Stubbins’s voice said over the open channel, “Eric, get close enough to fire.”
“Yes, sir,” Eric said.
Marianne’s throat closed so suddenly she couldn’t breathe. Fire? Fire what? Why?
“How long?” Stubbins said.
“Assuming they don’t return to Vostochny—”
“They won’t,” Stubbins said grimly. “Not until we do. They don’t want us warning the Denebs what’s coming. Those Russky sons of bitches aren’t going to destroy my trade partners, much less my ship. We’ll get them first. Maneuver into firing range.”
“We don’t know the range of anything they might—”
“Do it!”
“Yes, sir.”
Breath whooshed back into Marianne’s lungs. Why didn’t Judy object?
Then she knew. Judy had opened the channel so Marianne could hear all this. She had not objected because she did not want to be thrown off the bridge and have it locked behind her. Judy’s paranoia had paid off—she suspected this might be Stubbins’s course of action. And now she and Marianne would have to stop it.
Three men on the bridge, two of them big, Stone a trained fighter. Wolski somewhere aft. The chances of she and Judy—middle-aged, unathletic, female—overpowering the men was nil. What did Judy expect her to do? Judy was the one on the bridge! But over and over Judy had told her “I’m a physicist, not an engineer.” Marianne had no idea of how well Judy understood the human equipment Stubbins had installed on the ship, or what Judy could or could not do with the Venture. And Marianne had far less understanding of the ship than Judy did. So what the fuck could Marianne do?
She could use her brains. It was all she’d ever had.
And… Where was Colin?
Marianne pressed her hands hard against the sides of her face. Then she tried the door to the storage bay. Inside the vast space were pallets of boxes and crates; the liftoff had been so smooth that they had not shifted a centimeter. Marianne said softly, “Colin?”
No answer.
Neatly stowed against the wall on hooks and in straps were tools for opening wooden crates. Marianne freed a crowbar, then tried the door at the far end of the area. It opened.
Exactly what she had expected: a small genetics lab. The familiar equipment—autoclave, sequencer, thermal cycler—looked jolting in this unfamiliar setting. But it was she who was the jolt, who was unfamiliar even to herself. The thudding of her heart melded with squeaks and rustles from the mouse cages lining one wall.
Wolski, bent over a bench, turned. “You! What are you doing—”
“Lie down on the floor,” Marianne said. “Right there. Or I’ll hit you with this.”
Wolski didn’t move. His eyes slid sideways, looking for a weapon of his own. He stood maybe five foot eight, not muscular—could she overpower him if she had to? A close call.
“I said lie down!”
Her tone, so effective with undergraduates and grandchildren, made no impression on Wolski. He started toward her. At the look in his eyes, she struck him on the shoulder with the crowbar.
He cried out and went down, grabbing at her legs. One of his arms got around her knees and she felt herself wobble. Fury filled her. This man—this son of a bitch travesty of a scientist who would set a plague free on strangers, on Noah, for potential profit—this insect would not get the best of her. Even as she was collapsing on top of Wolski, she swung the crowbar at his head.
A sickening crack.
He slumped to the floor and she fell on top of him.
Marianne scrambled away, still clutching the crowbar. Blood streamed from Wolski’s head. But head wounds always bled a lot, that didn’t mean he was that badly injured, didn’t mean he was dead….
She crept back toward him, took his limp wrist in her hand. He was dead.
She, who opposed the death penalty even for serial murderers, had just killed a man.
Weirdly, in numb shock, a line from an old novel came to her: “I won’t think about that today. I’ll think about that tomorrow.” Who? What book?
Then she pushed Margaret Mitchell’s potboiler out of her mind and staggered to her feet. This was an animal lab, which meant mice were sacrificed for autopsy, for tissue extraction, for DNA sequencing. What she needed would be here, somewhere.
She began opening cupboards and drawers. None were locked. Wolski had not anticipated anyone in here who might be a threat.
Colin heard Grandma call him, but he didn’t answer. He had wedged himself between two big mountains of boxes in the storage place, and he was still mad at Grandma. Let her look for him!
But she didn’t. He heard her open the door to the room where the mice were, then close it. The spaceship was so strange—Colin could hear every sound it made, but never in his whole entire life had he not also heard noises from the ground and the plants and the clouds. There wasn’t any ground or plants or clouds. He didn’t even have to put the sounds he heard in rows. The sounds in here—
The sounds got ugly.
Low talking, then louder talking (although he couldn’t make out any words), and then a scream! A crack! Something heavy fell to a floor.
Colin whimpered and shrunk back into his hiding place. But—Grandma had gone in there! What if that mouse man had hurt Grandma? Colin would have to rescue her, just like Brandon rescued the baby elephant in the basement. It was his job.
Still, he wished Jason and Luke and Ava were here to help.
In another minute he would go.
Somebody was slamming doors around in the mouse room. Then, a really loud smash.
In just one more minute he would go, as soon as he remembered just what it was that Brandon had done to make a rescue.
There it was. In the last cupboard she opened, the only one locked. She smashed the lock with the crowbar, smearing Wolski’s blood onto the metal door.
A part of her mind noted that she had become somebody else, somebody who could do these things without flinching. Adrenaline. Cortisone. Amygdala activation.
Necessity.
She had expected the ketamine and other anesthetics, although not in such large quantities. What she had not expected was the large, zippered leather case. But it made sense. Stubbins had not known, because nobody knew, what fauna might exist on World. And Stubbins was a man who believed in thorough preparation.
SURE-PRO VETERINARY TRANQUILIZER SYSTEMS said the lettering on the leather case. Inside were two pistols, syringe darts in graduated sizes, CO2 cylinders, and a puff sheet with maximum hype and minimum directions.
Best and most versatile dart pistol ever made!
Allows user to safely inject an animal without close and dangerous encounters!
Fingertip muzzle velocity control!
Rotating rear barrel port for quick and efficient loading!
Virtually silent!
Made in America!
“The best product I know—I use it all the time!”—James R. Strople, Chief Animal Control Officer, Colorado
And in much smaller letters:
Individual response to tranquilizing agents may vary widely.
Proper certification is necessary to administer any type of chemical immobilization.
Strangled laughter rose in Marianne; she recognized it as hysteria. A second sheet of paper included a table of suggested doses for various tranquilizing agents on different animals. Hands willed into steadiness, she followed the directions to load a CO2 cylinder, good for six shots, and a dart with the ketamine dosage for a black bear. She practiced ejecting and loading darts, then put four more in her pocket.