He was wrong. There was another explosion of frost, a big one this time. A couple of hapless Cygnans came tumbling out of the lock, squirming round on their broomsticks to get back to the ship.
“Somebody was riding the cage, trying to get up here.” Jameson said. “The bulkhead at the end of the spoke must have been open.”
“Who was in that section of the wheel?” Boyle asked, his voice tight.
“That was spoke number three,” Kay said, reading the board. “Sickbay.”
“How many patients did Doc Brough and Dr. Nyi have?”
“Four, I think,” Kay said in a shaken voice.
Jameson asked, “What about Berry and his people? And Po Fu-yung’s team? Are they still alive?”
“Yes. The engine section was sealed off. But there’s only enough air there to last a few hours.”
Grogan’s big knuckles were working “We can get ’em out in spacesuits, a few at a time. Or carry enough air bottles to them to last until they finish their work.”
Kiernan was pushing his way through the crowd. “The hydroponics section!” he said. “Did it lose its air?”
Yeh Fei answered him. “Yes. But the no-gravity farm is still alive. The bulkhead forward of the spinlock was sealed.”
“Can that keep us going?” Boyle asked.
Kiernan put his head together with Dmitri. After a mumbled exchange, he looked up again. “Yes. If nothing else happens we can get some new algae tanks going. We may have to spread out into the observatory and bridge. And if we can pressurize the ring again, I can reestablish a hydroponics section there with transplants from the banks in no-g. We won’t be eating well for a while, but we’ll breathe.”
“Unless…” Everybody turned to look at Jameson. “Unless they kill off the rest of our greenery before we can stop them.”
“All right,” Boyle said. “We’re under siege. Grogan, we’re going to need all the spacesuits from the spinlock lockers. And somebody’s going to have to go through vacuum to get them. How many suits can we scrape up here in the forward part of the ship?”
“Captain, there’s just four. They’re in the auxiliary air lock near the observatory. At least they were last time I checked. But we can’t send anyone to the spinlock until I jury-rig some kind of air lock south of the no-g farm.”
“How long will that take you?”
Grogan thought it over. “I can make it out of a water tank. A couple of hours.”
Jameson looked out the window. He could see a general movement of Cygnans toward the breached lock. Frozen air was still misting out into space.
“Skipper,” he said, “we don’t have a couple of hours”
Boyle brooded at him from under heavy eyebrows. “No, we don’t. Once they get into the ship…”
He didn’t need to finish the thought. Everybody there was thinking about what would happen if the Cygnans breached any more bulkheads. The humans were trapped in their own ship, in two fragile bubbles of air at either end of the long shaft that pierced the wheel. Even if they all could get into spacesuits—those unreachable suits in the spinlock—it would only prolong their death sentence.
Kiernan bit his lip. “Come on, Wang,” he said. “Let’s get down to the farm and get as much seed stock as we can into airtight lockers.”
“Do you know how dangerous that is, Mr. Kiernan?” Boyle interrupted. “You’ll be one bulkhead closer to vacuum. Assuming we can get the ship repressurized, is there really going to be enough time to reestablish an ecology before the reserve air runs out?”
“I don’t know,” Kiernan admitted. “But we’ve got to try.”
“I’ll go with you,” Dmitri volunteered abruptly. “You’ll need a lot of help. You’d better have a biologist along.” The boyish face didn’t look weak any more. Dmitri’s voice was shaking, but his self-indulgent mouth was set in firm lines now. Jameson had to admire his guts.
“I go too,” a harsh voice said. “I am biologist.” They looked up. Tu Jue-chen was there, biting her lip. Her homely face was tight and unreadable.
“Thank you, Tongzhi Tu,” Boyle said.
“I’d better get started,” Jameson said. “I’ll have to try to run the gauntlet with just two men. I’d better leave the fourth spacesuit here. Somebody may still be able to make it to the spinlock storage lockers for some more suits if Grogan can rig up that air lock before the Cygnans decide to come inside.” He turned to Grogan. “You’d better get cracking, Chief.”
“The hell I will,” Grogan rumbled. “I’m coming with you. One of my boys’ll volunteer to rig the lock.” He called out over the crowd. “Fiaccone, that’s you!”
“Right you are, Chief,” Fiaccone said, grinning. He headed toward the exit in a no-gravity shamble.
Yeh Fei rose from his chair, looming over the rest of them. “I am third man,” he said. Nobody argued with him.
Jameson said good-bye to Maggie again, clasping her thin body in his arms. He felt her tremling. “I’ll be back,” he said, whispering. “Nothing says the Cygnans have to be malicious. Maybe they’re just curious.”
She was wound around him with all her strength. He broke free gently and turned to Grogan and Yeh. “All set,” he said.
The three of them suited up in the auxiliary lock behind the observatory. Yeh had armed himself with a wicked-looking cargo hook. Grogan had his fist wrapped around the handle of a sixteen-pound sledgehammer, just behind its head. The short handle was forward. He could poke with it, or swing his fist with the heavy lump of metal in it. Jameson had along pry bar.
Just before they spun the outer door open, there was a disconcerting moment when a Cygnan peered in at them through the small safety window. Its three orange pupils expanded from a narrow slit, like an unfolding fan. Then the creature blinked and was gone.
If Dmitri was right, there was no brain behind those three strange eyes. What unimaginable thoughts went on between what passed for a Cygnan’s shoulders?
“Go!” Jameson commanded.
The hull immediately outside the airlock was a crawling carpet of mottled flesh. A sea of pikes bobbed and waved above it: the Cygnans’ flying broomsticks. They held them absent-mindedly, passing them from hand to middle limb to foot as they jostled one another to converge on the opening lock. The clever little toes clung to any projection or surface irregularity on the hull.
Jameson scrambled forward, Yeh and Grogan flanking him in a flying wedge. The carpet of alien life opened up ahead of them and closed again behind them. Yeh was swinging his long hook in circles to keep them at a distance. Grogan poked with his sledge handle. Cygnans skipped nimbly out of the way.
My God, we’re going to make it! was Jameson’s first thought. But then, before they had gone twenty feet, the Cygnans began closing in.
Yeh made a swipe with his hook and ripped the balloonlike sheath over a Cygnan’s long snout. Vapor puffed out into space, and the Cygnan died. Jameson could see orange blood oozing out of the eyestalks.
Then, before the swing could be completed, Cygnan fingers closed on the shaft of the cargo hook. Yeh shook the grip off with his enormous strength, but the Cygnan simply shifted its grip to a middle limb. A companion came to, help it and easily snatched the hook out of Yeh’s grasp; Yeh’s weapon passed from Cygnan to Cygnan until it was out of sight.
Grasping hands and feet were all over Jameson now. He swung out with his crowbar and felt it thud into the closely packed bodies. But dozens of three-fingered paws began tugging at it, anticipating his every move.