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"So my honor is the sacrifice."
"No, never. They won't recall my words against you. Not very long. What will live is the fact that you led
us home."
Walfilo stood a while in the twilight regarding the younger male. Finally he laid his ax at Theor's feet, the
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ancient sign of obedience. "Indeed the blood of your folk is in you," he said, "and you are a Reeve born."
Teeth flashed in a smile. "And thank you! My decision was nigh too heavy for me to bear. You have
lifted it onto your own back. I will die sooner, following your counsel, but much more gladly."
16
Fraser laid down his wrench. "That's that," he said. "No more safety cut-off on this en-gine. Now we
only have to start her."
He rose, awkward in his suit, and found himself confront-ing Lorraine. The flashtube she had held for
him, to furnish light, wavered in her hand, making grotesque shadows chase across the room, over
crowded machines and dully gleaming bulkheads. There the undiffused puddle of glow was reflected.
Behind the faceplate, her features stood forth against the darkness in the doorway, and the gold hair
seemed almost to crackle with the cold that filled the moonship.
"Well," he said, wishing he had better words, "let's go."
"Mark-"
"What?"
"Oh . . . nothing, I guess." Her eyelids fluttered down. He could see how she braced herself. "I just
wanted to say ... if we don't make it ... you've been a grand guy. There's nobody I'd rather be with now."
Despite the synthetic emotional control he had eaten, his heart sprang. He patted her hand, fabric to
fabric.
"Same to you, kid. I'll even admit-I think you'll understand -I had a tough time remaining a gentleman, all
those cycles in your apartment. I might not have managed it with some-one I thought less of."
"Hell, you think I wasn't having trouble being a lady?" She turned on her heel. "C'mon."
They climbed the ladder to the control room. Fraser set the engine to warmup and threw the starter
switch. The preliminary whine shivered through his boots.
"Quick, before the fusion starts!"
She hung back at the airlock, as if to let him go first. He shoved her ahead. The vibration built up with
un-natural speed and raggedness. When he was halfway down the accommodation ladder, he jumped
the rest of the dis-tance.
Blind in the gloom between the parked vessels, he fumbled around after her. Fingers closed on his arm.
She led him to the north end of the area, and around westward.
Cautiously, he peered from behind a landing jack. The field stretched yellowish gray between him and
the town, in the light of third-quarter Jupiter. Ahead and to his right stood theOlympia, his entire hope.
But his gaze was held on the enormous spheroid of theVega, on the guns sil-houetted lean against the
Milky Way and the dozen armed men ringing her in.Another minute, I'd guess, till that engine blows.
As if his estimate were exact, he counted down.Fifty-nine, fifty-eight, fifty-six, no, seven, fifty-five . .
. twenty-four, twenty-three, twenty-two -
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The world shuddered beneath him. A roar passed through his feet and hammered in his skull. The ship
beside him reeled on her jacks. He knew better than to look at the fire which spouted upward, but he
saw its light pitiless on the ground, blue-white, making each rock beyond the concrete apron stand forth
like a mountain.
A crack opened in the field and ran zigzag toward the blind safety wall before Aurora. A moonship on
the south side swayed, tottered, and fell with infinite slowness, struck at last and made the ground ring
with her metal anguish. Vapor boiled through the space she had occupied, hellishly tinted by the fire.
The chaos endured for one split instant, then the reactor was destroyed and the reaction ended. Night
came again. Jupiter looked wan and the stunned eye could make out not a single star.
Fraser and Lorraine ran.
They didn't pause to see if they were noticed. A shot would tell them that. In long frantic bounds they
crossed the open field, reached theOlympia, and skidded to a halt.
Because she was meant to land aerodynamically on un-known and possibly unsafe terrain, in a strong
gravitational field, she rested on wheeled jacks, and horizontally rather than vertically. Hence the cargo
entry was lower than for a regular spaceship-but nonetheless higher than was conven-ient. Fraser braced
his hands against the support below the hatch. Lorraine sprang onto his shoulders, reached up, and spun
the manual control. A circle opened. She chinned herself through, flopped down, and extended a hand.
Fraser jumped to catch her. Briefly, he was afraid she would be dragged out by his weight. But she drew
him in, he rolled over, bounced to his feet, and pelted for the pilot room. She closed the hatch and
followed.
An equally massive door guarded the human part of the ship. Fraser cranked the wheel and cursed its
gear ratio. Through! He entered the forward section and plunked him-self down in the pilot's seat. The
board was as dark as the rest of the vessel, and laid out differently from those he was used to. He was
helpless until Lorraine came behind him and aimed the flashtube at his hands.
"That's better," he panted. When he could see the layout, it was familiar. It ought to be. He'd spent hours
memorizing the diagrams she smuggled to him, the instructions and specifications. After so much mental
rehearsal, the act had a tinge of falsity.
A throbbing awoke, the hull transmitted it to him and he leaned back with a whistle. Sweat coursed past
his brows and stung his eyes. Ten minutes for warmup--that was cutting matters pretty fine, but he dared
wait no longer than he must.
There were no ports in this ship, and he didn't want to risk activating the viewscreens before he was
ready to lift. Someone might be sniffing around outside with a detector. "What're they doing, do you
think?" he asked inanely.
"Running around like beheaded chickens, I'll bet," she an-swered. "They'll come to order fast, they've
got tight dis-cipline, but right now I'd love to watch the confusion."
He leaned over to assist her into the harness of the chair beside his. "Well," he said, "so far it went like
the proverbial clockwork. I wouldn't be surprised but that the whole operation will succeed. How are
you going to like being a heroine?"
She forced lightness into her tone. "As much as you're going to like being a hero. Which is to say,
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plenty."
"Uh, I dunno.No more privacy, no more daring to in-dulge in little human fallings from virtue- God, I'll
bet I wind up addressing a Rotarian lunch! It's different for you, of course. You can enjoy the glamour
aspect. But I'm too old and homely." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]