Starfarers
Page 29
1 did far too expert a job on him, Kolya thought.
He tried to drag Griffith in his silver sphere all the way to an elevator, so they both could escape to the surface. After ten meters he knew it was hopeless. Griffith, though not a large man, made a heavy, awkward weight in the full gravity of the starship's lowest level.
The sound of escaping air grew fainter as the atmospheric pressure fell.
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Kolya felt a low, grinding vibration. The baffles were sliding shut. The elevator was already closed off. With one final burst of exertion, Kolya dragged Griffith beyond the moving baffle. He did not want to leave him, but he could do him no good if they both were trapped between airtight doors. Kolya plunged through the narrowing space and ran toward the airlock. Behind him, the misaligned panels shrieked in their tracks with a high-pitched squeal that traveled through the ground, vibrated into his body, and pierced his hearing.
I'll have to travel around the outside of the ship, Kotya thought, and find an undamaged entrance—or go all the way to the axis, if need be—and bring help. From outside, I might detect the position of the air leak, the extent of the damage.
He hoped he would be able to tell what had happened, what caused the impact.
Am I still willing, he wondered, to fling myself into the void and hope our pursuers will stop to rescue me? I will probably never know the answer to that question. By now our escape or capture must be sealed.
Kolya entered the airlock and started its sequence. The inner door slid shut, but refused to close the final few centimeters. Kolya shoved it until it caught, then waited impatiently while the airlock cycled. He held tight to the grips, afraid the lock might open prematurely and fling him out into space with the last of the air. It evacuated properly. At his feet, the hatch leading onto the outer skin of the starship opened halfway and stuck. He climbed down and squeezed through, no easy matter in the bulky pressure suit.
He lowered himself onto the inspection cables and headed for the next nearest of the access hatches that dotted the ship's exterior. With the outer surface of the starship at his back, he crawled rapidly over the cables like a four-legged spider.
Only the cables lay between him and space.
The spin took him in view of the saithouse, the furled silver sail, and the magnetic claws that reached to the cosmic string. Both claws and string should have been invisible: the claws, an energy field, had no substance, while the cosmic string had enormous mass but only the single dimension of length.
Yet Kolya perceived an odd, pointillist image: two flexing arms like tentacles, grasping a distant, slender thread. He could only see it when he observed it from the comer of his
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vision. Perhaps he imagined it all; perhaps he saw some perfectly natural phenomenon. Could Hawking radiation appear in the visible spectrum? Kolya did not pretend to understand cosmic string, or Hawking radiation for that matter.
The starship spun him past the magnetic claws and into the canyon between Star forces two cylinders.
He continued to crawl. He had nearly reached the next hatch.
But he had also moved into a region where the starship's smooth rock surface became cracked and jumbled.
Kolya raised his head. The ship curved gradually upward, forming a close horizon.
The cosmonaut stopped, horrified, disbelieving. He had come upon the cause of the impact and the damage.
Far from striking a glancing blow, then tumbling off harmlessly into space, the missile had plunged itself into the starship. It was lodged a meter deep in Starfarer's skin.
When the earthquake hit, Infinity knew what had happened.
He never doubted the accuracy of his perception.
"What was that?" Florrie jerked her head up, and the small
shells in her hair rattled- In the comer of her main room, the painted egg snapped from its thread. It fell, bounced on a woven mat, rolled in a half-circle, and stopped. It lay miraculously unbroken.
Infinity picked it up gently and handed it to Floris. He watched himself perform such an ordinary gesture, astounded.
He was in shock, he knew he was in shock. But he was powerless to shake away the stunned certainty that Starfarer's pursuers had behaved every bit as badly as he had feared they might. No: not quite as badly. They must not have used a nuclear warhead, or Starfarer would be dead.
Arachne's web remained silent. Infinity activated the console in the comer of Florrie's main room and used the hard-link to find the location of the damage and the condition of the ship. One of the few people left on board with hard-vacuum construction experience, he was part of the damage control team. He would liave to go below immediately. Starfarer possessed self-healing capabilities, but it had limits.
"What happened?" Florrie demanded.
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Despite everything, the ship remained on course. Infinity was amazed.
"We've encountered the string!" He gave her the good
news and kept the bad to himself. "I have to go for a while,
Florrie. I'm sorry. Will you be okay?"
"Yes." Her smile was quiet, relieved, joyful. "Yes, I'll be fine. They can't make me leave now, can they?"
Despite everything, Infinity grinned- "They sure can't."
He left her sitting in her window seal, cupping the fragile egg in both hands.
Victoria broke into a run. Other people joined her, disoriented, shocked, appalled. She reached the edge of the tumbled earth. The genetics building looked like it had been shaken until it broke. She climbed across the rough ground.
She was the first to reach the entrance. The doorway had partially collapsed. Someone was trying to crawl between its crushed supports. Victoria grabbed the clutching hand.
"Help . . ."
"It's all right," Victoria said. "You'll be out in a minute, it's all right."
The green scent of crushed grass mixed with the dry tang of mineral dust and the meaty, organic smell of spilled nutrient medium. Broken rock scraped Victoria's legs and sides, and dirt from the sagging hill's turf sifted onto her. In the dimness of the destroyed building, Victoria could see Fox, Satoshi's recalcitrant graduate student. Fox gripped desperately at her hand.
"Hang on. Can you get a foothold? Pull yourself up, there's more room above you."
With Victoria's help. Fox scrambled higher. Panting, nearly sobbing, she dragged herself out of the rubble. Beyond her it was dark except for the light that reflected from a pillowy cloud of fog: evaporating liquid nitrogen.
"Is anybody else still in there?"
Fox gasped for air. "Satoshi, and Stephen Thomas, in the cold room . . ."
Victoria pushed past her and dove through the opening.
Sliding over the destruction and into the dark corridor, she sprawled on the floor beneath a layer ot cold vapor. She stumbled to her feet. The nitrogen fog flowed across her shoulders
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and swirled around her legs. Above it, she could breathe Emergency lights glowed faintly, but the dense mist concealed the floor. She had to feel her way along. Was the cold room the third door of the back side of the hall, or the fourth?
"Satoshi! Stephen-Thomas!"
"Victoria, down here'"
Satoshi's voice: Victoria caught her breath with relief. Resisting the urge to try to hurry, she moved cautiously through the dimness. Tendrils of freezing mist, so thick and cohesive they looked like a liquid, swirled around her hips.
Infinity struggled with an access hatch that led into Star-farer's underground. It opened about a handsbreadth, then stuck. Though the worst of the missile's impact had hit the genetics department, a couple of hundred meters away, the earthquake had jammed this hatch as well. He tried again to move it, not wanting to backtrack to a more distant entrance.
"Let me help."
J.D. Sauvage squatted beside him, grabbed the edge of the hatch cover, and settled herself.
Inf
inity nodded.
They both pulled. The alien contact specialist was a big woman. She powered her effort with her legs, not just her back.
The hatch gave, springing open and slamming out of their grasp. They jumped away. It thudded onto the ground, bounced, and settled.
"Thanks."
"Do you need help?" J.D. said. "Should I come with you?"
"I might have to go outside," he said.
He plunged through the hatchway.
Infinity Mendez disappeared into Starfarer's underground tunnels without really answering J.D.*s question. He was so shy and quiet that J.D. could not be sure whether he had been trying to ask her for help, or trying to tell her to stay behind. But he was all alone, and she could see that whatever the problem was at the genetics department, Victoria already had as much help as she needed. Maybe more help than she needed.
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J.D. climbed into the tunnel.
She could not be sure which way Infinity had gone, so she kept going down whenever she could.
She entered a region in which the effects of the impact became evident. An automatic baffle-door creaked open ahead of her. She stopped, scared: if the baffles malfunctioned they might blast her out into space.
Nothing happened: no wind, no shocking cold, no vacuum drawing the air out of her lungs. The door had closed in response to the impact, but the ship's systems opened it again when they detected no difference in the air pressure on either side.
Nevertheless, she accepted the warning. As soon as she reached an airlock's access room, she climbed into a pressure suit.
"—Cherenkov. Can anyone—"
The sound startled her. The disembodied voice emanated from the suit radio. She pulled the helmet shut. The transmission faded, then returned cleariy.
"This is Kolya Petrovich. Slarfarer has been hit with a missile, which has penetrated approximately one meter into the surface. I cannot move it myself. I need help, tools, a radiation gauge. Can anyone hear me?"
"Kolya?"
"Yes! I am here, who is it?"
"J.D."
"J.D., I do not suppose you have space construction experience?"
"No."
"I must have help."
"I'll go get somebody."
"There may not be time. Will you risk it?"
"I've never been outside in space' I wouldn't know what to do!"
"This is not a complex job," he said. "But I need more strength. More strength than I have."
By his voice, she knew he was tiring. J.D. looked around, hoping to see Infinity or some other damage crew member.
But she was alone.
"All right. I'll try."
She entered the airiock. The controls were all too simple.
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The 'cycle began. The lock pumped away the air and opened the exterior hatch.
J.D. looked down. The stars streaked past beneath her feet.
The only point of stability was the end of the exit ladder. She gripped her end of the ladder and lowered herself hesitantly. The starship loomed above her. Space lay below and all around, separated from her by nothing but the fragile web of cables.
The suit's airgun hung against her leg, useless. If she lost her grip, the cylinder's spin would fling her out into space.
No airgun couid power her back.
"Kolya?"
"I am still here. It is still stuck. Hurry, please."
"Where are you?"
"Orient yourself in the same direction as the spin. I am just over your horizon."
She did as he asked, clutching the cables. She knelt there, balancing precariously. It was as if she were being flung headlong into the Milky Way. She squeezed her eyes shut and took a deep breath.
"J.D. !••
She opened her eyes again. "Yes," she said. "I'm coming."
She had watched recordings of spacewalks; she had even experienced several direct sensory recordings. In every one, the effect had been of floating weightless in silent gentle space, with the stars a motionless background.
This was entirely different. She crawled across the cables with the stars blazing past beneath her. The spin gave her the perception that gravity was pulling her downward into an unending fall.
Her breath sounded harsh and sweat ran down her sides, more from fear than from exertion.
J.D. searched the upward-curving surface of the starship.
The cables shuddered beneath her hands and knees, loosened by the impact of the missile. In places the smooth stone surface had cracked, and broken rock projected toward her from above. One slab shifted and scraped against her back, startling her with its touch and vibration. She shrank down, gripping the cables.
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After a moment she pushed herself up again and crawled forward.
And then she saw the missile, a sleek shape designed for space-to-air flight, wedged in the cracked surface of the starship. His legs twined in the cables, Kolya struggled to loosen the missile. His perilous position terrified J.D. She hurried on.
"Kolya! Wail—"
"J.D. ' Bojemoi. I'm glad to see you."
She reached Kolya's side. The cosmonaut touched the flank of the missile and drew his gloved hand along its side. It shifted slightly, vibrating against the cables so they quivered in J.D.'s hands.
"Be careful.*'
"An elegant bit of warfare, this," Kolya said. "Go around to the other side, and brace yourself. Hook up your work line."
"Can it detonate?" J.D. asked.
"That I do not know."
"They couldn't have used an armed missile!"
"J.D., of course they could. Perhaps they thought that the threat alone would stop us. But I am not willing to bet the life of the starship on it."
J.D. saw what Kolya planned. She moved into place and hooked up her work line.
"I'm ready."
Suddenly the starship shuddered. The spinning stars wavered and brightened and disappeared. J.D. was surrounded by a multicolored, speckled, streaming haze. She gasped in wonder.
The starship had entered transition.
J.D. wanted nothing more than to lose herself in the sight of it. It flung itself toward her, upward, in an optical illusion of continuous approach that never came near. She shivered.
The cables flexed beneath her. She forced her attention away from transition, back to the missile and Kolya. But the cosmonaut, too, gazed downward past the cables, past the end of the missile, into transition.
"Kolya," J.D. whispered. "Kolya, we've got to get rid of this thing!"
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"So I felt . . ." Kolya did not look up. "But do we have the right to loose it in this unknown place?"
She wanted to follow his gaze. Instead, she reached out and touched his arm.
"Kolya," she said respectfully, without any irony or sarcasm, "Comrade Cherenkov, this missile could destroy Star-farer and all our friends."
Kolya looked at her. The faraway expression slowly faded from his face.
"Yes," he said finally. "You're right. Of course you're right."
Victoria slid between the crushed interior walls of the hill.
It was freezing. The cold fog of evaporating liquid nitrogen flowed past her feet. The smell was intense, of yeast and agar plates and nutrient medium.
"Over here. He's bleeding. I can't get it stopped."
She found Satoshi, awkwardly trying to hold Stephen Thomas above the unbreathable vapor, at the same time trying to staunch a bleeding head cut. There was blood all over, spattering Satoshi's hands and arms, covering Stephen Thomas's face, leaking between Satoshi's fingers.
Victoria pushed away bits of broken equipment, fragmented glass, crumbled rock foam. She reached Satoshi's side.
"What happened?"
"I don't know. He was bleeding, but he said it was just a scrape. We were on our way out, and he keeled over."
Stephen Thomas was heavily unconscious. His hand w
as cold, his pulse weak and fast. He must be badly wounded, there was so much blood, it covered his face and sprayed the front of his battered t-shirt and pasted his pale hair against his skin.
Rock foam panels grated together, rasping each other to
dust that sifted down in the dim light. The nitrogen fog crept
to Victoria's waist.
Stephen Thomas might have a concussion, or even a fractured skull. Victoria knew they should not move him, but she was afraid not to.
"Let's get him out of here."
They lifted Stephen Thomas and dragged and carried him
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into the corridor. Satoshi tried to keep pressure on the head wound. A bright light glimmered along the top of the fog. It flashed in Victoria's eyes, dazzling her.
Zev appeared silently before them, carrying a flashlight.
He glanced at Stephen Thomas.
"Let me see." He moved Satoshi's hand. Blood pulsed from Stephen Thomas's forehead.
"Zev, don't, he'll bleed to death!"
Victoria and Satoshi both tried to reappiy pressure to the wound, but Zev pushed between them and leaned over their partner.
Victoria watched, shocked and appalled, as Zev bent down and placed his lips against the cut on Stephen Thomas's forehead. Before she could protest or push him away, he straightened up. Blood covered his mouth and his chin. Satoshi reached out to put pressure on the wound again, but Zev stopped him.
"Leave it be."
"What did you do?"
Victoria's horrified expression amused him. "I stopped the bleeding—what did you think?"
"I thought you were drinking his blood!"
Zev grimaced. "Do I look like a lamprey? Why didn't you—oh. This must be a difference between divers and people."
He pushed bloody, sticky blond hair away from the wound.
The cut had stopped bleeding.
"He is lucky," Zev said.
"Lucky!"
"This is not a serious wound—not on land. Divers fear head cuts because they bleed so, even a scratch like this one. Sometimes you can't stop them before the sharks smell the blood from far away, and come to eat you. But here there is no ocean and there are no sharks."
Stephen Thomas groaned. He opened his eyes, then closed them again.
"What-?"
"It's okay," Satoshi said. "We'll be out of here in a minute."