Orson Card - Earth unavare

Father and Toron gingerly landed beside Victor, carrying the saws and hydraulic shears.

“He must have heard Chepe knocking,” said Victor. “There might be other people in there.”

“And we’re going to get them out,” said Father, handing a saw to Victor. “Try the saw first. If it gives you problems, go with the shears. Let’s cut these channel beams away first.” He indicated the ones Victor had avoided. “We need a clear path in and out of here.”

Victor wanted to say something to the man at the hatch. “We’re here. We’re going to get you out. You’re going to live.” But no one could reach the hatch yet with all the obstructions in the way, and Victor had no means of communicating with the man anyway. Father took the beam on the left, Victor the one on the right. Victor fired up his saw. The blade spun.

“Clean cuts,” said Father, “as close to the bottom as you can. Don’t rush.”

Victor’s blade cut into the metal. He couldn’t hear it, but the saw vibrated in his hands as it ate through the beam. Nineteen hours. Someone had gone nineteen hours. It looked like a big space. There had to be more people inside. Maybe it was their version of the fuge, the designated place for an emergency. Maybe lots of people had gone there. The saw felt slow in his hands. He pulled the blade free and killed the power. “Toron, give me the shears.”

Toron passed them, and Victor wiggled the pincers into place and started the hydraulics. The shears went much faster, cut-crunching their way through the beam, opening and closing like a ravenous animal, making easy work of the metal.

Bahzim was giving more orders, sending two more miners down with hydraulic spreaders.

The shears bit through the last few inches, and the beam snapped free.

“Easy,” said Father. “Push it away slowly, not by a jagged edge.”

Their gloves had an outer layer of leatherlike material and were built to withstand heavy use and scrapes, but Victor was overly cautious anyway. The beam drifted away. Nando was down near the web of metal covering the corridor entrance, writing on the small light board with a stylus. He wrote, “How many people?” and turned the board around for the man. The man in the hatch placed nine fingers against the glass.

“Nine people,” said Nando.

“Vico,” said Father. “Don’t take your eyes off what you’re doing. Pay attention.”

Victor turned away from the hatch. Father was right. He couldn’t cut and watch Nando or the man at the hatch. He focused on the girder beam he was cutting and guided the shears through the metal. Nine people. So few. The Italians had close to three hundred people.

“He’s writing on the glass with his finger,” said Nando. “One letter at a time. He’s moving slowly. He seems half out of it. Air. He’s saying they need air.”

“I don’t see any other entrance besides the hatch we knocked on,” said Chepe. “We’ve been around the whole thing.”

“Ask him if Alejandra is in there,” said Toron.

“Ask him first if he can reach the outer hatch,” said Bahzim. “We might be able to get a docking tube sealed over it. Then they could open the hatch and fly right up to us.”

Victor continued to cut metal while Nando wrote. Shards of twisted bulkheads and deck plating fell away as Victor’s shears chewed through them.

“He’s shaking his head no,” said Nando. “They can’t reach the hatch.”

“Why not?” asked Bahzim. “Because they sealed off that room or because it’s not accessible from where he’s at?”

“I can’t fit all that on the board,” said Nando.

“Just figure out a way to ask him,” said Bahzim.

Nando wrote. Victor allowed himself a glance down the corridor. The man in the window looked half asleep. His eyes kept drooping. “He’s passing out,” said Victor.

“Keep cutting, Vico,” said Father. “Stay focused.”

Victor returned to his work, cutting furiously, pushing pieces away, trying to clear a path.

“He’s writing again on the glass,” said Nando. “H… U… R…”

“Hurt?” suggested Bahzim.

“Hurry,” said Chepe. “He’s saying hurry. They’re out of air. Now he’s drifting away. We’re losing him.”

“We’ve got to get air in there now!” said Toron.

“Chepe,” said Bahzim. “You and Pitoso get a bubble over that hatch you found. Get nine masks and canisters. I want you to find another way to reach these people and get them air as fast as possible.”

Victor guided the shears through a particularly thick girder. There was still so much to cut away, still so much work to do. We’re not going to make it, he realized. We have nine people just a few feet away, and we’re not going to reach them in time.

Chepe shot upward from the wreckage, twisting in such a way that his lifeline easily avoided the sharp protuberances. Protecting your line was the most critical part of flying, but it was also the first thing most novice flyers forgot. Everyone was always in such a rush to shoot forward that they never took the time to look back. Which was a mistake. If you wanted to avoid snags, kinks, knots, and cuts, you had to “keep your mind on your line,” as the saying went, and Chepe always did.

The hatch he and Pitoso had found was on the opposite side of the wreckage, so Chepe flew straight up to a distance that he figured was at least twice the distance to the hatch and begin his descent, moving, as always, in an arc. Most young flyers assumed that the best route between two points was a straight line, but Chepe knew different. Tall arcs worked best. You avoided the obstructions that could snag your line, and wherever you were going, you always arrived with plenty of slack.

Pitoso appeared beside him, keeping pace, moving in a parallel arc, with their lines trailing behind like a parabolic tail. They both slowed at the same instant as they approached the jagged debris around the hatch. As soon as they landed, Pitoso pulled the deflated bubble from his bag and unfolded it. Chepe then helped him spread it over the hatch. Bulo, another miner, arrived carrying a bag of masks and canisters, and Chepe took them and slid them under the bubble canopy. Then he reached back and detached his own lifeline. His suit powered off. His comm went silent. His HUD disappeared. He climbed under the canopy, found the ripcord and pulled it. The bubble inflated into a clear dome that sealed itself to the hull with Chepe and the masks inside. Pitoso plugged Chepe’s detached lifeline into the external valve on the bubble while Chepe took the internal line and plugged it into his back. Power returned to his suit, and with it, fresh air and heat.

“I’m set,” said Chepe.

“Go,” said Bahzim.

Chepe removed the emergency lid from the center of the hatch to access the manual wheel lock. Then he gripped the wheel and turned. At first he strained, but the wheel suddenly loosened, and it spun quickly thereafter. Finally he felt the lock snap free, then slowly lifted the hatch. He felt no rush of air as the vacuum of the bubble was filled from air inside. He checked his sensors on his wrist and confirmed what he already suspected. “There’s no air beyond the hatch. There must be a leak inside.”

“Then we don’t need the bubble,” said Bahzim. “Take it off so you have more mobility to look around.”

Chepe found the release valve on the bubble and pulled it. The bubble deflated, and Chepe returned his normal lifeline to his back. The room beyond was dark and cluttered with floating debris. Chepe floated through the entrance, intensified his helmet lights, and saw-

A dead man’s face just inches from his own. Chepe recoiled. The face was gaunt and white in the bright lights, eyes closed, mouth slack, a man in his fifties, an apron around his waist. No mask.