Jim Wannamaker by Attrition

Author:Attrition
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2012-01-14T15:39:16+00:00

I’m not going to offer excuses. From the advantage of retrospection, you can say what you want about slipshod detective work. The point remains that I’d covered the area more than cursorily and had not encountered anything specifically dangerous.

The timing was pure luck.

The shuttler penetrated the overcast about ten miles off target, located, and started its approach.

And something bit me on the leg.

I pulled up my pant’s leg immediately, hoping to catch the culprit, but saw nothing save a thin red line about an inch long. It looked more a scratch than an insect bite. But I hadn’t brushed against anything.

The shuttler grounded on the hilltop, and I headed up.

Perhaps it was exertion that speeded the reaction.

There was no pain, only a local numbness.

Before I’d traveled ten yards, my leg from the knee almost to the ankle felt prickly asleep.

I paused and looked. There was no swelling, no other discoloration.

I heard a raspy voice from the hilltop.

“Are you going to give me some help, or do I have to haul all this gear myself?”

Despite the leg, I didn’t know whether to laugh or explode.

Moya was rattling around in an outsized bug suit and carrying the biggest Moril blaster contained in a star ship’s arsenal that could still be called portable.

“What in condemned space are you doing here?” I shouted.

I was ready to give it to him right off the top of the regs about the relationship between ship’s master and agents-on-assignment and the responsibilities of command, but the leg chose that moment to fail. Until then, I hadn’t really been worried. I fell forward against the pitch of the slope, caught myself with my arms, and rolled over on my back. I hit my left thigh with my fist and felt absolutely nothing. Massage didn’t help.

I heard Moya panting down the brow of the hill.

“Keep away!” I shouted. “Get back to the ship!”

Moya bent over me; he had opened the hood of the bug suit, and his face was grave.

“What’s the trouble, Callum?”

“Can’t you take orders?”

He shook his head. I pointed to the leg. He looked swiftly at the broken skin.

“How does it feel?”

“That’s the trouble; it doesn’t.”

He grabbed my arm, put it over his shoulder, and got me on my feet.

We made good time, considering.

“Too bad you’re such a shrimp,” I said.

“I can take you on any time.”

Shuttler IV was closest, parked on a shelf fifty yards below the top of the hill, but Moya was heading to miss it.

“I programmed for auto, just in case, and the generators are up to power. We waste time to save time. That way I can give you some help on the ascent.”

The generator part was fine; the rest wasn’t.

It started to rain again, just before we reached 250’s shuttler.

I put my face up to it.

Moya got me through the lock and onto an acceleration couch. Then he headed for the panel. I was beginning to feel a desperate weakness, but my head was still clear.

“Wait a minute,” I said. “What’s your gee tolerance?”

“High, but—”

“So strap me and raise this couch to vertical.

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