twelve

“The starboard explosion was the worst,” Commander Napier reported to the emergency meeting of the Bissendorf’s executive staff. “It actually breached the pressure hull in the vicinity of Frame S.203. The pressure-activated doors functioned properly and sealed off the section between Frames S.190 and 210, but there were five technicians in there at the time, and they were killed.”

O’Hagan raised his grey head. “Blast or decompression?”

“We don’t know — the bodies were exhausted into space.”

“I see.” O’Hagan made a note on his pad, speaking aloud at the same time. “Five missing, presumed dead.”

Napier stared at his old antagonist with open dislike. “If you know how we can turn the ship to recover the bodies this would be a good time to tell us about it.”

“I merely…”

“Gentlemen!” Garamond slapped the table as loudly as was possible in conditions of almost zero gravity. “May I remind you that we are scheduled to be killed in about eight hours? That doesn’t leave much time for bickering.”

O’Hagan gave a ghastly smile. “It gives us eight hours for bickering, Captain — there’s nothing else we can do.”

“That’s for this meeting to decide.”

“So be it.” Chief Science Officer O’Hagan shrugged and spread his dry knobbly hands in resignation.

Garamond felt a reluctant admiration for the older man who seemed determined to remain egotistical and cantankerous right to the end. O’Hagan also had a habit of being right in everything he said, and in that respect too it seemed he was going to preserve his record. Although reaction mass was not plentiful in the region of Pengelly’s Star, the Bissendorf had been aided in its return journey by the pull of the primary and had achieved a mean acceleration of close on one gravity. Modest though the acceleration and distances were, the ship had been travelling at 1,500 kilometres a second at turn-over point and, although it had been slowing down steadily for two days when the explosions occurred, its residual velocity was still above a hundred kilometres in each second. At that speed it was due to impact with Orbitsville in only eight hours, and it appeared to Garamond that there was nothing he or anybody else on board could do about it. The knowledge boomed and pounded beneath all other thoughts, and yet he felt a surprising absence of fear or any related emotion. It was, he decided, a psychological byproduct of having eight hours in hand. The delay created the illusion that something might still be done, that there was a chance to influence the course of events in their favour, and — miraculously — this held good even for an experienced flickerwing man who understood only too well the deadly parameters of his situation.

“I understand that both auxiliary drive systems are still functional,” Administrative Officer Mertz was saying, his round face glowing like pink plastic. “Surely that makes a difference.”

Napier shook his head. “The ion tubes are in action right now — which accounts for the very slight weight you can feel — but they were intended only to give the ship a close-manoeuvring capability, and they won’t affect our speed very much. I guess the only difference they’ll make is that we’ll vaporize against Orbitsville a minute or two later than we would otherwise.”

“Well, how about the secondary nuclears? I thought they were for collision avoidance.”

“They are. Maximum endurance twenty minutes. By applying full thrust at right angles to our present course we could easily avoid an object as large as Jupiter — but we’re dealing with that.” Napier pointed at the forward view panels, which were uniformly black. Orbitsville was spanning the universe.

“I see.” Mertz’s face lost some of its pinkness. “Thank you.”

The operations room filled with a silence which was broken only by faint irregular clangs transmitted through the ship’s structure. Far aft, a repair crew was at work replacing the damaged hull sections. Garamond stared into the darkness ahead and tried to assimilate the idea that it represented a wall across the sky, a wall which was rushing towards him at a hundred kilometres a second, a wall so wide and high that there was no way to avoid hitting it.

Yamoto cleared his throat. “There’s no point in speculating about why the ship was sabotaged, but do we know how the bombs got on board?”

“I personally believe it was done by Pilot Officer Shrapnel,” Napier said. “There isn’t much evidence, but what there is points to him. We gave all the information in our emergency call to Fleet Control.”

“What did they say?”

“They promised he would be investigated.” Napier’s voice had a flinty edge of bitterness. “We are assured that all necessary steps will be taken.”

“That’s good to know. Isn’t that good to know?” Yamoto pressed the back of a hand to his forehead. “I had so much work still to do. There was so much to learn about Orbitsville.”

They’re going to learn at least one thing as a result of this mission, Garamond thought. They’re going to find out how the shell material stands up to the impact of fifteen thousand tons of metal travelling at a hundred kilometres a second. And they won’t even have to go far from the aperture to see the big bang… Garamond felt an icy convulsion in his stomach as he half-glimpsed an idea. He sat perfectly still for a moment as the incredible thought began to form, to crystallize to the point at which it could be put into words. His brow grew chill with sweat. “Has anybody,” Denise Serra asked in a calm, clear voice, “considered the possibility of adjusting our course in such a way that we would pass through the aperture at Beachhead City?”

Again the room filled with silence. Garamond felt a curious secondary shock on hearing the words he was still formulating being uttered by another person. The silence lasted for perhaps ten seconds, then was broken by a dry laugh from O’Hagan.

“You realize that, at our speed, running into a wall of air would be just like hitting solid rock? I’m afraid your idea doesn’t change anything.”

“We don’t have to run into a wall of air — not if we turn the ship over again and go in nose first with the electron gun operating at full power.”

“Nonsense,” O’Hagan shouted. He cocked his head to one side as if listening to an inner voice and his fingers moved briefly on the computer terminal before him. “It isn’t nonsense, though.” He corrected himself without embarrassment, nodding his apologies to Denise Serra, and others at the conference table began to address the central computer through their own terminals.

“Overload power on the gun should give us enough voltage for the few seconds we would need it. It should be enough to blast a tunnel through the atmosphere.”

“At this stage we have enough lateral control over our flight path to bring it through the aperture.”

“But remember we haven’t got the full area of the aperture as a target. We’d be going in at an angle of about seventy degrees.”

“It’s still good enough — as long as no other ships get in the way.”

“There’s still time to do some structural strengthening on the longitudinal axis.”

“We’ll shed enough kinetic energy…”

“Hold it a minute,” Garamond commanded, raising his voice above the suddenly optimistic clamour, “We have to look at it from all angles. If we did go through the aperture, what would be the effect on Beachhead City?”

“Severe,” O’Hagan said reflectively. “Imagine one purple hell of a lightning bolt coming up through the aperture immediately followed by an explosion equivalent to a tactical nuclear weapon.”

“There’d be destruction?”

“Undoubtedly. But there’s plenty of time to evacuate the area — nobody would have to die.”

“Somebody mentioned colliding with another ship.”

“That’s a minor problem, Vance.” O’Hagan looked momentarily surprised at having used Garamond’s given name for the first time in his life. “We can advise Fleet Control of our exact course and they’ll just have to make certain the way is clear.”