The ship slowed. She sat back, watching Ybicket in the map. The narrow ship was climbing. The heavy sludge of hydrogen slowed her. Now another light glowed on the console. A wave lifted the ship and threw her backward. Paula lay back on the seat and put one arm around David.
The patrol would be looking for them. She had forgotten about Tanuojin. She climbed back through the ship, one hand on the wall. At the waist, the ship’s wall bulged in, the skin rippled. She had to squeeze past into the tail of the ship.
Tanuojin was folded forward over the radio deck. Like David he wore no helmet. She pushed uselessly at him. The ship rocked over a wave. She climbed into the back of the kick-seat, slid her hands under his arms, and heaved him upright.
He had not bled. His head flopped back against her shoulder. She put her hand over his mouth. His breath grazed her fingers. He was alive, deeply unconscious, inside healing himself.
She pushed him off. Her head beat painfully hard. It was impossible to think. If she waited long enough, he would waken, do the thinking, and fly the ship. Another wave laid Ybicket over on her side and swung her stern around. Paula crawled out of the seat. His helmet was still in the clamps on the ceiling. She fitted it over his head, in case the patrol found them, and straightened his legs and pulled him upright in the seat, fastening the harness around him to keep him there.
Ybicket lay dead still in the magma. Paler green eddies lapped her hull, nudging her over sideways. Paula unsnapped David’s harness. If he had worn his helmet, he might not have died. She cranked the back of his seat down as far as it would go and dragged him over it into the middle seat.
She had to sit down. Her head was splitting. Something was wrong with her. She lay down beside David, her cheek against his cold cheek. The console was humming again, and another light burned. She put the back of the drive seat up and sat in it.
She moved the levers. The ship would not answer. She stretched her feet down toward the pedals. When she sat on the very edge of the seat she could reach them with her toes. Cautiously she pushed them down. Nothing happened. That was what the light meant: Ybicket was stalled.
She had seen Saba start the engine. She pressed the green button on the right panel and pushed down the pedals. The ship bucked violently. She moved the four levers up all the way and tried again, and this time the light went off, the hum stopped, and the ship moved slowly forward. When she stepped harder on the pedals, Ybicket gathered speed.
The radio behind her crackled. “Pan-patrol. This is H.C. All ships in sectors C-42, C-43, C-44, D-42, D-43, D-44, report in.”
She wondered where she was. Pulling down one outside lever turned the ship around. She did not want to go back, she had to keep going away from Yekka. She experimented with the other levers. When the ship dove below a certain level, the yellow light came on again. She fought off the ache behind her eyes. There was something wrong with her. Carefully she took the ship down just to the level where the yellow light flickered on and off. Maybe she could crawl under the patrol.
“Pan-patrol. This is H.C. Mark this craft. SIF-26 Ybicket, three-man scout, Matuko-built, engines IQ, two guns fore and aft. Damaged. If sighted, report, intercept, take in tow, or destroy.”
She put her arm over her aching eyes. Her face was cold.
“H.C., this is 214. Do you have a last-reported on the mark?”
A blast of static blurred the voice. She watched the dials, decided that the long thin one on the top of the panel was the speed gauge, and pumped the pedals to teach herself how to read it.
“214, this is H.C. The mark was sighted Yekka plus 160, C-43, bearing 8-8-5, axis minus 38° Yekka, speed 1500. We hit her head-on with a compression bomb, the crew must be point-operable.”
Ybicket reared up. Paula caught the seat harness with both hands, felt the ship falling over, and grabbed for the levers. The map showed a moving yellow ridge forcing the ship back on its tail. She pushed the middle levers up. Nothing happened. The pounding in her head grew louder. She stamped down on the pedals and pulled the levers down, and the ship rolled over. She fell out of the seat and climbed back into it, clinging to the harness with one hand. The reef passed overhead. Without her feet on the pedals, Ybicket was slowing, and the stall light began to flicker. Paula pushed the levers this way and that and got the ship righted.
She pulled the harness over her shoulders. The reef had turned Ybicket around. She was moving back toward Yekka. Paula pressed one lever and one pedal and swung the ship in a loop turn. She had to watch the holograph. If a reef caught her the wrong way it would wreck the ship. The harness kept slipping off her shoulders. The yellow light was blinking on and off. She wondered where she was going. The radio crackled behind her. Here and there in its random noise a word sounded, meaningless.
Daffodil-bright, a reef jutted up in the magma ahead of her, moving in the same direction as Ybicket. Paula pushed the levers around and steered the ship over it. Her damp palms slipped on the steering pins. The vise closed on her head. She slumped down into the seat. She could push the levers down and dive into the Planet, take David down into the heat and pressure that would make nothing of him and her. She ground her fist into her eyes.
The radio gave another burst of static. Ybicket bucked in a cross-current. She was getting sick to her stomach. Her eyes were sore. If she died, it would not matter that David was dead. There was Tanuojin, but he belonged in the deep Planet; it had made him and it could kill him.
That thought settled her mind. She was not finished with Tanuojin. She had not kept his secrets for so long to kill him now, with his work undone.
She turned Ybicket’s nose up and stamped on the pedals. Straining to reach, her legs ached along her calves and the backs of her knees. She held herself on the front of the seat by her grip on the levers. In a round dial on the left-hand panel, a red needle sliced across the numbers. The ship bucked, slid along a wave, and rolled back. The left lever was jerked out of her hand. She snatched for it. The ship lurched. Ybicket was falling back into the Planet. She hit a surging pale green wave and bounced up again, tail-first. Paula rammed the pedals down. She had to go faster now, flying against gravity. Her stomach rolled half a turn behind the ship. She pulled the levers and got the ship nose-up again. Ybicket raced through a clear patch of green.
“D-61, D-61, identify.”
Paula glanced back at the radio. A light flashed on it. She stepped hard into the pedals. Ybicket surged upward. The speed-gauge needle climbed steadily. Paula watched the map. A faint green cone of a wave streamed back from Ybicket’s bow.
“D-61, you’re outside the corridor. Identify or we will notify the patrol.”
She laughed, pleased to know he was not the patrol. She wondered where the corridor was. At least she was out of the traffic. Something bright yellow and long and hairy appeared in the top of the map. The image sharpened into a thick string cutting diagonally across the cube. She guessed it was a city mooring.
“D-61, D-61—”
The ship hit another wave. This time she kept hold of the levers. It was hard to judge the angle. The wave broke sharp against the ship’s hull and knocked her sliding. Now she was headed in another direction. Paula steered around a yellowish mass like a mountain floating in the magma: a lump of something frozen. She was going so fast Ybicket left a visible rippled wake.