Gridlinked (12 page)

'And the other?' asked Pelter.

'Quarter of a million for the three of us. We have to be at the spaceport first thing in the morning, and we have to get in there by ourselves. Jarvellis says that it's then or never, as she's leaving at first light. Apparently it's getting just a bit too hot around the ports. Not only are the police searching for us, but they're following up on Cormac's report about proscribed weapons. ECS monitors down there have been asking pointed questions about why an insystem cargo transport needs under-space engines.'

'Is that all?'

'No, when we get to the
Lyric
the hold doors will be open. Inside she'll provide supplies for insystem, and two cold coffins for when she takes us interstellar. That's all we get. She wants no contact with us,' Stanton said.

Pelter rubbed at his optic link and Stanton noted Mr Crane's head come up.

'That bitch has made a lot of money from us over the years, and she won't let us into the crew quarters!' Pelter started at a whisper and finished on a shout.

Stanton gestured to Mr Crane. 'She knows about him. She brought him here,' he said.

'You told her?' Pelter asked.

Stanton felt sweat breaking out on his forehead. Mr Crane was putting away his toys.

'I had to, Arian,' he said. 'If we'd turned up without letting her know we had him with us, she might well have not opened her ship at all. I couldn't risk that.'

Pelter lowered his hand, then abruptly he squatted. Mr Crane froze.

'Very well,' he said. 'We'll get over there in the night and go on in. I don't think we'll have too much trouble. Now… John… give Mr Crane his parcel.'

Stanton walked over to the android, dropped the parcel on the ground before him and stepped back. Crane reached out one brass hand and pulled it closer. He tore locally manufactured paper wrapping away and tilted his head at the contents. Then he stood and stripped off his old, burned coat. Stanton observed that very little synthetic skin now clung to Crane's brass body. There was none at all on his arms, or on his face and head. He carefully placed his old coat on the ground and took up the new one. Methodically he buttoned it up, before taking up the wide-brimmed hat that had become slightly crushed in the parcel. He first straightened the hat, men placed it carefully on his head. His toys he removed from the pockets of his old coat and placed in the pockets of his new one. After a pause he squatted back down and started to take them out again, one by one.

'Mr Crane is very pleased,' said Pelter.

'I'm glad to hear that,' Stanton replied.

A white craft, looking like nothing less than a giant cuttlefish bone, rose into the night sky in eerie silence. When it was half a kilometre up, the green light of an ion drive stuttered, and it accelerated away. Stanton watched it for a moment, then focused his attention back down on the fence. More activity than usual; he had expected no less.

Security round the spaceport was heavy, but quite simply less secure than that around the runcible installation. Here a submind of the runcible AI had as its domain the perimeter fence and the two gates, but because cargos could be large, or sealed, or containing items impenetrable to scan and which, under Polity law, could not be unpacked, only scanned, things still got through. Also, because the Polity was supposed to be effectively without borders for its citizens, there were no constant restrictions on their passage. Because ECS would be searching for him and Pelter and Mr Crane, Stanton now expected restrictions. However, he did wonder if the authorities really thought it likely the three of them would just try walking in there.

Proscribed weapons were the only items disallowed. Stanton considered that, with the freedoms the Polity allowed, it had shot itself in the foot as far as rebellion -and the apprehending of criminals - was concerned. The sort of ad hoc operation going on now was full of holes. After searching the length of security fence once again, he lowered his intensifier and turned to Pelter.

'Local cops at both gates, and a couple of ECS Monitors,' he said, and then peered at the glowing face of his watch. 'We've got about an hour.'

Pelter nodded and glanced at their original AGC. Stanton followed his gaze. The two men inside were, of course, utterly still. There was something a bit spooky about seeing them sitting there in Stanton's and Pelter's clothing. The two ECS Monitors had drunk just a little too much in the arcology bar, so had no time to react when Mr Crane stepped out in front of them. Of course, reacting would have done them no good. Mr Crane just slammed their heads together and carried them away. Stanton wished he had not slammed them together quite so hard, as he pulled the collar of the appropriated uniform away from his neck. The blood inside was drying fast and the hardening material scratched against his skin.

'You'd better try and link in,' he added, when Pelter seemed disinclined to move.

Pelter looked at Mr Crane, then at the AGC again.

'There a problem?' Stanton asked.

'Mr Crane will be off the command frequency for the duration, but he is pleased with his coat,' Pelter replied. Stanton translated that as 'off his leash', and wondered if he wanted to take this any further. Was it a calculated risk or suicide?

'We can try ramming the fence,' he suggested.

Pelter stared at him, all indecision wiped from his face. 'We stay with this plan. It gives us all the best chance.' He turned to Mr Crane who was sitting in the back of the Monitors' AGC. Mr Crane took off his hat and dropped down out of sight. Pelter raised a hand to the side of his head, and let out a slow breadi as he concentrated. While he was doing this Stanton walked over to their original vehicle and opened the door. An arm flopped out and he picked it up and tucked it back into the dead man's lap before taking a chip card from his pocket. He rested it in the slot of the onboard computer and watched Pelter. After a moment Pelter turned towards him.

'Now,' he said.

Stanton pushed the card home, then punched in a code that their cell had bought almost a year ago now.

'City control… city control… city control,' the computer burbled.

'I have it,' said Pelter, his voice echoed by the computer.

Stanton turned and reached over the dead man's shoulder, gave the tap of the oxygen cylinder tüere one half turn, and men stepped back and slammed the door of the vehicle. He held up his diumb to Pelter. The vehicle's AG engaged and it lifted from the ground. Above Stanton's head it spun 360 degrees, men tilted from side to side. It then hovered stable where it was.

'Let's do it,' said Pelter, his face creased with concentration and a manic grin. He lowered his hand and turned toward the Monitors' vehicle, climbing in the passenger side. Stanton hesitated to join him. He did not like the fact that Mr Crane was now sitting up again and looking about himself with birdlike interest. When he finally did get in the car, Stanton could feel the skin on his back crawling.

'You can handle the targeting?' Pelter asked him.

Stanton hit the controls on the steering column, then from the roof he dropped down a targeting mask. As he did this, two polished cannons whined out of the bonnet of the car and swivelled from side to side.

'You just handle the target, I'll handle the targeting,' he said.

Pelter gave him a dead look, men returned his attention to the AGC with the corpses in it. It rose higher into the air, its turbines droned and it shot off away from the spaceport. Stanton lifted off and was quickly in behind it. Shortly the arcology came into view, with its great tower blocks looming behind.

'Let's get some attention,' said Stanton, and on the locked onboard computer he manually turned on the radio long enough to shout, 'We've got him! We've got him! It's Arian Pelter! In pursuit of Arian Pelter!' Then he turned it off. 'Now some fireworks,' he said.

Wisps of vapour came off the cannons as they warmed up, and laser light ignited the early morning mist. Pelter swerved the AGC they were apparently chasing, and had it screaming back towards the spaceport.

'A few more like diat, I dunk,' said Pelter, his voice strained.

More laser fire lit the night. The citizens of Gordon-stone were treated to the sight of an ECS Monitors' AGC blasting away at a citizen's AGC, and missing time and again. Many citizens cheered on the fugitive as he fled between the city blocks and over the roofs of the arcologies. They were then treated to the sight of more ECS and local police vehicles joining the chase, and speeding out towards the spaceport. It soon became impossible to see which one was the original pursuer…

'All warning shots,' said Stanton as he eased back on the control column and let the last of the other pursuers get ahead. 'Why bother shooting someone down who you know has to land and will most certainly be caught?'

Pelter did not answer. Stanton studied him and saw that fluid was seeping out round his optic link again. It was mixing with the sweat on his face.

'We're coming to the spaceport. Time to wrap it up, Arian.'

The AGC reputedly containing the fugitives Arian Pelter and John Stanton attempted a high-speed landing in the spaceport. It clipped the top of the fence and slewed violently to one side. Over the fence it clipped the grab claw of an old cometary mining ship, then went nose-first into the plascrete below an Apollo-replica insystem leisure craft. It somersaulted once, then hit the base of the Apollo and exploded. The criminals had to have been carrying explosives, as there was nothing explosive in the makeup of a normal AGC. Shortly after this explosion, all the pursuing craft came in to land in the spaceport.

Stanton brought the AGC down a good distance back from the flames and the flashing lights. Pelter turned and stared at Mr Crane, and all the bird motions ceased. The android tilted his head to one side, then quite meekly got out of the vehicle. It struck Stanton that he had the appearance of a cartoon businessman, standing there holding Pelter's briefcase, but really there was nothing about him to make children laugh. Stanton got out of the AGC shortly after Pelter, and the three of them moved off between the looming ships.

'It's right over the other side,' said Stanton, and then snorted at the sound of laughter from behind them. 'We should be halfway from the system by the time they find out they've been celebrating the wrong funeral.'

The three of them continued on through the mega-lithic shadows cast by the early sun breaking over the horizon. Soon they came in sight of the further fence. Stanton pointed to a ship that consisted of three spheres linked by tubes that were a third of their diameter; the triangle this construction formed was 100 metres along the side and enclosed a circular drive plate. The
Lyric
was one of the smaller ships here. Stanton led them to one of the thirty-metre spheres, where a ramp led to an open iris door, beyond which harsh light glared. Pelter halted him with a hand on his shoulder and made a sharp gesture with his other hand. Mr Crane strode on ahead, his heavy boots clunking on the ramp as he entered the ship. Pelter then pressed his hand to his optic link. Stanton wondered when Pelter would get used to it enough to stop doing that.

'OK,' said Pelter after a moment, and they followed the android in.

The hold was a disc cut right through the sphere, its walls the insulated skin of the ship itself. Circular lighting panels were set in, evenly, all around. To one side there were bundles and packages. In the centre of the hold, cylindrical cryopods were secured in an open framework. This framework ran from ceiling to floor and took up most of the space. From each of these pods skeins of optic cable and ribbed tubes ran to junction plugs in the floor. Two separate pods were bolted to the floor at the end of the framework. They too were linked into the ship's systems. On every pod was stencilled the words 'Oceana Foods Stock Item', and a number.

Stanton ignored Pelter's intake of breath and chose not to look at him.

'Fucking animals,' Pelter hissed.

Stanton did not want to correct him. It would perhaps be best if he did not know that this cargo mainly consisted of edible molluscs in cryostasis.

'They'll work for us. They've been adapted,' was all he said.

As soon as they were well into the hold, the ramp retracted behind them. Pelter turned to watch it, but Stanton kept his eye on Crane, who was just returning, having completed a circuit of the cargo framework. When Crane stopped and abruptly squatted down, he turned and watched the door iris shut on the dawn light. As the final dot was extinguished, an intercom crackled.

'You've got sleeping bags, food, water and a toilet,' a woman's voice told them. 'You can't see the toilet - I've linked it into the plumbing on the other side from you. The two cryopods, I suggest you use at the earliest opportunity, as supplies are limited. Now, the matter of payment.'

Pelter gestured to the briefcase Crane was holding. 'I have it here, Jarvellis. Just let me through and we'll complete the transaction,' he said.

'Arian Pelter, if you think I am going to open the bulkhead door with that thing on board, then you are more stupid than I gave you credit for,' said Jarvellis.

'There is, just for this kind of eventuality, a hatch in the bulkhead door, to your left.'

Stanton saw frustrated anger twist Pelter's face, then get quickly suppressed. The Separatist looked to Mr Crane, and the android stood up. Just at that moment mere was a lurch and Stanton felt his stomach twist. They were up and moving. They'd made it. Crane walked over, his head tilting as if he had an inner-ear problem. He handed the case to Pelter.

'Not yet, Pelter,' said Jarvellis.

'Why not? Don't you want your money?'

There was a surge of acceleration, inadequately compensated for in the hold. Ionic boosters.

'I say not yet because I am not entirely stupid. I open the access hatch and friend Crane there will have enough purchase to rip out the bulkhead door. I won't open the hatch until we're out of atmosphere. Then, if any attempt is made to break through a door, of which -I want you to be aware - there are two, I'll just open the hold to vacuum. Is that perfectly clear?'