John Racham (4 page)

sibly
enough to follow a ship on the way out, but
why would they bother. And even if they had, just out of curiosity, and even
if they had detected the explosion and tried to guess what it was, they would
automatically assume that the ship and contents were lost. With varying
emotions, depending on who was doing the feeling, they would write off one
staff ship, one unloved admiral, one lieutenant, and one recently promoted
technical sergeant
All
dead.

As
for a search party, well, Evans obviously had no idea at all just what that
atmosphere out there was like. Completely enclosed in a suit, a man could
endure for as long as his lung-pack would hold him. Four hours. Two hours out
and two back. And if you got more than a mile away from the Dome in that time,
you were doing extremely well. Query sagged in his seat, wondering at the
primitive survival instinct that had driven him to pull the emergency switch.
How frail the barrier was between intellect and the push of animal
instinctl
Sitting like this, passably calm, he could
contemplate death with indifference, although it might have been faster, more
merciful if he had kept still before. But should another explosive moment
come, he mused, he would probably do something like that all over again. Flesh
and blood, glands and guts, they ruled in the crunch.

"Don't
we have any outside sensors at all?" Evans growled, stirring Query out of
his reverie. "Strikes me we ought to have
something
on battery power.
Air-conditioning,
if nothing else.
It's like a furnace in here!"

It
was
hot. Query felt the sweat trickling down his face and chest. But the
mention of battery power stirred something else in his mind.

"My
instruments are all dead, sir." Lieutenant Evans was turned away still,
leaning over her panel. She craned her head around now. "Sergeant, would
you know if there's any way of switching to emergency power?"

"Might be."
Query
rose
, his suit sticking to him, and went
to lean over her shoulder, noticing that she had undone her front again, that
the white globes of her breasts were
sheeny
with
sweat. More primitive instincts, he thought, as he reached past her and moved a
switch or two, pushing her hand aside. "Three position switches," he
murmured.

26

"That
has to mean something. That's power. That's off. So . . ." and he twisted
the switch backward, to hear it click, to see a needle lift and shiver.
"That seems to be it. . ."

The
control room lurched suddenly, throwing him against her so that he had to grab
to keep his balance.
And to let go again, hurriedly.

"Atmospheric
turbulence," he muttered. "You have an airspeed reading now.
And outside temperature.
Nothing on
direction.
No, that's dead. No lift or thrust readings, either. But the
proximity gauges work, see?"

"Thank
you." She tilted her head back to smile at him, and she was very close,
very inviting, so that he had a wild urge to touch her . . . and her eyes were
suddenly fathomless brown wells under the transparent plastic of her
spectacles. Then the control room bucked and lurched and swung, and the moment
passed. He staggered back to his seat and fell into it.

"So
far as
I
can read them," she sounded unsteady,
"the outside temperatures are crazy, in the nineties.
Must
be friction.
Guessing between airspeed and the proximity gauges, we seem
to be falling at about eighteen/twenty miles per hour, with about a mile to go
. . ."

The
derelict bounced again and spun crazily. Query hung
on,
saw her shove back from her panel with blood suddenly streaming from her nose.
Pain and suffering, he thought, and abundant beauty . . . and all for nothing.
He saw her grope in an upper pocket of the tunic top that gaped free to get out
a tissue and dab at her nose.
So futile and purposeless.
What a way to die! He recalled his earlier promise—it seemed a lifetime away
now—
I'll be back.
That strange humanlike
creature, out there in the jungle.
He would never know, now. And that was the real loss. Not death, but
the end of knowing. So many things he had never done or seen or known; whole
areas of life left untouched. He wondered if she felt anything like
that?
She looked to be about his age, within a year or two,
and there probably were all kinds of things she had never seen or done, too.
But, he ridiculed himself, she wouldn't think of it, because she didn't know,
yet, that she was dead!

"This is all rather pointless,
sir." She'd found an edge for

her
voice from somewhere. "I've only indications, none too reliable. No kind
of operational controls at all. We're quite helpless to do anything except
watch and wait for it."

"That's
what I said," Evans growled. "All we have to do. Just hang on. Ride
it out."

"Yes, sir.
We should
touch down
in about a minute from
now!"

"Shed some of this
damned heat. Like an oven in here!"

"Getting
close," she warned, turning her head . . . and a monstrous hammer hit the
deck under them. Query sank, winded, into his seat, grunting against the
impact. The lights winked out. In the dark came the squeal and grind of tortured
metal and plastic. He surged upward as the weight went away for a moment,
then
sagged back again. Everything seemed to have torn loose
and be bouncing around, even the control room itself, creating a bedlam of
noise to which Evans added his roaring protest. Query clutched his seat
frantically. It felt as if it was rocking under him like a seesaw. Then
came
a teeth-chilling creak, a crack like doom, and the
sudden hissing roar of water. Query gasped as hot spray struck his face and
brought strange and pungent smells with it. His seat lurched, tossing him
forward across the power panel console. Hot water smashed down on his head,
making him gasp again, and struggle frantically to get clear, to draw back and
stand, knee-deep in water. Hot water!

There was a faint blue green glow through the
canopy, enough to let him see that the
glassite
had
split or burst under impact and that dark water was spurting in.

"We're
sinking!" Lieutenant Evans scrambled out of her seat and clung to his arm
fearfully. "We're sinking! We have to get out!" Her voice was shrill
over the roar of water and her clutch desperate.

"How?"
he shouted back at her. "All the hatches are self-sealing . . . and
they're underwater anyway, by now!"

"Through the roof!"
Evans roared. "Have to break it and get
out that way! Need a bar, something to bash with!" He looked wildly about,
grabbed at a scribble table that stood by the radio board on a single upright
pole, and tried to tear it loose by main force. That got him nowhere. Query
watched, again in that curiously indifferent mood. He was marginally aware of
the girl who clung to his

28
arm
, irrelevantly
puzzled that no vapor came from water so hot—but of course, the air
temperature was just as high—and he saw Evans sweat and strain and go scarlet in
the face.

"Try
unscrewing it, sir!" he called, and the old man grunted, twisted savagely,
and the tabletop spun, came free and dropped with a splash into the water.
Waist deep now.
Evans wrestled with the tube, got it free
and in his fist, brandishing it like a symbol of triumph. A titanium alloy tube
not quite five feet long, tough but feather light. A fat lot of good he was
going to do with that! Query watched him scramble unsteadily up on the radio
console, swaying against the roll of the water, to poise and jab up at the dim
green
glassite
. All he got was a noise. Snarling, he
drew back and did it again, harder. With the same negative result Furious, he
took the tube in both
hands,
half turned to where the
glassite
sloped, took aim and swung, clouting the panel fair
and square.

Query
winced in sympathy as the tube rebounded and spun away out of the old man's
grasp, glinting in the blue green glow. Almost without thought he stuck out his
hand and caught the thing, as Evans teetered, flailed the air, and fell backward
with a mighty splash into the water. The girl threw herself at him urgently,
angrily.

"Aren't you going to
do
anything?" she screamed.

"No.
Not yet. Not until we've settled below the level of that split, below the
inflow. Then we might have a chance to swim out."

Her face set into stark terror as she stared
up at him. "But—but I can't swim!" she cried. "I can't
swim!"

IV

H
e
took her
shoulders
,
pushed her away to stare at her in wonder.
Her dark hair was plastered down over her head and framed her pale face; the
absurd spectacles still miraculously clinging, bridging her nose; the swirling
water now coming up under her breasts, lifting them as she
panted
in fear.

"You
can't swim," he said, and wanted to laugh.
The ultimate
absurdity.
The origin of all life—didn't they say that?—in the sea. And
she couldn't swim! He shoved her away, heard the old man snorting and
spluttering his way to his feet and turned to him.

"We're
settling fast," he said, and it was true. The inrush of water was no more
than
a turbulence
over there. "We have a trapped
air pocket here that ought to keep us up awhile. Not for long, but enough to
give us a chance to swim out. Can you swim?"

"Eh?"
Evans wiped water away from his face and blew hard. "That damned rube's no
good. No weight to it.
Couldn't dent the stuff."

"I
said, can you swim?"

"Eh?
Swim? Yes, a bit.
Not very good at it.
Never had much
time . . . eh? Oh! By God! See what you mean. Duck under and swim clear, eh?
All right, it's the only way. Hot as hell in here. Be a relief to get in the
open. Off you go, Christine. Get well clear, mind. There'll be a hell of an
undertow when this thing goes under."

But
she hung back, staring at the water that lapped her, breast deep, and then at
the two men. "I can't swim!" she wailed. "I can't!"

"Get
a grip on
yourself
!" her father shouted.
"You can hold your breath, can't you? Duck under, can't you?"

"I can't!" she
screamed back at him. "I can't!"

She was almost off balance. Query could guess
her panic, could see her gasping fear. Her father lurched at her, putting out
his hand, and she backed, toppled and went under with a shriek and splutter, to
thrash her way to the surface and shriek again in terror. Evans splashed around
to glower at Query in disgust.

"What the hell are we
going to do with her?"

"You go on ahead, sir. Let me handle it.
She'll be all right. I can swim well enough for both of us."

The
old man hung on uncertainly, glancing from one to the other. She backed away
again, fearfully, lifting herself up in the water as if scared to go under
again, her breasts heaving violently. There was no time now for delicacy.
Query could swim, had been fond of the sport ever since he could remember, but
no one was good enough to dive and get out through that hole with a struggling

30
nonswimmer
to cope with. There was
only one way. He moved toward her gently, held out the alloy tube in one hand.
"Here," he said quietly, "catch hold of this. It will
help."

She
took it suspiciously, and he pulled her to him, then swung his right fist
around and over in a hard glancing blow that bounced off her jaw and put her
out instantly. Carrying on the movement, he caught her and crooked his arm
about her shoulders to hold her up.

"All
right, sir," he said, as matter-of-factly as he could. "Away you go
now. We'll be all right. I'll take care of it."

Evans
grunted. "Damn all females. Thought she was efficient! All right, here I
go!" and he sucked in a huge breath and ducked under, heading for the
hole, thrashing the water with more effort than achievement. Query waited,
cradling the girl against his shoulder, part of his mind marveling at the
persistent effort, the instinctive struggle against the inevitable. She was
quite beautiful like this, relaxed and unconscious, without those hard superior
expression lines. And those ridiculous spectacles were still tenaciously
there. Time enough, he thought, and the water was lapping his chin, so he drew
a deep breath and took aim for the ripples, slid under and struck out with one
arm, the flow serving to guide him.

The
gap was narrow and angular, but big enough to let him slip through, turn, and
hook her out after him; then up to the surface with strong kicks, dragging her
by the tunic collar of her suit. Once clear of the water he shifted his grip,
got his arm about her waist and hugged, suddenly, driving the breath out of
her mouth and nose, just to make sure she didn't choke. Shifting his grip again
he grabbed her collar once more, with the tube in the same fist, and began
stroking away from the canopy bubble that loomed up in the water. In a moment
he raised his voice.

"Hello! Admiral Evans!
Hello!"

"Over
here, Query.
Can't see a damned thing in this green soup.
Here.
This way.
All right?"

Query
struck out steadily, was soon able to see the white hair and pale face of the
old man. "We're all right, so far." He bobbed up in the water,
looking about. The mist was surprisingly clear just here, close to the water
surface. "That looks like darker stuff, that way," he said. "We
might as