“It’s nanomachines,” she concluded, after reporting to them what was happening. “They seem to be attacking metal. Maybe they’re specifically programmed to destroy steel, maybe it’s any metal at all. We don’t know. But either way, we’re in deep trouble.”
“They could eat out all the hatches and open the whole complex to vacuum!” said one of the mercenary soldiers.
“That’s what they’re in the process of doing,” Leeza admitted.
The head of the logistics storeroom, a soft-looking sandy-haired man with a bold blue stylized wolf tattooed across his forehead, spoke up:
“They’re coming down the shaft and eating at the airtight hatch, right?”
“Right,” said Leeza.
“And when they’ve gone through that first hatch they’ll come along the corridor toward the next hatch, right?”
“We all know that!” snapped a dark-haired woman in pale green coveralls. “They’ll eat up anything metal.”
“Well,” said the logistics man, “why don’t we spray the corridors and hatches with something nonmetallic?”
“Spray?”
“We’ve got sprayguns, ceramics torches, butterknives, for chrissakes. Cover every square millimeter of exposed metal with something nonmetallic. Slather it on good and thick. Maybe that’ll stop the nanos.”
“That’s ridiculous!”
“Maybe not.”
“It’s worth a try.”
Leeza agreed that it was worth a try. If nothing else, it would keep everybody busy, instead of waiting in dread for the nanomachines to kill them.
COMMAND SHIP SAMARKAND
A great way to go into battle, thought Dorik Harbin: out of fuel, stripped of armor, and low on rations.
Sitting in the command chair on Samarkand’s bridge, Harbin turned his gaze from the main display screen to the thick quartz port set into the bulkhead on his left. They were close enough to the Chrysalis for him to see it without magnification; the habitat’s linked circle of metal-skinned modules glinted faintly in the light from the distant Sun, a tiny spark of human warmth set against the cold, silent darkness of infinite space.
“I have contact with Chrysalis, sir,” his communications technician said, turning halfway in her chair to look at Harbin.
“Main screen,” he ordered.
A woman’s face appeared on the screen, ascetically thin, high cheekbones, hair cropped down to a bare fuzz, almond-shaped dark eyes full of suspicion.
“Please identify yourself,” she said, her voice polite but hard-edged. “We’re not getting any telemetry data from you.”
“You don’t need it,” Harbin said, reflexively rubbing one hand over his fiercely dark beard. “We’re looking for Lars Fuchs. Surrender him to us and we’ll leave you in peace.”
“Fuchs?” The woman looked genuinely puzzled. “He’s not here. He’s an exile. We wouldn’t—”
“No lies,” Harbin snapped. “We know Fuchs is heading for your habitat. I want him.”
Her expression turned from surprise to irritation. “How can we produce him when he’s not here?”
“Who’s in charge there?” Harbin demanded. “I want to speak to your top person.”
“That’d be Big George. George Ambrose. He’s our chief administrator.”
“Get him.”
“He’s not here.”
Harbin’s jaw clenched. “Are you joking, or do you want me to start shooting?”
Her eyes widened. “George is aboard the Elsinore. Greeting some VIP from Selene.”
“Patch me through to him.”
Sullenly, the woman said, “I’ll try.”
The screen went blank. Harbin turned to his comm tech. “Did she cut me off?”
The technician shrugged. “Maybe it wasn’t deliberate.”
Harbin thought otherwise. They’re playing a delaying game. Why? Do they know we’re almost out of propellant? Why are they being stubborn?
Aloud, he commanded, “Show me the ships parked at the habitat.”
The technician murmured into the pin microphone at her lips and the main screen lit up. Chrysalis showed up as a circle in the middle of the display. Harbin counted eleven ships co-orbiting nearby. One of them was identified as Elsinore, a passenger-carrying torch ship. The others appeared to be freighters, ore carriers, logistics supply vessels.
We’ll have to take the propellants and supplies we need from them, Harbin said to himself. After we’ve found Fuchs.
He called up Elsinore’s manifest. Registered to Astro Corporation. Just in from Selene. No cargo. Carrying only one passenger, someone identified as Edith Elgin, from Selene.
From Selene, he thought. Who would pay the expense of sending a torch ship from Selene to Ceres for just one passenger? Lars Fuchs must be aboard that ship. He has to be. The passenger they’ve identified on their manifest, this Edith Elgin, must be a front for Fuchs.