Miles, Mutants and Microbes - Lois McMaster Bujold [108]
"We tripped him up—Dr. Minchenko wanted to stop and beat the shit out of him, on account of Tony's mouth, but he would have had to delegate the most of it to me—he is an old man, little though he wants to admit it—I dragged him out to the land rover. I last heard Van Atta running off screaming for a security jetcopter. He's surely found one by now . . ." Ti scanned the monitors nervously. "Yes. Damn. There." He pointed. A colorized flare swooped over the mountains, marking the following 'copter's position in the monitor. "Well, they can't catch us now."
The shuttle rocked in a wide circle, then halted; the engines' pitch rose from purr to whine to scream. Its white landing lights tunneled the darkness in front of them. Ti released the brakes and the ship sprang forward, gobbling up the light, with a terrifying noisy rumble that ceased abruptly as they rotated into the air. The acceleration shoved them all back in their seats.
"What the hell does that idiot think he's doing?" Ti muttered through his teeth as the jetcopter grew rapidly in the tracking monitor. "Try to play chicken with me, will you . . . ?"
It was swiftly apparent that was exactly the jetcopter's intent. It arced toward them, diving as they rose, evidently with some idea of forcing them down.
Ti's mouth thinned to a white line, his eyes blazing, and he powered his ship up further. Silver gritted her teeth, but kept her eyes open.
They passed close enough to see the 'copter out the ports, whipping in a strobe-like flash through their lights. In the blink Silver could see faces through the bubble canopy, frozen white blurs with dark round holes of eyes and mouths, but for one individual, possibly the pilot, who had his hands pressed over his eyes.
Then there was nothing between them and the silver stars.
Fire and ice.
Leo rechecked the tightness of every C-clamp personally, then jetted back a few meters in his work suit to give his efforts one last visual inspection. They floated in space a safe kilometer's distance from the D-620–Habitat configuration, which hung huge and complete now above Rodeo's arc. Anyway, it looked complete on the outside, as long as you didn't know too much about the hysterical last-minute tie-downs still going on within.
The ice die, when finished, had turned out over three meters wide and nearly two meters thick. Its outer surface was irregular; it might have been a tumbling bit of space debris from some gas giant's ice ring. Its secret inner side precisely duplicated the smooth curve of the vortex mirror that had molded it.
The evacuated inner chamber was capped by layers. First, the titanium blank; next, a layer of pure gasoline for a spacer—a handy second use Leo had found for it: unlike other possible liquids it would not freeze at the ice's present temperature—then the thin plastic divider circle, then his precious TNM-gasoline explosive, then a cap of scrap Habitat skin, then the bars and clamps—all in all, quite a birthday cake. Time to light the candle and make his wish come true, before the ice die began to sublimate in the sunlight.
Leo turned to motion his quaddie helpers to get behind the protective barrier of one of the abandoned Habitat modules floating nearby. Another quaddie, he saw, was just jetting over from the D-620–Habitat configuration. Leo waited a moment, to give him or her time to come up and get behind their shelter. Not a messenger, surely, he had his suit com for that. . . .
"Hai, Leo," said Tony's voice thickly through the suit comm. "Sorry I'm lae' for work—d'you leave any for me?"
"Tony!"
It wasn't easy, trying to embrace someone through a work suit, but Leo did his best. "Hey, hey, you're just in time for the best part, boy!" said Leo excitedly. "I saw the shuttle dock a bit ago." Yes, and a horrid turn it had given him for a moment, thinking it was Van Atta's threatened security force at last, until he'd correctly identified it as theirs. "Didn't think Dr. Minchenko'd let you go anywhere but the infirmary. Is Silver all right? Shouldn't you be resting?"
"She's fine. Dr. Minchenko had