* * *
But three weeks brought no change in the roster. Inured to Dorren's uncertain temperament, Ataine avoided conversation. By barring her heart against feeling, she learned to anticipate his mercurial shifts of mood, and respond only during those moments when the rigors of their profession drove him to reciprocate the gift they possessed between them.
When things went well, his supply of banter seemed endless. 'Don't bring home any strays,' he said as she hauled out the tools to take a core sample. Dorren usually handled the task. But lately Ataine had grown restless waiting for him in the cockpit.
'You're kidding. No anti-national hardware has turned up for months.' Ataine clipped the tool satchel to her shoulder harness and looked up, startled to find him watching with the same concern she'd shown each time he 'walked' an asteroid. 'I'll be fine. Safe as sugarcake.'
'But clumsy.' Dorren grinned as she stumbled into the air lock, unaccustomed to the awkward bulk of the tools. 'Be careful. And watch that outside hatch. It's defective.'
'Grandmother.' Ataine dogged the inside seals and kicked the depressurization switch. The lock slid open, and she rolled clear, weightless as a swimmer, the asteroid a convoluted coral head in the beam of the Prospector's floodlamps. Air-hose and tether unreeled behind as she drifted downward. The magnetic soles of her boots touched first, and clung.
i
ron here,' she reported. 'Are we out of claim buoys?'
Dorren's reply crackled over her suit mike, strangely distant. 'Set your charge. I'll check.'
She collected her sample without incident. Odd, she thought; the anti-national fanatics seemed to have given up sabotage. So far, the risk pay she collected each week had proved a waste of government funds. Not that she was sorry. Presently, Dorren's voice answered her request for a buoy.
'Cupboard's bare,' he said lightly. 'I've sent a Sabre back to Station for more. Why not wait inside until it arrives?'
'Fine.
I'm
on my way up.' Ataine kicked off for the Prospector's hatch. She caught the boarding rail without difficulty. But as she swung herself through, the tool satchel bumped the seal ring of the air lock. Vibration under her fingers warned her; by freak mischance the mechanism had engaged and started to shut.
Instinctively, Ataine pushed clear. Halfway through, she noticed her air-hose and tether had hooked on the boarding rail outside. The lines jerked taut before she could react. Caught in zero g without a handhold, recoil spun her back between the seals. The lock trundled inexorably closed. Gear teeth ingested air-hose and tether, trapping her with the disengage switch beyond reach. In panic, Ataine saw she was going to be crushed.
That moment, the lights went out. Ataine yelled, overcome by terror. Unwilling to watch, she stared past the black shoulder of the asteroid, as though fixed and changeless stars beyond could negate the certainty of death.
But the hatch had stopped.
Quivering and sweating inside her suit, Ataine realized Dorren must have acted. He'd hit the breakers, killing all power on the ship to prevent the hatch from closing. But with her tether jammed in the gears, and her air supply cut off, she was not out of danger. She tried to stay calm.
'Dorren, suit up.' A yank on the lines confirmed the gravity of her predicament. 'I need ... oh,
damn ...'
Because with the ship's systems down,
he couldn't hear her.
At any moment, believing her clear, he might restore power.
Don't close the switch,
she thought desperately.
Dorren, don't.
She dragged herself around, clawed at the tether. Stuck. Dizziness hauled at her balance. She groped in the tool satchel for something sharp to cut the lines. Her lungs burned. She couldn't hold her breath much longer. Her frantic fingers closed over the steel casing of a core bit.
Condensation blurred her face-plate as she began to hack at the tether line. A vast, sucking roar filled her ears.
I'm
not going to make it,
she thought, and chopped harder. Light swam across her vision, which seemed ludicrous, wrong. Suffocation went with darkness. The bit drifted out of her grasp. She reached for it, drunkenly, and someone's fingers closed over her wrist.
Dorren's helmet bumped against hers. 'Hang on.' A knife flashed in the search beam clipped to his belt, and she floated free. 'Don't quit now, d'you hear?
I'm
going to push you through the supply lock.'
Cramps in her chest prevented answer. She felt his arms enfold her, as her vision swam out of focus. Her next clear sensation was the click of her helmet seal breaking, and new air rushing into wracked lungs. Dorren knelt on the loading stage with her cradled against his shoulder.
'You knew,' Ataine said thickly, between gasps, and almost passed out again as his lips covered hers in a kiss which bared his soul. She abandoned restraint, trusting the intuitive rapport which had miraculously saved her life. Peace overwhelmed her, as though she'd lived in the cold since birth, and only that instant learned warmth.
'Dorren, I love you,' she said when he set her free.
He disengaged his embrace. Silently, and with an expression of naked regret, he left abruptly for the bridge. The retreat went against his nature. She'd been too close not to see. Yet whatever compulsion drove him to destroy what was good between them stung her into raw fury. She shouted, 'Why can't you just let the inevitable happen?'
The companionway slammed and loosed a flurry of echoes in the chamber's barren confines. Ataine scraped damp hair off her forehead and rolled to her feet. She felt wretched. But physical discomfort became trivial beside the crushing ache of loss brought on by Dorren's withdrawal. Disconsolate, she followed him to the cockpit.
He sat hunched over the controls, helmet off, and chin rested on closed fists. The glow from the screens outlined features set rigidly as a mask.
'Does my presence sicken you? Or threaten your damned male pride?' Ataine was unable to hide the bitterness in her voice.
He responded without moving. 'You're a wonderful person, Ataine. Sensible, intelligent, and gifted beyond belief, not to mention attractive.' The dismissal sounded rehearsed. 'But I don't want a woman in my life.' He shrugged irritably. 'Even you.
I'm
sorry. One day perhaps you'll understand.'
Before she could reply, he punched the transmitter into 'send' and spoke crisply into the mike. '
Prospector IV
to Sabre escort, has Captain Jern left Station with the claim buoys?'
The speaker crackled overhead. 'He's on his way. Did you just have a power outage?'
'Trouble with the lock.' Dorren glanced back to Ataine. 'Get your helmet on. I'll have to clear those messed gears and then set that buoy. Jern can help me. You can easily be spared, and no doubt you'd be more comfortable after a rest back at Station.'
Ataine pitched herself into her chair, fighting tears. '
I'm
staying. I don't trust that glitched lock, and Jern can't help you like I can if it malfunctions again.'
Which was all true, but Dorren's lack of argument made the remainder of the shift pass like arctic winter, unbearably lonely and bleak. By the time the Prospector docked at Station, Ataine's nerves were drawn to snapping point.
Her quarters seemed a prison. And the company of others only emphasized her matchless compatibility with Dorren. Isolated by her loss, she sought refuge in the cockpit of the Prospector, and with every shred of compassion she possessed, tried to understand what might motivate Dorren to reject her.
He found her there still, an hour before the next day's shift. She didn't ask how he'd known where to look, didn't need to see to know whose hands rested gently on her shoulders. She stared stonily at the shadowed banks of controls, unwilling to meet his eyes.
'It's hopeless.' Unwanted moisture prickled her eyelids. 'The whole flaming situation is utterly, wretchedly
hopeless.'
Dorren reached over and caught the tear which escaped down her cheek. 'I know,' he said simply. And he did. But nothing changed between them. 'I asked for another team mate. This time the Commander granted my request.'
The statement ruined Ataine's composure. Blistered to outrage by his coolness, she slammed her fists into the console. 'Are you heartless?' Her voice rose to a shout. 'Do you think that changes anything?' She spun to face him, and flinched from a mirror reflection of her own distress.
Angry words died unspoken. Ataine rose and left the cockpit, ravaged by emotions too deep for expression. Oblivious to the stares of the teams who reported for shift, she fled down the service passage, into the lift, and burst headlong through Station's most unapproachable door without even a knock.
She ignored the secretary who tried to block her path to the desk. 'I want to sign for test flight duty in the Quest.'
Caught with his mouth full of coffee, the Commander swallowed hastily. He excused the secretary with a gesture and frowned. 'Didn't you know? The prototype gave her crewmen a debilitating case of the dizzies. Though the medics have an antidote in mind, they said yesterday they'd need a week.'
'That doesn't matter.' Ataine stood, and blinked. After the gloom of the flight deck, the office lighting ached her eyes,
'I
want to fly alone.'
The Commander didn't ask why. Instead he regarded her with a mixture of sympathy and distaste. 'Very well. If you last, the design boys will be delighted.'
Revolted by his patronizing tone of voice, Ataine smiled with outright malice. 'Then they can buy me roses.'
* * *
Flight became her release.
When she reported for shift after the third straight month, Station's chief engineer met her with startled admiration. 'You got guts, I'll grant you that.'
Ataine fussed with the seal of her suit. 'Why?'
The engineer gestured toward the spidery framework of the Quest's launch cradle. 'No weaponry. Last shift, we lost an entire drilling team to a mine.'
'What?
Another
?' Ataine paused, stunned, and thoughtfully snapped her collar stud. 'But no one's seen any anti-national hardware for months!'
The engineer shrugged. 'Want out?'
'No.' Ataine quickened her step. She swung herself over the Quest's sleek vanes, into the cockpit, while the engineer launched into a companionable description of the Challenger series, which extended the Quest's capabilities to a crew of two, and a gun station.
Ataine nodded vaguely. Anxious to get away, she dogged the hatch closed. Once under the headset, love, death, and emotional tumult would all cease to trouble her . . .
Shortly, conjoined with electronic circuitry, she piloted the Quest through the asteroid field she had surveyed last shift. The area had been clean then, and anti-nationals would hardly trouble an unmanned claim.
Sensors granted her vision in all directions. Entranced by the random dance of rocks whose motions would outlast the ages, Ataine killed the engines and switched off her running lights. Hours, she drifted, aimless as flotsam amid the dusty tumble of debris. Second Lieutenant Dorren Carlton ceased to matter. Attuned to radio frequencies through the Quest's systems, the soft, repetitive beep of a nearby claim buoy remained the only human intrusion upon her solitude, until the moment her sensors picked up a metallic flash of reflection.
Anti-nationals, Ataine guessed. She was unafraid. Without lights, she was too small to be noticed. Ruled by the nerveless logic of the Quest's electronics, Ataine settled back in her darkened cockpit and stepped up magnification.
The red and white checked sphere of the claim buoy jumped out of the darkness, spodighted by a Prospector's search lamps. Odd, Ataine thought. Why would a team resurvey an area already covered? She frowned, and looked closer. Registration numbers marked the craft as one of Station's own, but the crewman who 'walked' the claim carried no core charges. Clipped to his harness, like a hideous, tentacled parasite, was a string of contact mines.
Small wonder no one had seen any anti-national activity.
Ataine's hands tightened against the control panel. Somebody had sold out.
The traps were being set by Station personnel.
* * *
'Dorren.' Sickened by her discovery, Ataine cornered the second lieutenant alone in the access lift. 'Dorren, they're killing people out there.' And she told him what she'd seen, because he was the only one on Station whose integrity she trusted.
He whirled so abruptly she bruised her spine against
t
he handrail. The concern in his eyes caught her totally unprepared. 'I didn't hear that,' he said curtly.
The shock of her surprise set distance between them, shattered the instinctive rapport. He laughed, deliberately widening the breach, and the lamp overhead lit a face she barely recognized.
Ataine gestured in disbelief. 'You're in league with them.' Her heart turned sick at the thought, yet it fit. No doubt he'd pushed her away out of fear of discovery.
'
I'm
not,' said Dorren. The lift slowed. He stabbed a button, kept it moving. 'But
I'm
smart enough to keep quiet. Stir up trouble, and the survey teams will be next. We'll all be dead, not just the drillers.'
Her expression must have betrayed rebellious thoughts, because the lines around his mouth deepened. 'Don't be a fool. Let it be. Or I'll tell the Commander about you myself.'
'Son of a bitch!' said Ataine, scarred by his betrayal. 'I hate you.' But she knew, even then, how shallowly she lied. The vehemence of his reaction told its own story: deny her though he would, he could not endure having her life endangered.
Shaken, Ataine caught the rail as the lift bumped to a stop. She watched Dorren step out, numbed by upwelling fear. Already it was too late to heed his warning. Because the one thing she had kept quiet was the fact she had recorded the activities of the Prospector's treasonous crew on the Quest's emergency log tapes. With deadened fingers, she punched the button for the next level. The log was a security system, accessible only to higher authorities; if the corruption at Station extended even to the Commander, she was in trouble.
Ataine shut her eyes, clammily sweating inside her suit.
She had no option. She'd have to steal the spacecraft...