More from the BS universe.
Mad rose towards consciousness, and regretted it. It seemed that every single region on Earth, from one pole to the other, had its own ethanol-based poison, that everyone from Earth had brought a bottle of it, and that last night she had a glass of every one of them. If she needed a hair from each of these dogs, she’d have enough to knit a sweater.
Time to take the plunge.
“Lights to forty percent“. Had she? She was in her own sleeping compartment and, from the looks of the other occupants of the room, she most probably had. Another girl, and three males – this should at least get rid of her reputation as a strait-laced workaholic.
The other bodies were writhing around, trying to escape from the dim light, but it was ubiquitous, issuing from all surfaces. Sadistically, Mad turned on her comcentre, which reacted with a bright flash of blue light and cheerful warm-up chime before bringing up the list of people who wanted to get in touch with her.
The screen filled immediately, and the number showing how many other calls would not fit on started to resemble the distance to their destination. In metres. That must be more than the population of the solar system – but perhaps some of them had called twice.
Through the muffled protests of the tangle of guests, she made her way to the hygiene cubby. This already contained a body, visibly male and somewhat vomit spattered. She shoved it into the suction shower, set to ‘cold’, and used the other facility. A hot air dry, and she shoved him into the sleeping, apparently without ever having woken.
The living room contained four more, enlaced to the point that genders and origins were indistinguishable, and only the shades of the small portions of exposed skin suggested which limbs belonged to whom. When her brain started functioning again, it was going to be fun reviewing the automatic recordings.
Despite her head telling her the entire symphonic percussion section had taken up residence between her ears, she was feeling less miserable. After all, everybody else was in worse state than her, and she doubted any of them had been offered more drinks. The cooking alcove contained one more occupant, a female, peeled completely out of her stretch suit. And hugging, for some reason, the syncaf maker. There couldn’t be any more, could there? Putting off checking her storage cupboards until she’d broken her fast, Mad ordered an industrial-sized container of real Earth coffee, and a selection of a dozen breakfasts.
It was while she sucked on a bulb of hot brown fluid and attempted to convince some of the other sufferers against death as the optimal solution, that the assassin struck.
The celebration for passing the orbit of Pluto, and thus left the nest of the sun’s children, had rendered an already relaxed security service to a near coma. The massive precautions the programmed killer had taken were essentially irrelevant – he could probably have walked in carrying a Colt 45. (not that he’d have been able to loose more than one shot with it, allowing for the recoil in microgravity) But the weapon that had been concealed within his person was conceived against corporate security, near indetectable, and chosen to be the best adapted for its final environment. By specialists on Earth, obviously; the nearest thing the faller community had to a personality adjustor was a grief counsellor. There are jobs which only develop in a certain depth of intrigue, and faller society was simply not old enough to have developed them. The end joint of his right index finger had been replaced with an electrostatic accelerator, shooting tiny needles, whiskers of glass and crystallised virus, a non-contagious version that could only be transmitted this way. Sophisticated and difficult to detect, but developed for an earthly environment, by people who’d never been in micro gee.
He’d been programmed to kill, and die, in a variety of scenarios, but the ‘drunken orgy’ one had to be the favourite. His pattern recognition had been loaded with the best-known face in the solar system, targeted, and then suppressed under a layer of amnesia – and they’d even managed to teach him the language at the same time. The triggering had been sent the instant the news of the big party had reached Earth, but light took a certain time to arrive, and it was only now the human robot was closing in on his goal.
The chaos in the room, the smell, everything confirmed the prepared scenario. His arm shot out, and the end of his finger blew off, revealing a blue-glowing tube. Mad, seeing the glow, flung her arm across her face and twisted herself to one side, as far as she could with no real purchase.
It was then the pre-programming started to bug. It is assumed, in an orgy on Earth, that those involved would be unclad, or at least in costumes leaving considerable open space – with one exception, all here were wearing stretch suits, that left head, hands and genitals exposed, and whose super-conductive coils were specifically designed to stop charged particles. An electrostatically accelerated whisker looks very much like a charged particle. Secondly, a stream of tiny needles might seem recoilless in a gravity field, but here it started rotating him, pushing the beam off target.
But the main error was assuming that, hung over and apparently incapable of movement, the emergency-prone fallers would simply not react until it was already too late. A kick broke his wrist ( and incidentally Hans, the kicker’s toe), and spun him round so the deadly mist went out the door, and, as soon as he was aligned with the opening, another body forced him out. It didn’t matter; by now the supply of needles was exhausted, the virus was in his blood, it was assumed the operation was finished.
“Tourniquet*!“ Mad’s natural authority started asserting itself as soon as the crisis had cooled down a few degrees.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea? It could be very damaging to cut off the circulation.“
“I’d cut off the arm if I could, and freeze it, but we’re not equipped for that here. That’s Earth technology, who knows what poison they’ll have used? While you’re about it, get a tourniquet on him; we just might be able to get some information out of him, though I doubt he knows anything. Call the medical services to get us all to treatment as fast as possible, and forensics to find out as much as possible and clean the poison out…“
Mad rose towards consciousness, and regretted it. It seemed that every single region on Earth, from one pole to the other, had its own ethanol-based poison, that everyone from Earth had brought a bottle of it, and that last night she had a glass of every one of them. If she needed a hair from each of these dogs, she’d have enough to knit a sweater.
Time to take the plunge.
“Lights to forty percent“. Had she? She was in her own sleeping compartment and, from the looks of the other occupants of the room, she most probably had. Another girl, and three males – this should at least get rid of her reputation as a strait-laced workaholic.
The other bodies were writhing around, trying to escape from the dim light, but it was ubiquitous, issuing from all surfaces. Sadistically, Mad turned on her comcentre, which reacted with a bright flash of blue light and cheerful warm-up chime before bringing up the list of people who wanted to get in touch with her.
The screen filled immediately, and the number showing how many other calls would not fit on started to resemble the distance to their destination. In metres. That must be more than the population of the solar system – but perhaps some of them had called twice.
Through the muffled protests of the tangle of guests, she made her way to the hygiene cubby. This already contained a body, visibly male and somewhat vomit spattered. She shoved it into the suction shower, set to ‘cold’, and used the other facility. A hot air dry, and she shoved him into the sleeping, apparently without ever having woken.
The living room contained four more, enlaced to the point that genders and origins were indistinguishable, and only the shades of the small portions of exposed skin suggested which limbs belonged to whom. When her brain started functioning again, it was going to be fun reviewing the automatic recordings.
Despite her head telling her the entire symphonic percussion section had taken up residence between her ears, she was feeling less miserable. After all, everybody else was in worse state than her, and she doubted any of them had been offered more drinks. The cooking alcove contained one more occupant, a female, peeled completely out of her stretch suit. And hugging, for some reason, the syncaf maker. There couldn’t be any more, could there? Putting off checking her storage cupboards until she’d broken her fast, Mad ordered an industrial-sized container of real Earth coffee, and a selection of a dozen breakfasts.
It was while she sucked on a bulb of hot brown fluid and attempted to convince some of the other sufferers against death as the optimal solution, that the assassin struck.
The celebration for passing the orbit of Pluto, and thus left the nest of the sun’s children, had rendered an already relaxed security service to a near coma. The massive precautions the programmed killer had taken were essentially irrelevant – he could probably have walked in carrying a Colt 45. (not that he’d have been able to loose more than one shot with it, allowing for the recoil in microgravity) But the weapon that had been concealed within his person was conceived against corporate security, near indetectable, and chosen to be the best adapted for its final environment. By specialists on Earth, obviously; the nearest thing the faller community had to a personality adjustor was a grief counsellor. There are jobs which only develop in a certain depth of intrigue, and faller society was simply not old enough to have developed them. The end joint of his right index finger had been replaced with an electrostatic accelerator, shooting tiny needles, whiskers of glass and crystallised virus, a non-contagious version that could only be transmitted this way. Sophisticated and difficult to detect, but developed for an earthly environment, by people who’d never been in micro gee.
He’d been programmed to kill, and die, in a variety of scenarios, but the ‘drunken orgy’ one had to be the favourite. His pattern recognition had been loaded with the best-known face in the solar system, targeted, and then suppressed under a layer of amnesia – and they’d even managed to teach him the language at the same time. The triggering had been sent the instant the news of the big party had reached Earth, but light took a certain time to arrive, and it was only now the human robot was closing in on his goal.
The chaos in the room, the smell, everything confirmed the prepared scenario. His arm shot out, and the end of his finger blew off, revealing a blue-glowing tube. Mad, seeing the glow, flung her arm across her face and twisted herself to one side, as far as she could with no real purchase.
It was then the pre-programming started to bug. It is assumed, in an orgy on Earth, that those involved would be unclad, or at least in costumes leaving considerable open space – with one exception, all here were wearing stretch suits, that left head, hands and genitals exposed, and whose super-conductive coils were specifically designed to stop charged particles. An electrostatically accelerated whisker looks very much like a charged particle. Secondly, a stream of tiny needles might seem recoilless in a gravity field, but here it started rotating him, pushing the beam off target.
But the main error was assuming that, hung over and apparently incapable of movement, the emergency-prone fallers would simply not react until it was already too late. A kick broke his wrist ( and incidentally Hans, the kicker’s toe), and spun him round so the deadly mist went out the door, and, as soon as he was aligned with the opening, another body forced him out. It didn’t matter; by now the supply of needles was exhausted, the virus was in his blood, it was assumed the operation was finished.
“Tourniquet*!“ Mad’s natural authority started asserting itself as soon as the crisis had cooled down a few degrees.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea? It could be very damaging to cut off the circulation.“
“I’d cut off the arm if I could, and freeze it, but we’re not equipped for that here. That’s Earth technology, who knows what poison they’ll have used? While you’re about it, get a tourniquet on him; we just might be able to get some information out of him, though I doubt he knows anything. Call the medical services to get us all to treatment as fast as possible, and forensics to find out as much as possible and clean the poison out…“
