"Scientist's Apprentice, any comments?"
"Fix it yourself, Jeffer the Scientist."
"Grad, what does it mean?"
"Oh, sorry, Gavving. There's no air outside. The air inside must be leaking out into the, um, universe. You know, I talk to you when I get confused. Maybe you'll come up with something."
Gavving chewed it over. "What Clave said—"
"Clave did not say that the carm is almost four hundred years old and maybe falling apart."
"Like all those bicycle gears…okay, what's your opinion of the Scientist's Apprentice?"
Lawri bore their considering stares with her lips pressed tight and her eyes full on Gavving's. The Grad smiled and said, "Better you ask her opinion of us."
Gavving didn't have to. "Four enemy warriors, six copsiks caught in mutiny, one corpse, and a Navy man who surrendered his weapon." Her expression ifickered. Had she forgotten the silver man? This wouldn't be easy, guessing at a stranger's thoughts. Try anyway. "I only wondered if she's good enough to save us if she wanted to. We could waste too much time on that."
The Grad nodded. "Lawri, if the Scientist were here, could he save us?"
"Maybe. But he wouldn't!"
"Kiance wouldn't save the carm?" The Grad smiled.
She shrugged as best she could within her bonds. "All right, he'd save the carm if he could."
"How?" She didn't answer. "Can you save us?"
She raised an eyebrow at him. Gavving found that admirable, but what he said was, "Bluff Grad, we'll have to fix it ourselves. The Scientist told you things about gases, didn't he?"
"Both Scientists did. Come to that…oxygen? We must be getting air from the oxygen tank. It's the hydrogen tank that's empty. And we'll have more fuel pretty soon. The carm splits water into the two flavors of fuel. The one flavor, the oxygen, it's what we breathe. At least we'll have some time."
Gavving studied the blonde girl's face. What did she know? What did she want? If she only wanted everybody dead, then dead they were. But there was something she might hate even more than mutiny.
It depended on getting the Grad moving, which was a good idea anyway. How? Ask stupid questions; that worked sometimes. "Can we find the leak? Set something smoldering and watch the smoke?"
"Yes! It'll tell the others what's wrong, though, and burn up air too. Mph?"
"Inspiration?"
"Molecules of…bits of air move more slowly when they're cold."
The board was already alive with yellow numbers and drawings. The Grad touched an arrowhead on a vertical line, then moved his fingertip slowly toward him. The arrowhead became two arrowheads, and one followed his finger.
"I never even wondered if we could make the cabin warmer or cooler, but it has to be true. That oxygen is liquid. Cold! It'd be freezing our lungs out if something wasn't keeping the cabin warm. Okay, now it'll be cold in here, but we'll live longer. I think you'd better tell Clave what's on and let him make the announcement. They'll have to know now, because we'll have to pass out the extra ponchos. Then we'll try the smoke—"
Lawri spoke. "Just let me at the damn controls!"
Gavving turned from her. Hide the smile. Lawri might want their deaths, but she couldn't let the Grad save them without her help. He asked, "Is it too complicated to tell the Grad?"
"No. But I won't!"
"Grad? Try the smoke?"
"Worst she can do is kill us. Besides, Lawri always wanted to fly the carm. Lawri, the position of Scientist's Apprentice is now open."
Lawri flexed her arms and looked about at her captors. Her hands prickled; her arms hurt. Her urge was to strike out at the mutineers. But the look on Jeffer's face: considering…like Kiance waiting for the right answer to some stupid rote question…
The sky was black as charcoal. The stars were white points, like tiny versions of Voy, but thousands of them. And if they roused fear in Lawri, what must they be doing to these savages? She watched them nibbling on rolled slices of raw meat, and suddenly smiled.
She reached past the Grad and tapped the white key. "Prikasyvat Voice." Hear this you treefeeders!
"Ready," said a voice belonging to nobody in the carm. "Identify yourself."
The lunchtime conversation went dead silent. The jungle giant male cocked his crossbow. She turned her back on him. "I am Lawri the Scientist. Give us your status."
"Fuel tanks nearly empty. Power depleted, batteries charging. Air pressure dropping, will be dangerously low in five hours, lethal in seven. Displays are available."
"Why are we losing air pressure?"
"All openings are sealed. I will seek the source of a leak." Lawri tapped the white switch again. "That's what will kill us. We'll strangle without air. Too bad. It would have been quite a show, but you won't see it," she flashed at the Grad.
"Why did you turn off the display?"
"Voice can't hear us till I tap it again. It can do almost anything if you say the wrong thing, just talking."
"Would it talk to me?"
"You're a…" Her scorn became something else. "It wants you to identify yourself, and it remembers. Hmm. Try it." She tapped the talk button.
"Prikazyvat Voice," said the Grad.
"Identify yourself."
"I'm the Scientist of Quinn Tuft. Do we have enough fuel to get back into the Smoke Ring?"
For a moment the Grad forgot how to breathe. Then, "We have a water supply. Won't it be separated into fuel?"
Voice paused. Then, "If the flux of sunlight maintains its intensity, I will have fuel soon enough to affect a return. I note a mass near our course. I can use it as a gravity sling."
"Would that be Gold?"
"Rephrase."
"The mass, is it Goldblatt's World?"
The Grad tapped the switch before he began laughing. "Go for Gold! If we live that long."
The whispering aft had become obtrusive. With the air turning icy and Voice speaking from the walls, luncheon was sliding over to panic. Jeffer said, "Gavving, you'd better tell them about the pressure. We don't have time to brief Clave."
Lawri asked, "Shall I do it?" She knew more aj,out what was going on.
Jeffer seemed appalled. "Lawri, they'd think you started the leak!"
"Savages—"
"Anyone would."
She couldn't decide if he meant it.
Gavving was telling the rest of the mutineers about the leak. He told it long, including what they planned to do about it. Jeffer tapped the white button. "Pnikazyvat Voice. Have you found the leak?"
"I find no point of leakage. Air is disappearing."
"Will we live long enough to get back into the Smoke Ring?"
"No. The course I've programmed would take twenty-eight hours. Air pressure will have dropped to lethal levels in ten hours. Times are approximate."
Lawri couldn't remember how long an hour might be. Still…ten hours? It had been seven before the cabin got so cold. She wondered why Voice hadn't taken it into account. Sometimes Voice could be such a fool.
She said, "Display the areas where you have looked for a leak."
The yellow line diagrams of the cabin sprouted green borders along two-thirds of the interior. Red dots blinked elsewhere. "Those are sensors that have died," Lawri told Jeffer. "Voice, implement your course correction."
Jeffer added, "Pnikazyvat Voice. Do not use the main motor at any time!"
"I will fire as I have fuel," Voice said. "First burn in ten seconds. Nine. Eight."
"Everybody grab something," Jeffer called.