Black Man by Richard K. Morgan Page B

into the biosealant. The wind whipped in off the ocean outside, chilling the newly pasted skin of his cheeks where they were still exposed at either side of the mask. There was an illusory sense of safety behind the curve of impact-resistant one-way glass and its warm amber heads-up projected displays, as if his whole body were sitting back here instead of just bits of his face. They got warned about that shit all the time. Some crudely rendered virtual drill sergeant in the bargain-basement Texan software that was all Filigree Steel Security’s training budget ran to. Inexplicably, the badly lip-synched figure had a British accent.
    Whole-body awareness, you ’orrible li-uhl man, the construct was wont to bellow whenever he tripped one of the program’s stoppers. Are your legs on loan? Is your chest a temporary appendage?
    Whole-body awareness is the only fucking thing that will keep your whole body alive.
    Yeah, yeah. Whatever.
    He snapped the cable onto his vest, turned back to the belly of the shuttle and the observation camera fixed in the ceiling. He made the OK sign with finger and thumb. Coughed into the induction mike at his throat.
    “Point, ready to deploy.”
    I hear you, Point. On my mark. Three, two, one… drop.
    The cable jolted into motion and he fumbled his XM to readiness in both hands, leaning out so he could peer down at what lay below. At first, it was just the endless roll and whitecap slap of the Pacific, outward in all directions. Then he got a fix on the ship. Not what he’d been expecting: it looked like a huge plastic packing case, awash in the water, barely floating. The hull was mostly a scorched black, but he could make out streaks of white with the remains of nano-etched lettering, some kind of corporate insignia that he supposed must have skinned off in the heat of reentry. He dropped closer, saw what looked like an open hatch set in a section that was still above water.
    “Uh, Command. Are we sure this thing isn’t going to sink?”
    Affirmative, Point. COLIN specs say she should stay afloat indefinitely.
    “Just, I’ve got an open hatch here, and with this wind and the waves I figure she’s got to be shipping some water.”
    Repeat, Point. Vessel should float indefinitely. Check the hatch.
    His boots hit the hull with a solid clank about a dozen meters off from the hatch and a little downward.
    Ocean water swirled around his feet, ankle-deep, then sucked back. He sighed and unclipped from the cable.
    “Understood, Command. Off descender.”
    Will maintain.
    He crouched a little and worked his way up the shallow slope toward the hatch, peered down into it.
    Water had sloshed into the opening; he could see it glistening wetly on the rungs of a ladder that led down to a second, inner hatch, which he assumed had to be the end of an air lock. As he watched, a fresh surge washed over the hatch coaming and rinsed down onto the ladder, dripping and splashing to the bottom of the lock. He peered a bit more, then shrugged and clambered down the ladder until he was hanging off the lower rungs just above the inner hatch. The water down there was about three fingers deep, slopping back and forth with the tilt of the vessel in the waves. Just below the surface, the moldings of the hatch looked unnaturally clean, like something seen at the bottom of a rock pool. There was a warning: caution: pressure must equalize before hatch will open.
    Joe figured whatever pressure there was inside the hull must be pretty close to Earth standard then, because someone or something had already unsealed the inner hatch. It was hanging open just enough to let the water drain very slowly through the crack. He grunted.
    Weren’t for that, fucking air lock’d be a quarter full already from the slop.
    He tapped his mike.
    “Command? I’ve got a cracked inner hatch here. Don’t know if that’s the systems or, uh, human agency.”
    Noted. Proceed with caution.
    He grimaced. He’d been hoping for a withdraw