Chindi

“Who else?”

“The Condor is not far.”

Preacher Brawley’s ship. That brought a surge of hope. “Where is he?”

Brawley was already a near-legendary figure. He’d saved a science mission that had miscalculated its orbit and was getting sucked down into a neutron star, he’d brought back the disease-ridden survivors of the Antares II effort without regard to his own safety, and he’d rescued a crew member on Beta Pac by using a wrench to club one of that world’s voracious reptiles to death.

Bill looked pleased. “Within range. If he’s on schedule, the Condor could be here tonight. If he makes a good jump, he could be in by early morning.”

“He has room?”

“Only a handful of passengers. Plenty of space. But we should contact him without delay. There is no one else close enough to help.”

Star travel was as much art as science. Ships did not return to sublight space with precision. One could materialize quite far from a projected destination, and the degree of uncertainty tended to increase with the range of the jump. The risk normally lay in the possibility of materializing inside a target body. In this case, even materializing inside the cloud constituted a major hazard. Thin as it was, it nevertheless possessed enough density to explode an arriving ship. That meant Preach would have to follow her own procedure, make his jump well outside the envelope, then make a run for the station. On the way back out, he’d be racing the flare until he got enough acceleration to jump back into hyperspace.

He had reckless red hair and blue eyes that seemed lit from within. He was not extraordinarily handsome, in the classic sense, but there was an easygoing sails-to-the-wind attitude about the man and a willingness to laugh at himself that utterly charmed her. A year or so earlier, when they’d found themselves together at Serenity, he’d made her feel that she was the center of the world. Hutch wasn’t inclined to give herself to men on short acquaintance, but she’d have been willing to make an exception for Brawley. Somehow, though, the evening had gotten diverted, and she’d thought better of casting a lure. Next time, she’d decided.

There had been no next time.

Bill was still talking about the Condor. The ship was engaged in biological research. Brawley has been collecting samples on Goldwood, and was returning them to Bioscan’s central laboratory at Serenity. Goldwood was one of the worlds on which life had not progressed past the single-cell stage.

“Let’s talk to them,” she said.

Lamps blinked on. “Cha

Despite the seriousness of her situation, Hutch felt flustered. Schoolgirl flustered. Dumb. Mentally she hitched up her socks, steadied her voice, and peered at the round black lens of the imager. “Preach,” she said, “I’ve got—”

The lights blinked again and went out. This time they did not come back. When Bill tried to talk to her his voice sounded like a recording at reduced power. The pictures dropped off the displays, and the fan shut down, stuttered, and started up again.

Bill tried unsuccessfully to deliver an epithet.

The emergency lights came on.

“What was that?” she asked. “What happened?”

He needed about a minute to gather his voice, made several false starts, and tried again. “It was an EMP,” he said. An electromagnetic pulse.

“How much damage?”

“It fused everything on the hull.”

Sensors. Transmitters and dishes. Hypercomm. Optics.

“Are you sure? Bill, we need to contact the Condor. Tell them what’s happening.”

“It’s all down, Hutch.”

She gazed out at the streaming mist.

“Don’t even think about it,” said Bill.

“What alternative do we have?”

“You’ll get cooked.” Radiation levels were, um, astronomical.

Unless she went outside and replaced the transmitter, there was no hope of alerting Preach.

“Too much wind out there at this velocity, even if you want to get yourself well-done, Hutch. Keep in mind, something happens to you, nobody gets rescued.”

“You could manage it.”

“At the moment, I’m blind. I couldn’t even find the station. Renaissance will notify Serenity what’s happening and Barber can figure the rest out for himself.”

“They’ll be down, too. The same EMP—”

“They’re equipped for this environment. They’ve got heavy-duty suits. They can send somebody out without killing him.”

“Yeah.” She wasn’t thinking clearly. Good. She didn’t want to go anyway.

“After we get to the station you can make all the repairs you want. If you still have a mind.”

“It’ll be too late by then to round up Preach.”

Bill’s fireplace went silent. “I know.”

THEY WERE NAVIGATING on dead reckoning. Course and speed had been laid in hours ago, predicated on exact knowledge. All that was required was to avoid gliding past the station without seeing it. But visibility was getting worse, and would probably be down to a couple of klicks by morning, when they arrived. It should be enough, but God help them if they missed the target.

“Bill, what happens if we put them all in the Wildside?”

“Everybody? Fifty-six people? Fifty-seven counting you. How many adults? How many children? How old are they?”

“Say forty adults. What happens?”

His image appeared to have grown older. “We’d be okay for the first few hours. Then it’d start to get a little close. We’d be aware of a growing sense of stale air. After about thirteen hours, conditions would begin to deteriorate seriously.”

“How long before people started sustaining damage?”

“I don’t have enough information.”

“Guess.”

“I don’t like to guess. Not on something like this.”

“Do it anyway.”

“At about fifteen hours. Once it begins, things will go downhill quickly.” His eyes found hers. “You can do it, pick up the extra people, if Dime

THE LIGHTS CAME back, along with full power.

During the course of the evening she wandered restlessly through the ship, read, watched sims, and carried on a long, rambling conversation with Bill. The AI pointed out that she’d eaten nothing since lunch. But she had no appetite.

Later that evening, he appeared on the bridge in a VR mode, seated on her right hand. He was wearing an elaborate purple jumpsuit with green trim. A Wildside patch adorned his breast pocket. Bill prided himself on the range and ingenuity implicit in the design of his uniforms. The patches always bore his name but otherwise changed with each appearance. This one carried a silhouette of the ship crossing a galactic swirl. “Are you going to try to take everybody?”

She’d been putting off the decision. Wait till she got to Renaissance. Then explain it to Dime

Not enough air for everybody, Professor.

Not my fault. I didn’t know.

She sat entertaining murderous thoughts about Barber. Bill suggested she take a trank, but she had to be sure she was fully functional in the morning. “I don’t know yet, Bill,” she said.

The interior lights dimmed as it grew late. The observation panels also darkened, creating the illusion that night had arrived outside. Gradually the mist faded until she could see only an occasional reflection of the cabin lights outside.

Usually she was quite comfortable in the Wildside, but tonight the vessel felt empty, gloomy, silent. There were echoes in the ship, and she listened to air currents and the murmur of the electronics. She sat down in front of her display every few minutes and checked the Wildside’s position.