She finally understood what he was trying not to say. “The blister should have been totally insulated from the outside, too,” she managed. “It shouldn’t have been able to get in to get him.”
He sighed. “Um, yeah. Somebody’s been skimping on the maintenance bill.”
“Well, what about the maintenance here?”
“Don’t worry so much about that. If it could have gotten in it would have by now. Just hang tight.”
Alarms started going off all over the board. “What are you doing?” she almost shrieked at him.
“Just hold on! Busy right now! Just stop up your ears if it’s too noisy!”
The computer’s voice now came from the control panel itself. “Passwords approved. Decompressing main quarters unit.”
Now she understood. Lucky had commanded the immediate decompression of the whole base unit except for those with their own separate systems. It was the emergency decontamination he’d talked about, the one that was supposed to even kill the roaches and the rats.
“Ooooeeee!” Cross exclaimed, looking at a view Randi couldn’t share. “Lookit how the goddam things explode! Sounds like fireworks!”
“Sounds like bacon frying, but I’ll take it,” Nagel responded. “Pressure down to ten percent… five… that’s the last. We’ve got a vacuum inside. It’ll ice down pretty quickly. How long you want to keep this going?”
“The hell with the icing! Half the shit that means anything to me is ruined anyway!” Cross responded. “I want every little bit of that thing dead, dead, dead!”
Nagel thought of Randi. “How you doin’, Doc? Still warm?”
“So far, yes,” she told him.
“Good. The only place any of that goop is likely to find any chance of survival is against the inner wall of your unit. That’s why I wish you had a suit. As it is, we’re gonna have to risk bringing you one. Shouldn’t be a problem if I’m fully suited up— remember, it couldn’t get those last folks in the colony, or at least by the time it got to them it didn’t bother, and whatever’s left, if anything, in the base has got to be small bits, not something that can break or harm an e-suit. The problem’s not with me or Sark bringin’ you the suit, it’s you.”
“Huh? What?”
“Think of it, doll. We’re gonna have’ta use the emergency supplies to repressurize the interior or we’re gonna kill you when you open the door. Any environment safe enough to risk you in is an environment safe enough for any bits of that thing that are left to survive in as well. That’s not to say that there’s any of it left—I don’t think Achmed knew enough about the engineering behind the base quarters to do anything, and this thing’s not space savvy, but a risk’s a risk. You understand that?”
She let out a deep breath. “Yeah. So either I get safely into a suit and out of here or I get absorbed or liquefied or whatever and you burn me.”
“That’s about the size of it. I’ll be coming through with a torch. Sark and I will cover each other’s back. There’s no airlock to use into the base command center, so there’s no easy way to do this. You ready?”
“No, but if we don’t do this I’m never going to get out of here.”
“Not to mention the captain won’t allow us to dock with the Stanley. Okay, we’ll start repressurization in, oh, ten minutes, just to give Lucky’s paranoia a chance to get going. Then we’re coming down through the airlock from here. It’s still gonna be pretty damned cold, but it’ll only be for a few seconds if we’re lucky, and it won’t be absolute zero, anyway. You stand by and wait for instructions, but when I want you to act, you have to act, and fast. Still, we’re gonna take your pressure down during this period so breathe easy but don’t move around a lot. If anything of this thing’s left, the cold and low pressure might just make it slow and sick.”
“I’m ready,” she told him, but she wondered if she really was. Maybe it hadn’t been so smart to actually speak to that thing. Was this really Jerry? Was everything true or not? They were up there; she could see them, but she couldn’t see inside the very place where she was. Could this thing somehow anticipate and survive what had been done if it was as she’d heard? Even if Jerry and Sark came down, might they be taken on the way? How fast did it take to absorb a human and sort and classify and make use of his memories? There had been an awful lot of people in that colony, and they hadn’t had a prayer.
But she couldn’t stay here forever, either. The captain and An Li would rather they all died than not recover this huge and complex unit, but they were not about to let it dock with the Stanley nor anybody else to board, either, unless they were sure it was safe. To be sure, she’d have to be out of there.
She had to risk it. She knew that. And if some of that thing got to her, then Jerry or Sark would just have to take her out completely as quickly as possible.
“Stand by,” Jerry Nagel told her. “We’re repressurizing to a three-kilometer height, which is what we have you down to. Breathing all right?”
“It’s a little hard, but it’s tough to say if it’s the pressure or my nerves.”
“Good girl. We’re almost to you. Okay, we’re repressurizing the airlock to shuttle norm. All seals on the suits check out. Opening the hatch.”
There was a sudden terrible sound like a great wind, then a thump.
“Jerry? What was that?”
“Relax. We opened the hatch and Sark let a blast loose in there to take care of any surprises, even though there shouldn’t have been any. We’re okay now, let’s see if we did anything.”
He opened the airlock hatch full now and stepped inside. She could hear him and Sark breathing.
“Looks good. No sign of goop. A little ash where we burned the area before docking, nothing serious. Okay, closing lock, depressurizing to three klicks. Lights on full inside. Jeez! I feel like I’m breaking into my own house here! Ooookay… Guns charged, opening inner lock on green now.”
There was the sound of heavier double breathing, then Sark said, “Inner hatch closed and sealed, pressure back to normal inside. Nothing’s getting outta here through there unless it’s with us. Jeez! What a mess! Home Sweet Fridge!”
“Nothing useful in the lounge,” Jerry noted. “Want to burn it?”
“Maybe. If anything’s alive it’s gonna be against that bulkhead, though, or along the ceiling seams. I’ll settle for that.”
There was the same whooshing sound, longer this time, and then it cut off as Nagel yelled “Hold it! Hold it! We don’t want to start a fire! The cure would be worse than the disease at this temperature!”
“Doc, you still with us?” Sark called.
“Yes, I’m here. Let me get up and get to the— ungh! Suddenly I can’t move! I—oh, shit! Forget it.”
“What’s the matter, Randi?” Jerry Nagel called, uncharacteristically using her first name.
“I’m embarrassed. I had myself strapped in, right? Forgot to remove all the straps. Felt like somebody was pinning me down!”
“Just relax. Go up to the door panel. If you press the control on the right of the identipad you’ll be able to see through the door somewhat and that should give you a look at us. Don’t mind the look of the place, though. It’s a real mess.”
I never knew you could do that with this door, she thought to herself, but she tried it and discovered that he was right. So long as you kept your palm on the plate for more than ten seconds, a kind of see-through window opened in the door. Clever, and useful for the kinds of emergencies this room was really designed for.