Jack McDevitt - POLARIS

Skimmers are not designed for high-altitude flight. They have several vents, and if the oxygen gets scarce outside, the people inside are going to feel it. My head was beginning to hurt, and there was already pressure in my chest. “Breathe faster,” I said.

“It’ll help.”

I looked around the cabin. There was a time that these things carried parachutes or glide belts, but accidents were so infrequent that more people died from experimenting with the escape gear than from crashes, so it was eventually decided that it was safer in an emergency for ordinary citizens to ride the aircraft down. But that assumed the aircraft was going down.

“How about,” he suggested, “we shut off the pods?”

“We don’t have that option,” I said. “They’re on and disconnected, so they’re going to stay on.”

We cleared five thousand meters.

“Well,” he said, “if you’ve an idea, this would be a good time.” He was speaking more deliberately by then, inhaling and exhaling with every couple of words.

“You have any cable in this buggy?” I was climbing into the backseat, to get access to the cargo compartment. “Something we can use for a tether?”

“I don’t think so.”

I made a show of looking around, but I knew there was nothing like that.

“Okay,” I told him. “Shut down the thrusters and take off your shirt.”

“I don’t think we ought to be joking around.”

“Do it, Alex.” He complied while I opened the cargo compartment and found the tool box. I took out a pair of shears, a wire cutter, and the key. The key, of course, was a remote that would open panels on the bottom of the aircraft.

“What are you going to do?”

I pulled off my blouse. “I’m going to try to give you back control of the pods. Or at least one of them.” He handed me his shirt, and I used the shears to cut it and my blouse into strips.

He demanded to know how I intended to do that. But we were a trifle short of time, and I was in no mood to go into a long explanation. “Watch and learn,” I said.

I slipped the key into a pocket. Then I climbed back into my seat and tied the cloth strips into a line. I looped one end around my waist and tied the other end to my seat anchor. “Wish me luck.” I opened the door, and the wind roared through the cabin. It was frigid.

Alex was horrified. “Are you crazy? You can’t go out there.”

“It’s safe, Alex.” We were both shouting to get over the wind. “It’s zero gee out to a couple meters from the hull. All I have to do is not drift too far away.” Or get blown off. “But I need you to keep us as steady as you can. Use the verticals if you have to, and hang on to the yoke. Okay?”

“No!” He pushed back in his seat. “I can’t let you do that.”

I was halfway out the door. “It’s not as dangerous as it looks,” I yelled at him.

And damned sure less dangerous than doing nothing.

“No! You stay here. I’ll go.”

We both knew he didn’t mean it. In his defense, I’d argue that he thought he did, but I couldn’t see Alex climbing outside an aircraft under any circumstances. Even on the ground I don’t think he’d have tried it. Moreover, he didn’t know what to do.

“It’s okay,” I said. “I can handle it.”

“You sure?”

“Of course. Now, listen: When the pods reactivate, these two lamps’ll go on. But don’t do anything until I’m back inside.” I was trying to hold the door open against the wind. “If anything goes wrong-”

“What?”

“Nothing. Never mind.” He’d have no way out.

One section of the tether was midnight blue, composed of strips of the most expensive blouse I owned. I sighed and climbed out the door. The wind howled. I wasn’t really prepared for it, I guess. It caught me and ripped me off the fuselage and tossed me partially outside the envelope. My weight came back and my lower limbs felt like a bag of bricks. The skimmer was still going up, and it dragged me behind it.

I suddenly became aware that I was dangling several thousand meters in the air.

I hadn’t thought things out very well. The tether was wrapped around my waist instead of under my arms, and when it snapped tight it knocked the wind out of me. I needed a minute to recoup. Then I began to haul myself back up the line, hand over hand. The drag was horrific, but I’d been smart enough (or lucky enough) to make the tether no longer than I had to. Had I been tossed completely outside the bubble, I’d not have been able to do it.

As I climbed, the antigrav field took hold of my hips and legs again, and my weight went away. I grabbed a tread, got onto it, and tried to catch my breath. I now had access to the underside of the aircraft. It hadn’t been pretty, but I was there.

Each of the pods had an access panel. What I would have liked to do was open both panels and reconnect the control leads to the terminals. The forward pod was within easy reach. But the one toward the tail would be impossible to get to because the tread didn’t extend that far. And I couldn’t just float back there because of the wind. Nor would my tether have been long enough.

It was getting progressively harder to breathe. A darkness was beginning to gather around the edges of my vision. I took the key from my pocket, handling it carefully so the wind didn’t blow it away, and punched the purple button. Both panels opened.

In the forward compartment, I could see the loose cable. It was simple enough: I hung on to a strut with one hand and reconnected it. (I’d brought the wire cutters in case I had to splice.) There was nothing I could do about the rear pod.

When it was done I closed the panels.

We were still going up, of course. We passed through another cloud, and for the moment I couldn’t see anything except cumulus.

When we cleared I climbed back into the cabin, fell into my seat, and pulled the door shut. “I’ve only got one light,” he said.

“That’s because you’ve only got one pod,” I replied. “It should be enough.”

He hit the button and the status lamp glowed green and we got some weight back. The rate of ascent began to slow. The rear of the skimmer went up, and the nose dipped. That figured since the tail still weighed nothing. Gradually we nosed over and continued to rise more slowly until we hit apogee. Then we began to fall.

“Okay.” I reset the black box to zero.

“What are you doing?” he asked. We were looking straight down at the ocean.

“Preventing a crash. If we jiggle it a bit on the way down, turn it on, turn it off, we won’t hit too hard.”

“We’re going to crash again?” he asked.

“Probably,” I told him. “But the air’s going to feel better.”

We drifted down the sky. Alex clapped a shaky hand on my shoulder and told me I’d performed like a trouper. Made him proud.

The Patrol appeared and moved alongside. The bay got closer, but only slowly.

We were descending like a leaf, while the Patrol encouraged us and told us to keep at it. My heart settled back inside my ribs, and color returned to Alex’s cheeks.

Alex tried to manage things to keep us out of the water, but the position the aircraft was in prevented any kind of maneuver except up and down. Forty minutes after we’d begun to fall, we hit the surface. But unlike last time we slipped gently into the waves. It was nice and gradual, and the people in the rescue vehicle actually cheered.