“Shut up.” Linbarger’s voice got louder as he addressed Ould-Harrad. “We’ll sweat him out of there.”
“You try it and I’ll vent the tritium,” Carl said tensely.
“What?” Linbarger could barely contain his anger. He demanded of some unseen lieutenant, “Can he do that?”
Faintly: “I don’t… Yeah, if he opened those pressure lines into the core storage. He might’ve had time to do that.”
“Without tritium to burn, your fusion pit won’t reach trigger temperature,” Carl added helpfully, grinning.
“You—!” Linbarger’s line went dead.
Carl twisted and made sure the entrance behind him had a hefty tool cabinet jamming the way. He had long-lever wrenches on the two crucial pressure points, ready to crack open the valves. They could come at him from behind, but he could spray a lot of precious fuel out into space before they got the valves closed again. Enough to kill their plans, certainly.
“Are you sure you can do it, Osborn?” Ould-Harrad asked cautiously.
“Yeah.” What do you want me to say? No? With Linbarger listening ?
“Well, this certainly gives us a better bargaining position…
“Bargain, hell! We’ve got ’em by the balls.”
“If they get to you fast enough, perhaps they can retain enough tritium to make a multiple flyby with Mars. Draw lots to use the nine slots they have now. Then.”
“Cut that crap.” Go ahead, give them ideas.
“I’m simply.”
“I said cut it!”
“I’m trying to prevent.”
“It’s not your ass on the line over here, Ould-Harrad.”
He twisted, watching the feeder lines drop away to the left. If somebody wriggled in that way, they might try to shoot at him. But that would be stupid, right in the middle of the fusion core. Damage these fittings and they would take weeks to replace, if ever.
Linbarger’s grim voice said, “You hear me on this hookup, Osborn?”
“I’m right here, just a friendly hundred meters away.”
Silence. Then Linbarger’s reedy, tight voice said slowly, “We’ll fire the start-up pinch if you don’t leave.”
Carl caught his breath, let it out slowly. That was the one alternative he hadn’t mentioned to anybody. It wasn’t smart, because start-up could do real damage if you handled it wrong—and Linbarger had no experience at that. But he had seen the possibility of frying Carl as the hot fluids squirted through this network of tubes. And Linbarger was just desperate enough to do it.
He said as calmly as he could, “You’ll burn out the throat.”
“Not if we’re careful. It won’t take too much fusion fire to cook you up to a nice, brown glaze.” Linbarger was clearly enjoying himself, thinking he had turned the tables.
“I’ll vent the tritium anyway.” Now let’s see how much he knows.
“No, you won’t. The subsystems will shut down those lines as soon as we start up. It’s automatic—says so right in the blueprints.”
Damn. “That’s not the way it’ll work.” Bluff.
“Don’t try that crap on me.”
Linbarger was smarter than Carl had thought. But he wasn’t going to win.
“You’ll never get back Earthside. You’re low on tritium as it is. I’ll blow enough of it to make sure you have a long voyage. You’ll never pick up the delta-V for a Jupiter carom. Even with the sleep slots, you’ll starve.”
“We’ve got the hydroponics.”
“Sure. And no extra water to run it.”
“There’s Halley ice right outside.”
“Try stepping outside.” Carl played a hunch “Hey—Jeffers! What happened to that Arcist I blew out the lock?”
—What Arcist? All I see is bits ’n pieces.—
Silence.
This tit-for-tat couldn’t go on much longer. Linbarger’s voice was getting thin, hollow-sounding. The man’s words came too fast, spurting out under pressure.
Carl bunched his jaw muscles, wondering if he believed his own words. If Linbarger acted, it would be a matter of seconds. Carl would have to choose whether to launch himself for the aft hatch and try to get away, or to use the wrenches. No time for dithering…
“You’re lying.” Linbarger didn’t sound so certain now.
“Fuck you.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“I’m starting tritium release now.”
“No!” Ould-Harrad said. “I won’t have it come to this. We had a deal worked out.”
“And you double-crossed us! Percell-lover!” Linbarger barked.
Ould-Harrad said, “I couldn’t let that hydroponics equipment go, you refused to understand that.”
Carl said caustically, “Don’t apologize to that scum.”
“Carl,” Ould-Harrad said, “I must ask you to stop.”
“The party’s over,” Carl said. “Surrender, Linbarger!”
“I think I’ll give you a little pulse of the hot stuff, Osborn. It might improve your manners.”
“The second I hear a gurgle through these pipes, you Arcist prick, I’ll.”
“Stop it! Both of you! We have to work this out.” The African’s voice was frantic.
A long silence. Carl tried to imagine what was going through Linbarger’s mind. The man had apparently concealed from the Psych Board his fanatical hatred of Percells. Or maybe he’d just snapped. Could he think around that now, be halfway rational?
They’ve lost, dammit. Could Linbarger see that? Or would he prefer his moment of revenge?
And Carl would know of it by a whispering in the pipes…
“Okay.” Linbarger’s voice was grating, sour.
Ould-Harrad answered, “What? You agree?”
“We’ll trade the hydro for the tritium and slots.”
“No!” Carl cried. “We have them!”
“Quiet, Osborn!” Ould-Harrad shouted.
“The alternative,” Linbarger said slowly, “is that I blow up the Edmund Halley. Better… all of us here agree… better a quick end… than…”
Carl felt a cold chill at the croaking, slurred, mad voice. It was utterly convincing. He really means it. “Sweet Jesus,” Carl muttered.
First his captain, dead. Now the Edmund.
Ould-Harrad spoke at last. “We… we will make the exchange.”
What is a spacer without a spaceship? Carl wondered numbly. What will we be, when the Edmund is gone? It was too awful to even think of.
“You can offload the hydro stuff,” Linbarger said. “Get Osborn out of there and I’ll set the mechs to doing it.”
“No. I stay here until it’s done.”
Another silence. “Well…” More whispered arguing. Finally, “Okay. You can use those mechs to detach the main greenhouse module as a unit. Make it fast—or we’ll fry that piece of Percell shit.”
Carl let out a long, slow breath. The thought he had suppressed all these long minutes, that kept jabbing him, finally came swarming up: Why are you doing this? You could die, fool.
Now that he let it surface, he had no answer.
“Hurry up,” he said irritably.
SAUL
Wriggling, fluttering in a saline solution, the tiny bests flicked here and there, hunting, always hunting.
Certain substances, flavors, drew them to the equivalent of sweetness. Others repelled. The choice was always as easy as that, a logic of trophic chemistry. On the level of the cell, there were no subtleties, no future to worry about. No past to haunt one’s dreams.