The Precipice gt-8

by Ben Bova

  Before he could decide what to do, Cardenas walked to the window and pressed her fingers against the glass. Then she turned and seemed to survey the room. With a slight nod, she walked to the bare little desk and picked up its wooden, cushioned chair. It seemed heavy for her, but she carried it, tottering slightly, to the window.

  She wants to crash the window and jump out of here, George realized. She’ll just end up hurting herself.

  He touched her arm lightly and whispered, “Excuse me.” Cardenas flinched and let the chair thump to the carpeting. She blinked, stared, saw nothing. “Excuse me, Dr. Cardenas,” George whispered. She spun around in a complete circle, eyes wide. “Who said that?”

  George cleared his throat and replied, a little louder, “It’s me, George Ambrose.

  I’m—”

  “Where the hell are you?”

  George felt slightly embarrassed. “I’m invisible.”

  “I’m going crazy,” Cardenas muttered. She sank down onto the chair, right there in the middle of the room.

  “No you’re not,” George said, still keeping his voice low. “I’m here to get you out of this place.”

  “This is a trick.”

  “Is this room bugged? Do they have any cameras in here?”

  “I… don’t think so…”

  “Look,” George said, then immediately realized it was a foolish term to use. “I’m gonna take off me hood so you can see me face. Don’t get scared now.” Cardenas looked more suspicious than frightened. George yanked the hood off his head and pulled off his face mask. It felt good to feel cool air on his skin. She jumped out of the chair. “Christ almighty!”

  “No, it’s just me,” he said, with a slight grin. “George Ambrose. I work for Dan Randolph, y’know.”

  Comprehension lit her eyes. “Walton’s stealth suit! He didn’t destroy it, after all.”

  “You know about it.”

  “Me, and four other people.”

  “There’s a few more now,” George said.

  “How in the world did you ever—”

  “No time for that now. We’ve got to get you out of here.”

  “How?”

  George scratched at his beard. “Good question.”

  “You didn’t bring along a suit for me, did you?” Cardenas said. “Should have, shouldn’t I? We just didn’t think of it. We weren’t certain where you were.”

  “So what do we do?”

  George thought it over for a few moments. “They keep you in this room all the time?”

  Cardenas nodded.

  “Door’s locked, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. And there’s a guard outside… at least, every time they’ve brought a meal in to me there’s been a guard out in the hall. I imagine he’s armed.” George’s face lit up. “When do they bring you meals? When’s the next one coming?”

  Several hours later there was a single rap on the door, and then Cardenas heard the lock click. She glanced swiftly about the room but could no longer see George. The door opened and the same silent, sour-faced woman in dark uniform came in, carrying a dinner tray. Cardenas could see a wiry young man standing on the other side of the doorway. The woman deposited the tray wordlessly on the coffee table in front of the sofa and then departed, still silent and dour. The guard closed the door and locked it again.

  Cardenas sat on the sofa. For the first time in days she had an appetite. She felt George’s bulk settling on the cushions beside her.

  “Smells good,” George said.

  She took the lid off a platter of fish fillets and vegetables.

  “Looks good, too,” George added.

  “You’re hungry,” she said.

  “Haven’t eaten since breakfast.”

  “Help yourself.”

  George didn’t wait to be coaxed. He lifted off his face mask again and dug in. Cardenas watched as fork and knife moved seemingly by themselves and chunks of dinner rose to his face, which seemed to be floating in midair. She found that if she looked hard enough, directly at him, she could see a faint flickering glitter, almost subliminal. Reflection of the ceiling lights scattered by the chips, she thought. But you have to know he’s there to see it, and even then it’s almost below the perception level.

  “Don’t you want any?” George asked.

  “No, you go ahead.”

  “Eat the veggies, at least.”

  “I’ll take the salad.”

  The meal was finished in a few minutes. George put his mask on again and completely disappeared.

  “D’you tell ’em you’re finished or do they send the maid back for the tray automatically?”

  “I tell the guard. He sends for the maid.”

  “Okay. Tell the guard you’re finished and ask him to take the tray.”

  “He’ll send for the maid.”

  “Tell ’im you don’t want to wait for her. Make some excuse.” Cardenas nodded, got up from the sofa, and went to the door. She could sense George’s body warmth as he padded along beside her. She banged on the door with the flat of her hand. “I’m finished. Could you please take the tray?”

  “I’ll call the kitchen,” came the guard’s muffled voice. “I can’t wait! I’ve got to get to the toilet right away! I’m sick to my stomach. Please take the tray.”

  A moment’s hesitation, then they heard the lock click. The door swung open and the guard stepped in, looking concerned.

  “What’s the matter? Something in the—”

  The punch sounded like a melon hitting the pavement from a considerable height.

  The guard’s head snapped back and his eyes rolled up. He crumpled to the floor.

  Cardenas saw his arms yanked up into the air and his body dragged into the room.

  “Come on, now,” George whispered to her.

  They stepped out into the hallway. The door shut, seemingly by itself, and locked. She felt his hand engulf half her upper arm as George let her down the hallway to the stairs. The house seemed quiet at this hour, although a glance out the windows showed that the cavern outside was still lit in daytime mode. The downstairs hall was empty, but Cardenas could hear the sounds of conversation floating through from somewhere. Neither of the voices sounded like Humphries’s to her. They got to the foyer just inside the front door. Two young men in gray suits looked surprised to see her approaching them.

  Frowning, the taller of the two said, “Dr. Cardenas, what are—”

  George’s punch spun him completely around. The other guard stared, frozen with surprise, until he was lifted off his feet by a blow to the midsection. Cardenas heard a bone-snapping crunch! and the guard fell limply to the tiled floor. The front door jerked open and George hissed, “Come on, then!” Cardenas ran out of the house, up the path that wound through the garden, and through the hatch that opened into Selene’s bottommost corridor. She could hear George panting and puffing alongside her. Once they were through the hatch, George’s hand on her arm brought her to a stop.

  “I don’t think anybody’s followin’ us,” he said.

  “How long do you think it will take for them to realize I’m gone?” she asked.

  She sensed him shrugging. “Not fookin’ long.”

  “What now, then?”

  “Lemme get outta this suit,” George muttered. “Hot enough inside here to cook a fella.”

  His face appeared, then his entire shaggy head. Within a minute he stood before her, sweating and grinning, a big red-haired mountain of a man in rumpled, stained olive-green coveralls.

  “That’s better,” George said, taking a deep breath. “Could hardly breathe inside that suit.”

  As they started walking swiftly along the corridor toward the escalator, Cardenas asked, “Where can I go? Where will I be safe? Humphries will turn Selene upsidedown looking for me.”

  “We could go to Stavenger and ask him to take care of you.” She shook her head. “Don’t put Doug in the middle of this. Besides, Humphries probably has his own people planted in Selene’s staff.�
��

  “H’mm, yeah, maybe,” George said as they reached the escalator. “Inside Astro, too, for that matter.”

  Suddenly frightened at the possibilities, Cardenas blurted, “Where can I go?” George smiled. “I got the perfect hideout for ya. Long as you don’t mind sharin’ it with a corpsicle, that is.”

  BONANZA

  “It’s a beauty,” Dan breathed, staring at the image on the control panel’s radar screen.

  “Purty ugly-lookin’ beauty,” Pancho countered. The radar image showed an elongated irregular lump of an asteroid, one end rounded and pitted, the other dented by what looked like the imprint of a giant mailed fist. “It looks rather like a potato,” said Amanda, “don’t you think?”

  “An iron potato,” Dan said.

  Fuchs came through the hatch, and suddenly the bridge felt crowded to Dan. Lars isn’t tall, he said to himself, but he fills up a room. “That is it?” Fuchs asked, his eyes riveted to the screen.

  “That’s it,” Pancho said, over her shoulder. She tapped at the keyboard on her left and a set of alphanumerics sprang up on the small screen above it. “Fourteenth asteroid discovered this year.”

  Amanda said, “Then its official name will be 41-014 Fuchs.”

  “How’s it feel to have your name on an asteroid, Lars?” Pancho asked. “Very fine,” Fuchs said.

  “You’re the first person to have his name attached to a newly-discovered asteroid in years,” Amanda said. She seemed almost aglow, to Dan. “Most of the new rocks have been found by the impact searchers,” Pancho said.

  “Those li’l bitty probes don’t get their names into the record.”

  “Asteroid 41-014 Fuchs,” Amanda breathed.

  He smiled and shrugged — squirmed, almost, as if embarrassed by her enthusiasm.

  “The official name’s one thing,” Dan said. “I’m calling her Bonanza.”

  “Her?” Fuchs asked.

  “Asteroids are feminine?” Pancho challenged.

  Dan held his ground. “Hey, we speak of Mother Earth, don’t we? And they call Venus our sister planet, don’t they?”

  “What about Mars?” Pancho retorted.

  “Or Jupiter,” said Amanda.

  Pointing to the lump imaged on the radar screen, Dan insisted, “Bonanza’s going to make us all rich. And very happy. She and her sisters are going to save the world. She’s a female.”

  “Sure she’s female,” Pancho said laconically. “You want to dig into her, don’t you?”

  Fuchs sputtered and Amanda said, “Pancho, really!”

  Dan put on an innocent air. “What a dirty mind you have, Pancho. I admire that in a woman.”

  Within three hours they were close enough to Bonanza to see it for themselves: a dark, deformed shape glinting sullenly in the wan light of the distant Sun. The asteroid blotted out the stars as it tumbled slowly end over end in the cold empty silence of space.

  “… eighteen hundred and forty-four meters along its long axis,” Amanda was reading out the radar measurements. “Seven hundred and sixty-two meters at its maximum width.”

  “Nearly two kilometers long,” Dan mused. He hadn’t left the bridge all during their approach to the metallic asteroid.

  “Killing residual thrust,” Pancho said, her attention focused on the control displays.

  “Throttling down to zero,” Amanda confirmed.

  The asteroid slid out of view as the pilots established a parking orbit around it. Dan felt what little weight remaining dwindle away to nothing. He floated up off the deck, stopped himself with a hand against the overhead. He felt Fuchs come through the hatch behind him.

  “Lars, we’re going to be in zero g for a while,” Dan said.

  “I know. I think I’m getting accustomed to it.”

  “Good. Just don’t make any sudden head movements and you’ll be fine.”

  “Yes. Thank — mein gott! There it is!”

  The dark lopsided bulk of Bonanza rose in front of the bridge windows like some pitted, pockmarked monster, huge, overawing, menacing. Despite himself, Dan felt a wave of unease surge through him. It’s like confronting an ogre, he thought, a giant beast from a fairy tale.

  “Look at those striations!” Fuchs said, his voice vibrant with excitement. “This must have been broken off from a much larger body, perhaps a planetesimal from the early age of the solar system! We’ve got to get outside and take samples, drill cores!”

  Dan broke into laughter. Fuchs turned toward him, looking confused. Even Pancho glanced over her shoulder.

  “What so funny, boss?”

  “Nothing,” Dan said, trying to sober himself. “Nothing.” Inwardly, though, he marveled that the same sight that brought back to him memories of childhood dread stirred Fuchs into a frenzy of scientific curiosity. “Come on,” Fuchs said, ducking past the hatch. “We’ve got to suit up and go outside.”

  Dan nodded his agreement and followed the scientist. He’s forgotten about zero-g, Dan realized. He’s not worried about upchucking now, he’s got too much work that he wants to do.

  Amanda remained on the bridge as Pancho followed Dan down to the airlock.

  “You’re not thinkin’ of goin’ EVA, are you?” she asked Dan.

  “I’ve been a qualified astronaut since before you were born, Pancho.”

  “You’ve been redlined. You can’t go outside.”

  “And rain makes applesauce.”

  “I mean it, Dan,” Pancho said, quite seriously. “Your immune system can’t take another radiation dose.”

  “Fuchs can’t go out there by himself,” he countered.

  “That’s my job. I’ll go with him.”

  “Nope. You stay here. I’ll babysit him.”

  “I’m the captain of this craft,” Pancho said firmly. “I can order you to stay inside.”

  He gave her a crooked grin. “And I’m the owner. I can fire you.”

  “Not till we get back to Selene.”

  Dan huffed out an impatient sigh. “Come on, Pancho, stop the chickenshit.”

  “Your medical records say—”

  “Dammitall to hell and back, I don’t care what the medical records say! I’m going out! I want to see this sucker! Touch her with my own hands.”

  “No gloves?”

  They had reached the airlock, where the spacesuits hung in racks like suits of armor on display. Fuchs was sitting on the bench that ran in front of the racks, already into the lower half of his suit, sealing the boots to the cuffs of his leggings. Dan reached for the suit that bore his name stenciled on its chest.

  “I thought you were scared of the radiation,” Pancho said. “I’ll be okay inside the suit,” Dan said. “The weather’s calm out there; no radiation storm.”

  Fuchs looked up at them, said nothing.

  “The regulations say—”

  “The regulations say you’re not supposed to bring pets aboard,” Dan said, grinning again as he pulled the lower half of his suit from its rack and sat down beside Fuchs. “But I’ve got to look into my shoes every morning to make sure your damned snake isn’t curled up inside one of them.”

  “Snake?” Fuchs yelped, looking alarmed.

  Pancho planted her fists on her hips and glared down at Dan for a long moment.

  Then she visibly relaxed.

  “Okay, boss,” she said at last. “I guess I can’t blame you. But I’m gonna monitor your vitals back on the bridge. If I say come in, you come in. Right then. No arguments. Agreed?”

  “Agreed,” Dan replied instantly. A voice in his head was laughing mockingly. Are you satisfied? the voice asked. You’ve shown her that you’re not a sick old man. Big deal. How are you going to feel when the cold clamps down on you and your bones start hurting again?

  Doesn’t matter, Dan answered himself. I’m not going to stay cooped up in here like a cripple. To hell with it; I don’t really give a damn. If I’ve got to die, I’d rather wear out than rust out. What difference does it make? “Clear for EVA.” Amanda
’s voice came through the speaker in Dan’s helmet.

  He was in the airlock, sealed in his suit, feeling like a robot in a metal womb. “Opening outer hatch,” he said, pressing a gloved finger on the red light of the control panel.

  “Copy, outer hatch.”

  The hatch slid open and Dan felt his pulse start to quicken. How long has it been since I’ve been outside? he asked himself. That sardonic voice in his head answered, Not since you got the radiation overdose, jiggering commsats in the Van Alien Belt.

  Ten years, Dan realized. That’s a long time to be away from all this. He pushed himself through the hatch and floated in emptiness. The universe hung all around him: stars solemn and unwinking, staring at him even through the heavy tinting of his fishbowl helmet. Turning slowly, he saw the Sun, strangely small and pale, with its arms of faint zodiacal light outstretched on either side of it. Freedom. He knew he was confined inside the spacesuit and he couldn’t survive for a minute without it. Yet hanging there weightlessly in the silent emptiness of infinity, Dan felt free of all the world, alone with the cosmos, in tune with the ethereal music of the spheres. Glorious freedom. Radiation be damned; he felt he could soar out into the universe forever and leave the petty lusts and hates of humankind far behind. It wouldn’t be a bad way to die. Then the asteroid slid into his view. Massive, ponderous, an enormous pitted dark looming reality hanging over him like an ominous cloud, a mountain floating free in space. Starpower 1 looked pitifully small and helpless alongside the twokilometer-long asteroid; like a minnow next to a whale. Dan suddenly understood how Jonah must have felt.

  You can’t scare me, he said to the asteroid. You’re two kilometers of high-grade iron ore, pal. You’re going to look beautiful to a lot of people on Earth. Money in the bank, that’s what you are. Jobs and hope for millions of people. Bonanza: that’s your name and that’s just what you are.

  “Ready for EVA.” Fuchs’s voice broke into Dan’s silent monologue.

  “Clear for EVA. Lars,” he heard Amanda reply.

  Dan squeezed the right handgrip on his maneuvering controls with the lightest of touches. The cold gas jet on the backpack squirted noiselessly and he turned enough to be looking back at the ship. Starpower 1 glinted nicely in the starlight. She still looked brand-new, shining, not a pit or a scratch on her. The airlock hatch slid open and a spacesuited figure stood framed in it.