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  “Or we could skip a step and just break the new one after they put it in,” he suggested. “Not like I can’t get a screwdriver whenever I want.”

  “Maybe,” Nicole said, feeling her heart rate pick up. For all she knew, he might actually be able to break in that way. That would take her right back to the free-for-all situation she was trying so hard to avoid. “But you’ll have to break the new one exactly the same way you broke the old one. Otherwise, there’s no guarantee the door won’t just lock down.”

  Bungie grunted. “Whatever. Fine—I’ll get the broken one.”

  “And then we’ll wait a few days before we try it?” Nicole pressed. “Long enough for Plato to stop watching us?”

  “Sure.” Bungie eyed her closely. “But just until Plato stops watching us.”

  “Of course.”

  “Good.” Bungie peered at his bandaged arms and started fastening his jumpsuit sleeves up around them. “’Cause I’d hate to think you weren’t going to help us get home just because of Jeff. That’s how accidents happen.”

  Nicole swallowed hard. “I know,” she said, the words sounding hollow in her ears. He would do it, too, she knew. He’d already done it at least once, back in Philadelphia when he thought one of Jerry’s runners was paying too much attention to his then girlfriend. The kid had been in the hospital for a week after Bungie finished with him.

  “Good,” Bungie said again. He finished with his sleeves and got up onto the treatment table, stretching out on his back and folding his arms gingerly across his chest. “I’m gonna take a nap. Wake me when lunch comes.”

  * * *

  Nicole had expected the Fyrantha to order the door fixed the next morning. She was right. She’d also expected the repair to consist of swapping out the damaged keylock with a new one. She was right on that one, too. Finally, she’d expected Bungie to fail in his attempt to steal the old keylock before Carp dumped the day’s scrap into the recycle slot.

  She was wrong.

  “I don’t believe it,” she said later in her room, turning the damaged keylock over in her hands. “How come Carp didn’t notice it was missing?”

  “Because it wasn’t,” Bungie said, his voice practically glowing with self-satisfaction. “I’d already swiped one of the other replacements when no one was looking. I just put the new one in the scrap bucket when I took the old one out. I didn’t think Carp would look that close at every piece of garbage before he tossed it.”

  “I guess not,” Nicole agreed, trying to sound enthusiastic as she slipped the keylock into her pocket. “Okay, then. We’ll wait until they’ve forgotten about all this, then see if it’ll get us in.”

  “Sounds good.” Bungie extended his hand. “Only I’ll hold on to it.”

  Damn. “It’d be better if I kept it,” she improvised. “If Plato gets suspicious, he’ll probably search you before he searches me.”

  “Yeah, and if Jeff’s hands start poking around, he might find it,” Bungie retorted. “Come on, give.”

  Reluctantly, Nicole handed the keylock back to him. “Just promise you won’t go without me.”

  “Would I do a thing like that?” Bungie asked in the closest thing he had to an innocent voice. In all the years he’d been hanging around Trake’s group, Nicole had yet to see that act work. On anyone.

  “Because if anything happened, I’m the only one the Fyrantha will talk to,” Nicole reminded him.

  “Yeah, fine,” he said, stuffing the keylock into one of his pockets and getting leisurely to his feet. “Take real good care of yourself. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  six

  Bungie had wanted to wait no more than a week before heading back into the testing arena. Nicole had argued for at least two months, privately hoping that after such a long delay Bungie might lose interest and forget the whole thing.

  Either Bungie sensed her strategy, or was just his usual impatient self. His compromise was two weeks.

  Nicole, naturally, didn’t get any further votes.

  She thought about going privately to Plato and warning him about Bungie’s plan. But whatever Plato did, it would be obvious to Bungie that Nicole had been behind it, and she’d seen what he did to people he considered traitors. She thought about sneaking off to the testing room door and seeing if she could sabotage it in such a way that even the damaged keylock wouldn’t get them in. But if she got caught she would be in trouble with Bungie and Plato, and she couldn’t afford to make two enemies at the same time.

  She even thought about deliberately injuring herself, or making herself sick, so that she wouldn’t be able to replace the keylock when the time came. But that wouldn’t buy her more than a temporary delay, and again ran the risk of bringing Bungie’s anger down on her.

  And so, fourteen days exactly after their first visit, Nicole found herself hunched over beside the testing room door, swapping out the keylock for the damaged one. She finished the job and keyed in the reset code, hoping desperately that it wouldn’t work.

  The universe had never been much for granting desperate wishes, at least not hers. Once again, the door popped open.

  Back in the hive area, the lights automatically dimmed during the “nighttime” hours, though they never went lower than a twilight gloom. The hallways she and Bungie had traveled on their way here had been likewise dimmed.

  The same cycle apparently applied to the testing arena as well. The greenish-blue sky was muted, and the lights around the rim had faded to about the level where Philadelphia streetlights usually started to come on.

  And now that Nicole was looking for it, she could see the way the sky at the far side did indeed curve down below and behind the hills and trees.

  It was a room, all right, just as Plato and Kahkitah had said. A big room, certainly, at least a football field long and probably longer. But it was still just a room.

  Somewhere deep within her, a part of her had been hoping Plato was wrong. That there was indeed a whole world out there beyond the battle area. It would have meant there was someplace else to go, someplace Nicole could escape to if Bungie decided to push too hard and she had to get away or risk getting killed.

  But there wasn’t any such escape path. They weren’t on Earth, or even some alien world. They were indeed trapped together aboard a floating coffin flying between the stars.

  Back on that last morning, she’d thought about getting away from the city. She’d gotten away, all right.

  “There,” Bungie muttered into her ear, pointing over her shoulder. “See?”

  Nicole shook away the memories. “Where?”

  “At the base of that tree,” he said. “See? He’s just sitting there.”

  Nicole frowned. Then she saw it: an indistinct figure, looking like a misshapen person sitting with his back to the tree. Beside him, a long pole pointed almost straight upward.

  And though it was hard to tell in the relative gloom and patchwork of shadows, she was pretty sure the figure was facing the stone building that had been the focus of the weasels’ attack the last time she and Bungie were here. “Careful,” she warned. “He looks like he’s on guard duty.”

  Bungie grunted. “Not for long he’s not. Stay here.” Lowering himself to the ground, he headed off toward the figure at a stealthy crawl.

  Nicole winced. But there was nothing she could do, even if she’d wanted to. She certainly wasn’t going to go over there with him.

  On the other hand, if the guard spotted Bungie, there was a good chance he’d spot her, too. It wouldn’t be smart to be standing out here in the open when that happened.

  The line of bushes where that one weasel had been shooting was about ten feet away. Staying low, Nicole slipped over to it and settled onto her knees close to the near edge. From there she could keep an eye on Bungie’s progress, while hopefully being a little harder to see.

  Though if shooting started, the bushes weren’t going to give her much protection. There were a dozen tears and blackened spots where all those blasts
of green fire had slashed through them. The second bush in line, in fact, had had much of its central trunk or stem or whatever shot away. All the leaves on one side had withered, while those on the other half were still going strong. Idly, she poked at the burned stem where it met the ground.

  She frowned, peering closer. The dirt there wasn’t dry, like she’d expected for something indoors, but was actually quite damp. In addition, now that she was paying attention, she could see something shiny down there among the bush’s roots. Carefully, she brushed some of the dirt away with her fingers, uncovering a long, thick copper-colored wire that was both cool and wet.

  She nodded to herself. Of course. An enclosed forest like this would have to have some sort of watering system built into the ground. Maybe a feeding system, too.

  Of course, the whole idea of a wire somehow transporting water was pretty weird. But she’d seen stranger things aboard the Fyrantha. If she ever needed to know anything about the system, the ship would surely explain it to her.

  Carefully, she brushed the dirt back over the wire and tried to straighten the stem, feeling a twinge of guilt and loss. Her own window box plants were long gone by now, she knew. Unless Jasp had continued to water them … but he’d probably dropped the whole thing in the Dumpster two days after she disappeared.

  This bush would probably die, too. But she could at least try.

  She ran her fingers over the watering wire, getting them wet, then shook the drops off at the base of the still-green part of the stem. She repeated the operation until the ground around the bush had the same moisture level that her window box soil had right after she’d watered it. She had no idea whether it would be enough, but it was the best she could do.

  From across the room came a soft thump. Nicole looked up, her heart leaping into her throat.

  Whatever the noise had been, it wasn’t the sound of Bungie getting caught. The guard was still sitting where she’d seen him earlier, his weapon still pointed into the air beside him.

  Nicole frowned. She hadn’t really paid attention before, but that weapon was much longer than the guns the weasels had been using earlier. Did a longer gun mean a more powerful gun? The greenfire guns hadn’t seemed to work very well against the stone building, she remembered. Maybe they’d brought in this bigger gun hoping it would do a better job.

  There was another quiet thump, and this time she saw a bush near the guard’s tree shake a little. Bungie must be nearly there.

  And then, so suddenly that it made her jump, Bungie lunged into sight from some bushes behind the guard. He grabbed the weapon and wrenched it away from the figure.

  And froze.

  Nicole frowned, her heart still thudding. Had something gone wrong? She stared across the gloom, trying to figure out what had happened. Bungie was just holding the weapon, staring at it as if it had somehow paralyzed him.

  Even more bizarre, the guard hadn’t reacted to the attack. He was still just sitting there, facing the stone building. There was a sort of slithering hiss from somewhere to Nicole’s left—

  And Bungie toppled face-first to the ground as an arrow suddenly erupted from his shoulder.

  Nicole gasped with horror, her own shoulder pulsing with sympathetic pain. Bungie rolled half over onto his side and scrambled to his feet, staggering again as another arrow hissed its way into his left thigh. He snarled with pain and rage and struggled back to his feet, throwing himself forward just in time as a third arrow narrowly missed him. Leaping into a stumbling run, he headed back toward Nicole and the door.

  He’d gotten maybe three steps when another arrow caught him in his upper right arm.

  Nicole frowned. This last arrow hadn’t come from her left like the other three, but had come from the direction of the stone building.

  But there was no time to wonder about that. Bungie was still on his feet, loping toward her in that same awkward running limp, the long weapon clutched in his hand. Another two arrows shot past him, one from each direction this time—

  “Get it open!” he shouted, his voice twisted with pain and anger. “Now!”

  Nicole leaped to her feet and ran to the door, her back tingling with the terrible fear that the next arrow would be hers.

  But she reached the door without the anticipated flash of agony. She hit it at a dead run, kicking away the screwdriver Bungie had used to prop it open and shoving against it with everything she had. A second later Bungie slammed into the heavy metal beside her, swearing over and over through clenched teeth.

  Their combined momentum did the trick, opening the door far enough for them to get through. With a final curse Bungie threw himself out into the hallway, the weapon clattering loudly as he tossed it onto the floor ahead of him. Nicole was right behind him, grabbing the door as she passed and reversing direction. If their attackers made it across the open area before she got it closed, she and Bungie were dead.

  But they were apparently satisfied with driving the intruders away. She got the door closed and latched, and for a moment sagged against the panel, her knees shaking with reaction. Then, steeling herself, she turned to Bungie.

  There was a fair amount of blood seeping out into his jumpsuit and onto the spongy red floor. Still, there was a lot less than she’d expected, what with three arrows sticking out of him. He was certainly bleeding less than most of the gunshot victims she’d seen over the years.

  “You just gonna stand there?”

  Nicole snapped herself out of her macabre train of thought. “Sorry,” she apologized. “Sorry. What do you want me to do?”

  “Find a cart or something,” he said, his voice shaking a little. “No way I’m walking very far like this.”

  “Okay,” Nicole said, trying to think. She had no idea where an actual cart might be, but the supply closet they’d been working out of that morning had a couple of large welding platforms on wheels. Maybe she could put him on one of those and drag him back to the hive. “Do you want me to hide the gun first?”

  Bungie snarled something under his breath. “What gun?”

  Nicole frowned, and for the first time focused on the prize Bungie had brought out of the testing arena.

  Only to discover that what he’d risked death to steal wasn’t a gun. It was nothing but a slender pole, maybe eight feet long, with a pointed tip and a nasty-looking axe about a foot back from the pointed end. “But they were all using guns,” she protested, staring at the weapon.

  “Sure they were,” Bungie snarled. “Two damn weeks ago.”

  Nicole winced. And since she was the one who’d insisted on the delay, this whole fiasco was now her fault.

  She should have known that was where it would eventually end up.

  “I’ll go find a cart,” she said, looking both ways down the long portside hull hallway. Nothing was visible in either direction, and it was a hell of a long way back to the hive. Maybe instead of trying to use a welding machine she should go back to the medical station and see if there was a wheelchair or something she could borrow.

  “Never mind—forget the cart,” he rasped. “That pumping room yesterday. Remember? We’ll go there.”

  “And do what?” Nicole countered. “You need a doctor.”

  “No kidding,” he ground out. “So get me to that room and then go get Sammy boy to come fix me up.”

  “But—” Resolutely, Nicole clamped her mouth shut. It wasn’t much of a plan, but it wasn’t worth arguing about. At least it didn’t entail her lugging him back to the hive across her shoulders. “Fine. Come on, I’ll help you up.” A sudden thought struck her, and she picked up the spear-axe thing he’d brought out. It was heavier than it looked, probably solid metal. “Here—use this like a walking stick.”

  The pump room was a lot closer than the hive. It was also a lot farther than Nicole remembered it. But with sweat, effort, and a lot of Bungie’s cursing, she finally got him inside and settled as comfortably as possible in the cramped space. She left the spear-axe propped up against the side wall wher
e he could get to it if he needed to stand up, then hurried back to the hive.

  Sam wasn’t happy at being dragged out of bed. He was even less happy at Nicole’s evasive answers to his questions. It took the better part of ten minutes to persuade him to come with her, another five to get the medical travel bag, and another ten to get to Bungie’s hiding place.

  At which point, as Nicole had expected, the doctor’s simmering resentment blossomed into full-blown anger.

  “How the hell did this happen?” he demanded as he knelt beside Bungie, his fingers probing at the arrows’ entry wounds. “Where in the world did you find—Oh, no,” he interrupted himself, glaring up at Nicole. “The testing arena? After Plato told you not to go there?”

  “No, we decided we wouldn’t go there before he told us not to,” Bungie shot back. “Ow!—watch it.”

  “Yeah, that’s real funny,” Sam growled, pulling out a pair of scissors and starting to cut away the jumpsuit material around the arrows. “Serve you right if I turned around and walked away.”

  “You’re not gonna do that,” Bungie countered. “You’re also gonna keep real quiet about this.”

  “Oh, am I?” Sam said sardonically. “Give me one good reason.”

  “Because you want to get out of this damn place as much as we do.” Bungie pointed at the spear-axe. “And that’s how we’re gonna do it.”

  Sam frowned at the weapon. “You think we’re getting out of here with a halberd?”

  “You asked me once if they were fighting with weapons in there,” Bungie reminded him. “There you go.”

  Sam snorted and turned back to his work. “Yeah, I can just see us holding Plato up at halberd-point and demanding he send us back.”

  “Don’t be stupid.” Bungie hissed loudly as the doctor eased one of the arrow shafts back a little. “That’s just a sample. They’ve got lots better stuff in there.”

  “They’ve got bows and arrows, anyway,” Sam said, rubbing his chin. “Okay, here’s the deal. Even with a topical, this is going to hurt. A lot. It’ll be easier on both of us if we go back to the hive and I put you under a general.”