James White - Mind Changer

He was aware of sideways motion, so gentle and gradual that he wasn’t surprised that the others hadn’t noticed it.

“As you will already have seen if you are close to a direct-vision port,” the captain continued, “we have returned to normal space, where we are able to apply lateral spin to the ship so that centrifugal force in the cabin areas inboard of the outer hull will replace the artificial gravity for the time necessary to repair the…

“You may take me to my cabin, Lieutenant O’Mara,” Joan broke in, holding onto her lounger with one hand and grabbing O’Mara’s wrist with the other. “The captain just made that an order?”

“No!” said O’Mara loudly, pulling his arm away and looking all around the big room for the nearest communicator. He spotted it about twenty meters away on the far side of the direct-vision panel. It had been years since he’d worked in gravity-free conditions, he thought as he grasped the sides of the lounger, drew his knees up until his feet were between his hands and prepared to make a weightless jump but it was an ability that one never forgot.

“Dammit,” said Joan, her face red with anger and embarrassment, “you didn’t have to be so bloody definite about it!”

“I was talking to that stupid captain, not you,’ O’Mara said angrily. He launched himself carefully in the direction of the communicator and continued speaking quickly as he moved. “Listen to me, carefully. You and Kledenth get out of here. Push off from the loungers, gently, and aim where you need to go or you’ll spin and lose orientation. Or do it in stages by pulling yourselves along or pushing against intervening fixed equipment to the nearest side wall and then around to the entrance. On no account take a shortcut across the deck or ceiling or go anywhere near the pool. Tell that Nidian and the two Melfans to do the same, and the Tralthans if you can make them hear you. Water is dangerous stuff in the weightless condition because it falls apart into… Just listen while I’m on the communicator, I don’t have time to explain twice.”

He landed neatly on his hands and knees beside the unit, steadied himself, and jabbed the attention button. The screen lit with the image of the ship’s crest and a cool, translated voice said that the call would be dealt with as soon as possible and to please wait. He looked around quickly.

Joan was relaying his instructions to the other passengers while trying to help Kledenth, but the public-address system and the Tralthans were making so much noise that her voice lacked the necessary volume and authority to get results. So far as he could see, nobody had moved from their original positions. He jabbed the button again.

The captain was saying,”… We will increase our spin until the centrifugal force inboard of the outer hull matches the gravity pull of one standard Earth G although, until the artificial-gravity system is returned, the outer cabin wall will be the floor. Once again we apologize for this temporary inconvenience. That is all.”

O’Mara swore again and this time he kept his thumb on the button. Behind him he could see the water slowly rising above the sides of the pooi and, its edges still held by the cohesion of surface tension, begin to roll down on them like a vast gob of clear syrup. Suddenly bulges and ripples caused by movements of the Tralthans appeared all over the slow-moving, transparent mass. Great, uneven lumps grew out of the surface like fat, shapeless arms that broke free and moved like monstrous, slow-moving amoebas toward the inner hull. The Tralthan noise was beginning to sound frightened, the flailing of their tentacles agitated rather than playful.

He noticed the other button then, the yellow one with the transparent cover and the warning sign, and swore again. This time it was at his own stupidity for not remembering that, on the older Melfan-built civilian vessels, yellow was the color denoting urgency rather than red. He flipped up the cover so hard that it came away in his hand and stabbed at the button as if it was a mortal enemy.

A boney, Melfan head appeared. The eyes stared at him for an instant; then an impatient, translated voice said, “Passengers are not allowed to use this channel unless there is.”

“An emergency, I know? he broke in. “O’Mara, Monitor Corps, on the recreation deck. Please connect me with your captain. I must speak to him, her, or it at once. Meanwhile, cancel the orJer to spin the ship. Do that now?”

“Sir, you have no operational authority on this civilian vessel? the other replied angrily. “And the captain is busy right now.”

“Then I’ll talk to one of the responsible ship’s officers? said O’Mara. “Presumably that means you?”

The exoskeletal features were incapable of changing color or registering emotion, but he could hear the Melfan’s pincers opening and closing with a sound like castanets. He moved to the side of the screen to give the other a clearer view of what was happening in the room, then continued speaking.

“The weightlessness and now the increasing spin are combining to empty the swimming pool? he said, forcing himself to speak slowly and clearly. “Unless the spin, and the buildup of centrifugal force, is checked right now, within a few minutes, at the present rate of descent, many tons of water will fall against the inner hull. The hull structure will take it, but can the seals of the direct-vision panel?”

“The seals can take it,” said the Melfan, and added, “Well, probably.”

“With the falling water? O’Mara went on, “will be the weight of two adult Tralthan swimmers. Can they take that, too?”

“Negative? said the officer, swiveling its head to look offscreen. “Captain! Emergency Blue Three. Risk of imminent hull breach on the rec deck. I’m putting the image on your repeater screen. Kill the spin and return to weightless conditions, now!”

“No? said O’Mara sharply. “We need a little weight here, no more than one-eighth G, to allow the water to stabilize so we can rescue the swimmers and nonaquatics. Weightless it will be scattered in liquid lumps all over the place with no stable surface to swim to. In those conditions people can panic and drown.”

He stopped as the Melfan’s face was replaced by the hairy, Orligian features of the captain.

“Understood, Lieutenant? it growled through its translator. “No more thap one-eighth G. You’ve got it. I’m sending the ship’s medic, Dr. Sennelt, to you. It’s all I can spare right now. Keep this vision channel open so’s we can see what’s happening…?”

Before the other had finished speaking, O’Mara had launched himself toward the tangled bodies of Joan and Kledenth.

The Kelgian was trying to wrap itself around Joan, who was trying desperately to push both of them sideways to escape the slowly falling mass of water that was now only a few meters above them. But neither of them were in contact with anything solid, so they were just rotating untidily around their common center of gravity. O’Mara landed on the nearest lounger, wrapped his lower legs around it, grabbed Joan firmly by the wrists, and pulled her free. Then he transferred his gfip to her upper arms.

“Listen to me? he said urgently. “There’s no time to get both of you to the side wall. You’ve got to jump straight up, as hard as you can, in a vertical dive through the water.” He glanced upward at the struggling, shadowy bodies of the Tralthans and added, “No, angle your dive to the right or you’ll hit those two. Dive fast and cleanly, like you always do. You might hit turbulence, air pockets, places where there’s nothing but bubbles that you can’t see through. Keep going, don’t stop to breathe or you could disorientate and drown, until your momentum takes you through to clear air and beyond to the entrance wall. Did you understand that? Now, hyperventilate for a few seconds, then go!”