The Forlorn(109)

Johann looked at him. "Yes. You make it out of snow. Use the same magic you used to call a rescue for Wolf's father."

Keilin shrugged. It was worth trying, but a bugger to get at a core section under all the clothing. With a sigh he opened the zipper, letting out the warmth, letting in the cold. He had to take a glove off. Reached down. Touched.

The doors slid open. Thankfully, they staggered forward onto the threshold. And behind them the automatic fire began sniping out single energy bursts. They were safe. Except for the genial, broad-faced Johann. He wouldn't be making any more cheerfully obscene comments. He had been the hindmost person in the queue at the door, and just too late.

His body smoked in the steaming pool that had been the snowdrift beside the door. Half his head was missing.

"No!" Wolf grabbed Sula and Hamesh as they turned back. "He's dead already. Go out there, and you'll be dead too. We'll go on and kill his murderer. Then we'll come back and bury Johann with honor," his young voice cracked, "and have the kind of wake he would have enjoyed."

With that he walked resolutely forward into the artificial lights and outstreaming warmth of the unknown. After a few seconds the others followed. And the great door slid silently closed behind them.

They stood there, a small frightened party in a great stark hallway big enough for reasonably sized groundcars to pass. This was human-built . . . but even more alien to the people of small, slate-roofed houses than the hive. To the hive folk . . . well, at least it was roofed, but it was still too big, too bare, and too light.

"Where now?" someone asked. They all looked inquiringly at Keilin.

How the hell could he tell them he had not the least idea? "I'll try the core sections again." He shucked the coverall and its clumsy boots and gloves. Took out the core section. Touched his tongue to it.

The familiar feeling of vastness . . . and of welcome, and of relief too. Shael. He recognized the image of self. In a room with a toilet . . . and Leyla, looking grim. Then the memory of betrayal, overpoweringly strong. And what was very distinctly a keyboard such as the surgeon had used after taking the blood sample.

He found himself being supported by an anxious-looking Wolf and one of the girls. "Did you have some kind of fit? I don't think we can get you back to the doctor . . ."

"I'm fine. Just the core section's effects. Ah! Over there." He walked them across to the same terminal as Cap had used on entering the mountain command center. He'd never used a keyboard before . . . but he'd seen it used, and he'd read plenty of print. It only took a minute to type in a one-word request: "HELP."

There was a brief silence. Then the screen began to scroll.

"CAN ONLY RENDER LIMITED ASSISTANCE. VOICE AND INDEPENDENT CONTROL LARGELY DEACTIVATED. SUB-CAPTAIN FISHER NOW IN CONTROL OF SYSTEM. CAN ONLY AUDIO-RESPOND TO BASIC AND MEDICAL REQUESTS BY KEYBOARD. VOICE RESPONSE TO FISHER ONLY. MORNINGSTAR II COMPCONTROL CAN ONLY RETURN TO INDEPENDENT FUNCTION IF ACCESS CODE PROVIDED. WILL THEN BE ABLE TO EFFECT ARREST OF THE TRAITOR.

Keilin and the Gene-spliced could read. The hive girls of course couldn't. So Keilin had to read it out.

"Ask it for the code."

Clumsily he typed this in.

The machine spat back. "CANNOT REVEAL CODE. COMPRISED OF SEQUENCE OF 36 NUMBERS IN SIMPLE FORMULAIC PATTERN RELATED TO THE NAME: DANE NESBIT HUENNIS FISHER."

He read it aloud. "We're stuffed."

The three hive girls shook their heads at him in unison. "We can work it out for you."

"You? I mean, thanks, but you can't even read."

"We spent our lives in the dark, with nothing to do. Everybody did maths. Codes are fun. Especially easy ones like this."

"Leave us someone who can read. You go looking for him."

They smiled in unison. "We bet we beat you to it."

Sula volunteered to stay. She was still deeply upset by Johann's death, and Keilin was honestly glad to be able to leave her there. But where to go? Compcontrol could or would not help them. In the end Keilin settled for holding the core section to know that Shael and the rest of the core sections were somewhere far above them—next to a toilet.

* * *

They'd gone to the en suite bathroom. The white door closed. Leyla slid the bolt. Closed her eyes briefly. Sighed. "Child. I'll try and ransom your way out of it. But I don't see how. He means to . . . look, I'll try to get you out anyway."

"I'm not a child, Leyla. My father didn't have any space for children at court. And I'm seventeen . . . almost eighteen. What is going on? What sort of game are you playing?" Shael was feeling intolerant and scared.

Leyla held her arms up. Spun about on her heel and toe. "Behold the great spy. I'm supposed to be a secret agent, for the Kingdom of Arlinn, God rot their souls." Shael's heart sank. "For the last ten years I've been reporting Cap's movements to them. They've drops in an amazing number of towns. I suppose Queen Lee's descendants are Cap's worst enemies . . . but if I didn't hate Cap's guts I'd be glad to use him to trip them up."