This Day All Gods Die (93 page)

"Shit," Angus remarked to the display screens. In another minute Dios' silence was going to make him angry. The man was entirely too eager to end up dead. Like Ciro, he was crazy with mutagens. Or he'd been crazy all along—

Clearing the command board, Angus released his belts and followed the director.

He caught up with Dios at the weapons locker. Warden had shucked off his EVA suit, and was helping himself to everything he could carry: an impact rifle and several charge clips; two laser pistols; a dagger with a serrated edge; half a dozen concussion grenades.

Angus whistled through his teeth. "I guess we're expecting trouble."

Dios fixed a gaze of pure concentration on Angus—

a look

of such focus that it seemed to admit no weakness, allow no emotion. "You could say that." The authority in his voice had become as hard as a fist. Like a predator he meant to go for the kill while his opponent was weak.

"Home Security has worked up here for decades," he explained. Helping Fasner. "They probably think they won't like what happens if they don't resist. When she gets around to mopping up, Min will have the lot of them arrested. They'll face all sorts of charges, starting with that attack on Suka Bator. As long as they hope there might be a way out of this mess, they'll fight."

Angus tried to imagine "a way out" for them. A ship? A bargain? Some kind of executive miracle? But he didn't care what it might be.

At least Warden was talking to him again.

"So what's the plan?" he asked while he peeled off his own EVA suit; got rid of the encumbrance.

Dios clipped the handguns to his belt, stuffed his pockets with grenades. All the hesitation had been burned out of him long ago. "I want you to go after Holt."

Angus raised his eyebrows. He hadn't expected Warden to give him his chance this easily.

"How am I supposed to find him?"

"Look for his gap yacht," Warden answered.

"Motherlode. She's probably berthed somewhere in the hub.

If he isn't there now, he will be eventually. She's his way out.''

Shaking his head, Angus moved to take his turn at the weapons locker. "I don't think so." He'd already studied that possibility. "From the hub he won't have a window on open space. Two of Donner's ships are close enough to hit him before he reaches gap velocity. He'll have a berth somewhere out on the rim."

At the right moment in HO's rotation, Fasner would have a clear escape vector.

But the outer perimeter of the torus stretched for at least twenty k. Angus would need hours to search that much of the station.

Warden paused. "In that case—

" He thought for a mo-

ment, then said, "You should probably talk to his mother. She might not tell me where he is. But I'm sure she'll tell you."

Angus didn't try to hide his surprise. He wanted to ask, Fasner has a mother? Still? Isn't he too old? But he had no time for secondary considerations. Instead he countered,

"Why would she do that?"

Grimly, Dios assured him, "You'll figure it out when you see her."

Before Angus could argue, the director gave him a quick set of directions which made sense to one. of his databases.

"All right." Angus set his uncertainty aside. He didn't intend to let it weigh him down. From the locker he selected two impact rifles and a double handful of charge clips. "What do you want me to do if I catch up with him?"

Again Dios looked at him: a stare like a flare of urgency

—

or a promise of murder.

"I trust you. Just do what comes naturally."

He seemed to think he could have imposed restrictions on Angus, if he'd chosen to do so.

Angus grinned fiercely. "A free hand. I like it."

Shoving the charge clips into his pockets, he slung his rifles over his shoulders and headed for the lift.

"All right," he repeated as the lift sank toward the airlock. "Assume it all works. His mother"—

shit, his mother?—

"tells me how to find his yacht. I get there in time. What'll you be doing?"

"I'm going after his data." Warden tapped on the keypad to open the inner doors of the lock. "That's his real power. If he's still downloading it to his yacht, I'll cut it off. I want to make sure it can't be used to do any more damage."

"You know his codes?" Angus asked incredulously.

The director shook his head. "I don't have to. Hashi put security locks on most of the main HO computers. I know those codes. The locks won't prevent Holt from accessing anything he wants to copy. They only block deletions, changes.

But they'll let me find the same files."

Apparently he'd thought of everything.

He reached up to cycle the outer doors; but Angus caught his arm, stopped him. Effortlessly Angus pulled Warden around to face him. A sense of doubt nagged at him. The man he'd become felt concerns he couldn't forget.

Deliberately he raised the same question Davies had put to him. "What happens after that?"

Dios' single gaze held no compromise; surrendered nothing. "Then all hell breaks loose," he pronounced harshly.

"And Holt is finished."

Another promise. Warden made too many of them. They were starting to scare Angus.

The director had only two or three hours of humanity left.

After that his supply of the drug he'd taken from Vestabule would run out. If he didn't find an antidote in Fasner's data, he was finished himself—

as truly and completely ruined as the

Dragon.

With an effort of will, Angus tried again to reach past Warden's defenses. Although the memory hurt him, he said,

"Davies told me Morn would be sorry she didn't get a chance to say good-bye. She probably feels the same way about you."

Warden's glare didn't flicker. "Don't worry about it. I'll send her a flare."

And another. "Oh, stop it," Angus snorted. In disgust he let the director go. "You and God. You can handle everything.

The rest of us don't have to worry about it."

Then he found that he couldn't stop himself. A strange fury took fire in his veins, ignited by Dios' rebuff. An allegiance he didn't want and couldn't stifle filled him with outrage. Abruptly he started shouting.

"But you don't handle everything. Morn and I carried you this far on our fucking backs! Didn't you actually read that playback? Shit, you know she has gap-sickness. I told you that myself! Hard g triggers it. She goes crazy for self-destruct. But she saved us in the swarm. I set off the grenade.

That was all I could do. She ran helm. In the fucking g of a fucking black hole! She figured out that pain blocks her craziness. So she kept herself sane and saved us by letting g shatter her arm.

"Don't tell me not to worry about it," he snarled savagely. "You didn't come here to finish Fasner, or snatch his data. You came here to get yourself killed. So you won't have to go on trial for your crimes."

For a long moment Warden stared back at Angus' indignation. He didn't contradict anything Angus said. Instead his organic eye softened slowly, and some of the resolve which closed his face relaxed. He seemed to respond to accusations when nothing else could touch him.

At last he sighed. "I passed sentence on myself a long time ago. I don't see any reason to commute it now." Then his voice sharpened. "But I passed sentence on Holt, too. Whatever happens, I want that one carried out."

Through his teeth, he demanded, "Don't just kill him, Angus. Tear his goddamn heart out."

Without transition Angus' anger seemed to release him; set him free. Dios had finally shown him something he could understand. Tear his heart out—

That wasn't a cop talking: it

was a man full of pain who wanted revenge.

A man like Angus himself.

He took a deep breath, let it out with the last of his doubts. "That's better." He gave Dios a bloodthirsty grin.

"Now we can go to work."

He didn't make any promises. He'd spent them all on Morn. But he had no intention of disappointing the UMCP

director. He unslung one of his guns and growled cheerfully,

"Don't just stand there. Open the door."

In an instant Warden resumed his determination. Holding his rifle ready, he keyed the outer doors of the airlock.

Together Angus Thermopyle and Warden Dios left the ship to topple Holt Fasner's empire.

At first they were lucky. The hub was full of people, all desperately hunting for some craft to take them off station; but none of them were HS guards. There weren't more than five guns in the whole mob. And everyone recognized UMCP Director Warden Dios. Faced with the almost tangible blaze of his authority—

and with a pair of charged impact rifles—

the

crowd gave way; let Angus and Warden through to the lifts.

That was fortunate. So much trapped panic could have overwhelmed the two men. Any number of civilians would have died; but eventually Angus and the director would have fallen.

They were also fortunate that the station's maintenance and support systems still had power. The lifts worked: light and air-processing held steady: most of the status monitors and intercoms remained active. Apparently Min Donner's barrage had crippled the generators which supplied HO's guns, shields, and thrust, but hadn't cut deeply enough to kill the platform.

However, the lift carried Angus and Warden down quickly into the grasp of the station's rotational g. That slowed them: instead of floating, they had to carry their own weight. And when they reached the level where Dios had decided they would separate, they found themselves in a pitched battle as soon as the lift opened. Someone in the hub must have called to warn Home Security.

From the cover of the doors Angus laid down fire with both rifles, strafing a swath across the corridor. When he'd cleared enough space, Warden tossed out a brace of concussion grenades. At least twenty guards lay dead, dying, or stunned by the time Holt's enemies left the lift. They had to pick their way through the carnage as if they were on a battle-field.

"Damn," Warden panted. "I hope there isn't much more of this. I don't like killing people."

Angus laughed shortly. "I do." He didn't give a shit how many of Fasner's guards he took down.

"Well, don't stop now." Dios glanced at the corridor markers to confirm his location, then headed away at a run, holding his rifle in front of his thick chest like an ED officer, trained for combat.

Angus let him go. From now on the director was on his own. Angus' nerves burned with fear and eagerness; endorphins and zone implant emissions. His instincts fed on the smell of blood, the urgency of death. HS didn't scare him as much as the Amnion did: he knew he was faster, stronger, more accurate. But the guards could still kill him. Guns equalized the contest.

He took an instant to compare Warden's directions, the corridor markers, and his computer's structural schematic of the station. Then he, too, broke into a run, moving with a cyborg's speed to find—

the idea still amazed him—

Holt

Fasner's mother.

Clearly HS hadn't had time to coordinate more than one defensive stand. He encountered isolated guards; small knots of terrified civilians; techs still trying to do their jobs. Efficient as a microprocessor, he shot everyone who carried a weapon; left the rest alone. He probably should have tried to kill them all so that they couldn't muster HS behind him. But he'd lost his taste for cold murder. Another change he didn't recognize.

She might not tell me where he is. But I'm sure she'll tell you.

That didn't make any sense.

A sequence of corridors and lifts led him into one of the more heavily shielded sectors of the platform. Markers matched Dios' directions.

Who the hell was this woman? Fasner's real mother?

Bullshit. He was supposed to be a hundred fifty years old.

Fire dogged him in rapid bursts. He ducked and dodged; ran; flung bloodshed past his shoulders with machine precision.

You'll figure it out when you see her.

He ran hard; but despite his speed his zone implants kept his pulse firm, charged his blood with oxygen. Past the acrid reek of impact fire, he began to smell the disinfectants of a sterile med-sector.

Warden's directions fit the markers. That door.

Unguarded. Abandoned. The whole sector echoed with emptiness. If Fasner's mother was there, he didn't care enough about her to take her with him.

Unless he'd already evacuated her—

Angus hooked his rifles over his shoulders to free his arms. Trusting the lasers built into his hands, he moved carefully to the door; tested it.

Locked.

The mechanism was more elaborate—

more secure—

than

he expected it to be. Nobody but a cyborg would ever walk in here without the right codes and clearances.

His EM vision read the circuits. A touch of laser surgery released the lock.

As the door slid aside, he sprang at an angle through the entrance, then crouched down against the marginal protection of the wall, making himself a smaller target while he scanned the room.

Shit! For a heartbeat or two, an emission shout from the far wall nearly blinded him. Voices babbled against each other, dozens of them punctuated by music and sound effects, men and women all talking as if the others weren't there. He searched wildly; saw—

—

video screens. Jesus, video screens! Twenty or more, the damn wall was full of them. All on: all projecting muted seriousness and urgency into the darkened room. In fact, they gave the only illumination. Someone had switched the room's lights off.

Most of the screens showed newsdogs in full spate, pretending they understood events which had left them behind hours ago. A few channels still carried ordinary programs, however, as if they were too important to be interrupted by the mere threat of war and mass slaughter. Entertainment carried more weight than the fate of the planet. Angus spotted at least one sweaty romance and two canned sports broadcasts among the newsdogs.

Slowly he rose out of his crouch. None of this made any sense. If Fasner's mother lived here, the room had been designed for a madwoman.