What the Marine who’d complained didn’t understand—what Kowacs didn’t understand, though he accepted it—was that the Headhunters weren’t traveling through space, not even sponge space, on this operation. They were using the Dirac Sea underlying the universe, all universes and all times, to create congruity between a top-secret hangar in Port Tau Ceti and the Syndicate base they were about to attack.
At least that’s what they were doing if the notion worked. The closer Kowacs came to the event, the less likely it seemed that the notion could work.
“Hold still, sir,” said Bradley, the administrative head of the team to which Kowacs belonged operationally. He jerked the tab on the front of the major’s blouse.
The integral injector pricked Kowacs as it filled his bloodstream with chemicals. The drug would provide a temporary antidote to the contact anesthetic sprayed from bottles which every third Headhunter carried for this operation.
The chime announced two minutes.
Grant turned his briefcase sideways and extended its legs. When he opened the lid to expose the keyboard and display, the case became a diaphragm-high workstation. Despite the crowding in the bay, the Marines gave the civilian plenty of room.
A Third Platoon team leader pulled his own tab. He collapsed jerking as reaction to the drug sent him into anaphylactic shock.
Lieutenant al-Habib, the platoon commander, pushed toward the casualty, swearing in a combination of concern and fear. Everybody was supposed to have been reaction-tested before now; and testing was a platoon responsibility.
Kowacs’ eyes narrowed, but he said nothing. If he and al-Habib both survived the operation, al-Habib was out of the Headhunters.
If.
The warning chimed one minute. The holographic displays vanished, leaving the bulkheads bare for the moment before the hold’s lighting flickered and went off. Grant’s face was lit from below by his workstation, making him look the demon Kowacs was sure he really was.
The lights came on again, but they were red.
Kowacs opaqued his visor. He figured he could keep his expression neutral, but he didn’t want to bother any of his people if by chance they correctly read the terror behind their major’s eyes.
The module drifted. It was more than weightlessness. Kowacs had the horrible feeling that he was rushing somewhere but had neither control nor even sensory input, as though his vehicle were skidding on ice in pitch darkness. He heard some of his troops screaming, and he didn’t blame them.
The world switched back with the abruptness of a crystal forming in a supersaturated solution. The lights became normal; holograms covered the bulkheads again.
The holograms didn’t show the hangar. They didn’t show anything at all, just a gray blur without even a spark to pick it out.
Grant was talking angrily, but his helmet contained his words. His big, capable fingers rapped a code into the keyboard. The gray blur shifted slowly through violet to a green like that of translucent pond scum. Though the color changed, it remained featureless.
“What’s hap’nin to us?” somebody demanded sharply. “What’s—”
Sergeant Bradley’s knife poised point-first in front of the panicked Marine’s right eyeball. The blade wouldn’t penetrate her visor, but its shock value was sufficient to chop her voice off . . . and if she’d taken time to reflect, she would have known that the edge could be through her windpipe before she got out the next syllable.
“Hey, Grant,” Kowacs called.
Grant continued talking to someone on the other side of his communications link. His anger was obvious even though his words were inaudible.
Kowacs raised his visor and leaned across the workstation from the opposite side, putting his face where the civilian couldn’t ignore him.
Grant’s fist clenched. Kowacs grabbed his wrist and squeezed.
For a moment the two powerful men struggled, as motionless as neighboring mountains. Sienkiewicz moved just out of the range of Kowacs’ direct vision, but Kowacs didn’t need help.
The civilian relaxed. His mouth formed a command, and the shield of silence dropped away from his helmet. “What the fuck do you want?” he snarled.
“Where are we?” Kowacs whispered. Everyone in the module was watching them, but only the nearest Marines could hear the leaders over the hiss of nervous breathing. He shook his hand, trying to get feeling back into it.