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System and beyond, waiting to be claimed by British explorers. The shadow of the Union Flag will
stretch out across the centuries and the stars, vast and unassailable! Come, gentlemen. We're at a turning
point in human affairs. Let's retire to the Saloon and drink a toast to the future.'
I lingered for some seconds, staring at the crater made by the boy from Marseilles. Then I followed the
Englishmen.
The Jonah Man
In space accidents hit you fast.
And in nine-space...
'It's my bones, doctor. I feel so fragile...'
'Calcium deficiency does usually take longer to set in than the two weeks since we've left Earth, Mr
Tojo.'
I'd just completed my morning surgery and was standing outside the crew lounge, trying to forget my own
aching feet and concentrate on the elderly passenger's complaints. Other crewmen grinned over his
shoulder as they made their way past us and around the corridor's gentle curve.
I wasn't thinking about it at the time, but the reason the curve was so gentle was that the corridor
happened to be situated just beneath the ship's outer skin. That fact was about to save my life.
The ship shuddered.
The lights snapped to emergency red and my feet left the floor. The corridor exploded into a scene from
hell as passengers and crew boiled into it. 'Doctor! What's happened?' Tojo was screaming now as he
floundered suddenly into the air.
A section of the ship wall blistered and peeled back. Tojo was whisked away pitilessly, his screams
drowned by the roar of escaping air.
Then the silence of vacuum settled over the smashed equipment and lifeless faces. The orderly routine of
just a few seconds earlier seemed a surreal memory.
I thought it over. No gravity meant the fusion plant had failed. And in that case I was dead. I drifted there
while my lungs emptied, trying to remember what I should do
 until a massive hand grabbed my collar and pulled me backwards.
I found a thick-set face glaring into mine. Pack, I recalled vaguely; Pack from engineering. He nodded
with a kind of gruff reassurance, his mouth gaping wide in the vacuum.
As I should have done, he'd wrestled open the entrance to one of the two-man escape pods studded
around the ship's hull. I was stuffed inside unceremoniously. I bounced off equipment lockers in the
zero-gee darkness and tried to orient myself.
Pack was working the door closed. From the pod's safety I peered back out at the corridor's lethal
chaos
There was a man out there. A passenger. Blood dribbled from his clenched lips.
And Pack was still pulling closed the door. 'Two man,' I saw him mouth. 'Not enough fuel. Only two
man.'
Those bloody lips opened in a soundless cry.
Black globes clustered at the edge of my vision. I considered letting them close around me. I was too old
for this...
I hauled my bulk across the cabin and cannoned into Pack. We tumbled from the door. The passenger
fell into the pod and slammed the door shut. The pod's lights came on and air sighed in.
Pack untangled himself. After a murderous glare at me he began to hammer at a large-keyed control pad.
There was a jolt as the pod kicked away from the ship.
I found myself pressed against the wall. Through the pod's single port I watched the wrecked ship
recede. Like a smeared photograph, the image was distorted by the impossible perspectives of
nine-space; but I could see that giant handfuls had been ripped from the centre of its spindle-shaped
hull and where the fusion plant should have been was only a curdled glow.
There were no more pods; only ours.
And then my stomach twisted as we dropped out of nine-space. The dying ship folded out of sight to
be replaced by something very strange...
Heavy hands grabbed my shoulders and twisted me around, away from the port.
'You stupid bastard,' Pack croaked in the new air.
'Listen to me...' I protested weakly.
'Why did you let him in? This is a two-man pod... You've killed us both.'
Over his shoulder, I saw the passenger's thin face tremble, a pale mixture of fear and calculation.
And then I looked out of the port again.
Ticking as it cooled, the pod was drifting over a crimson plane that stretched to infinity. There was a sun,
set in the middle of the plane like some fantastic jewel.
Life pods are designed to dump you out of nine-space, fast. You can end up anywhere.
My throat hurt.
Pack was shaking me now, spittle flecking his chin.
I wondered about that plane. The black globes moved closer
I sipped hot broth, hanging like a chrysalis in my sleeping bag. 'Thanks,' I said to the passenger. The
single word filled my chest with pain.
Over the tube of broth I surveyed what was left of my world. The interior of the pod was a
two-metre-wide cylinder crusted with equipment lockers. It was tight as a coffin after the ship's wide
corridors.
Pack was sorting through one of the lockers, muscles moving over his turned back. The passenger had
his wiry body pressed up against a clear section of wall, fingers spread out against the bare metal. His
eyes flickered between us. 'Thank you,' he said to me. His vacuum-wrecked voice was like sandpaper.
'You saved my life. Thank you both.'
I didn't recognize him. He was about my age, with thin hair stained grey. He was nervy, pale a typical
city dweller... But his eyes were like independent creatures, shrewd little animals peering out of his skull.
'My name's Moore,' I said. 'The ship's doctor.'
He nodded. 'Windle. I'm a household bot service engineer. I'm I was heading for a job in the new
colony at Tau Ceti III... and this is Mr '
Pack rattled bits of equipment around the locker with growing violence.
'...Pack,' I said quickly.
At the mention of his name Pack slammed closed the locker. His face was a broad mask of resentment.
'We've got to talk,' he snarled.
Windle tried to shrink further into his wall.
'What's the problem?' I asked.
Pack spat: 'He is.'
I sighed. We'd only been in that pod an hour or so, but already the atmosphere was wire-taut. 'Okay,
Pack. Tell us the worst.'
'He's told you, hasn't he?' Windle broke in, his eyes widened to red circles. 'I'm the problem. He tried to
close the door in my face. He'd rather have left me behind...'
Pack's voice was brittle. 'Look we're stranded in the middle of nowhere. This pod was designed for
two men... to drop them out of nine-space, and then lift them back up and get them somewhere safe.
'We just don't have the fuel cells for three. There's nothing to be done about it.'
Windle cowered but the trapped little creatures looking out of his eyes were studying Pack.
I pushed my bulk out of my bag and tried to break up the tension with a bit of bedside manner. 'Come
on, Pack. That's not the end of the story. I know these pods are equipped with spare cells.'
'What do you think I've been searching for?' He held out twenty or thirty card-thin slices of
ceramic superconductor circuit cells. 'This is all I could find. And they're all uncharged.'
'Well, we're bound to have recharge equipment aboard.'
'Yes, but ' Pack growled with frustration. 'Even so, there's still only enough for two... with a safety [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]