Schismatrix plus - Bruce Sterling [57]
The robot lacked the smoothness of a Mech unit, but there was an alarming liveliness about it. It was like an animated skeleton, a vivisected animal stripped down to jumpy knee-jerk reflex.
When Lindsay drifted out of range, the robot clicked back into motion, kicked off a wall, and plugged its bellows into the wet duct of a fermentation bag.
Fazil crawled over the head and caught it against the wall. The launching ring had an airlock of translucent plastic. Fazil plucked a tightly wrapped green spacesuit from the wall and shook it out. He zipped himself into it and unzipped the airlock wall. He stepped inside. Lindsay passed him the crate.
Fazil zipped the airlock shut and opened the loading chamber. A curved rectangular section of wall slid up on spring-loaded exterior hinges. Air gusted out into the vacuum of the launch ring. The airlock's flimsy walls sucked in, clinging like soap film to an interior support trellis. Five huge roaches and a cloud of smaller ones burst from the crate's interior, kicking in the vacuum. Fazil shrieked silently behind his transparent faceplate. He batted around his head as the roaches convulsed, their paper-thin wings beating in crippled angles. Decompression bloated their abdomens. Froth oozed from their joints and rumps.
A roach clung vomiting to the plastic, near Lindsay's face. It had been eating something within the crate. Something viscous and red. Faint wisps of steam were coming from the crate. Fazil didn't notice; he was swatting the roaches out into the launch ring.
Fazil stepped through the hatchway into the ring and pulled the crate after him. He wrestled it into the launch cage.
He emerged, then knocked the last of the dead insects through the chamber hatch and locked it shut. A green ready-light came on as the hatch door sealed the circuit. An LED raced through numbers as launch power hit the magnets.
Fazil pulled the entrance zipper and air rushed in. The plastic airlock flapped like a sail. Fazil climbed out, shaking. His shouts were muffled by the suit. "Did you see that?" He pulled his own zip down to mid-chest. "What was in there? What were they eating?"
"I didn't see them pack the crate," Lindsay said. "Could have been anything."
Fazil examined the smeared sleeve of his suit. "Looks like blood." Lindsay leaned closer. "Doesn't smell like blood."
"This is evidence," Fazil said, tapping the suit. Lindsay was thoughtful. The pirates had lied to him. They had tried to be clever, as clever as the Shapers. They had tried to make someone disappear.
"It might be best, Fazil, if we launched that suit."
"Have you seen Ian today?" Fazil said.
"I wasn't looking for him."
They eyed one another. Lindsay said nothing. Fazil glanced quickly, warily, over one shoulder at the LED. "It's launched away," he said.
"If you'll launch the suit," Lindsay said, "I'll scrub the inside of the airlock."
"I'm not launching this suit with the head," Fazil said.
"You could feed it into one of the chambers," Lindsay said, pointing.
"The fermentation vats." He thought fast. "If you'll do that, I'll help you set this complex to full capacity. You can make decoys again." Lindsay pulled another suit from the wall and shook it out. "We'll launch the head. We'll dump the suit. We'll do those two things first, and then we'll talk. All right?"
The moment to attack was when Lindsay had his legs half trapped in the suit. That moment passed, and once again Lindsay knew he had bought time. He and Fazil manhandled the head into the airlock. Fazil