When the countdown reached zero the ship shuddered like a wet dog emerging from its bath. Plates, frames, and racks of equipment groaned. The bridge lights suddenly flickered out and were replaced by the glow of two of the four emergency panels, the other two having failed months or possibly years before and their death never having been noticed, or if so, the failed units never having been replaced.
In my guts I felt the twisting, tearing shudder of a return to E-space barely ahead of a collapsing bubble, the leakage of Non-E slipping past the dying fields and surging through my flesh and bone. With a final subliminal shake the Orion settled into normal space. An instant later our main power flickered back on.
“Calipha, report!” I ordered over my headset.
“The displacers are shut down. It’ll take me a while to check them out. The engines are at nominal—no red lights.”
“Mandell, check out the rest of the ship for damage or injuries—”
“I’ll do it,” O’Bannion broke in, anxious to get the status of his command.
“—And turn off that damn Prox alarm.”
An instant later the beeping ceased and I keyed up several views generated by the proximity system: the first, a three-D schematic showing the relative positions of the Orion and the intruder; the second, a computer-generated, enlarged and enhanced view of the Orion and the other object; and lastly, a real-time visible-light view from the side of the Orion toward the point where the other object was supposed to be located. This third image showed only the black of interstellar space speckled with cold, distant stars.
Quickly, I ran through the spectrum down to IR then switched to active laser and radar. A dot about the size of a BB held at arms’ length appeared, and I zoomed the display until the image filled the plate. The object wasn’t a natural phenomenon, but I hadn’t expected it to be. To the best of my knowledge, no one had ever detected any natural objects in Non-E Space.
The thing was sort of a half globe with a bulge in the front, rather like a lady bug with a very small head. According to the computer it was about the size of an in-system shuttle or a small courier ship, perhaps 5 percent of the volume of the Orion.
“Mandell, is that thing—” the Captain began but was immediately cut off.
“—I’ve got a distress beacon. Claims she’s the Montclair out of Piedmont. Engine failure. Only one person on board. Requesting assistance.”
“Dondero, take the boat and a couple of men. And draw a weapon from the arms’ locker. I don’t trust coincidences.”
“Yes, sir.” I slipped out of the bridge and made my way “up” toward the blister where the gig was stored just aft of the forward hold. On the way I called up two of the Cargo Master’s AS’s and ordered them to meet me at the hatch. I detoured just long enough to retrieve a pistol from the arms locker in the Captains’ cabin. By the time I arrived at his quarters he had already transmitted the code to release the panel at my command.
I’ve seen some old movies where the hero has some kind of a “ray gun” that fires a multicolored beam that burns its way through the villain’s chest. It’s always amazed me that it could do that to a man and yet be safe to use on board a ship operating in hard vacuum. Ridiculous, of course.
The Orion carried four old-fashioned pistols loaded with soft plastic bullets. They were useless against any target farther than nine or ten yards away and the loads were reduced so that at only two feet the projectile would not penetrate a standard sixteenth-inch-thick instrument panel housing. But then all they really needed to do was punish human flesh, and they did that very well. I know I wouldn’t want to go up against someone armed with one of those guns.
I grabbed a loaded HKC ten-millimeter automatic together with an extra eighteen shot clip and hurried up to meet the two men from Essabhoy’s crew, Sternman and Phelps, who were already waiting for me at the hatch for the midship boat blister.
“What’s up, Mr. Dondero?” Phelps, a slender man with a shaved head and lustrous, pitch-black skin asked me uneasily when he saw the bulge under my coat.
“Nothing to worry about. We’ve got a small ship in distress, only one passenger. The captain just wants to play it safe is all. OK, let’s get to it.”
I punched in my CAC, checked that the atmosphere light was green, then popped the hatch. The boat smelled of damp iron and ammonia and a hundred other spaceship odors from overheated insulation to rancid machine oil, all concentrated in a small, cold room whose air had not circulated through the scrubbers in two months or more. The boat (it had no name any more than the rowboat tied to the stern of a schooner would have a name) had seats for eight—two people at the command panel and two rows of three seats each behind. In shape the boat was similar to the Orion, a cylinder with a large Plex screen at one end with the seats down the center of the pipe. When stored, the floor of the boat was close to the hull so that “up” and “down” were what we would expect them to be, meaning we climbed “down” into the boat from the “B1” corridor. Of course, in flight, the boat’s occupants were weightless. Once I had settled into the command chair, I took a quick look around the cabin and confirmed that both my men had strapped themselves in. Then I turned back to the panel and keyed the intercom.
“Captain, we’re ready to separate,” I informed the bridge, then grabbed the joystick at the right center of the board.
“Acknowledged,” came the terse reply, followed by, “In three… two… one…” then a shudder, and a terrific acceleration as the craft was flung from the Orion. Then all trace of apparent gravity disappeared. I pressed the button on the top center of the joystick, activating the control, then spun the craft until the heads-up display overlaid on the front port showed that we were heading for the Montclair. It took only a few minutes to reach her, and except for her salmon-colored skin accentuated by teal-blue stripes, she looked identical to the image I had seen on the Orion’s screens. I positioned us facing directly away from the Montclair’s main port and keyed the boat’s radio to her frequency.
“Montclair, this is Second Officer Harry Dondero, of the Orion out of Xanadu. Do you read me?”
“Orion, this is Slater Eves on the Montclair. Yes, I read you clearly.”
“Good. I’m going to mate our locks. When I give you the word, undog your main hatch.”
“That’s not necessary, Mr. Dondero. I’ve still got a little power left. I think that with a bit of luck I should be able to follow you back to your ship.”
Sure, that was a good idea—let an unknown vessel with malfunctioning engines and carrying an uninspected cargo power up and head straight for the Orion. Not likely!
“Negative, Mr. Eves. I’ll need to make a personal inspection of your vessel. Please make ready for docking.”
“I don’t like the idea of leaving the Montclair floating free out here. If you’re worried about me losing control, just attach a line and tow me over to your ship.”
“Sorry, Mr. Eves. Either let us on board to personally review your status, or find yourself another ride.”
“That doesn’t leave me much choice, does it?” Eves said testily.
Well, too bad. At that point I had problems of my own, namely, the Orion’s engines were down and we were floating around out here about eight light-years from the nearest inhabited planet.