The City Who Fought
- Автор: Маккефри Энн, Стирлинг Стивен Майкл
- Серия: brainship #4
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «The City Who Fought». Краткое содержание книги:
Simeon's love of wargaming would find unexpected uses when the brutal Kolnari attack the nearby colony planet, Bethel. Sheltering the colony's refugee's brought the city an invitation to serious trouble with Kolnari pirates.
"Mild headache, some nausea, one or two cases of diarrhea for a day or so. All in all, much less than our people have experienced even with the immunization. The afflicted individuals act embarrassed, not frightened, and their companions laugh at them." Chaundra shrugged in despair. "I move that we discontinue this plan. Our people are getting raped, beaten, humiliated and catching the flu while the Kolnari just have fun. I tested their tissue samples-the Kolnari immune system is barely human. If some of the rape victims were not pregnant, I would doubt that the Kolnari are human. No, I correct that. Of human origin. Their actions certainly are not," he added bitterly.
"Pregnant?" Channa asked, bewildered.
"I terminated," he said, "ectopic pregnancies, in the fallopian tubes. This despite slow-release implant contraceptives." Those made the body's own immune system treat sperm as foreign matter until counteracted.
"Channa, the pirates seem to have metallic-salt and other contaminant levels that should make every one of them stone sterile. Instead, their sperm are a whole order of magnitude more motile than the norm. The rest of their systems are built the same way. Their antibody response is… their bodies use the poisons to kill bacterial or viral invaders. Their DNA is locked into position with redundancy and self-repair mechanisms like nothing I have ever seen, resistant both to radiation and to viral contamination."
"I refuse to believe these animals are supermen," Amos said.
"Oh, they're not that," Chaundra said. "From their DNA, I'd say they have shorter lifespans than ours. I imagine the degeneration past early middle-age is… spectacular and swift, as the whole system abruptly fails. Several other disadvantages; for example, they could not live without dioxin and arsenic compounds in their food. An equivalent of scurvy would strike them."
He fell silent.
"There's something else you're hiding, Doctor," Channa said quietly. Amos sat more erect, glancing narrowly from the woman to the screen. "Tell us!"
Bingo, Simeon thought, narrowing in on Chaundra's pupil dilation and breathing.
"There is a possibility," Chaundra said, looking aside from the pickup. "Another virus." A long pause. "The one that killed Mary. It is of unparalleled virulence. Possibly the worst natural… unnatural disease ever to be discovered."
Amos' head jutted forward. "Why did you not mention this before?" he asked harshly.
"Because it killed my wife!" Chaundra shouted suddenly; the more startling coming from so mild a man. "Because it is killing my son!" More softly, more rationally: "Because I swore that the filthy disease should never kill another human being. I no longer classify the Kolnari under that heading."
"Still," Channa said, "the virus is a good plan. The enemy don't have much medical capability at all. And Chaundra has lucidly explained why they don't need it. For our purposes they are medically ignorant. Little expertise beyond treating wounds and broken bones, really. I get the impression they just sort of… junk anyone who's sicker than that."
Chaundra looked thoughtful, professional competence taking over despite himself. "I do not have the live virus, you understand. But I have the information on a minihedron. The protein is nothing, the replicator can produce it immediately. But modifications… yes. What sort of disease did you have in mind?"
"Something scary," she said.
"Something fatal," Amos added.
"If possible," she agreed. "But at the least, spectacularly incapacitating, disgusting, horrifying. Something with mental deterioration? We want them terrified, and what's more terrifying than madness?"
"Whoa now, I dunno," Simeon said. "Do you really want a stationload of crazy Kolnari? Crazier than they already are, I mean."
They looked thoughtful and slightly sick.
"No, no, wait a moment," Chaundra said, and paused. "As Channa suggested, we could target only those who've had the virus. They catch it. It's just not capable of getting much beyond the first few cells. Antibody response is very quick. That's a manageable part of the Kolnari force, enough to hurt and rattle them without driving them into a killing frenzy. It would be cumulative, spread among themselves. Close contact is needed, and I could increase that. Immunize our people stealthily, under the guise of normal treatment. It can be done. I'm sure of it."
"Get on it, then," Channa said. When the doctor's image had faded: "That takes care of that!"
Simeon's image nodded. It was less mobile than usual, with so much capacity tied up. "This is a war of morale. Guerilla war always is. We have to demoralize them, and much more important, maintain our own morale."
Or our people will crack and someone will go to the Kolnari, went unspoken among them.
"Speaking of which," Amos said, rising.
"Must you?" Channa said quietly.
"Yes, I must," he replied, walking over to her and lifting a hand to his lips. The gesture seemed far more natural than it had at first, less staged.
"This isn't going to work for long," Channa said to the air, after he had left.
"It doesn't have to," Simeon replied. "Only long enough."
"Get ready, Seld," Joat breathed.
"I'm ready," he whispered back. He was pale and sweating heavily.
Her hand rested on the diaphragm that separated the vent from the corridor. Her other hand gripped the spring-loaded device, adjusting it so the red dot on the notescreen image beside her lay precisely over a spot in the corridor. Below, Patsy waited at the junction of the passageways, one hand behind the concealing wall. That hand held the arc pistol, but if all went well they would not need it.
If all did not go well, they were probably going to die in the next twenty seconds or so. Die quickly if they were lucky.
"One of them," Seld said. "Still only one." He was peering into the miniscreen jacked into the security cameras from their local lead. "Still coming."
Bare feet scuffed lightly below. The Kolnari came swiftly, not running: they seemed to walk on the balls of their feet in a light half-trot most of the time. He checked slightly at the sight of Patsy.
"Who goes?" he called.
Stationers not on essential duties were supposed to be in their cabins. Then he recognized her and smiled. One taken by the na Marid was a prestigious victim and here she was, walking alone. He started towards her, speeding up as she dodged around the corner.
The warrior was stopping and turning even as Joat keyed the diaphragm open. His speed was awesome, but she had triggered the hand-cobbled device at the same instant the panel came down. Behind her there was a click that meant Seld had cut in the damper. For the next few minutes, security records would show an empty corridor. Safe, unless a human observer were looking. Even checking the files would show recording errors, normal enough considering the havoc the Kolnari had caused the station computers.
The darts struck the Kolnari as his finger was tightening on the trigger of his own weapon. A hundred thousand volts flowed through the thread-thin superconductor wires behind them. He convulsed.
K-tash. Hot air blossomed away from the plasma rifle around a rod of sun-hot violence. Literally sun-hot; it was an ultra-miniaturized, laser-triggered deuterium fusion pellet focused by magnetic fields. Normally the pirate's muscle and reflex would have been enough to hold it steady on his aiming point. Now the superheated gas slewed his lifeless body around and the substance of the walls sublimed away, the beam chopping through synthetics and conduits and the empty chambers beyond. There was a hiss and cherp-cherp-cherp of pressure alarms as the outer hull was punctured.
Joat winced. That was not part of the plan. "Quick," she said in soft urgency. Dropping down into the corridor and grasping the pirate's weapon, she heaved it up.