So they stumbled around in near-night, strapping themselves into the couches at threatening words from the gunmen. There were twenty seats, in addition to the two pilots’ couches forward. Walther was already in one, doing unseen things to the main console. Kotabit was lazily strapping himself into the other. He’d swiveled his couch around to watch the rest of them. Ethan didn’t feel like testing the other’s night vision.
There was no warning siren when the boat door snapped shut. That, at least, had been cut in advance to prevent warning the ship’s computer. It seemed certain they’d be noticed as soon as the boat left the ship’s hull, but Ethan was no engineer and couldn’t be certain.
Walther was muttering something that sounded like, “… set enough apart… hope…”
“Better strap in tight, everybody,” Ethan advised the others. “I don’t think we’ll be setting down at the regular port.”
“Brilliant!” Colette du Kane’s voice was as easily defined as her shape.
“And it will probably be rough,” he concluded lamely.
“Two Einsteinian deductions in a row. Father, I don’t think we’ve a thing to worry about. Not with a genius of this peasant’s caliber along. Next he’ll astound us with the knowledge that these two megalocephalic proteinoids mean us no good.”
“Listen,” Ethan began, trying to locate her in the dark. His eyes were growing accustomed to the dim light. How Walther could manipulate the controls in it he couldn’t imagine. They must have rehearsed this a hundred times.
“I’m still not entirely sure what’s going on here. Along I come intending to inspect my samples, minding my own business, and your little family problem has to intrude.”
“I hypothesize a ransom attempt,” said the elder du Kane. “As these thersitical traducers are no doubt aware, I am not without resources.”
“Watch your mouth,” blurted the hulking Kotabit, not quite sure what to make of the manufacturer’s charge.
“I am sorry you and Mr. Williams had to be drawn into this. Clearly those two did not expect to be interrupted at this hour.”
“I’m sorry too,” said Ethan feelingly. A low vibration passed through the little vessel, then another. Soon there was a continuous, steady thrumming at their backs.
“They’ll find us once we’re down,” he continued, trying to encourage the other. “It shouldn’t be hard to plot our descent.”
“I would concur, young man, except the thoroughness which our vile companions have displayed thus far…”
There was a lurch and Ethan found himself rapidly becoming lighter. They’d detached from the ship and were moving out of its passenger field.
“We’ve left the ship,” he began. A familiar tone interrupted him.
“Oh god, I am amazed once again!” Colette said with mock piety.
“Well, you go ahead and interpret everything for yourself, then!” Ethan replied peevishly. “Nothing’s likely to happen until we’re ready for setdown.”
He was wrong, of course.
In fact, several unlikely things happened right away.
Something hit the boat a giant hammerblow on its side, set it tumbling crazily. Ethan got a fast glimpse of the planet running all around the circumference of a port, much too fast. Colette started screaming. Forward, Walther was cursing and groaning as he worked the controls, yelling about the time he no longer had and the time he’d wasted.
Another sickening lunge brought the sunlit Antares into view. It was far off and receding rapidly. But not so rapidly that Ethan couldn’t make out the gaping hole in its near side.
He turned back to the interior of the boat. All of a sudden there seemed to be a fifth figure in the passenger section. It was not strapped in and lurched about drunkenly back near the storage section. For a moment Ethan thought his eyes hadn’t become properly adapted.
The boat rolled insanely and Walther yelled helplessly. Williams shouted “Oh my!” And this strange rearward apparition bellowed in slurred Terranglo, “A joke is a joke, but by all the Black Holes and Purpling Prominences, enough is enough!”
At that point Ethan’s eyes unadjusted to the darkness and everything else.
II
HE WAS INDISPUTABLY DEAD, frozen alive. He shivered.
Wait a minute. If he was dead he shouldn’t have been able to shiver. To make sure, he shivered again. His body jerked, once, twice. It occurred to him that there was an external source behind the jerks. Blinking, he turned his head. The ebony face of Milliken Williams stared down at him.
“How are you feeling, my dear Fortune?” he inquired solicitously. Ethan noticed that the schoolteacher was wearing a thick coat of some heavy brown material. It had orange patching and was puffed in spots, but looked warm.
He rolled over and sat up. The effort made him dizzy and it took another minute for his eyes to focus. Immediately he noticed that he was clad in a similar garment, that it extended well below his knees, and that it was at least two sizes too large for him.
Williams offered him a cup of black coffee. It steamed ferociously. Ethan took it in the coat-gloves and downed half the boiling liquid in two gulps. At the moment he didn’t care if he vulcanized his esophagus. Something at his back seemed willing to support his weight, so he leaned back, sighed deeply, and inspected his surroundings.
The du Kanes sat across from him. They wore the same brown-orange overcoats, only theirs fit. The elder du Kane poked thoughtfully at a tin of something in front of him. A wisp of steam floated from it. Selecting from the contents, he popped something into his mouth, frowned, swallowed, and resumed his poking. His daughter sat to one side, leaning on one arm and glaring at nothing in particular.
They were sitting in a small room of some sort. The floor was covered here and there with a thin coating of white. Even to his dazed mind it was obviously snow or some other frozen liquid. He knew they were on the surface. The temperature told him that. A questioning glance at Williams.
“We’re in the rear storage compartment of the lifeboat. It stayed fairly airtight.”
Fairly was right, for air was clearly coming from around the edges of the single door. The metal walls were badly dented, especially the rearmost section leading to the engines. He finished the coffee and crawled to the access door. Door and wall leaned inward at the top. There was a single small window three-quarters of the way up.
Standing, he peered out the glassite, not caring that he was cutting off most of the light to the little compartment. Colette offered a suitably cutting comment of this lack of consideration, but Ethan was too engrossed in the view from the little port to pay any attention to her.
He was staring down the center aisle of what had been the shuttle’s passenger compartment. Huge gaping holes showed sky where the roof had been. A waterfall of brilliant blindingly clear sunlight filtered into the hull. He became aware of the goggles and face shield built into the hood of the coat he was wearing. More than half of the acceleration couches had been torn or twisted off their mounts.
Turning his head and craning his neck, he could see that the right side of the vessel had been badly pitted. The left side was ripped open along half its length, a single metal-shredding gouge. He was no mechanic, but even a mechanical idiot could see they’d be flying a new ship before they’d be repairing this one. Right now, his expense account was the worthier vehicle.
A light dusting of snow covered the floor of the cabin and many of the tumbled seats, especially on the torn left side. The airbrushed whiteness muted the rented duralloy and convulsed floor. Here and there amidst the snow, shards of fractured glassite threw crippled rainbows about the interior. If a single viewport had survived intact, it was out of his line of sight.