Playing God(114)

From where Keale was, the rescue balls were as big as medicine balls, and he could make out the doll-sized Humans inside them. There were still more being tossed out the airlock. A few people had worked their hands into the ball's gloves and had managed to hang on to each other, turning the individual bubbles into strings like model molecules.

The Graves's pilots were done hurrying. The shuttle moved at a steady, leisurely pace. They steered carefully into the nearest group of rescue balls. Some of the bubbles’ occupants spotted the ship and tried to scramble around to get a better view, sending their containers rolling gently over.

“Okay, airlocks,” came Anderson's voice across Keale's suit intercom. “It's up to you.”

“Let's go,” said Keale to Ashe.

He let go of the handle and gave himself a small shove out into the blackness. His tether played out behind him. He turned his head and focused his attention on the nearest rescue ball.

“Guide to target,” he murmured to his implant. The suit's jet pack squirted once, veering him off at a sharp angle. He stretched his hands out. The transparent rescue bad filled his view. There was a teak-skinned man inside with an expression of relief on his face so intense it was almost painful.

Keale's hands collided with the bad and found two of the multiple handles that covered the outside.

“Back,” he ordered. The suit spoke to the tether, which began reeling Keale and the man back toward the shuttle.

Ashe was already back in the airlock with her first rescue. Keale guided his man's rescue ball inside, and Vera cycled the outer door shut.

There's two. Keale looked out at the clusters of floating bubbles. Hold an out there. We're on our way.

Four and a half hours and six hundred people later, Keale sat in the shuttle's main compartment with a tired and grim Esmaraude next to him. She had both hands wrapped around a soft beaker of coffee. He was sucking down water. His shoulders ached, and his arms felt like rubber hoses.

“They got the engineering word, but they didn't get mine,” said Esmo. “I've got no idea about gravity. Has anybody found Rudu King?”

Keale nodded. “He's in sick bay, but they had to knock him out.” Pain creased Esmo's face. “He'll be all right, they said. Just going to need his leg jump-grown.”

“We were too slow.” Esmo scowled at her hands holding the coffee bulb. “Stood around like sheep, going ‘What the heck is that, boyo?’”

“Excuse me,” interrupted a man's soft voice.

Keale looked up to see Dr. David Zelotes. The man looked haggard, but not shattered like some people they'd pulled in.

“Yes, Doctor?” said Esmo.

Zelotes was looking directly at Keale, and Keale knew what was coming next. “I was wondering if there'd been any word about Lynn Nussbaumer.”

“There wasn't when I left,” said Keale as kindly as he could. “But I'll reel a thread out to Base. Something may have come in since.”

“Thank you.” Zelotes tried to straighten himself up. “There're a lot of contusions and broken bones and shock among the evacuees, Captain, but everyone's in decent shape.” It was as if he was trying to be useful as an apology for interrupting.

“Thank you, Doctor,” said Esmo briskly. “Let us know if there's anything you need.” She spoke as if she were still aboard her fully stocked ship, not aboard an underequipped shuttle retreating to its base.

“I will.” Zelotes turned around and headed back for the hold.

Esmo shook her head and whispered, “Poor bastard.”

“We've all done everything we can,” said Keale softly. “What we've got to decide is what to do next. Assume the Dedelphi have two command words, what can they do?”

Esmo swallowed a little more coffee. “Not a whole lot that's immediately useful. The AI's gone. I shut down the engines, sealed up everything I could think of from my station. They'll need the captain's word to get that undone.”

Keale drummed his fingers on his thigh. “So they can't even move the thing until they decrypt the command codes.”

Captain Esmaraude lowered her coffee beaker. “You don't think…”

“They are at least going to give it a good try, Captain. Whether they can or not… They've tapped our communications, they've stolen one of our ships. I'm not going to be the one who says they can't solve one of our codes.” He let out a sigh. “Until then, however, they've stolen an island.” He scowled at the city-ship sitting serenely in the middle of his portable screen. “We need to find a way to spy on their conversations, but we're working on that. By tomorrow we'll have a sat-net thrown up to keep an eye on them.” He paused. “Maybe we can get one of the engineering ships down from the asteroid belt and take the place apart around them. There might be some ways the nanotech teams could make it too uncomfortable to live in there…” He let the sentence trail off. There were possibilities. Plenty of them. He had to believe that right now, or he was no good to anybody.