White vapour was now leaking from the folds at the elbow of the primitive suit. It was also leaking out round the neck-seal and painting glitters of frost across the plastiglass.
The cabin of the shuttle was simply a plain box, with spring fixings along the floor to take either chairs or cargo straps. Ahead there was another hinged door. She moved quickly to it and tried to turn the handles. Nothing gave. She put her weight on the handles, and they started to move just before her feet left the floor. She pulled herself down and jammed her foot in one of the spring fixings to try again. Vapour bloomed around the door, then dissipated. She got it open and pulled herself in. Even as she closed the door, she found herself panting for air that was getting increasingly thin. A button. Cycle. She hit it and dragged herself to a dusty seat before the console and control column. She searched for a readout and found it above the door. The readout was in bar and she was not sure what was required. She cracked open the helmet when vapour ceased to flow from the seal. No difference now anyway; there was littie left in the suit.
'Captain Jarvellis… Jarvellis… I hope you can hear me. Can you hear me?'
'Yes, I can hear you, Tull,' she said.
'Good,' said the Oudinker. 'Now, just so you don't kill us all by trying to start those ion engines in the station, I'll tell you how to use the magnetic impeller. It'll get you out of that bay and away. Beyond that, you're on your own.'
Jarvellis dropped into the pilot's seat. The padding crunched underneath her and dust circulated in the cockpit. She studied the antique controls and wondered if it might have been better to go meekly to mind-wipe. 'Go on, then, run me through it,' she said.
Aiden and Cento had their heads bowed and their shoulders slumped as if in exhaustion. Cormac saw that their emulations were off as welclass="underline" not a breath moved their torsos, nor the flicker of an eyelid crossed their eyes. like two marionettes with their strings cut, they sat on the lichen-covered plascrete and broken glass. Their weapons were lying on the ground beside them, ignored.
'Aiden? Cento?'
Was there something there? A shiver of movement? Cormac could not believe that they had been completely disabled. He had previously seen nothing short of a proton gun with that capability.
'Aiden?'
Aiden's head lifted slowly and he stared at Cormac as if he did not recognize him. He blinked once, slowly, and it seemed for a moment as if he was going to ask him something. Then Aiden's shoulders straightened, his breathing emulation restarted, and he slowly stood up.
'Just enough to knock out our systems,' he said, and looked down at Cento. Cento was slower to reassume his guise of humanity. First he practised a grin which was a parody, then his breaming emulation restarted and he too got up. Cormac turned away from them and went over to Thorn.
'Thorn?'
Thorn lay flat on his back, staring up at the sky. There were burns on his clothing and there was a strong smell of burnt hair about him. His beard, Cormac noted, was in need of some reshaping. His helmet lay beside him with its glass still polarized. His weapon lay some distance away. A trickle of blood had congealed below his nose.
'About stun three,' he said tighdy, and looked up at Cormac. Cento and Aiden passed Cormac on either side, reached down simultaneously, and pulled Thorn to his feet.
'Gave about as good as it got,' said Thorn from wobbly legs, men, freeing his right arm from Cento, ran his hand over his beard and frowned.
Cormac watched the three contemplatively: the only real injuries seemed to be to their dignity. 'It knocked you all down because you fired on it. Having the ability to knock out Aiden and Cento means it had the ability to kill you, Thorn… Tell me, Aiden, would you say that creature was completely constituted of energy fields?'
'That would not be possible. It must have some matter distribution for the fields to anchor themselves to, even if it is very diffuse. Dragon said it was partially gaseous.'
'Then I know how to kill it. Just as it knew precisely how to kill us. Come on.' As he walked back to the sky-bikes, Cormac pulled out his comunit. 'Sergeant, put the carrier down at our camp. Get your men down, too, and form a perimeter again.' He shut off the unit as the sergeant passed on his orders, then turned to Thorn. 'Thorn, I want you to mink about this. When we went down that shaft a monster attacked us, and we fired on it.'
'Yes,' said Thorn.
'No, you see there's the rub. It may have come charging towards us, and it may have seemed intent on attack, but it did not scrap Cento nor kill Gant until we fired on it.'
'That's hard,' said Thorn.
'That's fact,' said Cormac. 'Maybe it intended to attack us - we don't know. We do know, however, that it was an organic machine dying from the cold.'
Cormac gestured to the bikes, and Aiden and Cento mounted them. As Thorn took the pillion behind Aiden he asked, 'What are you saying?'
'I'm saying I'm going to get to the truth of all this. You see, we've only heard one side of the story, so I want the rest of it.' He pulled his comunit as Cento took their bike into the sky. 'Mika, meet us in the carrier, will you? I'll be needing your input.'
'You'll be needing my input.'
Cormac grinned at the inferred question and turned the unit off. It could be a crippling fault, that inability to ask a direct question. He looked ahead and down, and saw the carrier landing. The diminutive figure of Mika was angrily striding across to it. The other sky-bikes were coming down in the forest around the encampment. When Cento landed, Cormac quickly hopped off and gestured to the other three.
'Come with me.'
He headed for the carrier, glanced at Mika, who was waiting beside it, then pulled open the door and stuck his head inside.
'Sergeant, if you and your man there could give us a moment?'
The sergeant and the turret gunner left the carrier with expressions of bewilderment on their faces.
'What… what was that thing, sir?' the sergeant asked.
'A dragon,' said Cormac, 'a real live dragon.' As soon as the others were inside, he closed the door on the sergeant's bewilderment. He looked at Stanton, still secured in place, and then gestured for the others to sit. He paced across the floor between them, his forefinger tapping his chin and a thoughtful expression on his face.
'Right… Aiden, I want a direct line of communication with Samarkand II. Set it up with Viridian. I want Blegg and Chaline on the other end, soonest.'
'We should be able to set up the link with this carrier's transceiver.'
'Do it, then.'
Aiden stood and moved to the front of the carrier, and was soon in contact with Viridian. Cormac turned to Thorn, Cento and Mika.
'Tell me, what are your impressions? And you, Thorn, bear in mind what I said to you.'
Thorn surprised him by replying immediately. 'Seemed to me the p-beams stung it a little, or just surprised it. It defended itself from an irritation. It was more interested in the dracomen.'
'That speaks for itself,' said Mika.
'Those two grabbed the AGC - why, do you think?' Cormac asked her.
'Judging from what I learnt about their behaviour before, I thought they were out to defend you.'
'That car had a roof before. I take it they ripped it off?'
'Yes, one moment they were just standing mere, the next they were tearing the roof off the car. There was a weapon under the seat. Scar went straight to it. They ignored me. I was clearly not going to interfere. Anything that can tear bubble-sheet like that…'
Cormac looked thoughtful. 'The weapon was a laser carbine. A rather ineffectual thing to use in the circumstances, when we are thinking in terms of proton guns.'