Саймон Морден - Equations of Life

“Down,” he waved.

“In this filth?”

“ Huy, Sonja. Just get out of sight.” He put his back against the wall and hunkered down.

The growl of the wagon’s engine grew louder over the background noise until it seemed to be directly outside. Then the engine note dropped a pitch, and it rumbled away, idling.

Sonja was crouched in the kitchen doorway. “What is it?” she mouthed.

Petrovitch put his finger to his lips and tilted his head slightly. He caught sight of the top of the wagon and jerked his head away.

And his name was being called. By a voice he could recognize.

He looked again, longer. There was a head bobbing around in one of the hatches.

“Maddy?” he shouted.

“Sam? Where are you?”

Petrovitch used his last reserves of strength to force his legs to work. He peered around the window, and they spotted each other at the same time. Madeleine started to climb out onto the hull, with Petrovitch frantically waving her back.

“What the zaebis are you doing here?”

“I came to get you.”

“Then who the yebat is driving?”

“Chain.”

“Is it that desperate?” Petrovitch beckoned Sonja. “Come on. You have to jump.”

She hesitated for a second when she saw what she had to do, and what the consequences were of failure: to fall between the cars and vanish beneath their wheels.

Then she threw herself up and over the balcony, bringing her feet underneath her and landing bare centimeters away from the open hatch. Madeleine steadied her, then pulled her down inside.

It was his turn. He laboriously climbed over the balustrade and hung there over the moving cars. The wagon was only a short distance way. An easy jump, almost a step, to nearly the same level as him. Less than a meter drop.

Simple, yet he balked.

Easier still to let go.

He clung to the rusting metal railing like he clung to life: by his fingertips.

“ Huy tebe v zhopu! ”

Petrovitch bent his legs, sprang his hands, and jumped.

He fell heavily against the metal hull, and started to slide downward. He couldn’t hold on, couldn’t support his own weight. He felt his feet dangle, and jammed his fingers into the fine wire mesh that wrapped around the skirts of the vehicle. It started to tear away.

The pain was exquisite. One sharp jolt and he’d lose the flesh off every digit, then fall anyway. His feet scrabbled, trying to find a foothold, anything to relieve the pressure of the fine, biting wires.

A gray-clad arm flashed down, a strong hand closed on his collar.

“Don’t pull!” he said. He glanced up at Madeleine as he tried to extricate his fingers. “Only when I say.”

She held him as he eased himself free, lubricated by blood and sweat. A shot sparked on the hatch, and with Petrovitch still supported in one hand, she pulled her gun and returned fire.

“Sam? Hurry.”

“Nearly. There.” He gasped with the effort. His hands were slick and slippery, and he just had the middle finger of his right hand left to go. It was wedged tight. He twisted it and turned it. It still wasn’t moving.

His ear burned like it was ablaze. The same burst of gunfire caught Madeleine in the shoulder. She still had hold of Petrovitch’s coat, and her sudden motion tore him free. She spun and crashed back against the open hatch, and bellowed herself hoarse with rage and fear.

She flexed her arm. It moved, but she winced. Her Vatican pistol had gone, and so had Petrovitch’s finger.

“Yeah,” said Petrovitch, staring at his bloody stump. “Now.”

She bundled him through the hatch and fell on top of him.

“About time too,” grunted Chain without looking away from the periscope. “Carlisle, get going.”

The driver slammed the vehicle into reverse. The hatch banged shut and the floor heaved. Petrovitch lay supine, content to watch his life leak away on the rubber matting. Vertical rolled one way, then the other, and Madeleine found something to push against to get herself to a crouch.

“Oh Mary Mother of God, what have I done?”

There was blood dripping from his head, from his hands, and for once, he didn’t mind. He’d done his part. He’d rescued Sonja for the New Machine Jihad. No one was going to complain if he just stopped and went to sleep.

He looked up and saw Sonja, pressed as far as she could go into the corner of the compartment, five-point harness locked around her, safe. He tried to smile, and found the effort just too much. She was staring at him, mouth open, eyes wide.

The single bulkhead bulb cast a weak, white light that formed more shadow than it did brightness. Madeleine staggered with the movement of the wagon, but she planted her feet on either side of Petrovitch, lifted him up, and laid him down again where she could make most use of what little illumination there was.

She bent low over him and made him fix his gaze on her.

“I will not let you die,” she said.

“It’s Okay,” he slurred. “Paid my dues. Just get Sonja to the Jihad.”

Madeleine was furious. “Stay with me. Stay awake.”

Chain yelled over the engine noise. “Kids! Keep it down. Some of us are trying to work. Left, Carlisle, go for the gap.”

Madeleine turned her ire on Sonja. “You, girl. Here.”

Sonja blinked, and shook her head.

“It’s not a request.”

“But he’s covered in blood!”

Madeleine took hold of Petrovitch’s arm and held it up high, her fingers feeling for his pulse point before clamping down hard. “Yes. Yes he is, and he got that way trying to save you. Chain?”

“What?”

“First aid kit. Where is it?”

Chain unglued his face from the periscope and pointed to a locker under the bench seat. He did a double-take at Petrovitch’s ruined form. “Carlisle. Get us out of here. Fast as you like.”

He used overhead handholds to guide him through the lurching interior, then slapped Sonja’s legs out of the way so he could open the locker. He slid the green bag to Madeleine, who unzipped it one-handed and read the list of contents printed on the underside of the lid.

“There are lignocaine autoinjectors. I need a couple of those, the eye irrigation set, finger splint, swabs, bandages.”

“What about the head wound?”

She looked up. “If it’s serious, I can’t do anything about it. If it’s not, it’ll keep. The hand, I can fix.”

Chain leaned in to inspect Petrovitch. “Crap. Where’s his finger gone?”

“It’s still stuck on the outside of this tank. But assuming you’re not a microsurgeon, I’d not worry.” She was back in control. She knew what she had to do, grateful that she could do something rather than fret and fuss impotently.

“I’m Okay,” said Petrovitch. There was blood in his eye, and he screwed up his face to try and get rid of it.

“Sam. Hold still.” She bit the top off the first autoinjector, slid the needle under the skin of his scalp, next to his ear.

All kinds of fresh sensations flashed down his jaw and neck, and he shuddered, trying to keep motionless. She pulled the trigger, and the contents of the syringe were fired into him. He gasped, both at the pressure of the liquid and at the ripping free of the needle as the wagon bounced. He bled anew, but after a moment, it no longer hurt.

Chain removed Petrovitch’s glasses and put the blood-smeared things in his top pocket. “How much farther, Carlisle?”

“Twenty meters.”

“Do it. Find some level ground.”

Madeleine spat out the first lid and gripped the second one between her teeth. She pulled Petrovitch’s sleeve back and released her hold on his vein. “Chain, put your fist in his armpit; hard, all the way in.”