He sighted carefully. The next time the door swung open he stamped on the firing button and sent a string of flashes against the inside of the door. It swung open. He shifted his plane over to the side gradually as he fired.
Despite reverse roll the door was forced open and then, despite a three-hundred-two-mile-an-hour rush of air, suddenly sprang back under the hammering and lay against the hull. Wide open!
Jonnie stopped firing.
The door stayed open. Wide open, pinned back to the hull.
He examined the hinges by throwing the sight to tele. They were a bit twisted, probably from the shots. It was the hinges that precariously held the door open. Would it close again? Maybe. It was vibrating from wind force.
Watchfully, Jonnie drew off. His fingers raced on the console as he sought to correct for flying sideways. He got the sequence of combinations that did it. He inched the plane exactly opposite the yawning doorway.
Up went the doorway, down went the doorway. Yikes, this had to be timed!
He thought he had better just sit there and study it for a bit. He turned on the plane's lights to get direct visual. You couldn't do this on instruments alone.
The black pit lit up. He could see inside.
Yes, there was an area just inside the door. A flat platform. Probably needed for loading canisters. Ow! Canisters were stacked just in front of that platform. Would they explode if hit in an overshoot?
He calculated the distance and combination on the console. Then, with a sudden inspiration, he braced his foot against the magnetic grip setting lever. The jar of any impact would cause his foot, jolted, to set the magnetic skids.
He took a deep breath. He looked around him to be sure there were no loose objects. He moved the belted revolver they had issued him so its holster wouldn't punch him in the stomach if he jackknifed forward. The lanyard from the revolver was around his neck. He pulled it a bit to the side so it wouldn't catch on the control console if he pitched forward, for if it did, it could choke him. He laid a soft map case on the upper part of the console in case his head hit with the sudden stop.
Jonnie took another deep breath. He adjusted his air mask.
He watched the door. His fingers dancing on the console to get in the exact position, he zeroed in on the doorway. Count, count, count. How far would the doorway move up after he started forward?
He spread four fingers of his right hand across the huge keyboard to the four buttons that would start him. He spread four fingers of his left hand across the buttons that would stop him.
Up, up, up. Right hand ready. Punch!
The battle plane stabbed into the open door.
Crunch, down with the fingers of his left hand. Stop.
Crash!
He had not quite cleared the top of the door and a wide peel of metal screeched away.
His foot was jolted on the grip lever and the grips went on.
Jonnie's head slammed against the map case.
Lights flashed in his skull.
Blackness.
Chapter 7
During all this time, Zzt had been fluctuating between hope and suspicion.
The antics of that plane puzzled him. He knew he had no friends. Who would want to rescue him? He couldn't think of anybody. Char had been his shaftmate, and Char had vanished and was undoubtedly dead, for who would miss a chance to go home? And Char had not shown up at the firing. Terl. Probably Terl had killed him. So it was not Char. Who else was there? Nobody. So who was interested in rescuing him? It was a highly suspicious circumstance.
That dimwit Nup had apparently landed on top of the drone to keep from going down into the ice below-and it was ice; one could feel the Arctic in this awful chill. Ice felt a certain way in the atmosphere. Terrible planet.
One couldn't blame Nup for that. Common enough tactic for one plane to land on another when shot up or out of fuel, and get carried to safety. So it wasn't any real credit to Nup to think of it. But the crazy fool had landed off-center, and it was making the drone crab but mainly roll. And that roll was making Zzt sick at his stomach.
When he realized that somebody was evidently interested in the door, he had searched in his bag for a molecular metal cutter and found to his dismay he didn't have one. Not that it would have worked on this laminated molecular plating. But he would have tried.
Then whoever it was had let loose shots into the place.
Somebody was trying to kill him! He'd been right in believing he had no friends.
The interior had huge frames on the inside of the skin and Zzt had hastily drawn himself flat against the hull to take advantage of the projection of the wide frame.
He peered out cautiously. Then he relaxed a bit. The target was the hinges. Somebody was trying to get the door off. Zzt knew the hinges wouldn't part, but at the same time it was interesting indeed that somebody would try to part them. Why? How come somebody wanted to remove the door? That didn't make any sense at all.
Every mining plane, whatever else it was used for, followed a mining tradition. Every employee was basically a miner. Mining techniques, procedures, and equipment were into the mining company like kerbango was into the bloodstream and far more permanently. Hoists, lifts, cable ladders, safety lines, hooks, nets...they even shoveled paper around with scoops that looked like mine shovels. It was totally inconceivable that that plane out there didn't have a cable ladder and safety wires.
So why didn't it just lower a cable ladder and safety wire to him and let him time those door swings and dart up the ladder to the plane? They could lower him a jet backpack and even pick him out of the air.
All this was so routine to Zzt that the idea of anybody having to remove a door to make it wide open was a strange precaution.
Was somebody trying to steal a canister? That was impossible. They were all locked in. Everything in this damned derelict was armored, inside and out. Such ships were hell to repair, and he had resented the time Terl had taken. You couldn't get at anything in it. It was just a one-time-use rig, built to be expended. So nobody could steal anything here.
Were they trying to send it elsewhere? Well, you couldn't do that without keys, and he had no keys.
So what was going on?
The battering barrage that got the door all the way open and warped it in that position made it easier to lower a cable ladder. All right! Where was the ladder and safety wire? Nothing came dangling down into the huge open maw.
Zzt had just moved forward to peek when blinding lights flashed on, throwing the interior into a blaze of dirt motes and floating rust dust shaken loose in the firing.
He heard a plane's motor suddenly race.
He didn't even have time to get behind the protective frame.
Before his half-blinded eyes a plane shot in the door!
The floor plates shook! Metal shrieked.
The plane had crashed on the loading stage platform directly inside the door.
Zzt stumbled backward, expecting it to blow up. But its motor suddenly died and the peculiar fang-setting-on-edge sound of molecular cohesion pierced the dying whine of components. The thing had set its skid grips with a timing and precision Zzt had never seen before.
Staggered by the concussion and already sick with the rolling, Zzt lurched to his feet. It still had its lights on. He peered through this glare to see the pilot. He couldn't make it out. He staggered forward, hand on his belt gun. He still couldn't see the pilot. The armored glass door...the pilot was sitting up slowly.
A small being! A mask! A strange fur coat collar!
Zzt let out a near hysterical shriek. “A