Passage at Arms (34 page)

Alarm. We go norm. “Now, Mr. Piniaz.”

The result is unspectacular. The missile vaporizes, but I can’t catch its death on screen.

“Commander, Weapons. We’ve lost the graser for good.”

This junk pile is falling apart.

The dream dance on the borders of death continues another half hour. We knock out four pursuing missiles, lose another laser. Westhause squanders fuel tinkering with our inherent velocity. As always, the Commander keeps his own counsel. I haven’t the foggiest what he’s planning. I try to lose myself in my troubles.

A change. More excitement. I look around. Three missiles have us zeroed. How do we duck this time? We don’t have a time margin to fool with anymore. If we stop to take one, the others will get us.

“Commander, Engineering.” Varese is back. “Five minutes available hydrogen.”

“Thank you, Mr. Varese. Max power. Shunt as much into storage as you can.”

I pan to Canaan. Getting close now. Walking distance.

“Sir?” Varese asks.

“Wait one. Mr. Westhause, proceed. Lieutenant, just give me all the stored power you can.”

The Commander loses himself in thought. I look at the tank, at Westhause. He’s stopped dancing. Canaan is expanding like a child’s balloon blowing up. We’re running straight in.

The Commander switches on shipwide comm. “Men, this’s the last hurdle, and the last trick in our sack. This’s been a good ship. She’s had good crews, and this one was the best. But now she’s done. She can’t run and she can’t fight.”

What’s this defeatist talk? The Old Man never gives up.

“We’re going to assume a cis-lunar orbit and separate compartments. That should satisfy the other firm. Rescue will round us up. During our leave I’ll have you all out to Kent for a party in the ship’s memory.”

I can smell the pines, hear the breeze in their boughs. Is Marie really gone? Sharon... did you bring your Climber through, honey? At least a dozen were lost against that convoy....

The crew answer the Old Man with silence. It’s the most compelling stillness I’ve ever experienced.

What’s to say? Name another option.

“Men, we made history. I’m proud to have served with you.” For the first time ever, the Old Man sits down while he has the conn.

He’s done. He’s shot his last round. But restless banks of smoke still brew around him. In a weary voice, he asks, “How long, Mr. Westhause?”

We’re making a final, brief hyper fly. Skipping in millisecond jumps. Keeping the missiles confused.

“Two minutes thirty... five seconds. Commander.”

Strange, that Westhause. Unshakable. Still as professional as the day we boarded. Someday he’ll command a Climber with the cool of the Old Man.

“Chief Nicastro, give us a separation countdown. Throdahl, give Command another squirt on our intentions. Mr. Westhause will give you the orbital data. Use Emergency Two.”

What will the missiles do when their target splits five ways? Three missiles. Somebody is going to make it.

Give me a break, ye gods of war.

There’s a chance. Not a good one, but a chance. One small point going our way. Those three doom-stalkers can’t be controlled by their masters. They’re dependent on their own dull-witted brains. Which is why we’ve stayed ahead this long.

My stomach constricts ever more tightly. Fear. The moment of truth is roaring toward us.

We’ve passed some barrier the enemy won’t yet hazard. Maybe Planetary Defense has maintained a tight death pocket round TerVeen. Only those three killer imbeciles continue dogging our trail.

On camera. There’s TerVeen. Battered all to hell, but still in business, a spider spinning webs of fire.

The Climber zigzags. Westhause and Varese exchange curses. Final seconds before orbit.

I’ll say this. When you’re scared shitless it’s hard to concentrate on anything else.

Write. Keep your hands busy. Anything for a distraction.

Nicastro’s soft voice drones, “... nine... eight... seven...” Six-five-four-three-two-one-ZERO!

Bang!

You’re dead.

No. I’m not. Not yet.

Barrages of sound rip through the hull as the explosive bolts go. Perfectly. God bless. Something is working right. The force slams me from the side. Our rocket pack blasts us away from the rest of the ship.

“We have separation and ignition on Ops and Engineering, Commander.” How very perceptive.

Head twist. Glare at the tank. Where are those missiles? Can’t tell. The antennae were mounted on the torus. We’re flying blind....

Thrust ends. The plug-ups break it up around the Weapons bulkhead. I feel light-headed-----Free-fall. No artificial gravity.

The Commander drifts out of his seat.

The serials are continuing in the rest of the ship. Ship’s Services will be last to separate. The din there must be murderous. Charlie, I hope you make it. Kriegshauser, you never did get back with that name.

“We have separation on Weapons, Commander.”

I still have one outside camera. I watch the rockets flame. Jump the magnification. There’s the torus, wobbling, spinning, dwindling rapidly, illuminated by the rockets. It shows silvery patches where beams licked it.

The Climber slides out of view. A crescent of Canaan appears. We’re tumbling toward the dawn. I hope Rescue can handle the end-over-end.

The sun rises. It’s brilliant, majestic, as it crawls over the curve of the world we’ve lusted after so long.

Where are those missiles?

There’s something special about a mother star materializing from behind a daughter planet. It fills me with the awe of creation. I feel it now, even though death bays at my heels. This, and perhaps clouds, are the supreme arguments for the existence of a Creator.

Time to check the torus again.

My God! A new sun!...

Berberian says, “The torus. First missile took the torus.” His voice is a toad’s croak.

Well, naturally. The torus is the biggest target. It’ll be over in seconds.... Sighs all through the compartment. A diminution in tension. We have a fifty-fifty chance now.

“Hey! Torus again!” Berberian shouts. “Goddamned second fucking missile took the torus, too!”

“Let’s have proper reports,” the Commander admonishes.

I could howl for joy.

And yet... there’s that third bird, lagging the other two. Big black monster with my name engraved on its teeth.

Got to get Canaan on screen. I want a world in my eyes when I go.

What a sweet world it is. What a beautiful world. I’ve never wanted any woman, not even Sharon, as badly as I want that world.

“Three won’t target on the torus,” Laramie says.

“Shut your cocksucker, will you?” Rose snarls.

Piniaz will try with his one laser, but it won’t be enough. He’s failed twice already, hasn’t he?

Nevertheless, the Old Man has won. There will be survivors.

If Fisherman’s Devil exists, his favorite torture must be guilt. Three more compartments out there, and me here hoping the hammer falls on one of them. Part of me is utterly without shame.

A flash brightens my screen. “Gone.” I stammer getting the word out.

“Who?” a voice demands.

“Berberian? Throdahl?” the Commander asks.

Seconds pass. I scribble frantically, then wait, pencil poised. Throdahl says, “Commander, I can’t get a response from Ship’s Services.”

“Ah, Charlie. Shit.”

“That’s it, men,” the Commander says. “Secure. Mr. Yanevich, take charge.” He pauses to knock ashes from his pipe. “Emergency watch bill.”

Kriegshauser. Vossbrink. Charlie Bradley. Light. Shingle-decker. Tahtaburun. All gone? No. Some were in Engineering.

Poor Charlie. He had a future. Crapped out first patrol. Welcome to the Climbers, kid.

I’ll mourn him. I liked him.

Wonder if Kriegshauser made it. He hated being away from his little galley.

Well, if he didn’t, he doesn’t have a problem anymore. Too bad I couldn’t help him.

Look on the positive side. They didn’t hurt. They never knew what hit them.

Nothing to do now but wait for Rescue. Wait and wonder if we’ll ever hear their approach signal.

Going to find an empty hammock. Probably won’t sleep, but I need a change. Need to get away.

Chatter down below. “Think they’ll throw anything else?” That’s Cannon. “We’re sitting ducks.”

“Don’t worry your pointy head, Patriot,” Nicastro says. “We won’t know it when it hits us.” The Chief refuses to believe there’s a tomorrow.

“How long we got to wait?” Berberian asks.

“Throdahl? Anything?”

“Sorry, Chief.”

“As long as we have to, Berberian.”

Berberian says, “Thro, get on the horn and tell them to get their asses out here.”

“I did, Berberian. What the fuck more you want?”

“Pussy. Pussy and more pussy. Whole platoons of pussy. Just line them up and I’ll lay them down.”

I was right. Can’t sleep. I roll,. Down through the tangle.

The Commander is seated near Westhause, writing something. He rises, struggles up to his cabin. Even in free-fall he finds the climb hard work. He’s burned out. Nothing left.

You got us home, old friend. Hang on to that.

“Let’s get on it here,” the First Watch Officer snaps. “We’re supposed to conserve power.” His tone is relaxed, confident. The tone of a Commander. He’s come along. “Carmon, secure the tank. Mr. Westhause, Chief Canzoneri, lock your memory banks and close up shop. You too, Junghaus. Berberian, Throdahl, stay warm. Might need to help Rescue. Laramie, secure the cooler and atmosphere scrubber. Going to get cold anyway. Give us a spritz of oxygen while you’re at it. Chief Nicastro, secure some lights. If you don’t have something to do, crap out.”

Men lying still use fewer calories and perspire less. The First Watch Officer is gentling us into the starvation leg of our journey.

“Hope to fuck they hurry,” Throdahl grumbles. He keeps tinkering, trying to find something on the Rescue band. “I’m hungry, thirsty, horny, and filthy. Not necessarily in that order.”

“I’ll buy that,” Rose says.

“What the hell does that mean?”

“That you’re filthy, Thro. Right down to the stinking core.”

The pace picks up. Laramie joins in. Berberian contributes the occasional quip. They’re feeling better.

For me the waiting is intolerable. We’re too near home.

Laramie moans something about he’s going to perish if he don’t get some pussy in the next twenty-four hours.

“You’ll last,” Fisherman snarls. The men look at nun, mouths open. No. He’s not joining the game. The cut-low session recesses. Junghaus’s shipmates aren’t insensitive.

“At least you had water,” the usually silent Scarlatella grumbles. I roll slightly, peer through the tangled piping. Lubomir Scarlatella is a strange one. He’s Electronic Technician for Chief Canzoneri. I don’t think he’s said a hundred words all patrol. Silent, proficient, imperturbable. You hardly notice him. Now hysteria edges his voice.

“Until it was a choice between using power to recycle it or to heat the ship.” A sublime calm visibly overtakes Junghaus. In a gentle voice he begins quoting scripture. Nobody shuts him up.

I slept. I don’t believe it. Twelve hours. Might have gone longer if Zia hadn’t wanted the hammock. Clambered down to my old seat. Listened to the half-hearted murmur of the men. Mostly it was speculation about what’s happened to our friends in the other compartments.

Hour fourteen. Thro lets out a whoop. “Here they are!”

“Here who are?” Mr. Westhause asks. He has the watch, such as it is.

“Rescue... goddamned. They’re going after Weapons. The bastards.” He slugs his console angrily.

‘Take it easy. We’ll get our turn.”

The sons of bitches!

You don’t know how selfish you can be till you’re in a survival situation seeing someone else being saved first. Forty-two minutes, every one spent hating and cursing Piniaz’s cutthroats.

Now our turn. With Rescue cursing us as heartily as we cursed Weapons. It takes them three hours to get the spin off the compartment.

“Not going to tow us,” Throdahl announces. “They’re going to take us out right here. Going to scab a tube to the top hatch.”

A chung echoes through the compartment. More delicate sounds follow it. Someone is walking around on the roof.

Yanevich waves me over, beckons Mr. Westhause. “Let’s get up by that hatch. We’ll have to keep order.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ll see.”

I do. We have to threaten violence when the fresh water comes through. Some people seem willing to kill for a drink. We’re lucky they’re really too weak to riot.

“Take it easy!” I snap at Zia. “Drink too much and you’ll make yourself sick.”

Yanevich says, “Throdahl, get back to the radio. They’ll tell us when to open the hatch.”

The stench of bile assails my nostrils. Zia has puked his stomach empty. “I told you-----” Never mind. He had to learn.

“Undog the hatch,” Throdahl yells. “They’ve got the tube on.”

Yanevich checks the telltales on our side, unlocks the hatch. Several men surge up behind him.

A pair of Marines squat outside the hatch. “Get back,” one says. They’re wearing combat suits. “You don’t get out yet.” They slither in, station themselves beside the opening.

A med team follows them. A doctor and two medical corps-men in white plague suits. What is this? Are we carriers of the Black Death?

The men crowd round our visitors, touching, murmuring with the awe of primitives. They can’t really believe they’re saved.

Have these rescuers ever seen anything this bad? We’re worse than a bunch of galley slaves. Unbathed for ages. Un-shaved. Clothed in moldy rags. Skin masked by scab and scale. Some men losing hair.

Lucky the med team aren’t female. Good way to get torn apart. These men aren’t human anymore.

In a few months the process of degeneration will begin anew, aboard a new Climber. But I won’t be going out. Thank god. Not again. Neither will Chief Nicastro...

The Chief. “Steve. Waldo. Where’s the Chief?”

“Nicastro?” Yanevich says. “He was right... come on.”

We spread out. Not much to search. Westhause finds him immediately. “Here. DC station. Medic!”