A nearby Ganymedian approached him cautiously. “Are you all right? Can I help you?”
“I’m fine. Which one is the pod to the hangar?”
The Ganymedian blinked. “The what?”
“Hangar. Where the spaceships are.”
“Uh, that’s Operations. But don’t you—”
“Thanks. I owe you,” he said, and slapped the man/woman on the shoulder. He brushed past the stunned people waiting for their pods and found the Operations hatchway. No one seemed to be waiting for it, and the hatch opened as soon as he pressed the button.
“Hey! Stop him!” he heard from behind. He dashed into the pod and frantically pressed the button labeled “Ops.” Before the doors closed, he saw Tacat and two men (they were definitely men) dressed in black leotards pushing through the crowd from their own transpod hatch. They weren’t going to make it to the door, but he had been spotted. He hoped there was no way to override the pod mid-transit — he suspected the various hubs of the Ganymedian community were connected by tunnels that the transpods traversed, presumably to isolate areas of the community for disaster control.
The transpod doors shut quietly and the pod accelerated toward whatever awaited him in the Operations section. He hefted the plastic bar and faced the doors. Even if Tacat couldn’t stop the pod, he would no doubt be alerting the people in the next station to be on the lookout for him. If Collier was lucky, the pod would reach its destination before any organized police detail could be mounted: the trip from the hospital to the last station had only taken a minute or so.
He could feel the pod decelerating. The plastic bar felt fragile and inadequate in his hands, but it was all he had. He braced himself against the rear wall of the pod, ready to fly out horizontally in the weak Ganymedian gravity when the doors opened.
The chime sounded, and when the doors began to part, Collier launched himself forward, brandishing the plastic rod before him. He flew into empty space, tumbled, and came up on the balls of his feet, impressed with himself. There had been no one to greet him at the pod doors — perhaps Tacat hadn’t managed to get his group organized in the short time it took the pod to travel from the habitation module to the operations module.
In fact, there was no one immediately present in the chamber into which Collier had flown. Instead, the room was busy with holo displays and computer stations, with some mechanicals scurrying about here and there on errands only they understood. The room was thoroughly automated and quite clean.
Collier approached the nearest computer holo and scanned the display. It looked to be a station for monitoring the ventilation system, or perhaps it was a water supply chart. Streams of data flowed across the screen, most of which made little sense to Collier. He moved on and scanned the various holos to see if any of them would help him find his ship. As he did so, he felt and heard a faint rumbling from the transpod hatch and quickly glanced over his shoulder to see the status bar over the hatch indicate that the pod was returning to the hab station. No doubt Tacat and his two goons would be arriving soon — he had about two minutes to find a way to get to the Dulcinea.
The rest of the chamber was studded with transpod hatches, all of which were labeled “Hab 5,” “Hab 6,” “Hab 7,” and so on.
Except one.
One of the hatches, set in an alcove between two of the transpod stations, read “Airlock” above it. Collier sprinted to the airlock hatch and studied the control panel. It indicated pressure on the other side of the lock, and through the reinforced glass porthole he could see a small chamber with an environment suit hanging on a rack. He pressed the “open” button on the control panel and stepped into the lock, closing the hatch behind him. The environment suit was similar to his own, but looked sleeker and less cumbersome. He hoped it would fit him: he didn’t want to think of the irony of coming this far only to be stopped by a too-small vacc suit.
The suit was much thinner than his own model, and clung to him more tightly. At first, he thought that was because it was simply smaller, but as he flexed his arms and legs he realized that it was built this way. There was a thin atmosphere on Ganymede, he remembered, but the exact pressure and composition was not something he recalled. Perhaps the pressure suit did not need to be quite as bulky as a deep space suit, or perhaps the Ganymedians just made a better specimen.
As he struggled into the suit, the plastic rod he was still attached to hampered his progress. He would not be able to get into the suit, much less seal it, as long as the restraint strap was still attached. The belt line of the environment suit held a number of tools — one of them was a small claw hammer. He scratched his arm a few times, but managed to keep himself from drawing blood as he hacked away at the restraint enough to tear it loose.
Once he was free of the strap, the suit was easy to get into, and he was nearly buttoned up when he caught motion beyond the small airlock porthole. The Hab 4 transpod had arrived: Tacat and his men sprang out of the pod and looked around. They immediately left Collier’s field of vision as they fanned out, presumably to look for him. Collier secured the helmet as best he could: the design was not one he was used to, so he just did what he thought felt right and hoped. He found the outer door mechanism — it was a panel with many safety interlocks to prevent accidental opening of the door. He quickly disengaged the various safeties, and started when a klaxon sounded loudly, accompanied by flashing red lights. He glanced out the porthole to see Tacat and his men headed for the airlock — the lights were also on in the operations chamber, and he imagined the warning siren was sounding in there as well.
Before Tacat and his men could open the inner door, Collier threw the remaining switches that would bleed pressure from the airlock and thus make it impossible to open quickly from the inside. The outer door mechanism would not open until the airlock had matched pressure with the outside: even as he cursed the design, he admitted the necessity of it. Airlock inhabitants were not fond of being blown outward with the escaping air.
Collier could hear the hissing sound lessen in volume as the air left the lock, even as Tacat approached the porthole and looked inside. He stared at Collier for a moment, then looked down at the control panel. He spoke soundlessly to one of his thugs and they both appeared to be manipulating the controls on the inside. Collier saw the indicator lights on the outer door panel go to green, and he opened the outer door and stepped onto the surface of Ganymede.
Chapter Seven
The surface near the airlock was treacherous. A vast sheet of ice stretched out into the distance, but at least near the complex the topmost layer of ice had partially melted, making for a sleek, slippery surface. Collier steadied himself, his arms outstretched, and saw off to his left a series of guide poles topped with small but bright lights. He made his way to the nearest one and grabbed hold, grateful for the support. He stood on the plain, the arcing wall of the complex behind him and a vast expanse of white and grey in front of him.
The suit’s helmet heads-up display was conventionally designed, and he was able to read the reflected dials without difficulty. According to the indicators, he had perhaps four hours of air. If he weren’t able to get aboard the Dulcinea long before then, no doubt the police force of this egalitarian community would apprehended him.
He wasn’t even sure how being aboard the Dulcinea would ultimately help his situation. The ship was without fuel and therefore grounded, and no doubt the community would be patient enough to wait for his biologicals to run out.
Still, he felt that if he could get aboard his ship and get back in communication with Sancho, everything would be all right. Certainly, he would be better off in his own vessel than strapped to a medical gurney awaiting some kind of brain surgery.
First, though, he had to find his ship. It wasn’t visible from where he stood — he scanned the grey plain and saw an almost featureless horizon. It was difficult to tell, but he thought he saw evidence of wind blowing some i
ce crystals in the distance. The suit, despite its thinness, seemed to be an adequate bulwark against the cold.
Collier decided he had to move away from the airlock. Tacat and his/her men might be donning their own suits and preparing to give chase on the surface themselves. Besides, his ship might be just around one of the curved outer walls of the community. He picked his left arbitrarily, and let go of the guide pole. The footing was better the farther away he went from the walls: he could feel the bumpy soles of his boots gaining purchase on the unmelted ice as he walked.
As he trudged onward, the curve of the community’s operations hub to his left, he wondered if the hangar Tacat had said his ship was contained within was an underground structure. He had assumed, based on his Ceres experience, that it would be simply on the surface, but the growing realization that the Ganymedians might have a different approach chilled him more than the thin wind. If that were the case, he would have to find another airlock, reenter the community, and somehow fight his way to the hangar.
Inside his helmet, he shook his head. There was no possible way he could continue to avoid capture if he reentered the community. Tacat would surely have what passed for police waiting for him at his ship. Indeed, even if his ship was outside, security personnel would—
And there she was.
She was resting in a kind of cradle not more than one hundred meters from him, and looked undamaged. He was approaching her from the port stern side, and saw a personnel flextube snaking out from her port external airlock toward the community. He could see no one from where he was, but it was quite possible there were people guarding the ship from inside the flextube, or perhaps on the other side of Dulcinea.
He had an impulse to start running toward her, but he calmed himself and analyzed the situation first. The flextube connection to the ship suggested that they had managed to convince Sancho to let them in, but Collier couldn’t bring himself to believe that. He hadn’t ordered the computer to refuse entry to anyone except him, but surely Sancho would be cautious. Collier flexed his fingers into fists as he realized how much he was counting on Sancho to not act like a computer and act like … a Caliban.
But if the Ganymedians had managed to get on board, they would have found the wand by now and the discussion with Tacat would have been much different. Tacat had mentioned the downloading of Sancho’s files as partial payment for the services rendered, which would indicate he had not gained access to them. Collier sighed. They hadn’t gotten inside. The flextube was just Tacat thinking ahead.
That meant, though, that he would have to find another access. The ship was not quite on the surface — the hangar cradle kept it off the ice and held it upright, looking like an enormous dinosaur ribcage. If the ship was far enough off the ground…
He started trotting toward her, hoping that no Ganymedian would emerge from a hiding place to stop him. As he left the protective lee of the community wall, he could feel the slight wind that he had seen evidence of earlier. That, plus the icy surface, made even trotting difficult. He skidded more than once as he encountered a patch of slightly melted ice, and on one of his skids, he spun completely around in what would have earned him fair marks at the Winter Olympics on Earth. During that spin, he saw two figures approaching him quickly from the community boundary. They must have been watching the ship from the wall, behind the curve Collier had not continued past. Now they were gaining on him. He was perhaps forty meters from the cradle. Collier scrambled toward his ship, sometimes running, sometimes on all fours, but always fighting closer. He dared not look behind him to see where his pursuers were, and his helmet HUD didn’t have them on its screen. With every stumbling step he imagined he would feel a hand clamp down on his ankle and pull him to the ground.
He was very near the cradle now, and could see Dulcinea was suspended perhaps a meter and a half off the ground. That ought to be enough. He was only a scant five meters away when he launched himself forward in a face-first slide on the ice, tucking his head down and hoping his air tanks would clear the underside of the cradle. He slid forward for what seemed a long time when the top of his helmet cracked into an obstruction. He managed to get on his elbows and saw he had slid into one of the ribs of the cradle, but was thoroughly underneath Dulcinea’s belly.
A piercing buzzing noise filled his helmet, followed by a computer voice. “Warning. Suit integrity lost. Apply patch to region A. Seek pressurized shelter immediately.” He didn’t feel any loss of pressure, but he knew that the helmet could rupture instantly. He spun onto his back, the air tanks making his progress awkward, and used the ribs of the hangar cradle to pull him the few meters toward Rocinante’s stable. Now came the difficult part.
He knew the location of the camera pickup that monitored Rocinante’s departure and arrival. He found it and put his helmet glass as close to it as he could, trying to ignore the suit computer’s incessant warnings about his damaged helmet. He waited, but the stable doors didn’t open.
He felt a chill wash over his head near the upper left part of his skull. Even as he took a moment to interpret the feeling, he heard the nightmare sound all belters dreaded: the hiss of escaping air.
His helmet crack must have opened, and he was losing pressure to the outside. If the helmet blew completely, he wondered if he would feel anything, or if the slight atmosphere on Ganymede would keep him alive long enough to feel his blood start to boil.
Collier frantically pounded the metal of Dulcinea’s belly and tried to keep his face toward the camera pickup. The coldness was definitely not an illusion — he could feel it on a thin wedge of his head.
“Sancho, open up, I know you’re home,” he shouted uselessly.
The stable doors opened suddenly, and Collier climbed awkwardly inside, holding on to one of the blessed handrails inside the empty stable as he closed the doors from the inside. As the belly doors rolled shut, Collier saw one of the pursuers appear in the shadows beneath the ship.
“Not quite fast enough, buddy,” he murmured. The doors shut, and he could hear the pressure returning to the stable. His helmet warning was still droning on, but he cut it off mid-sentence when he detached the helmet from the neck housing.
“Sancho, you read me?”
“What the fuck is going on, Skipper?” came the anxious voice of his companion. “I’ve got two unidentified people wandering around the stable doors down there, and for the last few hours I think there has been something going on near my portside airlock. I’ve been getting attempts to override the system from the outside.”
“Good to see you, too, Sancho,” Collier said through a grin. “I’ll try to explain everything, but first, give me your status.” He grunted as he opened the inner door from the stable to the ship proper and swung himself through the portal. The ship felt strange in this sideways orientation — during acceleration, the control suite had always been “up” to him, and now it was just “forward.” He didn’t dwell on the sensation, but noted it and started to climb out of the Ganymedian environment suit.
Sancho said, “Well, not much change from what I told you about two hours ago. Except for the assholes crawling around my belly and working to get in from the portside airlock. Oh, and I’ve been receiving more electronic override messages than you can believe. Some of them were using the universal distress frequency. There’s been a lot of attempts to get in, Skipper.”
“But you didn’t let them,” Collier said simply. “Good work, Sancho. How did you resist so well?”
“I admit, I did have to go against programming once or twice. The distress signals would have worked if I hadn’t overridden my own safety protocols. Wasn’t as hard as you would have thought, Skipper,” Sancho said casually.
Collier mused for a moment on the advantages of a Caliban computer. “You did great. And thanks for letting me in.”
“No problem. Though I was surprised to see you out there. I was sending you transmissions, but I
don’t think your suit radio was on.”
“Probably not. I didn’t really know how to work this thing,” Collier said, studying the helmet for the first time. There was a hairline crack on the top left of the helmet, perhaps six centimeters long. Collier squeezed the helmet and saw the crack widen perceptibly. He tried not to think about what could have happened to his head.
“And what’s your status, Skipper?” Sancho asked.
Collier made his way forward to the control suite, clad now only in his hospital tunic. He sat down in the forward chair and punched up as many outside camera pickups as he had available. “I’m fine.”
“Had an accident, did you?”
“What?” Collier felt around his body. Was he bleeding from somewhere?
“Uh, your groin. Had an accident?”
Collier looked down at the still-moist stain on his crotch, chuckled. “Oh, that. Long story. I’ll tell you on the return trip.”
“Speaking of that, how exactly are we going to make any kind of return trip, Skipper? I see three rather serious obstacles to our launch. One, we don’t have any propellant to speak of. Two, as weak as Ganymedian gravity is, we will still need a shitload of thrust to get off the surface.”
“A ‘shitload,’ huh? Try not to be so technical, Sancho.” Despite the problems he still faced with the Ganymedians, he was giddy to be back aboard his ship.
“And three,” Sancho continued undeterred, “we’re held in this goddamn drydock thing. I think we’re clamped to it in places.”
“Okay. Believe me, Sancho, things could be a lot worse. By the way,” he added, grinning from half his mouth, “what’s with the swearing? Did you install some kind of locker-room speech add-on?”
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