"I guess it's possible" said Maggie. "But it makes no sense. Why would anyone with a stardrive want to send a message that would need decades, or centuries, to get to its destination?" Her nose was cold. She rubbed it. "You know," she said, "this place is starting to get downright drafty."
ARCHIVE ZZ 03/241611
XX EMERGENCY EMERGENCY EMERGENCY TO: GENERAL DISTRIBUTION FROM: NCA WINCKELMANN SUBJECT: GENERAL DISTRESS
GENERAL DISTRESS CALL ALL SHIPS/STATIONS. UPDATE 01. REQUIRE IMMEDIATE ASSISTANCE—LIFE THREATENING SIT/BETA PAC. LIFE SUPPORT FAILURE. WILL MAINTAIN ALL–CHANNEL SIGNAL, STANDARD SET. THIS IS A FIVE ALPHA EMERGENCY, EXTREME DANGER, EXTREME NEED FOR HASTE. MESSAGE WILL REPEAT AT EIGHT-MINUTE INTERVALS.
On the bridge, Hutch faced the bad news. The lone convec-tor would prevent the temperature from falling below -36 °C. That in itself would not be comfortable, but it was survivable. The problem was that the system that supported the convector would start to freeze up at twenty below. It was then likely the convector would fail. If that happened, it was going to get very cold.
How long would it take?
She was unable to measure current heat loss. It appeared to be somewhat more than a degree per hour. At that rate, they could expect to hit zero sometime tomorrow. There would be other hazards as it got colder: air pumps would fail, food dispensers would cease to work, the power system might give way altogether, trapping them in a frigid, dark shell.
She had six Flickinger belts to fall back on, but there were only twenty-four hours of air for each. Once the power went, there would be no way to refill the breathers.
My God. She sat and stared at her instruments.
She needed an idea. And no reasonable possibility presented itself. A sense of her culpability began to take hold. Not that she had erred in any way that a board of inquiry could bring a finding against her; but she was ultimately responsible for the safe delivery of her passengers. Whatever that took. At the moment, she was not sure what it might take—
When she felt she'd postponed the confrontation as long as she could, she pushed away from the console, took a deep breath, and returned to the cabin.
Carson was absorbed in his notebooks when she entered. The others were talking, a conversation that immediately faded.
"Okay," she said, "here's where we are." She outlined their situation, trying not to seem alarmed, speaking as if these were merely complications, trivial inconveniences. But the inevitable conclusion was that they would freeze before help could come. Carson watched her without putting down his pen, as though prepared to take notes. Janet remained impassive, blue gaze fixed on the deck; George and Maggie exchanged glances freighted with meaning.
When she finished, they were quiet. Maggie tapped an index finger thoughtfully against her lip. Hutch sensed disbelief. "What do we do?" asked George.
Janet looked up. "Can we build a fire? Keep it going in here?"
"There's nothing to burn," Hutch said. Even their clothes were fire-resistant.
George looked around as if he expected to find a stack of logs. "Got to be some stuff somewhere."
"If there is, I don't know what."
"And we can't expect help earlier than eleven days?"
"At best." Everyone looked at the calendar. Rescue might arrive sometime April 4.
"It'll be pretty cold by then," said Maggie.
Carson was writing again. He didn't look up. "How about abandoning ship? Take the shuttle? Is there any place we can reach from here?"
"No," said Hutch. "We've got about a week's air supply in the shuttle. There's an oxygen world in the biozone, but we couldn't get close in the time we have."
"Do you have any suggestions?" asked Maggie.
The crunch. "I'll think better in the morning. But yes: maybe we can reconfigure the micro-ovens that cook our food to put some additional heat in here. Actually, we can probably manage that fairly easily. It won't be much, but it'll be something. The problem is that the rest of the ship will freeze."
"Which means?"
"The recyclers will stop, for one thing. That'll be the end of the air supply." She looked at them. "Listen, we're all exhausted. I'm sure we can work out something. But we need to sleep on it."
"Yes," said Carson. "Let's give it a rest. We'll come up with some ideas tomorrow."
Hutch huddled under three blankets during the night. She rolled and tossed and stared into the dark. Where else could she get heat? The first priority was to keep the convector going, but she could see no way to do that.
By first light, she was still awake, and exhausted. But it was time to stop beating herself up. She wrapped a blanket around her shoulders, grabbed fresh clothes (she had not undressed), and padded across the cold floor to the bathroom. They still had hot water. One of the first tasks this morning would be to salvage a water supply from C ring.
She closed the door behind her, and opened the faucets. When she judged the room was warm enough, she dropped the blanket, stepped out of her clothes and into the shower. It felt good, and she soaped herself down thoroughly. But she was cataloging places where they could find containers. Damn, this was a nightmare.
George was in the main cabin, brewing coffee. He was wrapped in a thick robe. "How we doing?" he asked, holding out a cup for her. His usual optimism had vanished, and she knew that he too had lain awake much of the night.
She took the cup. The coffee was good, and imposed a sense of routine. "Okay, I guess." Her nose and ears were cold.
He looked glad to have company. "This is scary," he admitted.
"I know."
Hesitantly, he asked: "Any ideas?"
The reluctant criticism stung. "Not yet."
Deep in the ship, a hatch closed.
George's gaze met hers. "Who's wandering around back there?"
She checked her board. "Lower level. One of the supply rooms."
"Maybe somebody else can't sleep."
Hutch opened a channel. "Hellooo?"
Nothing.
"Ghosts," he said.
"I think we're hearing a computer glitch."
He could not entirely keep the emotion out of his voice.
"Hutch, you know the ship pretty well. What are our chances?"
She took a minute to drink him in. Despite his size, there was something of the eternal child in George. He was boyishly good-looking, enthusiastic, careful of her feelings in a situation which he understood must be especially painful to her. And he was striving manfully to hide his fears. Somehow, it was for George she was most anxious. "We'll find a way," she promised.
"I've got something else to tell you."
Hutch didn't think she wanted any more news. "What's that?"
"I've been up on the bridge. I hope you don't mind."
"No," she said. "Why would I?"
He nodded. "There's no radio noise out here anywhere. Except what comes off the star. And the signal we followed."
"None at all?"
"None. No electronic radiation of any kind." In the press of events, the reason they'd come to Beta Pac, on the track of an artificial radio broadcast, had got lost.
"But we're still picking up the signal from the Football?"
"Yes. It's still there. But that's all there is. Hutch, I don't think anyone's here." His eyes looked away. "I've got a question."
"Go ahead."
"We'd all like to find out what it is. The Football, I mean. We can't turn the ship around, but what about going back with the shuttle?"
"No," she said quietly. "We could do it. But we wouldn't be able to get back to the ship." She finished off the last of her coffee.
He studied her for a long moment. "Does it matter? Whether we can get back?"
The question jolted Hutch. "Yes," she said. "It matters."