“A crash site, huh?”
“You got it. Now it just happens the crash site is under a kind of overhang in an old volcanic cone—so the Study Station can’t see it. Only me and you know where it is!”
“If you’ve got photos, that might be proof enough for Hyperion …”
“Could be faked! You’ve got to get in closer, retrieve an artifact out of there. Take the real goods to Hyperion! You and me, we’ll split the take!”
“I don’t know—you told me it was Eridian—”
“Stop obsessing about that, dammit! This is even better! Listen, all you gotta do is wait till the Study Station is over the area—less than an hour from now. Then you take a DropCraft, give it the coordinates, drop almost right on top of the thing. You’ll hop out, grab a few artifacts, get back in the DropCraft, hit return, bing-bang-boom it’ll bring you up here and you’re on your way. We’ll be rich! Now—I got all the info you’ll need right here …”
“I dunno, Rans, sounds pretty risky. What can I expect to run into down there?”
“What? Oh-h-h—a rakk or two, or a skag whelp, little bitty spiderant maybe. There’s a gun on every DropCraft, don’t even worry about it.”
The DropCraft bay was in the bottom level of the Study Station. Zac walked along the semiflexible transparent
corridor, thirty meters long, between the ship and the station, glancing up through the shield glass at the moon over Pandora. He felt naked, exposed to space here, though a filtering force field insulated him from damaging radiation. He heard a whirring sound, glanced over his shoulder—something was flickering in the air back there: a small, disklike flying security drone. Was it following him? No big deal—probably it routinely patrolled the Study Station.
He entered the station proper, nodding to two scientists at a scanning monitor, and crossed hastily to the elevator. Theoretically, passengers on the
Homeworld Bound
had the run of the station while it was docked here, but the scientists always seemed annoyed by tourists.
He took the elevator down, thinking he heard that whirring again, this time coming from the elevator shaft overhead. Probably some servo noise.
He found six shiny DropCrafts lined up on the lowest level, in release bays. The little vessels, no bigger than a flying car, could be rented by the hour. His was craft number one.
DropCraft One was an iridescent teardrop-shaped vehicle designed mostly for emergency escapes, but it could be used for a quick visit to a narrow-gauge area. It carried just enough fuel for one trip straight down and one back up.
He would have to confess all to his wife—but only when he had the goods. Once he’d succeeded, actually had the money coming in, she’d be delighted. He hoped.
Zac hadn’t succeeded at much in recent years. He was a trained engineer, but he had a tendency to take shortcuts
in getting the work done, just so he could get the paycheck and move on to the next job. It’d worked until that portable bridge had gotten stuck halfway, stranding a dozen people between skyscrapers for three hours. The portable bridge had teetered in the air, might have crashed if he hadn’t flown over there on a quickchopper and reprogrammed it.
Zac felt a sick gnawing doubt as he climbed into the DropCraft’s cockpit, buckled himself into the seat, and read the coordinates into the navigator. Could Rans be setting him up? Was it all about the “advance” he’d given him for the landing coordinates? Rans had been a reliable guy in the old days, but he seemed different now. He stank of desperation.
Crazy chance he was taking, even if Rans was on the up-and-up. Zac was leaving his wife and son in orbit, and heading down to a hostile planet. True, he’d only be planetside for a few minutes. But there were risks—probably more than he could know. It was a planet of imponderables.
“Destination fixed and confirmed,”
said the craft’s computer.
“Close heat shield hatch and press ignition.”
That whirring came overhead, unmistakable this time.
He looked up, spotted the small, spherical drone hovering nearby, angling itself as if about to dart down at him.
So it
had
been following him. The expert Rans had shown the pictures to must’ve shared them with someone else. Maybe he’d shown them to an operative of the Dahl Corporation, or Atlas. And they might not want this little expedition moving ahead.
“Uh, I
do
have ship-to-planet landing permit,” Zac told
the drone. Which was true—he was legal to take a quick trip to the surface. “And I did a transfer rental for the DropCraft …”
The drone didn’t respond. A red light started flashing on its top. Zac knew what that meant.
He had to get out of here. He fumbled at the console, found the tab marked
Hatch Close/Auto Ignition,
and thumbed it. The shield hatch hummed closed—but not before the drone zipped in. It hovered inside the DropCraft, whirring angrily to itself right in front of his eyes, the red light now flashing with furious rapidity.
“No, wait—!” Zac said as the airlock closed over the DropCraft—and the bottom dropped out of the DropCraft bay.
His stomach seemed to fly up to catch in his throat as the DropCraft plummeted out the lower hull of the Study Station and into orbital space. On autopilot, the craft veered down toward the atmosphere, as the security drone, now inside the cockpit with him, slipped to hover near the navigational unit on his left. He grabbed at the drone—but it fired a short, sharp laser into the craft’s navigational unit.
A
crack
, and smoke drifted up from the blackened unit, choking the cockpit.
Zac coughed, turned in his seat, grabbed the whirring disk—it sparked, jolted him, punishing with electricity. He held on, raised it over his head, smashed it down into the bulkhead of the cockpit. It cracked, gave out a last, sad hum, its red light going out.
He tossed the drone aside and stared out through the transparent heat shield as the DropCraft plunged into the atmosphere—spiraling out of control. Red-and-blue-streaked
vapors were swirling over the little vessel, flames guttered up around its prow … as it veered sharply down toward the planet’s surface.
Marla and Cal were in the little stateroom, with its three sleeping snugs, its small table and chairs, its single viewscreen showing a digital image of space outside with the planet they were orbiting—or in-flight entertainment. Cal was flicking through the entertainment guide as Marla went again to the door and opened it to look down the corridor.
No Zac. He hadn’t gone to the bursar’s office—she’d called there and they hadn’t seen him. What was he up to?
“Looking down the hall’s not gonna make Dad come back sooner, Mom. He’ll be back. Anyway it’s embarrassing, you doing that …”
“I know, Cal, I just …” A chime sounded from her handbag, sitting on a shelf by the door. She hurried to it, and answered the fone on the uni. “Zac?”
At first all she heard was static, and a kind of roaring. Then she heard Zac’s voice, only half-audible. “… not on the ship … not on … I’m on a DropCraft.”
“You’re
what
?”
“I’m calling you on ship-to-ship but the signal’s weak, technical problems, there was sabotage … Craft out of control …”
“Did you say
sabotage
? Of what?”
“The DropCraft was …” Static, roaring. “… I’m transmitting my landing coordinates to you so you can arrange for someone to pick me up … this thing’s not going to make it back …”
“Landing coordinates for what? Zac—tell me you’re not going down to Pandora!”
“No turning back now … there’s a treasure there … crashed ship … ET site … going down to … Oh shit, this thing’s on fire … Marla, maybe I shouldn’t have sent you those coordinates. They might go after you on the …” Static. “… that I love you … I’m sorry I went behind your back and … just tell Cal that I …”
Static, roaring.
“Zac!”
The uni’s polite digital voice said,
“Call ended.”
Marla tried calling him back—the fone couldn’t find a return number.
“Mom? Did you say Dad was going down to …”
A blaring alarm interrupted him, the ululating siren breaking off for an announcement.
“Evacuate ship! All passengers to Study Station! Passengers take Airlock Three to the Study Station! Do not gather luggage! Go immediately! This is an emergency! Evacuate ship! All passengers to …”
“Mom—what’s going on?”
“Never mind, we’re getting out of here—” She grabbed her shoulder bag and hustled Cal ahead of her, down the hallway.
“Wait, Mom! Stop pushing! I just want to get my mindtouch!”
Was he really worried about a VR helmet at a time like this? “Forget that thing and just
move
! Hurry!”
They rushed down the corridor, down a ramp to an elevator. They took the elevator to the main corridor, the two of them breathing hard, side by side, during the short ride. “Our room is a long ways from Airlock Three,” she
said, putting one arm around her son. “It’s the other side of the ship. Hurry!”
The elevator doors opened and they hurried down another corridor, turned a corner, went down another ramp, then a short flight of stairs. They reached the main corridor down the center of the ship, and saw a panting ship’s steward, a round-faced little man in purple coveralls, his popeyes made even more so by panic as she rushed from a side hall.
“Go!” he gasped as he passed them. “Get to Airlock Three!”
“What is it?” she asked, hastening after him. “What’s going on?”
“Those things behind me—those damn drones! Someone’s overridden the security drones—they’re sabotaging the ship!” He pelted on ahead of them. She glanced back—saw four disklike drone bots flying along, their tops blinking, lasers licking out from a node on their undersides, the energy beams hitting power conduits along the corridor. Wherever the beams struck, the lights went out, section by section, so that the corridor was being consumed by darkness, a bite at a time.
“Oh my
God
,” she muttered, pushing Cal along ahead of her.
They reached an intersection and saw the entrance to Airlock Three off to the right. The airlock led to a flexible tube, an umbilicus that extended from the ship to the main body of the Study Station. Running up to the airlock, Cal tugged at the door latch—it wouldn’t turn. A small indicator read: locked down. An oval viewport to the right of the airlock showed the umbilicus extending through space to the station.
Marla could see the popeyed steward running through the transparent passage, arms pumping up and down, passing a hastening group of passengers. There was no one else in the umbilicus … which was now detaching from the
Homeworld Bound
, as if the station were recoiling from the starship. Marla realized with a thrill of horror that they were simply too late.
“Mom—they left us!” Cal yelled. “
Now
what do we do?”
Behind them came the angry whir of the drones—and the
crump
of a distant explosion.
The ship shuddered from an internal shock wave. Marla and Cal staggered to keep their feet as the deck rollicked under them. “Mom!”
“Stay calm! There are lifeboats on the lower deck. Come on!”
Another thump, jarring through the starship, made them stagger as they hurried through the corridor. The way looked strangely foggy—smoke was thickening around them.
“There, Mom!” Cal shouted. He grabbed her hand, led her down a plasteel ramp, then down another, switching back in the other direction, till they emerged in the Emergency Hangar. Down the center of the deck was a row of shiny metal capsules, each big enough for one person—not much larger than coffins.
“Mom? They’re one-person lifeboats!”
“Never mind, we’ll go separately, it’ll send us to the same place …” She hit the emergency release on the nearest capsule, and its hatch hissed open. She helped her son climb into it—the deck again rocking under their feet.
“Mom, wait!”
“I’ll find you, Cal! I’ll find you and we’ll find Dad! I love you!”
Coughing in thickening smoke, she pushed him down into the recliner. Its cushioning arms automatically enfolded him, holding him in place. He looked frightened—though she could see he was trying to seem brave.
Marla made herself close the see-through hatch over him—just as another explosion shook the
Homeworld Bound
and she heard a high-pitched metallic squealing sound. Wind rushed past her, making her hair swish and slap around her head, suction roaring in her ears.
A hull breach, somewhere.
Air was rushing out of the ship.
Marla forced herself to turn away from Cal, staggered on the shivering, pitching deck toward the next lifeboat. She slapped at the emergency latch, and it popped open—just as she felt herself tugged backward, away from the capsule, the increasing vacuum trying to drag her toward the breach in the hull. She grabbed at the rim of the lifeboat passenger hutch, held on to it, used all her strength to try to pull herself into its compartment, fighting agonizingly against the decompression. The breath was ripped from her lungs, and she felt that her trembling arms might be pulled from their sockets—then she grabbed a passenger strap, pulled herself down out of the stream of suction, managed to twist about onto her back, and hit the close button. The hatch hissed shut; the cushions enfolded her. She was surprised when she realized she still had her shoulder bag.
The Emergency Hangar seemed to tear apart around the lifeboat, debris flashed by the transparent hatch like trash in a tornado, and smoke darkened her view.
This is it,
she thought.
I was too late. I’m going to die. And so is Cal.
Then the hangar vanished entirely. There was a sickening feeling of plunging into nothingness …
Stars—
blocked out when the planet rolled enormously into view. The sullen globe of Pandora rushed toward her.
Pulsers hummed to life on the underside of the lifeboat. An energy parachute bloomed around the little vessel …
Then the lifeboat began to spin, faster and faster …
Centrifugal force built up, pressing her deep into the cushions. She could barely draw a breath. Pressure threatened to crush her flat …