Alan Foster: Dark Star

“Oh, Christ,” muttered Boiler, “a Hindu bomb.”

“Listen, bomb,” Pinback pleaded, “pretty bomb, logical bomb, lovely reasonable thermostellar triggering device…”

“Flattery will get you nowhere,” the bomb insisted.

“If you won’t do it because it’s the right thing to do, if you won’t do it because it’s the reasoning thing to do, if you won’t do it to save the ship or the mission,” he asked intensely, “would you do it just as a favor to me? A personal favour… mind to mind?”

“Well-l-l…” For a second, only a second, the bomb seemed to hesitate. “I might… if I knew who you were.”

“Who am I? Who am I? ” A Niagra of emotions flooded Pinback’s brain, a cascade of conflicting questions he’d tried so hard to suppress, to keep under control, especially when around the others.

And now this… thing, this machine, this insolent mechanical servant of man, dared to put forth the ultimate insult.

“I am Sergeant Pinback, that’s who I am, and I outrank you, bomb. Do as you’re told and get back into the bomb bay and disarm yourself or… or I’ll see you court-martialed when we get back to Earth!”

“Well, if you’re going to get huffy about it, forget the whole thing,” the bomb said, thoroughly miffed.

“Oh geez,” whispered Boiler, looking upward. Pinback sat back in his seat, shaking, trembling, cradling the headset mike in unsteady fingers. From behind him, Boiler whispered on, low and dangerous now.

“You’d better hope that bomb does detonate, Pinback, because if it doesn’t kill you, I will.”

“Well then, you talk to it, bigmouth!” shouted Pinback back, whirling on the bigger man. “Let’s see if you can make it understand!”

Boiler gave a curt shake of his head. “You can’t reason with a dumb machine. You can’t talk sense to it anymore than you can to Talby.”

“That’s a thought,” said Pinback. “What about having Talby talk to it?”

Boiler shook his head again. “Fat chance. He’d talk with it about the view Outside until the thing went off. Probably consider annihilation an interesting sensation to experience, worthy of careful study… even if you can only do it once… No, we’d better hope Doolittle gets something out of what’s left of Powell.”

“Commander, sir,” Doolittle was saying tiredly at that very moment, “are you still there?”

“Oh, yes, Doolittle,” Powell’s voice echoed back. “I… I was thinking.”

“We’re really running out of time, sir.” he checked his wrist again. “I mean, really , sir. I don’t mean to break in on your contemplation, but…”

“Oh, yes,” Powell mumbled thoughtfully. “Well, if you can’t get it to drop normally, and the aesthemic clutch doesn’t work, and the explosive bolts have failed, and it still insists on detonating, then you’ll just have to talk to it.”

“Sir?” said a puzzled Doolittle.

“You’ll have to talk to the bomb.”

“I tried talking to it, sir. I’ve been talking to it. Pinback’s talking to it right now.”

“No, no, Doolittle. Not Pinback,” Powell husked. “ You talk to it. Teach it… phenomenology, Doolittle.”

“I beg your pardon, sir?”

“Phenomenology.”

“But what good will that do, sir? I’m not even sure what you mean by—Sir? Sir?”

He turned knobs, boosted power, went 180 degrees with the fine tuning, but Powell—for a while, at least—had sunk back into whatever unimaginable realms of semisentient existence he lived in, and Doolittle was unable to coax him back.

Turning all the controls on the box to zero, he carefully unhooked it from the plug running to Powell’s labyrinth and pickups and electrodes, placed it neatly back in its compartment in the wall.

Then he closed and relatched the hatch cover to the cryo storage compartment, put the gloves back on their hook, blew on his hands, and sat down to think.

After a while a near-hysterical voice sounded over a nearby speaker as he made his way up to the main airlock. Pinback’s voice.

“Doolittle… what are you doing back there, Doolittle? Six minutes to detonation! Doolittle!”

Doolittle heard him but he paid no attention. He’d never liked listening to Pinback and he was much too busy to waste time listening to him now. He was constructing a mental plan of action and needed all his brainpower for it.

He smiled. He’d been right all along. Just get in touch with Powell, and the commander would find a solution. Even dead, he was the most valuable man on the ship.

It still might not work—there were no fail-safes built into this method—but it was the only way left. Powell had recognized that, and made Doolittle see it. Six minutes. He had to hurry.

The main airlock was located near the top of the ship, just behind the astronomer’s station. Talby might see him go out. A nagging thought crept into his battle plan—hadn’t Talby tried to call him about something just before the abortive drop run had started?

Couldn’t be important, or Talby would have told him personally. He had no time to speculate now.

The lock held five ranked starsuits in a locker—duplicates of those in the emergency airlock. There were duplicates of everything vital on the Dark Star —except living quarters and toilet paper, he mused.

Not that it would matter, once they fixed this crazy bomb. Then they’d be going home—and his reports would blister the ears of some of the ship’s designers and outfitters.

Of course, they would all be thirty years older, now…

The suit went on easily enough—no malfunctions in it , at least—and he made his way into the depressurization chamber at the top of the lock. A quick flip of several switches and his outside aural receptors picked up a soft, hissing sound.

The light depressurization complete, a warning light winked on and the door in the roof of the chamber slid back. He touched a yellow button on the belt of the suit. Special cells in the backpack cancelled out the artificial gravity of the ship.

Weightless now, he activated his suit jets and floated gently out the open hatch. As he left the ship he glanced forward at the dome, but all he saw was the back of the curving seat-lounge. Talby might have been there, but he couldn’t tell.

“Doolittle, Doolittle!” Pinback was yelling into the mike. Now what? Had Doolittle gone off the deep end under the pressure? Had he maybe gone down into the freezer to join Commander Powell in trouble-free, chill isolation?

If so, that would mean that as next highest ranker on board, he would be in charge. And that was almost as frightening a thought as the bomb going off in the bomb bay.

“Doolittle,” he howled into the pickup again, “what the hell are you doing?”

BoiIer interrupted him, staring at a tell-tale that had suddenly begun flashing on his console. “Dorsal airlock’s been activated,” he said tightly. “Must be the lieutenant. He’s gone outside.”

“But what for?” Pinback wondered, looking helplessly at the corporal. “And why doesn’t he answer?”

“Maybe he got through to Powell… maybe. And Powell told him what to do to the bomb. Either that or he’s trying to get outside the detonation area.”

Pinback blinked. “That’s crazy—where could he go? No, you’re right—he’s going to disarm the bomb! He’s going to save the ship!”

“Yeah,” Boiler muttered doubtfully.

Like the rest of the starsuit, Doolittle’s jet pack was working perfectly. Maybe it was a sign that things were finally breaking their way. A couple of spurts brought him around and then beneath the ship. Then he was approaching the bomb.

He stopped a couple of meters away from its back end, where the tiny thrusters were located. He had checked the circuits beforehand and his suit’s broadcast unit should be operating on open channel, which meant the bomb would pick it up. There was no guarantee it would even listen to him, but if it would talk to Pinback…