"We're in trouble, aren't we?" he said.
"Looks like it," Torraway agreed.
"I do hate feeling helpless."
Lole didn't bother even glancing at the control console: nothing there would serve them in freefall. The designers of this machine had never considered it might have to operate off the planet's surface. He returned his attention to the windshield, trying to decide through feel how it was holding up to vacuum. Despite what he had told Demeter, this hull was experiencing conditions for which it was never designed. For that matter, when they got where they were going, would the airlock ring align with whatever arrangements the grid had built into its orbiting platform? It would be tragic, wouldn't it, to die for want of a few millimeters of clearance.
Of course, the three of them had worse problems right then.
Mitsuno studied the revolving starfield, hoping to spot the power station ahead of them and so get a feel for how long it would be before they had to do something heroic. With only the stars above and the broad face of Mars below—and that with only the looming dawn by which to mark any relative direction—Lole had no good feeling for their proper motion. The walker's terrain-scanning radar was useless at these extreme distances.
With even their sluggish rate of spin, Mitsuno had trouble telling exactly what part of each revolution represented the view "ahead" and what was "behind." The fountain's dark transfer station with its various guide lights had totally disappeared against the black stellar background. So he watched it all.
Lole strained to pick out any large object that seemed to be growing nearer. He knew that sunlight reflected from the stations solar panels, which would be turning slowly with the synchronous orbit, would probably flash gently rather than remaining fixed like the star points. That was some help.
One of the stars had developed a mild purple bloom, off to one side, the right color for emissions from an ion engine. Still, Mitsuno watched it for three revolutions, forty-five seconds, before letting himself believe in the apparition. Finally, the star developed into a cluster of dusty, winking lights: it was an orbital tug, headed their way. Mitsuno pointed it out to Coghlan and Torraway.
The Cyborg keyed the walker's radio to the all-call frequency.
"Emergency, emergency, emergency," he said in a reasonable, unhurried voice. "Stranded—um—cargo pod to unidentified towing vehicle in orbit above Valles Marineris, please respond."
They waited.
No reply.
The tug was showing a hull outline now, and its maneuvering jets were beginning to resolve into plumes of translucent vapor. Its grapples were at full extension, reaching out toward the walker. The approaching vessel was moving into an intricate dance.
"What's it doing?" Demeter asked.
"I'd say it was preparing to latch on," Torraway replied. "Then it will try to de-spin us."
"Why don't they answer?"
"They can't, if it's an automated ship. Some of them roam in orbit, for retrieval of wayward cargo and drifting debris."
"The grid again," Mitsuno concluded.
"Yes, of course."
Thud! The first grapple made mechanical contact with one of the walkers leg joints. The others took their grip, and the tug jetted steam, applying pressure against the torque of the spinning hull. Various creaks and groans were transmitted into the cabin as the walker took the strain and stabilized.
As spin came off the hull, Lole felt himself drifting away from the forward bulkhead. He wedged his shin between it and the front edge of the control console to hold himself in place. The other two were still strapped into their chairs.
The tug and its latching hooks were clearly visible out the side windows, but Mitsuno was studying the view through the windshield again. He was looking for the solar power station—and not finding it.
Bump/ The walker stuck something with its rear end. The impact was solid enough to feel, sharp enough to jar Lole's and Demeter's heads gently on their necks, but not powerful enough to throw them around or hurt them. Still, Lole saw nothing out the front.
"What the—?" he began.
"I believe we just docked," Torraway said.
"But there's nothing in—"
"Our airlock is back that way." The Cyborg hooked a thumb over his shoulder. The dark face might have been grinning at him. "I think somebody out there knows that, too."
The three of them were all turned now, facing the rear of the cabin. Unbidden, the lock cycled and the inner door opened. Beyond was a brightly lighted, man-sized corridor, circular in cross section, lined with curved panels of neutral-gray plastic. It looked like a null-gee inspection access. From the conspicuous lack of a whistling wind about their ears, Mitsuno guessed that the corridor was pressurized.
"That's an invitation, I guess," Demeter said. "I'd just as soon decline."
"Me, too," Lole agreed.
The Cyborg sat like a pensive statue, his gaze fixed down the tube. He was clearly focused on the first turn as the corridor curved out of sight. Mitsuno wondered what signals Torraway's electromagnetic senses were picking up. He was still relaxed, however, with no sign that his mechanical muscles were batding again with the grid's silent commands.
"We can wait here," the Colonel said impassively "I don't know how long...."
As if on cue, the console between them issued a crackling buzz. Something inside was shorting out, overloaded with voltages that the walker's control circuits were never meant to carry. The metal panels along its front edge began tingling Mitsuno's knee. Somehow the case was conducting the overload. The tingling became a burning.
"Folks ..." Lole said, yanking his knee away and pushing himself up toward the cabin ceiling.
Smoke began to issue from around the keys on the console's top surface. At first it was a barely visible white puff, but it quickly turned thick and black, with hanging clots of half-fused plastic. The air was heavy with the stale-bread smell of polymers and ozone.
Demeter began coughing and unfastened the straps holding her in the seat. With both hands over her mouth, she doubled over, drifting, pushing her face deeper into the smoke plume. Torraway released himself and caught her shoulder, guiding her up and back, away from the billowing clots.
"We have run out of options," he said.
"Yup," Mitsuno agreed. If the electrical fire didn't poison them outright, it would simply eat up their oxygen. Either way, they had to retreat down that tube—in the direction the grid wanted them to go. The nexus was prepared to destroy the walker in order to dislodge them. That would serve a double purpose, he realized: burning their bridges behind them eliminated a possible escape route.
Together the human and the Cyborg pulled the strangling woman into a patch of cleaner air. Then they took bearings, aligning themselves with the door frame around the airlock, and swam forward in single file down the tube.
Ellen Sorbel ran up the ramp, balancing a stack of Lethes memory modules against her hip. Dr. Lee followed closely behind, draped with the cable harness that interconnected the cybers disparate voice and visual interfaces with their plug inputs. Willie Lao brought up the rear with the stripped box for the central processor, carrying it in both hands as instructed.
Sorbel was running and urging the other two forward because she was certain that by now, after picking apart Demeter Coghlan's infiltrated brains, the grid must know all about her plans. Only the existence of the dormant virus had remained a secret from the Earth woman, but then Lole knew about that. If the grid had him as well, it had everything.