The Man of Bronze by James Alan Gardner Read Free Book Online Page A

than five seconds, though it seemed much longer as I’d watched. Now I hefted the Kaybar and stabbed down hard, wondering how much force it would take to pierce the gleaming surface that covered the man’s vitals. I felt the jar of impact as the knife tip struck home . . . then the blade shattered with a bristling crack, like a champagne glass struck with a jackhammer.
    Kaybar blades are the finest steel. They never break, ever . . . except, I thought, under several tons of pressure or perhaps when made brittle by being plunged to the temperature of liquid nitrogen . . .
    Where my hand had touched the silvery surface, I still felt blistering cold.
    Down on the floor, the glossy figure stirred. He rolled over slowly, rising to his hands and knees. Despite the silver sheath’s subzero exterior, the interior was obviously still warm enough for the man to survive. He might have been trying to say something . . . but the sound was muffled by the mirror shell.
    One of Jacek’s nurses, obviously moved by a heroic impulse, stepped forward. It looked like she intended to whack the thug’s head with a bedpan. “No,” I said quickly. “Stay back. Everybody. Keep out of my way and I’ll deal with this. That silvery surface is so cold it’s lethal.”
    “What
is
it?” Reuben whispered.
    “Some kind of portable armor,” I said, “for absolute emergencies. You saw what it did to the knife . . . and what it will do to your hand if you touch him.” I clenched my own hand again, trying to squeeze back some warmth. The skin would definitely blister; even so, I was lucky I’d only made contact while the mirrored barrier was still forming, before it reached its final temperature. Otherwise, my iced-over fingers would have shattered as easily as the knifepoint. “Bullets likely won’t penetrate either,” I told Reuben. “And who knows what else that shell can resist? Flamethrowers. Acid. You could probably wear it to swim through lava.”
    Reuben looked at the shining man, still just trying to steady himself on his hands and knees. Inside that protective shell, the mercenary was clearly in bad shape: hurting from his injuries and woozy from anesthetic. He might also have been having additional difficulties. “Can he breathe in there?” Reuben asked.
    “I doubt it,” I replied. “The air around the shell is unbelievably cold. If any could get inside, it would freeze the man’s lungs. No,” I said, “that mirror stuff must be airtight. Once you’re inside, you only have a minute or so before you began to suffocate. The shell must be designed to dissolve before that happens.” I shook my head. “But a minute of absolute safety, no matter what’s trying to kill you? Don’t ask me how often I’ve prayed for something like that.”
    “Look out,” Reuben said. “He’s going for the gun.”
    The man was indeed crawling toward the Uzi I’d knocked from his hand. Obviously, the icy armor allowed him to see things outside. But the chap moved as ponderously as a giant tortoise. I couldn’t tell if he was being slowed by his protective shell or just from being on his knees after getting shot, operated upon, dropped off a table, and partly strangled. Either way, I had no trouble rolling off the table and grabbing the pistol before the man reached it.
    “You want it?” I said. “Here you go.” I ejected the ammo clip and emptied the chamber—safety first, always safety first—then swung the butt of the unloaded gun at the man’s silverized head. I didn’t expect my attack to have much effect, but maybe the more I stressed the glossy shell, the faster it would dissipate.
    The Uzi struck with a jarring thud I felt all the way up my arm like swinging a sledge hard into granite. Part of the gun butt fractured. I pulled away fast as the man darted his hand up to grab the weapon. He could have the gun for all I cared. It had no bullets . . . and if the man and I fought over it, I might literally freeze my fingers