The Belter's Story (BRIGAND) Read Free

loose. I started to reach for my cutter and then remembered — it was outside, with the rest of my kit.
    The edges of my boot soles snagged on some hidden crack in the ice and, for a moment, I had leverage. I lunged, hooking my hands under his armpits and then thrusting with my legs, pulling with every erg I could muster while Jase's screams strobed through his dying comm.
    And then he came free.
    I tumbled backward with Jase clutched to my chest, slamming flat on my back as the digger disappeared beneath the europine mountain.
    "Don… ve… me, Crom."
    I scrabbled backwards with Jase's limp form on top of me, thrusting with my legs, shoving myself over broken ice and scattered purple spheres.
    "Here, Jase. I got you." I rolled him off of me and sat up. Then I looked down.
    Below Jase's hips there was nothing but the pale shimmer of the somashell, sealing the hole where the bottom half of his suit used to be. White bone and pink flesh were awash in dark red blood, all held neatly in place by the somashell's field.
    With no warning at all, my stomach lurched and I vomited into my helmet, the stench of bile mixing with the odors of sweat and fear. The reek of it stung my eyes and my stomach clenched again. My mouth filled with saliva, but I clamped my jaw shut and swallowed. Jase's external monitor said he was still alive and horror was a luxury neither one of us could afford.
    Adrenaline flooded my bloodstream, shutting down everything more complicated than simple instinct. I grabbed Jase's shoulders and scooted backwards, dragging him toward the open crevice. By the time we reached the crack in the ice wall, Jase's monitor was flashing blue. Imminent arrest. He was dying.
    I knew the somashell would have slowed most of his blood loss by now. But shock was killing him. His heart was threatening to stop. I knew that, if I was clever enough, I might be able to use Su to cobble something together, something that might keep him going long enough to get to help. I told her I needed insulated wire, which she spooled through her extruder. I quickly stripped off a length and wound it around the shaft of a grip-spike. Then I repeated the process with a second spike.
    I knew Su's anatomy better than my own and I popped open her intake port, looking for the ionizer nodes that she used to break down the raw materials I fed her. Very high voltage. Very low current. Exactly what I needed. I was attaching the second wire when Jase's monitor switched over to steady violet. His heart had given up.
    Even in an autodoc, Jase's situation wouldn't have been very good. With nobody but his brother and a fixbot to help him, he never had much of a chance. But I had to try. I jammed the spikes through his suit, into his chest, bracketing where I thought his heart should be. Then I glanced at Su and said, "Do it. Now."
    Jase stiffened and convulsed. His monitor flashed blue and his somashell flickered. Then it went dark. We were too late. Jase was gone.
    I sat for a long moment, staring at the face of my twin brother. He looked serene, as if he was resting, as if, with a simple shake, I could rouse him and things would be the way they had been. Jase would sit up and we would go home.
    Slowly, a lavender glow crept out of Su and down the wires that still connected her to him. It pulsed and little waves of brightness swept gently from Jase up to Su as she hovered over him. It was ethereal and hypnotic, that quiet peristalsis.
    Long seconds passed before I let myself admit what she was doing. I'd known for a long time that there was something about our bots. About europine. I'd fed nodules into my little fixbot. She'd broken them down. Separating. Analyzing. And she'd learned something. A thing I didn't understand.
    But I knew what she was doing because I'd seen it before. She was taking something from Jase.
    Su was feeding.

CHAPTER THREE
    Jase was dead. I knew that. I knew, but I couldn’t make myself give him up. Even as my quads and hamstrings burned