"We'll have to make this fast, Hutch," she said. "I don't know how long I can stay here." She was referring to the power levels needed to sustain hover mode.
"Okay," Hutch said.
"Something else. The elevators are inside a gridwork."
"We know."
"Okay. Then you also know it's a crosshatch of beams, supports, and plates. That's what's holding you up. There must be tracks in there, and the elevators run up and down the tracks. Everything's old and jammed up. The metal's got to be warped. So the elevator can't ride freely."
"What are you trying to tell us, Kellie?"
"There's a clean break about fifty meters down. You get down there, and it just opens out into the great beyond. Bye-bye baby."
"All right. It feels pretty stable now. Let's go."
"Who's first?"
"Randy."
Nightingale looked at her, almost pleading. His face was ashen.
What did he want her to do? Leave him there?
The lander eased down until it lined lip directly with the elevator. Kellie opened the hatch and MacAllister showed them a line. "It's tied to the seat anchor, Randy," he said.
Nightingale nodded anxiously. "Okay."
MacAllister stared at Hutch, across a space of only a few meters.
He looked scared, too, but he was trying to appear nonchalant. How about that? The guy was a trooper after all.
The lander rose and fell, caught in an updraft. It rolled toward the elevator, then drifted away. "Not too close," Hutch said.
"Lot of wind here." Kellie's voice in her earphones.
Mac coiled the rope and measured the distance. "Ready, Hutch?"
"Yeah."
It spun toward her. She reached for it, watched it fall short. Mac reeled it in and tried again. Still short.
"You're too far out," he told Kellie.
Hutch heard a soft damn. The lander drew off, trailing line. When Mac was ready she started another approach.
The lander rose on a cushion of air. It dropped suddenly and to Hutch's horror MacAllister almost fell out. Nightingale stiffened. "Goddam downdrafts," said Kellie.
Mac retreated from the hatch. "You okay, Mac?" Hutch asked.
"You see what happened there?"
"I saw," Kellie told him. "Get a tether."
He was gone for a few moments. Then he emerged again wearing a line tied around his ample waist. The problem, of course, was that if he did fall out, Kellie couldn't leave the controls to haul him back in. She'd have to go all the way to the bottom to retrieve him.
"All right," said Mac, his voice surprisingly steady. "Let's try it again."
"This is a little delicate," said Kellie. "When you get the line, you're going to have to move fast." Hutch understood: If the wind caught the lander in the middle of the operation, it would rip the line, and whoever happened to be attached to it, out of the elevator.
Kellie made her approach. Hutch kept her eyes on Mac, watching him gauge his distance. The line was coiled in 'his right hand. The lander turned sideways, sank, wobbled, came back. It climbed, getting above her.
Mac saw his chance and the line came spinning in her direction. It unraveled and it was slick from the rain, but she scooped it out of the air and held on to it.
"Okay, Randy," she said. "Let's move it."
He shrank back, and she could see the struggle being fought behind his eyes.
"We don't have time to monkey around," she told him softly. "We stay here, we die."
"I know."
She waited for him.
"Hutch." Kellie's voice. "Let's go. I can't hold it here forever."
"We're working on it."
Nightingale stepped forward and closed his eyes. She coiled the line around his middle, crossed it under his armpits, and secured it in front. No way he could fall out of that. But he resisted as she tried to walk him to the opening.
"Hutch," he said, "I can't do this."
"It's okay, Randy. You're doing fine."
The elevator dropped again. Banged to a stop.
"Hutch!" said Kellie.
Nightingale got to the door and looked out at the lander. Rain blew in on him.
"Don't look down," Hutch said.
"Hurry it up," said Kellie.
"Hutch?"
"Yes, Randy?"
"If this doesn't work-"
"It'll work."
"If it doesn't-" He was reaching for the rim of the opening, found it, gripped it. The line stretching from him to the aircraft tightened and loosened as Kellie rode the drafts along the face of the precipice.
Hutch stepped up behind him and gently peeled his fingers away. "It always works," she told him. And pushed. He went out silently, without the scream she'd expected.
He fell. It must have been a sickening few seconds, but it ended quickly when the line took hold and he rolled out in a long arc beneath the lander. Kellie pulled quickly away while he swung back and forth, clutching the line, saying O God over and over.
Mac began to haul him in. Hutch watched Nightingale kick frantically, and she feared he might have a heart attack. "Relax, Randy," she told him. "You're okay. The hard part is over." And she continued talking to him in the most soothing tone she could muster until Mac's hand reached down finally, seized his vest, and dragged him into the aircraft.
The lander tilted slightly and started around again. Mac reappeared in the hatch with his line. "Okay, me proud beauty," he said. "You're next."
The elevator shook. Another quake, maybe. And it started down again. She backed away from the opening and got off her feet. Rain drummed on the roof. The elevator kept dropping, and it seemed for a few seconds to be almost in free fall. Her heart came into her throat. Then metal squealed, and the elevator banged to a stop.
Kellie was calling frantically. "I'm okay," Hutch said.
"Maybe not."
Hutch's heart, which was still fluttering, missed a beat. "What's wrong?"
"I'm sinking."
Spike depletion.
She watched the lander dropping lower. Kellie slowed the descent, hit the jets, and regained some altitude. She came around again. "We're going to have to get it right the first time," she said.
Mac stood in the airlock with his line. Kellie glided in overhead, killed the jets, reversed thrust, and brought the lander to a dead stop. It began to fall.
"No," Hutch said. "It won't work."
It was dropping too fast. Mac looked desperately in her direction.
"I'm going to have to land and recharge," Kellie said. "Hutch, I'm sorry. I don't know any other way to do this."
Hutch nodded and waved good-bye. "Take it down. I'll be here when you come back."
It was getting dark. Winds were high, and she had no sensors. A night rescue would be out of the question.
Kellie was fighting back rage and tears. "You can't stay in the elevator, Hutch."
Hutch watched the lander kick in its jets and bank away to the east. "Is it that bad?"
"It isn't good."
She looked out at the storm. And at the gridwork, the crossbars and diagonals and guide rails off to either side. If she could get to them.
A bolt of lightning exploded overhead, throwing everything into momentary relief.
The outside of the elevator was smooth, without handholds. Despite the low ceiling, the roof was out of reach. She saw no way to climb onto it, not without something to stand on.
It slipped again. Something banged hard against one of the walls.
She backed away and tried to think. It was hard, knowing what might happen at any moment, to keep her head clear.
She gathered up her vine, went back to the opening, and looked again at the roof. Then she got down on her belly, leaned out, and peered underneath. A pair of cables hung from the underside. And she saw the break, only a few meters down. A missing guide rail.
The way things were going, she had only a couple of minutes.
Hutch produced her laser, moved to one side of the doorway, and cut a hole belt high in the wall. Then a second one farther to the left at the level of her shoulders and a third one above her head directly over the first. The e-suit was supposed to protect her from extremes of heat and cold, but she wasn't sure what would happen if she put her foot on hot metal. On the other hand, she didn't have time to stand there and wait for everything to cool.