“Forget it, boss,” Harry said almost at once. “There’s two of you.”
“Well then,” I said desperately, “can we trade off breathing air for thrust?”
He must have been just as desperate; he actually worked the problem. “Sure. You could start returning, get back here in less than a day. But it’d take all your air to do it. You’re dead, boss.”
I nodded, a silly habit I’d thought I’d outgrown. “That’s what I thought. Thanks, Harry. Good luck with Tom.”
Norrey said not a word. Presently the computer shut down her drive again, having done its level best to get her to me quickly with the fuel available. The glow around the Car (now plainly growing) winked out, and still she was silent. We were all silent. There was either nothing to say or too much, no in-between. Presently Harry reported docking at home. He gave Norrey her turnover data, gave her back manual control, and then he and the others went off the air.
Two people breathing makes hardly any noise at all.
She was a long long time coming, long enough for the pain in my back to diminish to the merely incredible. When she was near enough to see, it took all my discipline to keep from using the last of my jump-juice to try and match up with her. Not that I had anything to save it for. But matching in free space is like high-speed high-way merging—one of you had better maintain a constant velocity, two variables are too many. Norrey did a textbook job, coming to a dead stop relative to me at the extreme edge of lifeline range.
The precision was wasted. But you don’t stop trying to live just because a computer says you can’t.
At the same split second that she stopped decelerating she fired the lifeline. The weight at the end tapped me gently on the chest: very impressive shooting, even with the magnet to help. I embraced it fiercely, and it took me several seconds of concentrated effort to let go and clip it to my belt. I hadn’t realized how lonely and scared I was.
As soon as she was sure I was secure, she cut the drag and let the Car reel me in.
“Who says you can never get a cab when you need one?” I said, but my teeth were chattering and it spoiled the effect.
She grinned anyhow, and helped me into the rear saddle. “Where to, Mac?”
All of a sudden I couldn’t think of anything funny to say. If the Car’s fuselage hadn’t been reinforced, I’d have crushed it between my knees. “Wherever you’re going,”
I said simply, and she spun around in her saddle and gave it the gun.
It takes a really sensitive hand to pilot a tractor like the Family Car accurately, especially with a load on. It’s quite difficult to keep the target bubble centered, and the controls are mushy—you have to sort of outguess her or you’ll end up oscillating and throw your gyro. A dancer is, of course, better at seat-of-the-pants mass balancing than any but the most experienced of Space Command pilots, and Norrey was the best of the six of us. At that she outdid herself.
She even outdid the computer. Which is not too astonishing—there’s always more gas than it says on the gauge—and of course it wasn’t nearly enough to matter. We were still dead. But after a time the distant red and green spheroid that was the Bars stopped shrinking; instruments confirmed it. After a longer time I was able to convince myself that it was actually growing some. It was, naturally, at that moment that the vibration between my thighs ceased.
All the time we’d been accelerating I’d been boiling over with the need to talk, and had kept my mouth shut for fear of distracting Norrey’s attention. Now we had done all we could do. Now we had nothing left to do in our lives but talk, and I was wordless again. It was Norrey who broke the silence, her tone just precisely right.
“Uh, you’re not going to believe this… but we’re out of gas.”
“The hell you say. Let me out of this car; I’m not that kind of boy.” Thank you, hon.
“Aw, take it easy. It’s downhill from here. I’ll just put her in neutral and we’ll coast home.”
“Hey listen,” I said, “when you navigate by the seat of your pants like that, is that what they call a bum steer?”
“Oh Charlie, I don’t want to die.”
“Well, then don’t.”
“I wasn’t finished yet.”
“Norrey!” I grabbed her shoulder from behind. Fortunately I used my left hand, triggering only empty thrusters.
There was a silence.
“I’m sorry,” she said at last, still facing away from me. “I made my choice. These last minutes with you are worth what I paid for them. That just slipped out.” She snorted at herself. “Wasting air.”
“I can’t think of anything I’d rather spend air on than talking with you. That you can do in p-suits, I mean. I don’t want to die either—but if I’ve got to go, I’m glad I’ve got your company. Isn’t that selfish?”
“Nope. I’m glad you’re here too, Charlie.”
“Hell, Icalled this meeting. If I wasn’t here, nobody would be.” I broke off then, and scowled. “That’s the part that bothers me the most, I think. I used to try and guess, sometimes, what it would be that would finally kill me. Sure enough, I was right: my own damn stupidity. Spacing out. Taking my finger off the number. Oh dammit, Norrey—”
“Charlie, it was an accident.”
“I spaced out. I wasn’t paying attention. I was thinking about the god damned deadline, and I blew it.” (I was very close to something, then; something bigger than my death.)
“Charlie, that’s cheating. At least half of that guilt you’re hogging belongs to the crook that inspected that air tank at the factory. Not to mention the flaming idiot who forgot to gas the Car this morning.”
It’s a rotating duty. “Who was that idiot?” I asked, before I could think better of it.
“Same idiot who took off without grabbing extra air. Me.”
That produced an uncomfortable silence. Which started me trying to think of something meaningful or useful to say. Or do. Let’s see, I had less than an eighth of a can of air. Norrey maybe a can and a quarter: she hadn’t used up as much in exercise. (Space Command armor, like the NASA Standard suits before them, hold about six hours’ air. A Stardancer’s p-suit is good for only half as much—but they’re prettier. And we always have plenty of air bottles—strapped to every camera we use.) I reached forward and unshipped her full tank, passed it silently over her shoulder. She took it, as silently, and got the first-aid kit out of the glove compartment. She took a Y-joint from it, made sure both male ends were sealed, and snapped it onto the air bottle. She got extension hoses from the kit and mated them to the ends of the Y. She clipped the whole assembly to the flank of the Car until we needed it, an air soda with two straws. Then she reversed herself in the saddle, awkwardly, until she was facing me.
“I love you, Charlie.”
“I love you, Norrey.”
Don’t ever let anybody tell you that hugging in p-suits is a waste of time. Hugging is never awaste of time. It hurt my back a lot, but I paid no attention.
The headphones crackled with another carrier wave: Raoul calling from Tom and Linda’s place. “Norrey? Charlie? Tom’s okay. The doctor’s on his way, Charlie, but he’s not going to get here in time to do you any good. I called the Space Command, there’s no scheduled traffic near here, there’s just nothing in the neighborhood, Charlie, just nothing at all what the hell are we going to do?” Harry must have been very busy with Tom, or he’d have grabbed the mike by now.
“Here’s what you’re going to do, buddy,” I said calmly, spacing my words to slow him down. “Push the ‘record’ button. Okay? Now put the speakers on so Harry and Linda can witness. Ready? Okay. ‘I, Charles Armstead, being of sound mind and body—’ ”