Hal Clement - Close to Critical

The girl seemed to understand the situation. “It’s all right, ’Mina,” she said gently. “You didn’t really hurt me. I’ll take care of you, and we’ll get back to your father—after a while.” She glanced at the pickup as she added the last words, and Raeker grew tense again. A glance at Councillor Rich confirmed his suspicion; the girl was trying to get something across, presumably without alarming her companion. Gently but firmly Raeker took the Drommian’s place in the pickup field. Easy r nodded in recognition; she had met him briefly on her own tour through the Vindemiatrix some time earlier.

“Miss Rich,” he began, “we’re still a little in the dark f about just what happened down there. Can you tell us? Or is your guide there, to give a report?”

She shook her head negatively at the latter question. “I don’t know where Mr. Flanagan is. He stayed hi the tender to have a smoke, I suppose; he told us to be sure not to touch any controls—he must think we’re pretty stupid. We stayed away from the board, of course—in fact, after the first look, we stayed out of the control compartment altogether, and looked through the other rooms. They’re all observation or bunkrooms, except for the galley, and we were just going to suit up to go back to the tender when a call came from Mr; Flanagan on the set he’d left tuned to suit radio frequence. He said he was at the outer lock, and would open it as soon as he closed the one on the tender—the two ships were so close together we could touch them both at once when we came across—and that we were to, stay absolutely still and not do a thing until he came. ’Mina had just opened his mouth to answer when the jolt came; we were flung against the wall, and I was held there by what felt like three or four G’s of acceleration. ’Mina could move around all right, and tried to call Mr. Flanagan on the set, but there was no answer, and I wouldn’t let him touch anything else. The acceleration lasted half a minute or ! so, I guess; you can tell better than we can. It stopped | just before you called us.”

By this time the communication room was packed with : men. Several of them began to work slide rules, and j Raeker, turning from the set, watched one of these until [ he had finished; then he asked, “Any ideas, Saki?”

“I think so,” the engineer replied. “The kid’s report | isn’t exact, of course, but judging from her estimate of I acceleration and time, and the mass of the bathyscaphe, one full ring of the solid-fuel boosters was touched off somehow. That should give just over four G’s for forty seconds—about a mile a second total velocity change. There’s no way to tell where the ship is, though, until we get there and home on it; we can’t compute, since we don’t know the direction of acceleration. I wish the ’scaphe weren’t so close to the planet, though.”

Raeker knew better than to ask the reason for this, but Aminadabarlee didn’t.

“Why?”

The engineer glanced at him, then at the image of the other Drommian in the screen, and then apparently decided not to pull punches.

“Because a one-mile-a-second change in any of a good many directions could put it in an orbit which would enter atmosphere,” he said bluntly.

“How long to entry?” cut in Rich.

“Not my pigeon. We’ll get it computed while we’re under way. My guess would be hours at the outside, though.”

“Then why are we standing here talking?” shrilled Aminadabarlee. “Why aren’t preparations for rescue being made?”

“They are,” returned the engineer calmly. “Only one shuttle was in regular use, but there are others here. One of them is being made ready, and will leave in less than ten minutes. Dr. Raeker, do you want to come?”

“I’d just add mass without being useful,” Raeker replied.

“I suppose the same could be said for me,” said Rich, “but I’d like to come if there’s room. I certainly don’t want to hamper the work, though.”

“It will be better if you don’t,” admitted Sakiiro. “We’ll keep in touch with this ship and the ’scaphe, though, so you’ll know what’s happening.” He ran from the room.

Aminadabarlee had quite obviously meant to insist upon going; after Rich’s words, however, he could hardly do that. He relieved his feelings by remarking, “No one but a fool human being would have had takeoff boosters attached to an uncompleted ship.”

“The bathyscaphe is complete, except for final circuit checks and connections,” another engineer replied calmly, “and the boosters were for landing as well as takeoff. As a matter of fact, they were not supposed to be connected until the last moment, and it will not be possible to tell what actually fired them until we salvage the ship. Until then, assigning blame is very much a waste of time.” He stared coldly at the Drommian, and Rich stepped into the breach. Raeker had to admit the fellow was good at his job; it had seemed a virtual certainty that the big weasel was going to clean the human beings out of the room, but Rich had him calmed down below boiling point in four or five minutes.

Raeker would have liked to hear the details, but he was occupied with the radio. The children on the bathyscaphe had heard, without understanding completely, most of the engineers’ statements; and Raeker found himself doing his best to keep up their morale. They were, perfectly reasonably, frightened half to death. It wasn’t as hard as he’d thought it might be, though; he hadn’t talked long before he realized that the girl was doing exactly the same thing. He couldn’t decide whether it was for the benefit of her father or her nonhuman companion, but his respect for the youngster went even higher.

The rescue ship was well on the way by this time, and as the minutes clicked by the hopes of everyone on all three vessels began to mount. If the ’scaphe were in an orbit that did not touch Tenebra’s atmosphere, of course, there was no danger; food and air equipment were aboard and had been operating for some time. On a straight chance basis, it seemed to Raeker that the probabilities were at least three to one that this was the case, though he was no ballistician. The computer on the rescue boat was kept busy grinding out possible orbits; the worst seemed to call for atmospheric contact within three-quarters of an hour of the accident; and if this didn’t occur within a little over two hours, it wouldn’t.

There were view ports in the ’scaphe, and Easy was able to recognize some stars; but while this told them roughly which side of the planet she was on, the lack of precision measurements at her command made the information useless. At that time, there was only one side she could be on.

It was sixty-seven minutes after the accident that Easy reported acceleration. By that time, even Aminadabarlee knew all the implications of the fact. The rescue boat was “there,” in the sense that it was within half a diameter of Tenebra and nearly motionless with respect to the planet—perfectly useless, as far as the trapped children were concerned. The engineers could get a fix on the ’scaphe’s transmitter and locate it within a few miles; but they couldn’t compute an interception orbit inside Tenebra’s atmosphere. No one knew enough about the atmosphere. The certain thing was that no interception whatever could be accomplished before the ’scaphe was so low that rockets could not be used—atmospheric pressure would be too high for them. Sakiiro reported this to the Vindemiatrix within a minute of Easy’s information; then, before Aminadabarlee could start to speak, he turned to the set which he had on the depth-boat’s frequency.

“Miss Rich. Please listen carefully. Your acceleration is going to get much worse over the next few minutes; I want you to strap yourself in the seat before the control panel, and do what you can about your companion.”