Now to get the auxiliary antennas, he said to himself. I’ll have to move in closer.
“Shooting at us?” Nodon’s voice went high with sudden fright.
“Fookin’ bastard,” George growled. “Get into your suit. Quick!”
Nodon bolted from his chair and went to the hatch. He tapped out the keyboard code swiftly and the hatch swung open all the way.
“The air pressure is falling,” he called over his shoulder as George followed him down the passageway toward the airlock.
George was thinking, If we had the bloody laser on board we could give the bastard a taste of his own medicine. But the laser was sitting on the asteroid and its power pack was recharging; at least, it had been until the generator had been hit.
As they scrambled into their suits, George said, “We’d better power down the ship. Save the batteries.”
Nodon was already pulling his bubble helmet over his head. “I’ll go to the bridge and do it,” he said, his voice muffled by the helmet.
“Turn off everything!” George yelled after his retreating back. “Let ’em think we’re dead!”
He added silently, It won’t be far from wrong, either.
Nodon returned from the bridge as George was closing the neck seal of his helmet. Leaning toward the kid so their helmets touched, he said, “Don’t even use the suit radio. Play dead.”
The kid looked worried, but he forced a sickly grin as he nodded back to George.
They got to the airlock and went out together. George grasped Nodon’s suited arm and, without using his jetpack, pushed off toward the big slabs of ores attached to Matildas fusion engine. Get into the shadow of those chunks, he thought. Huddle up close to ’em and maybe this fookin’ killer won’t see us.
Perspective is tricky in microgravity. Once George and his young crewman got to the nearest of the slabs, it seemed as if they were lying on a huge hard bed, side by side, looking up at the slowly-revolving shape of their habitation module as it swung on its long tether.
The other ship glided into George’s view. It was small, little more than a hab unit set atop a fusion engine and a set of bulbous propellant tanks. It looked almost like a cluster of mismatched grapes. Then he recognized the bulky shape of a high-power laser hanging just below the hab module. This ship was meant to be a destroyer, nothing else.
The guide beam from the ship’s auxiliary laser played over Matilda’s habitation module. George watched as the smaller ship maneuvered leisurely, the evil red spot of the guide beam sliding away from the hab unit. For a moment it was lost in the depth of space, but then George’s heart clutched in his chest. The red spot was moving across the slab to which he and Nodon were clinging.
He knows we’re here! George thought, sweat breaking out on his face. He’s gonna slice us!
But the red spot slid across the slab more than ten meters below their boots. It stopped on the bell-shaped nozzle of their fusion engine, then walked slowly up to the throat of the nozzle. A light flashed there. George blinked against the sudden, unexpected glare.
Nodon bumped his helmet against George’s. “The engine!” he whimpered.
Another flash. This time George saw shards of metal fly off the rocket nozzle, glinting briefly in the pale sunlight as they spun out of sight, into the endless darkness.
Again the laser fired. This time it hit the piping that fed cryogenic hydrogen into the nozzle’s cooling capillaries. Fookin’ bastard knows his business, George thought grimly. He’s disabled the engine with three bloody shots.
The attacking ship maneuvered leisurely, drifting out of George’s sight, beyond the edge of the slab on which he and Nodon hid. For moments that seemed like hours, the two men lay there unmoving. What are we gonna do? George wondered. How can we get home without the main engine?
In the darkness, George felt Nodon’s helmet touch his again. “Do you think he’s gone?” the young man asked.
Before George could answer, he caught another glint in the corner of his eye. Pushing slightly away from the slab, he saw that their attacker was punching holes in their propellant tanks. Thin cold jets of cryogenic hydrogen and helium-three hissed noiselessly into the vacuum, brief whitish wisps of gas that dissipated into the emptiness of space in an eyeblink.
“We’re movin’,” George muttered, even though Nodon could not hear him. Like a child’s balloon when he lets the air out of it, the gases escaping from the punctured tanks were pushing Matilda slowly away from the asteroid.
“We’re gonna get a fookin’ tour of the solar system,” George said aloud. “Shame we’ll be too dead to enjoy the sights.”
CHAPTER 19
“I’m surprised he hasn’t had us thrown out of this hotel already,” Fuchs said morosely.
Pancho Lane tried to smile encouragingly. Lars and Amanda both looked so down, so—bewildered was the word for it, Pancho decided. Overrun by events and their own emotions. “Hey, don’t worry about the hotel,” she said, trying to sound cheerful. “Astro’ll pay for it if Humphries reneges.”
Fuchs was still in the light gray business suit he’d worn for his meeting with Humphries. Amanda was wearing a pale turquoise knee-length frock, modest enough, but she still made Pancho feel gawky and shapeless, as usual. Mandy didn’t mean to, but whenever Pancho was near her she felt like a beanpole standing beside a vid star.
“We’re going back to Ceres,” Amanda said. “Back to prospecting.”
The two of them were sitting glumly on the sofa set beneath a hologram of Valles Marineris on Mars: the grandest Grand Canyon in the solar system.
“What about Helvetia, Ltd.?” Pancho asked. “You’re not gonna let Humphries muscle you out of business, are you?”
Fuchs grunted. “What business? Our inventory went up in flames.”
“Yeah, but the insurance oughtta cover enough of it to get you started again.”
Fuchs shook his head wearily.
“You got a lot of good will out there on Ceres,” Pancho urged. “Shouldn’t oughtta let that go to waste.”
Amanda’s brows rose hopefully.
“Don’t want to let Humphries get a monopoly, do you, Lars ol’ buddy?”
“I’d prefer to strangle him,” Fuchs growled.
Pancho leaned back in her chair, stretched her long lean legs. “Tell you what: Astro’ll advance you the credit to restock your warehouse, up to the limit that the insurance will pay you.”
Fuchs looked at her. “You can do this?”
“I’m learnin’ how to play the board of directors. I got a clutch of ’em on my side. They don’t want Humphries to monopolize the Belt any more’n you do.”
Amanda asked, “Is your group strong enough to let you do what you just offered to do?”
Nodding, Pancho replied, “Take my word for it.”
Turning to her husband, Amanda said hopefully, “Lars, we could start Helvetia all over again.”
“With a smaller inventory,” he grumbled. “The insurance won’t cover everything we lost.”
“But it’s a start,” Amanda said, smiling genuinely.
Fuchs did not smile back. He looked away from his wife. Pancho thought there was something going on inside his head that he didn’t want Mandy to see.
“I’m going back to prospecting,” he said, his eyes focused on the far wall of the sitting room.
“But—”
“I’ll take Starpower back as soon as the current lease on her is finished.”
“But what about Helvetia?” Amanda asked.