From How It Is by Gordon
In the morning Cormac counted the cost of his single-mindedness: three men dead, one man minus his feet and one man blinded, though new feet and new eyes were no problem, Cento scrapped for the second time, and Thorn now lying on the ground beside Mika's AGC with the woman removing a lump of shrapnel from his guts. Should he let some other agent take over? He thought not.
Pelter was dead, and Cormac did not know how to feel about that. The man had obviously slipped off the far side of weird some time ago, so perhaps death was an easier place for him. Just as the Separatist had once tried to share his sister's looks, he now shared her executioner; an apposite ending, but one Cormac found uncomfortable to speculate on. He turned his thoughts away and towards the future. Now he had a mission to complete: a mission to which he was ideally suited. He must not let the death of one madman distract him. It was like being a runner in a marathon: he had just passed the pain barrier and now he must continue. With core of cold hardness, he banished what had already been done from his thoughts, and considered what must be done now.
There were things he had learnt that another agent might have missed. Another agent might not have possessed his basic distrust of Dragon, might have been more credulous, taken the easier options. Pressing his hand to the dressing on his left biceps, he walked over to Aiden.
The Golem, though not quite so damaged as Cento, had still taken a pounding. He had lost skin from the side of his face and all down one side of his body. His eye on that side was missing, his exposed metal arm-bones were bent, and his metal ribs staved in, one of them broken. Aiden moved slowly as he turned the handle on a mechanical winch. He glanced over at Cormac, and perhaps noted how he was being assessed. Small plates shifted on the exposed side of his face, while the other side grinned.
'You should see the other fella,' said the Golem with an unexpected flash of humour.
Cormac could not find it in himself to react. He looked along the winch cables to where they were attached to the carrier. 'Will it work?' he asked.
Aiden's grin switched off. 'It will have about fifty per cent AG, and one turbine is still functional,' he said, and then continued winding the winch. After a moment the carrier crashed down on its side. As Aiden went off to reattach the cables, the sergeant approached. Cormac registered his stiff expression; he was well aware that the sergeant blamed him for the deaths of his men, and was in complete agreement with that assessment. Had the men been policemen, he might have had some sympathy, but they were soldiers, and death was just part of their job.
'Any sign of Stanton?' Cormac asked.
'No sign, sir. We found the shuttle, though. Whoever brought it in must have been a lunatic. It looks like it only just made it to the surface in one piece.'
'Can't be coincidence that it landed here,' said Cormac.
'Probably zeroed in on the proton gunfire, sir. I would think that most of the planet knows something happened out here by now.'
'Yes, quite probably.'
There was a short, tense silence.
'What now?' the sergeant finally asked.
Cormac saw that Aiden had finished reattaching the cables and was coming back. He nodded towards the carrier. 'Now… now you take your own men, and Thorn, Cento and Mika, back to civilization in the carrier. Aiden and I continue on.'
The sergeant could not hide his relief.
'Not a chance,' came a voice from behind.
Cormac turned to see Thorn walking unsteadily towards him. Mika came out behind him.
'Should he be walking?' Cormac asked her.
'I wouldn't recommend vigorous movement, but he's all right to walk. The other two won't be walking, though. One for obvious reasons, the other because his optic nerves are burnt out. That said, they're easily enough replaced.'
Thorn was staring hard at Cormac. 'You promised me,' he said.
Cormac shook his head. 'You asked - but I promised nothing. I remember it precisely. Carn found that hole in the artefact before I could give you a reply'
'Please,' said Thorn levelly, too proud to beg.
'You can come if you wish. But if we have to run, I won't wait for you.' Cormac turned away. Mika watched this exchange, then suddenly spoke up.
'I'm coming as well,' she said.
'If you like,' said Cormac, then turned at the sound of Aiden winding the cable in at high speed. The cable drew taut and Aiden's winding slowed. The winch, Cormac knew, had been attached to an electric motor on the front of the carrier. Strapped to the tree there was no motor to run it, and there was not a man here capable of turning the hastily fabricated handle. They all watched in silence as Aiden got the carrier up and teetering on its corner. When it crashed down level, Cormac immediately headed over to it. Shortly he returned, carrying a bulky rucksack.
'We're going now,' he said, and nodded towards Mika's AGC. The three fell in with him as he strode towards it.
In a moment they were airborne and gone.
'Goodbye,' said the sergeant, with a complete lack of sincerity. A few days before he had been eager for the chance of action. Now he just wanted to reach a safe retirement.
Cormac checked his watch after he had set the cruise-control on the AGC. 'Should be there in under an hour. Aiden, what are the precise co-ordinates of where the Maker went to ground?' Aiden told him, and Cormac nipped a map-screen from the console and checked them. 'Seems there is a cave mouth there. I'll be going in to set the CTDs. I am going alone. You, Thorn, are not capable at present, and I do not see why Mika should be exposed to the danger.'
Aiden said, 'But I see no reason why I should not accompany you.'
'You would not - and that is because you're not in possession of all the facts. You'll stay with the AGC. That's a direct order.'
There was no answer to that, so none was given.
Fifty minutes of flying brought them to a position directly above the given co-ordinates. Cormac brought the car down to twenty metres above ground level, then looked down at the cave mouth. It was a ragged rent in the side of a mountain, but easily accessible. He landed the vehicle a short distance away.
Before he left the car, Cormac reached back and said, 'Give me your thermal scanner, Aiden.'
The Golem handed it over: a grey box the shape of a soap bar, with a single screen and ball control. Cormac turned it on the three of them, and saw how little of a reading he got from Aiden. There were separate heat sources at his chest and groin, but the rest of his body was almost invisible. Mika and Thorn were statues of molten glass on the screen. Cormac moved the ball control and the area covered by the screen expanded. Positions relative to the sensors on the end of the scanner were given in metres, in three dimensions. He tilted the scanner and saw that these measurements did not change. The device was keyed to a ground level, then. He nodded with satisfaction and put the scanner in his pocket. When Aiden moved to hand over Thorn's proton gun, which lay on the back seat, Cormac held up his hand.
'I won't be needing that,' he said, and got out of the car. In silence they watched him go. He walked away with the rucksack slung over one shoulder: a tourist out for a brisk hike.
As he reached the cave mouth, Cormac ran a quick diagnostic on shuriken. It might have been damaged by the android, or by the seeker bullets. The miniscreen pointed out a slight aberration in the programming sequences, and some minimal damage to the chainglass blades. Both defects were acceptable. The blades were still more than serviceable, and he reckoned the source of the slight aberration was Tenkian himself. No way had he programmed shuriken to intercept seeker bullets, then hang in the air like a bristling terrier.