They could have repaired the SWIFT unit, if their parts depot hadn’t been blown to vacuum. But not even by cannibalizing other components of the Cross could they fix the shambles that remained.
“Well,” Lewis said again. “I guess we concentrate on our next crisis.” He glanced at Tillie Matson. Her face was too pale. Even at her best, she would never have fit conventional definitions of prettiness. But her eyes could reach out and grab a man’s soul. He wondered if Carl Matson was truly aware of what he’d lost. . . .
Lewis cleared his throat and turned his attention to Saros Mysia. “Anything you could find on propulsion systems would help.”
The colony’s educator/librarian nodded and rattled a few keys in rapid succession. They spent the next several hours studying everything in the colony’s library on repair of FTL and Sub-L propulsion systems. And while he pored over schematics and technical data, Lewis’ mind raced ahead to the thousand other worries facing him. They’d need a form of government, laws and law enforcement, medical facilities the Cross had never been designed for, a way to raise food, a way to keep their population from expanding any farther than it would after the dozen or so now-pregnant colonists among them gave birth. . . .
Lewis didn’t know if he could bring himself to order those women—or others, down the road—to abort children they simply couldn’t afford to feed. Twenty years . . . Mandatory birth control would not be popular amongst people who had signed onto a colony expecting—anticipating joyfully—the need to procreate like mad. They needed a skilled socio-psychologist. What they had were one medical generalist who was currently trying to cope with a wide range of injuries and an educator whose lifelong plans had been to build a school for hard-working farm kids.
Donner’s Party had nothing on us, Lewis thought sourly. And I’ll be damned if we devolve to that level.
And underlying every other worry on his mind, shoved painfully back into a corner where he could almost insulate himself from it, was the agonizing question, When they hit Scarsdale, did the bastards kill Ginnie? He had no way of knowing. Might never know.
So Lewis threw himself into the terrible job of keeping everyone aboard the Star Cross alive and refused himself the luxury of grief.
The refugee center wasn’t able to give most folks an answer to their question. But they had an answer for Carl Matson. Pity thickened Hal Abrams’ throat as the director absorbed the news.
“I’m afraid we received a Mayday from the Star Cross, Dr. Matson. The transport was under attack when the Mayday cut off. We can only presume everyone aboard was killed instantly. I’m sorry.”
“I—I see. There’s no— No. I suppose not . . . Thank you.”
Hal gently guided Carl to one side when he nearly walked into the wall instead of through the door. His eyes were wet, his lips unsteady. “Bastards,” he whispered. “Murdering, vicious . . . They were unarmed. Unarmed, dammit!”
Hal just guided him outside, past the line of frightened refugees waiting their turn for bad news. The refugees from Matson’s World had already been told their home wasn’t worth the lives of the men it would take to wrest it back—Space Arm was concentrating on saving the critical mining worlds at risk, not a few dozen acres of spindly corn and half-grown apple trees. And now, on top of that blow, this. . . .
Outside, away from the lines and the staring eyes, Carl finally met Hal’s gaze. “You going back into the Marines?”
Hal Abrams nodded slowly. “Yeah. My Reserve commission’s been updated to active status. Gotta report for transport out in a couple a hours.”
Carl straightened his back. “I’ll tell the others. Then . . . then I’ll go with you. If they’ll have me.”
“Well, I reckon they’ll take just about whatever they can get right now. But you sure about that? You aren’t exactly trained for soldiering. It’s a bloody business.”
Carl met his gaze steadily. His eyes were still wet; but back in their depths, they were cold as the black emptiness of space. “Oh, yes. I’m sure.”
Hal just nodded.
He felt sorry for anything caught in Carl Matson’s gunsight.
He felt even sorrier that his friend’s revenge would almost certainly be very, very short-lived.
Live samples provide the data I require. I am fully equipped to perform biological gengineering tasks. My cultivar work and bio-control programs have been 99.725 percent successful. I harvest internal parasites from the creatures’ intestinal tracts and begin genetic modification experimentation. I am patient. The Enemy has withdrawn to a safe distance to regroup and form a new infestation site. The Enemy shows no immediate willingness to reinfest areas inside the colony perimeter. Therefore I have ample time to perfect my work.
I am cautious to ensure that each test batch is gengineered as mules. I will not unleash a biological weapon which cannot be curtailed within one generation. My task requires additional live specimens. I harvest these with difficulty, coming under heavy fire each time I attempt live capture. For most tests, I clone tissue samples and determine what effect the gengineered nematodes have on my tissue cultures.
The first infestation is reinforced as predicted from the orbital ship. I do not attack the transport. It would please me to have this pest carry the means of its destruction to the home nest. An interminable 3.7 weeks post-infestation pass before I discover a virulent gengineered strain. I obtain live samples and contaminate them. The gengineered nematode performs to my expectations, producing desired toxins in the Enemy’s digestive tract. Sample pests undergo progressive circulatory disorders over the next 1.72 days. After a toxin exposure of 2.6 days, extremities undergo rapid necrosis. The Enemy dies of convulsions within 0.25 hours of necrosis onset.
All gengineered nematodes die 6.25 hours after their hosts. Gengineered nematodes without a host survive for only 2.36 hours. I carefully infect samples of Terran species and determine that this nematode and its toxins are harmless to the animals and crops I have been charged to protect.
I am ready.
“It’s hopeless!” Oliver Parlan cried. “Don’t you realize that? Why should any of us spend twenty years scratching and struggling to survive when we’ll only wind up in Enemy hands at the end?”
“It isn’t hopeless,” Tillie tried yet again.
At the end of the corridor, Oliver and Sally Parlan had barricaded themselves and their children in, threatening to blow the airlock hatch and vent the whole ship to vacuum. She had to buy the time Lewis Liffey needed to get into position. He’d entered a repair conduit two yards behind her and was worming his way through a maze of conduits toward an access panel under the damaged airlock’s operating mechanism. She had to keep the Parlans talking until he was in position. . . .
“It’ll be tough, I know that, but we have no way of knowing what will happen in twenty years. The Concordiat may have reclaimed Matson’s World by then. Think of your children—”
Sally Parlan burst into tears. “I am thinking of them! All of them. Damn you, Tillie Matson, you want to condemn them to a living hell. . . .”
Oliver looked her in the eye and said quietly, “You are not God, Tillie. Judge me not.” He reached for the damaged hatch controls on the airlock he’d jimmied to remain open when the outer door slid back.
Lewis Liffey kicked open the hatch cover. Tillie dove for the deckplates. Lewis fired his needler almost point blank. Sally and the children screamed. Oliver froze in shock and pain; then slowly crumpled to the deckplates. He died before Itami Kobe could reach him with a medi-kit. Book Howard took charge of Sally and her children, placing them in protective custody. She spat on Tillie as Book pulled her past.
Very slowly, Tillie wiped her face with a sleeve. Lewis looked up from his sprawled position on the deck plates.
“You all right?” he asked.
“Sure,” Tillie lied. “I’m fine. You?”
He winced a little as he sat up, but nodded. “Sure. I’m always fine.” The slight tremor in his voice betrayed him.
“Never killed a man before?”
His glance was piercing. “No.”
“It isn’t your fault.”
Lewis scrubbed his brow and put the needler carefully to one side. “If there’d been any other way . . .”
But there hadn’t been. They couldn’t just sedate a man like Oliver Parlan for twenty years. His determination to kill everyone had sealed his death warrant. Tillie knew there hadn’t been any other choice. But she understood Lewis Liffey’s reaction.
And what would they do the next time?
If there was a next time?
Kelly McTavish arrived with welding gear. “Sir, I’ll get to work sealing off this corridor now.”
Lewis Liffey glanced up. “Right.” He levered himself up and retrieved the needler; then offered Tillie a hand up.