Джек Макдевитт - A Voice in the Night

“Kellie,” he said, “we’re so close to the ground. Why not try to land?”

If we’d had a set of wheels and a runway it might have been possible. “We’d hit too hard,” I explained. “There’d be no chance.”

“You’re talking about us. What would happen to the cargo?”

“Everything back there is frozen, George. Brittle. It would shatter.”

I could see his mind working, trying to come up with something to save the payload. I wished he would give it up. “What happens after the other lander takes us off?”

“We go back to the Bromfield .”

“I mean—.” He nodded at the cargo door.

I knew what he meant. “It’ll go down.”

“Can we set it to try for a soft landing?” It was a cry for help and I felt sorry for him, sorry I’d come aboard, sorry I had anything to do with this.

“If we could get Bill up and running, yes, we could make the effort.” Bill was the AI. “But he doesn’t respond. I’ve been trying.”

“Try again, Kellie.”

I did. Bill wasn’t even a blip.

“There must be something we can do,” George said.

The Retreat had at one time been protected by a Flickinger field, or something very much like it. But when it failed, the individual volumes had frozen. After the initial attempts, no one had tried to open them. Or even to remove them from their shelves.

George was the expert. He’d come with some heat lamps, had used them to break the books free so they could be loaded and taken to orbit, where a team of specialists waited anxiously to begin probing their secrets. He was a little guy, thick brown hair, bushy mustache, a bit overweight. Not the sort of person you’d meet and remember. He had a wife somewhere but he never talked about her. I suspected she’d broken his heart. Don’t know why I thought that, he never said anything that I can recall. Still, there it was.

He’d been positively glowing while he separated the volumes and we began storing them into shipping containers and stacking the containers in Delta’s cargo hold. “Here,” he’d said, rapping on the cargo hatch after we’d sealed it, “with a little luck, we should have their heart and soul. For the first time, Kellie, we’ll see what the universe looks like through someone else’s eyes.”

We were on internal air. I started to depressurize the cabin.

The Delta cleared the mountains, close enough that I could have put a foot out and dragged it across a couple of the peaks. Somewhere in there we must have hit perigee—I really had no way to know exactly where. But Tod told me we were gaining altitude again. That we’d be okay and he would get to us in time.

I looked back for him. Our telescopes weren’t working, but it wasn’t hard to find Alpha, which kept getting brighter. It had gotten close enough that I could almost make out its shape.

“How you holding out?” Tod asked.

“Okay. We’re packed and ready.” I tried not to sound too relieved. “What’s your TOA?”

“Twenty-one oh-seven.” Eleven minutes. “I’m going to let you make your turn, and then I’ll pick you up on your way back in.”

Sylvia broke in from the Retreat: “Kellie, I’m sorry to hear you had a problem.”

“We’re going to lose the cargo.”

“I know.” She sounded sympathetic. “Don’t worry about it. They’re only books.” George closed his eyes and said something deep in his throat. “Your priority is to save yourself and George.” She paused, apparently uncertain what to say next. “Can he hear me?”

“I hear you, Sylvia.”

“George, I’m sorry. I know what this means to you.”

“She hasn’t a clue,” George told me. Then he spoke into the link. “Horrible thing to happen.”

“Nothing to be done.”

“Syl, I’d give my life—.”

“Not today, George. Not on my watch. I’ll see you topside for a late dinner.”

“Yeah,” he said.

“It’s okay. We’ll salvage what we can.” Then back to me: “Kellie, take care of him.”

“We’ll be okay, Sylvia. Tod’s on the scene.”

“All right. Let me know when you’re safe.” She signed off.

“Damned old bat,” said George. “She has no clue what we’re about to lose.”

A few minutes later we rounded apogee and began sinking again. We were coming in lower this time, approaching high country. We weren’t going to have much more than a thousand meters clearance above some of the higher peaks. Alpha drew alongside. “Time to go, George,” I said.

He nodded and slipped silently out of his restraints.

I wouldn’t have you think I was unsympathetic, but I was delighted to be getting out alive. I thought he could have been a bit more grateful. “George,” I said, “for all you know, they’re nothing more than a collection of thrillers. Or sociology texts. Or cook books.” The way he looked at me shut me down. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I wish we could save them.”

“You said we can’t ride it down. But we’ve gotten pretty low. Why not try? We aren’t going down that fast.” Beyond the crags the ground was leveling out.

“It only looks that way,” I said.

Alpha was gray and boxy. Its windows were lit up and I could see Tod at the controls. We were on the side away from the Twins and the cloud, but parts of the big ring were always in the sky, casting an ethereal glow over the landscape.

“You ready to go, Kellie?” Tod was a big, freckle-faced kid just out of school. Flirted with everybody and thought the world would open up to him any time he wanted it to. So far, I guess it had. He also had the happy trait of inspiring confidence. I knew he’d do whatever was necessary to get us out.

“On our way.”

I activated the airlock but it didn’t open. It was on George’s right, out of reach for me.

“What’s wrong?” George asked.

“No problem. But I need your help.”

“Sure. What can I do?”

I released my harness, held onto the stick with one hand, and edged out of my seat. “Here,” I said “hold this.” I put his hand over mine and then withdrew, leaving him with control of the spacecraft. “Just keep it steady.”

“Okay,” he said uncertainly.

“No, don’t try to change seats.”

“Okay.” He looked at the controls and then out at the onrushing peaks and I knew he wasn’t happy.

I showed him what I needed. Keep this down. The stick stays here. If this light turns yellow, call me. The spike was staving off free fall, but that was about all you could say for it. It was like being in a damaged parachute.

I hurried over to the airlock, opened the inner door manually, gave George an encouraging pat on the shoulder, and released the outer hatch. It opened and I looked out at the void. Tod closed to within a few meters. His own airlock opened, and he appeared and waved.

“Good to see you, Kellie,” he said. His e-suit glimmered in the light from the ring. He held a lanyard. “Ready?”

“Not yet, Tod. Wait one.”

Looking back now, I have the impression I was vaguely aware of movement behind me. Maybe not. I can’t be sure. But I caught the lanyard on the first toss. It was a pair of cables, actually. I clipped them to my belt, and turned around. My intention was to attach one of them to George, loop the other one around something, and reclaim my chair until he’d jumped to safety. Then I’d recover my cable and follow him out the door. Shouldn’t be a problem.