"Weapons, stand by for close approach. Tractor beam ready," Josh said.
Angela's tongue was in the corner of her mouth as she edged the Erin Kenner into proximity with the alien ship. A close up view told them nothing more about the attacker. There were no visible viewports, no locks, no apparent access to the smooth, squat hull.
"Got her," said Weapons. "Tractor beam in place."
"All right, Science Officer," Josh said, "she's all yours. Let's see what's inside. Weapons, lasers ready at all times, if you please. Don't wait for my order. If she so much as wiggles, open fire immediately."
"Lasers ready and on target, sir," said Weapons.
"I'm getting penetration, sir," Kirsty Girard said. "It's rather odd."
"How odd?" Josh asked.
"Sir, there are no spaces inside the ship."
"Explain," Josh said.
"The entire area of the interior is filled solidly. I was wondering how she could have a fusion engine in such a small hull. It's possible because there are no open areas, no space for crew."
"A drone?" Josh asked.
"Lots of complicated circuitry, sir. It's a good guess that she's remote controlled."
"Weapons?"
"The only empty spaces I can find are the size of the six missiles she fired," Kirsty said. "I get no reading of explosive warheads."
"Nuclear material?" Josh asked, thinking that it was logical, since the ship ran on fusion power, that she'd carry nukes.
"None, sir."
"All right," Josh said. "Weapons, you're still on full alert. Science, continue your probes. Let me know if you come up with anything else of interest. Hold where we are until we've examined this beast fully. When you're convinced that you know all of her secrets, let me know and we'll think about having a closer look."
In the lounge, Angela asked, "You're going out when Science finishes probing and testing?"
"I want to see what's inside her," Josh said.
"I'll go with you, of course," Angela said.
"It would be unwise to put both the ship's captain and the first mate at risk at the same time," he said.
"Yes," she said. "Sorry."
"Angel, it was a damned primitive and pitiful attack," he said, as he pushed his hair back with one hand. "And a fusion engine?"
"Anachronistic," she said.
"Captain," said Kirsty Girard on the ship's communicator, "it's all clear to board the alien."
"Thank you, Kirsty," Josh said. "Tell the ship's machinist to suit up and test my suit. We'll need two molecular disrupters."
"Weapons?" Girard asked,
"Side arms only."
Pat Barkley, the ship's machinist, was waiting in the starboard air lock, bulky in E.V.A. gear. Angela helped Josh into his suit, closed the inner hatch, leaving the two men alone. Air hissed out of the lock and the outer hatch opened. Josh led the way out, spinning slightly when the awkward molecular disrupter caught on the side of the lock. The alien ship was just twenty feet away. Josh kicked over, moving very slowly, broke his movement with his right hand against the dark metal of the alien, said,
"Ouch, damnit," because, slow as he was moving, inertial force put a strain on his wrist, causing it to pop painfully. Pat Barkley landed lightly beside him, taking up the shock with his knees.
Josh secured his disrupter and released the umbilical that had attached him to the Erin Kenner. Barkley followed suit. Both men then secured themselves to the alien with a magnetic clamp attached to a line fed from the suit's belt and began to crawl over the hull of the small ship. She was the size of the Erin Kenner's launch.
"Recognize the alloy?" Josh asked Barkley.
"No, sir," Barkley said.
There were no visible seams. The ship's hull was as smooth as an egg, and as integrated. Josh ordered the Erin Kenner to move away to a safe distance.
"Okay, Pat," Josh said, picking up his cutting torch, "let's see what she's made of."
They worked side by side. The object was to cut out a square of metal from the ship's hull without damaging the tightly packed electronics inside. Josh fired off his disrupter, aimed the beam at the ship's metal, and saw it being reflected outward in a flaring flower.
"Whoa," Pat Barkley said. "What have we here?"
"You tell me," Josh said.
"Whatever it is, it's damned strong," Pat said. "And it would resist the heat at the surface of a star. Hold on, sir, and let me try another setting."
Pat adjusted his instrument, making the beam so fine that it could split atoms. The force no longer flared out. Slowly a small cut was being made in the odd metal. Pat gave the captain the setting. Josh began his own cut three feet away and parallel to Pat's.
"You're set a little deep, Captain," Pat said. "Cut the beam back two marks."
Josh obeyed. It took them almost an hour to remove a square of metal and expose the interior. Pat Barkley was examining the edges of the cut.
"Captain, I think we'd better get Science to check out this metal. If I'm right, and if it's as heat resistant as I think it is, it might be very useful."
"In what way?"
Pat laughed. "Well, I'd guess in a lot of ways, but I have a one-track mind and can think of only one at the moment. Back home I have an atmospheric racer. If I could put a skin of this stuff on its hull, I'd win every race there is. As you know, sir, there's almost no limit to how fast you can push a ship in atmosphere so far as sheer power is concerned. The limiting factor is the ablation factor of the metal in the ship's hull. In agood, tight race I burn off a full quarter-inch of metal. With this stuff—"
An image leapt into Josh's mind. A fiery object made a downward arc into atmosphere, flared to within two thousand feet of X&A headquarters, and went vertically back into space. A hull that could withstand speeds measured in thousands of feet per second in atmosphere would have made possible the wild, buzzing approach to headquarters, but why? You don't get out of a ship going so fast that it's nothing more than a glowing fireball.
"Secure samples, Pat, and we'll turn them over to Science."
Beyond a thin layer of what looked like circuit boards there was a space of honeycomb construction. Each of the interstices was enclosed in a transparent material. Josh's initial efforts had not only sliced through the circuitry, but had opened one of the interstitial spaces. Liquid had condensed on the transparent surface. He inserted a test probe and the suit's tiny computer communicated information to the base unit aboard the Erin Kenner and reported almost instantly. Preliminary analysis indicated that the liquid was one of the amino acids.
Beyond the honeycomb was the solid metal side of the hydrogen fusion chamber. It wouldn't be healthy to cut into that.
"I think we've done about all we can without doing serious damage,"
Josh said.
"She's all engine, sir, with just a thin layer of electronics and the amino acid chambers under the outside hull."
"And the amino acid chambers are?"
Barkley shrugged inside his suit. "Computer storage chambers? Brain?"
"Primitive weaponry," Josh said. "Missiles that a city aircar could defeat. A rather stupid, head-on attack against a vastly superior ship. How do those things go with an alloy that could take a ship through sun flares and what seems to be an amino acid data storage system?"
They used shoulder jets to propel themselves back to the Erin Kenner.
It was always a bit spooky to be flying free in space, and both men sighed in relief when they eased up to the ship's air lock and clamped on withmagnetic spots.
Kirsty Girard was waiting for the captain on the bridge. "I've been running fine analysis on the metallic reading that lay closest to the surface," she said. "I want to show you two of them."
"Lead on," Josh said.
Kirsty activated a screen. First she showed Josh the overall view of an icy plain below a rise. "Here, the instruments detected metal quite close to the surface," she said. "I ran it through enhancement while you were E.V.A."
"And?" Josh asked.