by Larry Niven
A shift in its spectral line, and he’d caught it. Lucky. Kendy aborted his usual message. The CARM’s time-eroded program would be busy enough without distraction. For the CARM was in flight. It must have been accelerating for some minutes already. By the frequency shift, it was building up enough velocity to take it out of the Smoke Ring…within a few thousand kilometers of Discipline itself!
When the light went out, Kendy began his message. The air was already thinning around the CARM. Reception should be good. “Kendy for the State. Kendy for the State. Kendy for the State.”
The sound stopped, the terrible tide was gone, all in a moment. Bodies bent like bows recoiled. Citizens who had not had the breath for screaming, screamed now.
As the reflexive screams died to groans, the Grad heard Lawri say, wearily, “Jeffer. Never use the main motor unless you’re pushing the tree.”
The Grad could only nod. He’d captured the carm, he’d…treefodder, everyone he knew, if he hadn’t murdered him he’d put him aboard the carm! And then he’d touched the blue bar. He said, “Lawri, I’m open to suggestions.”
“Feed it to the tree.”
The Grad heard full-throated laughter aft…from Anthon. Debby swatted him hard across the belly. The blow snapped him into a U, but he kept laughing, and she joined him.
They had reason! They had been flat against the back wall, protecting Ilsa from what should have been mild jolting. The killer chairs would have snapped their backs, but none of the jungle giants had been in them.
Others were groaning, stirring, moving from pain to fear. Ilsa was beginning to wake up. Merril—vacant-eyed, hypnotized by the peculiar sky rushing at the bow—seemed to snap out of it. “Well, somebody do something!”
Clave’s voice was a carrying one, and it filled the carm’s cabin to overflowing. “Calm down, citizens. We’re not in that much trouble. Remember where we are.”
Other sounds stopped. Clave said, “The carrier was built for this. It came from the stars. We know it operates inside the Smoke Ring, but it was built to operate anywhere, wasn’t it, Grad?”
That simply hadn’t occurred to him. “Not anywhere, but…outside the Smoke Ring, that’s certain.”
“Good enough. What’s our status?”
“Give me a breath.” The Grad was ashamed. It had taken Clave to get his mind working again. We’re not in trouble—Luck, that Clave didn’t have the training to know what nonsense that was.
The blue display was on. Thrust: 0. Acceleration: 0. The big blue rectangle had a border of flickering scarlet: main motor on, fuel exhausted. He tapped it off, for what that was worth. O2: 211. H2O: 1,328. “Plenty of water, but no fuel. We can’t maneuver. I don’t know how to find out where we’re going. Lawri?”
No answer.
“But we’re bound to fall back sooner or later.” Green display: “Pressure’s way down outside. We’re—” This could start a riot; but they’d have to know. “We’re leaving the Smoke Ring. That’s why the sky’s that peculiar color.” Yellow display: “Life support looks okay.” Window displays: “Oh, my.”
In the aft and side views, all detail had become tiny: integral trees were toothpicks, ponds were drops of glitter, everything seemed embedded in fog. Gold had become a bulge within a larger lens of cloud patterns that trailed off to east and west: a storm pattern that spread across the Smoke Ring. The hidden planet seemed indecently close.
“Grad?”
“Sorry, Clave, I got hung up. Citizens, don’t miss this! Nobody’s seen the Smoke Ring from outside since men came from the stars.”
Others were craning forward to see the displays or peering out through the side windows. But Gavving said, “I think Horse is dead.”
Horse? The old man Gavving had brought with him. Horse certainly looked dead enough; small wonder if the tide had stopped an old man’s heart. Poor copsik, the Grad thought. He had never met Horse, but what human could have wanted to die before seeing this? “Check his pulse.”
Lawri said, “Port view, Jeffer.”
Something in her voice…the Grad looked. Off to the edge: a flash of silver? “I don’t—”
“It’s Mark! He’s still out there!”
“I don’t believe it.”
But the silver pressure suit was crawling into view. The dwarf must have clung to the nets throughout that savage acceleration.
“Jeffer, let him in!”
“What a man! I…Lawri, I can’t. The pressure’s too low outside. We’d lose our air.”
“He’ll die out there!…Wait a minute. Open the doors one at a time. Hah! that’s why Klance calls it an airlock! So did the cassettes—”
“Sure, two doors to lock the air in. Okay.” Muffled thumps sounded aft. The silver man wanted in. “Anthon, Clave, he may be dangerous. Take the spitgun away from him when he comes in.” The Grad cleared all but the yellow display. No fast decisions from now on. He pinched both lines together—make sure they’re closed tight!—then opened the outer door with a forefinger.
The silver man disappeared from view, into the airlock.
Good. Now close the outer line, wait—no red borders? Open the inner. Air shushed into the airlock. The silver man stepped into the carm, handed the spitgun to Anthon, and reached for his helmet.
In her heart of hearts, Lawri may have hoped for a last-breath counter-mutiny from the Navy’s toughest warrior. She gave up that hope when she saw his face. Mark was a dwarf, of course, and the bones of his face were massive, brutal; but his jaw hung slack and his breath came fast and his face was pale with shock. His eyes wavered about the cabin, seeking reassurance. “Minya?”
A dark-haired woman answered. “Hello, Mark.”
Her voice was flat and her face was hostile. Mark nodded unhappily. Now he recognized Lawri. “Hello, Scientist’s Apprentice. What now?”
“We’re in the hands of mutineers,” Lawri said, “and I wish they were better at flying what they’ve stolen.”
The mutineers’ First Officer said, “Welcome to Quinn Tribe, as a citizen. Quinn Tribe doesn’t keep copsiks. I’m Clave, the Chairman. Who are you?”
“Navy, point man, armor. Name’s Mark. Citizen doesn’t sound too bad. Where we going?”
“Nobody seems to know. Now, we don’t quite trust you, Mark, so we’re going to tie you to a seat. That must have been quite a ride. Maybe you really are made of starstuff.”
Mark was letting himself be led forward, to an empty chair. “All things considered, I’d rather ride inside. I was too mad to let go. We’re not really going to hit Gold, are we?”
He’s turned docile! Lawri thought in disgust. He’s given in to the mutineers! Are they really going to win?
And then she saw that they were not.
She kept her silence.
Clave counted ten seats and thirteen citizens, one dead. Horse didn’t need a chair. Neither did the three jungle giants. Quite the contrary! But even with the wide cargo space aft, the carm was crowded.
The citizens seemed calm enough. Exhausted, Clave guessed, and too awestruck to feel fear. He felt a touch of that himself. Most of them—even the silver man—were looking out the windows.
The sky was nearly black and scattered with dozens of white points. The Scientist’s Apprentice broke her angry silence to say, “You’ve heard about them all your lives. The stars! You say it without knowing what you’re talking about. Well, there they are. You’ll die for it, but you’ve seen the stars.”
Real they were, and impressive enough, but they were just points. It was the Blue Ghost and Ghost Child that held Clave’s attention. He’d never seen them either. The paired fans of violet light were vivid and terrifying. They were entirely outside the Smoke Ring, flowing out along the hole in the ring.
Anthon and Debby were keeping busy. They had moored the ponchos and the smoked and cleaned carcass of a salmon bird to fixtures along the cargo hold walls. Now they were carving thin slices from the bird.
Clave remembered feeling like this when th
e tree came apart. He didn’t know enough to make decisions! Then, he had been ready to strangle the Grad for withholding information. Now—
The Grad was watching him uneasily. Did he think Clave would attack their prisoners? Clave smiled back. He made his way aft and helped the jungle giants pass curls of meat forward.
Now was different. Clave was not Chairman here. If they died it would not be Clave’s fault.
Probably the jungle giants found the carm more frightening than most—than Clave!—yet they were acting to make it their home. Squeezegourds of water were passing up and down the chairs…three squeezegourds, looking somewhat flat. Clave wondered about the carm’s water supply.
He was about to ask when the Grad spoke first. “Gavving, would you come here for a moment?”
There was secret urgency in his voice. Anthon noticed and continued what he was doing. So did Clave. If their help was needed it would be requested.
Gavving squeezed between Lawri and the Grad. The summons was something of a relief. Minya’s news had startled him, and he did need time to compose his face.
The Grad pointed. “See the red border blinking around that number?”
“Sure.”
“Red means emergency. That number is the air in the cabin. How do you feel? Allergy attack coming on?”
“Actually, it was the last thing on my mind.” Gavving listened to his body. Ears and sinuses were unhappy…eyes scratchy…“Maybe.”
The yellow number dropped a digit behind the decimal point.
“Scientist’s Apprentice, any comments?”
“Fix it yourself, Jeffer the Scientist.”
“Mmm.”
“Grad, what does it mean?”
“Oh, sorry, Gavving. There’s no air outside. The air inside must be leaking out into the, um, universe. You know, I talk to you when I get confused. Maybe you’ll come up with something.”
Gavving chewed it over. “What Clave said—”
“Clave did not say that the carm is almost four hundred years old and maybe falling apart.”
“Like all those bicycle gears…okay, what’s your opinion of the Scientist’s Apprentice?”
Lawri bore their considering stares with her lips pressed tight and her eyes full on Gavving’s. The Grad smiled and said, “Better you ask her opinion of us.”
Gavving didn’t have to. “Four enemy warriors, six copsiks caught in mutiny, one corpse, and a Navy man who surrendered his weapon.” Her expression flickered. Had she forgotten the silver man? This wouldn’t be easy, guessing at a stranger’s thoughts. Try anyway. “I only wondered if she’s good enough to save us if she wanted to. We could waste too much time on that.”
The Grad nodded. “Lawri, if the Scientist were here, could he save us?”
“Maybe. But he wouldn’t!”
“Klance wouldn’t save the carm?” The Grad smiled.
She shrugged as best she could within her bonds. “All right, he’d save the carm if he could.”
“How?” She didn’t answer. “Can you save us?”
She raised an eyebrow at him. Gavving found that admirable, but what he said was, “Bluff. Grad, we’ll have to fix it ourselves. The Scientist told you things about gases, didn’t he?”
“Both Scientists did. Come to that…oxygen? We must be getting air from the oxygen tank. It’s the hydrogen tank that’s empty. And…we’ll have more fuel pretty soon. The carm splits water into the two flavors of fuel. The one flavor, the oxygen, it’s what we breathe. At least we’ll have some time.”
Gavving studied the blonde girl’s face. What did she know? What did she want? If she only wanted everybody dead, then dead they were. But there was something she might hate even more than mutiny.
It depended on getting the Grad moving, which was a good idea anyway. How? Ask stupid questions; that worked sometimes. “Can we find the leak? Set something smoldering and watch the smoke?”
“Yes! It’ll tell the others what’s wrong, though, and burn up air too. Mph?”
“Inspiration?”
“Molecules of…bits of air move more slowly when they’re cold.” The board was already alive with yellow numbers and drawings. The Grad touched an arrowhead on a vertical line, then moved his fingertip slowly toward him. The arrowhead became two arrowheads, and one followed his finger.
“I never even wondered if we could make the cabin warmer or cooler, but it has to be true. That oxygen is liquid. Cold! It’d be freezing our lungs out if something wasn’t keeping the cabin warm. Okay, now it’ll be cold in here, but we’ll live longer. I think you’d better tell Clave what’s on and let him make the announcement. They’ll have to know now, because we’ll have to pass out the extra ponchos. Then we’ll try the smoke—”
Lawri spoke. “Just let me at the damn controls!”
Gavving turned from her. Hide the smile. Lawri might want their deaths, but she couldn’t let the Grad save them without her help. He asked, “Is it too complicated to tell the Grad?”
“No. But I won’t!”
“Grad? Try the smoke?”
“Worst she can do is kill us. Besides, Lawri always wanted to fly the carm. Lawri, the position of Scientist’s Apprentice is now open.”
Lawri flexed her arms and looked about at her captors. Her hands prickled; her arms hurt. Her urge was to strike out at the mutineers. But the look on Jeffer’s face: considering…like Klance waiting for the right answer to some stupid rote question…
The sky was black as charcoal. The stars were white points, like tiny versions of Voy, but thousands of them. And if they roused fear in Lawri, what must they be doing to these savages? She watched them nibbling on rolled slices of raw meat, and suddenly smiled.
She reached past the Grad and tapped the white key. “Prikazyvat Voice.” Hear this, you treefeeders!
“Ready,” said a voice belonging to nobody in the carm. “Identify yourself.”
The lunchtime conversation went dead silent. The jungle giant male cocked his crossbow. She turned her back on him. “I am Lawri the Scientist. Give us your status.”
“Fuel tanks nearly empty. Power depleted, batteries charging. Air pressure dropping, will be dangerously low in five hours, lethal in seven. Displays are available.”
“Why are we losing air pressure?”
“All openings are sealed. I will seek the source of a leak.”
Lawri tapped the white switch again. “That’s what will kill us. We’ll strangle without air. Too bad. It would have been quite a show, but you won’t see it,” she flashed at the Grad.
“Why did you turn off the display?”
“Voice can’t hear us till I tap it again. It can do almost anything if you say the wrong thing, just talking.”
“Would it talk to me?”
“You’re a…” Her scorn became something else. “It wants you to identify yourself, and it remembers. Hmm. Try it.” She tapped the talk button.
“Prikazyvat Voice,” said the Grad.
“Identify yourself.”
“I’m the Scientist of Quinn Tuft. Do we have enough fuel to get back into the Smoke Ring?”
“No.”
For a moment the Grad forgot how to breathe. Then, “We have a water supply. Won’t it be separated into fuel?”
Voice paused. Then, “If the flux of sunlight maintains its intensity, I will have fuel soon enough to affect a return. I note a mass near our course. I can use it as a gravity sling.”
“Would that be Gold?”
“Rephrase.”
“The mass, is it Goldblatt’s World?”
“Yes.”
The Grad tapped the switch before he began laughing. “Go for Gold! If we live that long.”
The whispering aft had become obtrusive. With the air turning icy and Voice speaking from the walls, luncheon was sliding over to panic. Jeffer said, “Gavving, you’d better tell them about the pressure. We don’t have time to brief Clave.”
Lawri asked, “Shall I do it?” She knew more about wha
t was going on.
Jeffer seemed appalled. “Lawri, they’d think you started the leak!”
“Savages—”
“Anyone would.”
She couldn’t decide if he meant it.
Gavving was telling the rest of the mutineers about the leak. He told it long, including what they planned to do about it. Jeffer tapped the white button. “Prikazyvat Voice. Have you found the leak?”
“I find no point of leakage. Air is disappearing.”
“Will we live long enough to get back into the Smoke Ring?”
“No. The course I’ve programmed would take twenty-eight hours. Air pressure will have dropped to lethal levels in ten hours. Times are approximate.”
Lawri couldn’t remember how long an hour might be. Still…ten hours? It had been seven before the cabin got so cold. She wondered why Voice hadn’t taken it into account. Sometimes Voice could be such a fool.
She said, “Display the areas where you have looked for a leak.”
The yellow line diagrams of the cabin sprouted green borders along two-thirds of the interior. Red dots blinked elsewhere. “Those are sensors that have died,” Lawri told Jeffer. “Voice, implement your course correction.”
Jeffer added, “Prikazyvat Voice. Do not use the main motor at any time!”
“I will fire as I have fuel,” Voice said. “First burn in ten seconds. Nine. Eight.”
“Everybody grab something,” Jeffer called.
Mutineers were pulling the extra ponchos over their clothing. They stopped to strap themselves in. The jungle giants moved against the aft wall and grabbed fixtures—
“Two. One.”
But only the attitude jets lit. The carm’s nose swung toward the Smoke Ring and stayed there while the aft motors fired. It lasted several tens of breaths. They would pass closer to Gold…which had become huge, a spiral storm seen edge-on, whose rim was already below them.
If Mark weren’t tied, Lawri thought, and if the main motor fired, nobody would be able to move except Mark. It was something to keep in mind. Jeffer didn’t seem to realize that the thrust could be controlled, by touching the top or bottom of those rectangles to raise or lower the fuel flow.
Meanwhile…how could the leaks be blocked? If there was a way, Lawri was damned well going to find it before Jeffer did.
