The ice die, when finished, had turned out over three meters wide and nearly two meters thick. Its outer surface was irregular; it might have been a tumbling bit of space debris from some gas giant’s ice ring. Its secret inner side precisely duplicated the smooth curve of the vortex mirror that had molded it.
The evacuated inner chamber was capped by layers. First, the titanium blank; next, a layer of pure gasoline for a spacer—a handy second use Leo had found for it: unlike other possible liquids it would not freeze at the ice’s present temperature—then the thin plastic divider circle, then his precious TNM-gasoline explosive, then a cap of scrap Habitat skin, then the bars and clamps—all in all, quite a birthday cake. Time to light the candle and make his wish come true, before the ice die began to sublimate in the sunlight.
Leo turned to motion his quaddie helpers to get behind the protective barrier of one of the abandoned Habitat modules floating nearby. Another quaddie, he saw, was just jetting over from the D-620-Habitat configuration. Leo waited a moment, to give him or her time to come up and get behind their shelter. Not a messenger, surely, he had his suit comm for that…
“Hai, Leo,” said Tony’s voice thickly through the suit comm. “Sorry I’m lae’ for work—d’you leave any for me?”
“Tony!”
It wasn’t easy, trying to embrace someone through a worksuit, but Leo did his best.
“Hey, hey, you’re just in time for the best part, boy!” said Leo excitedly. “I saw the shuttle dock a bit ago.” Yes, and a horrid turn it had given him for a moment, thinking it was Van Atta’s threatened Security force at last, until he’d correctly identified it as theirs. “Didn’t think Dr. Minchenko’d let you go anywhere but the infirmary. Is Silver all right? Shouldn’t you be resting?”
“She’s fine. Dr. Minchenko had a lot t’ do, ‘n Claire ‘n Andy’s asleep—I looked in—didn’t want to wake the baby.”
“You sure you’re feeling all right, son? Your voice sounds funny.”
“Hurt mah mout’. S’all right.”
“Ah.” Briefly, Leo explained the task in progress. “You’ve arrived for the grand finale.”
Leo jockeyed his suit around until he could just see over the abandoned module. “What we’ve got out there, in that box on top—the cherry-bomb on the icing, as it were—is a charge capacitor with a couple thousand volts stored in it. Leads down into a filament placed in the liquid explosive—I used an incandescent light bulb filament with the polyglass envelope knocked off—that thing sticking up is an electric eye swiped from a door control. When we hit it with a burst from this optical laser, it closes the switch—”
“And the ‘lectricity sets the ex’losive off?”
“Not exactly. The high voltage pouring through the filament literally explodes the wire, and it’s the shock wave from the exploding wire that sets off the TNM and gasoline. Which blows the titanium blank out until it hits the ice die and transfers its momentum, whereupon the titanium stops and the ice, ah, carries the momentum away. Quite spectacularly, which is why we’re behind this module…” he turned to check his quaddie crew. “Everybody ready?”
“If you can stick your head up and watch, why can’t we?” complained Pramod.
“I have to have line-of-sight for the laser,” said Leo primly.
Leo aimed the optical laser carefully, and paused a moment for the anxiety rush. So many things could go wrong—he’d checked and re-checked—but there comes a time when one must let all the doubts go and commit to action. He gave himself up to God and pressed the button.
A brilliant, soundless flash, a cloud of boiling vapor, and the ice die exploded, shards flying off in all directions. The effect was utterly enchanting. With an effort Leo tore his gaze away and ducked hastily back behind the module. The afterimage danced across his retinas, teal green and magenta. His pressure-gloved hand, resting against the module’s skin, transmitted sharp vibrations as a few high-speed ice cubes pelted against the other side and ricocheted off into space.
Leo remained hunkered a moment, staring rather blankly at Rodeo. “Now I’m afraid to look.”
Pramod jetted around the module. “It’s all in one piece, anyway. It’s tumbling—hard to see the exact shape.”
Leo inhaled. “Let’s go catch it, kids. And see what we’ve got.”
It was the work of a few minutes to capture the work piece. Leo refused to let himself call it “the vortex mirror” just yet—it might still turn out to be scrap metal. The quaddies ran their various scanners over the curving grey surface.
“I can’t find any cracks, Leo,” said Pramod breathlessly. “It’s a few millimeters over-thick in spots, but nowhere too thin.”
“Thick we can take care of during the final laser-polish. Thin we can’t remedy. I’ll take thick,” said Leo.
Bobbi waved her optical laser, crossing and re-crossing the curved surface, numbers blurring in her digital readout. “It’s in spec! Leo, it’s within spec! We did it!”
Leo’s innards were melting wax. He breathed a long and very tired sigh of happiness. “All right, kids, let’s take it Indoors. Back to the—the—darn it, we can’t keep calling it the ‘D-620-and Habitat-Reconfiguation’.”
“Ah sure can’t,” agreed Tony.
“So what are we going to name it?” An assortment of possibilities flitted through Leo’s mind—the Ark—the Freedom Star—Graf’s Folly…
“Home,” said Tony simply after a moment. “Let’s go home, Leo.”
“Home.” Leo rolled the name in his mouth. It tasted good. It tasted very good. Pramod nodded, and one of Bobbi’s upper hands touched her helmet in salute of the choice.
Leo blinked. Some irritating vapor in his suit’s air was making his eyes water, no doubt, and tightening his chest. “Yeah. Let’s take our vortex mirror home, gang.”
Bruce Van Atta paused in the corridor outside Chalopin’s office at Shuttleport Three, to catch his breath and control his trembling. He had a stitch in his side, too. He wouldn’t be the least surprised if he were developing an ulcer out of all this. The fiasco out on the dry lake bed had been infuriating. To pave the way, and then have fumbling subordinates totally fail him—utterly infuriating.
Sheer chance, that having returned to his own downside quarters for a much-needed shower and some sleep, he’d awakened to take a piss and called Shuttleport Three to check progress. They might not even have told him about the shuttle landing otherwise! Anticipating Graf’s next move, he had flung on his clothes and rushed to the hospital—if he’d been moments sooner, he might have trapped Minchenko within.
He had already chewed out the jetcopter pilot, reamed his ass for his cowardice in failing to force down the launching shuttle, for his dilatory failure to arrive at the lake bed faster. The red-faced pilot had clamped his jaw and his fists and said nothing, doubtless properly ashamed of himself. But the real failure lay higher up—on the other side of these very office doors. He jabbed the control, and they slid aside.
Chalopin, her security captain Bannerji, and Dr. Yei had their heads together around Chalopin’s computer vid display. Captain Bannerji had his finger on it, and was saying to Yei, “… can get in here. But how much resistance, d’you think?”
“You’ll surely frighten them very much,” said Yei.
“Hm. I’m not crazy about asking my men to go up with stunners against desperate folk with much more lethal weapons. What is the real status of those so-called hostages?”
“Thanks to you,” snarled Van Atta, “the hostage ratio is now five to zero. They got away with Tony, damn them. Why didn’t you put a 27-hour guard on that quaddie like I told you? We should have put a guard on Madame Minchenko, too.”