Free Forsaken Skies by D. Nolan Clark Page B

nowhere to go,” he said.
    Maggs glanced around him, as if some incredible opportunity were about to present itself. Then—
    He was just gone.
    The doorway was empty. It was as if the swindler had just vanished.
    Lanoe rushed forward to the door, thinking perhaps Maggs was just hanging on to the exterior of the train. But there was no sign of him.

    Maggs held his breath—unnecessarily. His helmet flowed up around his face even before his boots touched the water, not so much as a drop getting inside. He just had time to hear someone scream before he plunged into the swimming pool.
    When he’d seen it coming up, a hexagonal patch of water just a few meters down from the elevated train tracks, he’d almost laughed aloud. He’d supposed it might be dangerous, jumping from a moving train, but years out in the void had given him a certain flair for spatial relations. He’d leapt with excellent form, even avoiding a cluster of bathers at the far end of the pool.
    Of course, luck was never an uncomplicated proposition. In the short interval of time between when he struck the water and when he struck the bottom, he just about had the neural capacity to realize he’d jumped into the shallow end.
    His left foot struck the concrete bottom first. The rest of his weight came down on it in an ungainly fashion and he had the nauseating sensation of his bones bending in a manner for which they were not designed.
    There was a crackling sound and then a bolt of white lightning shot up his leg and into his spine. His whole body convulsed and the air inside his helmet was filled with the kind of obscenities that should never be spoken in public.
    The thinsuit he wore did not have room for all the medical technology a heavier suit might bring to bear. It did its best, his boot instantly inflating to cushion and restrain the twisted bones. The suit could do nothing about the growing pain.
    Maggs sank to the bottom until he lay on his back, staring up through the blue water. A fellow in trunks and goggles stroked by overhead, silver bubbles leaking from the corners of his mouth. He started to swim down toward Maggs, perhaps intending to offer a helping hand. Maggs waved him away.
    He just needed to catch his breath. He just needed—
    The chits. Damnation, if they’d been dislodged from his pocket in the fall…but no, there they were. The water would do them no harm.
    He had to get away. He had to get off the Hexus before his pursuers caught up with him. A twisted leg would slow him down, but stopping now for any reason—seeking medical attention, for instance—was out of the question.
    Once he thought he could move without vomiting inside his helmet, Maggs turned himself over on his stomach and crawled to the steps that led out of the pool, mostly using his hands for propulsion. He hauled himself up and out, water streaming from his thinsuit in sheets. His helmet came down automatically.
    Now came the critical trial. He stepped up onto the lip of the pool, first with his good leg, then with his bad. He could just about walk on it, if he didn’t mind a little brain-melting agony.
    All around the pool bathers looked up at him, some murmuring in surprise or even concern. He made a point of avoiding eye contact as he limped out of the pool area and into an adjoining hostelry.
    It turned out to be a low sort of place. There was no concierge, nor even anyone at the front desk. Booking rooms or obtaining other services was accomplished by way of a kiosk set into one wall. Maggs dismissed a prompt asking him if he wished to inquire about hourly rates. Paging through the available options he finally found one that would allow him to summon transportation.
    He chose the quickest option, a drone pedicab. Then he went and stood by the doorway, just inside its shadow, where he could watch the street. If he could just stay free until the pedicab arrived, he thought, he would still have a chance.

    When the