Lifeline

Chapter 64

PHOENIX—Day 72

Two minutes of stomach-knotting blasts from the hydrogen-oxygen rockets seemed like an eternity. The Phoenix roared in Clancy’s ears; he vibrated like a man at a jack-hammer. He prayed to himself, all the while thinking about how a transposed digit in the computer codes, an impatient worker affixing one of the gaskets with too little sealant, a measured exhaust angle offset by a fraction of a degree—any trivial mistake could make everything fail.

Visions of catastrophe filled his head, until the burn ended with explosive silence. Tugging back against the connecting weavewire, the Phoenix counteracted all the velocity they had built up over three days.

Then they hung still.

The port showed a glowing—unmoving!—vision of Orbitech 1. The industrial colony filled the view, only a short distance away. They had stopped themselves with their cobbled-together engines.

Clancy ripped the restraining straps from his chest and pushed away from the acceleration chair, bellowing like a madman.

Orbitech 1 began pulling the weavewire again, slowly hauling the yo-yo in toward the waiting docking bay.

McLaris looked gray and sick, shaky. Clancy clapped him on the shoulder and helped to unstrap him. “We made it, Duncan! Have that keyboard of yours play something triumphant!”

Clancy felt ready to tackle anything, but McLaris didn’t look in any condition to respond to the humor. After rebounding from the opposite bulkhead, and performing a spontaneous jerk-worrble from a popular punk ballet, Clancy managed to reach the communications console. He whistled as he established contact with Clavius Base and Orbitech 1 on the open channel.

“Howdy, howdy! This is the, ahem, successful pilot of the one and only orbital yo-yo in history! Braking rockets have fired and we are home free. Forget all that stuff about ‘the Eagle has landed’—the Phoenix has risen!”

Wiay Shen manned the comm unit. Her almond eyes lit up when she saw Clancy’s face intact. The full second of light delay burned her image in Clancy’s mind. He grinned at her.

“You made it!” she cried. He heard cheers in the background from his crew. “I mean, of course you did. We weren’t really worried about you hitting Orbitech 1—”

A massive brown face moved into view. Tomkins grinned and gave them a thumbs-up. “Congratulations, you two! Cliff, you can take a rest now, but Duncan’s work is just starting.”

The Orbitech 1 ConComm broke in, overriding the transmission from Clavius Base and pushing Tomkins’s face off to the side of the screen. “Phoenix, we have you positioned and our intercept crew is ready to receive you. We are still having some difficulty contacting the Filipino emissaries—”

“Wiay, do you know what this means?” Clancy smiled smugly as he pushed his own override back to Clavius Base. The Orbitech 1 people knew what they were doing; inside the Phoenix, Clancy and McLaris could do nothing but wait anyway.

Shen’s face reappeared in the center of the screen. “Cliff, Dr. Tomkins wants to talk to Duncan. Let him—”

But Clancy couldn’t stifle his own enthusiasm. “Once we get aboard Orbitech 1 and get everything arranged, I’m coming right back home to you. Back to Clavius, I mean—”

“Cliff!”

Wiay’s tone forced him to get hold of himself. He sighed. “Uh, go ahead. Put Tomkins on.” He swiveled in the cramped compartment. “Hey, Duncan, come on over.”

McLaris needed a moment to reply. He hadn’t even left the acceleration chair yet. His eyes seemed focused on something imaginary behind the walls of Orbitech 1. “Sure, just a minute.”

It took an unusually long time for him to move into range of the monitor.

When McLaris began to talk with Tomkins, Clancy noticed that the base manager could not keep his mind on the conversation. He looked very worried.

Outside the viewport, Orbitech 1 waited for them.