He wondered if he’d feel anything.
The bomb said smoothly, “I must think on this further” And in majestic silence the grapple pulled up and the bomb slid back into the belly of the ship. The twin bay doors closed behind it. Doolittle closed his eyes and let himself slip into a state approaching total collapse.
Nothing but zeros showed on the screens in the control room. But a new word had appeared under the now silent timing chronometer, to replace DETONATION SEQUENCE IN PROGRESS. It said, simply, ABORTED.
Boiler had a hand on Pinback’s sternum and was drawing a fist back for a solid punch when a firm, feminine voice filled the corridor.
“Attention, attention,” He held the fist poised behind a shoulder and looked in the direction of the speaker. So did Pinback.
“The bomb has returned to the bomb bay. The bomb run and destruction sequence have been locked.”
Boiler looked down at Pinback. Pinback looked back at Boiler. They should have been deliriously happy, but under the present circumstances they settled for only mild embarrassment. Boiler got off Pinback’s stomach, reached over, and deactivated the laser.
Pinback picked himself up off the floor and started rubbing at a bruised shoulder. Neither man looked at the other.
“Well, he did it,” Boiler murmured, holding the laser in one hand.
“Yeah, he did.” Pinback glanced at the weapon. “I’m going forward. Why don’t you put that thing away and come join me?”
“Okay,” agreed Boiler. “I’ll just be a minute.”
“Okay.”
In the emergency airlock, a forgotten figure in a starsuit rolled over and sat up slowly, trying to rub at its eyes through the helmet face plate and failing once ugain. It spoke into its suit mike and its voice was thick, puffy.
“Doolittle… Doolittle?” Talby winced, saw flashes of color before his eyes. What had happened? Oh yeah, he’d caught the laser beams right in the face. Only his darkened faceplate had saved him from permanent damage.
At least, it seemed as though it had. He looked around the silent airlock, and his vision seemed as good as before.
But more important, had the bomb run been affected? He cleared his throat, shouted more lucidly into the suit pickup. “Doolittle, what happened with the run? Pinback, Boiler… did we blow it up? Hello, hello?” He got slowly to his feet. “Hello, anybody? Did we blow up the planet? Is the ship all right? What’s going on?”
Of course, his suit mike was still cut off, thanks to Doolittle’s damnable impatience. He’d have to get out of the suit and go forward… no, that wouldn’t be necessary. Silly of him… of course, he didn’t feel too well yet.
He reached for the lock pickup to call forward, put another hand on the latch of his helmet… and fell to the floor. Better rest a minute, Talby, before you try that again.
Boiler was still breathing with difficulty—and relief—as he started up the corridor. He turned a bend, found himself back in the control room. Pinback was right behind him.
It was exactly as they had left it, naturally—with the exception of the now-stilled chronometer. He looked at the long row of zeros and shivered. Too close.
They took their seats quietly. Pinback slipped on his headset, began checking to make sure that nothing else had gone haywire in the interim.
“You know,” Boiler said finally, “we’ve really gotta disarm that bomb.”
“You could have killed me,” Pinback grumbled.
Boiler gave him a disgusted look as Pinback leaned forward, pushed a button. Their relationship was back to normal again.
“Hello, Doolittle? This is Pinback. Are you there?”
“Just barely,” came the slow reply. “Didn’t think it was going to work, at the end. Almost didn’t. The bomb nearly had me convinced it was right.”
“What did you do, Lieutenant?”
“I did what Commander Powell advised,” he confessed tiredly. “I taught it phenomenology.”
“Yeah?” said Pinback. “Hey, wow, what a great idea Doolittle! That’s a great thing.” He put a hand over the pickup and looked across at Boiler. “Hey, what’s phenomenology?”
“Ah, shut up,” Boiler snorted.
“I’m coming in now,” Doolittle’s words floated out of the speaker. He coaxed little nudges from his jet pack until he was around the back of the ship.
“I’m down by the emergency airlock. Look, guys, I’ve got nothing left… I feel like I’ve just slept for a million years. I don’t wanna fool with the regular airlock pressurization controls. Would you blow the seal on the hatch so I can come in? I’m really beat”
“Sure thing, Lieutenant. I know just how you feel,” Pinback said consolingly.
“Sure you do,” Boiler sneered.
Pinback stuck his tongue out at him and whispered angrily, “I’m just trying to make him feel better, dummy.” Then, into the mike, “Stand clear of the hatchway, lieutenant… I’ll have the lock open in a second.”
There was a faint blur of motion behind him, and Talby turned on his side, still dazed by the effects of the laser. He’d thought the shock had just about worn off, and now it was being replaced by another one as he saw the surface door begin to slide back.
His eyes went wide as the blackness of space appeared beyond. He hadn’t activated anything. What was going on? The computer voice filled his suit and told him.
“You are now leaving the emergency airlock.” He tried to scramble to his feet but his muscles seemed paralyzed. He had to get a solid grip on something, had to get hold of—
“Thank you for observing all safety precautions.”
Doolittle had jetted aside as soon as the door had begun to draw back, so the blast of escaping air wouldn’t push him head over heels out into space. Then there was a sudden loud whooshing sound in his voice, which might have been a scream sounding extremely fast, and a man-shaped object shot past him before the door was more than partway open.
Turning quickly with the suit jets, he recognized the color of the starsuit—each man had his own color—and then called into his helmet pickup.
“Hello… Pinback?”
“What’s up, Doolittle?” Pinback studied various readouts on his console. “Didn’t the hatch blow properly?” He was suddenly concerned. “Hey, are you okay?”
“I’m fine, Pinback. It’s Talby I’m worried about. He was in the airlock and you blew him out of the ship. He doesn’t have a jet pack on and he’s drifting away—fast. I’m gonna have to go after him. Turn on his channel so I can contact him.”
“Isn’t it open?”
“Naw… seems to be off for some reason. Check it out, will you?”
Pinback leaned over Doolittle’s station, saw that one of the suit channels had indeed been shut down. He flipped the switch back up.
“Yeah, it was off, all right. Go get him, Lieutenant.”
“On my way.”
Boiler noticed the expression on Pinback’s face. “Hey, what’s wrong now?”
“It’s Talby. The jerk was working in the airlock when it opened and he didn’t have a jet pack on. He’s drifting away from the ship. Doolittle’s going after him.”
“Pretty stupid… blowing him out the airlock like that.”
Pinback started to say something, thought better of it. It wouldn’t do any good.
Doolittle would get Talby back safely and maybe, he thought tightly, they’d both have the decency not to mention the incident again. Boiler would never let Pinback forget that it had been he who had blown the astronomer out of the ship—even though it had been Doolittle’s fault for turning off Talby’s suit channel.