Schismatrix plus - Bruce Sterling [62]
At each intersection they halted, listening, smelling. Agnes would push her clothes ahead, then peer quickly around the lip of the opening. Kleo would pass her the candle and she would check for ambushers.
As they neared the tokamak power plant, Agnes sneezed loudly again. After a moment Nora smelled it as well: an appalling alien stench. "What is it?" she whispered to Kleo, ahead of her.
"Fire, I think. Smoke." Kleo was grim. "The Reshaped one is smart, I think she has gone to the tokamak."
"Look!" Agnes whispered loudly. From the corridor branching to their left, a thin gray stream undulated in the candle's light. Agnes ran her fingers through it, and the smoke broke into dissipating wisps. Agnes coughed rawly and caught herself against the wall, her naked ribs heaving silently. Kleo blew out the candle. In the darkness they saw a feeble gleam reflected along the bends and curves of the tunnel's smooth stone.
"Fire," Kleo said. For the first time, Nora heard fear in her leader's voice. "I'll go first."
"No!" Agnes brushed her lips against Kleo's ear and whispered to her rapidly. The two women embraced, and Agnes sneaked forward, leaving her clothes and pressing herself against the tunnel wall. When Nora followed the others she felt Agnes's smeared sweat cold against the stone. Nora peered behind her, guarding their back. Where was Abelard? He wasn't dead, she thought. If only he were here now, with his incessant glibness, and his gray eyes glowing with an animal's determination to survive.
.. .
A sudden sharp clack echoed up the tunnel. A second passed, Agnes screamed, and the air filled with the sharp metallic stench of acid. There were howls of pain and hatred, the snap of Paolo's slingshot. Nora's back and shoulders tightened so suddenly that they cramped in agony and she scrambled head first down the tunnel, deafened by her own screams.
The rogue genetic whirled in the red gleam of firelight, slashing Agnes across the face with the spout of her weapon, a bellows. The air was full of flying globes of corrosive acid, drawn from a wetware tank. Steam curled from Agnes's naked chest. To the side, Kleo grappled, slashing and kicking, with the stocky Rep 2, whose arm was broken by Paolo's shot. Paolo was pulling another heavy stone from his belt pouch.
Nora yanked the sash from her waist with a silken hiss and launched herself at the enemy Shaper. The woman saw her coming. She wrapped a leg around Agnes's throat, crushing it, and swung forward, arms spread to grapple. Nora swung her weighted sash at the woman's face. She caught it, grinned with her crooked teeth, and darted a hand at Nora's face, two fingers spread to spear her eyes. Nora twisted and the nails drew blood from her cheeks. She kicked, missed, kicked with the other leg, felt a sudden searing pain as the combat-trained pirate sank her fingers into the joint of her knee. She was strong, with a genetic's smooth, deceptive strength. Nora fumbled at the other end of the sash and smashed the weight against the pirate's cheek. Rep 1
grinned and Nora felt something snap as her kneecap soggily gave way. Suddenly blood sprayed across her as Paolo's slung shot broke the woman's jaw. Her mouth hung open, bloody, in the firelight, as the pirate woman fought with the sudden wild strength of desperation. The back of her heel slammed bruisingly into Nora's solar plexus as she launched herself at Paolo. Paolo was ready; his bola whipped overhand from nowhere with the force of a hatchet, taking the woman's ear off and slashing deep into her collarbone. She faltered and Paolo stamped her body into the wall.
The pirate's head cracked against the stone and Paolo was on her at once, slashing into her throat with the bola's cord. Behind him Kleo and the other woman struggled in midair, the pirate flailing with legs and a broken arm as Kleo's braced thumbs pressed relentlessly into the woman's throat. Nora, winded by the kick, struggled for breath. Her whole rib cage locked in a sudden radiating cramp. Somehow she forced a thin gasp of smoky air into