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on to the chains. That'll help you feel secure. And don't worry, we won't let you fall.'
The 'bucket' was more like one of those aerial chairs that children ride at
fairgrounds. Suspended from four leather-sheathed chains, it had a back and sides but
no legs. A webbing harness was fitted to the interior, with a safety belt dangling loose.
And like an aerial chair, even a child could see how to use it... or should have been able
to. But the man below was in shock.
As the bucket danced in front of him  now bouncing on the collar, now twitching
to knee height, finally swinging out and away from him  he took a dazed, stumbling
step toward it and tried to grab at it. After that... it was only sheer good fortune that
saved him; one more staggering step would have taken him to the rim of the collar
some twenty feet above the bridge deck, and the rescue tackle might easily have
dragged him over the edge. But as it happened the chair spun around him, struck him
behind the knees, and scooped him up.
And slumped in the bucket, with his arms and legs dangling loose and likewise
the straps of the harness, which he hadn't fastened  he was winched toward safety, or
to what would have been safety in any normal or routine rescue situation. But even as
the gears wound him in and he flopped there, with his vacant eyes staring up at his
rescuers from a pale, dirty, slack-jawed face, so Trask's harsh, apparently emotionless
voice was in the crew's ears, telling them:
'From now on you do exactly as Jake Cutter and the Old Lidesci tell you to do.
They are acting on my orders, on authority conveyed to me by your Gunnery
Commander Argyle. The man you're bringing up from that ship may or may not be
infected with this... this terrible disease. But the old man called Lardis is the world's
foremost expert in such things and he will know. In any event his decision  and
whatever action he takes  has my full backing. Anyone attempting to interfere will not
only be liable to severe disciplinary action, he may well be placing the lives of your
entire crew in jeopardy!'
The rescue crew's members glanced at each other but made no comment, and
the bucket came up within reach of the hatch. Then Lardis yelled across to the man in
the bucket: 'You, I want you to give me your hand. Reach out and give it now!' He
leaned out of the hatch on his safety strap and offered a gnarled, purple-veined left
hand to the survivor. The fingers of that hand were heavy with rings of purest silver.
The man in the bucket looked at Lardis, then at his hand. A flicker of vague
recognition passed over his face, and his lips formed the word, 'Szgany!' But still his
arms continued to hang loose in the down draught, and in another moment his eyes had
gone vacant again.
Lardis glanced at the three petty officers. 'Swing him in a little, but carefully.' And
to Jake: 'In the event he makes any sudden move  tries to jump aboard  you know
what to do.'
Nodding his understanding, Jake took out a specially modified 9mm Browning
automatic from an inside pocket of his flying jacket and cocked it  at which the fair-
haired, freckled petty officer gasped and said, 'What the fuck& !?
'Just do as Lardis said,' Jake told him, aiming his weapon directly between the
eyes of the man in the bucket. And without further protest (for the time being at least),
and beginning to understand just how serious this business was beyond any normal
course of duty, the winchman swung the pulley arm in toward the hatch.
In that selfsame moment the survivor moved! He grabbed hold of the Old
Lidesci's hand (but so suddenly that Jake almost shot him), gave a wild inarticulate cry,
and babbled something that to Jake sounded utterly unintelligible.
'What did he say?' said Jake anxiously. 'What did he say?'
'He called me "father',' Lardis grunted. 'Said he'd cried out to me and was glad
that I'd answered his call. Very complimentary! He doesn't seem to be afraid of silver,
either. But we're not finished yet.'
Using his free hand, he took out a small aerosol dispenser that he passed to
Jake. And, drawing his machete, he said, 'He has my hand, this one, but if he should
squeeze it too hard  perhaps with a fiend's strength  then I shall have his!'
Jake leaned out a little on his line, showed the dispenser to the man in the
bucket, and said, 'This shouldn't do you any harm. Close your eyes and don't breathe
for a moment.'
Continuing to cling to Lardis's hand, the man looked to him for reassurance. 'Do
as he says,' Lardis told him. And dangling there on thin air, the survivor closed his eyes.
Jake sprayed him in the face, a full burst of two or three seconds... and nothing
happened. But the rescue crew wrinkled their noses and again looked at each other.
What, garlic? Well, something that smelled like garlic, anyway.
The man in the bucket opened his eyes, took a deep breath, didn't seem at all
affected.
And Lardis said, 'Now the acid test. Except it isn't acid, but blood!' And without
pause he slid the razor-sharp blade of his weapon lightly over the back of his own wrist.
And showing the survivor what he'd done  the slow drip of his blood into the abyss  he
said:
'No, I'm not your father. But I readily understand why you would cry out to him.
So perhaps we can be brothers, you and I? Perhaps we already are, of a sort.
"Szgany," you called me. Aye, and you're right. So what do you say? Can we be blood [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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