"Open it," Antoniewicz said, flicking his eyes to one of the bodyguards.
"While we wait, McKell, you can start fixing my ship."
"Yes, sir," I said. Furtively, with the feeling of someone about to rub saltinto his own raw flesh, I looked over at Tera. Knowing that, however painfulit was going to be, I had to see how she was taking this.
I was prepared for rage, for fear, for even borderline hysteria. But there wasnone of that in her face. Not anymore. Her face was instead totally drained ofemotion, as dead as Antoniewicz's eyes, the face of someone facing the end ofall things with the certain knowledge that there was nothing left to beredeemed from the ashes. The strong industrialist's daughter, the proud and defiantroyalpersonage—all of that was gone. There was nothing left but fatigue, and ayoungwoman facing the inevitability of her own death.
"I trusted you," she said quietly.
I turned my eyes away. It hurt just exactly as bad as I'd expected it to. "I'msorry," I said. "I did what I had to."
I estimated it would take about ten minutes for Pix to make it to the center of the sphere and trip the stargate mechanism. I took my time unlocking the sealsI'd put on the Icarus's helm and nav systems, with the result that nine ofthose minutes were gone by the time I walked back down to where Antoniewicz and theothers were still waiting. "They can get started now," I told Antoniewicz, nodding up at the techs. "I locked down the computer and engine controls, too, but I can't undo that until the helm and nav have been fired up and done theirself-checks."
"Then you should go up there so as to be ready for that occurrence,"
Antoniewicz said, gesturing up toward the computer and the two bodyguards standing watchover the now open access panel. "You've cost me far too much time as it is."
"It'll take another few minutes before I can get started," I told him. "In themeantime, I wanted to give you a warning."
His eyebrows lifted in obvious amusement. "Indeed? Something to do with youand the others, no doubt?"
"Not at all," I said. "I wanted to tell you that I've heard rumors that Genevahas folded under Patth pressure and forbidden all Earth citizens andassociates to give aid to the Icarus,"
"And you think such orders apply to me?" Antoniewicz said, even more amused.
"Not your core people, no," I said. "But a lot of your looser associates mightget cold feet under that kind of pressure, particularly those quiet governmentand military contacts you've got who will now have management or seniorofficers looking over their shoulders. Add to that the Patth reward, which is probablydoubling every six hours, and even you might have trouble moving and hidingthe Icarus."
"I'm quite aware of the challenges involved," Antoniewicz said. "That wasprecisely why I came myself, bringing only those most loyal to me." He gave meanother of those micrometer smiles. "That's also why I'll be taking the Icarusto one of my private estates when we leave here."
I glanced at Ixil. "I see," I said. "I presume you'll be dropping Ixil andTera and me off on the way?"
He frowned, another micrometer-level expression. "Who said anything aboutdropping you off anywhere?"
"That was the deal," I reminded him, frowning in turn. "I would give youCameron in exchange for Tera."
"Ah, yes," Antoniewicz said. "I forgot." He craned his neck to look at thehelm.
"Yodanna?" he called.
"Helm coming up now, Mr. Antoniewicz," one of the techs called back.
"What about the rest of the ship?"
"Checking now, sir, but it looks promising."
Antoniewicz looked back at me. "For such a clever man, McKell, you'reamazinglystupid sometimes," he said. "Ms. Cameron is far too useful as insurance forher father's cooperation for me to release her. As for you and your alien, the two of you are far too dangerous to keep around any longer than necessary." Helooked up again. "Yodanna?"
"Yes, sir," the call wafted its way back down to us. "I've got the sequence heused. We can unlock the computer and engine systems ourselves."
Antoniewicz looked back at me. "And I would say that the moment ofobsolescence has arrived sooner than expected," he said quietly. "I always offer a man thechance for final words, McKell. Have you any?"
A ripple of breeze brushed past my hair "No last words, Mr. Antoniewicz," Isaid firmly, standing up straight and closing my eyes. "Go ahead and shoot."
Even with my eyes closed, it was like a strobe light had gone off in my face.
A
multiple strobe light, a dozen flickering bursts of light like the prophetElijah calling fire down from heaven. I heard a gasp from somewhere beside me, a
startled reflexive scream from Tera, an equally startled curse from BrotherJohn.
And then, silence. Cautiously, wary of another round of flashes, I eased openmyeyes.
Antoniewicz was standing rigidly exactly where I'd left him, his face utterlyexpressionless. Everett had turned completely white. Brother John's face waswhite, too, his expression that of a man walking through a graveyard in thedead of night.
Which was, I decided as I looked around, an extremely apt analogy. All aroundus, this most loyal group of Antoniewicz's bodyguards were sprawled on thedeck where they'd stood, their weapons for the most part still clutched in rigidhands, the tops of their heads smoking with the nose-curling stink of burnthair and skin and bone. Fire from heaven, indeed.
From Tera's direction came a sudden choked gasp—apparently, her vision wasjustnow clearing up from the aftereffects of that multiple stutter of laser fire.
"It's all right, Tera," I assured her quickly, crossing to her side. "Justrelax. It's all over."
"But—" She broke off, looking back over her shoulder at the entrance to thewraparound "Not there," I told her, pointing above us. "There."
Even having known what to expect, I had to admit the sight was something tobehold. There were twelve of them grouped together in a tight knot in thecenter of the sphere, starting now to drift off in various directions toward the hullunder the influence of the alien grav field. Their squashed-iguana faces wereonly partly visible through their helmet faceplates, the body-armored ferretscrouching on their broad shoulders adding a surrealistic touch of theridiculous to the scene.
But there was nothing either surrealistic or ridiculous about the heavymilitarycombat lasers in their hands, or in the steady professional grip with whichtheypointed them at Antoniewicz, Brother John, Everett, and the three techs.
"They're Royal Kalixiri commandos," I said into the stunned silence, just incase my audience was too shy to ask the question themselves. "Loaned to us bythe one government in the Spiral that no longer has anything to lose by defyingthe Patth."
Tera was still staring up at them. "But—you said—where's my father?"
"He's safe," I told her. "The Icarus isn't a stardrive, you see. It's astargate, connected to a duplicate somewhere hell and away across the galaxy.
Your father accidentally triggered it and got bounced to the other end."
"The other end has Kalixiri in it?" Everett demanded, his voice distant andconfused.
"Hardly," I said. "Or rather, it didn't until a couple of hours ago. TheKalixiri were waiting here when we landed, hidden down in the trees—that's themain reason I insisted on parking the ship so close in under the branches.
Once it was dark, and once I'd chased Everett out and put on the hatchwayfloodlightsso that the glare would mask their movements, they used a collapsible ladderand the latch grooves on the starboard side to climb onto the engine section, goin through that dorsal hatch, and from there into the small sphere and down therabbit hole to where your father was waiting."
"So then... Pix?"
"Actually, I worked rather hard to maneuver Mr. Antoniewicz into insistingthat Pix go in instead of me," I said, looking at Antoniewicz. The dead look hadbeen replaced now by a clear and violent lust for death. My death. But then theKalixiri were landing on the deck around him, and the commandos and armor andheavy lasers were between him and the rest of us, and he'd lost his chanceforever. "When Pix went across, he took with him his visual memories of thenumber, weapon-status, and approximate placement of the men they'd have totake down. Popping in from nowhere, and in the last place anyone would expect anattack to come from, the whole thing was almost literally a duck shoot. Theonlyreal question was whether they'd get here before Antoniewicz decided I wasn'tuseful anymore and had me shot."