Zero World Read Online Free PDF Page A

nothing?
Delayed mourning, was that really it? Really him?
    Another theory presented itself. His implant might be short-circuiting the emotional response automatically. It could do things like that, if he didn’t mind the fevers that would follow. Force him to focus, even fire his neurons faster, which made everything else seem to slow down. Maybe it could also dampen whatever part of his brain felt compassion. He wanted to believe that. The alternative was too horrifying.
    Monique had her reasons, he reminded himself again. This wasn’t in cold blood. These people, their captain at least, must have accessed highly sensitive information in the
Venturi
’s computer. She must have been about to transmit it to Earth when he’d plugged her. Monique had seen it coming. She’d employed him to prevent it. Maybe he’d just saved a million lives back on Earth. A fantasy, perhaps, but he had to believe it. Above all he trusted Monique, without reservation. This was just a job and he was the tool for it.
    And,
he thought,
I seem to be pretty good at this.
    Sliding into the rhythm of the task, he turned back toward the
Pawn.
He felt calm now, despite what his brain had been through only minutes earlier, despite the nasty business he’d just performed and the conclusions he’d drawn. He pushed back to the central junction, glanced at the
Pawn
—airlock still sealed—and drifted on toward the aft of the station.
    The one called Harai rounded a corner ahead, directly in Caswell’s path. Caswell ignored the man’s puzzled glare. He floated straight to him and fired the needler at point-blank range.
    Harai’s reaction was different. He all but ignored his sudden blindness and took a vicious swing at Caswell with his right arm. In zero-g the punch had little behind it, and served only to send them both careening off each other. Caswell flopped into the wall and whirled. His target hit the opposite wall, pushed hard with both legs, and came rocketing back. Midway across, his whole body spasmed,then again, more violently. Caswell uncoiled himself and moved aside, letting the now-limp body bounce off the surface next to him and drift.
    That’s three,
he thought.
Three more.
    He turned and stared straight into the wide, shocked eyes of Douglas. “What the fuck?” the man shouted. He had a toolbox in one hand and frantically groped through it with the other until he found what he wanted. A meaty, half-meter-long wrench.
    “What’s going on?”
someone asked. Iceberg, back in the
Pawn. “Report.”
    “That prick we brought on just killed Harai!” he shouted, swinging the wrench.
    Caswell ducked under the metal bar. It rebounded off the wall, sending a jolt up Douglas’s arm. Caswell fired the vossen gun at the same moment. He missed, the tiny missile rocketing into the distance. Caswell fired again, but Douglas was spinning now, his momentum all wrong. The second needle slid into his suit just under the left armpit, burrowing through the Kevlar fabric to worm in under the collarbone.
    Payload delivered so close to the heart, Douglas’s entire body jerked absolutely rigid. The man became a stick figure. His face contorted, eyes bulging outward. Blood burst from his nostrils and mouth as the man began to spasm uncontrollably.
    “Iceberg,” Caswell said. “I don’t know what Douglas is talking about. He’s acting…strange. Bring a med kit.”
    “Where’s Angelina?”
    “Unknown. She came back to inspect the lander bays with him, and went silent. Klaus followed, same thing, so I came to see what was wrong.”
    “I didn’t hear them discuss any of this.”
    “Neither did I,” Caswell said.
    A pause.
“Then how do you know why the captain left C-and-C?”
    “Can we talk about it later? Douglas is curled in a ball here hittingthe sides of his helmet with his fists, and I think I can see one of the others down in the cargo bay, drifting limp. Harai maybe. Bring a stretcher while you’re at it.”
    “Jesus,”
Iceberg