Part 13 (2/2)

Once she was safely latched in, Bened.i.c.k unclipped himself. ”All you think of is food.”

”Bird's nest soup,” she tempted, and lowered him before he asked. He had to swing a little to make contact with the rim of the shaft. But once his feet struck the deck the mimosas drew back to make a protected glade, and he brought Chelsea down to it with no trouble.

The easiest method for cooking the soup involved painstaking deployment of the microwave projectors in their toolkit. The toolkit curled around the collapsible bowl, and Bened.i.c.k and Chelsea cupped their s.h.i.+elded gauntlets around it, careful lest stray radiation should cook their eyeb.a.l.l.s, their internal organs, or any pa.s.sing birds. Soon they were sharing a steaming, pleasantly mucilaginous bowl of bird's nest soup studded with chunks of mushroom and soft-poached swift eggs.

”This is awfully idyllic for a high-speed chase,” Chelsea said as Bened.i.c.k wiped out the dinner dishes. He was worried about the toolkit's charge, though he could replenish it from his armor if need be.

The toolkit itself was almost underfoot, seeming determined to maintain a wide berth from the mimosa. Bened.i.c.k couldn't say he blamed it. He clucked, and the toolkit got a running start, leaped to his extended hand, and scampered up his arm.

”There's little to be gained by catching her if we're too exhausted to do anything about it,” Bened.i.c.k said mildly. He folded the bowl away and tucked it into his pack.

”That also sounds like something Father would have said.”

Bened.i.c.k set his cable, ignoring the irrational twinge of irritation. He was not his father, and Chelsea was not Tristen. ”One time or another, I'm certain he did. Do you wish to lead the first descent?”

From the examining glance Chelsea cast across Bened.i.c.k's face as she fixed their lines together, she knew perfectly well that he was holding back. She might even know what; he was always surprised by the gaps and bridges in the younger siblings' knowledge of family history.

No blame on them for that. It wasn't as if he or Tristen had gone out of their way to make themselves available to teach. The fact that their father had disallowed such knowledge only increased their onus to have pa.s.sed it along. Maybe their reasons were different-Bened.i.c.k, as far as he knew, had far more to be ashamed of than Tristen, and he would have been happy to let his many failings remain private history-but the truth was, both of them were complicit in Alasdair Conn's conspiracy of lies.

So in the light of everything else, perhaps it was an insignificant failure. Nonetheless, it remained one that griped at Bened.i.c.k, as further evidence of his own moral cowardice-something he thought he'd already established to everyone's satisfaction.

”Right,” Chelsea said. ”See you at the bottom of the rope.” She swung a leg over the lip, and was gone.

For a time, they progressed as before, leapfrogging one another down the shaft. In this section, lighting and terraces were intact, cane-thin rods vining between the trees to provide illumination. Bened.i.c.k's suit p.r.i.c.kled to warn him of unfiltered ultraviolet. He sealed his helm in response. He'd had enough of radiation burns.

As he slid down the cable, the overall effect was of gliding spider-silent through a cool, dappled tunnel. The vegetation, while lush, was climax growth, full of open s.p.a.ces and long, clear lines of sight. After the cramped overgrowth of the previous shaft, the s.p.a.cious bowers of this vertical forest soothed him. It would be harder for an enemy to ambush them here.

The life here was more familiar, though the oxygen levels remained high enough that he still saw insects of unusual size. In this microenvironment, those included flying forms: a dragonfly whose jeweled purple-blue body hung between wings of a half-meter span; a ladybug as big as a dinner plate.

Bened.i.c.k wondered what such large arthropods consumed, and resolved to keep an eye out for predatory insect nymphs the size of his thigh. The stealthy manner of his descent-the only sound he made was in the brush of leaves against his armor and the whir of cable through the winch-meant that he pa.s.sed within touching distance of many animals before they were even aware of his existence. A half-meter spotted cat hissed and vanished; a green-tinged sloth reached with dreamy control from one branch to another and swung away.

He grinned behind his helm-an expression that would have shocked most of his siblings. This was serious business. And he had a reputation for mirthlessness that he thought was as much the result of conditioned anhedonia as anything intrinsic to his character.

But the oxygen levels could make you giddy, and it was hard not to cheer up when you saw a sloth.

Mind on your work, Ben, he thought, in Caitlin's phrasing, and tried not to be too distracted by the wildlife.

Besides the high oxygen, one thing this shaft had in common with the one above was that it was cold. He couldn't feel it through the armor, but the sloth's long, coa.r.s.e coat shone at the tips with frost, and frost also rimed the edges of the broad tree leaves. That had to be new, or transitory, because the trees themselves were hale, their foliage not yet curling.

That told him the system was continuing to lose heat, and heat was a thing not easily replaced unless they could find a way to generate energy-or tap the radiant heat of the expanding core of the supernova behind them, but that presented its own complex of problems.

He wondered how the trees had stayed intact through the acceleration. Perhaps-even broken and locked to a single setting-the gravity controls of the old commuter shaft were strong enough that they had locally compensated. It was an interesting hypothesis, because it carried the implication that, throughout the world, there might be other similarly protected s.p.a.ces that could have sheltered anything within them. When they emerged from blackout, he would contact the angel and Caitlin with the suggestion.

A large trunk blocked his descent immediately below. He flexed knees to land lightly on it, stood, checked the cable with a quick glance up, and hopped over the side just as he heard Chelsea yelp through the comm.

”Bened.i.c.k!”

Caitlin was the only person left alive who called him Ben. When she was speaking with him to call him anything.

”Here,” he answered, one hand on the cable brake. He didn't trigger it yet, though-until you understand the situation, or you understand that halting will do less damage than pus.h.i.+ng on, don't provide the enemy with intelligence.

”I'm under attack,” she said. ”Ambu-” Half the word, until her comm cut out.

Well, I guess that's a hint that we're on the right path. He slowed his descent, fighting the urge to rush. Charging to the rescue was one thing, so long as one was certain that one was charging to the rescue and not barreling into a trap. Silently, his black and bronze-brown armor blending into the dappled shadows of the leaves, he rotated himself so as to descend headfirst, and slipped lower.

The comm stayed dead, but before long his armor brought him the ambient sounds of combat. Cras.h.i.+ng, a heavy thump, the splinter of green wood. No sound of weapons fire, which was suggestive.

The toolkit said ”Brrt?” against his cheek.

”Shh,” he answered. He swung in close to the nearest trunk and anch.o.r.ed the cable, in case Chelsea was still using it; he could sense weight on the opposite end. Then he disconnected himself and began the painstaking process of pressing close against the trunk and circling it.

Like a squirrel, he thought, as something liver red and about as large as his outstretched hand crashed through leaves nearby and bounced hard off the trunk of an age-gnarled sycamore as big around as an air lock door. Whatever it was, it left a trail of sparks, and a meat-colored smear on the tree's patchy green-and-silver trunk before arcing away through the canopy. Bened.i.c.k sank spiked gauntlet-tips into the trunk of his own tree-branches to break the fall or not, it was a long way down-and continued his careful circ.u.mnavigation. Fight on, Sister. I'm coming.

Head-down around the curve of the trunk, he caught sight of her. She was indeed fighting, though her form was almost completely obscured by the lumpy, humping shapes of more of the hand-sized attackers. They shoved and jostled over the surface of her armor, as-blindly, with groping hands, because they occluded her faceplate as well-she clutched at them, grabbed and peeled, hurled them aside in a mess of bridging sparks. More dropped from the branches around her, however; the undersides of nearby trees writhed with the things, and for every one she got off, two more attached themselves.

Bened.i.c.k hooked his knees over a thick, bent limb, having checked the underside for attackers, and-hanging like a sloth-stretched out both hands. The microwave projectors that had so successfully heated his supper had other uses now. While he didn't dare point them directly at Chelsea, even within the protection of her armor, the first step in getting her free was stopping the reinforcements. He couldn't do much about the ones humping down the cable toward her, like malevolent drops of mola.s.ses slipping along a string. But the dozens cl.u.s.tered on the undersides of the tree trunks, waiting their opening-those were fair game.

”Toolkit,” he said. As his helm unsealed, he felt its silken fur uncoil from around his neck. A second later, it slithered the length of his arms. It plugged itself into a wrist outlet and reared up, spreading its fragile-seeming arms wide.

The liver-colored things sizzled but made no other sound. Like insects frying in the concentrated rays of the sun, they writhed, convulsed, and scaled from the trunk in showers, tumbling away below. Some, he heard hit solidly-a meaty thump as they smacked into a trunk or a limb. Some just brushed the leaves aside and vanished into the depths.

It didn't take long, which was a G.o.dsend. Microwaving burned stored power, and unless he was moving the armor couldn't use his own kinetic energy to recharge its batteries. Una.s.sisted, the power cells wouldn't support this kind of expenditure long-and the toolkit couldn't have handled that sort of burn without his armor's help at all. But after less than ninety seconds, the only attackers remaining were the ones clinging to Chelsea and a few others too close to her to burn.

Bened.i.c.k missed his anchor cable now. As the toolkit scampered back inside the safety of his helm, he grabbed the limb supporting his weight-and the equal weight of his armor-freed his legs, and pumped twice hard to make the swing-and-grab to Chelsea's side. He couldn't hear her, but it was possible that the fleshy, leechlike attackers were blocking her comm out but not in.

”It's me,” he said rea.s.suringly, as she got her gauntlets under the edge of a leech-thing on her faceplate, peeled it off, and cast it aside.

Like the others, it made no noise as it fell. He could see that the clear panel of her faceplate was etched where the thing had gripped her; he might have improved her vision slightly, but only just.

”We'll get those off you,” Bened.i.c.k continued, and reached for one that was humped up, prying at the join of her chest plate and helm.

It took doing. The ones next to it grabbed at his fingers with toothed, suckery margins. The one he meant to dislodge was strong, slick with mucus that scarred the fingertips of his gauntlets, and p.r.o.ne to firing off blue sparks when touched. Bened.i.c.k's armor handled the electricity well, but when he finally got the little b.a.s.t.a.r.d off Chelsea's neck, it writhed in his fist and wrapped his gauntlet. His armor reported a sharp and immediate drop in power.

”Leeches,” Bened.i.c.k said, disgustedly, and slammed his hand against the branch he was hanging from to crush it.

At least that worked, resoundingly. The creature sparked and went limp. As he threw it away he caught a glimpse of ripped muscle, a translucent slime of blood, and through that, the dulled gleam of circuitry.

Chelsea's armor arced, her struggles weakening. She still fought, but sluggishly; all her strength was devoted to moving the armor, which now impeded rather than a.s.sisted her. Bened.i.c.k hooked his legs around another nearby bough to free both hands. Now that he had a better idea of the enemy, he didn't bother peeling them away. He just pressed paired thumbs into the center of each, feeling for a power source or heart. The muscle was tough, resilient. Fibers mushed unpleasantly aside until he felt things crunch.

He had gotten three of them off her-and could make out the shadow of her conscious face and open eyes behind the milky, etched faceplate-when the second wave arrived, dropping through the leaves above with a patter like falling rain. He swung his hands up, summoned the toolkit, and opened fire without concerning himself with whatever might be behind them. There were times to worry about collateral damage. This was not one.

The first group died as they fell, sizzling and smoking. Behind them came more, though, in such numbers that he couldn't kill them all. The dead ones knocked his arms aside, then living ones struck and clung. He lost the toolkit when they knocked it from his wrist. He heard it shriek as it fell, and flinched from the sound.

Bioweapon. Quite obviously, because nothing would evolve to keep attacking when it was being so decimated.

Through the armor he felt no pain, but he heard the hiss of the ablative coating being eaten away, and the armor transmitted the hump and suck of the leeches' suckered bellies all too well. Power levels spiraled; the biomechanicals swarmed across his visor, obscuring vision with their flat, fleshy bellies, as if someone had thrown handfuls of organ meats across his face. He sc.r.a.ped his fingers across the helm, squeezing, and felt the muscle and fluids of the one he gripped pulp and ooze around its internal core of electronics and wires. Whatever sc.r.a.ps were left, he cast aside, and reached for the next leech, only to halt as something whipped softly around his wrist, restraining him. He pulled, feeling elasticity but no give. Something in them blocked all the armor's extended senses. Chelsea was somewhere to his left, still hanging from the cable, her armor powered down and incapacitating, but he couldn't feel her. If he could reach- But now something tangled the other arm as well, and stretched against his waist. More and more, but whatever entangled him was also dragging the leeches off. He caught flashes of bright gold and fuchsia movement beyond his scarred, milky faceplate. Through an unscarred corner he thought he saw a beribboned, crested head like that of a fanciful dragon toss one leech up and gulp it down like a pelican gulping a fish. Then he felt pain, the burn of something along his left arm, and would have struggled as tendrils infiltrated the crushed, eroded elbow joint and pried the vambrace loose.

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