Chindi

Chapter 16

HUTCH WATCHED HORRIFIED as the forward section of the Wendy Jay melted.

“What are we going to do?” demanded George.

They were all there, standing helplessly in the shadow of the lander, Nick staring at the screen with his eyes wide, Alyx pale and desperate, George clenching and unclenching his big fists. He looked from Hutch to his link, got back on it, tried again to raise Kurt, his voice fueled by desperation.

“There might be more of those things,” said Nick. “Waiting to jump us.”

Hutch shook her head. “I think there’s only one.”

“How do you know?” demanded Nick. “How in God’s name could you possibly know?”

“Whatever attacked the Condor must have gotten blown up with the ship. We were there for a considerable time afterward and nothing bothered us. That tells me they only come in singles.”

“If it’s the same kind of critter,” said Nick.

The Wendy was a mass of showers and fountains and sprays. Her hull, like fine dust, like hot springs, like Old Faithful, squirted off in every direction, forming haze and mist. Gradually the clouds flattened, spread out, rounded off. Engulfed her.

Tor was back on the link, his voice pitched high. “Hutch, do you have any ideas?”

“I think I know what it’s doing,” said Nick. “It’s making a replacement. A new stealth. A satellite.”

Hutch saw it, too. Even inside the cloud, in the uncertain light, she saw the first faint outline of the diamond core. “Bill,” she said, “let me see the schematic again. Rear section, C Deck. Where Tor is.”

It appeared on-screen.

“Hutch—” Alyx looked from her to the lander. Let’s get started. We can’t just stand here.

But there was no use going until we figure out how to do this. Just waste time.

She studied the alignment of the Wendy’s storage bins and cabinets. Most were built directly into the bulkheads. It would be almost impossible to cut one out while retaining its integrity.

“Come on,” Nick said. “Let’s move. At least we can get Kurt out.”

Kurt’s dead. Don’t you understand that? Kurt never had a chance. The overhead probably opened up on him, and before he even knew he had a problem he was dead.

“Getting cool,” said Tor.

George looked frantic. “The ship’s losing its definition,” he said. “It’s coming apart.”

“Nanotech?” asked Alyx.

“Yeah. Has to be.”

Nick looked at Hutch. “When it hits the engines, will it explode?”

“Probably.”

George looked at her, pleading.

And Hutch thought she saw a way. “Washroom,” she said. It was a cubicle, set out from the bulkhead. Storage shelves on both sides.

They looked at her, puzzled.

“Hutch.” Tor’s voice seemed to come from far away. “The Klaxons have stopped.”

“Nick.” Hutch was trying to think whether it could be done. How it could be done. “Go to the bridge. There are two drawers beneath the main console. The right one has some ram tape in it. Get it.”

Nick started to ask why, but thought better of it and hurried off.

Then she signaled George and Alyx to follow her. “We’ve got to get some gear together,” she said.

ZERO GEE WITH the lights out. It was cooling off, not a lot, but enough to suggest what was to come. The ship was absolutely silent save for a rustling in the bulkhead. Like loose paper getting blown around. When he put his hand to it he could feel a slight vibration.

“There’s a noise in the walls,” he told Hutch. She acknowledged without comment. He imagined something gnawing on the ship.

Until two weeks before, Tor had never been in serious personal danger. Now it was happening a second time. He was terrified, and he kept thinking it wouldn’t be so bad if he wasn’t frightened that his nerve would break, that he’d begin screaming for help. He tried again to raise Kurt, but there wasn’t even a carrier wave from the captain’s link.

“Listen, Tor.” Hutch again. “We’ll be over in a couple of minutes. We’re going to get you out.”

“How are you going to do that?” he asked, wondering whether she’d lie to him, do anything to keep his spirits up. He remembered the way heroic characters always died in the sims. Just prop me up against the gun, Louie. I’ll hold the pass until you get clear. What he wanted, maybe even as much as getting rescued, was to look good.

“There’s a washroom in there. Find it. When I tell you, I want you to go into it.”

“Into the washroom?”

“Yes. We’ll be there as quickly as we can. We’re going to come in through the emergency airlock and down the tube. I’ll let you know when we’re ready to start the cut. When I do, make for the washroom.”

He understood. “My God,” he said.

“It’ll work.”

“Going to get cold.”

“Yes, it will. You have any blankets available?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so. This area seems to be all artifacts. Old pots and statues.”

“All right. You’re going to have to take off some clothes, too, before we’re done.”

It seemed like a strange time for a joke, but he said nothing.

NICK WAS WAITING with the ram tape when Hutch, George, and Alyx returned to the launch bay. They were carrying go-packs, spare restraining harnesses, e-suits, air tanks, a fifty-meter length of cable, a wrench, and a pair of shears.

She took the tape, thanked him, and hefted it in her hand. Did anybody have any experience with a laser cutter? They all smiled politely and looked at one another. “I need a volunteer,” Hutch said.

Nick shuffled his feet. “You’re my man,” she said. She showed him the tool, turned on the power, activated the laser. She produced a marker, looked around, and found an empty cabinet. She drew a line along one side of its frame, and sliced cleanly down the line. “You want to try?”

He nodded.

She turned it off and handed it to him.

He thumbed it on.

“When the lamp’s green it’s ready,” she said.

The lamp turned green, and he pressed the trigger. The laser appeared, a long blade of ruby light. “You can step up the intensity.” She showed him how. The light changed color. Brightened. “But this should be adequate.” She readjusted to the original setting.

He looked at it and took aim at the mutilated cabinet.

“No sudden motions. Resist the urge to press down. The laser does the work.”

He cut off a long strip of metal and she told him congratulations, he had just graduated.

Now she explained what she intended to do, laid out their instructions, and provided Nick with a pair of grip shoes.

Everybody got an e-suit. They strapped on air tanks, activated the fields, and began breathing from the tanks. Hutch started the decompression procedure, checked their communications, and pulled on a vest. She threw the ram tape into it, attached the wrench and the shears to her vest, which would remain outside the Flickinger field, and threw the loop of cable over her shoulder. She put her go-pack into a backseat and got a second cutter for herself.

She ran through a checklist in her mind, picked up an extra e-suit, and laid it into the backseat of the lander. “I think we’re ready to go,” she said.

Nick and Alyx climbed in with her, and she started the engine. George backed off to give the vehicle room. She brought the Wendy schematic up on one of the auxiliary screens.

When the chamber had gone to vacuum, the launch door rose. Thumbs-up to George. He returned the gesture, and they eased out into the night just as one of the Wendy’s forward sections seemed to break loose, rather like a globule of mercury, and drift away.

Nick made a noise deep in his throat.

Hutch moved deliberately, arcing out and approaching the Wendy from the rear. Nick pushed forward in his restraints as if to make the lander move faster, but he said nothing. Amidships, the hull appeared to be going through contractions, a woman experiencing the final stages of birth. A cloud of crystal flakes exploded and blew off.

“Tor,” Hutch said, “we’re outside now. I’ll be down the tube in a minute.”

“Okay. Take your time. No rush.”

Get it right.

Hutch studied the schematic, looked at the Wendy’s hull. “There,” she said, fixing the spot in her mind. It was located just below an antenna array. “He’s in there. And over here is our way in. A topside hatch.” She maneuvered toward the array, got within a couple of meters of the hull, matched course and speed, and directed Bill to hold it right where it was. Then she depressurized the cabin and opened the airlock.

“What do we do,” Alyx asked, “if the thing attacks the lander?”

“If that happens, we leave it here. Just abandon ship and I’ll pick you up.” She turned in her seat, lifted the go-pack onto her shoulders, and handed the shears to Alyx, making it almost a ceremonial gesture. “Here you go,” she said. “Take care of it.”

Hutch checked to make sure she was still carrying her marker, and turned on her wristlamp. “Okay, Nick. Let’s get to it.”

She passed through the hatch, put her cutter in her vest, and in a single movement launched herself across to the hull.

Nick hesitated, checked to make sure he had his own cutter, and looked out at Hutch now clinging to the Wendy’s hull. He glanced at the frozen world beneath him, at the diseased thing gobbling down the ship.

“It’s okay, Nick,” she said. “You can do this.”

He laughed nervously. “That sounds like an epitaph. Nick could do it.” She laughed back, and he leaned out of the airlock, looking sporty in a green plaid shirt and white slacks. His eyes touched hers, and he pushed clear. He landed a bit hard and bounced, but she caught him and hauled him back. Then she spoke into her link. “Tor, you there?”

“No,” he said, “I went to the show.”

Sarcasm under pressure. The man had spirit. “Tell me when,” she said. She swung the wrench and rapped on the hull.

“Now. I hear you.”

“Good place to cut?”

“A little more forward. About two meters.”

Hutch measured and rapped again.

“That’s good,” said Tor.

She took out her marker, which was a bilious green, made an X at the spot and drew a large box around it. Three meters high by two wide. Now she turned to Nick. “Ready?”

“Yes.” He pushed the stud on his cutter and the unit began charging.

“It’s a triple hull,” she said. “You won’t have time to get through them all. Just do the best you can.”

“All right.”

“But don’t start until I tell you.”

Hutch squeezed his shoulder, then returned to the lander. Alyx handed her the extra air tanks and e-suit, which she’d tied together in a package. While Hutch tethered them to her vest, she called Tor. “For now, I want you to stay near the hatch in the rear.”

“Okay.”

“Everything still all right?”

“I’m doing fine. Could hardly ask for better accommodations.”

“Good. I’m on my way in now.”

“Okay.”

She nodded to Alyx, checked to be sure she had her cutter and lamp, hoisted the loop of cable over her shoulder, slipped back outside, and made off aft to the topside hatch.

It was circular, and the manual control was located behind a panel. She opened up, twisted the release, and pulled on the door. It swung outward. But the inner door jammed and she had to remove the locking mechanism to get it open. “I’m inside,” she told the commlink.

The gravity tube, when powered, maintained a zero-gee condition, and was used to move materials, equipment, whatever, between decks. In this case, the power was off, of course, but it didn’t matter because so was the artificial gravity. She had to remove the go-pack, which she pushed down ahead of her, followed by the spare e-suit, the cable and the tanks. Then she climbed in, head down, pushed, and emerged moments later in front of a closed hatch. She rapped on it with the wrench.

“That’s it,” said Tor.

“Okay. I’m about to cut. Head for the washroom.”

“On my way.”

“Close the door as tight as you can.”

Alyx broke in on her private channel: “Better hurry, Hutch. The entire forward end of the ship is disintegrating.” She made a little ooooh, a frightened sound that came from the soul.

“What’s wrong, Alyx?” Hutch asked.

“Kurt’s body just—just, just squirted out of one of the clouds.”

Hutch waited to be sure she had control of her voice. “Is he dead? Can you tell?”

“He’s not moving.”

“Is he wearing air tanks?”

“No. I don’t think so.”

“You can’t see any?”

“No.”

She could sense something, a vibration in the bulkheads. Something bad coming her way. Her skin prickled.

What was holding up Tor?

Then he was speaking to her: “Go ahead, Hutch. I’m inside.”

“Okay, Tor,” she said, “get out of your clothes and button up the room as best you can. You have three drains, three inlets, and a vent.”

“You want me to use my clothes to block the pipes?”

“Yes. Do a good job and make it fast. How’s the door fit?”

“How do you mean?”

“Does it look airtight?”

“There’s a small crack at the bottom.”

“Stuff paper in it. Anything that’ll hold for a minute or two.”

“Okay.”

“Do that first. Tell me when it’s done. When the door’s blocked off.”

She waited, staring at the closed hatch. She checked with Nick, and then with Alyx. She asked George how he was doing. Everything was on schedule.

The vibrations in the bulkhead were becoming more distinct.

“Hurry up, Tor.”

“Doing the best I can.”

She’d wedged one foot into the guide rail to keep herself in position.

“This paper under the door won’t last long.”

“It doesn’t have to. Are we ready yet?”

“Ready now. Go ahead.”

Hutch activated the laser. “Nick?” she said.

“All set, Hutch.”

“Let’s do it.”

She touched the red beam to the hatch, sliced into it, and isolated the locking mechanism.

She cut around it, gave it a few moments to cool, and removed it. Then she turned the handle, and pulled back. The hatch opened, and a blast of air erupted past her.

“I’m through, Tor,” she said, pushing into the interior. The washroom, she knew, was to her right, along the back wall, situated between rows of storage shelves.

Her lamp picked it out and she knocked. “Right place?”

“You got it.”

The deck heaved beneath her feet. The entire ship shuddered. She swung the lamp left and focused it on the forward bulkhead. It was turning gray and beginning to bubble.

She brought out the ram tape and placed a strip over the space between frame and door, and another between the door and the deck. Then she reinforced them. She did a quick inspection to see if she was missing anything that might be leaking air.

THE MEMPHIS’S CARGO bay remained open, maintaining the standard quarter-gee. Bill would take that to zero gee when things started to happen. All the lights were on. The docking mechanism had been withdrawn into deck and overhead, so the space immediately inside the cargo door was clear of obstruction.

George tied the restraining harnesses together to make a single large meshwork. Then he used cable to secure the four ends to the most convenient beams and frames he could find, creating a net in the center of the bay. It wasn’t pretty, but he thought it would do the job.

When he was finished, he measured its length and width, its height off the deck, its position in relation to the cargo door. Satisfied, he told Hutch it was ready, then he laid out oxygen and blankets.

“After he’s in,” he asked Hutch, “how do I close the door?”

Her voice was crisp on the commlink: “Just tell Bill to do it.”

IT HAD BEGUN to get cold, and Tor stood in his shorts and undershirt in the washroom. It was obvious that this was going to be a rescue utterly without dignity.

“How are you managing?” asked Hutch.

He looked down into the toilet. It was of course dry at the moment. “Okay,” he said. He’d unrolled the toilet paper, used the entire supply, scrunched it together, and put the whole gob down there.

He stuffed his slacks into the shower drain, and used a gorgeous Ascot and Meer hand-sewn shirt, filled with what was left of the paper towels, to block the air vent.

“I’ll never be able to wear them again,” he told Hutch, who laughed but didn’t ask for details.

“Tell me when you’re ready.”

Socks clogged the twin faucets on the sink. And he had a problem. The shower nozzle and the drains in the sink and shower. Three sites, but he was down to shorts and undershirt.

Tear the undershirt in half, that’s the ticket. He removed it and tried, but it resisted. He pulled, twisted, summoned his adrenaline and tried again. He braced part of it underfoot and put all his weight into it, but it held. Strong stuff.

He gave up and pushed it whole into the sink drain. His shorts proved just as tough, and he ended by using them to block the shower drain.

All that remained was the nozzle. But he was out of clothes.

“Tor? Time’s getting tight.”

He remembered an old story in which a bunch of guys used their rear ends to block off an air leak in a spaceship, but he suspected the nozzle would get pretty cold pretty fast, and he didn’t want to need surgery to get unstuck from the fixture.

He had a handkerchief!

It was in a shirt pocket, so he dug the Ascot and Meer out of the vent, retrieved the handkerchief, and returned the shirt. He removed the shower nozzle and jammed in the handkerchief. “Okay, Hutch,” he said.

THE FORWARD SECTIONS of the ship throbbed and writhed. In the mist that obscured the hull, Alyx could make out the beginnings of an arc, rather like a large malformed ear, forcing its way up out of the turmoil. Amidships a webwork had begun to form. It looked familiar, something she’d seen before, but she couldn’t pin it down.

The spectacle was obscene. Her stomach churned much as the ship did, and she looked away, back toward Nick, still trying to punch a hole through the hull. Lights from the lander, reflected off the mist, played across him. He seemed to be caught in a spectral rhythm, gaining substance and losing it, all in sync with the lights and the clouds.

“How’s it coming, Nick?” she asked. If he didn’t hurry, the metal would turn to mist in the glare of his lamp.

“I’m almost through.”

She thought about the onboard AI. It was not alive. She knew that. But nonetheless she would have liked to shut it down, turn it off, so she wouldn’t feel as if they were abandoning someone. She had considered mentioning it to Hutch, but Hutch had her hands full, and it was silly anyhow. Still—

“Do we have him out yet?” George’s voice startled her. For a moment she’d thought it was the Wendy’s AI. The Wendy’s Bill.

“Not yet,” Alyx said. “A couple more minutes.” She hoped.

Hutch and Tor were talking back and forth. “Drains are secure.”

“Cutting through the shelves.”

“What’s up top, any idea?”

The last was directed at Bill, who responded immediately: “Just wiring.”

HUTCH CUT THE shelving with little resistance, freeing the flanks of the washroom from the bulkhead. Then she sliced through the deck, in front and on both sides.

She had brought the spare e-suit and air tanks along in case something went wrong. If she misjudged and cut through somewhere and the compartment began to lose air, she would rip the door off and try to get Tor into the suit. That would be a frantic business at best, but it would give them a chance.

All three drains were connected beneath the compartment. Hutch cut them and blobs of water drifted out. A single water pipe fed the facility, but she left that until last.

She cut through the rear bulkhead on both sides, pushed her way into the storage bin behind the washroom, and sliced through the overhead and deck.

“How we doing, Nick?”

“I’m about two-thirds of the way done. Just give me a few more minutes,” he said.

But the forward bulkhead was looking worse. Its gray sheen was moving as she watched. It looked cancerous.

She cut the washroom free from its upper moorings and from the wiring. Only the water line held it in place. She looped the cable around the compartment’s four walls, then brought it over top and bottom, and secured it like a Christmas package. “Ready to go,” she told Tor. “Soon as we finish making the hole.”

“Good.”

“I’ll be back in a minute.”

“It’s getting a little brisk in here, Hutch.”

“Just hang on, Champ.” She retreated to the bulkhead, outside which Nick was working, paying out cable as she went. “Nick, beat on the hull for me, will you?”

There was of course no sound in the airless room, but she placed her palms against the metal and tracked it easily to the section he was working on. “Okay, that’s good,” she said. “Stand clear.”

“Hutch.” He sounded annoyed. “I’m almost through—”

“Argue about it later. Go. I’ll take it from here.” She turned on the laser and waited. When he said he was out of the way, she sliced methodically into the metal. It blackened and sizzled and came away until she saw starlight. She worked with a will, enlarging the hole.

Behind her, the forward bulkhead, like thick heavy syrup, began to spill into the room.

The hole wasn’t big enough, but she was out of time. The sluggish gray-black mass that had been a solid wall floated toward the washroom.

“Nick,” she said, “Back to you. Make it bigger.”

“Hey! What’s going on?”

She’d forgotten Tor was listening.

“It’s okay,” she said. His teeth were chattering. “We’ll have you out of there in a few minutes.”

“I’m ready,” said Tor, “any time you are.”

She stole a glance at the creeping tide, at the dark mist drifting into the chamber through the space the bulkhead had occupied, and cut the water line. A torrent poured into the room. Unbound by gravity, it ricocheted everywhere. “Okay, Tor, we’re going.”

She pulled the compartment free of whatever restraints remained, dragged it by sheer force toward the exit hole.

She could see occasional flashes of light as Nick worked. “It’ll be a tight fit,” he said. And then, with a string of profanity, he saw and reacted to the tide. “What’s that?”

“Keep cutting,” she cried.

The washroom had heeled over, and she was pulling it out topside first. It crashed into bulkheads and cabinets and the deck and even the overhead, but there was nothing she could do about it. No time to slow down. Tor demanded to know what was happening, and she told him they were getting out, they were in a hurry, hang on as best you can.

The hole was maybe just big enough. Maybe. Nick finished and got out of the way as Hutch came through, dragging the thing in her wake, trying to keep it aimed straight. Directly in front of her were Alyx and the lander, nose in. Nick moved quickly to her side in an attempt to help, but he only got in the way. She lost her concentration and it probably wouldn’t have mattered anyhow, but the washroom was tumbling and it hit the bulkhead half-sideways. Tor delivered some profanity of his own. Hutch kept the line tight to keep the compartment from bouncing back into the sludge. Then Nick grabbed hold, rotating it, straightening it until she could pull it into the hole.

It jammed about halfway. “It might come apart,” he said.

No time to worry about that now. She didn’t even have the spare suit if it did. But the thing wouldn’t move. They tried together, planting their feet on the hull, but it was too tight.

Hutch was about to use the torch again when Alyx waved to her to throw the cable. She whirled it over her head, Wild West style, and lobbed it in her direction. Alyx caught it on the first try and quickly secured it to the forward antenna mount, as planned. When she’d done that she got back inside.

“Okay, everybody,” she said, “get clear. Bill, back out.”

Forward thrusters fired and the lander backed away. The cable straightened. Tightened. And the vehicle stopped. “We’re stuck,” said Bill.

“Give it more juice,” said Hutch.

“You sure?”

“Yes, Bill.” She tried to keep her voice level. “Do it.”

The thrusters fired again. Continued firing. Hutch crouched on Wendy’s hull, saying Come on come on, softly under her breath. The washroom squeezed down and started to break apart, but finally it came free.

Hutch seized Nick and used the go-pack to get clear of the stricken ship. Moments later black gloop spilled out of the hole.

TOR WAS COLD. He was floating in the box (he no longer thought of the compartment as a washroom), trying to hang on to the sink so he didn’t bang around too much. He’d caught enough of the conversation outside to scare him out of his pants, had he been wearing any. He’d drawn his legs up and rolled into a ball, trying to conserve his body heat. To make things worse, it was getting hard to breathe.

Hutch reassured him. They were outside now, she said, and everything was going to be fine. All he had to do was be patient. Hang on. Her favorite phrase. Hang on.

He said something back to her, Hanging, or Right, babe, or some other piece of stupid bravado. He didn’t want to say much because he didn’t want her to hear how scared he was.

He knew what was happening, had visualized the box being dragged out into the vacuum, felt everything icing over, wondered whether the interior air pressure might not cause it to explode, dumping him outside, where he’d freeze like an icicle before anyone could do anything.

The washroom was being pulled from the top, so he was still settled more or less on the deck, which was hard plastic disguised to look like wood. His lamp was still on, casting ferocious cones of light around the interior, picking out the showerhead, or his feet, or the door which had once led out into a room full of artifacts and breathing space.

“Okay, we’re in good shape now. On our way to the Memphis.”

On the way to Memphis. He tried to convert it into a tune. A song. In fact, there was such a song. But he couldn’t remember the lyrics. On the way, la-de-da, to old Memphis. Right, old was in there somewhere.

If he got through this, he decided, he’d find a way to put it on canvas. Capture the washroom coming through the hole in the ship’s hull. Yes. He could see it clearly. Hutch leading the way, looking positively supernatural with those elfin features, and her e-suit providing an aura in the starlight.

The air was thick and heavy, and he couldn’t get it into his lungs. The darkness weighed on him and began to creep in at the edges of his vision.

“There’ll be a bump.” Hutch sounded desperately far away. “We’re using the lander to pull.”

The fake wooden floor rose up and hit him. Gave him a good push. That was okay. Let’s hustle.

HUTCH AND NICK watched as the lander grew smaller, headed toward the Memphis’s open cargo hatch. Bill was in charge now and he had to take it slowly because they needed a soft landing at the other end.

“What do you think?” asked Nick.

“He’s still breathing,” she said. “I think we’ll be okay.” Ahead of them the Memphis was lit up. The lander moved steadily toward it, trailing the washroom on its long tether.

Behind her, another piece of the Wendy folded up and drifted off.

TOR FLOATED IN the dark, barely conscious, shut into a remote corner of his brain. His lamp must have gone out. He had trouble remembering where he was. His breathing was loud and labored, and his heart pounded. Stay conscious. Keep calm. Think about Hutch. Out there in the starlight. He tried to imagine her naked, but the picture wouldn’t come.

He clung to the sink. It was cold and metallic and cylindrical, and he didn’t know why it was important that he not let go. But he didn’t. It was his anchor to the world.

The darkness was somehow darker and thicker than ordinary darkness. It was something behind his eyes, shutting him down, walling him off in a separate cave somewhere, as if he were no more than a witness, an observer, already a disembodied spirit vaguely aware of distant voices calling his name. The voices were familiar, belonged to old friends he hadn’t seen in decades, his father long gone, dead a quarter century ago in a skiing accident of all things, his mom who’d taken him for walks down to Piedmont Square to feed the pigeons. He’d had a small blue wagon, Sammy Doober it had said on the side, named for the comic strip character. Sammy with his fox’s nose and his balloon.

Hutch.

Her shining eyes floated in front of him. The way she’d looked four years ago at Cassidy’s. He remembered the way she had kissed him, her lips soft and urgent against his. And her breasts pressed against him.

He loved her. Had loved her from the first time he’d seen her….

An ineffable sorrow settled around him. He was going to die in here and she would never really know how he felt.

ALYX SAT ALONE in the lander watching as the Memphis got bigger. She had tried to speak to Tor, to encourage him, let him know that they were close, and she’d heard something, but she couldn’t make out any words. She was terrified for him, and she wanted to tell Hutch that she thought Tor was in bad shape, but she didn’t dare use the circuit because she didn’t know how to switch to a private channel and she was afraid Tor would overhear her. So she called George instead, telling him—unnecessarily—to be ready.

“Just get him here,” said George.

That was Bill’s task, of course. The AI guided the lander, moving so slowly that Alyx wanted to scream at him, demand that he hustle it up.

“Alyx.” Bill’s voice was calm, as though nothing unusual were happening. “Get ready to release him.”

She grabbed her shears and went through the airlock, carefully following Hutch’s instructions not to lose contact with the hull at any time.

It had surprised her that she found it so easy to go outside. When Hutch had first described the plan, she’d become frightened, and Hutch had looked at her until Nick assured her it was okay, she could do it. She’d realized it had come down either to her or George doing it, and Hutch wanted George on the receiving end because somebody was going to have to break open the box.

When she’d originally gone outside, to wait for Hutch to throw her the cable so she could secure it to the antenna mount, she’d surprised herself with her own fearlessness. Things had been getting a little scary at the time, and Hutch threw her the cable, and she’d picked it off and tied it down like a champ.

Now she was repeating the action, climbing up onto the cabin roof while the Memphis came closer. She dropped to one knee and glanced back at the washroom. It was pale green in the starlight.

Washroom to the stars.

“Alyx,” said Bill. “When I tell you—”

“I’m ready.”

There was some play in the cable. She opened the shears, caught the cable between the blades, and waited.

“Now,” said Bill.

She pushed down on the handle. Tried again.

The cable resisted.

“Is it done, Alyx?”

She briefly debated trying to untie the knot. But it would take too long. She summoned everything she had and squeezed again. The line parted. “Done,” she said.

“Good.”

Next she untied the remaining cable and threw it clear of the lander. “That’s strong stuff.”

“Go back inside,” said Bill. “Quickly.”

Alyx resented being ordered around by an AI, but she understood the need for haste. She turned, hurried back to the hatch, and climbed into her seat. The restraint harness slid down, the airlock closed, and she heard the hiss of incoming air. Then the seat pushed against her as thrusters fired and the vehicle changed direction.

She tried to remember a moment anywhere in her life in which she’d felt so good about herself.

GEORGE WATCHED THE box as it drifted toward him. It was an unseemly object, trailing pipes and cables and pieces of shelving. A last few ice crystals floated away. It had gone into a slow tumble, and he began to doubt that it would make it through the cargo door.

Bill kept lights focused on it, from the lander and from the Memphis itself. George got out of the way.

It was coming faster than he would have expected.

He glanced back at the web he’d erected, reassuring himself it was secure.

He’d been listening to the commlink and knew it had been several minutes since any intelligible sound had been heard from inside the box.

Abruptly Hutch’s voice crackled through the silence: “George, are you ready?”

“Standing by,” he said. “It’s coming in now. About thirty seconds away.”

“Okay. We’ll be there as quickly as we can.”

He watched it approach, watched it rotate slowly around its central axis. The lander was circling and coming back, and Hutch and Nick were off in the distance, near the Wendy, but they were coming, riding one of those rocket belts. They were big enough now that he could see them. See their lights anyhow.

“Ten seconds,” said Bill. “Clear the entry.”

Damned idiot machine. Did it think George was going to stand there and play tag with the box? He listened to the gentle hum of his suit’s power and became conscious of the air flow whispering across his face.

“Five.”

There was a trace of pride in the AI’s precision. At exactly the specified moment the box drifted through the door. It bumped the upper edge of the frame, sailed through the bay, and plunged into the net. Not quite dead center, but close enough.

George ran toward it. “Bill,” he said, “shut the door and give us some life support.”

He told Tor he was inside the Memphis, he was safe now, air in a minute, while he began disentangling the washroom from the net. Tor didn’t answer.

When he got it clear, he pushed it to the deck. “Okay, Bill,” he said. “Gravity up.”

Getting gravity back was not a calibrated business. For technological reasons that he’d heard but never understood, it tended to be on or off, at whatever setting. Bill gave him the standard quarter gee.

The cargo door closed and air returned slowly into the bay. George knelt over the box, waiting for the lights on the status board to go green.

TOR CLAIMED LATER that he never really lost consciousness. If not, he was on the edge during the last few minutes. But it seemed to him that he had in fact been awake the whole time, that he knew enough about what was going on to visualize everything as it occurred, that he wasn’t responding because he was, sensibly enough, conserving his air. He maintained that he understood when his box floated through the cargo door, and was gratified when it hit George’s net. Gratified. That was the way he described it.

In any case, at the end, he was aware of George’s anxious face looking down at him, of George rubbing his wrists trying to restore circulation, of George literally hugging him and telling him he was going to be fine, he’d made it, and he’d appreciate it if Tor wouldn’t scare him like that again.

“WE’VE GOT HIM,” George told her. “He’s okay.”

Hutch and Nick were coming in through the main airlock. “Tor,” she said, “it’s good to have you back.”

“I don’t think he’s quite able to talk yet, Hutch. But he heard you. He’s nodding. Saying thanks.”

“Good show, George,” she said.

After George had gotten Tor clear of the launch bay, Bill decompressed and opened up again. They got rid of the washroom, and Hutch used the go-pack to pick up Alyx.

They left the lander parked about a kilometer away from the ship. They would watch it a while before bringing it back on board. Just in case.

Reluctantly, Hutch did not go after Kurt’s body. He had been awash in whatever had disassembled the Wendy, and the risk involved in bringing him back on board simply did not justify recovery.

Another one lost.