“Of course!” Lona crowed. “Kill our power, and all we are is a new asteroid with a high albedo!”
“Not even that, if you can get a big rock between us and the sun. Can we slow down that fast?”
“Can do.” Lona nodded. “It'll take most of our power, though, and it won't be very comfortable.”
She had a nice knack for understatement; it was hell. Not as bad as it could've been—at least she had the courtesy to turn the ship around so she could decelerate with the main engine, and they were plastered back into their seats instead of being slammed against their webbing—but they were rammed so far into their couches that Dar could've sworn he felt the hard plastic of the frame, and held his breath, waiting for the couch to either snap or spring a leak. But it held, and he began to wonder if he would. His nose felt as though it were trying to flow around both sides of his face to join his ears; his eyes tried bravely to follow their optic nerves to their sources; and after a while, it occurred to him that the reason he was holding his breath was simply that he couldn't breathe. It was about three anvils, a barrel of horseshoes, two blacksmiths, and a Percheron sitting on his chest. . . .
Then the pressure eased off, and swung him against the side of the hull as Lona turned. The acceleration couch slowly regurgitated him, and he found himself staring around at a cabin that perversely persisted in looking just the way it had before they passed through the hamburger press.
Then Lona flicked a finger at her console, and the lights went out.
All he could think of was that she was over there, and he was over here, still webbed in. It was such a horrible waste of a great situation.
Into the sudden darkness her voice murmured, “I've killed all power, so they won't have any energy emissions to track us by. Don't let it worry you; you can still see out the ports. And we won't lose heat too fast; the hull's well insulated. But the air recycler's off, and this isn't all that large a cabin for five people. So do the best you can not to breathe too much. Breathe lightly—sleep if you can. And don't talk—that's a waste of air.”
“If the power's off, your detectors're out,” Father Marco murmured.
“Right. We won't know where they are, except by sight. Which doesn't do too much good, of course—they could be far enough away to only show as a speck of light, but they could still get here in a matter of minutes.”
“So, how will we know when to turn the lights back on?” Whitey asked.
“When the air starts getting foul,” Lona answered. “When you start feeling short of breath, and drowsy.”
“But they might still be nearby then,” Dar objected.
“Life is filled with these little chances,” Lona murmured. “But let's make it as long a wait as we can. No more talking.”
Sibilant silence descended on the cabin, filled with the rasp and wheeze of people in various states of health trying to control their breathing. After a few minutes, someone began to snore softly—Whitey, no doubt; Dar could only admire his composure. For himself, he was watching nervously out the nearest porthole, and, sure enough, there was the tiny dot of light, swelling rapidly, turning into a Patrol cruiser which shot by overhead so close that Dar had to fight the urge to duck.
“One pass,” Lona murmured.
“Gadget-lovers,” Father Marco chuckled. “They don't trust their eyes anymore; if it isn't on a sensor-screen, it doesn't exist.”
“Then, pretend we don't,” Sam hissed. “Shut up!”
The patrol cruiser slid out from the top of the vast asteroid that hid the Ray of Hope. Dar held his breath; if there were a single eye actually watching out a porthole, all he'd ever know about it would be a huge red flash that just might burn out his life before it melted his eyes. But, come to think of it, he didn't even see any portholes, and the big ship drifted on past them and disappeared into a cluster of space junk.
Sam heaved a sigh of relief, but Lona hissed, “Belay that!”
“What?” Sam protested. “Breathing?”
“You were hoping,” Lona accused.
“What's wrong with that?” Sam demanded, but Father Marco assured her, “It's too soon.”
And right he was, because here came the space-shark again, drifting up so closely above them that Dar halfway expected it to ask if he was interested in life insurance. But there must have been enough nickel-iron in their friendly asteroidal neighborhood to hide the Ray of Hope's mettle, because the cruiser lifted its nose and rose above them, more and more quickly until it disappeared into the clutter of floating rock overhead.
A multiple sigh filled the cabin, and Whitey croaked, “Huh? Wha'sa matter? They find us? Huh? What?”
“I think they went up above the plane of the ecliptic. Grandpa,” Lona assured him.
“Hoping to get a better view of the situation—looking down at us,” Dar suggested.
“Can I hope now?” Sam squeaked.
A huge bass chime shook the cabin, and Lona hit the power key. “Only if we get out of here,” she answered Sam. “That was our first visiting neighbor; hinting we should move out of the neighborhood.”
“A little asteroid, colliding with us,” Dar explained as the lights came on and gravity sucked him back down into his seat. “It's a wonder it's only the first one; they could've knocked us to bits by now.”
“Not really,” Lona said, punching buttons. “We came in above the plane of the ecliptic, matched velocities with this asteroid, and swooped in right next to it. Most of the local pebbles are in orbit around it. That little stone that just hit us shot in from a close bypass with another big rock. It was just a matter of time before it came calling though.”
“But it won't happen again if we're going back above the plane of the ecliptic?”
“Are you kidding?” Lona snorted. “That Patrol boat's up there! We're going below, sister, so we'll have the whole depth of the asteroid belt between us and them, to foul their sensors! Brace yourselves, everyone—this is going to be a rough ride!”
“Nos morituri te salutamus,” Father Marco intoned.
We who are about to die, salute thee . . . Dar shivered. “You could've thought of a cheerier blessing, Father.”
“You speak Latin?” Father Marco cried in surprise. “What are you—a fossil?”
“No—I just got stoned at Cholly's a lot.” Then Dar's stomach rose as the ship sank and a huge gong reverberated through the hull.
“Nothing to worry about.” Lona's voice was tight with strain. “It can't really hurt us unless it's as big as my head, and I can swerve around anything that size—I think.”
Then Whitey was pointing upward out the porthole and shouting—but the gist of his comment was lost in another huge BONG! as red lightning lit the cabin and the ship bucked like a metal bull. Over the fading chime, Dar could hear Lona cursing as she fought to stabilize the craft. The red glow faded—and left them in darkness broken only by the shards of reflected sunlight from the dancing asteroids around them. Sam shouted in panic, and everybody started talking at once.
“BELAY IT!” Lona shouted, and a sudden, eerie silence fell. Dar drew in a long, trembling breath. Whatever had happened, it was really bad!
“They were waiting for us,” Lona said into the hush. “As soon as we fired up, their sensors locked their battle computer on us and let loose a ball of pure energy—several, really; the first few just vaporized the junk between us and them. The last one knocked off our tail section. As it is, we're lucky—if I hadn't swerved to avoid a rock, they'd have caught us right in this cabin.”
“They're rising again.” Whitey had his head craned back against the viewport, staring upward.
“Sure.” Lona shrugged. “They didn't just shear away our engines—they blew away our reactor, too. There's no power left for them to ‘sense.' Besides, why should they bother hunting down the pieces? They know we're dead now, anyway.”
Sam strangled a sob.
“Take heart,” Father Marco said sternly. “We aren't dead.”
�
�We do have emergency power,” Lona agreed. “It'll keep recycling air while it lasts—and the sun's radiation'll keep us warm, if we block the portholes on the far side. And we have a couple of weeks' rations.”
“Will the power last that long?” Sam's voice was hollow.
Lona was silent.
“It will, if we don't talk much and can do without light,” Whitey answered. “Of course, we can't go anywhere.”
Father Marco grunted in surprise. “I didn't know you knew any physics.”
“I was an engineer before I was a bard.” Dar could hear Whitey's grin. “Who else could make enough sense out of this civilization to set it to music? But I'm a gambler, too.”
Dar felt the dread coalescing into terror.
“Just what kind of gamble did you have in mind?” Father Marco's voice echoed with foreboding.
“Well, we can't go to help,” Whitey mused, “so we've got to make it come to us.”
Dar cleared his throat, which pushed the fear back down. “You're talking about a distress signal.”
“It'd give us a little chance, at least,” Whitey answered. “Without it, we're dead—unless you can arrange a miracle, Father.”
“I'm afraid my connections don't quite run that high.” The priest sounded amused. “Even if St. Vidicon reaches out to us, we've got to give him a handle to grab us by—some sort of action to put us into the ring of coincidence.”
“How much energy would it leave us?” Dar dreaded the answer.
“If it's going to be strong enough to do us any good, we'll have to put half our remaining power into it,” Lona answered.
“A week's worth.” Dar wet his lips. “That gives us a week for somebody to hear us and get here.”
They were all silent.
A week! something shrieked within Dar Only a week to live! I've never even been in love!
“We don't really have any choice, do we?” Sam said softly.
The cabin was silent again.
Then Sam heaved herself upright and leaned forward to the communications panel. “All right. How do you want it?”
Breath hissed out in a sigh of consensus.
“Broadband.” Lona slapped keys, routing the emergency power to communications. “Just the traditional Mayday, with our coordinates.”
Sam leaned forward to the audio pickup and thumbed the transmit key.
“Don't give the name of the ship,” Whitey said quickly.
Sam hesitated, then spoke. “Mayday, Mayday! Distressed spacer at 10:32:47 V.E., 5:22 below P.E. Mayday, Mayday! Moribund!”
Moribund. . . . “Death-bound.” Dar felt the dread wrap around him, creeping up his spine.
Sam shut down her board.
“Leave trickle-power on,” Lona advised. “If salvage does come, they'll need contact—a second of arc is a big distance out here.”
Sam hesitated, and Dar could almost hear her thoughts—how much life-time would they lose to that trickle? But I.C. grains drew only a few milliwatts per hour, and a rescuer a mile away who couldn't spot them was no better than no rescuer at all. Sam nodded, cracked one slider, and left her main on.
The cabin was silent again; then Lona said, “Now we wait. . . .”
. . . for death. Dar completed the sentence in his head. “What do we do with our minds?”
The silence became acutely uncomfortable.
Then Father Marco stirred. “I do know a little about meditation. Would anyone like a mantra?”
“Burro-boat FCC 651919 to distressed spacer. Respond, please.”
Dar sat bolt upright, staring at the first pair of eyes he saw—Lona's, fortunately. “So soon? Where was he, just around the corner?”
“It's been two hours. . . .”
“Even so. . . .”
“Burro-boat, this is distressed spacer,” Sam snapped into her pickup. “Can you rescue?”
“Distressed spacer, I can rescue and am in your vicinity, but need transmission to home on. Please continue transmission of carrier wave.”
“Burro-boat, will do. We await you anxiously.” Sam locked down the “transmit” button, but covered the pickup with her hand and swiveled to face the others. “It doesn't have to be the Patrol, you know.”
“If it is, we'll know in a minute.” Whitey gave her a dry smile. “As soon as they get a locus on us, they'll blast us to vapor.”
Sam flinched, and whirled back to her console.
“No!” Lona snapped. “It might be legit—and if it's not, I'd rather steam than starve, anyway!”
Sam hesitated, but she left the “transmit” button on.
“And it could be honest,” Father Marco pointed out. “The prospectors flit all over the belt in their burro-boats. Why shouldn't there have been one two hours away?”
Lona's eyes glazed. “Well, the probabilities . . .”
“Spare us,” Whitey said quickly. “Have you been praying for St. Vidicon's help, Father?”
Father Marco squirmed. “It couldn't hurt, could it?”
“Not at all. He might've stacked the deck in our favor.” Whitey craned his neck, staring out the porthole. “Dar, take the starboard view. What do you see?”
“Just asteroids. . . . No, one of them's getting bigger. . . . There!”
There was a concerted rush to the starboard portholes.
“Is that a ship?” Dar gasped.
It was dingy gray, and it might've been a sphere once, but it was so pocked with crater dents that it looked just like any of the asteroids. Two paraboloid dishes sprouted from its top, one round for radio and microwave, the other elongated, for radar. Below them, the hull sloped down to two huge windows; the miners liked naked-eye backup for their scanners. Below them, the hull kept sloping until it reached the loading bay: two huge holes, housing solenoids, for small bits of ore; below it, a “mouth” for big chunks. Beneath a bulbous belly hung two pairs of pincers, one fore and one aft, for grappling onto small asteroids that were two big for loading. From the aft section sprouted a spray of antennae that set up a force-field to prevent rearend collisions by small asteroids.
“It's beautiful,” Sam breathed.
The burro-boat rotated, broadside-on to the Ray of Hope, and a small hatch opened in its side. A magnetic grapple shot out, trailing a line. It clanged onto their hull.
“Distressed spacer,” said the com console, “We are prepared for boarding.”
Sam dived for the console. “Acknowledge, burro-boat. We'll just slide into our pressure suits, and be right over.”
Whitey swung out a section of the wall. “I hope they left the suits when they mothballed this thing. . . . There they are!”
All five crowded around, feasting their eyes on their means of escape.
“Air?” Sam said doubtfully.
Dar snorted. “So hold your breath. It's only a hundred yards!” He hauled down a suit and handed it to Sam. “Ladies first.”
“Male chauvinist! You go first!”
“All right, all right,” Dar grumbled, clambering into the stiff fabric. “Check my seals, will you? Y' know, something bothers me.”
“You too, huh?” Whitey was sealing him in with a crisp, practiced touch. “You wouldn't be wondering why we haven't heard from the pilot?”
“Well, yes, now that you mention it. Or is it the custom here, to let the computers do the talking?”
“Definitely not,” Lona assured him, sealing Sam into her suit. “Of course, there might not be a pilot.”
“Could be—but not likely,” Whitey grunted. “Didn't you hear the serial number? This is one of those new FCC brains—‘Faithful Cybernetic Companions,' programmed for extreme loyalty. They're not supposed to want to do anything without their owner's express command.”
“I thought those were robot brains.” Father Marco frowned. “What's it doing conning a ship?”
Whitey shrugged. “Can't say, Father. I do know that every scrap of junk and every used Terran part finds its way to the asteroid belt sooner or later, to get th
e last erg of usage out of it. . . . There!” He slapped Dar on the shoulder; it sent him spinning in the free-fall of the powerless ship. “Go out and conquer, young fella!”
“I thought I was going to be rescued,” Dar grumbled. “And why do I have to go alone?”
“Because a burro-boat's lock is only big enough for one at a time.” Whitey all but kicked him into the Ray of Hope's airlock. “Have a good trip—and try not to breathe!”
The door slammed behind him, and the other hatch was opening; and if he didn't go out there and try to swim through vacuum to the burro-boat, he'd be killing his four friends, who couldn't go into the airlock till he'd gone. He gulped down his panic and forced himself to step through.
He held onto the line with one hand, groping frantically at his waist for the suit's anchoring cables. There! It was a snap-hook with a swivel. He pulled it out; a strong line unreeled from somewhere inside his suit. He snapped the hook onto the line. Catching the overhead line, he pulled himself back against the Ray of Hope's side, bracing his feet and backing down into a crouch. Then he fixed his gaze on the burro-boat's airlock, took a deep breath, and—jumped as hard as he could.
He went shooting out along the line like a housewife's dry laundry in the first drops of rain. For a moment, he was tempted to try going faster by pulling himself hand-over-hand along the line; then he remembered that he was in vacuum, which meant no friction, but his gauntlets on the line would mean friction, and would probably slow him down as much as they speeded him up. So he hung on, arms outstretched in a swan dive—and began to enjoy it.
Then the burro-boat's side shot up at him, and he grabbed frantically for the line, remembering that he might have lost weight, but he hadn't lost mass—which meant inertia. If he didn't brake, fast, the next friend down the line would have to scrape a nice, thin layer of Mandra off the burro-boat before he could get into the airlock. The scream of improvised brakes squealed all through his suit, while the burro-boat's side kept rushing up at him, seeming to come faster and faster. Frantically, he doubled up, getting his feet and flexed knees between him and it. . . .
Then he hit, with a jar that he swore knocked his teeth back into the gums. But, as he slowly straightened, he realized his joints were still working, and the stars that didn't fade from his vision were really asteroids sweeping past. Somehow, he'd made it—and all in one piece! He breathed a brief, silent prayer of thanks and stepped gingerly through the hatch. When he was sure both of his feet were pressing down on solid metal, he let go of the line with one hand to grasp the rim of the hatchway; then he let go with the other, and pulled himself down into the nice, safe darkness of the interior. His elbow bumped a lever; irritated, he pushed it away—and the hatch swung shut behind him.
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