This Day All Gods Die (80 page)

So how the hell was Angus supposed to endure being out here? Minutes or hours ago he'd mapped his route; planned for every contingency he could imagine. For the remaining eight minutes, or seven, he had nothing to do. He'd abandoned the false, necessary safety of Trumpet much earlier than necessary. He'd consigned himself to this hell as if he'd believed the experience would be good for him.

Stupid shit.

For as long as he could remember he'd been at his best when he was terrified: faster, stronger, smarter than under any other circumstances. But it wasn't true now. He'd become a man he didn't recognize, and everything he did was alien to him.

That bastard's so big—

, he'd told Ciro. I need time to

study her. But he'd been lying. The truth was that he'd hoped the sight of so much terrible emptiness would help him recover himself; turn him back into the man he remembered.

What was he doing here? What in God's name had made him think this was a good idea? The Angus Thermopyle he remembered would have cheerfully stayed aboard Punisher; let Warden fucking Dios and UMCPHQ and Suka Bator and the whole damn planet rot in their own brutality. Or he would have broken Trumpet away from the command module; fired the drives; taken his chances burning for open space. But he hadn't done that. Not him: not the new, smitten, brain-numb Angus. Instead he'd offered to rescue the whole motherless lot of them. Or get himself killed in the attempt.

What had possessed him?

A datacore with a crippled instruction-set? Not likely: he hadn't felt the coercion of his zone implants.

Or was it Morn? Maybe. She'd been totally, abjectly in his power after Starmaster's end—

and yet she'd saved his life

when Nick's trap sprang on him. She'd released him from his priority-codes for the simple, silly, imponderable reason that she believed welding him was wrong. And she'd gone on trusting him, despite the accumulated risks. She'd eaten her way into his heart somehow: he couldn't forget what he owed her.

Nevertheless as far as he could tell the one—

or the final

—

thing which had removed him from his own recognition like a sated mother when he'd suffered as much as she needed was the fact that Warden Dios had kept a promise. He'd told Angus, It's got to stop. And he'd made good on his commitment. He'd erased every restriction which might have prevented Angus from killing him.

By the harsh logic of Warden's mercy, Angus found that he now had no choice except to rescue the bastard. One kept promise—

and Morn's trust—

were enough: they compelled

him like a hardwired command.

Despite everything he'd suffered—

and everything he'd

learned from so much pain—

he could still be seduced into

idiocy.

"Shit," he rasped to Ciro because he thought he would snap unless he heard a human voice soon, "if the fat man doesn't slow down, he's going to ram that damn port. Crumple us like tin when we hit. We'll bleed to death in our fucking suits before the Amnion figure out we're here."

That wasn't true, of course. His computer calculated trajectory and deceleration automatically: he knew Dolph was bringing them in safely. By now Calm Horizons was so near that she'd stopped growing. Her size and the polarization of his faceplate conveyed the illusion that he could reach out and touch her whenever he wanted. He cursed and complained for the simple reason that in moments he would have to meet a complex sequence of hazards which scared him more than all of space.

It was almost time. In another minute or two he would cast his life to the solar winds—

and take as many of his ene-

mies with him as he could.

For the tenth—

or the hundredth—

time, he checked to be

sure his cutters were fully charged, then adjusted his polarization to compensate for Calm Horizons' chaos of spotlights and shadow.

Ciro surprised him by remarking distantly, "You did that already."

Angus secured the cutters at his sides. "I know," the man he didn't recognize sighed. "I'm just scared." God, when had he started admitting things like that? "If I don't get to them in time, they'll all be Amnion. Then I'll have to kill them."

Struggling to remember himself, he finished harshly, "In case you screw up."

"I won't screw up," the kid answered without distress.

He seemed to have the patience of the damned. "I remember everything you told me. I can do it."

Angus snorted. "Just don't forget you'll be exposed as soon as I leave," he warned. "My jamming fields don't have a hell of a lot of range."

"I can do it," Ciro repeated. He sounded almost tranquil.

Abruptly Dolph's deep rumble filled Angus' helmet.

"You could get started, Angus," he suggested. "We're close enough. Your suit jets are faster than walking."

Like Angus, Punisher's captain was worried about Davies, Vector, and Warden. If Angus took too long crossing the defensive's huge hull—

or if Dolph failed to break the com-

mand module free from the docking seals in time—

"No." Angus shook his head bitterly inside his helmet.

"I can hide myself, but I can't cover up jet emission. If those fuckers spot it, they might guess what I'm up to."

Marc Vestabule might remember enough of his humanity to jump to the right conclusions.

"Then," Mikka put in, "you better be damn fast." A raw edge of stim ran through her exhaustion. She might have been close to hysteria. "Davies is probably desperate enough to take on a whole platoon of Amnion. But Vector doesn't know how to fight—

and he isn't exactly tough." Grimly she added,

"God knows what condition Dios is in.

"The Amnion are too strong, Angus," she finished raggedly. "Too many—

You won't have much time."

"We need a diversion," Dolph muttered, "Something to slow them down. Unfortunately I can't think of anything to help us. Or anybody."

Angus swore under his breath. It was true that a diversion might save them. It might distract the Amnion enough to make them miss Ciro. It might give Davies and Vector a few precious extra minutes. But it might also prod Calm Horizons into opening fire too soon. Then all their lives would be wasted.

In any case, Dolph was right: there was no help available.

"Are Davies and Vector ready?" Angus asked while his eyes and his computer measured distances, estimated timings.

"They've been in the airlock for the past ten minutes,"

Dolph reported. "But they'll try to delay as much as they can without being obvious about it."

He didn't need to add that if Davies and Vector made the Amnion suspicious Calm Horizons might fire before Angus could carry out any of the tasks he'd assigned himself.

"All right." Angus' machine projections approached the synchronization he wanted. "I'm on my way in thirty seconds."

If they all died, he would have only himself to blame.

Despite the harm Dios had done him, he found that he was grateful for his welding. Between the stark, hot beams of the spotlights, shadows as impenetrable as tombs shrouded Calm Horizons' uneven hull. Without the support of his zone implants and his datacore, he would have been sure to fail.

Roughly he turned to Ciro. "Don't screw up. I mean it.

Get set up. Then wait for my signal. If you jump the gun, this is going to backfire so fast you won't even see it happen."

He couldn't see through Ciro's faceplate; but the kid's helmet inclined like a nod. "I understand."

"Just do it, Angus," Mikka interrupted. "We don't have time to discuss it anymore." Grimly she continued, "I'll start warming up the drives as soon as you head back this way."

"They'll still have matter cannon," Angus returned—

a

last warning. "This fucker can pound us to powder as soon as she gets a targ fix."

Then Calm Horizons would smash UMCPHQ. And Punisher.

And Morn.

"I know." Fatigue and strain fretted Mikka's tone. "I've studied myself blind on this dispersion field generator."

Angus' plans depended on that generator—

and on

Mikka's timing. But they also rested absolutely on Ciro's shoulders. And on his own. On his implanted equipment as well as his quickness, determination, and cunning.

In addition, they hinged on Dolph, Davies, and Vector.

There were too many variables: the whole damn sequence was too vulnerable. If just one small piece fell out of place, it would all collapse.

He braced himself to move; but Mikka wasn't done.

"Angus—

" she offered softly. "I wanted to say—

" Her voice

had become a low moan like a prayer. "Ciro and I, Sib, Vector

—

we didn't have anything to do with framing you. Nick kept it secret. He handled it himself."

Angus heard her unspoken appeal as clearly as words.

Save Ciro. Please. If you can. Her brother wasn't responsible for delivering him to fucking Hashi and UMCPDA.

He could have promised that he would try, but there was no point. The kid had already chosen his own doom.

Instead of insulting Mikka with dishonest reassurance, he retorted acidly, "I already knew that. Why do you think I've been so damn nice to you?"

Hadn't he been nice to her? On Nick's orders he'd nearly crushed her skull. But he'd measured his force to let her live.

It was time. His zone implants enabled him to move without hesitation, despite the sweat stinging his eyes and the fear laboring in his veins. While the command module and Trumpet coasted across the last fifty meters toward the emblazoned docking port in Calm Horizons' side, he undipped his belt from its anchor in one smooth motion.

Trusting the strength and precision of his welded resources, he launched himself away from Ciro into the direct blaze of the spotlights. Weightless and silent, covered by every jamming field he could project, he sailed straight as the stroke of. death toward the distant emitter of the warship's super-light proton cannon.

in the airlock while Captain

Ubikwe eased the command module along its final approach to Calm Horizons. They wore their EVA suits, but hadn't put on their helmets yet. The act of sealing themselves in completely seemed too final; too fatal.

And without their helmets they could talk privately. Even Captain Ubikwe wouldn't hear them unless they used the intercom: Mikka, Angus, and Ciro wouldn't hear them. Once they locked their helmets in place, their suit transmitters would link them to Trumpet as well as the command module, if not to Angus and Ciro. And the Amnion would be able to pick up their signal—

That was deliberate, although Davies hated it. They could have tuned their communications to the same frequency Angus and Ciro used. But if they did so the Amnion might somehow acquire that channel. They might trace it from the suits; detect it from the helmet speakers. For that reason Angus had told Davies and Vector to use a separate frequency, one Calm Horizons might monitor. Captain Ubikwe would still hear them; but the other communications on which Angus' plans depended would be protected.

Davies accepted that. Hell, he didn't even complain about it, even though it meant the Amnion might hear him gasping in dread. He had enough other worries: he didn't waste time fretting over whether or not he would sound scared to his enemies when he went to face his doom.

He'd volunteered for this—

before Angus had suggested

other possibilities. When he'd said, I'll go, he'd assumed that he would surrender himself to mutation; a ruin far more complete and cruel than any kind of death. And Vector had stepped forward on the same terms: that was the bond between them.

Yet now they had dangerous and demanding roles in a scheme so elaborate—

and so utterly reliant on variables none of them could control—

that it still took his breath away whenever he thought about it.

He felt that he was being pulled apart by conflicting emotions. The airlock could have held eight or ten people, but it seemed too small to contain his tension. The restrictions of his suit frustrated his elevated metabolism. If he hadn't been able to talk to Vector, his concentration might have snapped.

Part of him ached like an amputation because he wasn't with Morn. She was doing what a cop should do—

giving evi-

dence about crimes she'd witnessed and experienced, no matter how much the truth hurt her. To some extent humankind's future rested on what she said. And her son had been imprinted with her mind: he wanted to be with her while she spoke. He burned to support her testimony with his; to stand beside her and for her when she was questioned; to cram her conclusions down the throats of those who doubted her.

Another part of him needed to be where he was, however.

The sheer ingenuity of Angus' plans entranced him. And they fed his desire to fight—

a deep, thwarted yearning which he'd

never been able to satisfy. Like Director Donner and Captain Ubikwe, he craved to confront humanity's enemies with guns and violence. An acute hunger for gunfire filled his heart; for blows struck in the good cause of humankind's survival. He'd been bred for extremity in Morn's womb, and he needed to act on it.

And yet another part of him, more profound than consciousness—

his visceral, genetic being—

quailed in horror at

the prospect of facing the Amnion again. The danger to which he submitted wasn't simply that he would be transformed to the stuff of nightmares. It was far worse. If the Amnion succeeded with him, he would be used to impose the ultimate nightmare on his entire species. At the base of his brain, mutely, while the rest of his mind struggled to contain its conflicts, he gibbered with fear so sharp that it threatened to unman him.

God, it might have been kinder if Angus had just let them go die. That way he and Vector would at least have known where they stood. They could have tried to make their peace with despair.

This way—

Apparently Vector felt the same. Despite the familiar self-mockery in his tone, his blue eyes were troubled as he said,