He lay back to rest. Toby moaned nearby. The boy’s nerveweave was beginning to fray and fret. Killeen levered his bad arm under his son’s neck to provide some pillow. He closed his eyes. Sleep crowded in on him. He set himself against it. He had to think. To prepare for the real reason he had come here.

THREE

At first he thought it was a mountain. Then he saw its myriad worked edges and the smooth oblique inclines. It was a complex so large it seemed to be the landscape, dwarfing hills nearby.

The Renegade Crafter drove toward the towering network at top speed. They crossed an open plain that was seamless and hard. Other mechs shot along cross-paths. The silence was eerie. Some mechs swelled, humming, and then shrank without seeming to be moving at all. Killeen could not follow the fast, undaunted traffic. It was like the swarms of birds he had seen around the Metropolis, but each moving in unalterable straight lines.

The Crafter did not slow at all. Its antennae sent pops and buzzes in all directions. A wedge-backed hauler bore down on them. It passed so close Killeen could see parts-index markings on its hull tabs. The backwash slapped them a hard crack! A black circle opened at the base of the mountain. Killeen glanced upward and saw ornate slate walls. An orange detonation unfurled halfway up the mountain face. Before he could see what caused it the tunnel swallowed them.

Even then the Renegade did not slow. They hurtled through unremitting black. A warm wind brushed them.

Killeen lay still, feeling the hum of the Crafter’s momentum, waiting. He listened to Hatchet talking to some of the others on a hush-circuit. Hatchet gave orders for when they stopped, his muted mutter laced with anxiety. Everything depended on surprise.

They slowed.

Coasted in complete dark.

Slammed to a halt.

The team clambered down. Killeen didn’t move but he felt Shibo nearby.

Abruptly, red light flooded them from above. They were in a huge vault. Blocky containers nearly filled the volume, stacked in an elaborate rising weave of interlocking helices. Killeen could see no mechs.

He and Shibo carried Toby off the Crafter. He could not see how the team neutralized two small mechs but he heard the quick scratching electromagnetic fight.

“Hustle!” Hatchet called to them. They scattered among oblong canisters. Something like glass snapped under Killeen’s boots. Toby grunted and stifled a groan. Killeen did not look back to see what the Renegade was doing.

They reached a small knothole hatch. Already most of the team was through it. A fried mech stood smoldering nearby. Killeen carried Toby through on the carrysling with Shibo ahead, her pistol out.

Beyond was a simple square zone. Bluewhite mechs sped across it. They paid no attention to the small human band that emerged from a sheer, unmarked wall. More storage facilities, Killeen guessed. A distant booming came down from the ceiling.

—Tough part comin’ up,— Hatchet sent.

The team ran toward a small arch. Plainly it was an entrance gate. Elaborate signifier emblems studded both sides. Killeen knew some recognition-code inputs from the days when he had scavenged with his father. He peered at the polished polycopper casings with embedded, snaking lines. These engraved silvery circuits were new to him.

Hatchet punched some instructions into the signifier circuits. There were hexagonal insert points embossed on the ceramo-metal wall. Killeen had never seen anyone make use of them.

Hatchet did not even pause. He pulled small cylinders from his flap pockets and stuck them slowly into the holes. He turned each one until it clicked. Through his efficiency, nervousness glittered, like sky seen through speckled clouds. The team watched him with drawn faces.

The portal’s square polymer gate slid aside. No one made a move through the arch.

“This’s far as it goes,” Hatchet said, standing back. “Now…”

Silence. Edgy glances. Killeen suddenly knew that this was where the Kings had suffered their two deaths.

Hatchet said, “We need the boy.”

“How?” Killeen said, his throat narrow and dry.

“He’s got to crawl through that. Then null out the circuits on the other side.”

“He can’t. No legs, remember?”

“That’s the trick,” Hatchet said. “He’s the only one can do it.”

“Have somebody else crawl.”

“You don’t get it. Your boy, he’s got no Aspects. So he’s missing lots circuitry, the inset boards, all that. This gate senses that stuff.”

“This is what the Crafter meant?” Killeen asked, stalling.

“Sure. He saw it right away.” Hatchet’s eyes danced, alight with possibility. “We’ve never been able to get through here. The ’quipment to fix up Toby, it’s beyond this gate. The kid, he’s got less circuitry. The mechs’ve set this gate so it’ll catch even humans. We got practically no insets, compared with a mech—but this gate sees just a scrap.”

“It killed your people.”

“Yeasay. See, it’s not just that your boy’s got no Aspects,” Hatchet said. Now his face was concerned, reasonable. He spread both hands in a can’t-you-see? gesture. “The Renny, he figures with your boy’s legs out, there’s even less nerve-linked stuff for the gate pickups.”

“You…” Killeen eyed the rest of the team. He would dearly love to ruin Hatchet right here, kick his balls to sour mush. But that wouldn’t save Toby.

Sly and chilly the words came from the Cap’n of the Kings. “Want me to make it an order?”

“You don’t know it’ll work.”

“Renny figures it will. That’s why it asked about the boy back at the landing strip, right?”

Killeen nodded.

“Crafter’s not risking its precious circuits,” Shibo said dryly. But she saw the situation. She would back up Killeen but the decision was his. In the end nobody can carry another’s weight.

Killeen saw that Hatchet had deliberately not told him any of this until now, when there was no time left to dispute it. “Even if the Crafter’s right, Toby can’t get through there.”

Shibo started to agree. Hatchet held up his hand, his mouth set firmly. “Got arms, right? He can pull himself through.”

Killeen stood rigid, unable to think of anything. He had to ward this off. But he had no time to develop reasoning, no argument against a Cap’n who had steered this whole raid toward this moment.

Killeen reminded himself that Hatchet had been on many raids, knew things, had done things for the Crafter. Called the Renegade “he,” like it was human.

Ever since Hatchet had heard Killeen arguing with the Crafter out loud, he had understood. And not told anyone else. Because it solved some problem Hatchet had. Because it opened some possibility….

“What’s in there?” Killeen demanded.

“Bioparts. Fact’ry, supplies, storage, ever’thing.”

“The Crafter needs ’em?”

“Yeah. He’ll give us a lot, we bring out what he needs.”

“That’s worth so much?”

Hatchet said confidently, “With the right parts, right ’quipment, yeasay. See, the Renny can get metal parts pretty easy. Biostuf’s harder. Mechs can’t ’facture bioparts so easy. So they guard it.”

Arthur’s tinny voice darted in Killeen’s mind:

I believe the mechs guard bioparts inventories precisely in order to thwart Renegades. Bioparts require more delicate manufacture. To suppress unauthorized use, biofactories are protected by such sensitive traps as this gate.

Crafter say is big complex.

We can get help here.