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now. I know which I d prefer. How about you?"
"Then I would be your prisoner." Mark s whispering voice blurred with a
fear-fueled anger. "Dead now, dead later, what s the difference? I finally
figured out what use you had for a clone."
Mark was seeing himself as a walking body-parts bank again, Miles could tell.
Miles sighed. He glanced at his chrono. "By
Galen s timetable, I have eleven minutes left to find Ivan."
A shifty look stole over Mark s face. "Ivan s not up. He s down. Back the way
we came."
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"Ah?" Miles risked a flash-peek into the lift tube. The climber had exited at
another floor. The hunters were being thorough in their search. By the time
they worked their way up here they d be quite certain of their quarry.
Miles was still wearing the rappelling harness. Very quietly, careful not to
clank, he reached out and fastened the grappler to the safety bar, and tested
it. "So you want to go down, do you? I can arrange that.
But you d better be right about
Ivan. Because if he dies I ll dissect you personally. Heart and liver, steaks
and chops."
Miles stooped, checked his connections, set the spool s rate of spin and
stop-point, and positioned himself under the bar, ready for launch. "Climb
on."
"Don t I get straps?"
Miles glanced over his shoulder and grinned. "You bounce better than I do."
Looking extremely dubious, Mark staffed his stunner back in his belt, sidled
up to Miles, and gingerly wrapped his arms and legs around Miles s body.
"You d better hang on tighter than that. The deceleration at the bottom is
going to be severe. And don t scream going down. It would draw attention."
Mark s grip tightened convulsively. Miles checked once more for unwanted
company the tube was still empty and thrust over the side.
Their doubled weight gathered momentum terrifyingly. They fell unimpeded in
near-silence for four stories Miles s stomach was floating near his back
teeth, and the sides of the lift tube were a smear of color then the
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rappelling spool began to whine, resisting its blurring spin. The straps bit,
and Mark s grip hand-to-hand across Miles s collarbone began to pull apart.
Miles s right hand flashed up to clamp around Mark s wrist. They braked to a
demure stop a
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rothers%20In%20Arms.txt centimeter or two above the lift tube s bottom floor,
back in the belly of the synthacrete mountain. Miles s ears popped.
The noise of their descent had seemed thunderous to Miles s exacerbated
senses, but no startled heads appeared in the openings above, no weapons
crackled. Miles and Mark both nipped back out of the line of sight of the
tube, into the little foyer off the tidal barrier s internal access corridor.
Miles pressed the control to release his grappler and let the spool rewind;
the falling thread made no noise, but the grappler unit clinked hitting
bottom, and Miles flinched.
"Back that way," said Mark, pointing right. They jogged down the corridor side
by side. A deep, growling vibration began to drown lighter sounds. The pumping
station that had been blinking and humming when Miles had first passed that
way was now at work, lifting Thames water to high-tide sea level through
hidden pipes. The next station down, previously dark and silent, was now lit,
preparing to go into action.
Mark stopped. "Here."
"Where?"
Mark pointed, "Each pumping chamber has an access hatch, for cleaning and
repairs. We put him in there."
Miles swore.
The pumping chamber was about the size of a large closet. Sealed, it would be
dark, cold, slimy, stinking, and utterly silent. Until the rush of rising
water, thrumming with immense force, gushed in to turn it into a death
chamber. Rushed in to fill the ears, the nose, the dark-staring eyes; rushed
in to fill the chamber up, up, not even one little pocket of air for a frantic
mouth; rushed through to batter and twist the body ceaselessly, roiling
against the thick unyielding walls until the face was pulped beyond
recognition, until, with the tide, the dank waters at last receded,
leaving nothing of value. A clog in the line.
"You . . ." breathed Miles, glaring at Mark, "lent yourself to this . . . ?"
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