"Trouble, Captain," his voice came faintly, as if from outside the boat. Chandra boosted both power and gain, and Goode's next words were clearer. "One of the lines of the boat's cradle is jammed—something's dug into the mesh where I can't get at it. I'll need a laser torch to cut it."
"Damn. The nearest one's probably in the forward hobby room." Chandra briefly considered dropping back to one gee while Goode was traveling, but immediately abandoned the idea. At this late stage that would force extra high-gee deceleration to still get to the rendezvous position on time, and there was no guarantee they had the fuel for that.
Goode read her mind, long-distance. "Don't worry, I can make it. What's the latest on the Intruder?"
"As of four minutes ago, holding steady. At a light-minute to the nearest tachship, though, that could be a little old."
"I get the point. On my way."
The minutes crawled by. Eyes still on the read-outs, Chandra mentally traced out Goode's path: out the bay, turn right, elevator or stairway down two decks, along a long corridor, into the Number Two hobby and craft shop; secure a torch from the locked cabinet and return. Even with twice-normal weight she thought she was giving him plenty of time, but she was halfway through her third tracing when the drive abruptly cut off.
The sudden silence and weightlessness caught her by surprise, and she wasted two or three seconds fumbling at the radio switch. "Goode!" she shouted. "Where the hell are you?"
There was no reply. She waited, scanning the final location figures. Sure enough, the Origami had overshot the proper position by nearly eighty meters. She was just reaching for her power controls when the radio boomed.
"I'm back," Goode said, panting heavily. "I didn't trust the elevator—didn't realize how hard the trip back would be. Sorry."
"Never mind; just get to work. Is there anything you can hang onto? I've got to run the nose jets."
"Go ahead. But, damn, this torch is a genuine toy. I don't know how long it'll take to cut the boat loose."
A chill ran down Chandra's spine, and it was all she could do to keep from hitting the main drive and getting them the hell out of there. "Better not be long, partner. It's just you and me and a runaway monorail out here."
"Yeah. Hey—couldn't you call for a tachship to come and get us?"
"I already thought of that. But the nearest tachship is only a light-minute out, way too close to get here in one jump. He'd have to jump out a minimum of two A.U., then jump back here. Calculating the direction and timing for two jumps that fine-tuned would take almost twenty minutes, total."
"Damn. I didn't know that—I've never trained for tachships." A short pause. "The first three strands are cut; seven to go. Minute and a half, I'd guess."
"Okay." Chandra was watching the read-outs closely. "We're almost back in position; I'll be down there before you're done. The boat ready otherwise?"
"Ready, waiting, and eager."
"Not nearly as eager as I am." A squirt of the main drive to kill their velocity as the nose jets fell silent; one more careful scan of the read-outs—"I'm done. See you below."
Goode was on the second to the last of the cable strands when she arrived. "Get in and strap down," he told her, not looking up.
She did, wriggling into the pilot's couch, and was ready by the time he scrambled in the opposite side. Without waiting for him to strap down, she hit the "release" button.
They were under two gees again practically before clearing the hull. Holding the throttle as high as it would go, Chandra confirmed that they were moving at right angles to the Intruder's path. Only then did she glance at the chrono.
Ninety seconds to impact.
Next to her, Goode sighed. "I don't think we're going to make it, Chandra," he said, his voice more wistful than afraid.
Chandra opened her mouth to say something reassuring—but it was the radio that spoke. "Avis T-466 to Origami lifeboat; come in?"
A civilian tachship? "Lifeboat; Captain Carey here. Listen, you'd better get the hell out of—"
"I know," the voice interrupted. "I eavesdropped a bit on your problems via radio. You're running late, but I'm right behind you. Kill your drive; I think I've got time to grapple onto you."
Chandra hadn't bothered to look at the 'scope yet, but even as she killed the drive Goode was pointing at it. "There he is. Coplanar course, intercept vector, two-five gee...." The blip changed direction slightly, and Chandra realized suddenly that an amateur was at the controls.
Goode realized it, too. Muttering something, he jabbed at the computer keyboard, kicking in the drive again. "Tachship, we're shifting speed and vector to match yours at intercept; just hold your course," he called. "You've got standard magnetic grapples?"
"Yes, and they're all set. Sit tight; here I come."
The seconds ticked by. The blip on the 'scope was coming up fast... and then it was on top of them, and the lifeboat lurched hard as the grapples caught. "Gotcha!" the radio shouted. "Hang on!"
And with seconds to spare—
The universe vanished. Blackness filled the viewports, spilled like a physical thing into the lifeboat. For five long seconds—
And the sun exploded directly in front of them, brighter than Chandra had seen it for weeks. A dozen blips crawled across the 'scope, and the lifeboat's beacon-reader abruptly came to life, informing them they were six thousand kilometers north-west-zenith of Earth's Number Twelve navigational beacon.
Beside her, Chandra felt Goode go limp with released tension. "Still with me?" the radio asked.
"Sure are," Chandra said, wiping the sweat off her palms. "I don't know how to thank you, Mr.—?"
"Dr. Louis Du Bellay," the voice identified himself. "And don't thank me yet. If what you did out there didn't work, there's a worse death coming for all of us."
Chandra had almost forgotten about that. The thought sobered her rising spirits considerably. "You're right. Can you get us into contact with Peacekeeper HQ? We need to report in."
"I can maybe do better than that. Come aboard and we'll find out."
—
They were given special priority to land, and a car was standing by for them at the field.
General Carey was waiting outside the Situation Room. "I ought to pull your pilot's license for going out there against specific Peacekeeper orders," he told Du Bellay half-seriously, even as he gave his daughter a bear hug. "If Mahendra hadn't confessed to helping you get hold of that tachship I probably would. But he's too good a man to lose to a court-martial. Let's get inside; the Chasers have been reporting in for nearly twenty minutes."
Mahendra looked up as the group approached. "Captain Carey and Officer Goode? Congratulations; it looks like you've done it."
Chandra felt a lump the thickness of ion shielding in her throat. "We slowed him?"
"No, but you deflected him a couple hundredths of a second in the right direction."
"Confirmed?" General Carey asked sharply, as if not daring to believe it.
"Confirmed, sir," Mahendra nodded. "He'll be passing through the upper solar chromosphere instead of deep into the photosphere. We'll get some good flares and a significant radiation increase for a few weeks, but nothing much worse than that."
"And the Intruder hasn't tried to correct his course?" Du Bellay asked quietly.
Mahendra's expression was both sad and grim. "No, Doctor."
Puzzled, Chandra glanced between her father, Mahendra, and Du Bellay, all of whom wore the same look. Even Goode's face was starting to change... and suddenly she understood. "You mean... the impact killed all of them?"
Carey put his arm around her shoulders. "We had no choice, Chandra. It was a matter of survival. You understand, don't you?"
She sighed and, reluctantly, nodded. Goode took her arm and led her to a nearby chair. Sitting there, holding tightly to his hand, she watched with the rest of the Situation Room as the computer plot of the Intruder's position skimmed the sun's surface and shot out once more toward deep space. What had they been like, she wondered numbly... and how many of them had she killed so that Earth could live?