CHAPTER 18
The blade whistles as it spins end
over end and buries itself in the Morgut’s faceted eye.
Lucky shot. Though its brain has shut down, it will take a while
for the body to figure that out. Its high-pitched death shriek
distracts the other two long enough for March to dive toward Vel’s
body. At first I think he’s lost his mind because he rolls across
him, smearing himself with the bounty hunter’s blood.
He muffles a pained
sound. I imagine it stings like hell, but now I get it. Suddenly,
he’s tainted meat. They can’t just sink their teeth in and feast.
He’ll need to be hosed off first.
Damned inconvenient, isn’t it, you greedy
bastards?
The other two chitter
and clack, clawed forelegs waving with genuine menace. Maybe
they’re discussing the best course of action or marveling at the
ingenuity of their prey. Maybe they’re considering unconditional
surrender because we might all be Ithtorians beneath the
skin.
Hey, I can
dream.
But even if they want
to parlay, we have no way to talk to them, and I’m sure they don’t
speak universal. Why would they bother? Humans certainly never
troubled to learn bovine back when we were still eating
cows.
Vel might have
translated—but he’s out. He needs medical attention, and Jael
must be dead. I can help best by keeping
out of trouble. They might have qualms about going after March with
their fangs, but I have no such protection.
So I stay low and
scuttle along the floor, slippery with blood, bowels, and insect
innards for which I have no name. The smell nearly compels me to
add my dinner to the mess as I try to make my way toward the fallen
Morgut with the knife in his head. If I can get that to March
without being seen, he may have a chance. He stands in a
battle-ready crouch, waiting for their strike, most likely in
unison. They’ll use their claws, not fangs, but if they coordinate
it well, he’s doomed.
The room is queerly
lit by fallen torch-tubes, a flickering yellow-green glow that
gives the maintenance shop a surreal, hellish air. Smoky gas
lingers, ebbs, and eddies, adding to the infernal atmosphere. I
pass into pockets that make me light-headed. I’m tempted to rest my
eyes until it passes. Sleep will make it better—
Can’t. Vel told me to stay awake.
I shake off the
confusion with sheer will. Please don’t let
them notice me. My own movements look oddly staccato as I slide
behind boxes and barrels, and then crawl on my belly through the
muck toward the twitching monster. The blade makes a sucking motion
as I yank it out, and then the faint hum kicks in. Good, still
functional.
I slap it across the
floor so it bounces against his boot. Low G gives it extra lift
when he kicks it upward and catches it by the handle as if we’ve
orchestrated the maneuver hundreds of times before. The Morgut
lunge for him as one, but he’s got a shot now.
“Fuck it,” March
says, as he wheels into the fight. “I’ll play the doomed hero
another day. Don’t worry, Jax.”
My chest feels tight.
Even now, he reassures me.
Maybe I’ve given him
the edge he needs, but I can’t watch. I need to stay away from the
action, or I may offer these monsters a hostage. Worse, they might
stab me through the throat on the backswing.
I take refuge behind
a crate of machine parts, come around the other side, and find
Jael’s body. Blood still bubbles sluggishly out of his gut wound
around the limb that skewered him. His face looks impossibly young,
pure and clean, despite the filth that surrounds us.
When his eyes snap
open, I recoil. In the distance I hear March swearing steadily.
That’s good, means he’s still alive, for now. Holding his
own.
Before Jael speaks,
I’m sure I know what he’s going to ask of me—a mercy killing. End
his pain. But I don’t have a weapon. Lost my shockstick, the
disruptor won’t charge, and March has the blade. How can I let this
poor bastard suffer?
“Pull it out.” His
voice comes out thick and wet. I can hear fluid in his throat,
probably from his internal injuries. “Do it fast, damn
you.”
“You’ll bleed to
death.” Stupid to protest, he’s dying anyway.
“Don’t make me hurt
you.”
I choke out a laugh
at that. He can’t even lift his head, and he’s threatening me?
Trembling from head to toe, I do as he asks. Wrap my hands around
the severed leg and tug hard. With some part of my mind, I register
that it sounds a lot like the knife coming out of the Morgut’s
skull. It takes all my willpower not to hurl.
“Seal the wound with
your palm.” Even as he barks the order, Jael lifts weak hands,
trying to do it himself.
I don’t know how the
hell he thinks this will help, but I can’t refuse a dying man his
last request. Even if it means feeling his guts beneath my
hand—
Except the wound
isn’t as wide as it ought to be, and unless the gas has completely
fried my brain, it’s getting smaller. I touch him gingerly,
exploring his lower abdomen, and I find only wet skin. Bloody, but
whole.
“Okay, what the
hell—”
“Not now,” he says,
lurching to his feet. “Your boy needs help over there.”
With that, he dives
into the fray, armed with the foreleg the Morgut stabbed him with.
The fury from remembered agony must lend him strength because Jael
shoves it straight through the creature’s neck. My first shocked
thought—He wasn’t kidding on the ship when he
said he’d kill us all.
I have to see, have
to know. So I scramble to my feet and slip-slide over to March,
who’s on his knees, sonicblade still in hand. Entrails spill along
the floor, twisting bits of flesh that seem so inexpressibly alien
that I shudder just looking at them. He’s bleeding from about a
hundred cuts, but he seems to be in one piece.
A sob escapes me. I
touch him briefly on the shoulder, a gesture that says everything
as I pass by.
Vel played bait for
the rest of us, and I already owe him so much. I want to know him
better, perhaps more than he’ll ever allow. And it might be too
late.
I kneel in his blood,
feeling it sizzle against the fabric of my jumpsuit. I can’t tell
how wounded he is through the tattered human suit he’s
wearing.
“How bad?” March
asks, coming up behind me.
“Don’t know. I need
the knife. Let’s cut him free.”
March hands me the
sonicblade, and I go to work, feeling like a serial killer skinning
her victim. Amid all the other smells I detect the faint scent of
decomposition. He needed to slough this skin soon anyway.
“Shit, you’re
butchering him!” Jael lunges like he’s going to steal the weapon,
but March steps in between us.
“Easy, she knows what
she’s doing.” Well, that may be an overstatement. I’ll do my best,
though. I always do. “How’s your gut?” March adds.
Since I’m slicing off
Vel’s faux skin as if peeling fruit, I don’t see his shrug, but I
hear it in Jael’s voice. “I’m all right.”
I delve in my
jumpsuit pocket and find a fresh torch-tube, crack it so I can
better judge the damage. I count a dozen bites on his thorax alone,
but they don’t look deep. I need to keep cutting in order to finish
assessing his condition. Not that I know what to do about
it.
Why don’t we have Doc
with us? Fuck him for being safe on Lachion, puttering around his
lab when we need him so bad. I don’t know enough about medicine to
save Vel if he’s in critical condition. And Mary curse it, we don’t
have much more than a first-aid kit on the ship. There’s a basic
med center here on station, though, if we can get to it. The
medical AI may know what to do for him; it should possess
exobiological treatments.
As I shift Vel to
pull the rapidly rotting flesh away, I count five more bites. His
mandible works slowly, and it takes his vocalizer a few seconds to
translate it to a pained sound within our hearing range. I could
almost cry in relief. In fact, I feel tears stinging at my eyes,
but I won’t let them fall.
“That would’ve killed
most guys,” March observes.
“I’m not most guys.”
Jael kneels beside me, watching the procedure with horrified
fascination. Vel’s features flash into sight. “Right then, what the
fuck—”
“If I don’t get to
ask,” I cut in, “then you don’t either. This isn’t the time for
talk anyway. You two should really figure out a way to get that
door open, just in case there are more of them. We’re in no shape
to fight.”
For once, I get the
last word, and they both snap to work.
