The complex was bustling. Crane paused just inside the entrance, looking around. Marines and black ops agents were stationed in strategic locations. Technicians and maintenance crews moved briskly about the crowded hangar. The greatest concentration of activity was at the center, where one of the two remaining Marbles hung from its robotic clamp. The laser scaffold stood nearby.
Loudspeakers in the corners of the ceiling coughed static. "Attention," came a clipped voice. "Marble Three descent initiating in ten minutes. Dive control officers, report to your stations."
Crane took a deep breath. Then he began walking toward the Marble, where the three-person crew-wearing distinctive white jumpsuits-were surrounded by technicians. If Spartan wasn't nearby, he knew, at least somebody could point him in the right direction…
As he approached, one of the crew members turned to look at him. Crane stopped in surprise. Above the white jumpsuit, he recognized the lined face and unruly white hair of Dr. Flyte.
Seeing him, Flyte's eyes widened. He separated himself from the group and walked over to Crane.
"Dr. Flyte," Crane said. "Why are you wearing a uniform?"
Flyte looked back at him. His delicate, birdlike features seemed drawn and nervous. "I do not wish to wear it-oh, no! My job is to repair the arm, improve the arm, teach others of its mysteries-not to wield it myself. But he would insist. 'The Olympian is a difficult foe to oppose.'" He glanced over his shoulder furtively, lowered his voice. "I have to be here, but you don't. You must leave. It's as I told you: everything is broken."
"I need to find-" Crane began. Then he fell silent abruptly. Because somebody else was approaching: Commander Korolis. With fresh surprise, Crane saw he, too, was wearing the white jumpsuit of the Marble crew.
"Get back to the Marble," Korolis told the old man. Then he turned his pale, exotrophic eyes to Crane. "What are you doing here?" he said.
"I'm looking for Admiral Spartan."
"He's unavailable." Korolis had dispensed with his earlier, hypocritical veneer of civility. Now his tone, his expression, his very manner, exuded hostility and suspicion.
"I need to speak with him."
"Impossible," Korolis snapped.
"Why is that, Commander?"
"He's had a breakdown. I've assumed command."
"A breakdown?" Could this be what was keeping Bishop? But as soon as the thought occurred to him, he rejected it. If the head of the Facility had suffered some kind of seizure or collapse, Corbett, or one of the medical interns, or Bishop herself would have told him.
And that meant only one thing: none of the medical staff had been notified.
Alarm bells went off in Crane's head. Suddenly he realized just how precarious his present position had become.
"Attention," came the voice from the loudspeaker. "Crew insertion now commencing. Sealant team, prepare to restore and verify hull integrity."
"Don't do it," Crane heard himself say.
Korolis frowned. "Don't do what?" His eyes were red rimmed, and his voice, normally soft, was loud and breathless.
"Don't make the dive."
"Sir!" a worker from a monitoring station called out to Korolis.
The commander turned toward him. "What is it?"
"There's someone who needs to speak with you. Bryce, an intern in the Medical Suite."
"Tell him I'm busy."
"Sir, he says it's of the utmost importance-"
"That"-and here Korolis shot out an arm, pointing it daggerlike at Marble Three-"is the only important thing at the moment."
"Very good, sir." The man hung up the phone, returned to his instruments.
Korolis turned back to Crane. "And why shouldn't I make the dive?"
"It's too dangerous. It's a fool's errand."
Korolis took a step closer. Beads of sweat were visible on his forehead and temples. "I heard about your little theory. You know what I think, Doctor? I think you're the one that's dangerous. A danger to morale. A danger to this very mission."
He stared at Crane a moment longer. Then, abruptly, he wheeled toward a brace of marines. "Hoskins! Menendez!"
They shot to attention. "Sir!"
Korolis jerked a thumb at Crane. "This man is under military arrest. Once the Marble is safely launched and the all clear is sounded, take him to the brig and post an armed guard outside his cell."
And before Crane could protest, the commander walked back to Marble Three, where an unhappy-looking Dr. Flyte and his fellow crew member were already slipping into its silvery maw.
49
Roger Corbett lay in a spreading pool of his own warm blood, wrapped in a fog of pain. At times it seemed he was dreaming; at others, as if he were already dead, floating in some limitless dark oblivion. Thoughts, feelings, associations drifted in and out, seemingly without his ability to control them. A minute might have passed, or ten; he didn't know. There was only one thing he was certain of: he could not let the crouching figure with the gun realize he was still alive.
The pain was intense now, but pain was good: it helped him fight against the terrible lassitude that kept trying to drag him down forever.
As he lay there, he felt a pang of regret. His three o'clock appointment would be waiting for him. She was probably there now, tapping her foot and glancing at her watch. She'd been making such progress in anger management it seemed a pity that…
Then the faintness returned, washing over him, and he surrendered to dark dreams. In them, he was a diver who had swum too deep. And now the surface was a mere smudge of faint light far, far above, and his lungs were already bursting as he kicked his way upward, swimming as fast as he could, yet with so very much farther to go…
He forced himself back to consciousness. The figure in the corner was done.
She rose in the darkness and turned toward him, her eyes shining faintly with the light from the adjoining chamber. Corbett held his breath and lay motionless, his own eyes mere slits. Leaving the duffel where it lay, she took a step toward him, then another. Then she stopped once again. There was a dull gleam as the barrel of her gun rose toward him.
Suddenly she turned sharply. A moment later, Corbett heard it, too: voices, sounding faintly over the whine of compressors.
Others-two at least, maybe more-must have entered the first compartment of Environmental Control. Sudden hope brought a measure of clarity back to him, helped steady his flagging senses. His gambit had worked. Bryce was sending help.
The voices came closer.
She stepped over him, gun at the ready, and slid up to the hatch leading to the second chamber. Opening his eyes a little wider, Corbett watched her peer carefully around the corner. The curved line of her hair, the barrel of the gun, were silhouetted by the yellow halo of light. Then she slipped through the hatch into the second chamber, ducked behind a turbine, and was lost from his view.
The voices continued. They no longer seemed to be getting any closer. He guessed they were still in the first compartment, somewhere between Bishop and the main exit from Environmental Control. From the few words he could make out, they sounded like maintenance workers, checking one of the innumerable pieces of equipment.
That meant the cavalry hadn't arrived-at least, not yet. Maybe it wasn't going to.
Corbett put out a hand, tried to raise himself to a sitting position, but his hand slipped and skidded on the bloody floor. A spear of pain lanced through his chest, and he bit his upper lip savagely to keep from crying out.
He lay there, breathing shallowly, letting the pain ease somewhat. Then, planting his feet on the metal floor, he pushed himself forward, slowly, toward the far bulkhead.