“Then, pretend we don’t,” Sam hissed. “Shut up!”
The patrol cruiser slid out from the top of the vast asteroid that hid the Ray of Hope. Dar held his breath; if there were a single eye actually watching out a porthole, all he’d ever know about it would be a huge red flash that just might burn out his life before it melted his eyes. But, come to think of it, he didn’t even see any portholes, and the big ship drifted on past them and disappeared into a cluster of space junk.
Sam heaved a sigh of relief, but Lona hissed, “Belay that!”
“What?” Sam protested. “Breathing?”
“You were hoping,” Lona accused.
“What’s wrong with that?” Sam demanded, but Father Marco assured her, “It’s too soon.”
And right he was, because here came the space-shark again, drifting up so closely above them that Dar halfway expected it to ask if he was interested in life insurance. But there must have been enough nickel-iron in their friendly asteroidal neighborhood to hide the Ray of Hope’s mettle, because the cruiser lifted its nose and rose above them, more and more quickly until it disappeared into the clutter of floating rock overhead.
A multiple sigh filled the cabin, and Whitey croaked, “Huh? Wha’sa matter? They find us? Huh? What?”
“I think they went up above the plane of the ecliptic, Grandpa,” Lona assured him.
“Hoping to get a better view of the situation—looking down at us,” Dar suggested.
“Can I hope now?” Sam squeaked.
A huge bass chime shook the cabin, and Lona hit the power key. “Only if we get out of here,” she answered Sam. “That was our first visiting neighbor; hinting we should move out of the neighborhood.”
“A little asteroid, colliding with us,” Dar explained as the lights came on and gravity sucked him back down into his seat. “It’s a wonder it’s only the first one; they could’ve knocked us to bits by now.”
“Not really,” Lona said, punching buttons. “We came in above the plane of the ecliptic, matched velocities with this asteroid, and swooped in right next to it. Most of the local pebbles are in orbit around it. That little stone that just hit us shot in from a close bypass with another big rock. It was just a matter of time before it came calling though.”
“But it won’t happen again if we’re going back above the plane of the ecliptic?”
“Are you kidding?” Lona snorted. “That Patrol boat’s up there! We’re going below, sister, so we’ll have the whole depth of the asteroid belt between us and them, to foul their sensors! Brace yourselves, everyone—this is going to be a rough ride!”
“Nos morituri te salutamus,” Father Marco intoned.
We who are about to die, salute thee … Dar shivered. “You could’ve thought of a cheerier blessing, Father.”
“You speak Latin?” Father Marco cried in surprise. “What are you—a fossil?”
“No—I just got stoned at Cholly’s a lot.” Then Dar’s stomach rose as the ship sank and a huge gong reverberated through the hull.
“Nothing to worry about.” Lona’s voice was tight with strain. “It can’t really hurt us unless it’s as big as my head, and I can swerve around anything that size—I think.”
Then Whitey was pointing upward out the porthole and shouting—but the gist of his comment was lost in another huge BONG! as red lightning lit the cabin and the ship bucked like a metal bull. Over the fading chime, Dar could hear Lona cursing as she fought to stabilize the craft. The red glow faded—and left them in darkness broken only by the shards of reflected sunlight from the dancing asteroids around them. Sam shouted in panic, and everybody started talking at once.
“BELAY IT!” Lona shouted, and a sudden, eerie silence fell. Dar drew in a long, trembling breath. Whatever had happened, it was really bad!
“They were waiting for us,” Lona said into the hush. “As soon as we fired up, their sensors locked their battle computer on us and let loose a ball of pure energy—several, really; the first few just vaporized the junk between us and them. The last one knocked off our tail section. As it is, we’re lucky—if I hadn’t swerved to avoid a rock, they’d have caught us right in this cabin.”
“They’re rising again.” Whitey had his head craned back against the viewport, staring upward.
“Sure.” Lona shrugged. “They didn’t just shear away our engines—they blew away our reactor, too. There’s no power left for them to ‘sense.’ Besides, why should they bother hunting down the pieces? They know we’re dead now, anyway.”
Sam strangled a sob.
“Take heart,” Father Marco said sternly. “We aren’t dead.”
“We do have emergency power,” Lona agreed. “It’ll keep recycling air while it lasts—and the sun’s radiation’ll keep us warm, if we block the portholes on the far side. And we have a couple of weeks’ rations.”
“Will the power last that long?” Sam’s voice was hollow.
Lona was silent.
“It will, if we don’t talk much and can do without light,” Whitey answered. “Of course, we can’t go anywhere.”
Father Marco grunted in surprise. “I didn’t know you knew any physics.”
“I was an engineer before I was a bard.” Dar could hear Whitey’s grin. “Who else could make enough sense out of this civilization to set it to music? But I’m a gambler, too.”
Dar felt the dread coalescing into terror.
“Just what kind of gamble did you have in mind?” Father Marco’s voice echoed with foreboding.
“Well, we can’t go to help,” Whitey mused, “so we’ve got to make it come to us.”
Dar cleared his throat, which pushed the fear back down. “You’re talking about a distress signal.”
“It’d give us a little chance, at least,” Whitey answered. “Without it, we’re dead—unless you can arrange a miracle, Father.”
“I’m afraid my connections don’t quite run that high.” The priest sounded amused. “Even if St. Vidicon reaches out to us, we’ve got to give him a handle to grab us by—some sort of action to put us into the ring of coincidence.”
“How much energy would it leave us?” Dar dreaded the answer.
“If it’s going to be strong enough to do us any good, we’ll have to put half our remaining power into it,” Lona answered.
“A week’s worth.” Dar wet his lips. “That gives us a week for somebody to hear us and get here.”
They were all silent.
A week! something shrieked within Dar Only a week to live! I’ve never even been in love!
“We don’t really have any choice, do we?” Sam said softly.
The cabin was silent again.
Then Sam heaved herself upright and leaned forward to the communications panel. “All right. How do you want it?”
Breath hissed out in a sigh of consensus.
“Broadband.” Lona slapped keys, routing the emergency power to communications. “Just the traditional Mayday, with our coordinates.”
Sam leaned forward to the audio pickup and thumbed the transmit key.
“Don’t give the name of the ship,” Whitey said quickly.
Sam hesitated, then spoke. “Mayday, Mayday! Distressed spacer at 10:32:47 V.E., 5:22 below P.E. Mayday, Mayday! Moribund!”
Moribund… “Death-bound.” Dar felt the dread wrap around him, creeping up his spine.
Sam shut down her board.
“Leave trickle-power on,” Lona advised. “If salvage does come, they’ll need contact—a second of arc is a big distance out here.”
Sam hesitated, and Dar could almost hear her thoughts—how much life-time would they lose to that trickle? But I.C. grains drew only a few milliwatts per hour, and a rescuer a mile away who couldn’t spot them was no better than no rescuer at all. Sam nodded, cracked one slider, and left her main on.