John Varley - Red Thunder

“Then you’ll just come and get us, right?”

A pause. “Sure. Just take it slow, okay?”

“Got it. Now, where are those wire cutters? Oh, Alicia, can you… I just lost that hammer with the red handle, Travis. Sorry, it just floated up… let me see if I-”

[369] “Let it go!” Travis snapped. Then he muttered, “I should have tied the damn things together… Kelly, don’t worry about it. Worse comes to worst, you can use just about anything as a hammer.”

“I’ve got the wire cutters. I’m tying them to my suit… closing the tool bag. Now, Alicia, which one should we cut first?”

“That one right there.”

“Cutting a thick, green wire… now… Well, that worked out okay. Pull it to one side, Alicia… there. Now, cutting a thick, gold wire… There.”

She cut six wires and pulled them out of the way before she got the wrong one. As soon as she snipped it everything started to move.

“Move back, Alicia!” Kelly warned, and they moved… and the smallest of the three orbiting pieces of the Ares Seven pulled itself free and began to spin off into oblivion. It all happened soundlessly, but my mind supplied the shriek of straining metal and the sound of snapping guitar strings as smaller wires, unable to take up the burden once borne by three or four wires, snapped and popped like cracking whips. Kelly and Alicia turned their backs to the mayhem. I saw one snapping wire slap itself across Kelly’s backpack. Then the two remaining pieces of the ship parted company and began drifting apart… and the safety tether was tied to the wrong piece.

Travis took it in, saw the wayward hunk of junk about to pull the line taut, and he reached down and pulled the free end of the rope, which he had tied in a slipknot in case of this very situation. The rope whipped through the eyebolt and was gone.

“Had to do that,” Travis said. “ Had to do that, it was about to get pulled into a spiral… it would have-”

“Wrapped itself around Red Thunder ,” I said, “and crashed into us.”

“Too right. Kelly, check your suit systems, right now!”

“… five by five, Travis.” They were still tied to the big piece, and now they could see themselves drifting away from us. “You’ll come get us, right? I mean… soon? I don’t like this very much.”

“I’m coming in right now,” Travis assured her, and he had already moved out of my range of vision. We heard the lock cycling, and Travis [370] made it to the bridge in record time, frost forming on the very cold surface of his suit.

Dak and I went below and strapped in. We felt a few gentle shoves as Travis turned the ship, using the small thrusters not very different from the SMU. Then a mild kick in the pants as he fired the main drive. Two minutes later, another firing of the main drive, then the slightest burp, and when Dak and I scrambled up into the cockpit we could see he had brought Red Thunder motionless with respect to the wreck and the girls, an incredible piece of computerless flying that proved once more that nothing would ever substitute for a skilled pilot at the con, no matter what the Chinese said.

“All right, guys,” Travis said wearily. “Your point has been proven. I have to stay here at the controls. Manny, I want you to-”

“We see two space suits!” Kelly said. Travis was instantly at the porthole beside us. From where we sat, the girls seemed to have moved to the other side of the ship. We could see their lights from the reflections on shiny surfaces, but not the lights themselves.

“Didn’t I tell you not to move around?”

“Actually, you didn’t, Travis, but we didn’t move much. This hunk of junk has picked up a rotation. We’ve turned away from you. I’m approaching one of the-”

“ Please stay put, Kelly.”

“I’m barely moving. I… oh my God. Don’t be sick, don’t be sick, don’t be sick.”

“Captain, there’s somebody in the suit,” Alicia said. “Don’t look at him, Kelly.”

“I’m okay. I’m okay.”

“The… ah, one arm is torn off at the elbow. Hard to tell if he died of loss of blood or freezing or anoxia.”

“Don’t be sick, don’t be sick, don’t be sick…”

“Can you tell who it is?” Travis said softly.

“Captain, the face is… it’s not pretty. I’m not even sure if it’s a man.”

“Roger.”

Kelly seemed to have controlled her stomach. As the wreckage [371] slowly turned toward us again, rotating at about one turn in three minutes, we could see them again.

“The air-lock door is free now, Captain,” Kelly said. “Can you see it?”

“We see it. I’m sending Manny out to throw you another line.”

“Captain,” Alicia said, “I suggest you wait on that. You’re not going anywhere, right? I mean, now that you’re with us again.”

“That’s right.”

“Well, when Kelly lost the hammer I got to wondering what we might need that we didn’t bring with us. Why don’t we wait until we’ve looked at everything? I don’t think we want to make that crossing any more than we have to.”

“I concur, Alicia, now that you mention it. Good thinking.”

“We’re approaching the air-lock door now.”

There was silence for a while. Travis put his hand over the microphone.

“Boys, you’re never going to find women with more courage than those two. And they’re smart and beautiful, into the bargain. You better marry them.”

“I’ve been giving it a lot of thought,” I said, and Dak grinned.

THEY MADE THEIRway to the air lock. There was a small window set into the door at head height, and it was cracked but not exploded.

“Look at this,” Kelly said.

“What?” Travis, Dak, and I said at the same time.

“Frost, Captain. Even a couple little icicles.”

“Condensation,” Travis said, excited.

“Gotta be,” Alicia said. “I think there’s still air in there.”

“If we can get the door open,” Kelly said. “I’m punching the button… nothing. Trying again. Nothing. Should we whack it upside the head, guys?”

“Always worked for me,” Dak said.

“Whacking… nothing. Whacking again. Nothing. Alicia, can you get that torqueless power wrench out of my bag? Don’t let anything float away. Damn, what we need for this job is that eight-dollar [372] hammer I lost, not this four-hundred-dollar piece of NASA surplus. Isn’t that always the way?”

She was talking a lot, not only to calm her own nerves but because we’d asked her to. Describe everything, Travis had said. In great detail.

“No action on the door, Captain.”

“Kelly, hit it again, then put your helmet in contact with the door.”

“Why, Captain?”

“Sound can carry through metal but not through vacuum. It’s possible somebody in there hears you knocking on the door.”

Any science-fiction reader would have known that, and once again it came to me, hard, that space was my dream, Dak’s dream, not theirs. We should be over there, risking our lives. Why is the universe so unfair, so perverse?

“Yikes, that really rang my bell,” Kelly said.

“What happened?”

“Had my helmet against the door when I whanged on it, like a dummy. Hitting again, three times.” A short pause. “Yes! Yes, I heard three taps! There’s somebody in there! But how are we… wait a minute, what’s this?”

“Tell us, Kelly, tell us!”

“The door is rotating. It’s half open… three-quarters open… stopped.”

“I can feel somebody pounding on the door,” Alicia said. “Put your hand on it. Feel it? Somebody’s in there for sure, Captain. And it looks like the door cycling switch works from their side.”