"Newton was here," the SK2 said. "Here at the spaceport. We medevaced him this morning."

Jacintha cocked her head to one side, listening to a silent voice.

"Shit!" Simon gasped, as his DNI scrolled the files. "Stop him," he told the SK2. "Stop the flight. Keep Newton away from the starship."

"Too late," Jacintha said.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

"I'm showing a level-two hydraulics failure," Lawrence reported. Prime converted his voice to an exact replica of Gordon Dreyer's clipped accent for the audio link with Koribu. "The payload bay doors aren't responding."

"God, Dreyer, can't you people stick to simple maintenance procedures?" the Koribu's flight controller complained. "You're supposed to oversee flightworthiness. There's no point to having pilots otherwise. Purge and reactivate the system."

"Copy that. Attempting reactivation."

Amber graphics began a slow dance on the console panes as Prime produced a digital simulacrum of the hydraulics system being reactivated. Lawrence let the phony procedure run twice so that the telemetry being received by the Koribu would show he was doing his best to rectify the problem.

Through the windshield he could see the massive starship floating 350 meters away. They were level with the fusion drive section, where sunlight broke apart into soft scintillations over the crinkled thermal foil that protected the deuterium tanks. Three more Xiantis were strung out in front of them, their payload bay doors fully open. The cargo pods that they'd boosted up to orbit had risen out on cradles ready for collection, as if they were some kind of offering held out by metal fingers. Engineering shuttles like black chrome beetles were sliding round the spaceplanes, puffs of dusty gray gas flaring out of their reaction control nozzles as they aligned themselves to pluck the pods away.

"Still no response," Lawrence said.

"Ah, goddamnit, all right, Dreyer," the Koribu's flight controller said. "Clearing you for docking. Bring it in to our maintenance bay. The AS is assigning you an approach path. And congratulations for screwing up today's schedule."

"Always a pleasure."

Prime acknowledged receipt of the new flight path. Hypergolic fuel ignited in the reaction control nozzles, gently pushing them around the starship. Lawrence saw ribbons of sulfur vapor flare out to envelop the entire nose as the Xianti began a slow roll. The starship gradually slipped from view through the windshield. Sensors showed him the Koribu's cylindrical cargo section drifting past below. Beyond the silos, the long maintenance bay doors were opening up. A row of small lights lining the rim came on, banishing shadows from the ribbed metal cavity.

With Prime controlling their maneuver, the Xianti glided smoothly into place directly above the maintenance bay. Its undercarriage doors folded back. The reaction control nozzles fired shorter and shorter bursts as they eliminated all momentum relative to the giant starship.

On the maintenance bay floor, mechanical mandibles flexed themselves upward, searching out the load pins in the Xianti's undercarriage. Latches snapped shut, securing the spaceplane.

"We're in," Lawrence murmured. The mandibles were retracting, pulling the spaceplane down. They both watched the rim lights slide up past the windshield.

Denise turned to the images from the spaceplane cameras. "Where are the umbilicals?"

"Just wait," Lawrence said.

The Xianti trembled slightly as they came to rest in the cradles. Secondary mandibles, coiled by tubes and cables, wormed their way up to nuzzle at the spacecraft's umbilical sockets. Power, data, coolant, communications and hydraulics were all connected and confirmed.

Prime used the datalink to load itself in the maintenance bay network, erasing the AS and establishing control over all the local systems. Subversion on such a massive level was immediately detected by the Koribu's principal AS, which threw up a firewall around the affected network. It also cut power and environmental feeds to the section of the starship around the maintenance bay and closed the first set of emergency pressure doors along the main axial corridor. The section's backup power supply cut in automatically, allowing the network and most ancillary systems to function. There was nothing Prime could do about recovering environmental feeds, although there was enough oxygen to sustain the crew trapped behind the sealed pressure doors.

The maintenance bay airlock tube telescoped out of the wall toward the Xianti's cabin hatch. Lawrence held an e-c pistol in one hand. His carbine was already extended. "Stay behind me," he told Denise as the hatch rim locks engaged.

"Yes, Commander."

Her tone irked him. "We've been over this. That suit of yours is good, but it can't take as much punishment as Skin. And I know they have weapons on board."

"Yes, all right," Denise grumbled.

The cabin hatch slid open, revealing the twenty-meter length of airlock tube on the other side. It was dark, with orange strobes blinking at the far end. Prime supplied Lawrence's tactical grid with camera images from every part of the starship it had gained control over. The crewmen in the cargo section were confused. They knew the environmental systems were off; amber warning strobes were flashing in every compartment. All of the refuge chamber doors and lifeboat hatches had swung open. Lighting had gone to full power-save reduction mode, dimming the corridors and narrow crawlways to a near-claustrophobic level. There was no personal communication with the rest of the ship—Prime was blocking that. Yet the AS seemed to be telling them everything was fine, and this was just a localized glitch.

Lawrence kicked off and glided cleanly down the middle of the tunnel, controlling his flight by occasionally flipping his free hand on the tube wall. Denise followed after him, bouncing her way along with a running commentary of curses.

He had to use the manual hatch release at the other end. Two crewmen were floating just behind. They saw the Skin float out and flipped gracefully in midair, shooting away like frightened fish. Lawrence darted both of them. They kept on going for several meters before colliding with the compartment walls with a heavy impact. Then they were spinning flaccidly, limbs protruding in all directions.

Lawrence pushed past them and dived into the long corridor leading out of the compartment. It had a D-shaped cross section, with a ladder running along the curve's apex. He slapped at the rungs, propelling himself along. Denise was a couple of meters behind him.

The axial corridor was at the end, a broad cylinder with bulky environment ducts running down the walls. It ran the entire length of the starship at the center of the stress structure, linking the rear fusion drive section to the forward compression drive, with radial corridors connecting to every other pressurized section. Emergency pressure doors were positioned at forty-meter intervals along it, big reinforced composite circles that were normally kept open.