Seas of Venus(106)

"Here!" shouted Caffey and handed the motorman more barakite.

Leaf laid that strand at an angle to the first, so the near ends were close together. "G' back!" he ordered, but Fish had already skipped to safety. Leaf lighted the explosive.

The barakite hissed forward with teeth of flame. Brambles ignited, roaring in green agony. Rock, calcined and broken, glinted from the drifting ash. The three remaining strands would be enough to clear the outcrop's entire surface.

K67's whole crew was cheering Leaf.

The motorman reached for more barakite by reflex. Screams filled his ears, and his eyes stared at a curtain of rolling oil flames.

* * *





July 1, 379 AS. 2355 hours.




Tech 3 Leaf unsealed the front of his clown suit and removed the two-pound strand of barakite which he had wound around his waist. Sweat gave the surface of the explosive a greasy feel. More barakite appeared from beneath the carnival clothing of the other three members of the gang.

Silent fireworks flared above the Commons of Wyoming Keep. Light flickered from the zenith of the impervium dome and reflected even here, to the narrow back alleys of the warehouse district against the dome's outer curve. The air sighed as tens of thousands of throats cheered simultaneously.

"Oh, my god, they're gonna hear this sure," moaned Epling, a hydrofoil gunner now dressed as a cherub. "The Patrol'll be down on us before we even get a drink!"

The buildings were thick ceramic castings. The material was hard as glass and so strong that a warehouse had remained undamaged when an out-of-control truck demolished itself against the structure. Originally the ceramic had a pink tinge, but the grime of centuries had turned everything in the district gray.

"Just button your lip, Epling," Tech 3 Caffey said. "Leaf knows what he's doing. Don't you, Leafie?"

"Who's got the adhesive?" Leaf asked.

Caffey tossed him a finger-sized spray can. Caffey wore a pirate costume, with a broad-brimmed hat over his domino mask.

Leaf spritzed the warehouse wall five feet above the ground and pressed his strand of barakite against it. The adhesive held, despite sweat and the filthy ceramic. Leaf ran the spray down the wall, squeezing the explosive firmly against the surface.

More fireworks went off in sheets of flame. Braudel, dressed as a skeleton, held a tiny infra-red lamp. The goggles beneath Leaf's clown mask filtered out the multicolored splendor of the display.

Leaf began attaching the second strip of barakite parallel to the ground, with one end in contact with the upper end of the first strand. He was outlining a square doorway on the warehouse's featureless back wall.

"My god," Epling muttered, "they'll lock us up 'n throw away the key. They'll give us life sentences to the netters and we'll just cruise up 'n down till something eats us."

Braudel chuckled. "That's better 'n what Cinc Hafner's gonna do if he learns we scooped this shit outa one a' Caffey's torpedoes, hey?"

"Look, cut it out," Caffey growled. "You'll see. It'll go slicker 'n snot. All the Patrol that isn't keeping the lid on parties is off partying themself. And there won't be a sound. Leaf knows what he's doing."

The third strip of barakite formed the other vertical. Leaf's body trembled. Present reality, his hands forming the explosive against the sheer wall, was a thin overlay to the quivering surface of memory.

In his mind, the distant cheers of the crowd became screams.

"Anyhow," Caffey added defensively, "d'ye think it's going to matter if a warhead weighs a ton or just a ton less spit? And that's only if the fish hits, which they mostly don't."

Leaf set the last stand of barakite where the warehouse wall joined the alley floor in a smooth curve. Pavement and building had been cast as a single unit only a few decades after the dome of Wyoming Keep had been completed.

"Boy, I can taste the booze already!" Braudel said lovingly. "You know, this won't be cheap-ass shit. You 'n' me, we couldn't buy stuff this good if we had all the fuckin' money on Venus! This is Twelve Families booze!"

"Okay," Leaf heard his voice say. "It's ready."

He took out his multitool. The lanyard pulled open the blouse of his clown suit.

Braudel and Epling stepped, then scurried toward opposite ends of the alley.

"No, it's all right!" Caffey growled after them. "I tell you, there won't be a bang!"

"Maybe from the wall, Fish," Leaf said in a distant voice. "Pieces may fly off it."

"Christ!" snarled the torpedoman. "We come this far. Just do it!"

Leaf triggered the multitool's welder. He knelt, then touched the arc to one of the bottom corners of the barakite frame. Coiling fumes as white and solid as bones lifted from the explosive.