“Wahn—what’s our gas mix?”
“Oxygen’s up a point, sir. But with this low pressure . . .”
Oxygen, Barin thought, was the least of his problems. He spotted the green Olines, and started checking them. Oxygen was breathable; it wasn’t going to poison anyone even if it was leaking, and at very low pressure and temperature it wasn’t likely to support combustion, either.
“Anything else?”
“No, sir, nothing I can identify. But most of the stuff on the list you flashed me isn’t on this chemscan’s selector.”
“It’s not?” A tiny cold finger ran down his spine. “What have you got, then?”
“Well, what you mostly need—oxygen, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, hydrogen sulfide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen. But not all that special environmental stuff.”
“Let’s see.” Barin took a look; there was oxygen, carbon dioxide, nitrogen, all at very low amounts. “What about broadscan, did you try that?”
“Yes, sir, but I don’t know what all these little peaks are. None of ’em are red-marked.”
So probably it was picking up traces of whatever had been in the breached vessels. Maybe some outgassing from the patch adhesive. He looked at the scan readout himself, but while whatever it was had a molecular weight of around 16, he didn’t know what it might be. He tried to envision the periodic table, but most of it eluded him. Oxygen? No, that was atomic weight; the molecular weight was 32.
He looked around, and saw a tangle of green lines—the oxygen code—snaking around a series of long tanks. There was an obvious place to look for an oxygen leak. Even if you could breathe it, it still shouldn’t be leaking out. He started at the nearest tank, and tested every connection with his squirt bottle. On the second, little bubbles rewarded him—sure enough, something was coming out, and the most likely thing coming out of a green-coded line was oxygen. He called up the checklist and protocol and found that he needed a special patch. Which pocket had he put it in? There. He peeled off the backing, glad that whoever made these things realized they’d have to be used by people in gloves—that long pull-tag helped.
He looked around again to see where his team was. O’Neil and his group were down at the most-damaged aft end; the rest were scattered up and down the compartment, checking every bit of tubing for leaks.
That unknown peak on the readout bothered him. He called the Environmental Officer again.
“Sir, we’ve got a peak our chemscan doesn’t identify. Something with a molecular weight of sixteen—” He flashed the readout to the EO.
“What do you mean your chemscan doesn’t—sixteen? Lieutenant, didn’t I tell you to look out for methane? What’s the readout?”
Barin went cold. Methane. That was the one that blew up when it contacted free oxygen . . .” Sir, we don’t have a readout for it on our machine.”
“Oh my god . . . you don’t have an Environmental chemscan. Lieutenant, get your people out now. You’re sitting on a bomb.” He’d figured that out; terror and guilt almost strangled him. He pushed them down. Later. Right now he had to get his people to safety. “Wait—tell them to move slowly. If they run through a pool of the stuff, and mix it, that’s when it’ll blow. Turn off those lights you rigged. Can you vent to vacuum?”
“We just—” Barin bit that off, switched channels, and called his team. “Emergency—” Heads turned toward him. “We have a potentially explosive gas mix. Don’t run—we don’t want to move the stuff around more than we have to. Whoever’s closest to the lock, douse the lights.” The lock. The portable airlock . . . would it hold pressure if there was an explosion? He switched back to the EO. “Sir, we accessed SE-14 through a portable airlock; if this compartment goes, it may not hold.”
“I’ve already alerted them, Lieutenant. Get your people out. Vent to the vacuum if you can.”
Could he? If they took the patch off . . . at least it wouldn’t be an explosion in a closed space. “We could try to take the patch off—” He hoped the EO would say it was impossible, not worth the risk.
“Do it,” the EO said. “If there’s an explosion in that compartment we could lose the whole ship—”
And it would be his fault, because he hadn’t checked to see that they had a chemscan programmed for Environmental. Barin shivered, anticipating what the captain would say, or his grandmother. Again he pushed it aside. No time.
He switched back to the team channel. Who was nearest? Telleen and O’Neil.
“Petty Officer O’Neil—” He saw, down the compartment, O’Neil turn towards him. “We need to vent this compartment immediately to vacuum. The EO has authorized us to tear down that patch. You four—” He couldn’t think of their names, but they were closest to the airlock. “There by the airlock. Get out now. Has anyone identified a methane line leak?”
The EO’s voice came in on his other channel. “If it’s from a tank, it’ll be in the outboard array, about a third of the way aft in that chamber; if it’s a line, it could be anywhere.”
Barin glanced over and saw Pivot Ghormley standing approximately in that location, about seven meters away. “What’ve you got, Ghormley?”
“Dent in the fermentation chamber, sir. There’s a . . . a kind of crack in this little pipe here from some sort of collection tank—I could seal it—”
“Too late,” the EO said. “You’re probably standing in a pool of methane—if you stir it up . . .”
“Ghormley, stay where you are. Do not move,” Barin said. Then to the EO, “I’m standing by the photosynthesis chamber. And there’s a crack in the oxygen line.” He looked down, and at that moment someone cut the lights.
“Lieutenant?” That was O’Neil.
“I’m standing in the oxygen,” Barin said. “If I don’t kick it around, this explosion may not happen. You get that patch torn down. Everybody who’s not with you—except Ghormley and me—get out, but don’t run.” He could see their headlamps moving; he could see them cycling through. Surely they’d be safer in the corridor; surely someone would get them through the blast doors to the other side of the ship. He found himself counting the disappearing lights. One safe. Two. Then a pause, and, three, four . . .
“Sir, I’m scared—” That was Ghormley. The kid, the newest of the bunch. And he, Barin, had condemned this kid to die, maybe.
“Well,” Barin said, “I’m not any too happy myself, but if we don’t dance a jig, we can still get out of this in one piece.”
“Do you really think so?” Ghormley’s voice was high and tense.
Of course he didn’t think so, but what good would it do to tell the kid that? “If they get that patch off,” Barin said, “the rest of the gases in here will vent to vacuum. It’s cold now; it’ll be colder then, and it takes heat—” But not much, he knew, not with methane and oxygen. Firedamp, miner’s enemy. Anything might set it off. “And even if it blows, it won’t be confined—”
“I don’t like this—” Ghormley said. “I can’t just stand here—”
“Sure you can,” Barin said. “Smartest thing you can do.” Another light, and another, vanished out the airlock. Four remained, at the aft end of the chamber, working to remove the patch they’d tried so hard to put on. “If we don’t mix the two, they won’t blow up.”
“But sir, we was all walking around, all over; they gotta be mixed already.”
What a time for Ghormley to show reasoning ability. “It hasn’t blown yet,” Barin said. “I promise not to kick my oxygen at you if you won’t kick your methane at me . . .”