said. “And the dumb bitch tells me that she can’t clear me until I send her my compressor reads.”
Windy laughed, keeping his voice low. He didn’t want to wake Evans up. “What did you say?”
Irwin grinned. “I told her, I’m about to drop six gross of barrel fuel oil all over your goddamn strip,’ and if she wanted my reads, she could read them off her own ass after I branded ’em there.”
“And what’d she say?”
“She told me I was cleared to land, not even a blink.” Irwin sipped from the flask, handing it back to Windy. “I made it down, obviously. But I found out later, she walked the same day. Said she couldn’t take the pressure.”
Windy laughed again, shaking his head. “She should’ve taken this job. In the last eight months, I’ve landed four ships, including that shuttle and you. Most of my working time is spent listening to air and playing cards with Evans, or Tom Cabot . . .”
Irwin raised her arms over her head and stretched as he spoke, a movement that did wonders for his point of view. She caught his appraising look and deliberately shook her chest from side to side, grinning widely.
“Enjoy it, Windy, it’s as close as you’re going to get,” she said sweetly. “Probably.”
“Probably?” he asked. “Any chance of upgrading?”
Irwin shrugged, reaching for the whiskey. “We’ll see. So, no interesting stories, huh? No wild-animal attacks out here? No secret jungle cults? Station fever?”
Windy sighed. “No. Hey, a couple of our survey guys went missing today, does that count?”
Irwin shook her head. “Probably not … although that reminds me, I saw something when I was coming in, couple of klicks that way—” She pointed vaguely south. “Flash of light, real brief.”
Windy frowned. “Huh. Maybe that’s them. We don’t have any perimeter set up, so it had to be—”
Ka-chink!
From just outside, like something metal being dropped onto the deck.
“What’s that?” Irwin asked nervously.
Windy didn’t know. “Something fell off one of the landing decks, maybe …”
There was a shuffling sound, like leaves brushing one of the smaller stabilizing envelopes—and then a soft clattering sound, like a bone rattle being shook underwater. They both stood up, looking toward the open door, Windy suddenly feeling stone sober in spite of how much drink he’d had. Eight months of quiet Bunda nights, learning every natural sound that the planet had to offer, and he’d never heard anything like that.
“Something hanging off the platform, scraping the trees or something?” Irwin asked.
Windy shook his head. It was a calm night, and the nav computers automatically adjusted for flux when the wind was blowing. He knew he should take charge, walk out and look around and tell Irwin that it was nothing—but he didn’t want to go outside. In fact, he felt quite strongly that it was a shitty idea.
Don’t be a wooze, not with her watching!
He was being stupid, and he also knew the longer he waited, the less he’d feel like moving. It was five meters to the door and he could see the deck past it, a piece of railing against a backdrop of darkness. Nothing, there was nothing there.
“Wait here a sec, okay?” He said, finally having shamed himself into heading for the door. Irwin ignored him, following one step behind; he decided that he didn’t mind.
. Snap out of it, you’re too old for this . . .
Windy paused at the door, searching for movement, and saw nothing. He hadn’t realized how tense he’d become until he relaxed, the perfectly normal, ordinary sight of nothing at all confirming how paranoid he was. He walked toward the railing, grinning at himself.
“Nothing but me and thee and a shitload of trees,”
he said, and heard Irwin actually giggle behind him. Yeah, tonight was looking good, he couldn’t remember having ever heard Kelly Irwin giggle—
“Hey, what’s this?” he said absently, moving toward the rail. There was a metal claw hanging off of the top bar, like a grappling hook, a taut rope disappearing down into the leafy dark. Was someone actually trying to climb the station? Bullshit. It was possible, the ground was only ten meters down, but who’d want to scale an ME when there was a lift? And even if one of the techs wanted to climb something, the area they’d picked was incredibly dangerous; if they happened to snag one of the stabilizers, they could do some serious damage—
Suddenly, the air in front of his eyes shifted, blurring, and a bitter, oily scent flooded his nostrils, and there was a sound like metal again—
—and then a scream, a howling, feral shriek that was so close Windy could feel its stinking heat across his face, and then heat on his throat, wet and sharp and complete, and then he couldn’t stand up anymore.
The sudden scream was terrible, a bestial, animal cry that seemed to come from thin air, and then Windy fell backwards, and all Irwin could see was blood. A pumping, solid sheath of red that was dressing him, enveloping him from the neck down.
“Oh!” It was all she could think, confused and shocked. He was just standing there and now, now he’s—
There was a distortion in front of her, in the very air; part of the railing seemed closer for just a second, as if it had been magnified, and Irwin heard a trilling sound coming from the distortion, a sound like a choking bird, and she’d seen and heard enough.
She turned, sprinting back into the control room, streaming at the sleeping man in the corner, slamming her hand down on a panel of buttons that might close the door. “Sound the alarm, man down! Man down, something got him, sound the fuckin’ alarm!”
Behind her, the door dropped shut—and at the same time, the floor shifted violently underfoot, tilting at a fifteen-degree slant before swinging back down. The flask on the console hit the floor, the air filling with the sharp smell of liquor, and from outside, another scream. A clicking, rattling shriek of fury, not human and not alone, another cry rising to join it, and a third.
Irwin spun, desperately searching the thin air for that blurred strangeness, and saw nothing. The sleeper, Evans, was on his feet, stumbling for a control board and asking what had happened, what was happening.
Irwin didn’t know, and Windy was surely dead. Shivering, she stumbled to a cabinet in the control room’s corner to try and find some kind of a weapon.
The convict was only half-conscious, and Lara had started to insist that there was no download; the psych projections had suggested as much, and also that beating Jess down was the surest path to her eventual submission. Briggs let Keene continue, hoping that she’d give it up before the guard battered him to death; Briggs was a civilized man, and while violence was a valuable and often necessary tool, he didn’t particularly enjoy watching it.
Their young teammate only seemed half-conscious himself, staring at the exo suit, lips trembling, as Lara screamed for Keene to stop. It really was fairly brutal. Briggs was starting to think that he’d have to drag the whole lot to the nearest Company lab for an expensive chemical flush when the station suddenly moved. Violently.
Briggs wheeled his arms, grabbing one of the handholds on the wall as the floor settled back down, but at a slight list. Nirasawa still had Lara and Ellis in hand, although Keene had joined Jess on the floor. Vincent was clutching the pilot seat, an expression of alarm replacing the queasy look he’d worn for the last ten minutes.
“Vincent, what’s going on?” Briggs demanded, his
heart fluttering from the unexpected jolt. Keene was on his feet again, looking to him for instruction, his knuckles red and swollen.
Vincent shook his head, his eyes wide. “I—I don’t know, the whole platform like that, it has to be someone at the main controls.”
Wonderful.
“Show me,” Briggs said, monumentally irritated by the rude interruption—and a little uncomfortable with the naked fear on Vincent’s mousy face.
“Nirasawa, come with me. Keene, stay here. Let our . . . prisoners have a moment to think about how they want this to end.”
Keene stepped up to take Nirasawa’s place, holding Lara and Ellis. It was a setback as far as keeping the pressure on, but Briggs wanted to be here when the woman finally broke. After all the effort he’d put in, he didn’t want to miss the moment of triumph.
An alarm was sounding from somewhere lower on the station, an annoying bleat like some small animal being stepped on repeatedly. It bled up into the night sky, making Briggs even more uncomfortable.
What the hell’s going on here?
Vincent stepped out onto the platform, Briggs and Nirasawa right behind—and it occurred to him that perhaps he wasn’t the only one on Bunda aware of the information on that log. Aware that there were billions to be made for anyone— any corporation—with access to hard stats on infestation.