“Whatever. This thing won’t move. In any direction. Do you know what happened to Kurt?”
“No. Tor, are you near the hatch now?”
“I’m in front of it.”
“Are there lights on the panel?”
“Red ones.”
Hutch smothered an urge to swear. The others were standing around watching her. Expecting her to solve the problem.
“Okay. There’s vacuum on the other side. Is your e-suit activated?”
“I’m not wearing it.”
“Damn it, Tor, where is it?” But she already knew the answer.
“It’s in the shuttle.”
Hutch was staring at the Wendy. The hull looked like a gray garment strung out on a windy day. A white spray erupted out of it. Flakes formed, and silver-white crystals floated away.
“What do you want me to do, Hutch?”
You’re dissolving, dummy. You went off without your suit and you’re sealed in a chamber that I can’t get into without killing you. And the whole place is melting around your ears.
The silent witnesses around her waited for her answer.
THE EMERGENCY LIGHTS died. Tor was in absolute darkness. And absolute silence. He held his hand up to one of the air ducts and detected no flow. Not much of an emergency system.
Hutch’s voice came back. “Tor. In the rear of the storeroom, where you are, there’s a hatch. It leads into a gravity tube.” Her voice sounded preternaturally loud.
“Okay. What’s a gravity tube?”
“When it’s turned on, it maintains zero gee. We don’t care about that now.”
“Okay.”
“I want you to see whether the hatch is open.”
“All right. But it’s pitch-dark in here. I can’t see anything.”
“Wait a minute.” While she went off circuit he struggled to keep his feet pointed down. Then she was back. “Okay. Can you find the hatch out into the corridor again? The one you couldn’t get open earlier?”
He was still floating in front of it. “Yes,” he said. “I can find it.”
“Go to it. Tell me when you get there.”
He reached down, felt for it, found it. “I’ve got it,” he said.
“Good. I’m looking at a schematic for the Wendy. Off to your left, about five steps along the bulkhead, there are two equipment lockers.”
Tor’s heartbeat surged. “There are e-suits in them,” he said.
“Sorry. No. But there should be a couple of utility lamps.”
The walls began to close in. He struggled to keep his frustration from showing. Keep his voice calm. He edged through the dark, trailing his fingers along the bulkhead, along shelves up high and bins near the deck. Pulling himself along. Barking his shins every ten seconds. The bins were all closed. Then he got to the lockers. He fumbled with the doors, opened them, and began feeling across the pieces of equipment secured inside. “You know where?” he asked.
“It doesn’t say, Tor. It just gives us an inventory.”
His fingers touched rods and cylinders and metal boxes and myriad different devices. He gave up in the first locker and went to the second.
“How are you making out?”
“I need a light,” he said.
Hutch ignored the joke. “I don’t want to rush you, but we do have a time problem.”
Yes. I wouldn’t know about that on my own, of course, with the fans not running and no air coming in. He felt across the gear. Lamps came in all sorts of different shapes. He was about to ask what kind of lamps when he picked one up. A wristlamp. “Got it,” he said, switching it on.
“Good show, Tor. Now go to the back of the storeroom and turn right. About six meters from the lefthand bulkhead, there should be a hatch. Do you see it?”
Tor strapped the lamp to his wrist and pushed himself forward. A little too fast maybe. He had to grab hold of a cabinet to stop, and he twisted his arm and banged his knee against a frame. “There it is,” he said.
“Good. Can you open it?”
He found the panel, remembered to open it from the bottom, and pulled out the handle. He hesitated and then—
Pushed it down.
The red lamps blinked on. They glowed like small hellish eyes. There was a vacuum there, too. And that meant nobody was going to get to him without killing him.
“Nothing,” he told her.
“Red lights?”
“Yes.” Despairing. “Any other ideas?”
Chapter 16
There is nothing quite so critical to a sound disposition as being able to find a washroom when one is needed.
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.