She means to lift--without any of us aboard! Flayed by that unnerving certainty, Morgan shot the woman for whom he felt more than comradely concern a glance of frowning disapproval. The forbidding scowl his wordless reproach engendered prompted him to respond by shrugging his broad shoulders directly in Signe's sight. He nonetheless obeyed her order. Striding out onto the bridge, he dropped through the hatch in the wake of the others.
Signe seated herself in the first helm couch. The insertion of an invention of Jassy's into a port on the board allowed her to bypass the feature requiring the operator to key in the startup-code to activate the ship's systems. Reclining, the interloper drew the top half of the harness over her, and fastened the cocoon encasing her from feet to chest. The directory of the functions available rose on a screen. Accessing those supplying certain data, she studied the display, ignoring Dahl the while.
Video screens showed the space outside the hull as the human eye would perceive the view. Graphic displays depicted a stylized image of the vessel resting upon the lock. After launch, the neophyte knew, the progress of the ship along its programmed flight path would appear on those screens. Boldly, she scrolled through the program for lifting the ship.
Dahl lay watching his world's archfoe, the fear convulsing his gut twitching not one muscle of his lean, brown, tough face.
At length, Signe turned merciless eyes on her captive. "I've altered the circumstances, Dahl," she asserted levelly, each word stabbing like a knife into the man's vitals. "The choice you make now will affect ten of your people, not merely yourself. That may cause you to reconsider your decision. I'll accept any instruction you offer me. If you give me none, I'll do the best I can with the theoretical knowledge I've acquired."
"If you crash this ship against the lock, you'll destroy ship and station, and kill your complement of veteran captains," Dahl observed evenly.
Admiration generated a fleeting, sarcastic smile. "Along with forty miners and all ten of your surviving spacers¾men whose lives you value." Intuitively, the Gaean sensed the fear underlying the Columbian's hard-held control. Her incisive voice shaded into a calculatedly reasoned tone as she observed, "Dahl, if each one of you in turn made the sacrifice you stood ready to make back there, that collective response wouldn't have kept us out of space. One way or another, we'll achieve mobility in the void. If you decide to cooperate, you'll save at least eleven Columbian lives, and all you'll give us is time. Think about that." Having raked with a penetrating glance the trussed Captain bleakly digesting her words, Signe turned her full attention to performing certain necessary computations.
Dahl strained suddenly against the tape. An adrenaline rush lent strength born of desperation to muscular arms and wrists--strength inadequate to enable him to breach the bonds. Giving up the effort, he mastered himself. Stony-faced, he watched his enemy painstakingly calculate, feed the results into the program, and check her work against a similar sequence stored in the ship's databank.
Noting a disparity, Signe frowned. Keeping his voice steady, Dahl explained how to correct the error. The usurper accepted the advice gravely, as if she expected it to be offered. Having recalculated, she entered new figures. Her mentor continued to coach her. At length, satisfied that the program would lift the vessel safely into a low orbit around the planetoid, the Gaean reached for the control governing the propulsive system.
A sharp objection from her captive jangled nerves strung to fever pitch.
"Signe, wait," Dahl barked. "Your hostages are crammed five to a cabin featuring only two harness-equipped bunks. Let me warn my spacers what to expect." They face trauma you could have spared them, had you taken the time to allow them to use eight bunks and two of the couches out here, the dispossessed Captain fumed inwardly. You have to know that much!
Shades of my ancestors, I thought only of securing them , the woman intensely focused on her self-imposed task chided herself. Well, those superbly trained spacers won't suffer any harm. Damned if I'll put myself out to show compassion to brutes themselves incapable of pity . Wordlessly, she switched on the intercommunication system long enough to allow her captive to address the hostages.
"You're in no extreme danger," Dahl ended his communication. Not yet, anyway, the Columbian mentally qualified that reassurance delivered in a crisp, calm voice. Damn this daring bitch!
Resolutely, Signe pulled the lever that caused the air to be withdrawn from the lock, activated the mechanism that would, at the proper time, allow release of the clamps holding ship to lock, and initiated the lift sequence. The ensuing surge of nausea she dominated by forcing herself to concentrate on the job at hand. A slight disorientation added to her distress, as her gaze shifted from the forward video screen, in which unwinking stars seemed to flow in stately grandeur across an immense blackness, to the panel displaying the rear view.
Fascinated, the Gaean watched the planetoid drop rapidly away, faintly visible as a black shape obscuring a shifting panoramic sprawl of other star-veiled black deeps. The giant turquoise planet, which the barren rock orbited, hung in majestic splendor, evoking wonder in the beholder seeing it for the first time on the huge, exceptionally high-resolution screens integral to the board of an Earth-built military ship.
Swiveling her eyes to the graphic display, she followed the ship's progress along the spiral trajectory, noting the colorful depiction of the programmed orbit. Gamely, she sought to interpret the rapidly changing figures projected to the right of that screen--to no avail. Fervently hoping that those numbers indicated no problem needing manual correction, she stole a glance at her captive, and satisfied herself that he monitored data foreign to her understanding.
Excitement mounted as Signe watched the ship's trajectory merge into the projected orbit on the graphic display. When the downward force pressing her into the couch vanished, she touched the switch that set the vertical torus rotating within its protective sheath. Stoically, she ignored the violent protest from her stomach as a powerful sideways thrust racked her tense body. That discomfort vanished after the angular speed reached a uniform rate, producing a sense that the occupants of the vessel once again possessed weight.
An audible sigh of relief escaped the usurper. I have to admire this captain's guts, she silently admitted. Well, he'll need them, in short order . Turning, she studied her tight-lipped captive, the inflexibility of her determination obvious to him. Projecting supreme assurance, she demanded to be shown how to enter a call-code that would enable those manning the board on the station to initiate the programmed sequence so that the vessel would descend and dock automatically.
His pulse racing, Dahl weighed that order. Is this accursed slut insuring against my refusing to show her how to dock? Should I try to keep her stranded here in orbit until Norman sends a ship? Some hotheaded captain who'd willingly sacrifice an Earth-armed vessel to annihilate Signe--not to mention a discredited rival officer who failed abysmally in his duty? That's an option … no. No way. This damned whore would forge ahead regardless, and most likely make some egregious error that'd end with the ship's crashing into the station, killing fifty-one men instead of eleven. So do it, spacer . Keeping his voice even, the Columbian coached his captor, who programmed a descent sequence, and entered a call-code known only to herself and Dahl.
That task completed, Signe raised her couch and that of her mentor. Unfastening her harness, she gained her feet. A vague uneasiness forced itself on her awareness, and troubled her splendid physique. Recalling that certain physical effects inevitably took a toll on Earth-evolved bodies when their owners sought to function within man-made rotating systems, the novice ignored the disturbing sensations.
Startled, apprehensive, chafing at his helplessness, Dahl watched his foe warily as she freed him of his harness. Acting with speed generated by the imminence of achieving a cherished goal, Signe strapped her captive's taped forearms against his chest, bound his feet together, and refastened the stiff fabric around him.
What in hell is this demented
wretch doing? Dahl railed in impotent fury. She can't intend … Suffering shades of the hordes of Earth, she's insane! She'll kill all of us!
Seating herself, the apprentice snapped an order into the intercommunication system. "Signe here. Prepare for weightlessness." As her hand pressed the button that stopped the rotation of the torus, she stoically endured the ensuing sideways thrust. When that passed, she freed the Columbian's trussed body from the protective gear. Determinedly, she propelled herself and him upwards to the hatch leading to the lock of a lifeboat.
When the hatch-cover sprang open in response to a touch on a switch integral to an inner plate of the hull, she floated her burden into the lock. Having closed the cover behind her, she opened the one ahead of her, and rose through the docking module of the lifeboat moored to its lock on the hull of the mothership, tugging the taut form of her captive.
Strong hands thrust Dahl's immobilized person into the inflated bottom half of the harness integral to one of the four couches crowding the cramped interior of the small craft. After slashing the bonds on his ankles, Signe fastened the glowering occupant into the cocoon of fluid-filled fabric.
Driven by determination bordering on the fanatical, the usurper strapped herself into the next couch, and surveyed her surroundings. In front of the seats permanently contoured so as to allow the occupants' bodies to recline with knees bent and shoulders slightly raised, no window loomed. Screens offered the operator the sole means of seeing where the craft headed. Below those screens, various meters, panels, and other equipment stretched in daunting array. Controls for manual operation fronted each couch, within easy reach.
The woman's action confirmed the unwilling instructor's worst suspicions. Aghast, he exclaimed hoarsely, "Signe, you can't mean to try to fly a lifeboat! The ship, yes. Its guidance and navigational system is fully automatic--controls the vessel, once you program the sequence. This boat requires some manual operations! You have to be trained--practice on simulations, and then with an instructor! What you plan is suicidal!"
Eyes gone glacial regarded the man offering that vehement objection. "Not suicidal, Dahl," Signe declared evenly. "Desperate, I'll grant you, but not the other. I'll do all in my power to assure that I live through the attempt."
"You and I alone know the call-code! If we're killed, you'll leave ten men stranded in orbit!"
"I checked the inventory. Your spacers won't suffer from hunger before a ship arrives. Its crewmen can dock a lifeboat on the empty lock, and take them off."
"If you employ too great a thrust off, you'll slow the mothership's velocity," Dahl snarled, barely controlling his rage. "It'll drop to a lower orbit--speed up! Activating the call-code afterwards will result in a crash!"
"Then you'd better figure on offering me some intensive instruction before I undock."
Frantically, the irate Columbian struggled to retain his self-control, his hard-bitten face contorted not only by wrath, but by the fear he lacked the power at this point in time to conceal. Maintaining his grip on himself, he rasped, "I can probably talk you off the ship without a disaster. I'll try my damnedest. I can also make certain that you program a trajectory correctly, but the final phase of docking on the lock on the station must be done manually. You have to be trained, Signe! Trained to handle the controls with automatic ease! You'll be denied the time to think out what to do! Make one mistake, and I won't be able to talk fast enough to instruct you how to correct your error before both of us die spaced--our boat blown, and perhaps the station as well! Unfasten my arms, at least. Let me back you!"
The derisive laughter provoked by that suggestion jarred the protester badly. "No, Dahl, I won't do that," the usurper declared adamantly. "With only his own life to consider, a man possessing your capacity for self-sacrifice might engineer a crash just to kill me. I'll chance dying while trying to learn, but I won't make you a free gift of my death. So plan a quick course of instruction--one highly comprehensive. Once I've learned what I need to know, I'll bring the ship down with no delay. My word on that."
Hearing finality in the assured voice, Dahl forced himself to take two deep, slow breaths, and concentrate on doing what he saw as an impossible task. Stifling all emotion, he put his trainee through a grueling practice drill, until he felt certain that the hands grasping stick and throttle would respond automatically to situations perceived by a mind able to decide in a split second what movement the highly maneuverable boat needed to make. The accursed bitch learns fast , the Captain used to instructing recruits grudgingly conceded. Damn her to slow rot!
Focusing the full power of a keen intelligence on her self-imposed, chancy task, coached by the foe whose inner turmoil she sensed, but ignored, Signe programmed a sequence designed to send the small vessel into a trajectory that would spiral it downwards, to the vicinity of the lock on the station. Intent on her captive's words, she heard him emphasize that during the last hundred meters of that descent, the program would cease to be fully automatic. Storing his concise admonitions in a capacious memory, she prepared for an ordeal. Her face a mask of calm, she listened as Dahl catalogued the disasters that would result from various mistakes she could easily make. Far from faltering, she hardened her resolve to extract all possible value from a unique, non-reproducible opportunity.
Signe switched on the power. Dahl watched as the vault of space--blackness emblazoned with myriads of resplendent stars, bisected by the semicircular curve of the vertical torus of the mothership--took form on the top half of the left video screen. Swiveling his head, he fixed his eyes on the dual scanning screens, one of which presented the same view in graphic form. The second double screen portrayed the bottom curve of the vertical torus upon which their craft rested.
Methodically, the pinioned spacer offered precise instruction that he desperately hoped would enable a novice daring to the point of blind fanaticism to lift the lifeboat with requisite gentleness off the lock. Calmly, he warned her to avoid crashing into the upward-curving vertical torus as she maneuvered the boat through the limited space encompassed by the twin constructs, so as to emerge in close proximity to the vessel orbiting the planetoid.
"Once we clear the mothership, we'll be flying in formation with it--moving along the same orbital path with the same velocity. From that position, our programmed descent trajectory will begin automatically, at the optimum time. We'll program that sequence before we lift," Dahl stated in a voice held commendably level.
Signe carried out the task, needing only a few minor corrections from the tutor whose respect for his captor took a quantum leap. "Not bad, your grasp of theory," he commended her noncommittally. "Did someone teach you?"
"I learned on my own--studied for Earthyears, using texts accessed from our world's bank."
Shades of the slain! Staring in wonder, Dahl shook his head, as admiration contended with gut-knotting fear. His anger he kept rigorously confined below the plane of his consciousness. His voice steady, he cautioned against the fatal error of giving the small craft too much thrust. Searchingly, he stared into the face plainly projecting an inflexible resolve to succeed or perish in the attempt.
Sweat channeled down the captive's forehead to sting his eye. Unable to alleviate the discomfort, he blinked repeatedly, prompting his trainee to withdraw a square of cloth from a pocket, and wipe his face. His mouth compressed into a tight line, he passed no comment. "Withdraw the air from the lock, activate the thrust, and lift us off," he ordered, feeling as if the knot in his gut just turned to stone.
Signe obeyed. Reflexes trained to an unbelievable degree of swiftness by half a lifetime of perfecting skill at swordsmanship and a decade-long, relentless pursuit of excellence at a martial art, served the warrior as well now as in a fight for her life. Her touch light and sure on the controls, her coordination superb, she lifted the lifeboat, which floated up like a wisp of cloud to hover in the space above the bottom curve of the vertical torus.
"Good. Throttle to starboard--easy, now. Keep going. Farther--slow us! A bi
t more--creep, damn it!"
Watch yourself, woman . Straining eyes fixed themselves on the imposing upward sweep of the vertical torus. Hands deftly maneuvered the small craft around that obstacle. Emerging from the confines of the ring, the boat proceeded outwards, passing beyond the larger circumference of the horizontal torus. The puny artifact surrounded by star-dotted infinitude continued to distance itself from the parent vessel still dominating the view in the screens.
"Far enough. Stop us. So. We're flying in formation with the mothership. Activate the descent sequence."
Nothing visibly changed as the novice obeyed. The navigational system of the small vessel executed the program. Having locked onto reference stars, the automatic controls oriented the boat, and prepared to initiate the first of several periodic bursts of retrothrust necessary to transfer the small vehicle into the programmed trajectory from an exactly determined, optimum point in the ship's orbit. Striving to relax, the woman feasted her eyes on the silvery twinned rings stretching the width of the video screens.
Scanning the face vividly reflecting the breathless exhilaration induced by her initial experience of guiding a lifeboat manually, Dahl could detect no hint of fear. I have to hand it to the bitch , he conceded bitterly. She's a natural at flying!
At length, Signe felt an invisible hand press her body back into the couch, as the guidance system sent them spiraling down out of orbit. Raptly, she watched the brown, cratered surface of the planetoid--rugged terrain thrown into sharp relief--grow ever more detailed as they approached. The terminator between the dark and sunlit hemispheres became visible. The lifeboat plunged into night-side blackness that in no way affected the view on the scanning screens. Within minutes, the tiny entity emerged from the shadow to plummet towards the pitted, barren hemisphere bathed in the light of the distant sun.
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