by Larry Niven
He had supervised the site preparation, directed the crews unloading the cargo floaters, and personally prepared each temperamental unit. Module by module he had pored through the subsystem diagnostics—and rejected two units that barely met calibration standards.
He had repeated the entire process with spare units. He had double-checked the squads interconnecting the modules. Now, as the last of the cargo floaters made its way across the ice back to Haven, he began another methodical circuit, this time to triple-check everything.
A quarter light-year distant, invisible to the naked eye—and impossible to ignore—was the leading edge of the Pak vanguard.
“Team leads, status report,” Sigmund radioed. He stood on a crag, watching everything, obsessively glancing up from time to time to sweep the skies for—anything.
“Nothing to report,” Minerva sent from Haven, a comforting presence a short distance away across the ice.
“All clear,” Kirsten sent from five hundred miles above. Don Quixote with its few weapons was the expedition’s only protection if any Pak were somehow to sneak up on them.
Baedeker trembled, struggling to stay manic. Without this induced euphoria, this insane bravery, he would cease to function. Without him, the installation would surely fail and all would be lost.
“We are another ten minutes behind schedule,” Baedeker admitted. That came to eighty minutes, total, so far. “Still no real problems, I just underestimated the complications of working out here.”
“I’m suited up and ready to help,” Eric offered.
“Eric, I would rather you stay on Don Quixote,” Sigmund said firmly.
Baedeker switched to a private channel. “Sigmund, I can use the help. The Gw’oth are exhausted. Half the General Products engineers have returned”—some fled; more carried, comatose, on floaters—“back to Haven.” And I am hanging on to sanity by my teeth.
“Give me a moment,” Sigmund said.
Baedeker could guess at Sigmund’s hesitation. Eric on the ground would mean only Kirsten and Jeeves left aboard with Thssthfok.
Sigmund returned to the common channel. “All right, Eric. It sounds like you’ll be more useful on the ground.”
“Breaking orbit to match velocities with the ground,” Kirsten said cheerfully. A few minutes later, she added, “Watch that first step, Eric.”
WORKING BY TOUCH Thssthfok visualized the exposed circuitry within the anklet. Some components—resistors, capacitors, integrated circuits, and the like—hinted about themselves by their shapes and sizes. Other components remained unidentified, their nature left to discovery through inference. Interconnection patterns suggested human devices he had scanned before, when he had still had his repair kit and its instruments.
The anklet contained either an inertial position sensor or the ability to locate itself relative to nearby transmitters. It would contain a transmitter to report its own position. It would sense whether the clasp remained sealed.
He catalogued the functions the anklet might perform, then started designing the circuitry and stored program as humans would. His third design incorporated every component he had identified by touch, used consistently with what he had scanned in other human devices. Hence: This was the test subsystem. It would provide the means to confirm the anklet could identify any internal failure and then radio the self-diagnosis.
With a little effort, he could expand that output repertoire.
KNOWING IT WAS HIS IMAGINATION, Sigmund felt the cold creep through his insulated boots, up his legs, into his body. This snowball was not much above absolute zero. Having nothing to do but watch and wait somehow made the cold worse.
It wasn’t only the cold. The stars shone diamond hard, without a hint of a twinkle. Any trace of atmosphere had long ago frozen. And Niflheim had scarcely one-tenth the mass of New Terra. Niflheim was also physically smaller, of course, raising its surface gravity to a whole one-third of what he was accustomed to. The horizon was much too close, crowding him. . ..
An attack—no, a full-blown, incapacitating seizure—of flatland phobia seethed in Sigmund’s brain. The ground, the sky, everything began spinning. . ..
Not now, tanj it! He pulled himself together to scan across the busy construction site, wanting to demand another progress report, knowing it was too soon.
Knowing also that everything was going far too smoothly.
ER’O SIDLED ON THREE LIMBS around another of the drive modules. A motor in his exoskeleton had failed in the extreme cold, immobilizing a tubacle. He held the fifth tubacle aloft, clutching a scanner as he re-inspected his work.
“We will be ready in a few minutes for an end-to-end system test,” Baedeker said. “Full power to all compon—”
“I have an unexpected reading on sensors,” Minerva transmitted.
Er’o looked at the equipment spread across the ice. The modules all looked the same. They would, until one of them tore him to atoms. “Which unit?”
“Not on Niflheim. Half a light-day away, passing by.”
“What sort of reading?” Sigmund demanded.
“Astronomical, surely,” Minerva answered calmly. “A magnetic monopole. Maybe more than one.”
Baedeker whistled impatiently. “All right. Track it while we run the end-to-end test.”
Sigmund was not ready to drop the subject. “Passing by? Send me its course.”
“Me, too, please,” Er’o said. A gentle arc appeared on one of his displays, and presumably also on Sigmund’s helmet. The arc curved toward, but not directly at, Niflheim. “Why does it turn?”
Minerva said, condescendingly, “Presumably it is in an electric field.”
Ion currents permeated space—even here, so far from any star. Yes, there could be an electric field. But a field that strong? While others prattled about solar winds and the interstellar medium, and the electromagnetic fields they generated, Er’o consulted with the other Gw’oth. Compared to a meld their deliberations felt painfully slow.
Er’o interrupted the others’ speculations. “It is not anything natural. That is a ramscoop with its engine off, using its magnetic scoop as a brake.”
“Finagle,” Sigmund swore. “Are you sure, Er’o?”
“Someone else should confirm my calculations, but yes, I am sure.”
“Finagle,” Sigmund said again. “Minerva, Jeeves, Kirsten, don’t use active sensors. We don’t want that ramscoop to know we know it’s coming. Learn what you can on passive. Everyone, our radios are low power, but let’s play safe and keep the chatter to a minimum.”
“You don’t mean to keep working?” Baedeker said. “The Pak are coming!”
“Let’s confirm that,” Sigmund said.
“Er’o is correct,” Jeeves offered. “There is a weak neutrino source near the center of the magnetic anomaly. Observed deceleration fits with the drag from a magnetic ramscoop field. Well behind is a trail of concentrated helium.”
A ramscoop with its drive off, its fusion reactor turned down, decelerating stealthily.
Ice shards flew from beneath Baedeker’s suddenly frantic hoof. “We must go.”
“Wait!” Sigmund said. “Anyone, what’s the soonest that ship can get here?”
Jeeves completed the calculation first. “I don’t know how good a Pak fusion drive is. Assuming similar performance to my drive aboard Long Pass, about a day. That is if they immediately abandon sneaking up and switch to full acceleration toward us.”
“About a day for a flyby attack,” Sigmund said. “They’re decelerating because they mean to land here.” He stared up into the jet-black sky. “They may simply be scavenging for volatiles, going stealthy lest another clan has ships attempting the same.”
“Or they are trying to sneak up on us!” Very un-English grace notes had crept into Baedeker’s voice. “We must not let them.”
“What we cannot do,” Sigmund snapped, “is let Pak capture your technology.”
“Then we destroy it and get out of here,” Baedeker half
said, half sang.
A piercing alarm sounded and was quickly muted. “We have a fire onboard,” Kirsten said.
SIGMUND GAZED INTO THE DARKNESS, although Don Quixote was too far off to be seen. “A fire? Where?”
“Deck five,” Kirsten said. “I can’t tell where the fire started, or how it spread so far before setting off alarms.”
The deck with Thssthfok’s cell. Except for a bit of bedding, nothing in his cell could burn. Nothing in the cell could start a fire. Sigmund still couldn’t help wondering whether the Pak was responsible. “Is Thssthfok in danger?”
“Enviro sensors say smoke, toxic fumes, and heat. Fire suppression is not working. From audio, he’s pounding on the hatch. I’ve lost video from that deck.”
Finagle, fire was a terrible way to die. Sigmund’s mind raced. “How’s this? Seal the deck, release him from the cargo hold to find someplace safe, and shut emergency hatches behind him. Then open the hold’s outer door to kill the fire and vent the fumes.”
“I can do that,” Jeeves said, “if fire hasn’t damaged the circuits or motors I’ll need.”
What if they were too slow? “Kirsten, suit up. You may have to vent the entire ship.”
“Suiting up now, Sigmund.”
In the few seconds devoted to the latest crisis, Baedeker had bounded off toward Haven. Sigmund had to refocus on matters here on the ground. “Kirsten, do what you must. Just don’t let Thssthfok anywhere near the bridge.”
THE LATCH OF THSSTHFOK’S CELL CLICKED open. He rushed out and, for the audio sensors, slammed the hatch behind him. Over the intercom, Jeeves directed Thssthfok away from the fire.
There was no fire, of course, only the illusion injected into shipboard sensors by his modified anklet. Jeeves ordered Thssthfok exactly where he meant to go: a large pantry.
Thssthfok hooked claws inside the jagged tear in the anklet and pulled. The metal bent back with a squeal. He found, just as he had expected, a fragile-looking reservoir of liquid. A current surge would vaporize the liquid, the gas pressure bursting the ampoule and releasing the gas. A radio signal would set it off. Removing the anklet would, too.
He began studying the anklet’s control circuits.
THSSTHFOK HAD NOT CHOSEN this pantry casually.
The day of his capture he had been transported instantaneously from an air lock to the cargo hold that became his cell. The humans had forced him to surrender the teleportation disc, but the round indentation where it had lain remained in the deck. His newer cell, the one now filling with “smoke,” had an identical empty indentation in its deck. The humans teleported supplies to their storage areas.
He lifted the teleportation disc from the floor of the pantry. The disc had a keypad and a long bank of tiny switches along its edge. During his last escape, he had not had the time to fully examine the disc he had found aboard the little ship. Now he studied the device. The help key sent terse explanations scrolling across a little display. He found a directory of shipboard addresses. Once he found addresses for the bridge or engine room he could jump—
In his anklet a magnetic-latch relay clicked impotently, disconnected from the circuit that would release the sedative. He kept working.
The disc’s little display blanked. “I’ve disabled the stepping-disc network,” Kirsten called over the intercom. “And now that I’ve reinitialized the enviro sensors, I see the fire wasn’t real. Return to your cell.”
Accessing the stepping-disc directory must have been visible to her. He ripped up a deck access panel and slashed claws through the exposed circuits. Sparks flew and gravity vanished from the pantry. He nudged the floating panel out the open door.
Partway to the floor, the bent plate’s speed went meteoric. It crashed to the deck, then flattened with a groan.
“The corridor gravity is high, but it won’t kill you. Return to your cell or I’ll blow you out to space.” There was a catch in Kirsten’s throat. “Don’t make me do that.”
Several sealed rescue bags sat on a nearby shelf. Each had a small air tank. He shut the pantry door and kept studying the disc. Its power light still glowed. If she told the truth the control network was off, but the stepping disc had internal power. Other discs would also have power. Nearby discs might communicate among themselves and he could enter an address manually.
“In one minute,” Kirsten warned, “I start venting.”
One minute was ample. He began analyzing the part of the directory he had seen.
“ERIC!” SIGMUND RAN AFTER ERIC, bounding toward the nearest stepping disc. “I need you down here.”
Eric kept going. “That’s my wife, alone with a Pak! I’m going to help her.”
“I know! But Baedeker is falling apart. You have to finish the checkout.”
Eric was halfway to the stepping disc. “And if it were Penny up there?”
“I’ll go up to the ship, tanj it!” Sigmund yelled. “You can finish here if Baedeker goes to pieces. I can’t. Vaporizing this planet is the one sure way to keep this technology from the Pak. That protects everyone.”
“If anything happens to Kirsten. . .” Eric’s voice shook. His pace began to slow.
Sigmund had better low-gee running technique and caught up. He grabbed Eric by the shoulders and spun him around. “I promise you, it won’t.”
Within another ten paces, Sigmund stepped aboard Don Quixote.
. . .
A STORM RAGED IN THE CORRIDOR, but the pantry-hatch seal was almost airtight. Thssthfok unrolled a rescue bag across the door; suction pulled the tough, clear material into the crack. The whistle of escaping air died.
Wind and the loss of gravity had stirred the pantry. Shelves were half empty now. Drifting containers kept bumping into him and the walls. Revealed on the backs of several shelves: bags of tree-of-life root.
He had seen eighteen stepping-disc addresses and locations. The sample was sufficient to extrapolate addresses to discs elsewhere in the ship—including any on the bridge. He put his disc in send mode, set it gently onto the floor, anchored himself on the disc with a firm grip on a shelf, and waited.
Nothing happened.
The disc, when he checked its display, gave an error code. Receive error. Someone on the bridge had been quick to disable the disc there. Powered down, turned over, put into send-only mode—it didn’t matter which. The address he had extrapolated for the engine room resulted in another receive-mode error.
Where should he go before the disc addresses all became useless?
58
Sigmund charged out of the relax room, the broad shoulders of his battle armor scraping the door frame. He unlocked the arms locker and stuffed his pockets with stunners, grenades, and hand lasers. “Kirsten, I’m back aboard. Where is Thssthfok?”
“The aux pantry on deck five, I think. That deck is in vacuum, except the pantry. Deck gravity, except in the pantry, is eight gees. I figure that should slow down even him.”
“And you?”
“Shut into the engine room. I put the stepping disc here into standby just before he tried to use it. The send address matched the disc from the fifth-deck pantry.”
Sigmund had stepped to a moving destination without a pilot at the helm! He shuddered, but that was hardly their biggest problem. If Thssthfok understood the discs, he could be anywhere on the ship. Or off the ship. “Jeeves—break velocity sync with the ground.”
“Done, Sigmund. Resuming a standard orbit.”
On the ground, Eric and Baedeker were arguing about an instrument calibration. If Thssthfok had gotten below, he was keeping his distance. Sigmund sent Eric a private warning, just in case—and reassurance that Kirsten remained safe.
What else, Sigmund wondered. “Kirsten, how is the bridge secured?”
“I left the disc there in send-only mode. That’s how I got to the engine room. The bridge hatch is locked from inside. Only Jeeves or an oxy-fuel cutting torch is getting us back in there.”
“Jeeves. Any reason to suppose Thsst
hfok isn’t in the pantry?”
“No, but he has bypassed our sensors before.”
“Good point. Kirsten, are you armed?”
“No, sorry. My priority was securing the bridge and engine room.”
“That was a good call, but now stay where you are. I’m going to check the pantry.”
THE CORRIDOR WAS VACUUM-STILL. Faint noises reached Thssthfok through the ceiling and floor. The pantry had become stuffy, and he bled oxygen from the tank of the unrolled rescue bag that sealed the hatch.
He ran through his options. He could wait here until armed jailors recaptured him. He could venture out, claws versus battle armor, claws doubly useless within a rescue bag. Or—
His one viable option was obvious.
THE PANTRY HATCH BULGED SLIGHTLY. It might yet hold pressure. Sigmund switched to the intercom. “Thssthfok, this is Sigmund. I’m going to open the pantry hatch. Remain where you are. There should be rescue bags inside with you. You have two minutes to get inside one.”
Sigmund stood to the side of the hatch, ready to shoot anyone leaving. Stunners didn’t work in a vacuum. He’d tried to send a flash-bang grenade to the pantry, but the stepping disc inside was in send-only mode. That left only the laser he now gripped. “All right, Thssthfok. Time’s up.”
Sigmund released the latch. Air pressure flung open the door, ripping the handle from his grip. A white cloud burst out. Cans, bags, and an empty rescue bag rained to the deck as they cleared the hatch.
No Pak.
Sigmund backed away from the hatchway, lobbing a sealed rescue bag through the opening. After two minutes Sigmund approached cautiously. The pantry was a mess.
As for Thssthfok, there was no sign.