"Ooo — look who thinks she's learned to manipulate people." He snapped me a backward parody of a salute. "Get going yourself, Ramos. Do something non-sentient to Jelca before he does it to you."
He turned and lumbered away. I watched for a moment, then saluted his back. Call it another birthday present.
In the Stairwell
I had eighty storeys of ramps ahead of me. No matter how pressed for time I might be, running was out of the question; I settled for a light jog and wondered how long I'd be able to keep it up.
Far above, the tower ramps clattered with the clack of glass footfalls. Tobit's speech had inspired the ancestors so much, they hadn't stopped after breaking down the door — they were still charging ahead, howling to spill French blood at Agincourt or whatever they thought they were doing. I didn't try to keep up with them; not only were they stronger and faster than my mere flesh, they were less worried about running out of wind. The stairwell burned with the same radiation as the main tower rooms. Even as they raced along the ramps, the ancestors were recharging, keeping themselves powered.
There was another reason I didn't try to catch up with the ancestors: I needed time to decide how to handle Jelca. First, grab his stunner — that was obvious. And I had one strong advantage over him: I could see clearly through the tinted visor of Tobit's helmet. Jelca, on the other hand, would be half-blind with the radiation suit covering his eyes… like looking through glittery cotton cloth. In a straight fistfight, the odds were stacked in my favor.
As long as he didn't shoot me first. One sonic blast, and I'd be unconscious for six hours… or until Jelca killed me, whichever came first.
How could I avoid getting shot? Stealth if possible. If I could sneak up and take him down fast, I had nothing to worry about; but if he saw me first…
"Idiot," I said aloud. "Why didn't you pick up your own stunner?" Yet the prospect of using the same weapon as Jelca filled me with revulsion. I knew I was being irresponsible — considering the stakes, I should have been ruthlessly willing to shoot Jelca in the back if that's what it took. But some subconscious inhibition had stopped me from thinking about my own stunner until now — and I had no time left to go back for the gun.
Was there anything else I could use as a weapon? I took a mental inventory of my belt pouches, now tucked under the radiation shirt and pants. What was I carrying? Things for taking soil samples, a small disk camera, my first aid kit…
…which contained the scalpel…
I laughed out loud. There in the stairwell, I leaned against the wall and laughed. Unable to stop giggling, I untucked my lame shirt tail, opened a pouch, and pulled out the knife.
The scalpel.
"Fair's fair," I said to the walls. "Fair's fair."
I didn't know what I meant by that.
To give the blade some weight, I taped some mineral sample tubes to its handle. The tubes were only the size of my fingers, but they were lead-lined in case they had to hold radioactive materials. When I was finished, the knife was well-balanced and heavy, suitable for stabbing or throwing. I found myself tempted to hold it up and say, "Yarrun, I owe you this." But I didn't do it. There comes a time when we outgrow dramatic gestures.
At the Top of the Ramp
Halfway up the tower, I passed the first glass body: an ancestor with no sign of injury. There were two more another floor up. I stopped briefly to examine them. They muttered something and turned their backs on me.
"Tired of going up ramps?" I asked. "You and me both."
Their initial enthusiasm had eroded. Who wouldn't get bored, racing up storey after storey, with no change of scenery? The closer I got to the top, the more bodies I found… until on the eightieth floor, I came to the last ancestor, lying in the open doorway that led out of the stairwell. He must have disciplined himself to stay with the task, all the way hoping to find some stirring amusement at the end of the trip. When he reached the finish, only to find a room exactly like the ones downstairs, he had sunk to his knees in disappointment.
Welcome to the Explorer Corps, I thought.
I didn't charge out onto the floor. Jelca might have heard the door open; even now he might be lying in ambush, ready to blast me into unconsciousness. I waited, listening. I listened for five whole minutes by my watch, and might have waited longer if I hadn't heard something.
A rumble.
A roar.
A vibration under my feet.
The whale was taking off.
The Launch
It would have been a sight to see: the roof doors opening and the glass orca soaring out on plumes of smoke and flame. With luck, Tobit had made it back in time. I breathed a prayer for those aboard, then moved cautiously out of the stairwell. There would never be a better time to sneak up on Jelca, with the sound of blast-off loud enough to cover my approach.
Scalpel in hand, I stole forward.
The building's glass rattled as the launch continued. The ancestor lying in the stairwell lifted his head with one last show of interest… then pouted and lay down again.
Three rooms between me and Jelca.
Room 1: the roar outside increased, moving upward. I could swear the ship was sliding straight past the building, scorching the tower's exterior with belches of fire.
Room 2: with a roar, the sound of engines swept past the building, up, high up, heading for the roof, as echoes banged off every building in the city.
Room 3: the noise suddenly eased, and I knew the ship had cleared the roof doors, out into open sky where its sound could spread through the mountains. The echoes were still loud enough to cover my soft approach to the last room, if only Jelca was looking in some other direction.
But he was looking straight at the door. His pistol pointed straight at the door too.
"Don't move a hair," he said with theatrical calm. "I can pull the trigger faster than you can move out of the way."
I knew he was right.
The Laying of Blame
"So who are you?" he asked conversationally. "Ullis? Callisto?"
His question confused me. Then I realized my helmet had opaqued itself enough that Jelca couldn't see my face.
"It's me," I said. "Festina."
He inhaled sharply under his radiation mask. "Festina? Of course." He gestured with the pistol toward my hand. "I should have recognized you by the scalpel. Still your weapon of choice?"
Ouch. "You really are a shit, aren't you?"
"Thanks to you," he answered. "You backed me into a corner. If you hadn't left me with no other options…"
"Spare me the excuses."
"But you're the one to blame," he insisted. "You forced me to shoot Oar when you knew it would kill her. You made it impossible for me to be an Explorer… So now I'm something else."
"A dangerous non-sentient," I said.
"Exactly. And if I'm going to be damned forever, the least I can do is live up to the title."
I sighed. "You're quoting some bubble, aren't you? And a bad one at that. Since you can't impress me as a human being, you try it as a villain. That's pathetic."
"I'm not trying to impress—"
"You are!" I shouted… not because my words could affect him but because I'd heard a sound behind me. "If you weren't trying to impress me, you would have shot the second you saw me. But you want to gloat. You want to justify yourself. Or you want to act out some bubble you've seen where the villain acts menacing to pretend he's more than a pissy little schoolboy. Honestly, Jelca… destroying a world because nobody likes you!"
"You liked me once," he retorted. "You adored me. And you weren't the only one. Eel adored me. Oar adored me…"