Sinara heard the query signal in her suit. It was loud to her, but would it be strong enough to be picked up by the Have-It-All? The ship should be a million kilometers away, perhaps already shielded by the great bulk of M-2.
For another three minutes it seemed her worries were justified. Sinara’s suit, tuned to the ship’s frequency, offered nothing but static. At last she heard, faint and scratchy and barely intelligible, Hans Rebka’s voice: “Ben Blesh is alive, but unconscious. He’s weaker, but not much. Blood pressure sixty-five over forty, pulse forty-two. Why didn’t you report in before? We’ve been picking up your beacons and vital signs, and that was all.”
“Nothing to say. We’re fine, all three. We found a rock to hide behind. It shields us.”
Sinara recognized in Torran’s laconic reply an echo of Hans Rebka. It was probably happening to all of the survival specialists. They were picking their heroes and imitating them. So who did Sinara herself sound like now?
Torran went on, “Don’t expect to hear from us again until after our rendezvous with Ben. We’ll have our hands full.”
“Don’t expect to hear from us for a while, either. We’re ready to loop around M-2. Tell us when you know your outbound trajectory.”
When, not if. Boundless confidence in their survival, which Sinara did not share. But at least the suspense would not go on much longer. The signal from Ben’s suit indicated that he was less than a hundred kilometers away. In four more minutes they had to leave the shelter of the rock and make an exact velocity match with Ben.
Teri was already drifting away to Sinara’s right, with Torran following her. They wanted to take a peek around the edge of their shield before venturing out into the open. Sinara turned to look back the way they had come. They were now so deep in the belt of debris that the stars beyond were hidden. All she saw was a sea of moving fragments, some white-hot, some glowing a dull brick-red. Without the aid of her collision avoidance radar she would have no idea of their distances—they could be moving mountains, kilometers away, or fist-sized fireballs close enough to reach out and touch. There would be many others, too dark to see and most dangerous of all.
Sinara turned again and saw Torran gesturing to her to join them.
“We’ve had a good free ride,” he said, “but it won’t work much longer. Closest approach of this rock to Ben will be more than ten kilometers. We’ll have to fly free.”
“Can you see him?”
“Not his actual suit. His signal shows he’s floating along in the middle of a big mass of rubble and boulders. It must all have been thrown off the surface of Marglot together. He’s had partial shielding from all the other junk out here. It explains why he’s still alive at all—I couldn’t understand how anybody could float free for so long and not get zapped a hundred times.”
Teri added, “We should be so lucky.”
“We may not be. We’ll stay sheltered here as long as we can, and once we reach Ben we can hide in among the same cluster of rocks. But first we have to get there. That gives us an open space run of more than ten kilometers.”
“Together, or separately?” Sinara had moved close to the other two. It was a trade-off. Travel alone, and you tripled the odds that one of you would get through to help Ben. You also tripled the odds that one of you would be hurt on the way.
“Together.” Teri and Torran spoke at once. Torran added, “If I get whacked, I like the idea that you two might be close enough to do something about it. And if we all get whacked—well, we tried. I’d say our present position is close to optimum for a move. I’m biggest, so I should go first. You two follow behind me in line, and stay as close as you can.”
Sinara realized very well what Torran was leaving unsaid. By taking the lead position, he was partly shielding her and Teri—and increasing the probability that he would be hit himself.
She noticed that he was not heading straight for Ben’s suit beacon. Instead, Torran was following a clump of materials with zero radar Doppler shift. Since it was moving ahead of them, it provided some protection. Even so, the rattle of lower-speed gravel and pebbles on her suit was non-stop. One lump of rock, fist-sized or bigger, cannoned off the back of her hardened suit helmet with enough force to make her ears ring.
She heard a grunt from Torran, then, “All right back there?”
“Doing fine.”
“We’re about ready for another course change. Hold your breath. This will be the last one, and I don’t see any way to shield us.”
He veered away, and in the moments before Sinara followed she could at last see their target. The rocks and rubble formed an untidy splotch of black against the ruddy background of Marglot’s remains. Somewhere inside that mess floated Ben Blesh.
Torran had increased his speed, diving in on an all-or-nothing approach. Sinara did the same until he said, “All right. Time to turn and decelerate—hard!”
She saw the front of his suit, briefly, until her own suit’s rotation sent her feet-first toward the floating pile of rock. The backpack on her suit whined in protest as it was called upon to exert maximum thrust. Her proximity radar added its warning, as four hands grabbed her.
“Picture perfect,” Teri said. “One for the record books.” Then, “Torran! You’ve been hit!”
The left shoulder of his suit showed a fist-sized bulge of black sealant.
“You mean, you weren’t?” He held up his right arm, to show two more dark patches. “I was pinged three times, but only the one on my shoulder got all the way through past my skin. I compressed that area of my suit to stop the bleeding, but one of you will have to dig out the pebble once we’re back aboard the Have-It-All.”
Was he understating his injury? Out here, Sinara had no way to tell. But he certainly wasn’t letting it stop him. She and the others pawed their way through the untidy pile of space rocks, using their suit headlights. They followed Ben Blesh’s signal and paid little attention to the heat of the rocks.
When they finally came to Ben he seemed like just another misshapen lump of gray space debris. His knees were lifted up toward his chest, his head bent forward, and his arms were folded. Sinara, with Teri’s help, eased Ben’s head back far enough for her to peer in through the faceplate.
“Hemorrhaging around his eyes. He went through high acceleration somewhere along the way.”
“Think that’s why he’s unconscious now?”
“It’s only part of the reason. There were impacts, too. Look at the lower half of his suit, and at his right side. The transport vortex must have returned him to the surface of Marglot just when the whole planet was coming apart.”
Teri said, “He should never have left the Have-It-All, so soon after his treatment.”
“If he hadn’t, not one of us would be alive.” Torran ran his gloved hand over Ben’s rib cage. “Any response? That should hurt like hell.”
“Nothing. He’s under deep.”
“That answers one question. He won’t be able to help by flying his own suit. We’ll have to tow him.”
“Why go anywhere?” Teri said. “This is just a horrible jumble of rocks, but it did well for Ben.”
Sinara was still examining the unconscious figure. “Depends how long it would take us to reach a place where we might be picked up. Ben’s condition is stable, but how long are we talking about if we hang in here? Torran, do you have our vector?”