McCade's Bounty Read Online Free PDF Page B

the bottommost grating and cried all the time.
    Some kids threw up a lot, others had to go to the bathroom all the time, and whoever lay just beneath them took the brunt of it.
    But some dribbled past, and ended up at the very bottom of the hold where it coated everyone and everything.
    From the pirate point of view it was an extremely efficient low-cost way of transporting a lot of people at once. Not only that, but when the gratings were removed, the hold could still be used for more conventional cargoes.
    Looking up through the dark crisscross of metal gratings, and the black sprawl of supine bodies, Molly could see the glow of a single greenish light.
    It reminded her of the night light in her room on Alice. As long as the light was on nothing could sneak up and hurt her. There had been two greenish lights originally, but one had gone out two cycles earlier, and now Molly feared that the other one would too.
    "Oh, please, God," she prayed, "don't let the light go out. And if Mommy's with you, tell her I miss her, and I'm trying to be good. And, God, if Daddy's coming, tell him to hurry."

Five
    They used hand blasters to cut down through the permafrost. After that the robo shovels moved in, their drive wheels squeaking in the cold, their scoops biting into frozen dirt.
    Steam rose from the temporarily warmed earth, eddied around the mourners like strands of errant ectoplasm, and was whipped away by a steady breeze. It came from the south and made the minister's robes swish and pop. His words were feeble and small against the vast backdrop of frozen wilderness and gray sky.
    " . . . And so it is that we lay these valiant souls to rest, secure in the knowledge that their essence lives on, looking forward to the time when we shall see them again . . ."
    McCade felt Sara shift her weight from one leg to the other. Her right leg still hurt where the slug had ripped through her thigh. It was a miracle that she was still alive. Twenty-seven men and women had defended the main entry. Three had survived.
    McCade thought Sara should be in the hospital, but between the pressures of office and her own stubbornness, she'd been up and around for a day now.
    McCade tightened his arm around Sara's waist and pulled her even closer. He gloried in the feel of her, and had Molly been there beside him, he would've been secretly happy.
    But she wasn't, and that, plus the guilt McCade felt for putting his own family first, pulled his emotions down.
    At least Phil was alright. Deena had been found and was recovering in the hospital.
    The minister paused, turned a page in the tattered book, and intoned the ancient words. " . . . Ashes to ashes . . . dust to dust . . ."
    Sara leaned her head against his arm. She was crying.
    McCade watched Rico as the coffins were lowered into the grave. They were all that remained of a full section. The rest would never be found. The second belonged to Vanessa. As her coffin disappeared from sight, Rico whispered a prayer and threw something in after her. McCade caught the glint of gold.
    When the last coffin had been lowered into the grave, and blasters had rewarmed the earth, a robo shovel filled the trench.
    Then, their shoulders covered with a dusting of snow, the mourners crunched their way back to the line of waiting crawlers. One had been set aside for Sara, McCade, Rico, and Phil.
    It dipped and rolled through broken ground to waddle out onto the landing pad. The elevator mechanism that normally lowered ships below the frozen surface was still under repair, but both of the burned-out hulks had been pushed aside, and another shuttle sat beside his own. It was old and extremely beat-up.
    A tramp freighter had dropped into orbit the day before. After all the death and destruction it seemed hard to believe that life would go on, that the rest of humanity was still going about its business, but the shuttle proved it. Things, outer things that didn't mean much, were returning to