Everybody around him jumped into action at once; there was no time for questions. Then he called for a connection to Krantz.
“What’s happening at the north end?” Krantz asked.
“It’s in and we lost some of the Hub there, but we’re holding,” Linsay told him. “It took a lot of losses and it’s pulled what it’s got left off attacking and put them on foraging.” Krantz looked puzzled. Linsay explained, “It’s tearing apart whole sections of what’s left at Northport and loading it all into the hippo it’s got parked there. Looks like it’s cannibalizing the place to keep itself supplied with raw material. Must be feeling the pinch since the moonrock stopped arriving. What’s the score down there?”
“We’re worried about the missiles it used on Northport,” Krantz said, looking true to his words. “If it’s making more, it might decide to fire the next batch at the Rim. We’re preparing defensive positions around the bases of the spokes in case it comes down that way and we’re putting everybody who isn’t needed there into shelters or capsules. We’ve started depressurizing the Rim because of the risk of explosive decompression.”
“What’s the latest on Z Squadron?” Linsay asked.
“Due in just over two hours. Why?”
“I’m gonna need a diversionary missile strike. I’ll fix H-hour for the assault at two hours, ten minutes from now.”
“Assault?” Krantz was incredulous. “Have you gone mad? You’ve only got three of the spokes left. Your only way out is through the Rim and the only way to the Rim is by the spokes. Get out, for God’s sake, while you’ve still got the chance.”
“I don’t need the spokes,” Linsay said. “I’m not going to the Rim. I’m going to Detroit.”
“That’s ridiculous. You’ve already tried and look what happened. And that was while you still had all of the Hub. You’ll never even get into the Spindle now.”
“I don’t need the Spindle either,” Linsay replied. “We’re going in the way MacArthur did at Inch’on—Korea, 1950 . . . all out for total surprise with a landing way behind the enemy lines. What’s the use of hanging onto the Rim when it might get blown out from under your ass any minute? There’s only one way to solve this now.”
“If Janus stays in one piece,” Krantz retorted. “Did you get the girl?”
“What girl?”
“Kim Sinclair.”
“What about her?”
Krantz gave a despairing groan.
“She went up to the Hub on an insane solo mission to jam the Decoupler with a Gremlin. Nobody here knew about it. Ray and some others went after her but I had a squad sent in to grab her in case the others were too slow in getting there. Operations were handling it before . . . before they were overwhelmed. We think she managed to fire one but we don’t know what happened after that. That must have been something like an hour and a half ago. You mean you don’t know anything about it?”
Linsay shook his head.
“I’ve been kinda busy up here. Where was she heading?”
“According to my information, Sector 17D. We’re sure we saw a Gremlin fired from somewhere around there too . . . a couple of minutes before Northport got hit.”
“Who went there besides Ray and Kim?” Linsay asked. Krantz told him.
“Just a second.” Linsay turned away to consult one of his officers. When he turned back to face the screen his expression had suddenly become grim.
“Sector 17D was hit pretty bad,” he said. “We’ve had to pull right back out of that area. We don’t have anybody there at all. If they were there when you say they were there, it looks like bad news. Nobody who didn’t get out could still be alive in there, and they weren’t listed among the ones who got out. Sorry, Mel, it doesn’t look too good.”
“I see.” Krantz cut off the connection and stared blankly at the screen. Behind him Danny Cordelle had paused in his task of organizing the Rim defenses to listen. He clicked his tongue and shook his head dubiously.
“Never believe bad news till it’s lookin’ ya in the face,” he advised philosophically. “Y’ never can tell . . .”
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Dyer lay motionless on his stomach behind the twisted tailwheel assembly of the bug and stared out at the crescent of brightness moving almost imperceptibly across the surface of Detroit. The bug had apparently been crash-landed into the lock, presumably at some time during the first battle of the Hub, and had skewed around and become wedged in the airlock with its tail section jamming the outer door to leave a gap about three feet wide to the outside. Dyer had been lying well back from the edge and staring out through the gap for almost an hour without saying anything.
Behind him in the semidarkness of the lock chamber, the other three were sitting against the wall below the squat body of the bug. Kim was propped against Solinsky’s shoulder, inside the protective circle of his arm. She had recovered consciousness sometime earlier, but seemed content just to lie still and wait for whatever was going to happen. On the few occasions when she spoke, she seemed dreamily detached from the situation around her as if, somehow, none of it really mattered anymore. On the far side of her a vague shape marked where Laura was sitting silent but alert in almost total darkness with an M25 lying ready across her thighs.
The bug had contained a small stock of unfired Gremlins, some of which Dyer had set up in the gap by the lock door using a couple of pieces of metal cowling wedged into the wrecked tailgear as a blast shield. He didn’t really know what purpose this was supposed to serve but it seemed a more sensible thing to do with the missiles than leaving them inside the bug. Since then they had been able to do nothing but sit and wait behind the closed inner door of the lock. They didn’t even know what they were waiting for; for all they knew, the whole issue might already have been decided. The only way to find out would be to open the inner door and go and see, but that would be instant suicide if things had been decided the wrong way. So they sat . . . and waited.
“This isn’t getting us anywhere,” Dyer said at last. “We could die of old age shut up in here.” He was speaking via the wire connections that they had strung between sockets in their suit-packs to avoid the risk of revealing their presence by radio.
“What do you want to do?” Solinsky’s voice came back over the circuit. “Mail a letter to somebody?”
“I’ve been thinking about something,” Dyer said.
“What?”
“In the original plans for Icarus C, the main solar collector, conversion plant and Earthward microwave transmitter were all supposed to go at the south end . . . onto the other side of Pittsburgh, but none of them ever got built.”
“So?”
“Some big shafts were put in to carry cables and stuff through from there to the Hub end of the Spindle. The shafts were never used. They were sealed off when Icarus C was changed to Janus. Those shafts are still there . . . inside the core of the Spindle. They go right through the middle of Detroit.”
A few seconds of silence ensued. Then Laura’s voice came through.
“What are you saying—it could be a way into the fusion plant?”
“It’s a thought,” Dyer replied. “If the war isn’t all over, most of the Spindle must be way behind the front line by now. Maybe Spartacus isn’t paying too much attention to its rear, If somebody could get inside the main shaft somewhere, there’s a good chance he’d have a clear run through to the fusion plant, especially if he got in south of the Sleeve.”
The Sleeve was a cylindrical recess located at the axis of the southern part of the Spindle, into which a rotating extension of north Spindle projected through the Decoupler disk. Within the Sleeve were arrangements for coupling pipes and electrical cables via sliding ring joints and various commutator linkages, and for automatically moving cabs inward or outward between tubes terminating inside and outside the Sleeve.
“Spartacus might already be inside those shafts,” Solinsky pointed out. “How do you know it hasn’t found out about them? It seems to have
found out about pretty well everything else.”
“I don’t,” Dyer conceded. “But I think there’s a fair chance. The shafts are right inside the core and the core’s got all kinds of stuff plastered around the outside. To get inside, it’d have to rip out too many connections that it needs. Why should it bother?”
“Curiosity,” Solinsky offered. “It’s curious about everything.”
“But hell, it’s a chance.” The sound of a sharp release of breath signaled Dyer’s exasperation with the position they were in. “We can’t just stay sitting here waiting for somebody else to show up or do something. There might not be anybody else.”
“So how are you going to get there?” Laura asked. “How are you going to get into the core south of the Sleeve when we can’t even open the door?”
“I’m not talking about going back into the Hub and down the Spindle,” Dyer replied. “I’m talking about going in from the outside. Kim’s given us a way in—right at the Decoupler. It’s the ideal place.”
“But you still have to get there,” Laura said again. “How are you going to do it? You can’t use the bug. It’s a write-off.”
“Even if you could, Spartacus would pick you off the moment you got off the surface,” Solinsky pointed out.
“Why go off the surface?” Dyer asked. “Why not climb there?”
“Climb there? You’re crazy!”
“Why?” Nobody had a ready answer. Dyer went on, “The Hub’s just one big mess on the outside now so you wouldn’t have any problems finding holds. You’d need to go up the outside of the Hub and along the Spindle to the Decoupler. You’d feel like a fly on the ceiling for the last part, but at Spindle weight you’d probably be okay.”
“You can’t go outside!” Solinsky protested. “Even if this side is still in shadow, Spartacus has got eyes in infrared. It’d see you from Detroit.”
“I’m not sure it’d be so easy,” Dyer said. “I’ll bet that the attack that hit this place must have been part of a big assault all over the Hub. There must be heat leaking out through the surface all over it . . . probably will be for hours. If you looked across from Detroit in infrared, all you’d see would be random patterns all over the Hub. Something radiating at body heat as small as a person and stuck to the surface would get lost in all that. It’d be like trying to pick out a glowworm on the Fourth of July. I think there’s a good chance.”
“Every suit leaks some water vapor and CO2,” Solinsky objected. “If the surface of the Hub is radiating, Spartacus will detect the absorption bands and send something to find out what’s causing it. It’s got detectors sensitive down to a few hundred molecules.”
“The water system in the bug was wrecked when it crashed,” Dyer replied. “It’s been evaporating water out into space for hours. All the explosions that have been going on will have thrown out water, CO2, sulfur oxides and all kinds of stuff. The space between here and Detroit is probably polluted with all kinds of dispersing molecules . . . enough to bury whatever comes out of a suit anyhow. I tell you, it’s the only chance we’ve got.”
The debate went on for a while but in the end Solinsky agreed that it might just work, and besides that, as Dyer had said, there wasn’t anything else. It was obvious that Kim couldn’t go and leaving her on her own was out of the question. Solinsky’s shoulder had been stiffening and he accepted without much fuss Dyer’s and Laura’s insistence that he should be the one to stay behind. Dyer ripped out fifty feet of wiring from the bug to act as a safety line between himself and Laura, and found in the tool kit some clips designed for attaching tools to spacesuit belts, two of which he improvised into snaplinks for the ends. Then he taped fifty feet of communications wire along the line and attached suit connectors to it. After that they selected some other items from the kit that looked as if they might come in handy, loaded themselves up with M25 ammunition clips and grenades, and announced themselves ready to go.
Dyer peered into Kim’s visor and gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze. In the pale light coming in from the sunlit part of Detroit, he could see that her eyes were open but her expression was empty and distant.
“Can you hear me, Kim?” he asked. The corners of her mouth flickered into an attempt at a smile.
“Hi,” she managed faintly.
“It’s gonna be okay,” he told her. “You just take it easy and let Mat take care of you. Okay? We’ll have you out of here before you know it.”
Kim’s mouth opened wordlessly. She licked her lips and tried again.
“Kick its goddam ass . . . hard!” she whispered.
Dyer grinned briefly, squeezed her shoulder again and worked his way back to where Solinsky was lying by the tailwheel of the bug. They gripped hands firmly through their gauntlets.
“I’ll do what I can to cover you from here with the Gremlins,” Solinsky said. “Give it an extra kick for me, huh?”
“We will,” Dyer promised. “You look after her. She’s valuable merchandise.” With that he unplugged from the common circuit and replaced the connection with the socket dangling from the line already clipped to his belt. “Can you still hear me okay?” he checked.
“Fine,” Laura’s voice replied. “Looks like we’re all set. Try not to run too fast.”
Dyer inched his way forward past the tailwheel to the edge of the lock floor and pushed his head cautiously out to survey the area immediately around him. The immense wall of metal was just a dark-gray smear against the blackness, disappearing rapidly out of sight into the shadow above his head. To his right he could see a thin sickle of whiteness etched out against the stars where part of the Rim caught the sunlight from behind. A few objects were moving some distance below him on courses between Detroit and somewhere farther around the Hub. No doubt they belonged to Spartacus, but he could only hope that his earlier optimism would prove well founded. He turned onto his back to study the first part of the route.
The lower edge of the window was, he knew, about fifteen feet above the top of the lock door. If he could get up to that, he could then traverse right below the window and beyond it until he had a clear line above him directly up to where the Hub and the Spindle joined. He would just have to take that as it came. He braced his arms across the gap between the outer door and the side of the lock and hauled his few pounds of weight easily up to the top. Bracing a knee across the gap to stop himself slipping back down, he thrust a shoulder outside and pushed an arm up to feel across the smooth expanse of metal over his head. His fingers found the edge of the docking beacon above the airlock door. He took a deep breath and slowly hauled himself up and out, into space and onto the surface of Janus.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
The Cab Depot was located not far in from the surface of the Hub and on the south side, facing Detroit. It was, in effect, a miniature marshaling yard where surplus cabs were collected and subsequently redispersed around Janus via the spokes as fluctuations in traffic patterns demanded. At least, that was what it had been designed for. Hours after Linsay’s arrival at the Hub, it had become the scene of preparation for what must have been the most bizarre military operation ever conceived in history.
The end section of the Depot comprised a long, narrow bay in which a number of sections of cab tracks ran side by side for a distance in a direction parallel to the axis of the Spindle. Thus, had the intervening outer structure of the Hub not been in the way, they would be pointing straight out at Detroit. The tracks had been cleared of cabs and on them now stood three rafts, supported on skids constructed from hastily thrown together pieces of structural latticeworks and tubing.
The first raft carried the smaller of the two water tanks taken from the adjacent Recirculation Plant. The tank had been packed with high explosives and carried at its tail end a crudely welded framework to which were attached five small solid-propellant motors, steering jets and a rudimentary remote-control box. It was, in effect, a rocket-propelled bomb.
Immediately behind it on the same tracks was an open frame, simil
arly equipped with rockets and loaded high with plastic-wrapped bales of powdered moonrock packed around layers of explosive charges.
Behind that was the larger cylinder, twenty feet in diameter by fifty long. Scores of two-inch rocket tubes were being fitted to fire forward from the dense framework of tubing that projected from its front end. A battery of motors was arrayed across another frame at its tail, and inside the rough access ports that had been cut along it at intervals engineers were busily attaching lugs and brackets to secure a web of internal nylon ropework and netting.
Linsay’s plan was as simple and direct as it was audacious. First, assuming that Z Squadron arrived on schedule, a barrage of missiles would be fired by the ISA ships at anything moving outside Janus to distract Spartacus’s defenses and keep them occupied, at least for the fifteen to twenty seconds that Linsay estimated he needed. Then the whole section of the Hub that lay between the Cab Depot and the outside would be blown away by means of charges planted by volunteers who had infiltrated forward. This would create a clear launch run from the Depot to Detroit. The three outlandish craft of Linsay’s invasion fleet would then be fired in rapid succession.
The bomb would impact first and blow a gap through the outer skin into Detroit. The second vessel would follow into the gap seconds behind and explode inside to create a smoke screen. The smoke screen would be formed by the exploding mass of finely powdered rock dispersing in Detroit’s zero gravity to form a cloud that would be opaque at all wavelengths used by Spartacus’s sensors. Thus, for a few vital minutes at least, Spartacus would be blind in that region of Detroit.
The assault wave, comprising two hundred troops and their equipment, would go inside the large tank under the added protection of a layer of sandbags secured behind the metal walls. The rocket barrage from the front of the tank would be fired as a single salvo seconds before impact to neutralize anything of Spartacus that might be left functioning after the bomb and the dust screen, and to stir up the screen further. After the rockets had been fired, the framework that had supported them would collapse when the tank impacted and, together with the retro-motor fitted to fire forward, should absorb most of the momentum of the estimated impact velocity of fifty miles per hour. The harnesses and nets inside the tank were for extra shock absorption to enable the assault troops to come out in a fighting condition.
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