Nemesis Games

If the suit had a battery, it would probably be cataloging the failures of her body right now. The dehydration headache was worse now, and moving in toward nausea. Her skin felt raw where the unshielded sun had burned her. Though she wasn’t producing as much, she was still coughing. And she figured her blood was probably about equal parts plasma and fatigue poisons by now.

Her two little victories – the thruster, the transmitter – had been the end. Since then, either her efforts had degraded or things had genuinely gotten more complicated, or both. The repeaters that would cause the core to shut down had either been omitted in the build or were tucked someplace that couldn’t be reached from between the hulls. The sensor array that would trigger the bottle failure when a rescue ship got too close would have been a lovely thing to access, but it appeared to be mounted on the exterior where she couldn’t get to it. There were half a dozen places she could have tried tapping into the computer system, but none of them had interfaces, and she didn’t have any she could bring. Other plans and strategies flickered through her mind from time to time like fireflies. Some of them might have been good. She couldn’t keep hold of them long enough to say.

She might have slept or the timeless skipping might just have been how her brain worked now. The voice she heard was just a whisper fainter than her own voice had been, but it snapped her back to herself.

“Hey there, Chetzemoka. This is Alex Kamal presently of the Razorback. Naomi? If you’re there, I’d appreciate you giving me a sign. I’d sort of like to make sure it’s you before we come over. Your ship’s been acting a mite odd, and we’re a little on the jumpy side. And, just in case it’s not Naomi Nagata? I’ve got fifteen missiles locked on you right now, so whoever you are, you might want to talk with me.”

“Don’t,” she said, knowing he couldn’t hear her. “Stay away. Stay away.”

Everything hurt. Everything whirled. Nothing was easy. When she got to her feet, her head swam. She was afraid she was going to pass out, but if she bent over, she wasn’t sure she’d have the strength to stand back up. She had to find a way to wave him off. She had to keep him from getting close enough to be caught in the blast. Whether it saved her life or not didn’t matter. She’d had her good day. It was more than she’d expected, and she was so deeply weary…

Breathing hard, she opened the engineering hatch for the last time and stumbled for the lift. And after the lift, the airlock.

Chapter Forty-five: Amos

Even though it was strictly local, running off the Zhang Guo’s system, it was nice having working hand terminals again. Amos lay on a support wedged in the narrow space between the hulls. The rest of his work team was only the soft clanging of magnetic clamps and the gentle, soothing smell of a welding torch. The meter he had clipped to the power line was at zero.

“Now?” Peaches said.

“Nothing.”

A couple seconds passed.

“Now?”

“Nothing.”

Another second. The meter chirped, the indicator going from zero to eighty-nine. Amos grinned. “That’s it, Peaches. I’m a little shy of ninety.”

“Locking that in,” she said, and even though the hand terminals were set for audio, he knew she was smiling. He plucked the meter free and sprayed sealant over the holes he’d made for the leads. “Erich? If you’re there, we’re ready for another run.”

“Of course I’m here,” Erich said. “Where would I go? Starting the diagnostics run now. You two go stretch your legs or something.”

Amos whistled once between his teeth, the shrill echo making the sound seem larger. “I’m taking a break. You guys get that conduit open, just wait for me. Don’t try to do something smart.”

There was a rough clatter of agreement as he swung out and up, climbing to the access panel with the handholds and the structural supports. The B-team wasn’t much by way of help, but they could do some of the time-consuming easy stuff while Amos and Peaches and Erich made the Zhang Guo skyworthy. So far, it had been as much cleaning up the servants’ half-assed attempts to fix the ship as it had been finding why she’d been grounded in the first place. As showy as the ship was, her internal design was pretty nearly off-the-shelf. On the engineering deck, Amos dug up a cleaning rag and wiped the hardening shell of sealant off his fingers and wrist. Where it was thinnest, it was already solid, coming away from his skin like the shell off a shrimp.