Кристофер Банч - Empire's End

Suddenly there was a great gap, a rip of metal extending through several decks directly out into space. Here was where one of the Imperial assault ships had deliberately smashed into Vulcan's skin, making a breach for the Imperial Guardsmen to pour through.

"You should be within range of that broadcast," Preston's voice whispered. "Tune Six-Three-Kilo-Four." Sten obeyed on a secondary com. He heard it. A whine that broke off now and again, and whose note rose and fell. It did, indeed, sound like a search-and-rescue transmitter whose power was about dry.

Now they were close to the "top" of the Eye, close to Thoresen's dome.

Even though he wanted to go faster, Sten forced himself to slow. Ahead was a great door. One of the periodic emergency barriers—airlocks—intended to keep an accidental rupture from dumping Vulcan's entire atmosphere into space.

Alex started to push on it, then caught himself before Sten could warn him.

Resistance. How interesting. That probably meant there was atmosphere on the other side.

And then Six-Three-Kilo-Four fell silent.

The link to the Victory opened, and Freston began a transmission, probably to tell Sten what had just ceased happening.

"Received," Sten said in a whisper. "Break 'cast. Monitor. Do not transmit. Click code."

He'd always known it couldn't be this easy.

Kilgour curled his hand, and his willygun slid down on its harness. A lifted eyebrow. Shall I blow the door, boss?

Headshake no. Motion—back.

Sten hit the cycle button.

Grindingly, the lock emptied its air back into the main chamber. He started forward, and Kilgour waved him back. Cover… and Sten did. Alex moved forward and ripped the door open, spinning back flat against the corridor's wall.

Nothing. Inside. They forced the outer door closed again.

Now they were well and truly trapped. Both of them shut off their helmet lights. Being an obvious target was one thing—there was no necessity to put a spotlight on the bull's-eye.

Cycle.

The grinding stopped, but the light that would signal ATMOSPHERE EQUALIZED did not go on. Burnt out. Possibly.

Nor did the inner door open automatically.

Sten pushed at it, and it reluctantly slid aside.

They were in Thoresen's dome.

Both men were crouched on either side of the lock, weapons ready. Sten could feel his suit press against him from atmospheric pressure outside before it adjusted. So where had the atmosphere come from? Was Thoresen's dome built so well that it held air after being abandoned all these years? Not clottin' likely.

He looked at a gauge. Neutral gas, 75 percent; oxygen, 18 percent; garblegarble trace gases. Oh really. Half a percentage of carbon dioxide. Exhalations from an oxygen-breathing creature? Possibly.

Breathable—no gases analyzed.

Pressure half E-normal.

There was enough light from the stars and a far-distant sun through the dome's skylights for Sten to see without needing his helmet light.

Kilgour pointed and Sten saw the piled racks of empty oxygen containers. That was where the atmosphere had come from—a hand-carried flask at a time.

Thoresen's dome was huge. Envision a jungle, now petrified when it lost atmosphere sometime ago. A garden. Up ahead would be Thoresen's office/living chambers. Sten and Alex would have to fine-comb the dome, their task complicated because they had no idea what they were looking for—nor if it was even there.

Sten turned on an outside microphone and listened. Nothing. He of course did not chance opening his faceplate and breathing the dome's atmosphere, no matter what his suit's analysis told him.

He went into the chamber.

In front of him was the twisted, desiccated drought nightmare that had been Thoresen's lush forest.

Very strange, trying to move silently, as if he were walking point for an infantry patrol, deep in a planetary jungle. In a space-suit. Toe first… touch, test the ground under you, heel down, full weight down, other foot lifted straight up, brought forward slowly, close to Sten's center of gravity… toe touching…

The dead boughs twisted up around him, agonized arms stretching for, never to reach, the far-distant stars.

A crunch. Sten tensed and looked down.

Gleaming bones.

He remembered. One of Thoresen's "pet" tigers. The one he'd killed with a desperation thrust-kick with both legs, crushing its throat. Sten shivered. He was the one who should have died.

Kilgour followed Sten. He, too, looked down at the tiger's skeleton, then, without realizing it, at Sten's back. Clot, he thought. Ah heard th' story, but really didna believe it. Ah ne'er, ne'er woulda gone f r it.

Somewhere across the dome, Sten heard a noise. Or thought he did.

He froze, waiting. Nothing. He chanced a look back at Alex. He could see Kilgour shake his head from side to side through the faceplate. He'd heard nothing.

Sten continued on.

He half expected to find Thoresen's skeleton next, rib cage shattered where his heart had been torn out, still beating. But the body would have been removed and given some kind of burial, or at least dumped into space.

Wouldn't it?

Here was the wall where Thoresen had hung his weapons collection, everything from an archaic flamethrower to a broadax. The racks were empty, weapons most likely souvenired by the victorious Guardsmen as they poured through the dome.

Over there. Thoresen's office. The huge slab that had floated, held invisibly up by McLean generators, was canted against one wall.

And then Baron Thoresen walked out of the gloom.

Sten's willygun was up, finger pulling through to full auto, mind screaming, Goddammit, you aren't there, you aren't there you're dead goddammit or by Christ you're going to be because there aren't any ghosts full magazine right in the middle of that clotting robe, right between where those skinny arms are stretching out for my neck …

He heard the baron's voice through the open mike:

"Don't kill me. Please don't kill me."

A scratchy, wavery old being's androgynous voice.

One thousand out of one thousand normal people would have already opened fire. Nine hundred and ninety-plus Guard-trained combat-experienced soldiers would have, too.

Sten's finger came off the trigger.

"Don't kill me," the old voice said again.

Sten's helmet light slashed on.

In front of him was an emaciated man, ancient skeletal claw arms and hands outstretched, trying to ward off the death he saw from the suited killer in front of him. The few strands of hair left sprayed wildly out above his head.

"I won't hurt you," Sten managed.

The old man was wearing a set of Thoresen's formal robes, the same sort Sten had seen him wear once, when delivering the mock-pious funeral oration for his parents. Stolen from Thoresen's unlooted wardrobe?

Sten lowered his weapon.

Kilgour did not.

He crabbed sideways, around Sten.

"Who're you?"

His voice, amplified, boomed through the chamber. The old man winced.

"Please. Please. Not so loud."

Kilgour brought himself back out from Controlled Panic — Lethal Mode , and his outside speaker control down as well.

"ID yourself."

"I'm not anyone. I'm Dan Forte."

"Where's your ship?"

"I don't have a ship. The others have the ship. They left me here. They said I had no right to live. They said I was… it doesn't matter what they said I was, does it."

"Somebody stranded him," Sten wondered. Alex nodded—he guessed so.

"Ah wonder whae th' lad did't' get marooned?"

"Maybe we don't want to know."

"Aye. Dinnae y' turn y'r back on th' rascal."

Kilgour went to Forte—the man flinched—and swiftly, expertly, checked him for weapons. "He's clean, metaphoric'ly speakin't… but Ah'd noo be openin' m' faceplate't' hae a sniff."