Miles, Mutants and Microbes - Lois McMaster Bujold [76]
Pressing the button was surprisingly easy, the work of one small muscle in her upper right thumb. The beam was dull blue, not enough to even make her blink, though a brief bright yellow flame flared at the edge of the melted fabric of his supposedly nonflammable coveralls, then winked out. Her nostrils twitched with the stink of the burnt fabric, more pungent than the smell of burnt flesh. Then the pilot was bent over himself, screaming.
Ti was babbling, voice strained, "What d'ja do that for? He was still strapped to his chair, Silver!" His eyes were wells of astonishment. The engineer, after a first convulsive movement, froze in a submissive ball, eyes flickering from quaddie to quaddie. Siggy's mouth hung open; Jon's was a tight line.
The pilot's screams frightened her, swelled up her nerves to lance through her head. She pointed the solderer at him again. "Stop that noise!" she demanded.
Amazingly, he stopped. His breath whistled past his clenched teeth as he twisted his head to stare at her through pain-slitted eyes. The centers of the burns across his legs seemed to be cauterized, shadowed black and ambiguous—she was torn between revulsion, and the curious desire to go take a closer look at what she had done. The edges of the burns were swelling red, yellow plasma already seeping through but clinging to his skin, no need for a hand-vac. The injury did not seem to be immediately life-threatening.
"Siggy, unstrap him and get him out of that control chair," Silver ordered. For once, Siggy zipped to obey with no argument, not even a suggestion of how to do it better gleaned from his holodrama viewing.
In fact, the effect of her action on everyone present, not just their captives, was most gratifying. Everyone moved faster. This could get addictive, Silver thought. No arguments, no complaints—
Some complaints. "Was that necessary?" Ti asked, as the prisoners were bundled ahead of them through the corridor. "He was getting out of his seat for you . . ."
"He was going to try to jump me."
"You can't be sure of that."
"I didn't think I could hit him once he was moving."
"It's not like you had no choice—"
She turned toward him with a snap; he flinched away. "If we do not succeed in taking this ship, a thousand of my friends are going to die. I had a choice. I chose. I'd choose again. You got that?" And you choose for everybody, Silver, Leo's voice echoed in her memory.
Ti subsided instantly. "Yes, ma'am."
Yes, ma'am? Silver blinked, and pushed ahead of him to hide her confusion. Her hands were shaking in reaction now. She entered the life-pod first, ostensibly to yank all the communications equipment but for the emergency directional finder beeper, and to check for the first-aid kit—it was there, and complete—also to be alone for a moment, away from the wide eyes of her companions.
Was this the pleasure in power Van Atta felt, when everyone gave way before him? It was obvious what firing the weapon had done to the defiant pilot; what had it done to her? For every action, an equal and opposite reaction. This was a somatic truth, visceral knowledge ingrained in every quaddie from birth, clear and demonstrable in every motion.
She exited the pod. A hoarse moan broke from the pilot's lips as his legs accidentally bumped against the hatch, as they stuffed him and the engineer through into the life-pod, sealed it, and fired it away from the jumpship.
Silver's agitation gave way to a cool pool of resolve, within her, even though her hands still trembled with distress for the pilot's pain. So. Quaddies were no different than downsiders after all. Any evil they could do, quaddies could do too. If they chose.
There. By placing the grow-tubes at this angle, with a six-hour rotation, they could get by with four fewer spectrum lights in the hydroponics module and still have enough lumens falling on the leaves to trigger flowering in fourteen days. Claire entered the command on her