Роберт Бюттнер - Orphan's Journey

I lunged for crate sixteen, and tugged out the first Semtex packet even while the ’Bot was peeling back the crate lid. I told Ord, “We’ve only got twenty minutes. I don’t know if you and I can wire that many charges—”

“Delegate, Sir.” He voiced two more ’Bots; they whined to life and began uncoiling det wire.

Through the red-tinged smoke, three human figures stumbled toward us. Munchkin, the Zoomie Tech Sergeant, and Ord’s MP.

I asked Munchkin, “Howard? Jude?”

She jerked her head toward the toadstool. “Howard’s still working on Jude up there. Howard figured out what you were doing. I can wire charges faster than you ever could.”

Ha.

Over the scream of the flexing Exit Tube, Ord shouted to the MP, “Status?”

“Last of ’em are on the way down the Exit Tube, Sergeant Major.” She arced her arm at the five of us and at Howard and Jude, as she shouted back. “Nobody else left in here but the seven of us.”

If we could blow the Firewitch loose in time, those two hundred evacuees, and anybody else who could make it down the Exit Tube into New Moon’s main structure, would be safe. Anybody left in here remained imperiled.

Four ’Bots spidered up the chamber walls, planting explosives that would clean-cut the Exit Tube from the Firewitch, at the Firewitch end. A fifth ’Bot unreeled a det wire spool.

I repeated, “Seven of us. That’s three more people than we need in here to voice the ’Bots.” I pointed to the Corporal, the Tech Sergeant, and Munchkin. “You three, down the Tube.”

Nobody moved.

I glared at the Tech Sergeant, like I was a real Major General. “This ain’t no debate, Sergeant.”

He straightened and saluted. But, sweating behind his helmet visor, he didn’t look happy to be leaving this party. Neither did Ord’s MP. But both faced about and ran, crouching, toward the laser-marked path.

Munchkin stood, neck-deep in swirling red smoke, feet planted, arms crossed. “Pug off. I’m a civilian.”

“We don’t need you here.”

“My son needs me. I won’t leave him. I won’t leave you. I won’t even leave pugging Howard.”

Ord knelt alongside a detonator control unit, and glanced at his wrist ’Puter. “Sir, I could use your help here.”

I rubbed my chin, so I could get close enough to my uniform mike to voice a ’Bot, without Munchkin noticing. After I whispered, I said, “Munchkin, you said it’s a General’s job to lead people.”

“And it’s a mother’s job not to abandon her son.”

Behind her, the ’Bot I had voiced crept close on four legs. Its two forward manipulators unfolded, like a spider after a fly.

“He’s my godson, Munchkin. I’ll take care of him.”

She pointed at me. “We. We’ll take care of him.”

I said, “I’m sorry.”

Munchkin narrowed her eyes. “What?”

The ’Bot grasped her around the waist, with manipulators gentle enough to pack Ming vases but strong enough to lift a taxicab.

Munchkin screamed, tore at the encircling manipulators, then looked up at me, eyes wide. “You! Make it let me go!”

I shook my head.

The ’Bot elevated her off the deck, while she screamed, and she kicked the smoke until it swirled. The ’Bot turned and crabbed toward the Exit Tube, like King Kong clutching his bride while she beat her fists against his chest.

“Jason, you dick!”

I shouted after her, “I’ll bring him back to you! I swear!”

Then I knelt beside Ord, and fastened wire leads to the Detonator’s old brass screw posts.

Ord said, “Well done, Sir.”

I said, “We’ll see in twenty minutes.”

“Five.” A thin hand touched my shoulder.

I looked up. “Howard? Did you get Jude—”

Howard shook his head. “He’s still stuck in the couch. Fine for the moment. Jason, the Firewitch is pulling stronger. We don’t have twenty minutes. We have five.”

“We can’t have five. It takes ten just to run through the Exit Tube to the Spook Ring.” I glanced at Ord.

He held up the detonator. “It’s wired. We’re good to go, Sir.”

I snatched the box from Ord’s hand. It was just a generator that you hand-cranked like a pepper grinder, until it stored enough electric charge to spark off caps at the opposite end of det wire, when you thumbed the trigger. Old but reliable, like Ord.

I ran to the Exit Tube’s mouth, cranking the generator as I ran, then peered down the Tube.

The Tube’s air was barely fogged with smoke, compared to the clouds inside the Firewitch. Through the haze, so far away I could barely make them out, the last evacuees clambered through the opposite hatch, into the Spook Ring’s temporary safety.

Two hundred evacuees down, three to go.

Halfway down the tube ran the Tech Sergeant and the MP.

The ’Bot carrying Munchkin skittered behind them. I had voiced off its governor, so it had already made up their head start. It clanked up the Tube’s sidewall, and onto its ceiling. With Munchkin kicking and screaming in its jaws, the ’Bot skittered upside down above the human runners, and passed them faster than a roach caught under a flashlight beam.

Ord and Howard came alongside me. Howard panted. “Now.”

I held my thumb still on the detonator trigger, and my eyes on the three figures moving down the tube. “We still got three runners.”

Howard frowned. “Two minutes. Maybe less.”

Ord grabbed Howard and me by the backs of our belts, and tugged us ten yards back from the Exit Tube lip, inside the Firewitch.

Alongside us the remaining Cargo’Bots idled, manipulators folded, their work done. A web of old-school det wire stretched from the charges in the floor and ceiling back to the trigger I clutched.

Howard craned his neck at the charges. “When those blow, the decomp sensors will lock down this hatch in a half second.”

I swallowed. It had better. When the charges blew, the Exit Tube would expel its air into space like a popped balloon. Anything inside the tube, such as us, would be sucked along for the ride.

I had seen human beings explosively decompressed. I had nearly been one, more than once. Fifteen screaming seconds to remember your life is too short.

Ord handed me a synlon cargo sling. “Around your waist, Sir. Then through the floor tie-downs.”

“Huh?”

“It’s going to get windy in here for a moment, Sir.”

The ’Bot carrying Munchkin slowed as it neared the far hatch.

Howard said, “Now, Jason!”

I shook my head. “Couple more seconds.”

Munchkin’s ’Bot reached the far hatch, lifted one leg at a time over the sill, and she and the ’Bot disappeared into Pressurized Volume.

Howard grabbed my shoulder. “Now! It’s too late, already!”

My heart thumped. Ord’s little MP and the Tech Sergeant ran for their lives, still a hundred yards from safety.

I pointed at them, and shook my head. “That’s two living human beings down there, Howard.”

“For God’s sake, Jason!” Howard said.

“Two against five thousand, Sir.” Ord placed his hand over my thumb, and squeezed until the trigger snicked loose.

The rotor whirred, then vibrated in my hand.

FOURTEEN

WHUMP. WHUMP. WHUMP.

I squeezed my eyes shut against the flashes as the charges exploded in three opposing pairs.

I opened my eyes, and the Exit Tube was still there, still flexing like a python’s gut, but intact.

Then metal moaned and echoed.

A tear opened along the Tube’s left side, with a boom that made the charges sound like popcorn.

A ring of black nothing opened all around the hatch margin, and red, smoky air howled out into space. Wind slammed my back and threw me across the deck toward space, as the Airtight began scissoring shut across the Tube mouth.