Carl had felt the gentle tug of acceleration a minute ago and now counted seconds, ticking off the estimated time it would take the five mechs to maneuver across to the Edmund.
There. A gentle nudge forward, pushing him against the grey covering plate. His nose brushed it and a faint torque spun him clockwise.
That would be the deceleration, then a docking turn. Going into the aft hold, almost certainly.
A dull clank. Fitting onto the auto conveyor, probably. The mechs would decouple then …
Five ringing spangs. Good.
Now… if Virginia’s idea was right…
Scraping, close by. A mech grappler caught—clunk—on the hatch’s manual release handle. He could see the inner knob rotate. He braced himself, took a deep breath …
The hatch poked free and whoosh—the air inside the slot rushed out, fluttering the straps over his shoulders and his blue coverall.
He sucked in air through his face mask. Virginia’s risky solution—a small sir bottle, no suit.
His ears popped, despite the pressure caps he wore over them. Goggles protected his eyes to stop the fluid from sputtering away, freezing his eyelids shut. The straps were so tight they bit into his flesh painfully. That was all he had between him and hard vacuum.
The slot hatch had stopped at its first secure point, five centimeters clear. Beyond he glimpsed the stark white glare of full sunlight on the rim of the aft port. His sleep slot was pinned to the conveyor, as he had guessed. He saw a few stars, and a shadow moving on the distant smooth curve of the Edmund’s hull. That would be a mech moving on to pop the next slot, to check for gifts bearing Greeks.
He had gambled that Linbarger would think that was enough precaution. If he was wrong…
And Linbarger was already hypersuspicious, after they had detected and blocked Virginia’s attempt to take over command of the Edmund’s mechs. Ould-Harrad had insisted on trying that so-called easy solution first, and it had failed quickly. Now for the hard way…
Linbarger would want the mechs well clear of the Edmund before anyone ventured into the hold to secure the slots. That gave Carl two, maybe three minutes.
Carl lifted the cover and floated out, curling into a ball as he went. He wore a coverall, gloves, and boots, nothing more.
How long since the air had vacced? He glanced at his thumbnail. Twenty seconds.
Saul had figured three minutes of exposure before he would begin to feel the effects. Then his internal pressure imbalance would get serious, he would become woozy, and anybody coming into the bay could handle him like he was a drugged housecat.
Not that Linbarger and his crowd would waste any time on him. Probably they’d just push him out the lock and wish him bon voyage, like they’d done to poor Kearns. Have a pleasant walk home…
He uncurled, looked around.
The hold bay was empty. They were probably watching the mechs separate and back off.
He repelled off the lock rim and got oriented. The lock’s manual-override seal was a big red handle, deliberately conspicuous, at ten o’clock and across the bay. His ears popped again. His senses were ringing alarms, but he suppressed them all and launched himself across to the red seal-and-flood lever.
Halfway there, somebody tackled him.
The suited figure slammed him backward into the bay, grappling for his air hose. Carl twisted away, jerked free.
Of course. Obvious. Linbarger had put somebody outside, to inspect the mechs as they came in, be sure nobody clung to an underside. From that position the man could see into the hold, too.
Idiot! Carl chided himself for not predicting this.
Ninety seconds left.
They separated, both drifting down the long axis of the hold. It would be ten seconds before either touched a wall. The spacesuited man fumbled for his jets and changed vectors, deftly moving between Carl and the red seal-and-flood.
Carl had no doubt that the fellow could stop him from reaching the lever for a minute or so. The Ortho had jets, air, and all the time in the world.
Dame, it’s cold, too. Carl twisted, looking for something, anything.
There. A set of tools. He glided by the berth rack stretched—and snatched up an autowrench. Carefully he aimed at the figure ten meters away and threw.
It missed by a good meter. Carl could see the man’s face split into a sardonic grin, the lips moving, describing it all with obvious delight for the Edmund’s bridge.
Which was what Carl wanted. Throwing the heavy wrench had given him a new vector. He coasted across the bay, windmilled, carne about to absorb the impact with his legs.
Where was the damned—?
He sprang for it. The fire extinguisher easily jerked free of its clasp. Carl pointed the nozzle at his feet and fired. A pearly white cloud billowed under him and he shot back across the bay, still no closer to the seal-and-flood.
His ears popped again. Purple flecks brushed at his eyes, making firefly patterns …
He struck the opposite wall, this time unprepared. A handle jabbed him in the ribs.
Where was… ? He launched himself at the man, riding a foam jet. Halfway there he cat-twisted, bringing the fire-extinguisher nozzle to bear ahead of him—and slammed it on full.
Action and reaction. He slowed, stopped—and the frothing white cloud enveloped him. He fired again and rushed backward, out of the thinning smoke.
Darkening purple everywhere. The raw light of the berth lamps couldn’t seem to cut through it …
Now, before the roiling fog cleared, he flipped again and fired one more time. He flew through blank whiteness—and struck something soft, yielding.
He grabbed at the man with one arm, bringing around the extinguisher. Hands snatched at him, clawed at his face mask.
Vectors, vectors…
Which way… ?
It didn’t matter. He pressed the nozzle against the man and pulsed it again.
Billowing gray gas.
Cold, so cold…
… A huge hand pushing him backward…
A long second of gliding… the extinguisher slipped away… numb hands… he was tumbling… aching cold in his legs… impossible to see…the purple getting darker…shot through with bee-swarm white flecks darting in and out…in and out…spinning…
—then a jolting stab of pain in his leg, crack as his skull hit decking.
It jarred him back to alertness. He clawed for a hold. Looked up.
The fog was thinning. Directly out through the lock Carl could see the suited figure wriggling, dwindling, trying to get reoriented to use his jets. An insect, silvery and graceful…
The thrust of the last pulse had acted equally efficiently on each of them, driving Carl inward and the other man out.
He sprang for the seal-and-flood. Grasped it, pulled. The lock slid shut just before his opponent reached it, and the loud roaring hiss of high-pressure air sounded for all the world like a blaring, rude cry of celebration.
“I made it,” Carl said into his comm. “The tubes are blocked.” He panted in the close, oily air of the pressurized cylinder.
“Good!” Ould-Harrad answered in his ears. Now there was no indecisiveness, no fatalism in the voice. “Linbarger, hear that?”
“What’s that jackass mouthing about?” carne the chief mutineer’s sneer.
“Carl Osborn has jammed up the fusion feed lines,” Ould-Harrad said precisely.
Faintly the voice of Helga Steppins: “Fuck! I told you to cover the fore tubes!”
Even fainter: “He must’ve crawled through them from Three F section. Shit, we can’t cover every little.”