The turnaround route to flip-side, the only route, might have been a good place for an ambush. But Jacob wasn’t particularly surprised that Culla wasn’t there, for two reasons.
The first was tactical. Culla’s weapon operated on line-of-sight. The loop curved very tightly, so the humans could approach within a few meters without being spotted. An object thrown around the loop would travel most of the way with undiminished velocity. Jacob was now sure of this. He and Hughes had thrown several knives from the ship’s galley when they entered the loop. They found them near the flip-side exit in a puddle of ammonia from the liquitubes they’d squeezed ahead of them as they walked the topsyturvy passage.
Culla could have been waiting just beyond the door, but there was another reason he had to leave his, rear undefended. He had only a limited amount of time before the Sunship reached a high orbit. After they got into free space the humans “would be safe from the tossing of the chromospheric storms, and the tough, reflecting physical shell of the ship could deflect enough of the heat of the Sun to keep them alive until help came.
So Culla had to finish them, and himself, off quickly. Jacob felt sure the Pring specialist was by the computer input, ninety degrees around the dome to the right, using his laser eyes to slowly reprogram past the machine’s safeguards.
Why he was doing it was a question that would have to wait.
Hughes picked up the knives. With the bag, some liquitubes, and Helene’s little stunner, they composed their armory.
Classically, since the alternative was death for all of them, the answer would be for one man to sacrifice himself so the other could finish Culla off.
He and Hughes could carefully time their approach from different directions to surprise Culla at the same moment. Or one man could come in front and the other, aim the stunner from over his shoulder.
But neither plan would work. Their opponent could literally kill a man as fast as he could look at him. Unlike the faked “adult” Sun Ghost projections, which were continuous output, Culla’s killer bolts were discharges. Jacob wished he could remember how many he’d fired off during the fight on topside… or at what repeat frequency. It probably didn’t matter. Culla had two eyes and two enemies. One bolt each would probably suffice.
Worst of all, they couldn’t be sure that Culla’s holographic imaging ability wouldn’t enable him to locate them the instant they stepped out onto the floor, from reflections off the inner shell. He probably couldn’t hurt them with reflections, but that was poor compensation.
If there weren’t so damned much attenuation during the internal bouncing of the beam they could have tried to disable the alien with the P-laser, by letting it sweep the entire ship while the humans and Fagin crowded into the. gravity-loop.
Jacob cursed and wondered what was keeping them with the P-laser. Next to him Hughes mumbled softly into a wall intercom. He turned to Jacob. “They’re ready!” he said.
Thanks to their goggles they were spared most of the pain when the dome outside burst with light. Still it took a few moments to blink away tears and adapt to the brightness.
Commandant deSilva had, presumably with Dr. Martine’s help, dragged the P-laser to a new position near the rim of the upper deck. If her calculations were right the beam should hit the side of the dome on flip-side exactly where the computer input was. Unfortunately, the complexity of the figure needed to go from point A to B, through the narrow gap at the edge of the deck, meant that the beam probably wouldn’t harm Culla.
It did startle him though. At the instant the beam came on, while Jacob was squeezing his eyes shut, they heard a sudden chattering and sounds of movement far to the right.
When his vision cleared, Jacob saw a thin tracery of bright lines hanging in the air. The passage of the P-laser beam left a track in the small amount of dust in the air. That was fortunate. It would help them avoid it.
“Intercom on max?” he asked quickly.
Hughes gave thumbs up.
“Okay, let’s go!”
The P-laser was randomly putting out colors in the blue-green. They hoped it would confuse reflections from the inner shell.
He gathered his legs and counted, “One, two. Go!”
Jacob dashed out across the open space and dove behind one of the hulking recording machines at the rim of the deck. He heard Hughes land hard, two machines clockwise from him.
The man waved once when he glanced back. “Nothing over here!” he whispered harshly. Jacob took a look around the corner of his own machine, using a mirror from the aid-kit, which had been smeared with grease. Hughes had another mirror, from Martine’s purse.
Culla wasn’t in sight.
Between them, he and his partner could survey about three-fifths of the deck. The computer input was on the other side of the dome, just out of Hughes’ view. Jacob would have to take the long way around, darting from one recording machine to another.
The Sunship’s shell glowed in spots where the P-laser beam glanced off it. The colors shifted constantly. Otherwise, the red and pink miasma of the chromosphere surrounded them. They had left the big filament minutes before, and the herd of toroids with it, by now a hundred kilometers below.
Below was actually right over Jacob’s head. The photosphere, with the Big Spot in the center made a great, flat, endless, fiery ceiling above him, spicules hung like stalactites.
He gathered his legs beneath him and took off, bent over and facing away from any possible ambush.
He leapt over the P-laser beam where its path was traced in floating dust particles, and dove behind the next machine. Quickly he eased the mirror out to look at the territory now exposed.
Culla wasn’t in sight.
Neither was Hughes. He whistled two short notes in the brief code they’d agreed upon. All clear. He heard one note, the fellow’s reply.
He had to duck under the beam the next time. All the way across the narrow distance his skin crawled, anticipating a searing bolt of light along his Flank.
He stumbled behind the machine and caught hold of it to steady himself, breathing heavily. That wasn’t right! He shouldn’t be so tired already. Something was wrong.
Jacob swallowed once then began to slide the mirror out along the counter-clockwise edge of the machine.
Pain lanced into his fingertips and he dropped the mirror with a cry. He stopped just short of popping the hand in his mouth, and held it, instead, a few inches away, his mouth open in agony.
Automatically, he started to lay over a light pain relief trance. The red pokers started to fade as the fingers seemed to grow more distant. Then the flow of relief stopped. It was like a tug of war. He could only accomplish so much; a counter pressure resisted the hypnosis with equal strength no matter how hard he concentrated.
Another of Hyde’s tricks. Well there was no time to dicker with him… whatever the hell he wanted. He looked at the hand, now that the pain was barely bearable. The index and fourth fingers were badly fried. The others were less damaged.
He managed to whistle a short code to Hughes. It was time to put his plan into effect, the only plan with any real chance of success.
Their only chance lay in getting into space. Time-compression was frozen on automatic — the first thing Culla took care of after the maser link — their subjective time would pretty closely match the actual time it took to leave the chromosphere.
Since assaulting Culla was almost certainly futile, the best way to delay the alien’s murder-suicide would be to talk to him.
Jacob took a couple of breaths as he leaned back against the holo-recorder, careful to keep his ears awake. Culla was always a noisy walker. That was his best hope against out and out attack by the Pring. If Culla made too much sound out in the open, Jacob might get a chance to use the stunner he clutched in his good hand. It had a wide beam and wouldn’t take much aiming.