There was an identification touch panel here, and Victor wasn’t surprised anymore that it identified him. The green indicator lit confirmed that the hatch to outer space was closed and access to the hangar deck was permitted, and then the door slid aside.
Cone-shaped landers stood on the floor ruled out in squares, kept by perforated pylons. The modules didn’t reach even a meter in height. Two were absent.
“Damn,” Victor said fatefully.
“We couldn’t fly away on them even if we had a destination,” Linda sadly agreed. “Now I have remembered. Bioengineering is my speciality. Biorobots, which we were going to synthesize, should have sizes, roughly speaking, from a bug to a big crab. Gathering of samples and recording doesn’t require more, while delivering of each superfluous gram into an orbit… especially taking into account the supragravity…”
“It is unimportant. In any case we cannot escape the field limits,” interrupted Adamson. “Above all, we have already tried to use probes,” he pointed to empty places, “and, obviously, with no success.”
“We still do not remember everything,” Linda realized. “And what if we get into a trap of our own perceptions? We come, we see that have already tried, and we leave, without trying more. Over and over again. And these probes, maybe, weren’t here at all. They were reduced, as well as the number of crewmen.”
“No, the probes couldn’t be reduced,” Victor objected. “Without them the whole expedition loses meaning. We tried to use them for explosion, but not here. Here they have only low-power engines allowing them to fly smoothly into the hangar and to take off from it. But outside there are rocket stages with fuel and real engines, to which the landers mate before departing.”
“Can we reach them? There is a vacuum outside after all? Though there should be spacesuits somewhere. Our mission plan didn’t involve our exit from the ship, but for an emergency…”
“I won’t be surprised, if in our present condition we can survive even in a vacuum,” Victor gloomy uttered. “But anyway it will allow us no more than to knock with a fist on a rocket wall. And even if we would blow it up out there, it won’t damage the starship. In a vacuum there is no blast wave. That’s why rocket stages are places outside. Perhaps, in previous times we forgot exactly about that! But if we manage to ram the ship with a rocket, especially near the biosynthesizer, it may work.”
“How can we operate the rocket?”
“Directly, no way. Only to program the lander computer.”
Linda approached the nearest landing module and scraped its smooth surface with her nails. Hair-thin grooves depicted outlines of several hatchlets, but they, of course, had no intention of opening.
“And how will we reach the computer?”
“Without tools we cannot get inside.” Victor shook his head. “But it is unessential. Besides the main control room there is still a reserve post of remote controls, right in this compartment.” He was silent for several seconds, remembering, and then resolutely turned and showed her a door in a distant corner: “There.”
“If it isn’t broken, too…” Linda muttered, following him.
Her suppositions were confirmed. The bulky stand had been broken open, and the torn out wire stuck out of the wall to the right of it.
“Didn’t think that we would have such ancient cables here,” said Linda. This part of her memory still remained in darkness too. “I suppose, nowadays conducting nanochannels directly through walls is used everywhere?”
“That’s because it’s a reserve system,” Victor explained. “Here everything is purposely made on a primitive but reliable element base—more difficult to break, more easy to repair.”
“You think we still can repair it?”
“I will try. I apparently have already remembered enough.”
With an effort he removed the bent cover of the stand and got into the electric interiors. Linda went backwards and forward in the small room of the post, unable to remain in one place. It seemed to her that she could physically feel how despair, like a black poison, spread through her body, corroding it from within…
“It seems, we have a chance,” Victor suddenly said. “I do not remember which of us broke this stand, but he did not made the problem too bad—probably because of a shortage of tools. In general, considering the raised durability and numerous reservation… contacts, of course, will be jury-rigged, but… at least for some time, I think, it will work.” He still picked inside for some time, then turned to Linda. “There is only one problem. Too long a piece of cable is torn out. Perhaps you remember where we have put it?”
“No,” she shook her head.
“Then there is no conductor of suitable length here. To feed the panel, at least a half-meter conductor is necessary.”
“I understand. I will do it. I will take the wire ends.”
“Actually I wanted to offer to draw lots.”
“To hell with drawing lots! I am a bioengineer. I’ve passed pilot’s training, too, but you’re the first pilot. Onboard computers are your domain.”
“All right. But there will be high voltage, I don’t guarantee that you will withstand it.”
“Victor, this is ridiculous. I will die once again. What’s the damned difference? The circuit will remain closed. Begin it now, until I can’t bear it any more!”
“Okay, then hold it here and here.”
She knelt near the stand. Having ripped off the insulation, she wound the end of the wire round a finger of her right hand and clutched it in a fist, and put her left hand inside the stand. Adamson helped her to insert a finger into the socket. Then he somehow fit the stand cover back on—it did not, of course, lie in place completely, but it was still possible to connect the screens and keyboard. Even the buttons on the keyboard were real, as in former times, instead of an image on a touch surface of a screen.
“Switching on,” Victor warned and connected the perviously opened jumpers.
Linda’s body curved in an arch, and she tried to cry out, but a sharp spasm which had twisted all her muscles didn’t allow her to open her mouth. She could only low through the rounded nostrils. With a dry crackle the remaining scraps of her hair began to move on her head. The singeing reek began to spread in the air.
But Adamson could not let this distracted him. He could not even allow himself to think about her suffering. Screens lit up, self-diagnostics lines began to run. Victor hasty interrupted the test and disabled all warnings. He knew himself rather well that in such mode the stand would work several minutes at the best, until the first contact connected end-to-end would fuse or any other element would die from rating violations. A human body is nevertheless a bad replacement for the certificated cable.
Victor tried to activate the computer of the first probe. “Unable to communicate,” appeared on the screen. Where is the problem—in the stand, in the probe, somewhere in between them? There is neither time nor the possibility to find out! The second probe: “Unable to communicate.” The third… still too early to consider the stand fully operational. Especially while—yes, it was true—the smell of burning human skin began to mingle with the smell of the burning wafer-type components. Even to start the full diagnostics, it will take not less than three minutes.
Linda continued to low, her body curving so much that it seemed that her vertebrae were about to crack and break. Victor shot an instant glance at her and continued furiously to click the buttons. The fifth probe… No, it’s all useless… if only by any miracle the sixth, the last one, would revive… Yes!!!