Damn! How could she warn them off now?
She was both pleased and surprised to find that her door irised open to her touch as usual, so she had not been confined to quarters. There was a trap in this situation somewhere. She knew it, and if she could keep the Haven from falling into it, she had to try. She sprinted for the docking bay.
The canopy was open and the Haven was already landing before she could pull on her pressure suit and gravity boots. She waved at them to go back as she stood in the transparent viewport between the air lock and the open landing bay, but of course they didn’t understand. They thought she was greeting them. Damn. If she’d had a rock she’d have thrown it. The Haven set down as trustingly as a child settling onto its mother s lap.
Immediately afterward, as if by magic, Ikwaskwan’s flagship suddenly appeared above the bay. It had been cloaked, she realized. Lurking. It probably picked up the Haven’s signal from some distance away. Ikky apparently felt he had some business with the Haven, because Erikson would never have welcomed them without orders to do so.
What was the general playing at now?
The docking bay boasted a huge comscreen with loudspeakers and Ikky’s face appeared before them. Nadhari pulled on her helmet and stepped out into the bay. Despite the bulkiness of her suit, she felt naked without a side arm.
The big face on the comscreen looked down at her as if she were a bacteria under a microscope. “Nadhari, you didn’t tell me you were expecting visitors or we’d have tried to make it home sooner. This is my lucky day! I get to see you again and also those plucky Starfarer kids.”
Plucky? Oh, God, if he was being that phony the kids were done for, too. But if he was keeping up pretenses, she had one other own to try. The mike in her helmet worked. “It was unexpected. They came on behalf of House Harakamian to retain our services. Thye’ve brought us. General, a substantial offer,” she said, almost hopeful that it would work. Money was Ikky’s native language. Maybe House Harakamian could buy him off?
But as the flagship came to rest beside the Haven and the dome of the docking bay closed over them, a weapon she had not been aware of was deployed by Ikky from the safety of his ship. The air in the bay turned oddly greenish and a strong noxious-smelling mist soon filled the interior of the docking facility.
She was staring at it in horrified fascination when Erikson and five other mercenaries entered the lock. She was suited up, and clumsy. They wore simple gas masks and were armed. She tore the mask off one of them and broke Erikson’s leg, but they didn’t fire on her. Instead, three of them subdued her while the others snatched her helmet off before raising their weapons. When the stun bolts hit her, the last thing she saw before the world faded to black was Erikson’s satisfied smile.
She was not conscious when the Haven was boarded, after the hatch had been forced open by masked troops to allow the ship to fill with gas. One by one the Starfarers were carried out of their own ship and aboard the general’s, while Nadhari herself was tenderly scooped up by Ikwaskwan and later just as tenderly chained to his berth aboard the flagship. She did not feel this either. The flagship, full of this unexpected human bounty, began the voyage back to the experimental station, leaving the Haven, standing alone in the docking bay, forlorn and seemingly empty.
Roadkill!” Becker cried, and the cat jumped back as if scalded. But there “was nothing -wrong with the critter. Not a thing. “Hey, buddy, I got hit and from what I could see, you got hit. Why don’t we hurt? If we already died and went to heaven, it’s a lot darker than advertised up here.”
“Riidkiii?” a voice asked. It was not the cat’s voice. The cat was washing vigorously, taking inventory of all of his parts. A gray, shambling, lumpish form appeared, hovering over Becker. The face was long and the forehead had a caved-in look to it. Matted, filthy hair surrounded it. The figure was pointing to the cat.