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With help from both of them, Jess crawled to his feet, swaying for a moment
 .37
 before he found his balance. Lara crouched next to Keene and rifled through his suit, pulling out the
semiautomatic that had been taken earlier.
"Get on the program," Jess said. "Ellis, I'm going to need your help. Come on."
Ellis nodded, wondering why so much of this felt like a dream, why the numbers in his mind wouldn't
stay, wouldn't take the place of the turbulent and un-pleasant emotions that continued to plague him. He
felt
confused and unsure of himself but as he followed Jess out into the strange night, he swore that he
wouldn't give in to his feelings, and that whatever it took, he wouldn't screw up again.
Johnathon Callistori, aka John C., made it to control without going outside again, using one of the
mainte-nance stairwells and coming in from the corridor that led to the central lift. The door had been
blocked, but he was let in once he'd screamed his name a few times, babbling his story out to the scared
young archaeologist who opened the door. He'd had to jump over Cabot's body, dragging Di along with
him, and before they made it to the tunnel she had been grabbed away, hot blood from her cut throat
splashing against the backs of his legs as he crawled into the dark.
Control was packed, people crying and semihyster-ical and pale with shock. Windy and then two others
had been murdered just outside, the sight of their bloody bodies feeding their collective terror. Cabot was
dead, Vincent wasn't there, and there were a few more screaming, pounding knocks at the inner door,
fright-ened researchers tumbling in with stories of alien howls and invisible beings, of friends and
coworkers slain. In all, it took a few moments for any kind of or-der to be established. One of the pilots,
Lee Goldmann, finally called for a head count. There were thirteen Bunda people missing, eight
confirmed dead, and no one had any idea what had attacked them.
Goldmann and the other Bunda pilot, Les Drucker, called for an immediate evac. No one disagreed,
except for Chris Aquino, who didn't want to leave without his missing lover, and a woman named Irwin,
the Sun Jumper pilot who was waiting for her boss to show up. John C. thought they were nuts, but then,
he wasn't all that sure of his own sanity anymore; the feel of Di's blood cooling against his calves was a
nightmare like no other, turning part of his mind into a vague and shad-owy place that he did his best to
stay out of.
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Goldmann took charge, sending two of the more together biotechs to the supply room for what weapons
Bunda had and getting Evans to set up the AD signal on a pulse to the next outpost. Once they were
armed, they'd move out to the transports en masse and go. There was no real discussion about waiting
for the missing few to show, the subject unanimously ignored; maybe they'd hear the ships warming up
and make it out to the LZ in time to board. If they didn't, they were probably dead already.
Together, they waited for Karen and Rich to get back with weapons, silent and afraid as they listened to
the open intercom, listened for screams. After Evans had sent out their auto-distress, he tried to get some
of the others to join him in prayer, but he didn't have many takers. John C., a lapsed Catholic, thought
that if Evans had seen whathe had, he'd realize that God had nothing to do with what had happened on
Bunda; the Devil was more like it, the planet his now. If God had any interest at all in taking care of
matters, there was going to be a war and all John C. wanted was to get the hell out of Their way.
19
Noguchi walked purposefully through the ship, the three yautja she passed ignoring her completely. If
they saw the burner strapped to her back, they didn't think it important. She'd been dis-honored, after all;
what did they care if she chose to wander around in full armor, armed or not? That was her assumption,
anyway, and all that mattered was that no one try to stop her as she made her way to op-erations.
TheShell's control room wasn't overly large, one long console running the length of the room with two
bolted chairs, a wide front viewscreen, and the main terminal for the ship's computer. Everything in Clan
culture was based around the Hunt, their technology advanced enough to make things like piloting
ex-tremely simple; Hunters didn't waste time or energy in areas where there was no honor to be gained.
She stood just outside control in the large, empty shuttle dock where Topknot's transport usually sat,
preparing herself for her first action. The two yautja in operations were older Hunters, past their prime, as
most shipworkers seemed to be. The attitude of yautja toward their elders was respectful, a kind of
unspoken understanding existing that the "retired"could Hunt, but had simply decided not to; in this way,
old Hunters that weren't lucky enough to have died in battle were still worthy of regard. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]