DRUMHEAD

Blinded by the ice coating his suit, his communications antennas blocked, the temperature inside the suit dropping, Gaeta mulled over his options. The thrusters won’t fire, he realized, and I don’t know why. The diagnostic display splashed on the inside of his faceplate showed the propulsion system was in the green.

“Engineer’s hell,” he muttered to himself. “Everything checks but nothing works.”

The suit’s diagnostics were bare-bones. Fritz had a better idea of what was going on than he did, Gaeta knew. He’s got the details. He’s even got the positioning data that feeds my nav program; all I’ve got is a comm link that doesn’t work.

Gaeta had one last trick in his repertoire. If this doesn’t work I’ll be a frozen dinner for these chingado ice bugs, he told himself. He popped the suit’s emergency antenna. The spring-loaded Buckyball wire cracked through the ice shell and whizzed out the full length of its hundred meters. Gaeta felt the vibration inside the suit, like the faint buzz of an electric razor.

“Fritz! Can you hear me?” he called.

“Manny!” Fritz’s voice replied immediately. “What’s your situation? The diagnostics here are a blur.”

“Suit antennas iced over,” Gaeta replied, slipping automatically into the clipped, time-saving argot of pilots and ground controllers. “Thrusters won’t fire.”

“Life support?”

“Okay for now. Thrusters, man. I gotta get outta here.”

“Have you tried the backup?”

“Of course I’ve tried the backup! It’s like everything’s frozen solid.” Wunderly’s voice interrupted, “Crank up your suit’s heaters.”

“The heaters?”

“Run them up as hot as you can stand it,” she said. “The ice bugs probably don’t like high temperatures.”

“Probablydoesn’t sound like much help,” Gaeta said.

“Try it,” Fritz commanded.

Gaeta knew the suit’s electrical power came from a nuclear thermionic generator: plenty of electricity available for the heaters.

Reluctantly he said, “Okay. Going into sauna mode.”

Holly was more worried about Tavalera’s leg than her own prospects. Two of the black-clad security people were dragging Raoul up the slope toward the central airlock. He looked to be in shock, his face white, his teeth gritted. It was foolish of him to try to help me, Holly thought. Foolish and very brave.

With the Ethiopian in the lead, they climbed the gentle rise, feeling the odd decrease in gravity as they got closer to the habitat’s centerline. Holly wondered if she could use the confusing loss of gravity as a weapon, but there were four of Kananga’s people and only herself and the wounded Tavalera to counter them. She couldn’t leave Raoul in their clutches, no matter what lay ahead.

“Why are you taking us here?” Holly demanded.

“Just following orders,” said the burly leader of the security team.

“Orders? Whose orders?”

“Colonel Kananga’s. He wants to meet you at the central airlock.”

Eberly groused and grumbled, but he realized he had no choice but to accompany Morgenthau to this meeting with Kananga. What else can I do? he asked himself. I’m nothing more than a figurehead. She holds the real power: she and Kananga and that viper Vyborg. If it hadn’t been for him and his stupid ambition, none of this would have happened. I’ve won power for them, not myself.

He meekly followed Morgenthau to the bike racks outside the administration building and mounted one of the electrically powered bicycles. From the rear, Morgenthau looked like a hippopotamus riding the bike. He noted that she hardly pedaled at all, even on the flat; instead she let the quiet little electrical motor propel her along. I hope she runs out of battery power by the time we have to start climbing, Eberly thought viciously.

But she made it all the way to the endcap and the hatch that led to the central airlock, Eberly dutifully following behind her. They left the bikes in the racks at the hatch and entered the cold, dimly lit steel tunnel that led to the airlock.

As the hatch swung shut behind them, Eberly looked over his shoulder, like a prisoner taking his last glimpse of the outside world before the gates close on his freedom. He saw a small group of people trudging up the slope toward the hatch. Three of them were in the black tunics of the security forces. The tall slim figure in their midst looked like Holly. He didn’t recognize the even taller man in a gray outfit walking up ahead of the others. Two of the security people were dragging a man who was clearly injured.

Then the hatch closed, and Eberly felt the chill of the cold steel tunnel seep into his bones.

“Come along,” said Morgenthau. “Kananga’s waiting for us at the airlock. Vyborg is there, too.”

Wondering what else he could do, Eberly followed her like a desperately unhappy little boy being dragged to school.

Gaeta blinked sweat from his eyes. He had reeled in the emergency antenna and fired it out again, twice. Each time it had given him about five minutes of clear communications before the ice creatures coated it so thickly that the radio link began to break up.

His faceplate displays were splashed with yellow as he diverted electrical power from the suit’s sensors and even the servomotors that moved its arms and legs to pour as much energy as possible into the heaters. The arms were getting too stiff to move even with the servomotors grinding away. Christ knows how thick the ice is packing up on them.

Trouble is, he knew, the suit’s skin is thermally insulated too damned well. The suit’s built to keep heat in, not to let it leak outside.

That gave him an idea. It was wild, but it was an idea. How long can I breathe vacuum? he asked himself. It was an old daredevil game that astronauts and stuntmen and other crazies played now and then: vacuum breathing. You open your suit to vacuum and hold your breath. The trick is to seal up the suit again before you pass out, or before your eyes blow out from the loss of pressure. A lot of people claimed the record; most of ’em were dead. Pancho Lane had a reputation for being good at it, he remembered, back in the days when she was an ass-kicking astronaut.

The real question, Gaeta realized, is: How much air does the suit hold? And how fast will it leak out if I pop one of the small hatches, like the one in my sleeve?

He wished he could check it out with Fritz, but even the emergency antenna was out now; the last time he’d used it, it got too thickly coated with ice to reel it back in.

You’re on your own, muchacho. Make your own calculations and take your own chances. There’s nobody left to help you.

Kananga looked calm and pleased, standing tall and smiling in front of the inner hatch of the airlock. It was an oversized hatch, wide and high enough to take bulky crates of machinery or other cargo, as well as individuals in spacesuits.

Vyborg was fidgeting nervously, obviously anxious to get this over with, Eberly thought.

On the other side of the steel-walled chamber stood Holly, trying to look defiant but clearly frightened. A young man who identified himself as Raoul Tavalera lay at her feet, grimacing in pain and anger. Eberly remembered him as the astronaut who had been rescued during the refueling at Jupiter. The Ethiopian tracker and the three security team people were further down the tunnel, blocking any attempt to run away.

“I’m pleased,” said Kananga, “that our newly installed chief administrator could take the time away from his many duties to join us here at this trial.”

“Trial?” Eberly snapped.

“Why, yes. I’d like you to serve as the chief judge.”

Eberly glanced uneasily at Holly, then quickly looked away.