Cold Fusion - Lance Parkin [48]
Another volley of energy bolts shot past, red this time.
Gemboyle bit his lip.
There was a huge explosion.
Roslyn Forrester dived into the space behind one of the buttresses at the base of the western face of the Scientifica pyramid, dropping her heavy bag to the ground.
‘Was that your communicator bleeping back there?’
Gemboyle asked nervously.
Forrester was hunched over, her hands on her knees.
‘Possibly. I was too busy trying simultaneously to outrun a wardroid and dodge through a minefield.’
‘Wardroid?’ he stammered. ‘I didn’t see the wardroid.’
‘Don’t worry about it. Ancient history now.’
‘What happened?’
She looked up. ‘I dodged a plasma mine, the robot didn’t.’
‘It must have been a version four: the new MechInfs have bigger feet than the earlier models, but the software didn’t take that into account at first. They’ve turned on the defence grid, haven’t they?’
‘Yes.’
‘They know we’re coming?’
‘Gemboyle, don’t flatter yourself. There are two of us.
The measures they’ve set up there would stop a small army.’
‘We got through.’.
‘Not yet we didn’t. We’re still on the outside.’
Forrester and Gemboyle looked up. The ebony surface of the Scientifica swept up at a steep incline, too steep to climb
‘So how do we get in?’ Over the last couple of weeks Gemboyle had learnt that Forrester could do the impossible almost as a matter of routine. She d acquired a digital map of the Scientifica from somewhere, for one thing, one that included all the security points. She was consulting it now.
‘The nearest way in from here is that window – It’s a long way up.’
Gemboyle couldn’t even see it until she pointed It out to him. ‘Either you’ve got a pair of wings underneath that coat or you’ve got a plan.’
His companion shrugged and reached into her bag.
She removed a chunky pistol, then zipped the bag up. ‘I haven’t got wings, I haven’t got a plan, but I have got this service issue grappling hook and line. With integral rangefinder. ‘
She raised the gun above her head and flicked a switch.
After a moment, she brought it back down. There was a luminous readout on the butt of the gun.
‘Two hundred and fifteen metres.’ She checked the map for confirmation, ‘It’s an observation room on level one-zero-one, for civilian use. Civilian is a Xhosa word meaning “no guns”.’
‘How long is the line?’
She checked the panel on the side. ‘Two hundred metres.’
Gemboyle grimaced. ‘We can’t do it, Roz, not this time.
Well have to go back.’
‘Not necessarily. We’ve also got this,’ she reminded him, pulling what looked like a discus from her waistband.
‘One of the gravity brakes from the train. What use is that?’
‘It has its own power supply, it can be adjusted.’
‘So we can stop trains. That didn’t work last time and there was a train then.’
‘Could you set this to maximum range?’ She handed him the brake. Gemboyle took a small tool from his breast pocket and fiddled with the innards of the machine for a couple of seconds. ‘Maximum range,’ he announced handing the disc back to her.
Forrester laid it on the ground.
‘You’ve got a plan now, haven’t you?’
‘Yes. It’s a bungee jump, only in reverse and without the rope. The brake fires, reversing the gravity field in a column two hundred and fifty metres directly above it Anyone standing on the disc at the time would be propelled up that distance at around fifty metres a second.’
And then you’d be stuck in mid-air.’
‘No, because at maximum power the disc’s batteries run down after five seconds.’
‘So, what you’re saying is that it’s like jumping off a cliff a quarter of a kilometre high, only in reverse. Then the power cuts out, and it becomes exactly like falling off a cliff a quarter of a kilometre high.’
‘Yes.’ Her eyes flashed. ‘Are you coming or not?’
‘I’ll pass, if you don’t mind.’
‘OK. You remember the escape route?’
‘Of course. Ski train station, northern face.’
‘Get back to the Imperial. Give Adam my regards and tell him what I’m doing.’
She stepped onto the disc, as if it were a diving board.