You thought they were just maintenance bots, not worthy of your attention.
Suddenly there was a grinding sound at the front of the pod. Shit. Were they trying to break in?
HEART RATE REDZONED, his wellseeker warned. BP REDZONED. ADJUST? “Shut the fuck up,” he growled. He tried to visualize the icon that would turn the wellseeker off again, but it was hard to focus on anything other than the sounds now coming from different sections of his hull; they must be trying to cut their way through from all angles. If they broke into the pilot’s chamber while he was unsuited he wouldn’t stand a chance.
He struggled to unstrap himself from his seat, but his hands were trembling so badly it was hard to manage. Finally he got free and pushed himself toward the rear of the pod. There the evac was waiting, its frame a gaping maw. For a moment he hesitated, knowing that once he committed to evacuation his odds of survival were slim. But if he stayed here his death was certain. Grabbing the evac frame, he pulled himself into position in the center of it, trying to remember the proper order of steps from his safety training. Feet onto the shoe blocks. Hands into the waiting gloves. Head pressed back to trigger the evac program. Suddenly there were robotic arms coming at him from every direction, and it took all his self-control to remain totally still as they wrapped a pressure suit around him, lowered a helmet over his head, strapped an oxygen pack and jet frame onto his back, and sealed every seam. CONFIRM EVACUATION? the system asked when it was done, projecting the letters across the inside of his visor. At the far end of the pod the hull was beginning to twist, as if some giant hand were crushing it. The navigational display sputtered and went dark. Sparks shot across the chamber as the main lights went out. “Confirm!” he gasped.
Gas rushed into the pressurizing channels in his suit, squeezing him so tightly that he couldn’t draw a breath. Then the emergency lock behind him opened and the vacuum of space sucked him out, along with a swarm of small objects torn free from their holders. He was spinning in the darkness, and the station was above him, then below him, then above him, below him . . . He fought back nausea as his stabilizers finally kicked in, and the small directional jets built into his suit stopped his rotation. Stars and space swam around him for a few seconds more, and as they finally settled he twisted around to look for his ship.
The bots were dismembering it. A few of them had extruded vast silver nets as fine as spider silk, which they were using to gather up the segments that others had cut loose. A pair of bots flew around the dissection site, a net stretched between them, probably looking for smaller bits that might have floated away.
Shit.
They were coming around the far end of the wreckage now; any moment their sensors would detect him. He had to get out of their search range, fast. He triggered a short burst of propulsion to thrust him backward, praying that the jet spurts coming from the bots themselves would mask the energy expenditure. He dared no more. With agonizing slowness he drifted away from the wreck, while the pair with the net rounded its far end and turned toward him. Then suddenly there was a flash of light, so bright that it triggered his suit’s defense mechanism. His visor went opaque, blinding him. Darkness filled his suit, thick and stifling, making it hard to breathe. What were the bots doing now? Had they noticed him? He was helpless to do anything to save himself. Panic welled up inside him—
And as suddenly as it had darkened, his visor cleared. He drew a long, shaky breath, and struggled to get his bearings. The light must have been from some kind of explosion, because all that remained of the ship now was an expanding cloud of small fragments; the bots were flying around crazily, trying to gather them all. That took attention away from him, but as soon as they’d netted all the visible pieces they would probably do a final scan of surrounding space, to see if they’d missed anything. He might be beyond their range in a physical sense, but his suit’s energy signature would blaze like a star to that inspection. He was going to have to shut down everything if he wanted to remain unnoticed.
Including his life support.
While the bots chased down the last fragments of his ship, he reactivated his wellseeker and let it release a bit of sedative into his blood stream, taking the edge off his panic. Then he waited, heart pounding, as they gathered up the last of the fragments of his dismembered ship. Most of the bots were turning back toward Shenshido, but a particularly large one began a circuit of the debris field, its sensors turned outward. Clearly it was searching for outliers. Micah drew in one last deep breath, and—
Now.
No more air. No more thrumming of the suit’s pressure system. He had no clue what was supposed to happen to a human body when a suit’s pressure failed, but probably he’d suffocate from lack of oxygen before that became an issue. He watched in silence as the mechanical eye of the bot turned in his direction. Stared right at him.
Then it turned away.
He brought his life support back online, then drew in a deep, deep breath of air. The bots were all heading toward Shenshido now, their nets and their booty trailing behind them as they accelerated into the darkness. One by one he lost sight of them.
And then he was alone. Unharmed, but utterly alone. Floating in the darkness with an evac suit, a six-hour supply of oxygen, and not much else. No one was around to attack him, but no one was around to help him, either. The suit’s propulsion could get him back to Shenshido, but were there people there? By the time he arrived the attack bots would be back in place, waiting for their next target to approach. Would a lone man in an evacuation suit qualify, or was he small enough to slip past their sensors?
It didn’t matter. There was nowhere else to go.
NANTANA
The tapestry is eternal, without beginning or end. Its threads are so tightly interwoven that the eye must struggle to focus on any one of them. Its colors are so enmeshed one must labor to discern the greater pattern.
The nantana can see each thread. It can identify each pattern. It knows, with instinctive certainty, where the addition or removal of a colored strand might alter the tapestry’s shape, or its color, or its purpose.
Sometimes it moves a thread, for amusement.
Sometimes it has purpose.
Sometimes it merely watches.
KAJA: An Outworlder’s Guide to the Gueran Social Contract, Volume 2: Signs of the Soul
GUERA NODE
TIANANMEN STATION
THE DEBRIEFING was no better or worse than usual in terms of protocol, but the atmosphere was considerably more solemn. There were four Guerans sitting opposite Ru instead of the usual two, but given that she’d lost a partner, that was to be expected. They wanted extra nantana present to interpret her expressions and her posture and the pattern of her fidgeting, adding their observations to the report she had already filed. The only one of the four she knew was a man named Tye Jericho, who had apparently been promoted since their last meeting. How many of her debriefings had he overseen, now? Three? Four? The lavender bangs brushed back over his scarlet headset seemed to be begging for chromatic rescue. But his was a friendly face, and that saved her from having to recite the details of Tully’s death to a crowd of total strangers.