The container shuddered as the loading rails locked between ship and wharf, then lurched as it was thrust by the hydraulic rams up onto the ship’s deck. The afterdeck, I prayed. A final slam as it was gripped by the ship’s clamps. We were aboard. At last I could escape from my coffin.
That was harder than I had expected, and the John Howard was already rolling and pitching as she left the lee of the Point before I was able to slip the catch and climb from under old Josh. The container was ringing like the inside of a drum with the noises that fill any closed compartment in a rolling ship. I snapped on my flash and lurched across to Judith’s coffin. She had not yet been able to get it open.
The pallor of her face, the desperation in her eyes, showed that she had begun to believe that she never would. When I eased Greta aside and litfed Judith out she clung to me in a way that cured the wounds my male pride had suffered during the past twelve hours. I sat down slowly, my back against the side of the container, and held her in my arms, cradled her head in my lap.
Presently her breathing slowed and she scrambled to her feet. “Thanks! From now on you can take me any time you want, any way you want!” She shuddered. “All I could think about was that block of concrete under my feet!”
I had forgotten about the weight that would drag coffin and contents down to the bottom ooze. I shuddered in sympathy. “Now to find a way out of this damned box!”
The wrenches, which I had collected primarily as weapons, now proved their worth as wrenches. We had planned to wait until the container started to tip and the side swung open, as that would give us a moment to get out before we were shot with the coffins into the sea. Now, searching with my flash, we found a manhole in the side facing aft, and with the wrenches we were able to slacken the bolts sufficiently to let in a blast of sea air and a gleam of light.
I squinted through the crack. “We’re on the afterdeck, thank Christ! Right up against the poop.”
“And the minicopter’s on the poop?”
“Should be.” I looked up at her, my flash throwing her face into stark relief. “We’ve got to get out of here now and chance being seen. Once they start to dump we’ll never have lime to reach the minicopter, warm the motor, and take off before we’re spotted.”
“Then get cracking on those bolts!” Judith had regained her old form.
V
We crouched together in the gap between the after end of the container and the poop bulkhead. The John Howard was rolling heavily as she swung southwest toward Clarport, the seas breaking over her and the spray driving over us. Off the port beam the Pen was shrouded by mist and rain. Overhead was a turmoil of low clouds. A bad day for a crossing, but the weather would hide us if we could get into the air without falling into the ocean.
I eased up the poop ladder, hidden from the bridge by the container, and my heart sank. I slid back down and hissed in Judith’s ear, “They’ve got double lashings on the chopper. We’ll have to get the lines free before we can release the holdfasts round the skids.”
“Translate!”
“The minicopter’s locked to the deck by quick-release clamps round the skids. The poop’s a landing pad. But the Skipper’s got his toy tied down with extra ropes. We’ve got to free those before we can grab it. And when we do—God knows how we’re going to lift off while she’s rolling like this.” I glanced at the sky. “It’s not going to be any better out in the bay.”
“Can we cut the ropes?” Judith asked.
“We could if we had a knife.”
She reached inside her suit and produced two scalpels. “I brought these along. Just in case.”
To use on the guards or on herself? “They’re too light. Those lines are lurax.”
“These scalpels are veralloy. They’ll cut any rope. Let me try.”
I hesitated, but she could use a veralloy scalpel better than I could. “Okay! But stay flat on the deck so the container’ll hide- you from the bridge.” She started up the ladder. I cupped her ankle. “And hang on! One hand for yourself at all times. There’s nothing to stop you if you start to slide. And she’s pitching like hell!”
She nodded and pulled herself over the edge of the pad. I eased up the ladder to watch her work, cursing our luck. Evenif she cut the lashings, how could I lift the minicopter oil? If the ship hadn’t been rolling around like a drunken senator 1 might have been able to hold the chopper steady long enough for Judith to throw the clamps and climb aboard. I’d learned the basics of minicopter flying during my Strike force training, but not even our top pilots would have tried lo take off in this sea; in fact the hydrofoils from which we'd flown wouldn’t even have put to sea in this weather.
Judith knew too little to know we were attempting the impossible. Flat on her stomach, sawing away at the lashings with one hand while holding onto the struts of the minicopter with the other, she was determined to push on to the end. I watched the last lashing whip out in the wind, and caught her hands as she dragged herself to the top of the ladder. The •ship pitched and we fell together to the bottom.
When she had recovered her breath she gasped, “Anybody spot me?”
“No sign anybody did.” I hesitated. “Judy, I don’t see how I’ll be able to get that thing airborne.” And I explained why.
She pushed her wet hair back from her face. “We can do it if we try. Don’t you understand yet, Gavin? The Light hasn’t allowed us to come as far as this only to be captured or drowned. We’re being tested. We can make it. If we don’t it’s because we’ve failed. And if we fail, then we’re not fit to succeed.”
Tested to destruction! Judith’s religion seemed to treat this world as a kind of boot camp in which humans were screened and trained before going on to take part in the serious business of the Universe. A crazy concept which might help her but did nothing for me. “Then perhaps your Light will—”
“It has. Already. When the container starts to tilt that’ll hide the minicopter. You climb aboard and start the engine. I’ll throw the clamps when you signal. Then you take off.”
“Without you? Like hell!”
“I’ll come on the skids.”
“On the skids? You’re mad! You’ll be blown or knocked off the moment I try to lift. In this wind and sea—”
‘Til rope myself to the struts.”
“Judy—
“Move it! They’re heaving to! Skipper’s about to dump.” Jona’s Point had disappeared astern. We must be at least I ten kilometers from the Pen, and the John Howard was preparing to get rid of her load. We heard the clang as the I bolts holding the container’s hinged side crashed back. The I Skipper was shouting on the bullhorn, “Forasmuch as these, I our brothers and sisters—”
Judith began to shove me up the ladder as the inboard edge of the container started to rise. “Go, Gavin, go!” she screamed. “It’s the only way. Get that motor turning!”
At least we’d go fighting. I clawed across the pad to the chopper and pulled myself into the cockpit. The container had tilted high and we were still hidden. But the moment the I turbine fired and the blades began to turn, the guards would start aft. And the instant the container dropped back onto its rails, we’d be exposed to their view and their guns.
I checked the controls and instruments. All standardized. UN regulations. Every aircraft, every auto, no matter where it was made or who made it, must follow the same control-display pattern. And the minicopter itself was a popular US model. Fully fueled with hydrides—the Skipper probably got them free from the Pen’s surplus. I put my hand on the starter and looked down at the skids. We were committed. I must do my best. If my best wasn’t good enough for the Light, then we were for the Dark.