Страница 145 из 162
“Patch through the suitcom,” Porey said. Graff said to the tech at the boards in simulation Control, “Give us audio, here. Are we getting anything out of the pod?”
“We don’t get anything. Whole core section’s on that generator.”
“What the hell kind of engineering is that, dammit to bloody hell, what kind of operation do we have here?”
“An old one,” Graflf said. “Lot of patch-jobs.”
“Piece of junk,” Porey muttered. “Nothing moves, does it?”
“Not the shutters, not the internal lights—there’s a requisition to get them on another circuit, but the engineers have found a problem doing that.”
“Can they power up with the rest of those pods sitting out there?”
“Should be able to,” Graff said, while Dekker kept his mouth shut. Should be able to, once they got the one pod clear. If it didn’t, if they were all crashed, everybody was in trouble. Imminent trouble.
“One man’s not enough out there,” he said tautly. “They’ve got no locators, those are all killed with the power.... Sir, in all respect, I know what I’m doing....”
“Shut down, Dekker, you’re not going up there.”
A dun seam of light showed at the edge of one monitor— lock door, he figured, on a leech and hand-battery. Audio cut in, unmistakably a suit com, heavy breaming, little else, and a white star appeared in both monitors: suit-spot shining in all that black.
Sim chiefs voice, then: “You’re going across the chamber, zenith climb about ninety meters.. . sensor range within—”
“Copy that.” Female voice, unexpectedly. Familiar voice that sent a sinking feeling to the pit of his stomach as the star shot off at a fair speed. Scary speed.
“Don’t hurry it, don’t hurry it...” from the chief. “Dammit, slow down.”
Meg didn’t. Meg was hotdogging it, scaring hell out of him and the sim chief—miner showout, but habitual: a miner knew his distance without his eyes, by reckonings they didn’t teach in construction, and she wouldn’t miss: blind in the dark, she wouldn’t miss: that was the push she was used to—and she was counting and caking.
“Shouldn’t argue with her,” Dekker muttered, sweating it. “She knows her rate, she’s feeling it.. .tell the chief that.”
“Is that Kady?” Graff asked. “Dekker, is that Kady out there?”
“Yessir.”
“Get her the hell out of there!” Porey said into the mike. “This is Comdr. Porey. Get her out of there. Now!”
Took a little relaying of instructions. Meg developed a problem with her mike. Didn’t fool Porey, didn’t fool anybody, but there wasn’t a thing Porey could do from here. Meg was closing into sensor range, you could hear the pings on audio and see the rate drop.
Then number two monitor showed a faint haze of detail. Chamber wall and a pod directly in Meg’s suit spot, he’d bet his life on it.
“She’s all right,” he said, feeling the shakes himself. “Sir, she knows her business.”
Porey wasn’t saying a thing about the transmission difficulties, wasn’t giving any orders now, he just muttered, “Kady’s on notice with me, you make that clear, Mr. Graff.”
“Yes, sir,” Graff said.
Word came from another cha
Meanwhile an engineer was giving instructions and Meg started identifying and freeing up the bolts that released it from its track.
“Shit...” came over the com; and froze his heart.
“What’s the matter?” the chief asked; but he could see it for himself, the pod’s number decal—number three. The pod they’d been scheduled for.
“That’s Jamil,” he said, to whoever cared, and looked for a chair free. But there wasn’t one. “Jamil and his guys took our slot—said they could use the time...”
Didn’t take much calc to find a lighted, open hatch, and Meg beelined for it, braked and took a shaky bent-kneed impact, another showout miner-trick, with a hand-up catch at the rim of the lock to stop the rebound. She cycled the lock on battery power, breath hissing with shivers—it wasn’t cold coming through the suit, not this fast, it was shock starting to work, in the loneliness of the airlock. Let the rescue crew do the maneuvering with the PRU, the chief had said, they wanted her out of there and that lock shut before they powered up the mags and she agreed, she didn’t know shit about the tow system: it was on now, it was moving, bound for a pod access lock where meds were waiting, and they weren’t going to need her unless the mags were definitively crashed.
Moment of intense claustrophobia then, just the ghostly emergency light, then a door opened into a brightly lit ready-room full of guys willing to help with the suit.
She got the helmet off, drew a breath of icy clean air and got a first welcome bit of news—power-up was proceeding, pods were answering; they for sure weren’t going to need her again out there, and she could unsuit and take the lift out to gravitied levels and the lockers. Good job, they told her, good job, but they were busy and she got herself out of the way, let them tend the suit, unaccustomed luxury for a miner-jock, and boarded the lift out of there.
Slow, slow business in the recovery of the pod, and they could only watch, in 1-dock Security ops. Dekker hung at draffs back and Percy’s, listened to the output from the rescue team on the open speaker.
They were working into dock now, at access 3. “That’s copy,” he heard a voice say, and flashed on cold, on dark, on inertia gone wild—
Enjoy the ride, Dekker....
“That’s him,” he said of a sudden—had everyone’s attention, and he looked to Graff, who understood what he meant, Graff surely understood.
“ID that man,” Graff snapped, “isolate that voice. —Mr. Dekker—” as he headed for the door. “Hold it.”
“Dekker!” Porey said atop Graff’s order, but he’d already stopped and faced them.
“I want you to listen,” Graff said. “I want you to pick out that voice, all the voices that might be involved.”
“Is he meaning the attack on him?” Porey wanted to know, and Graff nodded, leaning over the master com in ops. “Yes, sir, that’s exactly what he means. —Play it back, ensign.”
“That’s copy,” the recording said, among others, and Dekker said with absolute conviction, “Yes. That one.”
“Who’s carded to that area right now?” Porey asked. “Nobody’s leaving that area without carding out, hear me?”
“Yes, sir,” the com tech said; and relayed to Fleet Security.
“Not everybody’s carded in,” Graff said. “They probably let medics and techs in wholesale—anybody with a security badge...”
“Sir,” the tech said, “I think I’ve got it pi
“Track it.”
Time to indulge the shakes and the unsteady breathing, alone in the lift. “They’re getting telemetry,” Meg heard, on the com track that was probably going out to every speaker in the mast. “Four heartbeats.” Best news yet. Thank God, she thought, queasy in the steady increase of g against the deep fast dive the car was taking. She clenched her teeth and collected herself, watched the level indicator light plummet until the car came to rest and the door opened on warm air and bright light.
She expected Mitch and a handful of guys; but the room was packed, everybody who could cram themselves hi, all wanting news. “Four heartbeats,” she told them, which they might have heard, she couldn’t tell if the com was feeding through, there was so much racket. She wasn’t prepared to be laid hold of, wasn’t expecting Mitch of all guys to pat her heavily on the shoulder and say how miner-jocks had their use—other guys did the same, and all she could get out was a breathless, desperate: “Jamil. Janul took our sim slot... anybody seen Dek?”
Nobody had. She was shaking, embarrassing herself with that fact, but she couldn’t stop the chill now. A big guy whose name she didn’t even know threw his arm around her shoulders, hugged her against his side, and yelled out to get a blanket, she was soaked with sweat.