Free The Mirrored Heavens by David J. Williams Page B

CICom.”
    “Says who.”
    “Says my codes,” he replies. He beams them to her.
    Her contours show her for a woman. Her breath-mask prevents him from seeing her face. Which is fine by him. Faces are currency. No sense in giving them up for free. And yet there’s something about this woman that grips him immediately. Maybe it’s because she just tried to kill him. Maybe it’s because she’s still got that razorwire dangling from her head.
    “Hold on to me,” he says.
    She doesn’t want to. He can see that. But she does it anyway: steps toward him, embraces him, clasps her arms around his back, looks out over his left shoulder.
    “I’m blocking your shoulder rack,” she says.
    “I’m shutting it down,” he says. “Careful of the main motors.”
    “This isn’t going to work,” she replies. “You’re going to be dodging left and right up there and you’re going to shake me off.”
    “You’re right,” he says. “Get down.”
    She does. A hatch opens on one of his arms. He starts pulling something out.
    “A tether,” she says.
    “Yeah,” he says. “But I figure this is a better use for it than going up a wall. Get back up here.”
    She does, grabs the tether from him, starts lashing it about the two of them. He starts tying knots. A few loops and it’s done.
    “Is that too tight?” he asks.
    “Not for what we’re about to do,” she says. She reaches down, pulls out her boot knife, slices off the excess tether.
    “You ready?”
    “Can you see?”
    “Absolutely,” he replies.
    And reignites his suit’s engines.

    F ace impassive, the Operative pulls himself through the doorway and into the cockpit. Two men sit within its cramped confines. One wears a cap. The other doesn’t. On all sides are clustered all manner of instrument-banks. Narrow windows cut through those banks. Space flickers in those windows.
    “So here he is,” says the man with the cap. Beneath his headpiece sits a pair of bushy eyebrows connected by a scar. The contours of his nose and cheekbones are angled in a way that makes his default expression a sardonic one.
    “Yes,” says the Operative.
    “The man himself,” says the hatless man, whose head is shaved clean like that of the Operative. This man’s older. He looks at the Operative like he’s gazing at a talking horse.
    “I’m Riley,” he says. He gestures at his colleague. “He’s Maschler.”
    “You’re the one I was speaking with,” says the Operative.
    “That’s right,” says Riley.
    “You’re the one who cut me off,” says the Operative.
    “Started you up too,” says Riley. “Let’s not forget that.”
    “We’re the ones who hauled you from the bottom of the well,” says Maschler. “We’re the ones who broke your surly bonds. Without us you’d still be eating dirt. Surely that counts for something?”
    “Oh,” says the Operative, “it does.”
    They look at him. They’re hanging on his every word. They don’t want him to see that. But to him it’s clear how on edge they are. He’s never felt more relaxed.
    “It’s the reason I knocked,” he adds.
    “Ah,” says Riley.
    “And now you’re going to tell me what’s going on.”
    “Who says we know?” says Maschler.
    “You know a hell of lot more than I do.” The faintest edge is starting to creep into the Operative’s voice.
    “You’re in the cockpit of an Antares. You’re hauling a few hundred tons of cargo. Your communications are supposed to be continual throughout the initial ramp. You’ve got cameras pointed in every direction. You’ve cut me off from the outside world because you thought I might be involved with what’s going down. And I am. But only in the same way you are. So help me out here, gentlemen. Because it’s the only way I can help you.”
    “You can’t help,” says Riley. “I wish you could.”
    “What’s going on out there has nothing to do with us,” says Maschler.
    “It does now,” replies the Operative softly.
    “We just want to run