supply, there was only enough for one.
Kano grimaced, conscious of what came next, then, bracing himself against the physical shock, he reached down to where his wrist was linked to Kim's and twisted hard.
He felt his arm blow away from him, ripping the metallic material of his suit's arm as it went, felt himself begin to fall. He had a glimpse of Kim slowly rising, of two ice-white, damaged arms - Kim's and his own - turning, twisting in his helmet's beam, then it was gone.
A minute's air, that's all he had left now. A minute's stale recycled air.
Ignoring the pain, Kano twisted, facing the way he fell and kicked toward the slowly falling canister.
The shock had woken him. Feeling for his arm, Kim realised it had gone. Then, even as the pain hit him, he saw Kano far below him, caught momentarily in his helmet's beam, drifting down towards the falling canister.
For a moment he didn't understand. For a moment he was tempted to go back and help Kano, but even as he reached for the controls to his back pack, he realised that he was wearing both his and Kano's packs, and understood that something must have happened. "Kano?"
But there was no reply. Not from Kano, anyway. The voice that filled his helmet was Jelka's. "Kim? Kim, are you okay?"
"I . . ." The explosion jolted him, lifting him like a giant hand toward the mouth of the great borehole. And afterwards, remembering that moment, he saw it vividly; saw Kano put out his one good arm as if to embrace the canister, even as it lit from within like a giant fire-cracker.
No chance. Kano had had no chance. Then again, maybe he had preferred a sudden death to suffocation. "Kim? . . . Kim?'
"If s Kano," Kim answered, numbed by what he'd seen, the twin packs lifting him slowly up above the rim into the realm of stars. "I think it was a bomb."
Kim sat in the control room, still in shock, staring at the shrouded figure of Wen Ch'ang. His right shoulder was enfolded within a portable medcare unit, the large, black plastic shoulder pad winking with readouts.
The fact that his arm had gone was almost unimportant in view of other developments. Wen Ch'ang, it seemed, had been busy. Kim had not been his only target. Over a dozen key men and women had died - blown apart in their quarters, and the death toll would have been higher but for an unscheduled drinking party that had saved more than fifteen of the senior scientific staff.
Even so, Wen Ch'ang had failed. Though Kano and the others were dead, the fusion-drives were untouched, the boreholes finished and waiting.
We have come through, Kim thought, looking across to where Jelka stood beside Ebert and Ikuro in the doorway, talking. Yes, and two months from now they would be gone from here. Off on their journey across the void.
He shivered, wondering what had motivated his old friend. He would never have suspected - never in a thousand years. Nor could he understand why Wen Ch'ang had acted as he did.
Is it possible? he asked himself, conscious of just how deeply Wen Ch'ang's betrayal had undermined his belief in people. For if I was wrong about him . . .
He shuddered then looked down. No. That way lay madness. Mileja's death had been bad enough, but this? He groaned silently, remembering Kano's self-sacrifice.
Hold on to that, he told himself, both agonised and comforted by the thought.
Ikuro was bearing it well. Better than he'd imagined. When he'd told him what Kano had done, there had been a strange little movement in Ikuro's face before the mask had come back down - and Kim, recalling it now, recognised the components of that expression. Beside the obvious pain, there had been pride and love. An immense love. Yes, and a sense of Tightness that Kano should have acted thus.
So men are, Kim told himself. Some act for the good, some for HI.
Yes, but why Wen Ch'ang? And was he acting alone, out of some deep-rooted and long-harboured malice, or was he merely the agent of another's mischief?
As an either-or it was distinctly unsatisfactory, for both answers were immensely disturbing.
He closed his eyes and groaned again, rocking back and forth a while, as he'd done when Mileja had died. When he opened his eyes again, it was to find Jelka crouched there before him.
"Are you okay?" she asked gently.
He nodded, unable to speak. Unable to utter what he was feeling. He had never felt so insecure, so uncertain of himself. Never, even in the Clay.
"You're not, are you," she said, reaching out to touch his good shoulder gently, pain in her eyes at the sight of his lost arm.
"You admired him that much, eh?" she said after a moment.
He frowned, not following her.
"The arm," she said. "You admired my father so much you had to copy him?"
"You want it in gold?" he asked, finding his voice again, smiling bravely back at her.
She looked down, disturbed by that reminder, then shook her head. "No," she said quietly, looking back at him. "Leave it or grow it back. But no prosthetics. Promise me?"
"I promise."
Jelka sighed, then turned her head, looking back toward the doorway. "Poor Ikuro," she said. "Look at him. It's as if he died down there. I've never seen a man so devastated."
Kim looked, seeing only the featureless expression - the "mask" as he called it - and wondered again about his wife's perspicacity. She saw what he only guessed at.
"And Wen Ch'ang?" he asked. "What did he want?"
She laughed coldly. "Wen Ch'ang wanted nothing. Wen Ch'ang was a morph. One of DeVore's creatures. A sleeper. . ."
Her words were a revelation to him. He looked back at the shrouded corpse, staring at it now with a fascinated horror, thinking of the creatures he himself had made. They were the very model of innocence compared to that thing!
"Is it dead?"
Jelka looked at him, surprised. "You want me to have it burned?"
He hesitated, then nodded. He had rarely felt such superstitious fear. Then again, though he had been betrayed many times, none of those betrayals had been quite as profound or devastating as this. Only Mileja's death exceeded it.
"I thought. . ." He paused, then said it fully. "I thought he was my friend."
"Yes," she said, her eyes sympathetic. "So did I."
His eyes looked past her, seeking the corpse once more, afraid that it might have moved, that it might betray the laws of life itself.
"Burn it," he said, swallowing back the bile, a bitter strength born in him at that moment. "For the gods' sakes bum the bloody thing!"
EPILOGUE - AUTUMN 2234
after the gold rush
"We who with songs beguile your pilgrimage And swear that beauty lives though lilies die, We Poets of the proud old lineage Who sing to find your hearts, we know not why, -What shall we tell you? Tales, marvellous tales Of ships and stars and isles where good men rest."
- James Elroy Flecker, The Golden Journey To Samarkand (1913)
after the gold rush
Tom sat in his cabin on board the New Hope, alone in this final moment before departure, his chin resting on his hands, thinking of his mother back on earth.