Deepsix

by Jack McDevitt

  He took aim particularly at the volunteers. They were amateurs. How could they be expected to get things right?

  But the amateurs, Marcel pointed out several times, had so far done quite well.

  In the short time he’d been on the Evening Star, Marcel had concluded that Nicholson had never learned the difference between maintaining distance between himself and his officers, and becoming aloof. The captain looked like a lonely man, and probably had no friend anywhere on the vessel.

  Beekman and one of his physicists were huddled in a corner. Beekman had led the team that had analyzed course, velocity, and aspect of the Alpha shaft as it came free of the assembly. He and Drummond had calculated what was needed to turn it around and arrange for it to show up with the appropriate alignment tomorrow morning at the designated spot at the correct time on Deepsix.

  There were a dozen or so visitors on the bridge, mostly overweight middle-aged couples talking about dinner or the evening’s presentation in the Star Theater, which was to be a live production of Barry English’s Indigo. Marcel had suggested canceling, because they expected to be making course adjustments through the evening, but Nicholson was afraid someone might be alarmed, or displeased, or resentful. The ship’s movements were expected to be nominal. And, of course, everything would be known well in advance.

  Beekman finished his conversation, excused himself, and came over. “We’re in business,” he said. “Everything’s falling into place.”

  “Good.” Marcel pushed away from the console while Beekman took a seat. “You and your people have been outstanding, Gunther.”

  “Thanks. We were concerned that the rotation would put too much stress on the shaft. That it would break somewhere. Or that the welds wouldn’t hold. But we seem to have gotten through okay. I do believe you might actually pull it off.”

  “We might, Gunny. Or maybe you will. You and John and that army of part-time welders. Who’d’ve believed it?”

  “Well, let’s parcel out the credit when we have them home. There’ll be a course adjustment in nine minutes. It’ll be very slight. Nicholson knows.”

  “You’ve made my day, Gunny.”

  “You don’t look happy. What’s wrong, Marcel? The elevator thing?”

  “Yes. Right now, it’s scary.”

  “It’ll be all right. They’ve got Kellie to help them. Are we talking to them yet?”

  “No. They’re still out.”

  The lander moved into position immediately in front of the elevator. Rain beat down on it, and lightning flared and boomed around them. Kellie, in the pilot’s seat, was also fighting heavy winds along the face of the cliff.

  “We’ll have to make this fast, Hutch,” she said. “I don’t know how long I can stay here.” She was referring to the power levels needed to sustain hover mode.

  “Okay,” Hutch said.

  “Something else. The elevators are inside a gridwork.”

  “We know.”

  “Okay. Then you also know it’s a crosshatch of beams, supports, and plates. That’s what’s holding you up. There must be tracks in there, and the elevators run up and down the tracks. Everything’s old and jammed up. The metal’s got to be warped. So the elevator can’t ride freely.”

  “What are you trying to tell us, Kellie?”

  “There’s a clean break about fifty meters down. You get down there, and it just opens out into the great beyond. Bye-bye baby.”

  “All right. It feels pretty stable now. Let’s go.”

  “Who’s first?”

  “Randy.”

  Nightingale looked at her, almost pleading. His face was ashen.

  What did he want her to do? Leave him there?

  The lander eased down until it lined lip directly with the elevator. Kellie opened the hatch and MacAllister showed them a line. “It’s tied to the seat anchor, Randy,” he said.

  Nightingale nodded anxiously. “Okay.”

  MacAllister stared at Hutch, across a space of only a few meters. He looked scared, too, but he was trying to appear nonchalant. How about that? The guy was a trooper after all.

  The lander rose and fell, caught in an updraft. It rolled toward the elevator, then drifted away. “Not too close,” Hutch said.

  “Lot of wind here.” Kellie’s voice in her earphones.

  Mac coiled the rope and measured the distance. “Ready, Hutch?”

  “Yeah.”

  It spun toward her. She reached for it, watched it fall short. Mac reeled it in and tried again. Still short.

  “You’re too far out,” he told Kellie.

  Hutch heard a soft damn. The lander drew off, trailing line. When Mac was ready she started another approach.

  The lander rose on a cushion of air. It dropped suddenly and to Hutch’s horror MacAllister almost fell out. Nightingale stiffened. “Goddam downdrafts,” said Kellie.

  Mac retreated from the hatch. “You okay, Mac?” Hutch asked.

  “You see what happened there?”

  “I saw,” Kellie told him. “Get a tether.”

  He was gone for a few moments. Then he emerged again wearing a line tied around his ample waist. The problem, of course, was that if he did fall out, Kellie couldn’t leave the controls to haul him back in. She’d have to go all the way to the bottom to retrieve him.

  “All right,” said Mac, his voice surprisingly steady. “Let’s try it again.”

  “This is a little delicate,” said Kellie. “When you get the line, you’re going to have to move fast.” Hutch understood: If the wind caught the lander in the middle of the operation, it would rip the line, and whoever happened to be attached to it, out of the elevator.

  Kellie made her approach. Hutch kept her eyes on Mac, watching him gauge his distance. The line was coiled in his right hand. The lander turned sideways, sank, wobbled, came back. It climbed, getting above her.

  Mac saw his chance and the line came spinning in her direction. It unraveled and it was slick from the rain, but she scooped it out of the air and held on to it.

  “Okay, Randy,” she said. “Let’s move it.”

  He shrank back, and she could see the struggle being fought behind his eyes.

  “We don’t have time to monkey around,” she told him softly. “We stay here, we die.”

  “I know.”

  She waited for him.

  “Hutch.” Kellie’s voice. “Let’s go. I can’t hold it here forever.”

  “We’re working on it.”

  Nightingale stepped forward and closed his eyes. She coiled the line around his middle, crossed it under his armpits, and secured it in front. No way he could fall out of that. But he resisted as she tried to walk him to the opening.

  “Hutch,” he said, “I can’t do this.”

  “It’s okay, Randy. You’re doing fine.”

  The elevator dropped again. Banged to a stop.

  “Hutch!” said Kellie.

  Nightingale got to the door and looked out at the lander. Rain blew in on him.

  “Don’t look down,” Hutch said.

  “Hurry it up,” said Kellie.

  “Hutch?”

  “Yes, Randy?”

  “If this doesn’t work—”

  “It’ll work.”

  “If it doesn’t—” He was reaching for the rim of the opening, found it, gripped it. The line stretching from him to the aircraft tightened and loosened as Kellie rode the drafts along the face of the precipice.

  Hutch stepped up behind him and gently peeled his fingers away. “It always works,” she told him. And pushed. He went out silently, without the scream she’d expected.

  He fell. It must have been a sickening few seconds, but it ended quickly when the line took hold and he rolled out in a long arc beneath the lander. Kellie pulled quickly away while he swung back and forth, clutching the line, saying O God over and over.

  Mac began to haul him in. Hutch watched Nightingale kick frantically, and she feared he might have a heart attack. “Relax, Randy,” she tol
d him. “You’re okay. The hard part is over.” And she continued talking to him in the most soothing tone she could muster until Mac’s hand reached down finally, seized his vest, and dragged him into the aircraft.

  The lander tilted slightly and started around again. Mac reappeared in the hatch with his line. “Okay, me proud beauty,” he said. “You’re next.”

  The elevator shook. Another quake, maybe. And it started down again. She backed away from the opening and got off her feet. Rain drummed on the roof. The elevator kept dropping, and it seemed for a few seconds to be almost in free fall. Her heart came into her throat. Then metal squealed, and the elevator banged to a stop.

  Kellie was calling frantically. “I’m okay,” Hutch said.

  “Maybe not.”

  Hutch’s heart, which was still fluttering, missed a beat. “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m sinking.”

  Spike depletion.

  She watched the lander dropping lower. Kellie slowed the descent, hit the jets, and regained some altitude. She came around again. “We’re going to have to get it right the first time,” she said.

  Mac stood in the airlock with his line. Kellie glided in overhead, killed the jets, reversed thrust, and brought the lander to a dead stop. It began to fall.

  “No,” Hutch said. “It won’t work.”

  It was dropping too fast. Mac looked desperately in her direction.

  “I’m going to have to land and recharge,” Kellie said. “Hutch, I’m sorry. I don’t know any other way to do this.”

  Hutch nodded and waved good-bye. “Take it down. I’ll be here when you come back.”

  It was getting dark. Winds were high, and she had no sensors. A night rescue would be out of the question.

  Kellie was fighting back rage and tears. “You can’t stay in the elevator, Hutch.”

  Hutch watched the lander kick in its jets and bank away to the east. “Is it that bad?”

  “It isn’t good.”

  She looked out at the storm. And at the gridwork, the crossbars and diagonals and guide rails off to either side. If she could get to them.

  A bolt of lightning exploded overhead, throwing everything into momentary relief.

  The outside of the elevator was smooth, without handholds. Despite the low ceiling, the roof was out of reach. She saw no way to climb onto it, not without something to stand on.

  It slipped again. Something banged hard against one of the walls.

  She backed away and tried to think. It was hard, knowing what might happen at any moment, to keep her head clear .

  She gathered up her vine, went back to the opening, and looked again at the roof. Then she got down on her belly, leaned out, and peered underneath. A pair of cables hung from the underside. And she saw the break, only a few meters down. A missing guide rail.

  The way things were going, she had only a couple of minutes.

  Hutch produced her laser, moved to one side of the doorway, and cut a hole belt high in the wall. Then a second one farther to the left at the level of her shoulders and a third one above her head directly over the first. The e-suit was supposed to protect her from extremes of heat and cold, but she wasn’t sure what would happen if she put her foot on hot metal. On the other hand, she didn’t have time to stand there and wait for everything to cool.

  “Hutch—” Kellie’s voice, broken up by the storm. “—on the ground and charging.”

  “Okay.”

  “Can you get out of the car?”

  “I’ll let you know.”

  She went back to the doorway, measured distances, tried to convince herself there was no difference between what she was trying and climbing onto a garage roof, which she had done many times in her girlhood.

  She leaned out and grabbed the highest of the handholds. The rain took her breath away. Even though she was protected from it by the suit, the psychological result was the same as if the field were not there. The McMurtrie Effect again.

  She gathered her courage, swung out onto the face of the elevator, inserted her foot into the bottom hole, climbed quickly up, and crawled onto the roof. The cable housing was centered, and the roof angled slightly down away from it. Her first impulse was to make for the housing, to get as far from the edge as she could. But that would accomplish nothing.

  She watched the network of diagonal and horizontal bars move slowly past. Move up. They were round and desperately narrow. No thicker than her wrist. What kind of building materials did these people use, anyhow?

  She edged toward the gridwork, tied one end of her vine around her waist, and stepped off the roof onto a passing crossbar. The elevator kept going, and she leaned away until it was clear. Then she looped her vine around the bar, pulled it tight, and realized she’d stopped breathing. She lowered herself into a sitting position, both legs off one side of the rail although she’d have preferred to straddle because it would feel safer, but it just wasn’t comfortable.

  “Hutch?” Kellie’s voice.

  “I’m off the elevator.”

  “You okay?”

  “Yes. I think so.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Sitting on a crossbar.”

  More lightning. They lost communication for a moment. When it came back, Kellie said, “How safe are you?”

  “I’m okay.”

  “We’ll have enough of a charge in an hour or so.”

  “Don’t try it. You’ll get us all killed. Wait till morning.”

  “Hutch—”

  “Do what I’m asking you to. It’s the best chance for everybody.”

  The elevator was still moving steadily down. Then it stopped, and for several minutes it seemed locked in place. Finally it dropped out of the framework, out of the guide rails, and began to fall. A long time later she heard it hit the forest below.

  BREAKING NEWS

  “One of the two persons stranded in an elevator early this morning remains in danger…”

  Nicholson would have preferred to be in his cabin in the Adirondacks. He wanted nothing so much as for this entire business to be over and his part in it to be forgotten. He believed he was safe. But he’d been shaken, and he hated being put into a position that required him to continue to make decisions that might backfire. He was, in fact, determined to see that nothing went wrong, that he emerged blameless from the mission. If he could accomplish that, he would consider himself very fortunate.

  Secondarily, he would like to see a successful rescue. Not only because it would help his case, but because when his own immediate fears had passed, he’d begun to feel some sympathy for the four people trapped on the ground.

  He was aware that his priorities, had they been known, would have reflected poorly on him. And that judgment embarrassed him, putting an even heavier load on his shoulders. But he couldn’t help how he felt. He resented Marcel, not for anything Wendy’s captain had actually done, but because he hadn’t been able to come up with a rescue plan that didn’t involve additional risk for Nicholson.

  There was a mild jar as the ship began the course correction. He sensed the mass of the object that the Star was hauling. Saw it in the sluggishness of the ship’s responses. And that was the way of it at the moment: the Star was tied to this impossible alien shaft, much as Nicholson was tied to his decision to allow two passengers and a lander to drop out of orbit.

  Power flowed through the bulkheads as the four superluminals struggled to move their burden onto the designated course. They had no serious capability for lateral maneuvering. While the ships could change their own heading through the use of strategically placed highly flexible thrusters, only the main engines had the sheer capacity to affect the Alpha shaft. That meant they could, in practical terms, only move it forward, relying on gravity fields and inertia to do the rest.

  But Lori reported, well into the maneuver, that they were still on target. To Nicholson the entire operation seemed hopelessly complicated. But he had as yet no reason to believe that the plan would not work. Other
than his own instincts.

  The engines went neutral. Power was being applied elsewhere, by one or more of the other ships. They couldn’t calibrate power levels up and down, so the computers adjusted by firing the engines of the various ships in whatever combination was necessary to achieve the desired result. It was a symphony.

  One of the auxiliary screens carried a generated image of the Evening Star. It was in the center of a group of constellations, warm and luminous against the void. The shaft was represented by a fingernail-thin line, which extended to the edges of the display. Arrows pointed, 44 km forward to Zwick, and to the rear, 62 km to Wildside.

  He refilled his coffee cup, and he saw Marcel talking earnestly with Beekman. The schedule they’d worked out told him there’d be another few hours of maneuvering. Of correcting the long rotation and nudging Alpha into its precise trajectory.

  Marcel finished his conversation, looked around, and caught Nicholson’s eye. “How about some breakfast, Erik?” he suggested.

  Nicholson glanced at Beekman. “I wonder whether we shouldn’t stay here. In case something happens.”

  “Something’s already happening,” he said. “You know Hutch is stranded.”

  “Yes. I’d heard.”

  It was after 4:00 A.M. “I don’t think there’s much we can do for the next few hours. Lori has all the data she needs. The Outsiders are ready to go as soon as conditions permit.”

  “Suppose there’s a problem?”

  “If it’s a little one, we can deal with it.”

  “And if there’s a big one?”

  “It’ll be over,” said Beekman matter-of-factly. “We are past the point where we can make major adjustments.”

  Maybe it was just as well to sit down with Clairveau and Beekman. If the operation succeeded, people would remember the image of the two captains and the head of the science team, putting the rescue together.

  The electrical intensity of the storm showed no sign of diminishing. Rain pounded down on her, and the wind howled.

  The immediate danger rose from the possibility one of the bolts would hit the grid. The e-suit would protect her from a low-level discharge, but she’d never survive a lightning strike. Fortunately, the elevator frame did not jut up into the air. It disappeared into the ruins atop the mountain. Nevertheless there was a lot of exposed metal. A bolt was inevitable.