The Space Between (38 page)

"Now what?" Keeble asked.

Kim sighed and started pressing buttons
again, working her way across the panel. Keeble grunted and set to
work as well.

"Should I go back to helping Meledrin?" Tuki
asked.

"Yes, Tuki. If you want."

He hesitated — Kim couldn't blame him for
that — then made his way back.

She kept pressing buttons, and when there
were only a couple left...

All her frustration and fear was washed
away, for a moment at least, amid the whir and beep of machines
starting up. There was a deep, gentle rumbling that could only be
an engine.

Kim sat stunned for a
moment, before doing a jig in her seat. Suddenly there was a lot of
movement out in the hangar. Men were racing everywhere, though it
didn't look as if anything particularly dangerous were happening.
Not that she was in the best position to tell. But, looking around
at the flashing lights and strange symbols which were becoming
visible, she decided that, in general, she
was
in the best position.

General Hilliard had made
his cautious way to a position in front of the ship.
"
What now, Miss McLean?
" he shouted. "
You don't imagine
we'll open the doors, do you?
"

"What did he say?" Keeble asked.

Kim told him.

"You really haven't thought this out, have
you?" the dwarf said.

"Shut up." Kim had liked
him more when he was crazy. "
You
didn't mention the door earlier."

"Well, you're the one who's supposed to know
everything."

"Who said that? An hour ago I was in a cell
with no realistic chance of getting out. I think I've done pretty
damn well to get us this far."

"Yes. Wonderful. Now we're
in a
hangar
with
no reasonable chance of getting out."

Kim took a deep breath and tried to get her
thoughts in order. "Arguing about it won't help. We'll just have to
think of something."

Keeble grunted.

For a long time after that, Kim and Keeble
sat in silence staring at the controls and switches in front of
them.

"Let's just try it," Keeble said
eventually.

"What?"

"You think you know how the main controls
work, right? But it's no use worrying about the door unless you're
right."

"Right." Kim nodded.

"So I'll see if I can at least get us to
fly."

For a moment, Kim didn't
know what to say. "Okay, some parts of your plan have merit, but
there's no way in hell
you're
going to drive this thing." At that moment she
thought she'd rather just open the door and let Hilliard
in.

"Then who? You? Women aren't allowed to use
machines."

"Let's get this straight
right now, buddy — this is Earth, not some cave on Sherindel.
People who can do things, do them. Gender doesn't come in to it."
She took a deep breath. "A few days ago you thought a steam engine
was the height of technology. I can drive
cars
and fly
planes
and
helicopters
, Keeble. You can't even
program a
VCR
."

"You've never flown anything like this
before."

"I've been closer than you. So don't touch a
damn thing." Kim sat forward and examined the controls. Most still
meant nothing to her so she decided to ignore them and concentrate
on the main three. Outside, the Americans were creeping closer
again, so Kim shouted a warning and waited for them to scuttle back
to the walls. Then she sat, staring at the controls.

"So," Keeble said, "you control the ship
with the power of your mind, do you?"

Kim glared at him for a moment then gently
pulled the knob she thought controlled the elevation. And it
worked. Kim smiled as the ship rose steadily into the air. She
could see General Hilliard, and he wasn't pleased with the way
things were going.

Keeble didn't look all that thrilled either.
"Now what? We just break through the doors do we? I'm sure if you
concentrate hard enough, you can actually open them."

She wasn't going to let the dwarf ruin her
mood. When the ship was about ten meters above the ground she
released the knob, and they stopped almost instantly. The ship
hovered with barely a tremor. Backwards and forwards probably
wasn't a good idea so she turned the steering wheel instead. When
the ship spun, she did a little happy-dance.

"Huh," she said to Keeble.
"Just like riding a
bike
." If the bike was a space-age
penny-farthing.

"Right. Does the door open if we spin really
quickly?"

"Shut up, Keeble. One step at a time."

"Well, tell me when we're ready for the next
step." He sat back as if preparing to wait for a while.

The ship continued to rotate slowly. On the
fifth revolution, Kim spotted what was probably their only chance.
"I've got a plan," she said. It wasn't so much a plan as an
idea.

For the next five minutes Kim moved randomly
around the room. Forward and backwards were as easy to control as
everything else, but she made sure she ran into walls occasionally
and even bumped into the ceiling and touched down on the floor.

Keeble's anger grew by the moment. "Yes," he
said eventually. "Great idea. Let's let you drive."

"See that there," Kim said. High up in the
wall, opposite the gallery room they'd been in earlier, was another
window. It was only a few meters long and leaned out over the
hangar.

"What about it?"

"I think that's the control room, or
something similar."

"What's it do?"

"That's where the person who opens and
closes the door sits."

Keeble leaned forward to look. "How do you
know that?"

"I don't, but if I'm wrong then we've got no
hope, so let's just pretend." Kim could see by the look on Keeble's
face that he didn't like the idea of going into a situation without
having detailed schematics and a sound plan already formulated.
Well, if he was going to stick around, he'd just have to get used
to it.

"So fly up there and see what we can
see."

"I intend to." In all her 'random' flying,
she had ended up with a wingtip almost touching the wall. If she
went directly up, it would be lined up with the window. "If I'd
done it straight away, they would've worked out something was going
on in about two seconds. This way, hopefully, they think it's just
more random madness, and we'll get a bit of a head start."

"So someone has to walk out on the wing and
go through the window?"

"Yep."

"Who?"

"That's a good question." Kim looked back
into the hold.

Tuki was sitting on the floor, knees pulled
up to his chest as he listened to the alien talk. He already looked
like he was in way over his head and getting him to climb on wings
and jump through windows wouldn't be a good idea. Meledrin? Kim
almost laughed. Even if she were desperate enough to ask, the elf
would never agree. That left two choices.

"Here's what we'll do." She
took a deep breath and wondered how she kept getting into these
situations. "You go in the back, find something hard and heavy to
throw at the window, then wait by the door." Kim said. "When you're
ready, I'll fly us up there then you open the door. We'll try to
break the window, then I go across to the room. Hopefully I can
open the door and get back in quickly. Then we get the hell out
of
Dodge
."

Keeble opened his mouth and Kim knew he was
going to say something about 'Dodge'.

"You know what I mean."

He gave a grunt.

"Off you go, then. Let me know."

It wasn't long before the dwarf called that
he was ready.

"All right, then. Here goes."

Kim went forward slightly. Then back. And,
with no idea if all her posing was doing any good, she pulled the
knob that would move the ship up the wall. When they were in
position she jumped out of the seat and dashed into the cargo area.
The door was already open, and Keeble had his head out.

"All clear," the dwarf said.

Kim didn't really listen. Heart pounding,
mouth dry, she stooped down to grab what looked like two book-sized
metal cogs from a pile on the floor and jumped the short distance
out onto the wing. Easy. "What the hell am I doing?"

She threw one of the cogs. It bounced off
the window. And fell down to clatter on the floor.

"Shit."

But the glass was cracked.

She threw the second one, and the same thing
happened. Keeble threw a third and a fourth from the ship, and
finally the glass shattered.

Kim kept low as long as possible and then,
careful of glass shards, vaulted over the wall into the room. She
found herself on top of a console with about a hundred controls.
Before she'd even climbed down to the floor, she was scanning the
strange symbols that went with them.

A minute later Keeble called to her.
"Something's happening," he said, and at almost the same moment she
heard the sound of booted feet approaching. She looked at the door
for the first time. There was a square, green button set into the
stone wall. Crossing the small room, she tried the button and the
door hissed shut. But she couldn't see any way of locking it.

"Shit." She grabbed a dirty, recently used,
coffee cup from a small table in the corner and used it to smash
the switch. She ripped out some of the wires behind, electricity
biting at her fingers.

"Come on, Kim. We need to get out of
here."

"You don't say," Kim muttered. She returned
to the console and started hitting buttons at random.

Men were pounding at the metal door. There
were curses and shouted warnings from outside.

"
You can't get out, Miss McLean,
"
Hilliard shouted from below.

Kim hit a few more buttons,
stabbing at them with shaking fingers, and was rewarded with a
clunk from out in the hangar. She leaned out the window and saw the
two huge doors that made up the entire roof sliding back out of the
way. "That's what
you
think, General," she said, though not loud enough for him to
hear. She didn't want to get ahead of herself.

After checking the console again to see if
there was something she'd missed, she climbed back out the window.
The wing was as solid as rock when she dropped onto it and slipped
back into the ship. Tuki and the alien looked like they wanted to
be somewhere else, though with the alien it was a bit hard to tell.
It waved its arms about and said something in its deep, throaty
voice. Meledrin started to say something as well, but Kim ignored
them all. She was back in the cockpit before Keeble had closed the
door, and the ship was climbing a moment later.

Soldiers had gained access to the control
room. The doors were starting to close once more.

"Damn it."

Bullets clattered against the hull, and Kim
ducked instinctively though she knew the Americans were probably in
more danger from ricochets.

Trying to ignore what was happening outside,
Kim maneuvered the ship towards the narrowing gap overhead. It
handled like a hovercraft. The only way to steer was to point the
nose in another direction, which changed the angle of the thrust
but generally left them travelling sideways as much as forwards.
Maybe it wasn't a spaceship at all. Maybe it was a hovercraft that
could hover slightly further from the ground than expected.

They bumped against the closing doors.
"Shit. Concentrate."

With the elevation knob still slightly
raised, Kim turned the ship then nudged the throttle. They scraped
along the doors. Back to neutral. Bullets pinged off the hull. Turn
again. More throttle. Turn, nudge. And they popped out through the
narrow opening.

"Yes." Kim started another happy-dance
before realizing they weren't in the clear yet. They had emerged
inside a huge modern hangar. By the time she gathered her thoughts
and released the elevation knob, it was too late. They crashed into
the ceiling and stopped half in, half out of the building. When the
scraps of metal fell away, there was blue sky above.

"Huh. Told you we'd make it."

Keeble didn't look happy to have been proven
wrong. Tuki, eyes closed, was hanging onto a crate as if his life
depended on it. Meledrin leaned over and looked through the door.
Her face was pale. She opened her mouth to say something but
changed her mind. She pointed out the front window instead.

Kim swore. She seemed to be doing that a lot
recently. It was better than screaming or crying.

There were a few fighter jets close to the
ground, loud and fast. Higher up, there were about a dozen more
weaving a net of contrails. They were keeping away what looked like
a whole fleet of bats. The remains of both bats and planes could be
seen close by, smoke drifting skywards. Men swarmed on the ground,
manning weapons, fighting fires.

And Kim knew the spaceship was quickly
becoming the focus of a lot of attention as well. Helicopters were
taking off. Teams of men were turning in her direction.

She was starting to worry but tried to
control her racing thoughts. Panicking wouldn't help now. She
licked her lips and took a deep breath. "So where are we
going?"

"I don't even know where we are," Keeble
replied.

"Tuki, there were three blue crosses on your
skyglass, weren't there?"

"Yes, mo'shi."

"Come and show me."

While Kim waited for Tuki to uncurl himself,
a line of green lights flickered on the console and a voice erupted
from somewhere in the cockpit.