Outpost

by Allan Baillie

  I wouldn’t like his job, thought Dece. It was bad enough getting the Tug into the hold, but this was worse. He doesn’t want to move – not much at all – and he doesn’t want to hit us.

  Maybe he can’t do it …

  Another tiny jet started up on the other side of the engines. The Tug lurched a little and sparks came from the nozzle as it scraped against the deck. Two other jets appeared towards the bridge. The Tug rocked from side to side and the nozzle cleared the deck.

  ‘Now?’ Seps darted closer to the Tug, pulling the carrier and Dece from the safety of the other side.

  ‘No!’ Cap shouted in their helmets. ‘Not yet. I’ve got to stabilise it.’

  The Tug swooped towards Seps. She gasped, dropped the cable and scrambled back. The Tug reared away from her and back to Dece.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Cap called in alarm.

  ‘Yess-ss.’

  The hissing jets slowly calmed down and the Tug stopped bucking around the hold. Eventually it crept down to the deck and then floated like a balloon.

  ‘All right. Now,’ Cap said with a light tremble in his voice. ‘But be quick!’

  Seps and Dece pulled the carrier under the nozzle and they both yelled, ‘Now!’

  They hurried back to the walls, but it wasn’t necessary, as Cap made the Tug waft down very slowly. Dece could see the nozzle folding as it touched the carrier, then all the jets died and the Tug settled down on the deck.

  The work on the nozzle and the engine developed into boredom and growing tiredness. Cap gave Dece the job of removing the cowls from the nozzle with a machine. It sounded simple and easy but Dece counted fifty-three bolts, and some were underneath the nozzle and four were damaged. Cap and Seps worked on One Engine while he battled with the bolts and he felt that they had the better job. Especially Cap – he had the microrobots working on the other side of the engine.

  But he thought, That’s all right. I don’t mind boredom, dull work. Anything but chasing the Tug around the hold. That is Seps’ –

  Cap nudged him. ‘How’s it going?’

  ‘Terrible. I can’t get that.’ Dece pointed to two of the damaged bolts and the bolts’ underside.

  ‘It’s all right.’ Cap picked up the cutter and motioned Seps and Dece away from the engines. He turned on the cutter and carefully cut One Engine’s nozzle where it crumpled across the cowl of Two Engine. The nozzle rolled slightly, keeping loose from One Engine, and settled on the carrier. Two Engine’s nozzle sprang free and the engine creaked against One Engine.

  Dece lifted the crippled nozzle to float a little above the deck, and Seps joined him to pull it away from the engines. ‘Cap, where do you want it?’

  Cap glanced at him. ‘Just shove it in the corner of the ship hold.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘We can’t take it back. Unload it and bring it back to that carrier.’

  Dece and Seps towed the nozzle near a wall and Cap tipped it from the carrier. They moved away without looking back or at each other.

  It was only a piece of metal, but it was a part of the Tug, a part of them that would be left in the wreckage of the ship. Or were they going to stay with that nozzle? Dece didn’t want to think about that.

  When they brought the carrier back to the Tug, Cap was ready for them. He got them to slide the carrier under One Engine. The microrobots buzzed. The heavy motor sagged and dropped slowly. Two and Three Engines shifted, but the Tug looked like a prehistoric monster with one huge fang pulled out.

  ‘This one, too?’ Dece said dully.

  ‘Later.’ Cap came out from the two remaining engines, holding the case and looking at it.

  Dece thought the Tug looked worse now. It didn’t look like it would ever be moving from this place.

  Cap started to shake his head at the case.

  ‘Trouble?’ said Seps.

  Dece wouldn’t have asked that. He didn’t want to know.

  ‘Always.’ Cap lifted the case as if he was thinking of hurling it at the wall. ‘The microrobots tell me Two Engine can’t be fixed without the heavy machinery we have at the Ord Base. It’s all twisted in the heart of the engine.’

  ‘Do you want Two Engine taken out as well?’ Dece blurted out. He frowned. He didn’t want that at all, but he couldn’t stop himself. He’d just asked it as if he’d wanted to stop another question from coming out.

  ‘No. I don’t think so. Not yet.’

  ‘What about Three?’ Seps said.

  Dece sagged. Three, the Three Engine, the last engine that could carry them out of here. That was the question he’d been trying to stop.

  ‘I don’t know. The microrobots are looking at it … Oh.’

  Dece looked away from him. He didn’t want to see his face.

  But Seps charged in. ‘No good?’

  ‘There are two snapped fuel feeds and a blade deep inside has splintered. The microrobots can’t fix them.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Then suddenly the ship shook to its core, as if it had grabbed some great fish and was tearing it apart. On the side of the chasm the wall began to ripple until a deep crack appeared up high. Dece watched in horror as the crack ran across the wall towards the corridor and opened out.

  It’s cracking up! thought Dece. We’re falling into Cotal!

  But the shaking died down. The crack was as long as the Tug engines and Dece could now put his arm through at the wide part. The wall had stopped ripping, but the whole ship was pulsing, as if panting after its effort.

  Dece looked at Cap and waited for a lie. Any lie.

  But Cap tightened his lips. ‘The Tug and Cotal are pulling the ship apart. The weight of the Tug is affecting the chasm and there is nothing we can do.’

  Dece looked out from the hold past the rings, past the implacable Cotal, to the explosion of stars, and felt a part of him die.

  ‘I – ’ Cap was groping for the words. ‘I am sorry to – ’

  ‘Why?’ Seps said.

  ‘Why? Because I put us – ’

  24.

  The Try

  SEPS shook her head. ‘No! Why can’t the microrobots fix it?’

  For a moment Cap looked at the crack with a puzzled expression on his face. ‘What?’ Then he nodded. ‘The Tug? Because …’ Cap looked at Seps and he realised that he didn’t know. He fiddled with the case. ‘They say because there are no parts in the Tug to fit. They’re at Ord Base.’

  ‘Oh.’

  But Cap frowned at the case. ‘Just a minute.’ And he fiddled as he talked. ‘What about One Engine? Can’t we get things from there?’

  The case purred and pinged.

  Dece sat up quickly. Something was happening.

  Cap snorted. ‘They are confused. They say there is no One Engine. It’s near the escalator, all right?’

  Dece saw the cameras on the Tug move and aim themselves at the torn engine.

  ‘Ahah? They want permission to go outside and take things from One Engine. Yes, please …’ Cap closed the case, and glanced at Seps and Dece. ‘Those robots are just like the computers; they can’t move their brains from their little boxes – until you push them.’

  Dece saw the robots roll down the escalator – square ones clicking, thin tubes slithering past, coming out like a shadow on shimmering metal. The smallest of the robots, nanorobots, were almost impossible to see individually, were more noticeable as a swarm – but they were the best of all the robots.

  ‘Is this going to … ?’ Seps murmured.

  ‘I don’t know. But we can’t do anything at the moment. Just get some sleep.’

  ‘Sleep!’

  ‘There’s nothing we can do.’ Cap said.

  Dece sprawled in his pod, convinced that he could not sleep for a moment. Not with the robots pulling apart the engine, and the hissing and shuffling and his mind racing about everything. But he was annoyed when Seps shook him after what felt like a few seconds.

  ‘What?’ he slurred.

  �
�They have finished.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The robots have stopped. Cap has gone outside to have a look.’

  ‘Oh.’ Dece checked the time. He had been in the pod for six hours. He staggered up and Seps steadied him.

  When he took the escalator outside he looked at the crack and it had grown. He was surprised by how clean the Tug was. One Engine had gone and so had the carrier. Cap was studying the nozzle of Three Engine and it looked different.

  ‘It … ?’ Seps said.

  ‘We’ll have to wait until we get to the bridge.’ Cap smiled at Seps. A weak smile, but it was there. ‘That is a good sign.’ He nodded at the nozzle.

  Finally Dece saw the new parts at the bottom of the nozzle where the crumbling corner had been.

  ‘I didn’t ask the robots to do that, but I did give them permission to take things from One Engine. They worked out that the nozzle had to be fixed. So they fixed it. And they cleaned the area around the Tug because they worked out it would be leaving.

  ‘Clever robots,’ said Seps.

  ‘We’ll see.’ Cap slapped the nozzle and moved towards the escalator.

  Dece and Seps followed him to the bridge. They watched him put the case into its slot and move to his seat. There was a weak yellow light on the board, which Dece hadn’t seen before. When Cap pushed the buttons, red figures rippled on the screen, but there were green figures too.

  What happens if the engine won’t fire? thought Dece. I guess we stay in the pods as the ship falls apart and destroys the Tug.

  Dece felt his mouth go dry and he licked his lips.

  Cap glanced at him and nodded. ‘One Engine?’

  ‘There’s a new light.’ Dece pointed at the yellow.

  ‘The computers have finally found the ship’s beacon. Come on, Dece! One Engine?’

  ‘Oh, no, nothing for One Engine.’ Dece shrugged.

  ‘Two Engine?’

  Dece sighed. ‘Nothing for Two Engine.’ He felt the ship lurch from the Tug and jerk up.

  ‘Concentrate, Dece! Three Engine.’

  ‘Nothing for …’

  ‘What?’

  Dece looked up and saw Cap’s frown and Seps’ fright.

  ‘Wait, wait! I was wrong. Sorry, sorry. I was reading Two Engine again.’

  ‘Yes, all right. Give me Three.’

  ‘Three Engine is fine. It is great!’

  Seps closed her eyes and breathed slowly.

  ‘All right!’ Cap said. ‘We can get ready. I’ll turn the Tug so the nozzle is facing the back wall.’

  Cap ignored the engine and jiggled with the jets. The Tug rose from the deck and Cap manoeuvred it in the hold, watching the screen below, behind, above and ahead.

  Dece’s eyes were darting from screen to screen. We can’t crash now –

  Seps shrieked, ‘Storm!’

  Ice thundered into the hold, causing the ship to buck. The screens shook.

  It’s my fault, thought Dece. I hexed it.

  Any second, the Tug’s nozzle could hit the wild deck and tear the ship apart, and if the ship tore apart they were finished.

  Cap’s arms were uncertainly shifting over the buttons. And then he stopped moving.

  ‘Hang on!’ His arms rippled over the buttons, and jets fired out from the Tug.

  Dece felt the Tug thrust forwards and a wall surged up on the screen. But the wall was sliding to the right and on another screen an open door was growing. The screen was blurry from ice splattering the cameras, and Dece was trying to make sense of it when Seps screamed.

  ‘What?’ Cap wouldn’t look at her.

  ‘We are out!’ Seps pointed at the other screens showing the black hole of the hold and the ship spreading as the screens moved back.

  Cap nodded and killed the jets. He moved to the button to ignite Three Engine, hesitated, glanced at both Seps and Dece, and pushed the button.

  Dece didn’t need to look at the racing green numbers on the screens. He could feel the acceleration in his seat, feel the ice particles thundering against the hull as he saw the ship sliding away. At last, the lonely alien was left alone again with his view of the crowded stars.

  25.

  Choice

  CAP looked at the weak yellow light on the control board and killed the engine. ‘We can’t leave it like that.’

  Dece stared at the button and trembled.

  Cap pointed at the yellow light. ‘That is our computer working out what to do. I haven’t told you everything about the alien ship. Remember how that beacon started working once you moved onto the deck? I know, because you told me that’s when you started hearing noises. On the Tug, we have a gadget that can register any new life, any little bug. Just in case. The gadget triggers a warning on the Tug and to Control. Every ship, shuttle, wandering satellite has that same gadget. Well, the alien ship has something like this gadget, too, and that beacon will eventually tell the aliens we are here. They will come to Ord – eventually. We want that, don’t we?’

  Dece didn’t look at him.

  ‘But if the ship is destroyed then the beacon won’t go. The aliens may send a probe to investigate, but that’s it. Now, I want you to vote.’

  ‘A vote!’ Seps was shocked.

  ‘This time. So: we can pull that ship from the rings and put it in orbit around Ord to save it for our scientists … and the aliens. Do we?’

  Seps stared into Cap’s eyes and then she looked at Dece. ‘But …’

  Dece was horrified. The lame Tug with only one engine! And missing some of its jets. Cap had gone mad.

  Cap looked at Dece, at his wide eyes, and turned to Seps for a long moment.

  Dece thought about Saphare. The scientist with deep caution built into his body. He would go home, right? Get that crippled Tug back to Ord and that’s it. But then, he died probing the unstable Dreaming Sea for a slight chance of finding a tiny bug. What would he do with an alien ship?

  He closed his eyes, swallowed, turned to Cap and spoke slowly. ‘I think we have to – ’

  But Cap waved him down. ‘No, no. That was stupid. I am the captain; it’s not fair to put that on you.’

  Dece blinked at him.

  Cap hit the red button and Three Engine fired.

  Seps glanced at Dece and moved her eyes to the ship, which was slightly lost in the ice rings.

  Now they would go back.

  ‘Hey.’ Seps sounded confused. ‘We’re going out.’

  Dece watched in amazement as the ship slid away.

  ‘Yes, we are going home. It was too dangerous. Boss would kill me if I didn’t get you lot back to her.’ Cap had the beginnings of a smile.

  Dece glanced at Seps. He looked at the ship and thought, Something great happened there, but I don’t really understand it.

  Cap slapped his shoulder. ‘We will come back once the Tug is fixed.’

  ‘With me … ?’ said Seps.

  He nodded. ‘Of course. We just need the ship to hang there a little longer.’

  Dece thought, And that fragile single engine …

  Cap gave the Tug to the computers. The engine slowed down. On the right, a few jets fired and the Tug drifted from Cotal to the stars. The bow found the small, blue Ord, but turned again and the engine stopped.

  Seps looked at Cap, but he didn’t seem to be worried.

  When she looked at Dece he smiled at her. ‘It’s all right.’

  ‘Now …’ Cap pressed the communication button. ‘The Tug calling Ord Base.’

  Silence.

  ‘Boss? Can you hear – ?’

  ‘You’re there!’ Boss’s voice was trembling through the cold space. ‘I thought … Where are you?’

  ‘We are coming home. You can see us on the screens.’

  ‘I couldn’t raise you for – for a long time! What happened?’

  ‘We had to put the Tug inside the alien ship and we couldn’t get through to you from there.’

  Dece blurted, ‘We hit the ship.’ He realised what that sounded li
ke and shut up.

  But it was too late. ‘Is everyone all right?’ Boss was almost shrieking.

  ‘We’re fine.’ Cap glared at Dece. ‘Nobody is hurt.’

  ‘Except the Tug,’ said Boss.

  Cap hesitated. ‘No, but it’s all right. Just a few little things.’

  ‘Little things? I can see the Tug coming at me and the stern looks torn apart. It looks like your engines are dead.’

  ‘One of them is working.’

  ‘One! One! How will you get down with just that?’

  ‘We can do it.’ He was looking at Dece and Seps, telling them with his expression that it was important they believe him, almost as important as it was that Boss did. ‘We have the jets and Ord is small.’

  ‘I … Yes, of course. You know the Tug, I know that. But just be careful.’

  ‘I will. And you have to be careful too. We did go into the alien ship; we went everywhere.’

  ‘All right, I’ll fix it. Just get down.’

  Boss talked with Seps and Dece but didn’t ask anything at all about the ship. Dece figured that she would find out everything once the Tug had landed and she wouldn’t think of another possible outcome than the Tug landing safely.

  Then Cap said, ‘All right, enough of the gossip. We have to work.’

  Ord took up the entire screen, blue ice sea and black mountains.

  ‘Love,’ Boss said softly.

  Dece had never heard that from her before.

  ‘Eh?’ Evidently Cap hadn’t either.

  ‘Good luck.’

  ‘Thanks, love.’

  The computers fired the jets on the left side and the Tug began to turn. Dece was reading the numbers as Three Engine swung towards Ord. The jets stopped.

  Cap said, ‘Now?’ But he didn’t do anything.

  After a few moments, Three Engine fired. Dece was pushed deep into his seat. He stared at Cotal in the main screen, feeling a nameless dread.