“I need you! Do you hear? Don’t risk yourself, Banichi!”
Jago hauled him violently down the corridor and toward that nearest service access, and time now was everything. Every moment he held these two separated, they were all at greater risk. She opened a refuge, and he went in as rapidly as he could, climbed up, knowing the next level was safer than this one and at least closer to home, and knowing by the continuance of light that the door below was still open.
He trusted everything to the belief they would both follow him more rapidly than he could race this climb, and in truth, in the very moment he thought it, the ladder began to shake with atevi presence. All light went out in one section. A small, intense light stabbed upward in the next second, a hand torch of some sort, and he knew who was on the ladder and who had shut the door as clearly as if he could see them both.
He climbed at breakneck pace, heedless of the pain of cold metal on his hands. He reached the next level, sweating in the icy dark, and feverishly opened that next access door at the risk of frostbite. Light and warmth met him, heat like a wall, air that didn’t burn, but that flowed like syrup into the lungs. He couldn’t get enough of it.
Jago arrived. He had no idea where he was within the level, had no grasp of the relationship of the cabins: the grids jumbled in his brain, a webwork of intersections and major and minor cross-corridors. He trusted she knew.
Banichi came out, still carrying their guide, shut the door, and without any hesitation, Jago broke into a run ahead and looked down the cross-corridor, then raced farther and opened another access, while at any moment Tamun’s men or innocent passersby could come around the corner and they couldn’t know which was which.
He ran, with Banichi behind him, ducked into that next access after Jago, as Banichi followed, and they climbed again, then walked a traverse grid, and climbed farther, by Jago’s small light. They climbed until his hands were utterly burned and then numb. At the last, telling himself he couldn’t fail, he couldn’t be the weak and fatal link in the world’s plans, he gripped the rail with his elbows, shoved with his legs, and reached a platform, cold air stabbing into his lungs, racking him with coughs. He tottered. It was beyond him to open the next door. Jago both steadied him and opened it, then shoved him through into blinding and ordinary light.
Another coughing fit overtook him, affronting lungs and a cold-stung throat. He heard the door slam shut, a frightening noise. He knew there was every chance of someone hearing it, but for a moment he could scarcely breathe past the coughing. He tried to run, and Jago hauled him a long noisy sprint down a side corridor, around a corner.
Another climb, he thought. He couldn’t do it. They’d have to carry him.
Banichi’s heavier footsteps overtook them, and his tearing eyes showed him not an access panel, but a door, a section door Jago was attempting to open. He bent over, coughing, and was still coughing when he straightened and realized where he was.
Inside the Mospheiran section.
With Kaplan, of all people, standing in the middle of the hall looking scared, and holding a rifle on them.
Behind Kaplan were Andresson and Polano.
And five others he didn’t know.
Kate put her head out of a room. “It’s Mr. Cameron,” she exclaimed, as if there weren’t two very tall and conspicuous atevi holding him on his feet.
Rifles lowered as Bren stood there trying to control the coughing fit and ask what was going on. Banichi let their unfortunate guide to his feet and slowly to the floor. Polano edged forward, cast an anxious glance at Banichi and dropped to his knees, trying to care for the man while the rest maintained an armed, anxious stance.
“It’s Frank,” Polano said. “He’s alive. He’s alive.—His rig’s shot all to hell.”
“Too bad for that part,” Andresson said. “We could sure have used that.”
Frank, their guide, tried to speak, managed a handful of words, “Ogun” among them, nothing that made sense. Polano wadded up his coat and put it under his head. “Yeah, yeah,” Polano said. “Leave Ogun to Ogun. Damn, we need some meds here. His heart’s jumping.”
The electrical shock. Frank’s sleeve was burned through. His face was white.
“Nothing in our kit,” Kate said. No one asked the sensible things: why was there shooting? where did you come from? none of those critical questions… as they hadn’t asked Kate why Kaplan was on armed guard here, looking for atevi.
He only thought about doing that, when suddenly the lights went out.
Jago’s small light immediately went on, spotting Frank and Polano. The bounce of luminance off the ceiling picked out the details of Kaplan and the rest in the hall… as Ginny Kroger came hurrying out of her cabin, gray hair in less than its accustomed order.
Clearly she hadn’t expected to see him, in the middle of the blackout, and with atevi eyes picking up reflected light in a way that inevitably touched off primal human fears.
“Mr. Cameron,” Kroger said in a reasonable, if strained, voice. “ Weseem to be in another outage. Do you know anything about this?—Or did you do it?”
“We’ve just had a little set-to with Tamun’s friends,” Bren said. “One of Ogun’s security is hurt. It’s pretty damned certain Ogun knows he’s in danger, if he’s still alive. What’s going on here?”
“Get a blanket.” That was Kaplan, no longer threatening with his rifle, showing a sign of peace, a simple outheld hand. “Let us wrap Frank up and get him warm. He’s shocked. He isn’t doing well. Needs to be as warm as we can manage. Shock takes it out of you. Keep ’im in the light if we can.”
“No question,” Bren said. “Kaplan, what in hell are you doing here?”
“Best we can,” Kaplan said. “Best we can, sir. Wish’t that rig was in better condition.”
“How much trouble are we in?” Ginny Kroger wanted to know, insistent and on the edge of her nerves. “Where’s Tom? Did he come up with the shuttle? Who’s out there?”
“Tom Lund ishere,” Bren said. “More, the aiji dowager is here, with thirty of her guard in our quarters and half a hundred of her guard and Lord Geigi’s stuck on the shuttle, which they have to get out of, before they freeze. They willget out of there in their own way in short order, if we don’t get clearance for them to leave and join us.”
“Shit,” Kaplan said. “What is this?”
“There’s going to be atevi, Kaplan. If you want this station fixed, you’re going to be outnumbered up here. Or was that ever the plan?”
“I’m not saying it wasn’t, sir, only…” Kaplan gave a nervous glance at Jago, whose eyes probably shone in the reflected light. “It’s perfectly fine, sir, except there’s a lot all of a sudden, and we’ve got problems right now.”
“They’re not here to take the ship. They arehere to run the station, which certain people aren’t happy about, as it seems.”
“So what are they going to do?” Kroger asked. “We can’t be firing guns up and down the corridors! This is a fragile environment!”
“I’m aware of that,” Bren said. “Believe me, I’m aware of it, and the atevi are just as aware of it. The shuttle crew is with those men. Damned right they know the danger.”
“Are we at war?” Kroger asked.
“I don’t know. I tried for help from Ogun. We’re not getting any help there. Ogun won’t come to our section; but at least he’s not with Tamun. He’s protecting all his alternatives.”