He stood there a moment, enjoying the view. The moon vast and full above him, Chung Kuo far to his right and below him, the sun between, magnificent even through the visor of his suit. It surprised him how much he felt in his element, standing there on the curved hull of the starship, staring fearlessly into the furnace of creation, the void pressing in upon him. He laughed soundlessly and then ducked down, his movements slow at first as he climbed toward the air lock, then more fluent as he caught the proper rhythm.
He slowed himself with the double rail, then pushed into the semicircular depression. Beside the hexagonal door-hatch was a numbered touch-pad. He fingered the combination quickly, almost thoughtlessly, then leaned back as the hatch irised, its six segments folding back upon themselves.
As expected, there was no guard. He pulled himself inside and closed the hatch.
This part was easy. He had done it a hundred, two hundred times in simulation. He had been trained to do this thoughtlessly. But at some point he would need to act on his own: to use his discretion and react with immediacy. Until then he went by rote, knowing every inch of the huge craft as if he had buiit it.
The air lock filled and the inner door activated. He went through quickly, his weapon searching for targets, finding nothing, no one. But somewhere an alarm would be flashing. Unauthorized entry at air lock seven. A matter for investigation. Security would be buzzing already. There would be guards at the next junction of the corridor.
Karr removed the two heat-seeking darts from his belt and pressed a button on his suit. In seconds the ice of his suit was minus ten. He hurled the darts ahead of him and raced down the corridor after them.
Explosions punctuated the silence up ahead. The darts had found their targets. Coming to the ruined corpses he leapt over them without stopping and ran on, taking the corridor to his left and going through the two quick-irising doors before he paused and anchored himself to the ceiling, the short securing chain attached to the back of his sturdy helmet.
He swung up and kicked. The inspection hatch moved but did not open. His second kick shifted it back and he hooked his feet through, scrambling up into the narrow space, releasing the anchor chain.
Here his size was a handicap. He turned awkwardly, putting back the hatch, knowing he had only seconds to spare.
He had cut it fine. He heard guards pass by below only a moment later, their confusion apparent. Good. It was going well.
Karr smiled, enjoying himself.
He moved quickly now, crawling along the inspection channel. Then, at the next down intersection, he swung out over the space and dropped.
He landed and turned about immediately, crouching down then working his way awkwardly into a second channel. This one came out at the back of the Security desk. Timing was crucial. In a minute or so they would have guessed what he had done.
Maybe they had already and were'waiting.
He shrugged and poised himself over the hatch, setting the charge. Then he went along to the second hatch. The explosion would blow a hole in the room next door to Security—a sort of recreation room. There would be no one there at present, but it would distract them while he climbed down.
He lifted the hatch cover a fraction of a second before the charge blew and was climbing down even as the guards turned below him, surprised by the explosion.
He landed on the neck of one of them and shot two others before they knew he was there among them. Another of the guards, panicking, helped Karr by burning two more of his colleagues.
Confusion. That, too, was a weapon, sharp as a knife.
Karr shot the panicking guard and rolled a smoke bomb into the corridor outside. Then he turned and blasted the Security communications desk. The screens went dead.
He waited a moment. The screens flickered into brief life, showing scenes of chaos in corridors and rooms throughout the starship, then they died again, the backups failing. The inside man had done his job.
Good, thought Karr. Now to conclude.
He went out into the corridor, moving fast, jumping over bodies, knocking aside confused, struggling guards. All they saw was a giant in a dark, eerily glowing suit, moving like an athlete down the corridor, unaffected by the thick, black choking •smoke.
He went right and right again, then fastened himself to the inner wall of the corridor, rolling a small charge against the hull.
The spiked charge almost tore his anchorage away. He was tugged violently toward the breach. The outer skin of the star-ship shuddered but held, beginning to seal itself. But it had bled air badly. It was down to half an atmosphere. Debris cluttered about the sealing hole.
In half a minute he released the anchor chain and ran on down the corridor, meeting no resistance now. Guards lay unconscious everywhere. Many had been thrown against walls or doorways and were dead or badly wounded. It was complete chaos.
The engine was inside, in the inner shell. A breach of the hull could not affect it.
This was the difficult part. They would be expecting him now. But he had a few tricks left to show them before he was done.
He ignored the inner-shell air lock and moved on to one of the ducts. It would have shut down the instant the outer hull was breached, making the inner shell airtight. Thick layers of ice were interlaced like huge fingers the length of a man's arm. Above them a laser-protected sensor registered the atmospheric pressure of the outer shell.
Karr undipped a rectangular container from his belt and took two small packages from it. The first was a one-atmosphere "pocket." He fitted it over the sensor quickly, ignoring the brief, warning sting from the laser. The second.of the packages he treated with a care that seemed exaggerated. It was ice-wire: a long thread of the deadly cutting material. He drew it out cautiously and pulled it taut, then swiftly used it to cut the securing bolts on each of the six sides of the duct.
The whole thing dropped a hand's length as the lasers blinked out. There was a soft exhalation of air. The sound an elevator makes when it stops.
Karr waited a moment, then began cutting into the casing with small, diagonal movements that removed pieces of the ice like chunks of soft cheese. As the gap widened he cut deeper into the casing and then pulled back and set the thread down.
He climbed up onto the casing and kicked. Three of the segments fell away. He eased himself down into the gap.
It was far narrower than he had anticipated and for a moment he thought he was going to be stuck. The segments had wedged against the internal mechanism of the duct at an awkward angle, leaving him barely enough room to squeeze by. He managed, just, but his right arm was trapped against the wall and he couldn't reach the device taped to his chest.
He shifted his weight and stood on tiptoe, edging about until his hand and lower arm were free, then reached up and unstrapped the bomb from his chest.
Another problem presented itself. He could not reach down and place the device against the inner casing of the duct. There was no way he could fasten it.
Did it matter? He decided that it didn't. He would strengthen the upper casing when he was out. The explosion would be forced inward.
It was such a small device. So delicate a thing. And yet so crude in its power.
He placed the bomb between his knee and the duct wall, then let it slide down between leg and wall, catching it with his foot.
He didn't want it to go up with him there.
He touched the timer with his boot and saw it glow red. Eight minutes to get out.
He began to haul himself up the sides of the duct, using brute force, legs and back braced, his thickly muscled arms straining to free himself from the tight-packed hole.
At the top he paused and looked around. What could he use? He bent down and picked up the ice-wire, then went to a nearby room and cut machinery away from the decks, then brought it back and piled it up beside the breached duct.