Miles Errant - Lois McMaster Bujold [223]
Fell Station was coming up at last. It was a huge structure, the largest of the orbital transfer stations circling Jackson's Whole, and House Fell's headquarters and home city. Baron Fell liked holding the high ground. In the delicate interlocking network of the Great Houses, House Fell probably held the most raw power, in terms of capacity for destruction. But raw destruction was seldom profitable, and coup was counted in coins, here. What coin were the Dendarii using to buy Fell Station's help, or at least neutrality? The person of Baron Bharaputra, now secured in the cargo bay? What kind of bargaining chips were the clones, then, small change? And to think he'd despised the Jacksonians for being dealers in flesh.
Fell Station was just now passing out of the planet's eclipse, the advancing line of sunlight dramatically unveiling its vast extent. They decelerated toward one arm, giving up direction to Fell's traffic controllers and some heavily armed tugs which appeared out of nowhere to escort them. And there was the Peregrine, coasting in. The drop shuttles and the fighter shuttles all gavotted around their mother ship, coming meekly to their docking clamps. The Peregrine itself eased delicately toward its assigned mooring.
With a clank of the portside clamps and the hiss of flex-tube seals, they were home. In the cargo bay, the Dendarii expedited removal of the wounded to the Peregrine's infirmary, then turned much more slowly and wearily to tie-down and clean-up chores. Quinn shot past them, Thorne close on her heels. As if pulled by that mortal red ribbon, Mark followed.
The goal of Quinn's mad dash was the starboard side shuttle hatch, where Framingham's shuttle was coming to dock. They arrived there just as the flex-tube seals were secured, then had to stand out of the way as the wounded were rushed out first. Mark was disturbed to recognize Trooper Tonkin, who had accompanied Norwood the medic, among them. Tonkin had reversed roles, from guard to patient. His face was dark and still, unconscious, as eager hands hustled him past and shifted him onto a float pallet. Something's very wrong, here.
Quinn shifted impatiently from foot to foot. Other Dendarii troopers started to exit, herding clones. Quinn frowned, and shouldered upstream past them through the flex tube and into the shuttle.
Thorne and Mark went after her into free fall chaos. There were clone-youths everywhere, some crying, some violently sick—Dendarii were attempting to catch them and get them towed to the exit. One harried trooper with a hand-vac was chasing floating globs of some child's last meal before everyone had to breathe it. The shouts and screams and babble were like a blow to the mind. Framingham's bellows were failing to speed a return to military order any faster than the terrorized clones could be removed from the cargo bay.
"Framingham!" Quinn floated over and grabbed him by the ankle. "Framingham! Where the hell's the cryo-chamber Norwood was escorting?"
He glanced down, frowning. "But you said you had it, Captain."
"What?"
"You said you had Phillipi." His lips stretched in a fierce grimace. "Goddammit, if we've left her behind I'll—"
"We have Phillipi, yes, but she's—she was no longer in the cryo-chamber. Norwood was supposed to be getting it to you, Norwood and Tonkin."
"They didn't have it when my rescue patrol pulled them out. We got them both, what was left of 'em. Norwood was killed. Hit through the eye with one of those frigging projectile spine-grenades. Blew his head apart. But I didn't leave his body, it's in the bag over there."
Command helmets draw fire, oh yes, I knew that. . . . No wonder Quinn hadn't been able to raise Norwood's comm channels.
"The cryo-chamber, Framingham!" Quinn's voice held a high pitch of anguish Mark had never heard before.
"We didn't see any goddamn