Even as he began to tumble, Rykker knew he only had one chance to avoid falling all the way into the vortex. With sand abrading his hands and face, he spread-eagled and tried to dig in with fingers and toes. Facedown, his forehead bleeding and his mouth and nostrils filling with sand, he continued skidding toward the very bottom of the pit, but finally slowed and came to a precarious halt in the soft sand just before the mouth of the vortex. Coughing and spitting, Rykker raised his head cautiously and looked up at the top of the pit, but Melton and his men were gone.
As the twin suns rose higher, one thing was certain in Rykker’s mind. Melton wasn’t really concerned if a body was found or not. And if Melton wasn’t concerned about leaving a trail, then it meant he had to be pretty well protected by someone high up in either Fleet Command or the Alliance. Either way it didn’t matter. If Rykker didn’t pull himself out of the sand pit before the suns met in conjunction, he would be baked to a crisp.
Looking at the shortening shadows, Rykker estimated that he had about twenty minutes left. Not much time, but all he needed, if he was lucky. The first priority had to be water—the canteen that Melton had casually tossed into the vortex before giving Rykker the big push. Slowly, carefully, Rykker raised himself up onto one elbow and scanned the sides of the pit for any trace of the canteen.
Nothing. Very gently he shifted to scan the other side, only to feel the coarse sand begin to give way and start him sliding again toward the bottom and oblivion.
Rykker spread-eagled and checked his descent. At least he had spotted the canteen. Moving like an amphibian, he half swam and half crawled his way around until at last he was facing downhill, toward the black void that was the very center of the vortex. The canteen was ahead of him and slightly to his left. Rykker dug his hands deep into the sand, burying his arms up past the elbows, and slowly, painfully slowly, started pulling himself closer to the edge, never knowing when the next movement might cause a violent shift in the sands and send him cascading into the bottomless vortex.
The minutes seemed like hours as the twin suns rose higher, and Rykker’s damaged life suit found it harder to keep up with the demands of his exertions in the steeply sloping sands. Finally, and with intense effort, Rykker was within reach of the canteen. He screwed his right arm deep into the sand, all the way to the shoulder, and then with deliberate effort managed to spread the fingers of his right hand in an attempt to more securely anchor himself.
Shifting his weight slightly, Rykker reached for the canteen. It moved. Only the faint rustle of sand coursing over sand broke the stillness of the pit as the canteen slid several feet closer to the edge of the vortex.
Rykker stopped short of cursing. His whole life had been spent in avoiding the futile, and right now cursing was futile. When he had the canteen, he could curse: a long, joyous string of profanities ending in the delightful taste of the silvery wetness contained in the canteen.
But not now. Not until he had the canteen. He reached again, slower this time, and again the sand began to shift. It was his anchor, his right arm plunged deep in the sand, that caused the subtle disturbance responsible for the canteen sliding away from his grasp.
It was an interesting problem. If he pulled his arm out of the sand he might just reach the canteen. Then again he might not. He might go sliding ever faster down the side of the sand vortex and pitch headfirst into the bottomless nothing at its center. Two chances to die, and maybe only one to live. Rykker closed his right fist tight, and slowly began to pull his arm out of the coarse gray sand. Beneath him the sand gave way.
Suddenly Rykker was sliding toward the center of the vortex and reaching for the canteen, flailing his arms and legs in an attempt to check his downward descent. Even though his mind raced, trying to find some way of saving himself, events seemed to move in slow motion. Instinctively he grabbed the canteen as he continued to slide, and instinctively, too, he shot his arms out in front of him and dug the edge of the canteen into the sand. It acted like a sea anchor, and slowed him immediately. Spreading his legs and digging in his toes as well, Rykker finally came to a halt.
The suns were high and nearly in conjunction as Rykker squirmed his way around into an uphill position again. He was not out of trouble yet. He could feel the heat burning into his back, even through his suit, and he knew that he had only minutes left to shield himself from the full effect of the conjoined stars, and only one option for survival. Quickly, using the edge of the canteen as a shovel, Rykker began to dig into the sand, hoping that by burying himself he’d survive in his tattered life suit. He reasoned that if he could get under the sand, he had enough liquid to sustain himself for perhaps as long as two hours; long enough for the suns to move out of their deadly conjunction and to give him a second chance at getting out of the pit.
Rykker had burrowed down almost two feet when the canteen struck metal—soon revealed as a section of smooth, cylindrical tube nearly four feet wide, and of indeterminate depth and length. Sitting on the shaft and kicking furiously with both feet Rykker was able to shift enough sand to realize that he was sitting on some sort of a pipe that seemed to run from the abandoned mine above the pit down toward its center.
Rykker nearly laughed as he realized that he was sitting on an illegal garbage chute. The miners had been using the vortex as a dump, clearly in violation of Fleet and Alliance directives concerning the natural ecology of exploited planets. If only there were some way into the chute.
Rykker’s eyes ached from the intensity of the searing light overhead, and his hands were blistering from the touch of the hot metal pipe he was straddling. He began to hallucinate from the heat, and for the first time since his ground rover was blown off its tracks, Rykker thought he might die. He fumbled with the canteen, nearly dropped it, and slipped off the side of the pipe, sliding slowly toward the end—the end of the pipe where garbage from the processing plant had gone down into the vortex.
Oddly, he had plenty of time to think about what he was doing, this time. Very calmly he was able to reach out and grab the edge of the pipe end as he came abreast of it. Miraculously, his grip held. Almost before he realized what he was doing, he crawled up into the shade of the open garbage chute. The floor of the chute was smooth, as were the walls. But overhead was a series of handholds like a ladder riveted to the top of a giant aluminum cigar tube. Using one of the handholds to steady himself, Rykker allowed himself the luxury of a small drink from the canteen before starting up the incline of the tube. But he had gone on only a few meters before he cursed softly. A ten-foot vertical shaft led down from the mine to the garbage chute, its smooth walls impossible to climb without a ladder.
At that point, Rykker didn’t care. After taking another swig from the canteen, he looped its strap through one of the handholds, hooked his arm through its loop to keep from sliding back out of the tube, and laid down to sleep.
It was dark when he awoke, at least as dark as it ever became on any planet in a binary system. It took Rykker a few minutes to size up his situation and settle on a course of action. He couldn’t climb up the vertical shaft. The walls were too smooth to provide any sort of grip, and they were too high to jump to the top and pull himself over. His only chance was to try and throw a line of some sort over the edge, hope it would catch on something, and then pull himself out. Rykker took another swallow from the canteen and then peeled off his life suit.
Naked in the shaft, Rykker realized how hot it really was on the planet. Sweat poured from him as he tied one leg of the suit to the strap of the canteen. The small vertical shaft was oppressively hot, and even the slightest effort made his head swim. Blinking the sweat from his eyes, Rykker held tight to one arm of the life suit as he twirled the canteen over his head like a lasso before launching it over the edge of the shaft. He heard it hit with a dull thud and then pulled it toward him. It caught momentarily on something, pulled free, and then caught again. This time it held.
Pull
ing hand over hand along the life suit, Rykker walked up the wall of the shaft, his feet burning from the latent heat of the metallic walls. When he reached the top he used both hands to heave himself up and over the top. Exhausted, his chest nearly bursting from the exertion, Rykker reached for the canteen, pulled it free from a tangle of scrap metal, and savored the silver liquid as it washed down his throat. After a few minutes his strength began to return, and he hauled up his life suit and struggled to pull it on.
Inside the ore-processing plant, things were much as they had been left several years before when the mine had been shut down as no longer profitable. Any equipment that was judged to be either too heavy or too old-fashioned to justify the expense of shipping back to the home planets had simply been left behind. When the Alliance ceased operations in any sector, they left behind them a legacy of discarded technology, neatly mothballed and ready for service should the Alliance ever return.
Rykker explored the processing plant and soon found the abandoned crew quarters. The lockers were empty, for the most part. Rykker found a stash of girlie magazines, some discarded socks, and a baseball cap. One locker yielded up a towel, and in another he found a pair of sweats almost his size.
Off the crew quarters was a shower room, and Rykker tentatively tried the taps, laughing to himself as the pale blue sterile cleansing solution sprayed out of the chrome nozzle and bounced off the tile floor. He found a hardened sliver of soap next to one of the sinks, and for the next fifteen minutes reveled in the simple pleasure of washing.
It was, he decided, his first shower in weeks, possibly months. The life suit kept you clean and odorless, but for some reason Rykker had never been able to clearly understand, he only felt clean after a real shower. He shoved his head under the nozzle and let the spray wash the lather from his hair, the suds running down his back and legs as he switched the temperature control from hot to cold before finally turning off the shower, grabbing the towel, and roughly drying himself off.
Back in the locker room he pulled on the sweats he had found in one of the lockers and, barefoot, padded into the galley. He knew that there would be no fresh food, but hoped that the emergency rations would have been left behind as not worth the bother of shipping back. Neatly stacked in one of the stainless steel cupboards Rykker found the small emergency ration packets, each containing a small block of more or less tasteless matter compressed into a sandwich-sized morsel that provided all the nutrients required to sustain life. Rykker shut his eyes as he bit into the gray-green lump, and thought of a real beefsteak, in the fond hopes of deceiving his palate. It wasn’t fooled.
Dinner over in a few bites, Rykker headed down to the computer room to see what memories he might retrieve from the central computer banks.
One thing that the Alliance didn’t leave behind was anything useful in the computer’s memory. A quick scan through the menu showed Rykker that most files had been cleared; what remained were the basic plant maintenance programs, a map of the mining complex—and a complete copy of Handiman’s Complete Encyclopedia of Technology.
Rykker smiled gently to himself. Everything he needed was right here in the “useless” information files.
Rykker’s fingers typed out the first command, and a cobalt laser screen flashed up a map of the mining complex. The mining operation had been a small one, covering only a few dozen square miles, with the ore-processing plant located well away from the central administration complex. Rykker pressed a key and the ore-processing plant glowed a dull pink on the screen. A few more keystrokes and Rykker knew that the nearest buildings were nearly two miles away. The big question, though, was where were Melton and his pals?
Rykker typed out another command. “Request status all life-support systems.”
One by one each of the stations on the map began to glow, first a dull pink, then turning to a hazy yellow—all that is except two. The ore-processing plant and the executive wing of the central administration complex both throbbed a dull pink on the cobalt screen. Rykker’s smile broadened. He knew where they were, and best of all, they thought they knew where he was.
Rykker pushed himself back from the computer terminal and stared up at the ceiling. Several long minutes passed before he decided on his next move. He stretched once and, knitting his brow, leaned back over the keyboard. The index to the Complete Encyclopedia of Technology scrolled lazily onto the screen. Rykker stopped it several times until he found exactly the entry he was looking for.
Reading and rereading the entry, Rykker decided that although crude, it was undoubtedly effective. Now, the question was whether or not he could make a slug thrower from the material at hand. The computer quickly provided an inventory of material in the ore-processing station, and then cross-referenced that inventory with the requirements set out in the Encyclopedia. Another scan through the computer indicated that the machine shop in the ore-processing station could handle all of the milling and machining. The question Rykker now faced was a choice of propellant.
Most slug throwers used a capacitive energy discharge to launch the projectile. Rykker’s design was based on the use of gunpowder ignited by a fulminate charge placed under sudden and severe percussion. Rykker tapped in the formula for black powder and asked the computer to locate a material that would have similar characteristics that could be used for a substitute. The computer immediately supplied a list of over six hundred materials, and cross-indexing these with the inventory of the ore-processing station Rykker was able to find his propellant.
Taking a hand modem with him, Rykker headed down to the machine shop. Here he fed in his material requirements to an ancient laser lathe, plugged the hand modem into its control panel, and headed out to collect his propellant.
The mine had used several different methods of ore displacement, and according to the computer, all of the reagents were stored in a bunker a few hundred feet from the exit of the ore-processing station. Rykker trotted down the corridor to the airlock and once inside pressed the automatic release. Nothing happened. Rykker hit the green button again and still nothing. Realizing that full power wasn’t on, Rykker spun the manual control that retracted the bolts sealing the airlock doors and slowly pushed the door open.
The outside temperature was like an oven, and Rykker flinched as the wall of heat came crashing down on him. Shading his eyes from the binary stars overhead, he could just make out the opening of the bunker shimmering in the convection currents that rose from the sand. Barefoot, the sharp gray grit of the planet’s surface scorching the soles of his feet, Rykker trotted to the cool shade of the bunker’s doorway. Using the manual access control he entered the bunker and descended the cool metal stairs to the main storeroom. The glowing bacteria lights threw a soft green glow into the corners of the room, and it took Rykker’s eyes a few minutes to adjust to the contrast with the harsh sunlight outside. Then he searched for several minutes until he found the Codex-3 fissure separators. Grabbing a small box, he turned and retraced his steps.
In the machine shop the laser lathe had finished turning out the component pieces of Rykker’s slug thrower and had deposited them in a basket ready for Rykker to assemble. Taking the basket with him, Rykker headed back to the computer center to make sure that he assembled everything in the correct order.
Back in front of the display terminal Rykker built his weapon. Handiman’s Encyclopedia of Technology had given a detailed history of the slug thrower, and Rykker was at great pains to see that it was carefully assembled. Of course, there had been some modifications to the original design—Rykker’s ammunition was electronically detonated, percussion caps being a bit thin on the ground, and the grips on his slug thrower were a polymer-based resin, not walnut. Still, it was faithful to the original design, right down to the loading lever that would be used to pack the Codex-3 into the chamber and then seat the slug on top.
Rykker hefted the assembled weapon. It felt right, as though it were a natural extensi
on of his arm. Well balanced, it reminded him of his favorite sword—form following function. He knew that he had chosen the right weapon from the thousands catalogued in the Encyclopedia; even the name was right, recalling as it did other battles fought long ago on nameless seas by other fleets—the Colt Navy revolver.
Instinctively Rykker twirled the pistol around the index finger of his right hand, his thumb catching the hammer and snapping it back into its fully cocked position. He laughed to himself as he set the gun down and turned his attention once again to the computer.
Slugs were the main problem. According to Handiman, the 1851 Colt Navy revolver was designed to fire a 9mm conical or spherical bullet made of lead, a substance that had virtually disappeared from use by the end of the 21st century. He had checked and cross-checked the computer inventory, but there were no substitutes available from the stores here in the ore-processing station. After feeding in the performance parameters required of the substance used to make the slugs, the computer provided Rykker with a short list of commonly encountered elements and alloys that could be substituted for the required lead. It even went so far as to tell Rykker where these elements were most likely to be encountered, and if there were any of these items in the station.
Rykker scanned the list, noting that none of the items were in the station. None, that is, except item twenty-two: life suit, model G-14 Alliance issue, priority 87. Rykker’s life suit. Worn like a second skin, life suits were designed to be powered by the electrical charge inherent in the human body. In order to most effectively capture this current and use it to power the life-support systems, the entire suit was lined with a fine mesh made of gold wires no thicker than a human hair, separated by a space of one tenth of a millimeter. It might be possible to make four, five, or even six slugs from the gold-wire grid in a life suit. The problem was, without the grid the life suit wouldn’t work. And without a life suit, Rykker knew he wouldn’t last two hours on the surface of the planet.
The Fleet05 Total War Page 24
