Why should I die for Martin Humphries? she asked herself. Someone’s got to stand up to him. Someone’s got to tell the truth about this. No matter what it costs, I’ve got to face him, face all of them.
“Come on, Kris. Open the door.”
They’re watching me through the security camera, Cardenas knew. She went back to the computer and erased her message. One of the staff people can destroy the gobblers tomorrow, she told herself. They’re safe enough in the oven for now.
Slowly she walked to the door, then stopped at the keypad on the wall next to it.
“Doug?” she called.
“I’m right here, Kris. Open the door, please.”
“This is silly,” she said, feeling stupid, “but I don’t remember the sequence I used to reset the lock.”
A mumble of voices on the other side of the door. Then Stavenger, sounding relieved, replied, “Okay, Kris. Security’s bringing an analyzer down anyway. We’ll have it open in a few minutes.”
“Doug?” she said again.
“Yes.”
“Thanks.”
“Da nada,” he answered.
By the time they got the door unlocked, Cardenas was surprised at how calm she felt. She had looked death in the face and discovered that she was strong enough to go on living.
The passageway outside was crammed with men and women in security coveralls, half-a-dozen of her own nanotech people, several medics in white, and Doug Stavenger.
“Are you all right?” Stavenger asked worriedly.
Cardenas felt herself smile a little. “I am now,” she said.
DEATH
“C’mon, boss, wake up!”
Pancho’s voice, muffled, distant. Dan’s eyes were gummy, bleary; it took an effort to open them. He tried to wipe them but his hands were still buried in the loose rubble of the asteroid.
“Dan! Wake up!” He heard the urgency in her voice.
“Yeah. Okay…” His stomach heaved.
“Radiation level’s down almost to normal,” Pancho said. “You okay?”
“Sure,” he lied. He felt too weak to move, too tired to care.
“Time to get outta here.” She was scrabbling, clawing through the gravelly dirt. Dan wanted to help her but he could barely move his arms. All he wanted to do was sleep. Then his guts suddenly lurched and a wave of nausea swept over him.
“We’re up, in the open.” Amanda’s voice came through his helmet speaker.
“I’m gonna need some help here,” Pancho replied. “Dan’s in a bad way.”
Dan was concentrating on not vomiting. Get me to a toilet, he begged silently. I don’t want to let loose inside the suit. Even in the depth of his misery, though, somewhere in the back of his mind he laughed bitterly at himself. It all boils down to this, he thought. Everything you’ve done in your life doesn’t amount to a teaspoon of applesauce. All that’s really important is not upchucking or losing control of your bowels.
He sensed somebody digging frantically above him, and then strong arms lifting him, dragging him free of the rubble-filled tunnel. Fuchs. He overdid it, and the two of them went tumbling completely off the asteroid, spiraling crazily in space. Dan saw Starpower 1 slide past his field of view and then an unstoppable surge of bile rose into his throat and he vomited, spattering his stomach’s contents noisomely all over his fishbowl helmet. The stench was overpowering. He groaned and retched again.
“Hang in there, boss,” Pancho said. “I gotcha.”
Dan thought he heard someone else retching, too. Nothing like the sound of vomiting to make you upchuck, too. I could get the whole Vienna Boys Choir tossing their cookies this way.
He wavered in and out of consciousness, thinking, That’s the way they get you. They make you so miserable that you’ll be glad to die. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried not to breathe. He desperately wanted to wipe his face but inside the suit and helmet it was impossible.
“Okay, the lock’s cycling,” he heard Pancho say.
“Bring him inside.” Amanda’s voice.
“Take him to his own bunk.”
“Yes. Careful now.”
He didn’t dare open his eyes. At one point he heard Pancho say, “You get him out of his suit. I gotta see how much damage the storm did to the ship’s systems.”