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The great interior halls and passageways of the Behemothhad never seemed less like home. As he descended, the spin gravity grew almost imperceptibly stronger. His numb flesh sat a little heavier in its harness. He was going to have to get someone to change out his piss bag soon unless he could figure out some way to get his arms inside the mech’s frame, but his elbows only bent one direction, so that seemed unlikely. And if his spine didn’t grow back, if they didn’t get the Behemothand everyone else back out of the trap the protomolecule had caught them in, he’d live like this until he died.
Don’t think about it, he told himself. Too far ahead. Don’t think about it. Just do your job.
He didn’t take one of the main internal lifts. Chances were too good that Ashford’s men would be watching for that. Instead, he found one of the long, spiraling maintenance passages and set the mech to walking on its own. If it drifted too near one wall or the other, he could correct it, but it gave him a few seconds. He pulled out the hand terminal. He was shaking and his skin looked gray under the brown.
Serge answered almost immediately.
“Ga
“Ashford,” Bull said.
“On top of it,” Serge said. “Looks like he’s got about a third of our boys and a bunch of crazy-ass coyos from other ships. Right now they got the transition points off the drum north to command and south to engineering, the security office and the armory, y some little wolf packs going through the drum stirring up trouble.”
“How well armed?”
“Nicht so bien sa moi,” Serge said, gri
“You what?”
“Always ready for merde mal, me. Bust me down later,” Serge said. “I’m putting together squads, clean up the drum. We’ll get this all smashed flat by bedtime.”
“You have to be careful with these guys, Serge.”
“Will, boss. Know what we’re doing. Know the ship better than anyone. You get safe, let us take care.”
Bull swallowed. Giving over control ached.
“Okay.”
“We been trying to get the captain, us,” Serge said.
“I warned her. She may be refusing co
“Check,” Serge said, and Bull heard in the man’s voice that he’d had the same thought. “When we track Ashford?”
“We don’t have permission to kill him,” Bull said.
“A finger slips, think we can get forgiveness?”
“Probably.”
Serge gri
“Screw that,” Bull said. “When this shit’s done, you can be XO.”
“Hold you to, boss,” Serge said, and the co
Chapter Thirty-Nine: A
The first sermon A
She’d learned some important lessons from that. There was a place for detailed Bible scholarship. There was even a place for it in front of the congregation. But it wasn’t what people came to church for. Learning a bit more about God was part of feeling closer and more co
“Well, it wasn’t the worst thing I’ve ever heard,” Tilly said once the service was over. She had the twitchy look she got when she wanted a cigarette, but A
“That’s very flattering,” A
“I need a drink,” Tilly said once the woman had left. “Come with. I’ll buy you a lemonade.”
“They closed the bar. Rationing.”
Tilly laughed. “I have a supplier. The guy ru
“A thousand—”
“One of two things will happen,” Tilly said, taking out a cigarette and putting it in her mouth but leaving it unlit. “We’ll get out of here, back into the solar system where I’m rich and a thousand bucks doesn’t matter, or we won’t get out and nothing will matter.”
A
God might not care about financial standing, but He was the only one.
“I admit, lemonade sounds nice,” A
After one more tour of the tent to say goodbye to the last lingering remnants of her congregation, A
A
Tilly’s eyebrow crept higher. “Okay.”
“And when we get here, who knows how far from the sun and with billions of kilometers of empty space in every direction? We somehow manage to be hot and crowded.”