Was the zep company finally taking action? Had the reffers made their move? Or had the first expulsion triggered some kind of compensating release from automatic valves, elsewhere on the ship?
As if pondering the same questions, the voice in her jaw mused.
“Too little has been released to save the Spirit from the worst-case scenario. But maybe enough to limit the tragedy and mess up their scheme.
“It depends on a rather gruesome possibility that one of us thought up. What if-instead of hydrogen-some of the helium cells have been refilled with OXYGEN? After experimenting with a similar, programmably permeable polymer, we find that the fuel replenishment process could be jiggered to do that. If so, the compressed combination-”
Oxygen?
Tor shouted “Wait!” as Warren made a hard stab at one of the green cells, slicing a long vent that suddenly blurped at them.
This wave of gas wasn’t as cool as the helium had been. It smelled terrific, though. One slight inhale filled Tor with sudden and suspicious exhilaration.
Uh-oh, she thought.
At that moment, her spectacle-display offered a bird’s-eye view as one of the new clouds of vented hydrogen contacted dying embers, atop the tormented Spirit of Chula Vista.
Like a brief sun, each of the refracting bubbles ignited in rapid succession. Thunderclaps shook the dirigible from stem to stern, knocking Tor and Warren off their feet.
Is this it? Her own particular and special End of the World? Strangely, Tor’s clearest thought was one of professional jealousy. Someone down below ought to be getting truly memorable and historic footage. Maybe on a par with the Hindenburg Disaster.
This was the critical moment. With their plan dissolving, the reffers must act. Any second now, a well-timed chain explosion within the Spirit’s great abdomen…
While the violent tossing drove Tor into fatalism, all that invigorating oxygen seemed to have an opposite effect upon Warren, who surged to his feet, then slipped through the tear that he had made and charged across the green cell, preparing to attack the giant hydrogen compartment beyond, heedless of the smart-mob, clamoring at him to stop.
Tor tried to add her own plea, but found that her throat would not function.
Some reporter, she thought, taking ironic solace in one fact-that her specs were still beaming to the Net.
Live images of a desperately unlikely hero.
Warren looked positively giddy-on a high of oxygen and adrenaline, but not too drugged to realize the implications. He grimaced with an evident combination of fear and exaltation, while bringing his cutter-tool slashing down upon the polymer membrane-a slim barrier separating two gases that wanted, notoriously, to unite.
Sensory recovery came in scattered bits.
First, a smattering of dream images. Nightmare flashes about being chased, or else giving chase to something dangerous, across a landscape of burning glass. At least, that was how her mind pictured a piling-on of agonies. Regret. Physical anguish. Failure. More anguish. Shame. And more agony, still.
When the murk finally began to clear, consciousness only made matters worse. Everything was black, except for occasional crimson flashes. And those had to be erupting directly out of pain-the random firings of an abused nervous system.
Her ears also appeared to be useless. There was no real sound, other than a low, irritating humming that would not go away.
Only one conduit to the external world still appeared to be functioning.
The voice. It had been hectoring her dreams, she recalled. A nag that could not be answered and would not go away. Only now, at least, she understood the words.
“Tor? Are you awake? We’re getting no signal from your specs. But there’s a carrier wave from your tooth-implant. Can you give us a tap?”
After a pause, the message repeated.
And then again.
So, it was playing on automatic. She must have been unconscious for a long time.
“Tor? Are you awake? We’re getting no signal from your specs. But there’s a carrier wave from your tooth-implant. Can you give us a tap?”
There was an almost overwhelming temptation to do nothing. Every signal that she sent to muscles, commanding them to move, only increased the grinding, searing pain. Passivity seemed to be the lesson being taught right now. Just lie there, or else suffer even more. Lie and wait. Maybe die.
Also, Tor wasn’t sure she liked the group mind anymore.
“Tor? Are you awake? We’re getting no signal from your specs. But there’s a carrier wave from your tooth-implant. Can you give us a tap?”
On the other hand, passivity seemed to have one major drawback. It gave pain an ally.
Boredom. Yet another way to torment her. Especially her.
To hell with that.
With an effort that grated, she managed to slide her jaw enough to bring the two left canine teeth together in a tap, and then two more. The recording continued a few moments-long enough for Tor to fear that it hadn’t worked. She was cut off, isolated, alone in darkness.
But the group participants must have been away, doing their own things. Jobs, families, watching the news. After about twenty seconds, though, the voice returned, eager and live.
“Tor!
“We are so glad you’re awake.”
Muddled by dull agony, she found it hard at first to focus even a thought. But she managed to drag one canine in a circle around the other. Universal symbolic code for “question mark.”
‹?›
The message got through.
“Tor, you are inside a life-sustainment tube. Rescue workers found you in the wreckage about twelve minutes ago, but it’s taking some time to haul you out. They should have you aboard a medi-chopper in another three minutes, maybe four.
“We’ll inform the docs that you are conscious. They’ll probably insert a communications shunt sometime after you reach hospital.”
Three rapid taps.
‹NO›
The voice had a bedside manner.
“Now Tor, be good and let the pros do their jobs. The emergency is over and we amateurs have to step back, right?
“Anyway, you’ll get the very best of care. You’re a hero! Spoiled a reffer plot and saved a couple of hundred passengers. You should hear what MediaCorp is crowing about their ‘ace field correspondent.’ They even backdated your promotion a few days.
“Everyone wants you now, Tor,” the voice finished, resonating her inner ear without any sign of double entendre. But surely individual members felt what she felt, right then.
Irony-the other bright compensation that Pandora found in the bottom of her infamous Box. At times, irony could be more comforting than hope.
Tor was unable to chuckle, so her tooth did a down-slide and then back.
‹!›
The Voice seemed to understand and agree.
“Yeah.
“Anyway, we figure you’d like an update. Tap inside if you want details about your condition. Outside for a summary of external events.”
Tor bit down emphatically on the outer surface of her lower canine.
“Gotcha. Here goes.
“It turns out that the scheme was partly to create a garish zep disaster. But they chiefly aimed to achieve a distraction.
“By colliding the Spirit with a cargo freighter in a huge explosion, with lots of casualties, they hoped not only to close down the zep port for months, but also to create a suddenly lethal fireball that would draw attention from the protective and emergency services. All eyes and sensors would shift for a brief time. Wariness would steeply decline in other directions.