ZERO GEE WITH the lights out. It was cooling off, not a lot, but enough to suggest what was to come. The ship was absolutely silent save for a rustling in the bulkhead. Like loose paper getting blown around. When he put his hand to it he could feel a slight vibration.
“There’s a noise in the walls,” he told Hutch. She acknowledged without comment. He imagined something gnawing on the ship.
Until two weeks before, Tor had never been in serious personal danger. Now it was happening a second time. He was terrified, and he kept thinking it wouldn’t be so bad if he wasn’t frightened that his nerve would break, that he’d begin screaming for help. He tried again to raise Kurt, but there wasn’t even a carrier wave from the captain’s link.
“Listen, Tor.” Hutch again. “We’ll be over in a couple of minutes. We’re going to get you out.”
“How are you going to do that?” he asked, wondering whether she’d lie to him, do anything to keep his spirits up. He remembered the way heroic characters always died in the sims. Just prop me up against the gun, Louie. I’ll hold the pass until you get clear. What he wanted, maybe even as much as getting rescued, was to look good.
“There’s a washroom in there. Find it. When I tell you, I want you to go into it.”
“Into the washroom?”
“Yes. We’ll be there as quickly as we can. We’re going to come in through the emergency airlock and down the tube. I’ll let you know when we’re ready to start the cut. When I do, make for the washroom.”
He understood. “My God,” he said.
“It’ll work.”
“Going to get cold.”
“Yes, it will. You have any blankets available?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. This area seems to be all artifacts. Old pots and statues.”
“All right. You’re going to have to take off some clothes, too, before we’re done.”
It seemed like a strange time for a joke, but he said nothing.
NICK WAS WAITING with the ram tape when Hutch, George, and Alyx returned to the launch bay. They were carrying go-packs, spare restraining harnesses, e-suits, air tanks, a fifty-meter length of cable, a wrench, and a pair of shears.
She took the tape, thanked him, and hefted it in her hand. Did anybody have any experience with a laser cutter? They all smiled politely and looked at one another. “I need a volunteer,” Hutch said.
Nick shuffled his feet. “You’re my man,” she said. She showed him the tool, turned on the power, activated the laser. She produced a marker, looked around, and found an empty cabinet. She drew a line along one side of its frame, and sliced cleanly down the line. “You want to try?”
He nodded.
She turned it off and handed it to him.
He thumbed it on.
“When the lamp’s green it’s ready,” she said.
The lamp turned green, and he pressed the trigger. The laser appeared, a long blade of ruby light. “You can step up the intensity.” She showed him how. The light changed color. Brightened. “But this should be adequate.” She readjusted to the original setting.
He looked at it and took aim at the mutilated cabinet.
“No sudden motions. Resist the urge to press down. The laser does the work.”
He cut off a long strip of metal and she told him congratulations, he had just graduated.
Now she explained what she intended to do, laid out their instructions, and provided Nick with a pair of grip shoes.
Everybody got an e-suit. They strapped on air tanks, activated the fields, and began breathing from the tanks. Hutch started the decompression procedure, checked their communications, and pulled on a vest. She threw the ram tape into it, attached the wrench and the shears to her vest, which would remain outside the Flickinger field, and threw the loop of cable over her shoulder. She put her go-pack into a backseat and got a second cutter for herself.
She ran through a checklist in her mind, picked up an extra e-suit, and laid it into the backseat of the lander. “I think we’re ready to go,” she said.
Nick and Alyx climbed in with her, and she started the engine. George backed off to give the vehicle room. She brought the Wendy schematic up on one of the auxiliary screens.
When the chamber had gone to vacuum, the launch door rose. Thumbs-up to George. He returned the gesture, and they eased out into the night just as one of the Wendy’s forward sections seemed to break loose, rather like a globule of mercury, and drift away.
Nick made a noise deep in his throat.
Hutch moved deliberately, arcing out and approaching the Wendy from the rear. Nick pushed forward in his restraints as if to make the lander move faster, but he said nothing. Amidships, the hull appeared to be going through contractions, a woman experiencing the final stages of birth. A cloud of crystal flakes exploded and blew off.
“Tor,” Hutch said, “we’re outside now. I’ll be down the tube in a minute.”
“Okay. Take your time. No rush.”
Get it right.
Hutch studied the schematic, looked at the Wendy’s hull. “There,” she said, fixing the spot in her mind. It was located just below an antenna array. “He’s in there. And over here is our way in. A topside hatch.” She maneuvered toward the array, got within a couple of meters of the hull, matched course and speed, and directed Bill to hold it right where it was. Then she depressurized the cabin and opened the airlock.
“What do we do,” Alyx asked, “if the thing attacks the lander?”
“If that happens, we leave it here. Just abandon ship and I’ll pick you up.” She turned in her seat, lifted the go-pack onto her shoulders, and handed the shears to Alyx, making it almost a ceremonial gesture. “Here you go,” she said. “Take care of it.”
Hutch checked to make sure she was still carrying her marker, and turned on her wristlamp. “Okay, Nick. Let’s get to it.”
She passed through the hatch, put her cutter in her vest, and in a single movement launched herself across to the hull.
Nick hesitated, checked to make sure he had his own cutter, and looked out at Hutch now clinging to the Wendy’s hull. He glanced at the frozen world beneath him, at the diseased thing gobbling down the ship.
“It’s okay, Nick,” she said. “You can do this.”
He laughed nervously. “That sounds like an epitaph. Nick could do it.” She laughed back, and he leaned out of the airlock, looking sporty in a green plaid shirt and white slacks. His eyes touched hers, and he pushed clear. He landed a bit hard and bounced, but she caught him and hauled him back. Then she spoke into her link. “Tor, you there?”
“No,” he said, “I went to the show.”
Sarcasm under pressure. The man had spirit. “Tell me when,” she said. She swung the wrench and rapped on the hull.
“Now. I hear you.”
“Good place to cut?”
“A little more forward. About two meters.”
Hutch measured and rapped again.
“That’s good,” said Tor.
She took out her marker, which was a bilious green, made an X at the spot and drew a large box around it. Three meters high by two wide. Now she turned to Nick. “Ready?”
“Yes.” He pushed the stud on his cutter and the unit began charging.
“It’s a triple hull,” she said. “You won’t have time to get through them all. Just do the best you can.”
“All right.”
“But don’t start until I tell you.”
Hutch squeezed his shoulder, then returned to the lander. Alyx handed her the extra air tanks and e-suit, which she’d tied together in a package. While Hutch tethered them to her vest, she called Tor. “For now, I want you to stay near the hatch in the rear.”
“Okay.”
“Everything still all right?”
“I’m doing fine. Could hardly ask for better accommodations.”