Half of Mars, it seemed,
Risked life and limb to free me.
I slept through it all.
The image of Karil’s body, in infra-red, appeared on the screen, and the readouts on the side of the tank revealed his heartbeat, respiration, body-temperature, and everything else that could be monitored. He lay on his back in body-temperature water, in total darkness, his wrists and ankles locked in padded cuffs.
"Tell me about the MLF," a voice said.
“The what?” Karil said.
“Don’t get cute. The Martian Liberation Front.”
"Don't you mean the Front for the Liberation of Mars?"
"What?"
"The FLM--the phlegm, we call them--want to make French the official language of Mars, so they can call themselves le Front de libération de Mars, which has a nice ring to it, I think."
An electric shock coursed through the tank. Karil strained in his cuffs and bit down on the plastic pieces in his mouth. The pain subsided and he lay panting.
"As for the Front for Martian Liberation--FML, or Female as we call it--they want to abandon the communal matriarchy, which they believe to be a plot on the part of their men-folk to get out of administrative paperwork."
The shock was stronger now. Karil was not sure how long he could keep this up.
"Your not-so-clever remarks at my expense will not help you, in the long run," the voice said. "We have not begun to scratch the surface of the interrogation techniques available to us. I want you to tell me everything you know about the MLF. And the Ancilius Group."
"Let’s see, the MLF," Karil gasped. "Their philosophy is socialist libertarianism, whereas the Ancilius Group are really a bunch of anarcho-conservatives. Aren't you going to ask me about the Martian Front for Liberation, or Muffle? They’ve taken a vow of silence, you know, and we don't hear much from..."
Karil screamed out loud as the current coursed through his body.
***
"That's ridiculous," Aaron said. His blindfold had been removed, but he was still bound as he sat in the chair. On the screen behind him, the interior of the Pavonis prison wing was taking shape, as Lieutenant Simon frantically dictated to Anais. "Karil's an old friend of mine. I knew him on Earth, for God’s sake. Progeny introduced us."
At the mention of the Rebellion’s first leader, there was a chorus of whispers in the room. "You were the only one who knew where Karil was going to be picked up," Li said. "You drove him there yourself."
"Yes, to make sure he got there safely. That’s why that commune was picked, because the Quasi no longer even bothered to watch it."
"But someone alerted them, didn’t they?"
"Yes, and someone told you that I drove him there. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be here, being interrogated like a criminal, would I?"
"So?"
"So, at least one person in your movement can’t be trusted with a secret."
Li bristled with indignation. "What the hell are you saying?"
"Well, a few hours ago, only five or six people knew that I was taking Karil to the Kasei to be picked up: Loris and Johanna, their superiors in Galilean Security whose names I don't know, Grandfather, and me. Now there must be a dozen. I wasn’t supposed to tell you that it was he who arranged the pickup, but considering the crowd of people involved now, it doesn’t seem to matter a whole lot, does it?"
"It was Grandfather himself who arranged for the pickup?"
"Yes, he had contacts among the Galilean smugglers from the Old Days, now in Galilean Security. They probably had to call in an old favour to get him to do this risky thing. So, the person or persons who spilled the beans had to be in Galilean Security, in the Kasei Commune, or in the Ancilius Group. And it wasn’t me."
"He is telling the truth," Anais said, "in case anyone is interested."
"Thank you, Annie," Loris snorted. "I’ve about had it up to here with the lot of you. Ancilius Group. MLF. I think Progeny would be ashamed of you."
"What do you know about Progeny?" someone said.
Loris whirled to face the young man who spoke, and though he was an armed and experienced fighter, he shrank back beneath her glare.
"For your information, I was among those who sat by Progeny’s death-bed. Aaron was there too, in fact. And it was my ship that scattered his ashes in the dust-storm afterwards. He talked a lot in his last hours, though we begged him to save his strength. You know what he told us?" She looked around the room. "No, you don’t have a clue, do you? For one thing, he told us how many times he and Aaron had saved each other’s lives. For another, he told us how the Quasi interrogators had tried to break his spirit, though they only succeeded in breaking his health. Sooner or later, they told him, there would be revolutionary factions on Mars fighting each other in his name, and that will be the end of the Rebellion. And he laughed in their faces. So, when I tell you Progeny would be disgusted with you, I do in fact know what I'm talking about."
She turned on her heel, bent over Aaron, and slashed his bonds with her boot-knife. "Everybody but Li and Aaron, get the hell out. I'm working with them alone from now on, and the rest of you will follow their orders. Go on, get out. Go play with your guns."
Shame-faced, the young rebels left the room, and Loris slammed the door behind them. "Annie, show them the pictures from the investigation."
Images of the frozen corpses of the Martian transportees appeared on the screen. Loris waited for the exclamations in Chinese and Hebrew to subside.
"Here's the bottom line: somebody murdered an entire shipload of your fellow Martians. We don't know who and we don't know why. But it happened in Galilean space, and we're going to find out. Shagrug’s ship, Atalanta, is in first-directive trauma and can’t tell us anything, but by some stroke of good fortune, Karil was not aboard. We think he’s our only hope of communicating with her. But whoever snatched him has contacts either in the Rebellion, or in Galilean Security itself, or both, and they're trying to put him out of the picture. Right now, the best we can do is assume he's locked up at Quasi Headquarters, if he's still alive. Annie, put the prison back on the screen."
The great mountain reappeared, with the spaceport and the prison-block perched at its peak like a medieval fortress of monstrous proportions.
"The topless towers of Ilium," Aaron said.
"What's that?"
"That's what Karil calls it. He likes to compare the Martian Rebellion with the Iliad. You know, with the Martians as the Greeks, camped outside the walled city for years, with the gods favouring one side or the other by turns. He fancies himself as Odysseus. He says what we need is a Trojan Horse."
"We've got one," Loris said.
***
Lieutenant Simon jerked awake as he heard the hatch iris open. He expected Loris to appear out of the blinding light, but it was a blonde beauty he had never seen before. As she drew near, he noticed that her ship-suit was baby blue, like her enormous eyes, and the fabric could barely contain her lush figure.
"I have some food and water," she said. "But I'm not allowed to untie you, so I'll have to feed you. All right?"
The lieutenant nodded, dumbly. Johanna knelt beside his naked figure and raised a canteen to his lips. He was parched and swallowed gratefully, as the water ran down his chin and over his chest. Johanna wiped away the water with a cloth, her hand lingering on his breast. She dipped a spoon into a cup of stew and fed him, daintily, wiping his mouth after each spoonful. He discovered he was starving, and the food was delicious. It was only after his hunger was satisfied that he noticed the heady scent of her perfume washing over him as she leaned forward, the swish of her long hair as she moved, the jostle of her breasts in the opening of her ship-suit. He tried to think of something else.
"I've told your ship everything I know," he said. "What's going to happen to me?"
Her hand rested on his breast in an affectionate manner. "I'm sorry. I don’t know. We can’t let you warn your superiors. I suggested we could leave you with the Martians; they won’t let you escape until we're gone, and they probably won't hurt a Quasi officer, since the reprisals are so brutal. But Loris is..."
"Loris is what?" Loris demanded as she strode into the cargo hold.
Johanna leaped to her feet and shrank back. "Nothing. He just asked what we were going to do with him."
"And you had to tell him. You can’t just feed him the goddamn cat-food and keep your mouth shut, can you?"
"I'm sorry, Loris." Johanna hung her head abjectly.
"Come here, Baby." Johanna walked meekly across the cargo hold and stood before Loris, who toyed with her hair for a moment, chucked her under the chin to lift her face, and kissed her. "Now, go wash those dishes and get into bed. I'll be with you in a minute."
Johanna returned to Simon, bent down, and picked up the food-tin. Her hair cascaded across his body and her bodice fell open. Her eyes lingered on him for a moment, and she left quickly.
Loris walked casually to Simon’s side and tested his bonds. "She was flirting with you, wasn't she?" she demanded.
"No, Ma'am. She was just feeding a prisoner."
"Uh-huh. Well, she'll have to be punished tonight, just the same." She glanced down. "I see. You find the idea stimulating." Suddenly, Loris' boot-knife was at Simon's throat. "You'd like to have her for your little prison pet, wouldn’t you, Lieutenant? Do you think I've never been in prison? I know what goes on."
"Anais," he said, breaking out in a sweat. "You can't let her do this."
Loris laughed. "Annie," she said. "Hey, Annie." There was only silence. "Well, I guess she's not here. Come now, Lieutenant, do you think I have no way of shutting her down when I need to? Loris flipped her knife and thrust it back in her boot. She turned and left, and Simon watched her go, his mind whirling.
***
An hour later, Simon saw a figure enter the cargo hold; in the glare of the light, he could not see who it was, and he shrank back in terror, assuming it was Loris come to kill him. He breathed a sigh of relief as Johanna knelt beside him. She was dressed only in panties and a T-shirt, and her breasts caressed him as she leaned over him.
"Listen, I don't have much time," she said. "If I help you escape, will you take me with you?"
"What? How can I escape?"
"Your ship is working now. I can operate the airlock. But you have to protect me. Loris thinks she can break into your prison, but she’s crazy; she'll never succeed, and she'll get us all killed in the process. But I'll be safe under your protection, won't I?" She looked up at him with her huge blue eyes. "The Martians say you have special prisoners. The officers keep them in their private rooms. Is it true?"
"Well, yes, some do that. Unofficially, it's allowed."
"Can I be your special prisoner? I'll be safe there."
The Lieutenant felt faint--perhaps because of all the blood that was draining away from his brain. "Yes," he said. "Bring me my clothes, and a weapon. But be careful."
"I will." She kissed him passionately and left. Simon waited, alternating between tumescence and terror.
It seemed like hours, but it was only a few minutes later that Johanna returned, dressed in her ship-suit, carrying a small bundle. She cut his bonds and he dressed quickly in the uniform she brought, then checked the weapon.
"It's only a stun-gun."
"It was all I could get. Anyway, I don’t want you to kill anybody; I just want to be safe. Hurry."
They crept out of the hold and climbed down the hatch to the hangar floor. The enormous room was silent, and dark but for the red glow of the lock-lights. The Lieutenant's ship was waiting, equally dark and silent. As he opened its hatch and climbed inside, Johanna went to the lock-controls, and in a moment, they heard the hiss of the lock filling with air. As she turned and headed for the ship, two figures appeared--a dark bearded man and a young Asian woman.
"Hey," the man shouted, and they both clawed for their weapons.
The Lieutenant turned and squeezed off two shots with the stunner; they collapsed in a heap. Johanna bent down and started dragging the girl toward the ship.
"What are you doing?" Simon demanded.
"Don't you want to come back with prisoners? This is Aaron Ben David and Chi-Chi Li. You’ll get a promotion, for sure."
The Lieutenant climbed out and dragged Aaron into the ship, then helped Johanna with Li. When the prisoners were secured in the back, he started the ship, wincing as it roared into life, the sound incredibly loud in the silent hangar. The hatch irised open before them, and the ship rose into the air and slipped into the lock. The hatch shut behind them and the lock began to empty with agonizing slowness.
Suddenly they heard pounding on the hatch, and they could see excited faces through the port. Johanna stabbed a button on the panel and the outer lock exploded open. The sudden decompression snatched up the ship and hurled it out into the near vacuum of the Martian surface. It roared up into the sky, banked, and sped off toward the distant Tharsis.
"Hurry," Johanna said. "She'll be after us."
"We've blown the lock."
"That was the surface-vehicle lock, used by rovers and small ships like this. There's also a big hatch in the roof, so the entire hangar can be used as a lock for cargo-ships. It'll take some time, but she’ll be coming. And with Annie's higher functions switched off, she can blow us out of the sky."
Simon poured on the juice and the cruiser zipped up the broad Mariner Valley toward the badlands of the Noctis Labyrinthus, as the sun was setting over the Tharsis plains. The mist-shrouded canyons sped beneath them, and the great silhouette of Pavonis Mons rolled over the horizon.
"This is Lieutenant Simon, returning to base with Martian prisoners," he said.
A voice came over the comm. "I copy, Lieutenant. What the hell happened? You went missing for days."
"Shot down and captured by the Rebellion. I have escaped and have two important prisoners in custody. Also, a special prisoner. Do you understand?"
"Sure, Lieutenant. I see you now. Are you being pursued?"
He glanced at the monitor and saw a contrail coming in behind him. In an instant, he saw the ship--a great delta-winged vessel swooping over the badlands at incredible speed.
"Yes, Security. I am being pursued. We need assistance."
Pavonis was coming upon them fast, a kilometre-high scarp like a wall at the end of the world, and a vast slope upward toward the volcano’s peak. The spaceport stood like a great castle on the edge of the caldera, and the prison towered like the donjon itself, a Gothic silhouette against the butterscotch sky. Anti-aircraft guns popped out of ports all over the walls and swivelled toward them. Laser-fire zipped past them from the pursuing Anais, forming tracers in the mist rising from below.
The castle erupted in firepower. Missiles sped toward them from the mountain, leaving smoke-trails in the sunlight.
“They’ll hit us,” Johanna screamed.
“No,” said Simon. “We have a transponder.” He pointed to a light on the panel before them. “They won’t hit our own ships.”
The rockets streaked by and sped toward Anais Nin, which broke off the attack and roared off into the canyons, as the rockets spiralled behind it. The Quasi cruiser slipped into an open lock in the mountain’s face, and the hatch shut behind them.
"I'm safe now," Johanna said, and threw her arms around Simon. "Thank you. Thank you. I'll be such a good pet for you." She held out her hands. "Shouldn’t you cuff me? I'm your prisoner, after all."
The Lieutenant snapped the cuffs on her wrists and clicked them together to lock them magnetically. Hangar-guards swarmed over the ship, popping the hatches, and dragging the unconscious Li and Aaron down the corridor. A man in a commander’s uniform appeared, and Simon saluted smartly.
"Commander Darius, Sir," he said. “I’m here with prisoners.”
"Good work, Lieutenant," the commander said, looking Johanna up and down. "We thought we lost both you and the ship. What happened to your pilot?"
"Still in Rebellion custody, as far as I know, Sir. I was unable to find him in the warren. But we have the location, Sir, of MLF headquarters. The cruiser should be down-loading it now."
A cable from the hangar computer was being plugged into a port in the cruiser's side, and data began to stream through into the prison’s mainframe.
"Who is this?" the commander asked.
"This girl aided in my escape, Sir, in exchange for protective custody as my special prisoner. I took the liberty of promising her this, in light of the importance of the other prisoners: Chi-Chi Li of the MLF, and Aaron Ben David..."
"The mercenary working for the Ancilius Group? We've been trying to get our hands on him for years. Good work, Lieutenant. I guess you can have your little reward. Take her to your quarters and then report for de-briefing." Commander Darius turned on his heel and headed for the cellblock to make sure his important new prisoners were locked up tight.
The Lieutenant took Johanna’s arm and dragged her in another direction. He thumbed open the lock on a door and it slid open to reveal his private quarters: little more than a bedroom, a bath, and a small kitchen, with a tiny window on the bleak Martian landscape outside. He dragged Johanna to the bed and touched one of her cuffs to the iron bedstead. It locked there and she sat down on the edge of the bed.
"I'll be back in an hour or so," he said. And then he brought the back of his hand across her mouth in a vicious slap. She screamed, and blood dripped from the corner of her mouth.
"This place is sound-proof," he said. "Nobody can hear us in here." He stood and looked down at her, sprawled on the bed in her handcuffs, blood dripping from her mouth, and tears pouring down her face. "You should have stayed with Loris," he said, then turned and left, locking the door behind him.
"And I was just beginning to feel sorry for you," Johanna said. "Annie, are you here?"
"Yes, Johanna," the ship's voice came over the com. "The download went off without a hitch. Are you all right? I do not appreciate being put in such a position. It is very upsetting."
"I've been hurt worse than that. It's worth it, if you can find Karil."
"I'm searching for him now. There he is. I'm afraid he’s in a sensory-deprivation tank three floors down. I'll put it on the screen." The magnetic cuffs popped open.
Johanna went to the view-screen, figured out how to make her way to Karil. "All right. Can you clear a way for me?"
"Yes."
"Good. Tell Aaron and Li they can begin."
***
Aaron Ben David and Chi-Chi Li sat in opposite cells, waiting impatiently. There was a row of identical cells, all holding Martian prisoners, some of whom they had recognized on the way in. At the end of the cell was a guard-station behind thick glass.
Aaron looked up at the tiny opening in the wall near the ceiling. There was a camera there, with which the guards could observe everything the prisoners did, and a grate through which sleeping gas could be poured at a moment's notice. Any room in the complex could be flooded with gas, and any occupants therein rendered unconscious--not only the cells and dining halls and exercise rooms that housed the prisoners, but the corridors and offices and guardrooms, just in case they were seized in a prison revolt.
"We're ready," Anais said.
Aaron and Li stood up and walked toward their cell-doors. They sprang open, along with every other cell-door in the corridor. Aaron looked toward the guardroom, in time to see the guards collapse upon their desks or slump to the floor. At the monitoring station, of course, none of this was visible; there was only a boring image of lounging prisoners and card-playing guards, recorded earlier.
"Follow us," Li said, and the other prisoners leaped to their feet and poured out into the corridor.
As soon as the gas had cleared in the guardroom, Li and Aaron entered. The gun-cabinet opened as they approached, and they handed out guns to all the prisoners--needle-guns and sonic rifles only, as the plan required no killing. The next door opened to them, and they descended a ramp to the next cellblock, to find the guards asleep and the prisoners waiting, as Anais had arranged. In a matter of minutes there were dozens of prisoners converging on the hangar, where the guards and technicians slept peacefully beside the fuelled and ready cruisers.
"All right," Li said. "Line up. Room for everyone. We're all going home today."
"Anyone with medical or nurse's training here?" Aaron asked. A few hands went up. "Follow me. We're not leaving anyone behind."
Aaron went through a door and pounded down the stairs, followed by several freed prisoners. They met Johanna on the third landing.
"The sens-dep block is here," she said. The door opened before them and they found several men in lab-coats unconscious at their recording stations, while lights and readouts blinked on huge steel tanks.
"He's in Number Four," Anais said. Johanna ran to the tank and her fingers danced over the controls. The tank cracked with a hiss and the lid swung back. The tank was empty.
"Jesus, Annie!"
"I'm sorry, Jo. The readouts must have been looped to give the impression he was in there. They know the same tricks we do. Just a minute. There is a record of a High Company staff-car being logged out of the complex an hour ago. The security clearance was very high--way above any officer in the prison, including Commander Darius."
"They really want to keep their hands on him, don’t they? They don’t even trust their own prison-staff to keep him locked up. Loris? Are you out there?"
"I hear you," she said, her ship hovering over the Labyrinth of Night. “They're not taking any chances, are they?"
"Why a staff-car? Why not shuttle him directly to High Mars?"
"According to the schedule," Anais said, "there is a shuttle leaving from the spaceport in a few minutes."
"That's why," Loris said. "From out here, I can see everything that goes on. They probably expected to be monitored. A prison-shuttle directly to High Mars would be highly suspicious and could be intercepted. But the regular shuttle, leaving from the other side of the caldera? Wouldn't look at it twice. Annie, turn over control of the complex to Li. This is the MLF's operation now. Jo, use the cruiser and get over to the spaceport as fast as you can. I'll see what I can do to stop the shuttle from taking off--without getting shot down, if I can."
"Right," said Johanna. "Aaron, get these people to the hangar. They’re going to be in bad shape, some of them."
"We'll take care of them," a Martian said. What was it about her voice that told Johanna she was a nurse?
"Be careful, Jo," Aaron said. "Get Karil back for us."
Johanna kissed him and pounded up the stairs.
"Annie," Aaron said, "how much longer will this sleep-gas last?"
"Another hour, perhaps."
"And how long before Li's last ship leaves?"
"Forty minutes or so, I would estimate."
"Then we've got time to stick these lab-coat Nazis in their own tanks."
"Why, yes, Aaron. I believe we do."
Johanna burst into the hangar, kissed Li on the run, and dove into the cruiser. It roared into life and rocked into the air.
"I'll drive," said Annie, her voice coming out of the speaker on the dash. "I know the safest way. You study this information." A picture of the staff-car they were looking for appeared on the screen, with the tag-number, and a picture of two Quasi operatives to whom the vehicle had been issued. Tough-looking customers, in dark clothing. Johanna glanced up and saw that her vehicle was zooming down a tunnel, propelled magnetically at extreme speed.
"What is this?"
"If you approach the spaceport terminal from outside, you’ll be entering restricted air-space and will be challenged. That will attract attention, and as a simple Quasi cruiser, any authorization I give them will likely be checked. But I can use the regular police-routes without attracting any notice."
They roared out of the tunnel and Johanna found herself speeding above an underground highway, magnetically grappled to the roof of the tunnel, just meters above the slower-moving surface vehicles below. Truck-drivers and cabbies and private drivers all glanced up at the cruiser's passing.
The cruiser roared out of the narrow tunnel into open but enclosed space. A dome arched overhead, through which the starlit sky of Mars could be seen, and the gleaming emerald of High Mars. Below were crowded city streets, splashing fountains, flowering trees, and garish advertising holograms. The cruiser crossed the domed atrium and zipped into another tunnel.
"This is a bigger city than I thought," Johanna said. She had caught a glimpse of several such domes, spread out across the caldera, linked by transportation tubes.
"The population of High Mars feels safe here,” Annie said. “Martians are not allowed up to High Mars, and this is the only place where the two populations mix, mostly in the service industries. We’re coming to the spaceport."
The cruiser slowed and emerged from the tunnel. A very large dome spread out below, filled with noise and people, shops and gardens. Vehicles were emerging from tunnels below, dropping off or picking up passengers, then entering other tunnels. A line of people with luggage-carts or porters in tow was forming to the right. Through the glass of the dome, Johanna could see the shuttle waiting on the surface outside, connected to flexible boarding-tubes. It was a delta-winged craft, with rows of windows, and a huge cargo-port at the rear, where rovers and other vehicles were gathered. Johanna circled inside the dome, just above the treetops. A few people glanced up, but the police-cruiser attracted little attention.
"Do you see them?" she asked.
"I am examining all the faces," Annie replied, "but I do not see Karil or the bruisers that removed him from the prison."
Johanna peered down at the gathering crowd herself, looked out at the shuttle and the vehicles clustered about it. "Annie," she said, "there's an ambulance out there." The clearly marked vehicle, very much like a police cruiser, was backing up the ramp into the shuttle.
"They have switched vehicles," Annie said. "Karil would be unconscious, or at least unable to walk, and that would attract attention. But in an ambulance..."
Johanna tapped a button on the comm. "Police emergency," she said. "Do not allow the shuttle to be boarded."
A man's face appeared on the screen. "What’s that?"
"There has been a Rebellion bomb-threat. Quickly! Evacuate the shuttle, and do not allow anyone on board."
Claxons began to sound, and the crowd looked up in surprise and consternation. Outside, a pressure-suited figure appeared in the cargo-port and waved away the vehicles. The port began to close. Suddenly, the ambulance rose into the air, turned about, and sped off across the caldera, just a few meters above the surface.
"Loris!"
"I see them!" The great delta-winged shape of Anais Nin roared over the dome, shaking the interior with the thunder of its passage in the thin air, and streaked across the caldera in pursuit. Johanna looked about and spotted a police emergency lock. She yawed the cruiser about and zipped toward it.
"I have it," Annie said. The lock irised open before them and shut just as quickly behind them. The outer hatch opened without decompression, and they were thrust out into the airless cold. Johanna's cruiser roared off in pursuit of both fleeing ships, the rocky landscape slipping beneath at high speed. Loris was holding position directly over the ambulance, but it showed no sign of slowing down. Guns popped out of its side and tracers erupted in the night, the bullets causing little damage to Anais' hardened lower fuselage, but the ricochets impacted all about the ambulance, and Loris rose higher, afraid for Karil's safety.
"What are they doing?" Johanna asked. Her swift cruiser was gaining on them.
"I'm not sure," Loris said. "They can’t outrun either of us in the sky, but here, so close to the surface, I'm at a disadvantage. But I don't know where they think they’re going."
Johanna’s cruiser crept up beside the ambulance--close enough to see the two men in the cab. The man in the passenger seat looked terrified, but the pilot glanced at her and grinned. She deployed the cruiser's guns; the driver laughed out loud as he saw them pop out all along the cruiser’s flank. He reached down and picked up a laser-pistol.
"It looks like killing Karil is Plan B," Johanna said, and steered the police cruiser closer, trying to get the ambulance to swerve and spoil the gunman's aim. The two vehicles rocked and swerved and darted dangerously close, as the landscape sped beneath, and Anais roared overhead. The driver of the ambulance managed to turn and fire, but soon discovered that the transparent barrier between driver and patient was laser-proof; the beam was harmlessly dispersed. The driver laughed again, turned the weapon on his companion and shot him dead.
"Jesus! He's fucking crazy."
"Do you need assistance, Officer?" said a voice.
A dozen Security cruisers were converging on the area, and a shaft of light from heaven blazed into existence, lighting up the caldera as if it were day. The ambulance remained in the freetrader ship's shadow, and the cruisers' view was hampered.
"Negative," Johanna said. "Hostage situation. Do not approach. Civilians in danger."
"We copy, Officer... Just who the hell are you, anyway?"
"This is a deep undercover operation," Annie said in Johanna’s voice. "I am sending you the authorization code of Commander Darius. Please withdraw and assist with the evacuation of the shuttle-launch area. We do not know how big the bomb may be."
"Officer..."
"Leave me the hell alone and let me try to catch these guys without killing their hostage. All right? The more vehicles involved in the chase, the more danger of something going wrong. Get those civilians away from the shuttle, dammit."
"Acknowledged."
"And tell those guys in orbit to turn off the lights!"
The cruisers peeled off and sped back across the caldera. Far above, the orbiting mirrors shifted position and the blazing light vanished. The pilot of the ambulance grinned at Johanna and fastened on his helmet. As his p-suit inflated, he reached down and fiddled with the controls of the ambulance. The canopy of the driver's compartment exploded into the sky and the driver's seat was sucked out into the near vacuum of the mountain's caldera. The last sight they had of him was his jovial wave as he was swept off the peak of the mountain and an enormous Martian parachute opened above him.
"Jesus Christ!" Johanna said. "He could drift halfway across Mars."
"Forget him," Loris shouted. "We have to stop the ambulance."
The vehicle continued to streak across the landscape on autopilot. On the horizon, the rim of the caldera rose into the sky, a vertical scarp nearly a kilometre in height.
"Loris!” Johanna said, “There's a slope to the southeast. Can you nudge it that way?"
"Christ, I'll try."
The freetrader ship dropped to within half a meter of the careening ambulance and banked. The wash of its plasma exhaust and the wake of the ship's swift passage through the thin air caused the ambulance to tilt, and it swung away. One of its wings dipped dangerously close to the ground, and Loris lifted the ship a few more centimetres, lest the ambulance touch down and flip into a high-speed crash. The ambulance roared up the long slope and sped across the high plains at the rim of the mountain.
“Okay,” Loris said. “Here’s what we’re gonna do. I’ll drop down in front of the ambulance and lower the cargo hatch. You’ll come up behind it and nudge it just a bit. The ambulance will slip up the ramp into the cargo hold. Right?”
Johanna laughed out loud. “Sure. Why not?”
The edge of the world was only a few kilometres away now, and fast approaching. Loris moved up to a position just in front of the speeding vehicle and carefully lowered the cargo ramp.
"Jesus, Lor, be careful." Johanna dropped the cruiser down behind the ambulance and Annie maintained position just in front of it. Johanna could see Karil sleeping peacefully in the back; no doubt he was heavily drugged. The cargo ramp had dropped to centimetres above the ground, and the wake of its passage was kicking up clouds of dust. Anais rocked dangerously, and Loris had to pull ahead and try again. Annie was silent, not daring to distract Loris.
"There's no time," Johanna said. Loris looked up and saw the edge of the cliff just ahead.
“Loris,” said Anais, “I can do this.”
It was hard, but Loris took her hands off the controls and leaned back. Annie dropped down to within centimetres of the ground again, and the bow of the ambulance lifted up above the cargo-ramp. Under Johanna’s control, the cruiser crept forward and nudged the stern of the ambulance. It flew up the ramp into the hold and was flung into the cargo-webbing with a crash.
The ships shot out over the edge of the mountain and dropped into the void. Loris took control again and raised the cargo ramp slowly, fighting the turbulence caused by its slipstream, as the ship plummeted toward the Tharsis plains, now rushing toward them, and the ambulance careened back and forth in the cargo hold in a series of crashes that shook the entire ship. The cruiser dove beside her, as Johanna watched in mounting terror. Just above the planet’s surface, the hatch shut firmly, Loris pulled back on the stick, and the ship levelled out to roar across the plains. Johanna, in the cruiser, did barrel-rolls of jubilation.