“You’d have to be crazy to take a thing like that aboard a spacecraft,” Boyle rumbled. “Hand it over.”
“Captain Boyle,” Klein said. “You are hereby directed to render all assistance and cooperation to an authorized agent of the Reliability Board under the directive governing the conduct of officials in the employ of GovCorp.”
Boyle continued to look Klein in the eye until Klein averted his gaze slightly. Then, with a contemptuous glance at the slim, squarish weapon, he dropped his outstretched hand and stood, legs apart, with his hands clasped behind his back.
“What is it you have in mind?” Boyle asked.
Klein looked around at the group clustered on the broad ledge behind Boyle: Kay Thorwald and Captain Hsieh, Ruiz and Maybury and Dr. Chu, with Mike Berry pressing forward to hear. He looked over at the silent and attentive crowd. Then he said, “Captain, perhaps we’d better go to the far side of the enclosure with one of the Chinese representatives and discuss it there.”
“Spit it out, mister,” Boyle said. “We’re all waiting to hear.” He stood fast, solid as a rock.
Chia said, “We will need volunteers. Go on, you say it.”
Reluctantly Klein said, “We’re going to carry out our contingency orders.”
“What are you talking about?” Boyle said.
“Major Hollis and his men are dead—in the line of duty. But Deputy Commander Yao’s men are capable of carrying out the mission. It coincides with their own orders.”
“Nuke the Cygnan ships? You’re insane. You’d never even make it to the air lock of this tin can we’re in, let alone cross empty space to our own ship!”
“You’re wrong, Captain. Loyalty Officer Chia and I have worked it out very carefully. We’ve reconnoitered the immediate area personally, on our outing with Commander Jameson. We’ve spent weeks interrogating every member of the crew as to their recollections of the layout of the enemy ship—many of them were conscious or semiconscious when they were brought in—and we’ve pieced together an escape route. You yourself drew such a map, if you recall. We’ll want that too, by the way.”
Jameson flinched as he listened to Klein. So that was why the man had been so friendly, so inquisitive about his experiences in Cygnan territory!
Boyle growled, “There’s fifteen miles to cover—uphill—before you even get to the hub of the ship. And the areas as densely populated as Hong Kong.”
“The Cygnans don’t like to travel across open spaces. There are service routes. If we encounter any of the enemy, we’re armed. Captain, it’s no different from crossing any other enemy territory. I was a counterguerrilla during the Baja uprising—”
“A fine piece of butchery that was,” Boyle said curtly.
“I don’t like your attitude, Captain,” Klein said.
“You’re not required to, Mister Klein. You were giving me the information I’ll need to evaluate your plans. Get on with it.”
The encircling crowd listened neutrally to the exchange, jockeying for position. Jameson managed to force his way to the forefront, Maggie at his back. His further progress was blocked by a grinning Gifford.
“Sorry, Commander,” Gifford said. A muscular young Chinese from the Struggle Brigade was backing him up with a fist wrapped around a chunk of the cementlike terrace material.
“You’re flirting with mutiny, Giff,” Jameson said.
“Nothin’s happened yet,” Gifford said. “In the meantime, why don’t you just stay put.” He gave Jameson a friendly wink.
Up on the next ledge Klein was saying: “I don’t have to do this, Captain, but I could use your help, so I’ll tell you. Our chances are reasonable. We’ve got weapons and we can get more. Between Chia and me, we’ve got a full range of electronic surveillance equipment we brought aboard as buttons, zippers, uniform tabs, and the like. We can drop spy-eyes and acoustic detectors to guard our rear, and we have subminiaturized mobile probes we can send ahead for reconnaissance.” He was holding something invisibly small out in his palm to show Boyle.
“And then?” Boyle said. “How do you get across to our ship?”
“It’s less than a hundred miles away, according to Yeh. He got a look through an outside port when they had him sequestered. We can make it on suit jets, and our suits are right outside in that warehouse section.”
“What’s to keep the Cygnans from coming after us?”
Jameson heard the “us” and didn’t like it. Was Boyle starting to take all this seriously? “Captain, he called out.
Boyle paid him no attention Gifford and the Chinese strongarm made a warning gesture.
Klein waved his flat little pistol. “We’ll keep them busy with a few nuclear bombs. Then they won’t have time to worry about us.”
Boyle shook his head authoritatively. “We’d be sitting ducks. It would take hours to get the boron reaction going, even if our engines are still undamaged, and in the meantime—”
Chia leaned past Klein. “We have thought of that. We will have Comrade Li with us. He can use the Callisto lander to get us moving. The chemical engines will fire immediately.”
Klein nodded. “And the automatic probes by themselves provide enough thrust to break us out of Jupiter orbit and start us coasting sunward. We checked with Gifford.”
Boyle stared at his feet for a while, his hands clasped behind his back. Finally he lifted his head. “You seem to have thought it all out. I don’t think the odds are good, but we’re duty bound to escape if we can. Captain Hsieh and I will be in command, of course. I’ll take your weapon. We can’t order everyone to go with us—it’s going to be a farfetched gamble—but I imagine a majority of the crew will elect to take the chance—”
“Hsieh will not go,” Chia hissed. “He is traitor. Comrade Yeh can operate ship with you.”
“Captain,” Klein said softly. “You don’t understand the situation. We can only take essential personnel. The bomb crew and a minimum number to get the ship back in operation. Any more will slow us down.”
From the crowd, Omar Tuttle shouted: “What happens to the rest of us? Scientific personnel and the like? We stay here and get nuked with the Cygnans?”
Klein’s otter head jerked around, trying to identify the speaker. “We won’t bomb this pod of the ship,” he said smoothly. “We can cripple the ship with a low-yield bomb in the drive section, placed fifteen or more miles down the shaft. With any luck you can stay alive until Earth can rescue you. In the meantime you’ll all be no worse off than you are now.”
“Crud!” a peppery voice yelled. “It’d take years to get up another Jupiter expedition. What the hell do you think the Cygnans will be doing all that time? And then what? You think the crew is going to fight a billion Cygnans hand to hand and get us out alive? We’re stuck here and we’d better make the best of it!”
Klein located the voice. “You’re one of the ones who’s coming with us, Kiernan. You’ll be needed to reestablish a shipboard ecology.”
“The hell I am! I’m needed right here!”
“You’ll shut up and obey orders!” Klein snapped. “Or I’ll have you up on Reliability Board charges when we get back!”
Kiernan started to say something, then thought better of it as Fiaccone appeared next to him with a length of pipe. People had started to edge away from Kiernan, leaving a clear space around him, Jameson noted wryly. They didn’t want to get involved. Mention of the Reliability Board had done that, though Earth was half a billion miles away. You had that kind of prudence embedded in your bones when you grew up working for GovCorp.