Trapped

"No," said Impervia. "He was flesh and blood. So am I."

She lifted her hand: the one holding the small knife. I understood now why she'd taken it out. Slowly, deliberately, she pulled back her sleeve and placed the blade to her flesh, halfway between wrist and elbow. She had to press hard; the knife's edge was adequate for cutting T-bone steak, but not for slicing Impervia's hard-toned muscle. When she broke through the skin, blood oozed in a thick trickle.

The dim glow of the laser cage didn't cast enough light to show the blood's harsh scarlet… but suddenly a dozen small white suns materialized in the air. They were obviously Sebastian's work-illuminating the room with his psionics so he could see clearly. At last.

"Sister Impervia?" he said with horror in his voice.

"Yes," she answered. "It's me."

"No, it isn't," said a new voice. And Impervia erupted in flames.

23: FIRE IN THE HOLE

Another Rosalind had appeared-Jode, escaped from wherever one went when tapped with a red and green ‹BINK›-rod. The Lucifer had sneaked around the far side of the laser cage. While the rest of us were watching Impervia cut her arm, Jode had moved into position just beyond the cube's airlock shack. The Lucifer had obtained an Element gun from one of the fallen Keepers; and the gun was set to shoot flames.

Impervia's clothes ignited. Beside her, the Caryatid was also engulfed in fire… but the Caryatid waved the blaze away before it could singe a single hair. She turned and grabbed the flames surrounding Impervia as if they were solid matter; then the Caryatid yanked backward, pulling the fire with her, like tugging a crackling red cloak off Impervia's body. A quick flick of the Caryatid's wrists, and the flames winked out in mid-air. Curls of smoke wreathed Impervia from head to foot, but the woman beneath seemed unharmed.

Jode, alas, was a fast learner. The Lucifer must have tried flames to begin with because they'd cause the most agonizing death… but when fire proved ineffective, Jode switched immediately to bullets.

A burst of high-velocity slugs rattled toward Impervia and the Caryatid, some rounds striking home while others zinged past to ricochet off the rock walls. Annah threw herself to the ground; I joined her, but in the instant before I dropped, I saw the Caryatid point toward Jode and shout a single incomprehensible word. Her pet fireball shot across the room toward the alien, the ball's blazing heat augmented by fire from Jode's own flamethrower… and I prayed the inferno would hit its target with enough energy to incinerate Jode on the spot.

It didn't. Head down, I heard a clatter and a heavy whoof of air. When I looked up, the Element gun had been knocked from Jode's grip and all fires in the room were snuffed… including the flameball the Caryatid had sent toward the alien. Sebastian had obviously told his nanite friends to stop the violence until he could sort everything out.

Therefore Jode was still intact. The Caryatid had slumped to the ground, her face ashen; one arm hung limply, while the other hand pressed hard against her opposite shoulder. Blood seeped between her fingers from a deep wound just below her collarbone. There was another mess of blood near her waist where a second bullet had plowed its way through the plump rolls of flesh she called love handles… but the Caryatid didn't have a free hand to stop the bleeding down there. Perhaps she didn't even know about the second wound: the shot in her upper chest, piercing ribs and muscles and internal organs, might have eclipsed the pain of a straight in-and-out hole through simple fat.

Besides, the Caryatid wasn't concentrating on her own injuries. Her gaze had turned toward Impervia… who'd been knocked off her feet by the gunfire. When she hit the rock floor she landed in an awkward heap, with no attempt to make a graceful breakfall. Blood gushed out of her in a high-pressure fountain, an arc of it streaming into the air. The blood had to be pouring from an artery, but her body was so crumpled, I couldn't tell where she'd been hit. In the leg? The chest? The throat?

Abruptly the red geyser stopped… as if the heart supplying the pressure had ceased to pump. Impervia didn't move; nothing moved except the edge of the blood pool, trickling across the uneven ground, flowing toward the lowest point in the chamber.

I thought to myself, She would have preferred to die in righteous battle. But battle deaths are often the easy way out for people blind to other possibilities. If Impervia had to die, better that her last act was cutting her own arm. Not stupid fisticuffs, but proving she was human.

"What's going on?" Sebastian roared. At least, I think he wanted it to be a roar. It came out closer to a whine. He'd seen Impervia was flesh and blood; he'd also seen her gunned down by his precious Rosalind. Except that he could see two Rosalinds: Jode and Dreamsinger. "Who are you?" he yelled at the Lucifer.