“Than landing it on your ass? You’ll shear the skirting and we’ll fall over!”
“In the time it took you to say that, I rechecked all the data seventy-eight times. We can do it.”
Baker ground his teeth against the mouthpiece until it squeaked like scratched slate. “All right. It’s your fuselage. I’m going to Con Two.”
His body ached from bruises and the weight of acceleration. Sliding out of the fighter, he turned around just long enough to say, “Lee-If you can still hear me-we’ll be transferring to another star after this. I don’t think you’ll want to wait around for a dozen years or more to reestablish contact with your psychfighter-we’d be long gone before your reinforcements arrived.”
The corpse twitched once, and a black slime foamed around the edges of its speaker grill.
Baker looked away, then across the bulkhead. It had bent aftward into the next compartment. He squeezed forward on his belly, wriggling back and forth to avoid a jagged piece of metal from a broken sensor array.
He’s in control, that damned machine. Doesn’t need me. He heard air escaping slowly somewhere. He placed one foot against the array and pushed forward.
“Why’re you doing all this? Why didn’t you just transfer to deep space? It would have been safer.”
The computer said nothing for a moment, during which Baker pulled through the narrowest part of the gantlet-between the fighter’s laser cannon and a portion of the bulkhead that had bent outward. When the machine spoke again, it was with a tentative tone Baker had never heard before.
“The woman Delia Trine seems to be important to both you and Virgil for some reason; vital to your continued operation of Circus. I am willing to take acceptable risks to recover her if she is still alive.”
Baker squirmed free from under the fighter and moved on his hands and knees toward an exit hatch. He stood and opened the seals. Between heavy breaths, he said, “The moment we land, Lee in there’ll call his friends out on us. Or they’ll spot us from orbit. Matching velocities isn’t necessary to hit us with Valli pellets. They’re even more deadly when moving.”
“I am depressurizing the bay to cause cell rupture in the corpse. My sensors have greater range than those of the fighters. So do my lasers. We shall be safe until the deep thrust fighter that is coming around the sun arrives.”
“What?”
“We shall be finished by then, I estimate.”
He ran the rest of the way to the Con Two lift.
The surface of Mercury whipped past them, a blur of blackness shimmering here and there under the glowing ionized gases left in the wake of Circus’s engines. Baker stared, eyes unblinking. The spacecraft maintained a bow-down attitude because of the forced orbit-were the engines to shut off, the ship would climb to a higher orbit rather than fall to the planet. The effect of constantly falling toward the world transfixed Baker. He watched the horizon, fighting the persistent feeling of disorientation. The back of his conning chair was down, the viewing port of Con Two up, and the horizon of the planet well above his head. He watched a hazy glow appear around the edge of the planet.
“Approaching south polar area. Stand by for skew flip turn and deceleration for landing.” Baker tightened his grip on the seat. The computer broke into its rapid speaking mode, commenting on all major systems function. Suddenly, the vernier rockets fired up with full force. The horizon dropped away and Baker’s stomach with it. His neck ached against the braces that held his head immobile. An instant later, the lower limb of Mercury dropped down across the port and hung there, the mountains and craters speeding over its limb out of sight.
In the brief duration of the skew flip, Circus rose to triple its former altitude. Baker noticed the extended field of vision this gave him.
Ass backward into the unknown. He switched on a rear vidcam and added sun filters until the scrim showed more than a white glare.
“I hope you know where you’re going,” he said, moving the cam controls to take in the slightly curving edge of the planet.
“Five kps, twenty km,” the computer said, followed by, “Four kps at eighteen. Under escape v. Rotate for landing.” The vernier rockets firmly turned the spacecraft aftward to the surface.
The viewing port darkened. Baker watched a zone of brilliant light flow from the bow across the ellipsoidal prow and head aftward. All of the ship lay bathed in light from the horizon facing the ship’s topside. Judging by the position of the shadows cast by the conning tower, he could estimate just where the sun should be burning more than six times brighter than on Earth, with no atmosphere to shield him.
The weight of deceleration lightened. He no longer saw the planet through the viewing port. Darkness suddenly spread across the spaceship, followed shortly by a sharp decrease in the whining of the engines.
“Engine shutdown,” the computer said calmly. The ship settled against the mercurial plain, then listed slowly to port until a vernier rocket fired to steady the mass.
“Status,” Baker said, undoing his harness.
“We are twenty kilometers away from the south pole, on the dark side of the terminator. The redoubt’s solar energy power station consists of a low ring of solar panels disguised into the outer rim of a crater. Heat exchange elements extend from the center of the ring to a radius of twenty five kilometers. Eighteen of the thirty-six heat sinks are always on the night side and radiating infra-red. The cryonic preservation unit is most likely buried at the center of the crater.”
Baker climbed down toward the lift. The computer’s voice followed him in his earphones.
“Use lifeboat four,” the computer suggested. “The port shuttle was damaged when the psychfighter shifted during the skew flip.”
“Where’s that?”
“Ring One Level Two Section Three O’Clock. Use axial tube three.”
“Right.” Baker climbed out of the lift and up to the center of the ring. He ran down the man-high axial tube. “What about the other ships?” he asked between breaths.
“Three have so far crossed the horizon in orbit. I am keeping their sensors defeated by laser until they enter my kill radius. I destroyed five ships that transferred in before they could get bearings on us. I think we have very little time, as the deep thrust fighter is in deceleration for orbit.”
“It’ll take time for the troops to get out of their acceleration baths.”
“They can outfight us with lasers, Jord.”
“They won’t, if they think they might harm me. Wait till they slow to a constant velocity, then transfer one of the anti-matter pods into their mid-section.”
The computer considered the plan for several microseconds. “At the south pole, you would have some measure of protection from heavy particles, but I should transfer it at distance so the other particles-”
“Just do it. I can take care of myself on the surface.”
“You will need a more protective suit.”
Baker looked at his thin Späflex outfit and shook his head. “I’ll fly close to the ground and keep screens up while I’m in the boat. The shadow from the crater rim should protect me while I’m looking for an entrance. There’s little enough time as it is.”
“You will be out of contact with me when you go beyond line of sight.”
“That’s a blessing, motormouth.” Baker paused, then shook his head and cycled the airlock. You can’t hurt a computer’s feelings. He switched the breathing apparatus from tanks to rebreather and climbed into the lifeboat as soon as the airlock opened.
The lifeboat was designed for use in the event of a total power failure in the larger ship. The airlock could be manually cycled or blown open. After that, nothing need be done to escape Circus Galacticus.
Baker climbed into the cockpit and dropped all twenty sun filters across the glasteel hatch. He hit full power and shot out of the ship’s hull like a bullet. He corrected for the almost immediate drop to ground level and sped across the shattered terrain, bow high, engine at an angle that rocketed him forward while compensating for Mercury’s feeble acceleration of gravity.