Finally he had the tapes he wanted, arranged the way he wanted them, and programmed them into the communications system.
Then, soaking with sweat, he went back to the airlock and donned the rest of the pressure suit and its equipment. Outside once more, he checked the back-up communication system’s antenna. It looked all right. The test panel set into the ship’s skin, along-side the two-hands-wide, bowl-shaped antenna, glowed green when Linc touched its buttons.
Now he fairly flew down the outside of the tube-tunnel toward the Living Wheel. He took great incautious leaps, spanning a dozen meters in a stride. As he got closer to the living area and the gravity built up, he had to slow down and use the stairs more normally; But still he hurried.
It took agonizing minutes to find the back-up communications antenna down on the first level. It was clear on the opposite side of the wheel from the airlock. Linc located it at last, activated it, and let his breath gulp out in a grateful sob when the panel light flashed green.
All set, then. Wall screens’ll show them everything. All I have to do is get Magda to turn them on. When she calls on Jerlet for guidance they’ll see the new world and everything else I’ve programmed.
Wearily, suddenly realizing how utterly exhausted he was, Linc clumped back along the Living Wheel’s skin to the airlock hatch. He stopped for a moment and watched the stars swinging in their stately course as the ship rotated. It’d be so easy to float off. he knew. So easy to forget everything and just drift away. Float among the stars forever.
But as he gazed out at the swirling stars, his mind’s eye pictured Monel and the way he held Magda. As if he owned her, possessed her. And she let him do it. She let him! She didn’t seem to be happy about it, but she didn’t try to stop him, either.
Linc felt confused. Magda and Monel. …Jayna warning him… everything seemed upside down. No one stayed the way they were. Everything was changing.
As the ship swung on its ponderous arc, the yellow sun came up over the curve of the metal wheel. The faceplate on Linc’s helmet automatically darkened, but he still had to squint and look away.
It can bring us death, he said to himself, if we stray too close to it. But it can also give us life, if we act properly.
And suddenly he knew that he could never let himself drift into the oblivion of death, even if it meant spending his final moments among the glories of the universe. He would fight for life. Fight with every gram of strength in him.
Doggedly, Linc pushed his tired muscles back to the airlock hatch. There’s still a lot to do. An awful lot to do.
He opened the hatch and stepped inside the airlock chamber. For a moment longer he gazed outward at the stars. But then he reached up and touched the button that closed the hatch. The pumps hidden behind the metal walls clattered to life; Linc felt their vibrations through the soles of his boots. Soon he could hear air hissing around him. The control panel light went from amber to green, and the inner hatch slid open.
Monel and four of his guards were waiting there.
“Good evening,” Monel said sarcastically. “I’m glad we didn’t sit here through lastmeal for nothing. I was expecting you to return sooner.”
Linc stepped out into the passageway and unfastened his helmet.
“Sorry to keep you waiting,” he said, as he raised the helmet off his head. “I had a lot of work to do.”
“You finished your work? You’re ready for the meeting?”
“Yes. When does it start?”
“In a little while.” Monel seemed to be enjoying the conversation. He was smiling broadly as he said, “Too bad we’ll have to have the meeting without you.”
“You can’t keep me away from it.”
Monel laughed. He raised his right hand and pointed it somewhere behind Linc.
Before he could turn around, Linc felt his arms pinned to his sides by the guards. Someone loosened the straps holding his life support pack and its oxygen tanks. It thudded to the floor.
Monel had Linc’s helmet in his lap.
“It’s going to be my sad duty to organize a search party to try to find you,” he said pleasantly. “After all, when you don’t show up at your own meeting, people will start to worry about you. We’ll find this helmet here in the passageway, right beside the deadlock hatch. Someone will open the hatch to see if you’re hiding in there. They’ll find your body there. Too bad. But that’s what happens to people who tinker with machines. It’ll be a good lesson for everybody.”
Linc was too furious to say a word. His voice gagged in his throat.
Silently, the guards opened the airlock hatch and pushed Linc inside. He fell to the floor in a heap. Before he could get to his knees, the hatch slammed shut.
The green panel light changed to amber. Linc could hear the pumps starting. The air was being sucked out of the chamber.
14
Linc scrambled to his feet and clawed at the control panel. No use. Monel had jammed it, somehow. But underneath the panel lights and the regular cycle control buttons there was a red button marked EMERGENCY OVERRIDE. Jerlet had explained to Linc that the override would stop the airlock’s operation and fill the chamber with air whenever it was pushed.
Linc leaned on it. Nothing. The pumps kept on throbbing, the pulse in Linc’s ears was pounding in rhythm with it.
He’s tampered with the controls! Monel himself has tampered with the machinery!
But the realization wasn’t going to help, Linc knew.
Already it was difficult to breathe. Linc staggered to the access panel where the pumps and oxygen bottles were hidden. He flicked the latches open and the panel slid to the floor with a crash.
An empty pressure suit was hanging limply inside the compartment. Linc grabbed at the helmet and quickly pulled it over his head. There was enough air in it to let him take one quick breath. Blinking away the dark spots from his vision, he saw that there were instructions printed on the wall of the compartment, under a red EMERGENCY PROCEDURE heading.
Blessing Jerlet for teaching him to read, Linc reached for the emergency oxygen Linc that connected to a green metal tank and plugged it into the collar of his helmet. The stuff tasted stale and felt cold, but it was breathable.
Linc quickly sealed the helmet, pulled the oxygen tanks and life support pack from the emergency suit onto his own back, and then disconnected the emergency oxygen supply Linc. He was fully suited up, able to face hard vacuum without danger.
He turned and saw that the amber control light was still on. As he lifted the access panel back into place, the light turned red and the outer hatch began to open.
If I slay here, they’ll just take this equipment away from me and do it all over again, Linc thought. There was only one escape route: outside.
He clumped to the lip of the hatch and stepped outside once again. Grimly, Linc stood there and watched the hatch close.
He wished he could see the look on Monet’s face when they opened the airlock and he was gone. Would they think he had been whisked away to outer darkness? Or would Monel guess that Linc had somehow escaped?
Either way, Monel would probably keep a guard or two at the hatch, just in case Linc should try to get back.
H is earlier weariness was still tugging at him. But now he had the adrenalin-fueled fires of survival and hatred urging him on.
Carefully he paced along the catwalk built into the Wheel’s outer skin. As Baryta “rose” from behind the curve of the Wheel, Linc could see in its golden light that the metal of the ship was pitted and streaked, marked by time and the vast distances the ship had traveled.