The Devil and Deep Space (44 page)

“Yes, sir.” Avenham’s voice was clear, calm, neutral. Unquestioning. “Stildyne, Lorbe, on lateral forwards, mark. Alport, you and Shani and I, off–station, onto tractor.”

Because they wouldn’t have gotten into this desperate situation in the first place if they had been willing, as individuals, as a ship, to sacrifice anyone’s life to their own survival, if they thought that there was any way around it.

It seemed to take forever to close on the evac craft, its external signals already warning of extreme stress tolerance, losing heat. Taller toggled into braid from his station, signaling urgently for a response, trying to see whether they were already too late. “Thula to evac craft. Prepare to tractor. Evac, are you there? Please. Respond.”

No, only the mechanical code, in reply. The damaged ship no longer had enough power to maintain heat and transmit voice at the same time. Only the mechanical code, but that was hopeful, because someone had to be able to move, to initiate the transmit —
Extreme emergency situation exists. Failure of integrity imminent. Please expedite rescue effort. Eight souls in custody.

“Evac craft on scan,” Avenham said.

Lek did something to his console, and the thula shuddered like a wild animal cornered in a field trap, coming around. Three pursuit craft, on the second lateral, and it seemed to Andrej that they were making entirely too good a rate of acceleration for anybody’s peace of mind.

“Tractor initiate. Very low reading off evac craft, your Excellency.” Avenham’s warning was predictable, but worrisome. It would be frustrating if they were to lose their lives — and still come too late for the evac craft. “Give us a little drop, Lek — good. Tractor is firm, gaining cargo bay now.”

The tractor could not be rushed. If they damaged the thula’s cargo bay, they wouldn’t be able to pressurize, and then it wouldn’t matter whether they had the evac craft or not. Did he imagine it — Andrej wondered — or could he hear the subtle sound of the closing of the cargo bay doors beneath the white noise in the wheelhouse?

“Chief.” It was Stildyne, talking to Avenham. “Respectfully suggest we move this thula at the first possible opportunity — ”

“Go for it.”

Avenham’s response was all the word Lek apparently needed. The thula shuddered and it seemed to groan, but the pursuit ships that Andrej could see on the second lateral screen disappeared, and when they reappeared on the tertiary dorsal scans they were appreciably smaller than they had been before.

They were going to need him down in the cargo bay. They all knew how to use emergency stasis suits to treat cold injury and blood–gas imbalance — it was one of the first and most important things anyone learned about exo–atmospheric travel. But he was the one who knew best how to set the respiration, whether circulation should be induced, and whether neural activity should be artificially suspended until they got their casualties to Infirmary on
Ragnarok
.

He needed to be there to stabilize, in case Wheatfields could not bring himself to release the thula from full implosion field without a thorough scan, especially in the middle of preparation for a vector transit. The chance that the evac craft’s distress call had been just part of an elaborate trap was perhaps not very great, but it was there.

All of which meant that he had to leave Lek here alone, more or less alone, prey to the fury of his own governor. If the Safe should fail, and him not here to rescue his Lek —

Lek was steady, solid, almost relaxed. There was no conflict that Andrej could detect in his face, in his voice, in his manner as he made his moves and sent the thula straight and clean for
Ragnarok
. Andrej took him by the shoulders from behind as he sat, smiling at Lek’s questioning look, at the basic blissful confidence that underlay his evident concentration.

There was no guarantee that they’d reach the
Ragnarok
in time to come on board for the vector transit. There were no guarantees that the people in the evac craft were still alive. Yet Andrej knew that Lek’s choice had been the only honorable choice, and was glad to praise him for it.

“Thank you, Lek. Very well done, indeed. You will not need me?” Lek nodded almost absent-mindedly and turned back to his boards, completely focused on his pilot’s task. Taller gave Andrej a reassuring smile on Lek’s behalf, and — satisfied — Andrej left the wheelhouse to get down to the cargo bay, and see what could be done for the people in the evac craft.

###

The officer’s praise was only part and parcel of the joy Lek had in this fine thula; Koscuisko always praised their good performances, and Lek already knew that he’d done well. The officer’s absence was not going to be a problem. There were reasons why Koscuisko had to leave the wheelhouse, and reasons why Lek had to concentrate all of his remaining energies on making their rendezvous with
Ragnarok
, because it would all be for nothing if he didn’t get back to the
Ragnarok
in time.

“Let’s see how much speed she has left in her,” he suggested to Taller, easing the retards out to full liberty now that they were clear to run for home. “It’ll be a little tight, maybe, but we can make it work. Pull off on reserve. Weaponer. Close ports.”

The enemy still pursued, but they could not touch the thula’s speed. “Closed, all ports, Lek.” No weaponer was ever happy to have to put the guns away, but there was no argument. It was up to speed to save them, and not firepower. Borrowed firepower had blown a hole in the mine field and cleared a way for the
Ragnarok
; now speed was all they had to bring the ship, the crew, the officer back safely to their proper berths.

“We’re starting to fling caramids,” Taller warned; and the analysis of the drives was showing signs of stress — but there wasn’t any help for it.

“We can afford it. Increase yield on quats. We only need another three eighths. Five eighths, max.” Once they came level with the
Ragnarok
they could surrender motive power to the parent tractors, and divert all remaining power to turn the craft. It would be enough.

The massive black belly of great
Ragnarok
began to crown on ship’s forward horizon. Checking his signatures, Lek frowned, but he wasn’t worried yet. She had plenty of tolerance. Why shouldn’t she? She was a Malcontent, after all, and a Malcontent stood in need of as much tolerance as a Sarvaw did, for mere survival. This ship and he had more in common than anyone could know —

They gained on
Ragnarok
in a great steady wave that swept them ever forward. Well beneath the maintenance hull now, and the thula yielded gratefully to his instruction to ease up, stilling herself with perfect manners to find her place beneath the still–open slot and hold there motionless, precisely matched to
Ragnarok
’s exact speed and rate of acceleration.

Lek opened braid, watching the pursuit ships behind them, but not far enough behind. . . . “
Ragnarok
, the Malcontent’s thula. We request transfer to ship–comp on primary drives.”

Well, she wasn’t the
Ragnarok
’s thula; Fleet couldn’t afford her. And the Malcontent was going to want her back, Lek reminded himself sternly; but that inevitability had no power to grieve him, not just now. Not on the crest of the rush he was riding, the flying they’d done, the way she could move.

“Thula. This is
Ragnarok
.” It was Ship’s Engineer who came back in the braid; Lek couldn’t quite decide what note it might be that he thought he heard in Wheatfields’s voice. “Ready to acquire. On your mark.”

Because the
Ragnarok
needed to take responsibility for holding the ship at speed, while the thula concentrated on the more delicate process of moving herself up into the host’s waiting maintenance atmosphere. “We surrender primary, at mark four. Two. Three. Four.”

Yes. Smooth as the cream from an Aznir dairy cow.

There were internal communications going back and forth around him, weaponers’ status reports, Stildyne talking to Ship’s First, Koscuisko calling for transport on emergency stasis. The crew of the evac craft were still alive, then. It was not outside the realm of possibility — in Koscuisko’s characteristically cautious phrase — that they would be all right. That was good news, but nothing that he could afford to waste any attention on.

“Commence sequence, Taller,” Lek warned; not that there was much Taller could do. He fired his laterals one by one, bringing the line up carefully to put a spin on the thula — east of forward heading, dead on meridian.

It was slow, and the pursuit ships were out there, but he couldn’t afford to notice them any more than he could afford to listen to Koscuisko’s voice over intra–ship braid. Too much nose, and the thula spun too far east, slipping away from the meridian line. He had to hold the meridian line. And he had to hold it now.

A touch at offside tailings, and she came true. “Request check for entry window,
Ragnarok
.” She didn’t stay perfectly aligned; she continued to slide ever so gently to one side or the other — the basic problem inherent in any reaction–correction process. He was tightening her orb moment by moment. He needed to be able to move the instant she was solid true and stayed there.

“Move that thula, Mister Lek. You’re well within tolerance. Now, if you please.”

Well within tolerance, his ass. He was dead solid perfect. And the
Ragnarok
knew it.

Lek hit his basal lifts, and the thula began to rise gentle and straight into the maintenance atmosphere of the
Ragnarok
. They had to bring it into the maintenance atmosphere if they were to hope to make a vector transit before the pursuit ships could reach them; but if the hull was damaged as they tried to berth, they wouldn’t be making any vector transits at all.

Taller cut the ship’s screens to real actual, and Lek watched the solid thickness of the maintenance hull seeming to sink as the thula rose, so close it was tempting to reach out from his chair and try to touch it as they passed. There wasn’t much clearance — but they’d known that there wouldn’t be.

They were clear of the hull, and rising toward the loading aprons overhead. Made it. He cut the thula’s lifts; the ship rode on tractor, safe within the maintenance atmosphere.

On the ship’s screens Lek could see a crew from Engineering — in full environmentals, and tethered, just in case — moving the final sections of the hull into place with disciplined urgency. The Ship’s Engineer would be for vector transit, now. They couldn’t have much time, so Lek was surprised to hear him coming over braid as the chief weaponer and Stildyne came forward into the thula’s wheelhouse.

“Nicely done, Mister. Very pretty handling.”

Of course. Hadn’t he told them that he could do it? Still, it had been tight, and there had been that evac craft. Why it should have mattered that they pick up that crew, when it was the survival of the thula that had been at stake — or its freedom, which amounted to the same thing — Lek wasn’t quite certain; but it had mattered.

That was all he could really keep in his mind, just now, because he was tired, and it was comfortable and familiar to have Chief Stildyne behind him, reminding him about things he had to do.

“Shut down and leave it for later, Lek. You’ve done all you could for now. And everything we asked you, too. Let’s go, Mister.”

Thula locked in traction, mover engaged to transit to maintenance apron. Medical was already offloading emergency stasis modules, eight of them. Eight. Were there supposed to be eight? The officer had told
Ragnarok
that they’d been on time. So eight was clearly the right number.

The officer was not following the stasis modules to Infirmary, though; he’d stopped on the receiving apron to have a word with the Captain, by the looks of it. It began to occur to Lek that there were a lot of people out on the receiving apron.

There was no arguing with the Chief; Lek rose stiffly from out of his place and went meekly before Stildyne out of the wheelhouse, through the ship, out to the mover, across to the landing apron. Tired out. Well, he’d been concentrating. It was a little unusual still, how tired he felt. First Officer was out there, too, now.

“Attention to pilot,” First Officer called, loudly, in his direction. Lek was confused; he’d been the pilot, how was he to come to attention? Oh. It was the other people who were supposed to come to attention.

It wasn’t “a lot of people” on the apron: it was a formation on the apron, and he was in front of it. He and Chief Stildyne, but Stildyne was behind him, and as Lek tried to figure out what was happening, Captain ap Rhiannon marched briskly front and center of the assembly with First Officer and Chief Medical, halting her officer–detachment right in front of his nose.

“Mister Kerenko.”

She sounded very stern. Very serious. He hoped he wasn’t in trouble. He was just a little confused. Bowing sharply, he acknowledged her address, in the best form he knew how.

“As it please the officer. Yes, your Excellency.”

She wasn’t his officer. The officer was his officer — but Chief Medical was subordinate to the Captain. Chief Medical was here, though, so it was bound to be all right.

“Based upon your expressed willingness and with the concurrence of Chief Medical, Ship’s Engineer, and Ship’s First Officer, you were entrusted with piloting this thula on a mission critical to the safe escape and possible survival of this ship. You accomplished your mission with exceptional skill, Mister Kerenko.”

But he shouldn’t have peeled off for the evacuation craft. He’d had no permission to deviate from assigned task. He hadn’t even asked for a deviation.

“Yes, your Excellency.” What else could he say? He knew he shouldn’t have done it. He’d known at the time that he shouldn’t be doing it. And he knew that under the same set of conditions he’d do it again, instructions or no instructions. What if the officer had told him to let the evacuation craft’s crew die, and return to
Ragnarok
? What would he have done then?

“In addition to this essential mission, however, your ability to pilot your craft permitted the safe recovery of eight Fleet resources, living souls. This recovery was effected under extreme pressure, Mister Kerenko, and at considerable risk to the thula and everyone on it.”