And as Alex watched, so a yellow tongue of fire licked towards the tumbling escape pod. He felt heat, then pain, then cold…
The tiny survival vehicle was blasted apart, sparkling fragments falling towards the green world of Leesti.
Alex hit space, arms flailing, mouth opened, consciousness and life draining from him with every second…
In space, everyone can hear you scream…
As long, that is, as you're equipped with a RemLok survival mask.
An instant after Alex Ryder hit the hard vacuum, a skin of plasFibre had been shot across his body from nozzles on the face piece, keeping him warm against the cold, tightening and protecting him, securing him against the void. The oxygen flow in his body was cut off to all but his heart and brain. Needle-doses of adrenalin and somnokie were held ready, just within the skin area of his mouth, ready to alert or depress his body functions according to circumstances.
And the RemLok screamed through space for help.
It was a standard survival device, an instantly recognisable distress call indicating that it was being sent out from a small, remotely located, dying body. The alarm screeched out on forty channels, shifting wavelength within each channel four times a second. One hundred and twenty chances to catch attention…
A cumbersome Boa class cruiser, loaded down with industrial machinery, slowed its departure run from Leesti and turned to scan space for the source of the signal…
Two police vipers came streaking from their patrol sector, near the sun, scanning for the body in trouble…
An adapted Moray Starboat, a vast glowing yellow star on its hull, the sign of a hospital ship came chugging out of the darkness…
Messages from ships to both the planet and its ring of Coriolis stations were abruptly broken as the split second message came screaming through.
TV programmes were interrupted, the screen dissolving into a permanently recorded display of the space-grid location of the RemLok. Every advertising space module changed its garish display to flash, in brilliant green, the same information.
In the orbit-space around Leesti, a million heads turned starwards. That split second of panic, that moment's cry of distress, was a sound they knew too well to ignore, and were too frightened of to take for granted.
Within twenty seconds, two autoremotes, tiny vessels just big enough to carry an hour's oxygen, one dose each of forty drugs, and a variety of other stimulants, were hovering around Alex Ryder's spinning body. one of them shot out a stabilising cable and dragged itself to his corpse.
Blinking through its solitary monitor, it hovered over his face like a squat, legless dachsund hound and pumped adrenalin, oxygen and glucose into his bloodstream. Alex opened his eyes and panicked slightly. The autoremote calmed him down with a quick pumpsurge of tetval.
The robot's voice whispered in his ears, 'Brandy? Scotch? Vodka? I am equipped with a full range of miniature stimulants to make the waiting easier.'
'What…happened…ship?…Avalonia…'he gasped through the tight face mask.
The autoremote blinked at him sympathetically, 'Brandy, then,' and hit Alex with two shots of Qutirian SynCognac.
An hour later he was aboard the Moray hospital vessel, in parked orbit above the green-grey face of the world of Leesti. Burns to his hands and face had been taken care of. Minor blood vessels that had ruptured in his skin had been knitted back together. He was bruised, stunned, but essentially fit physically.
The image of the ship exploding had begun to haunt him, however. He stood by the wide, sloping window of his hospital room, staring out across the bright of space to the slowly rotating world below, watching the flash and tumble of shuttles and small freighters as they either glided up from the world, or struck the atmosphere on their descent, leaving brief, brilliant flares of red in the thin planetary atmosphere.
Wherever he looked he could see the shadow of the Cobra, rising up in the Witchlight, a great, killer beast, closing on its prey.
And his father's face…
The sudden alarm, the sudden anger, and yet…and yet Jason Ryder had known.
His grieving, mind-stunned son just knew that his father had been more aware of the danger than he had let on. It had been in his face, in the tension in the cabin, in the slow, deliberate words that he had spoken during the approach run to hyperspace.
Jason had known that his life was in danger. He had been ready for it, ready to save his son in the event of attack…
It made no sense. But for the moment Alex felt only loss, the loss of a man he had loved. Both his parents were gone, now. His homeworld would seem an empty, uninviting place.
Behind him, the door opened softly and the grey-suited figure of a nurse appeared. She reproved him mildly for being out of bed, but seemed pleased by his apparently calm mental state.
There followed what seemed like a constant stream of visitors. First the doctor, scanning him for tension and psychic repression. The medic was not pleased. He more or less said, 'Young man, your father is dead and it would do you no harm to shed a few tears. It's all there, all the grief, all the sadness. It'll do you no good to deny it.'
'I'll grieve for my father,' Alex said back angrily, coldly. 'I'll grieve among the ashes of the pirate that killed him. And not until.'
'Will you indeed.'
'Yes,' Alex stated defiantly. 'I will. Indeed.'
After the doctor had gone, the man from the Galactic Medical Co-operative came, fussily checking up on Alex's medical insurance, making sure that he was covered for all aspects of the treatment, including his Faraway transit home.
Then the police, two lean-faced men, wearing the grey cloaks and silver waistcoats of the Narcotics Investigation Department. What cargo had the Avalonia been carrying? Why would a pirate be so interested in him as to follow him to a Corporate State world? Had his father ever transported drugs? Firearms? Slaves? What about alien substances: Manjooza, fear glands, Marswurt? What was said in the moments before destruction? Would he recognise the ship again? What were its markings?
Alex told them everything he could remember. Everything he'd seen.
Everything he'd heard…
Except for the fact that his father had clearly known the danger.
And except for the word Raxxla.
The police left. They were not satisfied. Alex had just received his solo pilot's licence, so he could make his own way back to his homesystem, but he should notify them of what route he was taking.
Raxxla..
Alex watched them go, their Viper a slim, evil-looking ship as it rolled and sped away from the hospital vessel. His mood matched the dim-lit room, matched the gloom-grey of the storms that were building up on the world below. Leesti's oceans looked wild and cold, now, its clouds great charcoal coloured swirls of anger above the ragged, mountainous land.
Raxxla.
What could it be? What could it mean?
At midnight, still resting and recouperating (care of the Leesti Medical Authority), a small green light winked on in his room. Alex, still awake, frowned then realised that he was being monitored.
'What is it?' he asked the empty room, and a nurse's voice whispered, 'There's a holoFac message coming through for you. They've requested a tightbeam. Will you receive?'
Alex sat up in bed. No-one knew he was here. Did they? He frowned, and said, 'Sure.'
'Will you accept the charge against your CR?'
Curiouser and curiouser. Since he was broke, and without credit until he sorted out his GMC insurance, it was easy for him to say, 'Yes.'
In the middle of the room the air suddenly shimmered white, small bright particles flying off in all directions around the gradually defined shape of a man. He was tall, but slightly stooped. As the whiteness of the image resolved into colour, the whiteness of the man stayed. His hair was long and snowy, his beard ragged. His face had a touch of colour. His eyes were small, gleaming points among the wrinkles. He was smiling. He wore a tattered trader's uniform, and one arm hung limp by his side. Even his boots were worn down, and the toes were split. The handlaser at his side had seen the same better days as the rest of his equipment.