Falling Free (29 page)

Clean-up, Leo had called guiltily over his shoulder to the appalled quaddie girl now running Nutrition, is left as an exercise for the student.

The second problem had been to find a place to work. Pramod had pointed out one of the abandoned Habitat modules, a cylinder some four meters in diameter. It was the work of another two hours to tear holes in the side for entry and pack one end of it with all the conductive scrap metal mass they could find.

The mass was then surfaced with more abandoned Habitat module skin, pounded out and rendered as nearly glass-smooth as they could make it in a shallow concave bowl of carefully calculated arc that spanned the diameter of the module.

Now their mass of scrap titanium hung weightless in the center of the module. The broken-up pieces of the vortex mirror and thefl attened-out food canisters were all bound together by a spool of pure titanium wire some brilliant quaddie child had produced for them out of Stores. The dense grey metal glittered and glowed in their work-lights and the reflection from a shaft of hard-edged sunlight falling through one of their entry holes.

Leo glanced around the chamber one last time. Four worksuited quaddies each manned a laser unit braced around the walls,bracketing the titanium mass. Leo's measuring instruments floated tethered to his belt, ready to his pressure-gloved hands. It was time. Leo touched his helmet control, darkening his faceplate.

Commence firing, said Leo into his suit comm. Four beams of laser light lanced out in unison, pouring into the scrap. For the first few minutes, nothing appeared to be happening. Then it began to glow, dark red, bright red, yellow, white—then, visibly, one of the ex-food canisters began to sag, flowing into the jumble. The quaddies continued to pour in the energy.

The mass was beginning to drift slightly, one of Leo's readouts told him, although the effect was not yet visible to the naked eye. Unit Four, power-up about ten percent, Leo instructed. One of the quaddies flashed a lower palm in acknowledgement and touched his control box. The drift stopped. Good, his bracketing was working. Leo had had a horrid vision of the molten mass of metal drifting off into the side wall, or worse, fatally brushing into somebody, but the very beams that melted it seemed enough to control its motion, at least in the absence of stronger sources of momentum.

Now the melt was obvious, the metal becoming a white glowing blob of liquid floating in the vacuum, struggling toward the shape of a perfect sphere.
Boy, is that stuff ever going to be pure when we're
done,
Leo reflected with satisfaction.

He checked his monitoring devices. Now they were coming up on a moment of critical judgment; when to stop? They must pour in enough energy to achieve an absolutely uniform melt, no funny lumps left in the middle of the gravy. But not too much; even though it was not visible to the eye Leo knew there was metal vapor pouring off that bubble now, part of his calculated loss.

More importantly, looking ahead to the next step—every kilocalorie they dumped into that titanium mass was going to have to be brought back out. Planetside, the shape he was trying to get would have been formed against a copper mold, with lots and lots of water to carry away the heat at the desired rate, in this case rapidly; single-crystal splat-cooling, it was called. Well, at least he'd figured out how to achieve the splat part of it. ...

Cease firing,Leo ordered.

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And there it hung, their sphere of molten metal, blue-white with the violent heat energy contained within it, perfect. Leo checked and re-checked its centered position, and had laser number two give it one more half-second blast not for melt but for momentum's sake.

All right, said Leo into his suit comm. Now let's get everything out of this module that's going out, and double-check everything that's staying. Last thing we need now is for somebody to drop his wrench in the soup pot,right?

Leo joined the quaddies in shoving their equipment unceremoniously out the holes torn in the side of the module. Two of his laser operators went with it, two stayed with Leo. Leo checked centering again, and then they all strapped themselves to the walls.

Leo switched channels in his suit comm. Ready, Zara?he called.

Ready, Leo, the quaddie pilot responded from her pusher, now attached to the gutted module's stern.

Now remember, slow and gentle does it. But firm. Pretend your pusher is a scalpel, and you're just about to operate on one of your friends or something.

Right, Leo. There was a grin in her voice.

Don't swagger, girl,Leo prayed inwardly. Go when you're ready.

Going. Hang on up there! There was at first no perceivable change. Then Leo's harness straps began to tug gently at him. It was the Habitat module, not the molten ball of titanium, that was moving, Leo reminded himself. The metal did not drift; it was the back wall that moved forward and engulfed it.

It was working, by God it was working! The metal bubble touched the back wall, spread out, and settled into its shallow bowl mold.

Increase acceleration by the first increment,Leo called into his comm. The pusher powered up, and the molten titanium circle spread, its edges growing toward the desired diameter some three meters wide, already losing its bright glow. Creating a titanium blank of controlled thickness, ready (after cooling) for explosive molding into its final subtle form. Steady on. That does it!

Splat-cooling? Well, not exactly. Leo was uncomfortably aware that they were probably not going to achieve a perfect internal single-crystal freeze. But it would be good, good enough—as long as it was good enough that they didn't have to melt it down and start all over again, that was the most Leo dared pray for. They might, barely, have time to make one of these suckers. Not two. And when
was
the threatened response from Rodeo arriving? Soon, surely.

He wondered briefly what the new gravity technology was going to do to fabrication problems in space like this. Revolutionize seemed too mild a term, certainly.
Too bad we didn't have some now,
he thought. Still—he grinned, concealed within his helmet—they were doing all right.

He pointed his temperature gauge at the back wall. The piece was cooling almost as rapidly as he had hoped. They were still due for a couple of hours of driving around until it had dumped enough heat to remove from the wall and handle without danger of deformation.

All right, Bobbi,I'm leaving you and Zara in charge here, Leo said. It's looking good. When the
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temperature drops to about five hundred degrees centigrade, bring it on back. We'll try to be ready for the final cooling and the second phase of the shaping.

Carefully, trying not to add excess vibration to the walls, Leo loosed his harness and climbed to the exit hole. From this distance he had a fine view of the D-620, now more than half loaded, and Rodeo beyond. Better go now, before the view became more distant than his suit jets could close.

He activated his jets and zipped quickly away from the side of the still-gently-acceleratingm odule-an d-pusher unit. It chugged off, looking a drunken, jury-rigged wreck indeed, concealing hope in its heart.

Leo aimed toward the Habitat, and Phase II of his Jumpships-Repaired-While-U-Wait scheme.

It was sunset on the dry lake bed. Silver gazed anxiously into the monitor in the shuttle control cabin as it swept the horizon,brightening and darkening each time the red ball of the sun rolled past.

They can't possibly be back for at least another hour, Madame Minchenko, watching her, pointed out, in the best case.

That's not who I'm looking for, answered Silver. Hm.Madame Minchenko drummed her long, age-sculptured fingers on the console, unlatched and tilted back the co-pilot's seat, and stared thoughtfully at the cabin roof. No, I suppose not. Still—if GalacTech traffic control saw you land and sent out aj etcopter to investigate, they should have been here before now. Perhaps they missed your landing after all.

Perhaps they're just not very organized, suggested Silver, and they'll be along any minute.

Madame Minchenko sighed. All too likely. She regarded Silver, pursing her lips. And what are you supposed to do in that case?

I have a weapon.Silver touched thel aser-solderer, lying seductively on the console before the pilot-commander's seat in which she sprawled. But I'd rather not shoot anybody else. Not if I can help it.

Anybody
else?
There was a shade more respect in Madame Minchenko's voice.

Shooting people was such a
stupid
activity, why should everybody—anybody!—be so impressed?

Silver wondered irritably. You would think she had done something truly great, like discover a new treatment for black stem-rot. Her mouth tightened.

Then her lips parted, and she leaned forward to stare into the monitor. Oh, oh. Here comes a ground car

.

Not our boys already, surely, said Madame Minchenko in some unease. Has something gone wrong, I wonder?

It's not your land rover. Silver fiddled with the resolution. The slanting sunlight poured through the dust, turning it into a glowing red smokescreen. I think . . . it's a GalacTechSecurity groundcar.

Oh, dear. Madame Minchenko sat up straight. Now what?

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We don't open the hatches, anyway. No matter what.

In a few minutes the groundcar pulled up about fifty meters from the shuttle. An antenna rose from its roof and quivered demandingly. Silver switched on thecomm—i t was so irritating, not to have the full use of her lower arms—and called up a menu of the comm channels from the computer. The shuttle seemed to have access to an inordinate number of them. Security audio was 9999. She tuned them in.

—by God! Hey, you in there—answer!

Yes, what do you want? said Silver.

There was a splutterypause. Why didn't you answer?

I didn't know you were calling me, Silver answered logically.

Yeah, well—this freight shuttle is the property of GalacTech.

So am I. So what?

Eh . . . ? Look, lady, this is Sergeant Fors of GalacTech Security. You have to disembark and turn this shuttle over to us.

A voice in the background, not quite sufficiently muffled, inquired, Hey,Bern—d'you think we'll get the ten percent bonus for recovering stolen property on
this
one?

Dream on, growled another voice. Nobody's gonna give us a quarter million.

Madame Minchenko held up a hand, and leaned forward to cut in, quavering, Young man, this is Ivy Minchenko. My husband, Dr. Minchenko, has commandeered this craft in order to respond to an urgent medical emergency. Not only is this his right, it's his legally compelled duty—and
you
are required by Gal acTech regulation to assist, not hinder him.

A somewhat baffled growl greeted this. I'm required to take this shuttle back. Those are my orders.

Nobody told me anything about any medical emergency.

Well, I'm telling you!

The background voice again,... it's just a couple of women. Come on!

The sergeant: Are you going to open the hatch,lady?

Silver did not respond. Madame Minchenko raised an inquiring eyebrow, and Silver shook her head silently. Madame Minchenko sighed and nodded.

The sergeant repeated his demands, his voice fraying—he stopped just short, Silver felt, of degenerating into obscenities. After a minute or two he broke off. After a few more minutes the doors of the ground car winged up and the three men, now wearing breath masks, clambered out to stamp over and stare up at the hatches of the shuttle high over their heads. They returned to the groundcar, got in—it circled.

Going away? Silver hoped against hope. No, it came up and parked again under the forward shuttle hatch. Two of the men rummaged in the back for tools, then climbed to the car's roof.

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They've got some kind of cutting things, said Silver in alarm. They must be going to try to cut their way in.

Banging reverberated through the shuttle. Madame Minchenko nodded toward the laser-solderer. Is it time for that? she asked fearfully.

Silver shook her head unhappily. No. Not again. Besides, I can't let them damage the ship either—it's got to stay spaceworthy or we can't get home.

She had watched Ti. . . . She inhaled deeply and reached for the shuttle controls. The foot pedals were hopelessly awkward to grope for, she would have to get along without them. Right engine, activate; left engine, activate—apurr ran through the ship. Brakes—there, surely. She pulled the lever gently to the release position. Nothing happened.

Then the shuttle lurched forward. Frightened at the abrupt motion, Silver hit the brake lever again and the ship rocked to a halt. She searched the outside monitors wildly. Where—?

The shuttle's starboard airfoil had swept over the roof of the Security groundcar, missing it by half a meter. Silver realized with a guilty shudder that she should have checked its height before she began to move. She might have torn the wing right off, with ghastly chaining consequences to them all.

The Security guards were nowhere to be seen—no, there they were, scattered out onto the dry lake bed. One picked himself up out of the dirt and started back toward the groundcar. Now what? If she parked, or even rolled some distance and parked, they would only try again. It couldn't take too many more attempts till they got smart and shot out the shuttle's tires or otherwise immobilized it. A dangerously unstable stand-off.

Silver sucked on her lower lip. Then, leaning forward awkwardly in a seat never designed for quaddies, she released the brakes partway and powered up the port engine. The shuttle shuddered a few meters farther forward, skidding and yawing. Behind them, the monitor showed the groundcarhalf obscured by orange dust kicked by the exhaust, its image wavering in the heat of it.

She set the brakes as hard as they would go and powered up the port engine yet more. Its purr became a whine—she dared not bring it to the howling pitch Ti had used during landing, who knew what would happen then?

The groundcar's plastic canopy cracked in a crazed starburst and began to sag. If Leo had been right in his description of that hydrocarbon fuel they used downside here for their vehicles, in just a second more she ought to get. . .