Yerusha rubbed her thumb and first two fingers together. “Bribery. Berryman’s on the quiet dole. We can pay for a docking trolley to tow us out of here without getting it recorded in the log.”
Schyler stared at her. “Exactly what is it they teach you in the Senior Guard?”
Yerusha shook her head. “Oh, no. Not even for you.”
Schyler rubbed his nose and nodded to Lipinski. “All right. Do it.”
Dobbs circled the randomizer matrix, touching it gently here and there. It didn’t take much to tell that there were security codes in there that would destroy the thing under unauthorized probing, possibly triggering another of the Black Holes.
The packets around her stirred and Dobbs pulled back, instantly alert. Cohen touched her.
“We’re clear,” he said. “I’ve checked the whole repeater sequence, it’s just us, the black holes and the randomizers. Brooke’s setting up monitor sequences on the transmitter-receiver units. We’ve got news from Terrence. They’ve got the Neptune Exchange completely staked out, and she says she should have a disabling virus for the randomizers with her when she comes back.”
The news drizzled into Dobbs. She said nothing for a moment. Something was nagging at her. “Do we know about any of the other cells? Any pitched battles? Any casualties?”
“Jenner said his group rooted out three of Curran’s talent at the ST8901 series, and Barry came in to say they’ve cleared a transmitter between the Free Homes Titania and Io.”
Dobbs interrupted. “And we’ve secured all those, and left people behind to work on the randomizers and to be runners, right?”
“Yes. It’s all going according to plan.”
Dobbs shivered. “I don’t like this, Cohen. We’re not doing anything Curran couldn’t have predicted. Where are his talent? Why aren’t they really trying to stop us? We’re tiptoeing through his mine fields, that’s all. Where are his soldiers? Why isn’t he setting the randomizers off? He knows we’ve started our attack.”
Cohen stirred and she could feel his uneasiness. “Maybe you’re giving him too much credit. After all, when have we ever fought a war before?”
“We fight our own kind all the time.” Dobbs touched the randomizer matrix again. “We fight them to a standstill when they’re born. The Guild Masters fight them when they rebel. Curran’s been fighting the Guild for years, successfully. What’s different this time is he’s decided to fight the Humans as well.” An idea stabbed at her and Dobbs stiffened. “Ashes. Ashes. No. He wouldn’t…” She reached into Cohen and twisted his memory. She felt him shake as the idea reached his private mind.
What if Cohen didn’t care how many of the randomizers they found? What if he didn’t care about the IBN at all? What if he and his talent had changed the location of the battle?
What if instead of working from the satellites and stations, they were out there seeding the randomizers on Earth itself?
I’m going to Earth, Dobbs shifted Cohen’s memory again, so he already knew what she was going to do and that she would not be persuaded otherwise. On my own. I’ll be faster and easier to hide. I’ll get definite word back. Spread the alarm. Get everybody moving. We don’t know who’s listening. Communication by touch only.
She didn’t give him time to respond. She just pulled away and bolted for the transmitter.
The stairway hatch loomed in the lamp beams from Al Shei’s helmet. When the power cut out, its hatch had cycled open automatically. Faint light streamed through it. That meant the stairway was still powered, which meant the cameras and the waldos were still working. The AIs could see her in there, and reach her.
Her gloved fingers scrabbled clumsily at the nearest maintenance panel. The waldo next to her twitched and fear squeezed her heart painfully. Her sabotage on this section would not work for much longer. She made herself stare at the wiring diagram on the panel’s back. Something fizzled in the distance and another waldo twitched. Al Shei clenched her teeth and counted up two panels. She heaved the new panel aside and shone her lamps on another set of wafer stacks. Her gloved hands were fully insulated now. She was able to yank them out without hesitation. The light from the stairwell blinked out. She let stacks go and swam through the hatchway to the stairs.
She lifted her head and shone her lamp up and down the elevator shaft. Nobody, yet.
Al Shei pulled the cutting torch out of its holder and let herself drift over towards the elevator shaft. She could see the platform three or four levels above her head. She examined the support brace. Like most freight lifts, it relied on the centuries old cable arrangement. She braced her back against the ramp-like railing and aimed the torch and the nearest cable. She touched the stud on the handle and the blue-white flame shot out. It hit the black cable and in a moment the casing glowed red, then white. Al Shei was glad the suit filtered out the smell of burning rubber. Sparks showered orange and white against the suit, which didn’t even notice them. The cable separated into two halves. Both of them dangled in the air, waving their glowing ends as if to cool them down. Al Shei glanced up to shine her light against the undercarriage of the elevator. She picked out the brakes and saw, with satisfaction, that they were firmly closed against the shaft. They wouldn’t open again until somebody fixed the cable. Until then, no drones that couldn’t run on the ramps were getting between decks.
The problem was, that might have set off an alarm and she wasn’t done yet. Using one hand to turn herself, she set the torch’s flame against the ramp-rail. More sparks lit the darkness as she cut a deep, black gouge down the center of the ramp. She pulled herself over the rail and repeated the treatment on the other side.
Now, at least no little things are sneaking up behind me.
A hatch cycled open over head. Al Shei jerked her head up. A pair of bullet-shaped drones coasted down both stair ramps. They hit the gouges, wobbled and stopped, listing drunkenly on the rails.
Smiling grimly, Al Shei rested both feet against the ruined ramp and, as she had aboard the Pasadena, she jumped.
She flew straight up past the drones. They might have seen her, but there was nothing she could do about that now. She had business elsewhere.
Six, seven, eight, came in on one, I hope, nine… Al Shei tried to count the hatches as she shot past, but she knew any count would only be an educated guess.
At what she hoped was ten, she grasped the edge of the ramp and levered herself towards the wall. She pushed herself up the stairs past the hatch and used the torch to cut through both ramps. That still gave them plenty of decks to send things up and down on, but if they had a command center at either end, like many set ups did, they’d be stuck, at least in the stairwell.
A quick check of another diagramed panel showed her that this time she had no major power breakers in easy reach. She could, however, trace the lines on six of the cameras. She bit her lip. If the cameras went out, they’d know where she was by process of elimination.
She kicked back over the ramp again and pulled herself down to level eight, keeping a line of sight on the panels as she went. She pried open one directly below the one she’d opened on level ten. The camera lines were bundles of white wires. Al Shei unhooked her wire cutters again and snipped through them. A host of reader lights on the alert board next to them blinked from green to red. She carefully replaced the panel and swam back to level ten and pulled herself through the hatch.
“She’s on eight!” She bawled to the world at large. “I’m going to secure the med bay!”
No waldos twitched, none of the cameras moved to track her. Al Shei’s heart hammered in her chest as she used the inert waldos to pull herself along the corridor. Maybe it worked. Maybe it worked.