"All secure," Flattery said.
He dogged that last hatch, knowing the action would register in front of Prudence in Com-central. The action sent a faint fear response through him. He had symbolically cut himself off from the core of the ship.
I'll fix this sensor and get back to quarters as soon as I can, he told himself. It'll seem natural for me to stop off there on my way back. I have to find out what Bickel's done, but I can't make him suspicious.
Flattery turned, studied his surroundings. He stood in the bulb lock that served as a hub for outer-hull communications tubes in this sector. It was an oval for strength, about six meters across its short diameter, and seven meters deep. He oriented himself by the faint pull of ship gravity.
The nonfunctioning sensor was up a tube that curved off at two o'clock on his right. Tube eight, ring K. The number checked. The failure would be at the five-line. He stared into the pale gray metal gap illuminated by cold light. A green guide beam beckoned in the tube.
Prue remembered to set the guide beam, he thought.
He took the repair dolly in his left hand, made the low-grav leap across to the tube and caught its access rung. He pushed the dolly in ahead of him, setting its sensors on the printed track, fed it low power to pull him into the tube.
The autolock's sphincter closed behind him: He suddenly remembered Anderson strangled in a rogue sphincter... but of course that was no problem now... with all the OMCs dead. The fact that one of the crew had to come out here and make this repair meant the dangers were of another sort.
"Something wrong?" Prudence asked, her voice filling his helmet.
She saw the telltales stop here, Flattery thought. It gave him a feeling of reassurance that she was so alert to his movements - or lack of movements.
"Nothing wrong; just being cautious."
"You want Tim to come out and back you up?" Prudence asked.
"I don't need anyone to hold my hand!" Flattery snapped, and he wondered at the sudden anger he'd thrown into that rejection.
"You're at Station Two," Prudence said. "There's video on Two. Check."
Flattery glanced up at the ring of sensors on the tube, saw the one circled with yellow for video, waved at it as he passed.
The robox-R's imprinted track curved up the tube side to clear the base bulge for the next automatic lock. He went through, looked back as the transparent shutters squeezed closed behind him. The ship's core felt so far away back there.
He looked forward, letting the robox unit tow him with its faint hissing growl, letting the loneliness seep through him. With an OMC in control, an automatic robox repair unit could have been sent on this little chore. Mobility, that was the problem. Where there were fixed automatic repair units - along the outer hull and at the major bulkhead locks, at the baffles and core-integrity barriers - the ship took care of itself with only a little help from its crew. But let a little thing like this come up - where you needed mobility and a decision factor - then one of the crew had to risk himself.
Flattery cursed the Tin Egg's designers then. Hate poured out of him. He knew why they had done this - the "planned increment of frustration" they called it. That was fine - as long as one of the ship's designers didn't have to experience the frustration... or the deadliness.
He was at Station Four now, coming up on Five.
"Station Five coming up," he said. "Hey!" He cut the power on the robox, braked himself against the station's ring, stared up at the overhead arc of sensors. A neat, shiny hole plugged with gray foam-coagulant occupied the position where the multi-sensor had been. The yellow-green-red code rings on the tube around the hole had not been touched. He swung his gaze around the tube and the other sensors. All appeared to be functioning.
Flattery thought then of the island on Puget Sound - sensors missing mysteriously... personnel missing. He felt cold sweat around his shoulders.
Prudence's voice filled his helmet: "Anything to report?"
He lowered the volume. "The multisensor seems to've been cut out in some way. It's gone. The hole's been plugged with foam."
"No foam automatics in that area," Prudence said.
"The thing's been plugged with foam anyway!" Flattery was unable to hide the angry irritation in his voice.
Prudence suddenly said, "John, I'm getting a demand drain on the computer. Is it something you're doing?"
"Nothing," Bickel said.
Flattery turned his head in the helmet. Bickel's voice had come in faintly as a pickup through Com-central. Action in the computer! Flattery forced himself to act calmly, removed a replacement sensor from his robox unit's parts compartment, checked it. The thing was about three inches in diameter, containing a warp-type thermal detector, standard vid-eye pickups like tiny jewels on its face, and three gridded ducts leading into the membrane of the audio unit.
Out of the corner of one eye, Flattery detected movement up the tube. He jerked upright, banged his head against the helmet liner, stared up toward Station Six.
A robox-R with its tool extensors clamped tightly to its sides was moving along the tape track toward him. The thing acted sick - speeding and slowing.
His first thought was that Prudence had traced the robox remote controls for a unit in this area and was maneuvering the thing from her board. The crudity of Com-central's controls over the robox series would account for the unit's erratic behavior.
"You bringing another robox in here, Prue?" Flattery asked.
"No, why?"
"There's another robox-R coming down on this station," he said.
As he watched, the thing lost the tape track, relocated it.
"There can't be! Nothing at all shows on my board."
The thing stopped across the sensor ring from Flattery. An auger extension jerked away from its side, reached toward the foam-plugged hole, withdrew.
"Who's controlling that thing?" Flattery demanded.
"Not from here," Prudence said. "And I can see both Tim and John. They're not controlling it."
"You still getting drain on the computer?" Flattery whispered.
"Yes."
"Is the... Ox active?" Flattery asked.
"Only the original circuits," Bickel said. "Through the AAT bypass. The new doubled units haven't been connected."
"There can't be another robox in that area," Prudence insisted. "We haven't put any of the damn things on automatic. There's nothing showing on my board. The remotes would take a day and a half at least to -"
"It's right in front of me," Flattery said.
He watched it, fascinated. A tool arm extended with an empty sensor socket, reached toward the foam-plugged hole, retreated. A claw arm came up next. It probed the foam, drew back with a swiftness that startled Flattery.
"What's it doing?" Prudence asked.
"I'm not sure. It seems to be looking over the damage. Its vid-eyes are turned toward the hole. It acts like it can't decide which tool to use."
"What can't decide?" That was Timberlake, his voice faint over the Com-central relay from the shop.
"Try fixing the sensor yourself," Bickel said.
Flattery swallowed in a dry throat. He lifted a feeler with a guide eye from the tool pouch on his own robox, probed into the foam plug looking for the leads from the conduit.
Instantly, a whiplike extension shot out of the other robox, trapped his arm, jerked it away. The pain in his arm where the thing had clamped on it was sharp and shocking. He dropped the tool, yelled.
"What's wrong?" Prudence demanded.
The whiplike extension slowly unwound, released his arm.
"The thing grabbed me," Flattery said. His voice was shaky with pain and surprise. "It used its circuit probe... grabbed my arm."
"It won't let you make the repair?" That was Bickel, his voice coming in loud over the helmet system, indicating he'd plugged into the command circuit from the shop.