C. Cherryh - Cuckoo's Egg

"Get to that seat!" Duun yelled, and shot that way himself. Thorn dived, caught the back of one and hauled himself into it by the armrest, reached for the furled restraints and started fastening them. He looked up, ahead of them where the star had vanished. "Where is it?"

They had not turned, could not have turned: the shuttle had nothing left.

"Helmet," Duun said. Thorn pushed the button on the armrest, pulled up the connecting hose and communications plug and inserted them as the helmet came down. He locked it in place, selected the third communications channel. One was unified and two was crew-only, three was non-crew. Himself and Duun. He could hear his breathing, could hear Duun's, and it was steadier than his own.

(O gods, how do people get used to this?)

There was another star. All in silence. Only the breathing sounds, the faraway noises of the shuttle's operations that were everywhere ambient, but dimmed by the helmets.

He switched channels, heard the crew talking and the messages coming in. The sweat gathered on his body and his arm was going to sleep until he shifted it. ("Damn suits never fit," Duun had said.) It was better than the flightsuit. Looser.

(Another star. Are those missiles or are those ships? Are those ships dying?)

The crew-talk made no sense to him, full of codes. He cut third channel in. "Duun, what's happening?"

"They're within range of each other. And of us, with far less accuracy. The hatani have headed them off. Outmaneuvered them, if they don't let one get past. If they do they'll never get a second chance and we can't stop it."

The flashes went on. Thorn shut his eyes and opened them again, wishing he dared take the helmet off. The air was cold and stung his throat and nose and eyes.

"That's Ganngein ," Weig's voice broke in on third channel. "They got them all. We've got debris on intersect. That's all." "How's Ganngein ?" Duun asked. A pause. "Zero-return. So's Nonnent . Ganngein wishes us well and says they'll stay in contact. They're trying to determine their numbers now; they've been skewed."

"Can't the station send something out?" Thorn asked. "Couldn't earth?"

"Station's in ghota hands," Duun said. "Unfortunately. Hatani there were too few. But there's no ship at the station now-Hatani got that, thank the gods, or ghotanin'd have overhauled us from behind. It was the ghota outliers that hit us up ahead. Station's got one shuttle left; earth has a few. But a shuttle can't stop Ganngein . Not a question of slowing down that mass, which they couldn't in the first place. Just of catching them in a docking maneuver. They can't match those speeds even to get the crew off." (Sphitti's voice: "Here's an application now.

If you were drifting in mid-air-no friction and no gravity-)

("You can't.")

("Say that you could.")

(Angles and lines on a schoolroom screen-)

There was a long time that the crew and the doomed ships talked, business only.

"That's it," Thorn heard one say. "We're going to hit the well-looks like three days on. It could be worse. Like four."

"We hear you," Weig said. There was sorrow in his voice. Thorn listened and stared at the points of light. His arm and his leg were numb. No one moved to take off the suits. Debris on intersect . He remembered that. The other two ships talked awhile. There was no better news.

(This is more dreadful than the planes. This silence. This inevitability of ships that meet that fast, with distances that take days. For Betan it was quick. These men and women will have time to talk and eat and sleep and wake three times before they hit the ground. Before they skim through the well and get caught and dragged in.)

"… we think," Nonnent said, "we think we may have the angle to transit. We don't know yet."

"We'll miss your company then," Ganngein said.

A long pause. "Yes, we hear that." Quickly, from Nonnent .

"Don't be embarrassed about it. This isn't a trip we want to share."

Hatani. Or tanun guild.

There was long silence. Eventually there began to be a hole in space, small at first, that grew and ate the stars. "Something's out there, Duun. Isn't it?"

"Dust," Duun said. "Particles. We won't use the lights. We're conserving all the power we've got and we can't dodge it anyway."

(How long can it take us? What if a mostly whole ship were in our path?)

(Fool's question, Thorn.)

Wait and wait and wait. All the stars were gone. The ships talked now and again. They talked about the cloud.

Static began. Transmission broke up. A noise penetrated the helmet, a distant hammer blow. Another. The sounds accelerated to a battering. It stopped.

"We're still in it." Weig said. "This is going- uhh!"

The shock rang through the structure and up through the deck. Thorn clenched his gloved hands on the armrests and forgot the pain. Silence a time.

"Clipped the left wing," Mogannen said. "We've got a little spin now. Don't-"

Another shock. Shock after shock. Silence then. An occasional strike, none large.

(Pieces of the ghotanin. Or of one of our own. We're flying through dead ships. Dead. Bodies. Or bits of them. Blood out there would freeze like snow.)

The stars came back. "Hey!" Weig shouted. We're through!"

(For me. For me and Duun, the dead back on earth. Ganngein and Nonnent . Ghota and hatani ships.)

"There's a ship out there," Spart said, and Thorn's heart stopped. "It's Deva . It's going to serve as pickup. It's about nine hours down."

"Thank the gods," Mogannen said.

"We go out to it," Duun explained. "They can't stop our spin to pick us up. We're easier to manage in suits."

Deva shone a light for them. The shuttle turned slowly, wedge-shaped shadow against the sun. Debris trailed from one wing edge, and from the tail. A touch came at his leg and Duun snagged him, maneuvered and got him by the hand. Near them three became a chain. One of them was still loose but in no danger. Deva 's beacon brightened among the stars, a white and blinding sun.

Deva was not so fine inside as the shuttle- was all bare metal and plastics; but it had shonunin in it. It had welcome.

"Duun-hatani," the captain said.

"You're a good sight, Ivogi-tanun," said Duun.

Thorn held his helmet in his hands. He saw the others' looks, the crew who stood gazing at him. As they might look at some strange fish they had hauled up in their nets.

"This is Haras," Duun said. "Hatani guild."

"We heard," Ivogi-tanun said.

There was silence from Ganngein now. For four days. Static obscured Nonnent 's voice. Earth spoke in code, and Deva had no facilities. Gatog spoke back, constantly; and that was coded too, even when it was Deva 's code. Machines read it out. There was seldom a voice, until the last, when Gatog began to shine in Deva 's viewport like a scatter of jewels.

(It seemed sinister till we saw it. It's like an ornament. Why is it out here?) "Duun, what is this place?" Duun was silent. Thorn trembled, looking at it from the place on the bridge where Ivogi-tanun called them. It was foolish. Perhaps it was all the other shocks. But there seemed no other destination. Earth and Gatog spoke in some hieratic tongue past them, sharing secrets; and earth had drunk down Ganngein -"Gods," the last transmission had been, or it had sounded like that. Then static from Nonnent too. "They're behind the earth," Duun said. They expected transmission to pick up again. But they never found it, though Deva asked Gatog. "We've lost it too," Gatog said, one of the few uncoded transmissions they had gotten from this secretive place.