Jake climbed into the lander, settled in behind the controls, locked the harness in place, and called the bridge. “Hutch.” She didn’t like being called Priscilla. “You can start moving again.”
“Okay, Jake.”
The pressure of acceleration eased him back against the padding.
When he’d been here last time, there’d been three physicists, a married couple and a guy on the verge of retirement. They’d added one more since then, Jeremy Somebody. A guy he’d never heard of.
They’d been absorbed then by an effect they called “quantum wrap.” (He wasn’t sure about the spelling.) They’d told him how glad they were to see a new face, and then ignored him.
Their pilot was Hal Moresby, whom Jake had come to know over the years. Hal was, if you could believe him, on his last Academy assignment. When he got home from Oscillation, he was going to open his own interstellar transport agency. If anybody could make it work, it would be Hal. He was the original deep space cowboy. No job was too big. Nothing daunted him.
And of course there was Tawny.
The kitten. Tawny belonged to the married couple. He couldn’t remember their names, but they’d gone to a lot of trouble for her, installed electronic food and water dispensers, and a litter box that used magnetic gravel and gentle suction to overcome the problems of a zero-gee environment. She was probably grown now. She’d been much friendlier than her owners.
Jake liked cats.
He sighed and turned on the screen, bringing up an old Lamplighter comedy. The stunts were too farcical to be funny, but he enjoyed them anyhow. Maybe because he’d liked them as a kid, and somehow they partially dispelled the immense solitude around him. He sat back and closed his eyes, and gradually the shouts and the noise and laughter faded out.
“Still nothing,” Hutchins said.
Jake strapped in beside her. “Okay, we’re still pretty far. The signal may be getting wiped out by all the radiation. I think I had the same problem last time. We might not hear anything from them until tomorrow.”
“Do you know any of these people?”
“More or less,” he said. “I know Hal pretty well.”
“The pilot?”
“Yes.” And maybe Tawny.
In time, it became clear something was wrong. Oscillation Station remained silent. “The only thing I can think is that their comm system has broken down,” said Jake.
Hutchins didn’t respond. There were other possibilities, of course.
They were about four hours away when Benny broke in: “I have a visual.” He put it on screen.
Jake needed a moment to locate it, a speck blinking on and off as the light beams swept over it. “Are you picking up any kind of electronics, Benny?” he asked.
“Negative.”
The AI kicked up the magnification. It was hard to make out details. The thing looked like an ordinary freighter drifting through the churning illumination. It reminded him of a propeller. “Freeze it,” Jake said. “In the dark.”
“There’s a light,” said Hutchins.
“Let’s try again, Benny. Give me a channel.”
“You’re on, Jake.”
“Oscillation, answer up, please. Hal, this is Kolmar. You guys okay?”
The lights—there were several—were attached to the scanners and scopes mounted on the hull, and one to the main telescope, which dominated the area above the aft section. Like Copperhead, Oscillation wore heavy shielding. With all portals covered, no internal illumination could be visible.
“Okay, Hutch,” Jake said, “let’s make our approach. Go easy.”
“Okay.”
“They should have noticed we’re here. Line us up with her cargo doors. But go slow.”
She didn’t return his smile. Instead she proceeded in that very serious manner that marks a kid who feels she’s being trusted in a delicate situation and maybe isn’t too sure she should be. “Ossila,” she said, reverting to official terminology, “Copperhead approaching. Open docking area, please.”
The docking area was marked by two long doors along the lower deck, which were divided horizontally.
The doors stayed shut.
Benny broke in: “Jake, they’ve taken some damage. Bridge area.”
A fresh image appeared on the display: A section of scanners, telescopes, and support towers shattered, broken, some apparently driven through the armor into the station. The armor on the underside, below the bridge and the cargo hold, had erupted. Pieces of plating and cable had been blown out.
“They got hit by something,” said Jake. “A rock. Came through the overhead and out down here.”
“Must have been about the size of a basketball,” he said.
Hutchins stared at the images. “You think they had any chance?”
“When it happened, Hutch, the hatches would have closed everywhere. There should be some survivors. Unless they got seriously unlucky.”
“So what do we do?”
“First we send a message back home. Let them know. Then we go over and see what the situation is.”
By “we,” Jake was in fact referring only to himself. There was only one Gonzo suit. The suit, named for its designer, Jack Gonzalez, was reminiscent of the old gear astronauts had worn in the early days before the development of the Flickinger field. But neither the early gear that astronauts had worn, nor the electronic shield that now protected people doing EVA, would have been worth anything in the soup around Palomus. The Gonzo was safe; it had heavy shielding. But it was a pain to wear. It was big. And awkward. He pulled the suit out of the cabinet and sighed.
“You’ll look like a robot inside that thing,” Hutchins said. “How come there’s only one?”
Jake cleared his throat. “Normally, there’s only one person onboard the Copperhead.”
He climbed into it. Hutchins helped where she could. It looked like metal but it wasn’t. It was a flex material of some sort. After he was safely wrapped, as Hutch put it, she helped him with the jet pack. “You look good,” she said.
“Okay, let’s do it.”
She held the helmet out for him. It had no transparent face plate. Jake’s vision would be limited to an interior display. “If you have trouble getting through the lock, Jake,” she said, “come back. Don’t stay out there too long. And why are you smiling?”
“You sound like my mother.”
Jake locked the helmet down and switched on the imager. He looked at Hutchins, and looked around the cabin. The image produced inside the suit provided the illusion that the helmet had turned to glass.
“Testing.” Hutchins’s voice on the link.
“Loud and clear.”
She went back to the pilot’s seat and guided them in close. She was good. He had to give her that. No sudden braking or choppy maneuvers. They moved in smoothly alongside the Ossila until the station’s airlock came into view. And she continued closing. “Careful,” he said.
Her jaw tightened, but she said nothing.
She eased to a stop. They could almost have reached out and touched the other ship.
“Ready to go, Jake,” she said. She sounded worried.
“What’s wrong?”
“I don’t like disasters.”
“They happen sometimes,” he said. “It may not be as bad as it looks.”
He walked to the airlock. Hutch opened the inner hatch. He went in, glanced back to be sure she was clear, and held up a hand. Keep cool. Then he touched the control pad. The hatch closed behind him, and the lock began to decompress. When the status lamp switched from yellow to green, he opened the outer hatch…and was momentarily blinded by the light. Then it was dark. And light again. And dark.
He ramped up the filter to block out the worst of it. Welcome to Oscillation Station. It flickered in and out of view. Hutch would be getting the same picture on her display.
He paused at the edge of the lock and shut down the boot magnets. The jetpack was there only as a precaution, in case he missed. Though if
he missed at this range, he should seriously consider retirement. He launched himself, drifted across a few meters of open space, reactivated his boots, and landed directly beside the hatch.
He straightened up, stood on the hull, and his perspective shifted, as it always did in this circumstance. The side of the hull became the deck, and the hatch slipped under him. The light pulses, which had been more or less vertical, went horizontal. The Copperhead was now immediately overhead. It made him briefly dizzy.
“You okay, Jake?”
“I’m fine.” But he waited until his senses cleared.
The airlock controls were protected by a cover. He lifted it, pressed the pad, and the hatch slid back.
The chamber was big. It would easily have accommodated eight or nine people. He lowered himself into it, put his feet on the bulkhead that was actually the deck, and the world rotated again.
He pressed the interior control pad, which should close the outer door, and put air into the lock. But nothing happened. The status lights didn’t even come on.
The inner door had an emergency panel. He opened it, extracted a handle, and twisted it. Had there been air pressure on the other side, the hatch would not have opened.
But it did.
And he saw the carnage. There was a gaping hole in the overhead. The relentless light, bright and dark, on and off, swept in through it, illuminating a smashed deck and a tumble of scorched and broken equipment. What had been the passenger cabin was blasted beyond recognition. He climbed through the wreckage into an adjoining compartment which, when he’d been here before, had been used for planning. Now it was simply twisted black metal.
The deck was gone. The meteor had ripped through everything.
He went back through the passenger cabin and onto the bridge. Part of an incinerated corpse had been thrown against the controls. He heard Hutchins catch her breath. It was probably Hal, but there was no way to be sure.
The seats were blistered, the equipment blown apart. There were other seared body parts, and two shredded Gonzos like the one he was wearing.
“I’m sorry, Jake,” said Hutchins in a voice he barely recognized.
Me too, he thought. “I know,” he said. He stumbled around in the wreckage, and then followed the passageway aft. Eventually, the damage faded, and he was walking through a dining area and then cargo space.
He came finally to a closed hatch. A red light came on. Do not open: There was air pressure on the other side.
“Can’t go that way,” said Hutchins.
She had a genius, he decided, for stating the obvious.
“Hutch, let me talk to Benny, please.”
“I’m here, Jake.”
“Is there another airlock anywhere?”
“There’s one below in the cargo area. But forward.”
“I don’t expect that’ll be much help. Anything else?”
“There’s an access hatch in the aft section.”
He went back out through the airlock and began walking aft along the hull. “It’s up at the base of the main telescope,” said Benny.
He climbed atop the ship. A scanner had locked on the Copperhead. Several lights burned in a cluster of sensors and dishes. Farther along, a telescope was turning slowly. Beyond that lay a pair of support towers, jutting maybe twenty meters above the hull, and behind them, the main scope. The towers were connected to its base.
“The access hatch is between the two towers,” said Benny.
It was smaller than the main airlock. The two towers rose over him, and the telescope, in turn, dwarfed them. He pressed gently on the control pad. It worked this time and the hatch slid easily out of sight. He climbed down into the chamber, closed the hatch behind him, and a yellow lamp came on. Air began flowing. “This end still has power, Hutch,” he said. She knew that, of course. She’d have been watching everything, but his natural inclination was to talk to her. So he did. “You okay?”
“Sure.” She paused. “Maybe somebody survived. Someone might have been on this side of the door.”
“Let’s hope.” The green light came on, the inner hatch opened and revealed an illuminated lounge area. It looked comfortable. Six empty chairs were arranged around a table. Several cabinets were set along the bulkhead. The place was untouched by the disaster up front.
He checked the gauge on his suit. Air pressure in the lounge was normal. Somewhere, an engine was running. He removed his helmet. The air felt oppressive. Thin. A vent was putting out no air flow. “Hello,” he said. “Anybody here?”
Deep behind the bulkhead, he could feel the thrum of electronics.
There was a closed hatch to his left, with a red light glowing. He suspected it was the one that had barred his way on the other side. Across from him, the lounge opened into a passageway. Six closed doors, three on either side, lined the bulkhead. The corridor then emptied into a workout area. He could see a stationary bike.
He laid his helmet on the table, and called again: “Anybody?” He took a deep breath. “Hutch,” he said, “life support is down.”
“Okay. Be careful. Keep in mind, if you get in trouble I can’t come after you.”
“I know.” He walked through the lounge. Saw a couple of containers stashed behind one of the chairs. Turned into the passageway. He stopped at the first set of doors. He touched the one on his right gently, then knocked. “Anybody there?” When nobody answered, he opened it. Padded chair, bunk with sheets neatly tucked, cabinet, monitor. Curtains were still stretched over the bulkhead where once there’d been portals.
The Copperhead was like that, too.
One by one, he opened the other doors. One in the middle was a washrooom. The others were identical compartments. He looked in cabinets and found clothes, notebooks, toothbrushes, and other incidentals.
He was opening the last door when something stirred. “Somebody’s here,” he said.
“I’d given up hope, Jake.”
It came again. Barely audible. But not in the compartment. It was in with the stationary bike. “The workout room.” He was whispering. Didn’t know why. “Hello?” he said. Softly.
Still nothing.
The room had a zero-gee pool, two stretch chairs, and bands you could use to anchor yourself to the deck while you touched your toes or did sit-ups. The bulkhead was lined with cabinets. Several were open. One contained breathing gear for the pool.
Another was loaded with towels.
And in a third was a cat.
It looked out at him, stretched, and climbed down onto the deck. It was wearing magnetic booties.
Tawny.
“I don’t believe it,” said Hutchins.
It was calico, with a white spot on top of its head. It inspected him, walked over, whimpered, and rubbed against his ankle. “You must be glad to have company, Tawny,” he said.
Its eyes were black. They locked on him, and he thought he saw fear in them. But that had to be his imagination.
“There’s a litter box over in the corner,” said Hutch. “It must have been back here when it happened.”
He picked her up. Not it. Her. “Say hello to Tawny, Priscilla.”
“You knew there was a cat on board?”
“Oh, yes. Tawny and I are old friends.” He took off a glove and rubbed her head. “I wonder how long she’s been caught back here?”
He started back toward the passageway, but Tawny wanted to be on her own. So he put her down, but she followed him. The containers behind the chairs held her provisions. A thick plastic bag had bits of meat in a sticky gravy. The bag was fastened to the bulkhead, and it had a slit which would have allowed her to retrieve the food. The bag was almost empty, but there would be more of it around somewhere. As long as they hadn’t kept it up front.
Her water was in a soft plastic bottle.
“So,” he said, “how do we get her off the station?”
Tawny walked over to bottle and pressed on it with her paws. A small blob of water emerged from a dispenser and floated in mid
air. The cat swallowed it and sat down, behaving as if this were the natural order of things.
“She’s cute,” said Hutchins.
“Yeah.”
“Doesn’t look as if anybody else made it, though.”
“Apparently not. I’d guess they were all up front.”
“Benny says there are two suits on the station. Maybe you could locate one of them. Put her inside and bring her back that way.”
“The suits were torn up in the explosion.”
“You saw them?”
“Yes.” Tawny had come back to him and was pushing her head into his ankle again.
“Maybe you should go back and take a second look.”
“Damn it, Hutch, I saw the suits. They’re useless.”
“That’s not good.”
Jake stared into those dark eyes. She knows.
“They’re going to have to send out a salvage team. She might survive until they get here.”
“It’s going to take them a while. The air’s already getting bad.”
“Well—”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“I don’t want to leave her, Hutch.”
“I can’t see that you have any choice.”
He sat down in one of the chairs, drew a belt across his lap to hold himself in place, leaned over, and petted her. She purred. Her back rose, encouraging him.
“Jake,” she said, “the kindest thing you could do would be to put her to sleep. End it.”
“You mean open the hatch.”
“It would be quick.”
Tawny stared up at him.
“Jake, it’s only a cat—”
“Damn it, Priscilla. Shut up.” He picked up his glove and, in frustration, threw it across the room. Tawny darted behind one of the chairs.
Unfortunately there was no way he could squeeze Tawny into the Gonzo suit. So what option did he have? If they were in a normal rescue situation, he could have put Tawny in a container and hustled her across to the Copperhead. But here, he couldn’t even open the airlock hatch for a moment without admitting a fatal dose of radiation.
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