Straight. Now I hope I don’t need some code to unlock it.
He bent down to approach the base of the mound. Digging his boots into the ever-hotter sands, he worked his way up to the very edge of darkness. Crouching there, he squinted to see the exposed handle.
Sunlight glinted dazzlingly on the upper edge of the polished metal.
Doesn’t appear locked. Here goes one hand. He reached up with his right hand, stopped before it crossed into sunlight, and lowered it. Better not risk the shooting hand. He quickly grabbed the handle with his left hand and yanked.
The Spaflex did not burn. After only an instant of insulation, it efficiently transferred the heat directly to his palm and fingers. The hatch opened and Baker fell back to the hot sands, screeching. The sand and dust from the door sprinkled down upon him. He rolled clear, but some of it smothered his legs, burning like cinders. He leapt up to stamp off the dust. It sizzled on the sweat-soaked Spaflex.
He grunted more in fury than pain, breathed lightly for a few moments, then looked up at the hatch. A shaft of sunlight entered through the opening, heating and boiling away the atmosphere that had condensed inside years before.
He climbed back to the barely man-sized hole and looked up toward it. Sets of instructions in several languages had been printed on the inside of the door.
Have to get inside to read them. Now how do I get inside without roasting? Wait until the planet makes a half-turn?
He touched the back of his shoulders. It no longer hurt. Not much of a burn. Maybe I can last as long as a second or two if I keep moving.
He dug his feet into the side of the mound, reached up and grabbed the bottom of the hatchway. Pulling and kicking, he wormed his way inside the compartment. A rounded square of light on the opposite wall blistered paint where it fell. Baker watched it for a moment, then considered closing the hatch.
His entire back hurt. He realized that both of his hands were now burnt when he tried to unclench them.
“God damn it!” He stood up, avoiding the deadly sunbeam, reached outside with his left hand, and drew the hatch shut. The clang reverberated through the floorplates. He sat down and drew his knees up, curling his hands into his crotch.
I’ve got no time to sit here and hurt, damn it. What do I have to do next?
A soft light shone from the top of the two-meter wide cylinder. Its ruddy glow revealed the square, blackened patch where sunlight had hit. Baker
looked up at the hatch. The lettering on the inside had charred, but the letters showed up as black against a lighter gray. Baker stood to read the Americ version. The directions for operating the lift were simple enough. He opened the control box near the hatch and pulled the correct switches.
The lift rumbled once, then whined into life. The floorplate descended slowly, stalling intermittently like an old man walking down stairs.
Faster, damn you! He scuffed one boot and then the other against the floor. The top of a hatch appeared in one portion of the wall. He bent down to watch the floor drop past it. Before the lift even stopped moving, he had opened the control box and actuated the cycling switch.
Inside the airlock, he removed the clear protective cap on the exit optics of his glove laser. He squeezed his thumb against the switch alongside his index finger. The low-wattage sighting beam threw a red dot on the wall opposite him. It wavered nervously.
The hatch sealed by itself and the airlock cycled. A light shone green. Baker steadied his hand and pointed it at the opening hatch.
All right. Let’s see what sort of greeting you people planned to give visitors.
The hatch swung silently open. A cold mist poured across the floor, chilling Baker’s ankles. He saw nothing. His arm ached from the tension of suspense.
The Spaflex contracted against his skin, compensating for his sudden chill. The suit, manufactured to function in the perfect insulation of a vacuum, could not protect him from the cold atmosphere. Heaters throbbed into life someplace, struggling to replace a half century of slow heat loss.
He noticed more instructions on the wall. He pressed the button labeled AMERIC and switched on his outer microphone.
“Welcome to Pastime,” a woman’s pleasant voice said. The still-frigid loudspeakers distorted some of the lower frequency sounds. “Please be very careful when in the main chamber, as cryonic liquids are present and could cause damage if allowed to escape. All units are arranged alphabetically, but please realize that some people may have used assumed names.”
Baker switched on the outside speakers of his suit. “Are you a computer or just a recording?” he asked.
No answer. He strode down the black, indirectly lit corridor until he saw a sign reading MAIN CHAMBER in a number of alphabets. He
worked the lock according to printed instructions and stood back. Another blast of cold hit him. Shuddering, he waited for the heaters to warm the enclosure.
Come on, come on. Why’d this suit have to conduct heat so efficiently? I can see them in there, unprotected but for their glasteel coffins. Not even a robot guard.
“You are entering the Pastime main chamber. Please do not touch any controls until instructed. All five hundred seventeen occupants of Pastime are civilians possessing no military secrets.”
Here comes the spiel, Baker thought.
“Pastime was built,” the recording continued as Baker walked quickly to the “T” section, “to house a group of people opposed to the Earth-Belt war of Twenty-One Fifteen. We await the opening of a sealed memory in the banks of the Star Consolidated Auditing Firm, notifying independent rescue agencies of our location. This will take place on Twenty-One June, Twenty-One Forty-Five. If you are from any of the following rescue agencies.” the recording ran through a list of fifteen companies. Baker shook his head in pity and looked around for Delia’s unit. The main chamber took up a lot of space. Unlike the cold holds on habitat ships, this place did not have to keep its mass or energy usage low. The cryonic units were efficient, well built, and large.
Baker located the gold-anodized aluminum plate marked “TRINE, Delia Diana,” listing her birth date and the address of her next of kin. The computer finished its list and said, “.then you are welcomed and we hope the war has ended. If you are a wayfarer who stumbled upon us, we welcome you and ask that you not disturb us if the war is still in progress. If you have come here from a military expedition, we assume there is some reason you did not merely destroy us from orbit.
“Please remember that we are civilians posing no military threat. We are to be considered Non-Combatant Escapees in accordance with New Geneva Convention Section Twelve, Sub-Sections Beta through Gamma. Thank you for your cooperation.”
There was no wake up call. They’ll be here forever.
He ran his hands over the three-meter-long capsule. Delia lay inside somewhere, floating in liquid helium and wrapped in thousands of layers of insulation per centimeter of the cylinder shell’s half-meter thickness.
The plaque explained resuscitation instructions. He read through them, then pounded the side of the capsule.
“I can’t stay here two days! Dee—how do I get you out?” No time! If Lee’s launched a Valli attack from Trans-Pluto, it’ll be here in a few more hours. I can’t carry the whole damn capsule back to the boat. And the deep-thrust battleship is nearly here! Good God.
He ran past the rows of capsules to the opposite end of the chamber. A small console extended from the shiny black wall to his right. Anxiety and the biting cold made his stomach muscles ache. He ignored the pain and leaned over the board.
Where’s the damn’ curator robot?
He punched the button with a question mark on it and typed in:
ARE CRYONIC UNITS REMOVABLE?