Cold Fusion - Lance Parkin [116]
‘You must have recovered the twenty-one fusion bombs by now. There’s one missing. You have to warn the Scientifica. Adam only needs a couple of seconds to plant the bomb.’ Cwej spoke softly but firmly.
They were in the director’s office at the facility. For some reason the lieutenant hadn’t transferred them up to the Battle Platform. Nyssa suspected that this was for psychological reasons. At first assessment, escape seemed more likely from the hospital than from the vast war machine that hovered above it. The doors were thin, and plastic, camera surveillance was minimal. Then you realized that escape was impossible with the Battle Platform above you. One step outside and you’d be killed instantly.
The communication panel on the desk was crackling.
The Adjudicator technician working at it looked up and confirmed what Nyssa had suspected. ‘The communications blackout seems to be easing.’
The Adjudicator-Lieutenant, Dareau, halted the interrogation for a moment to listen to the broadcast.
‘–tfic– –cast– –all clea– –lobal– –gency–’ The half-words were punctuated by crackles and bursts of white noise.
‘Is that the best we can do?’
‘Yes, sir, but it’s an improvement over what we’ve had before. The blackout is lessening. It also means that a short-pulse transmat might be possible.’
‘Now you can warn the Scientifica,’ Tegan insisted.
Dareau ignored her. ‘Would you risk transmat yourself, technician? ‘
‘No, sir,’ his subordinate admitted.
‘Then don’t presume to risk the lives of my men.’
‘For God’s sake,’ Tegan said, ‘ I’ll go, if it’ll help save those people’s lives.’
Chris shared Nyssa’s horror at the idea. ‘No!’ he shouted, but the Adjudicator-Lieutenant was smiling.
‘An excellent idea.’
Tegan picked up the tone of his voice. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘It’s best that you don’t know,’ Nyssa assured her.
‘Oh, but look at her expression,’ Dareau said. ‘I’m sure that she does want to know. Tell her.’
Nyssa swallowed. ‘The transmat signal has to be completely free of interference. If there is even a slight signal distortion, your DNA would be resequenced. If the signal breaks up more, then you could arrive without vital organs, or a nervous system.’
The radio crackled again, as if to emphasize how poor the communications link was.
Tegan was wide-eyed.
‘And the best thing of all,’ Dareau said, ‘is that you volunteered, so sending you is perfectly legal. Perhaps your death will inspire your companions to tell the truth about their terrorist activities.’
The Provost-General pulled himself back against the wall, struggling for breath. He tried to unclasp the breastplate of his armour, but his fingers were clumsy in his gloves. He reached for his wrist, breaking the seal, tugging the glove from his hand. Reaching over again, he could lift away the armour, placing it to one side. His stomach was a huge square bruise.
Medford exhaled, tried to ignore the pain, wished he was twenty years younger.
The door to the observation gallery had closed. Now he watched as the security shutters came down and the forcewall activated.
‘Provost-General!’ One of the Adjudicators, Medford couldn’t identify which, was running towards him.
‘I’m all right,’ Medford gasped. ‘Get a laser cannon down here. I want that door open.’
Adam slit the transmat operator’s throat, wiping his ceramic blade on the woman’s green tunic. Quint wasn’t there. Glancing at the instrument panel, Adam saw, that at last he’d been lucky: the map of the transmat grid was faint, broken in places. It was a planetwide problem, and it was affecting virtually all aspects of life. Severe weather conditions according to the computer. There was no sign of the Shliman in the system – not surprising when the computers only gave a one in three chance of successful teleportation. It was a good job they hadn’t done what they usually did when travelling on the public system: the standard tactic to avoid detection was to bounce