Part 17 (1/2)

'I don't know.' Benny glanced back at the specimen cabinet. 'But that ma.n.u.script is the original, not a copy?'

'Oh it's quite genuine, believe me. Is there a problem?'

Benny shrugged. Trying not to sound too concerned she said: 'I doubt it. It's just that I recognize the handwriting.'

The line detached almost as soon as Ace hit the ground. She fell on to her side, rolling with the momentum and saw the line looping back towards the Icoronata Icoronata. She checked the suit monitor which flashed up on the inside of the visor of her helmet at the tap of one of the b.u.t.tons set into her left wrist, and breathed a heavy sigh. There was no loss of pressure, so she need not scrabble for the sealant tube in the pocket on her right thigh.

Ace waved to show she was all right as the s.h.i.+p disappeared round the back of the asteroid. She could not see the Rippearean cruiser, but it would have locked solidly on to their signal by now. The detectors had been pinging intermittently as she left the control deck. They would easily deduce that the Heletians were sheltering behind the asteroid, trying to hide. She just hoped they would bother to go round the back and make sure rather than simply blast the asteroid out of the way.

She stared at the distant stars for a while to get her bearings. If the Doctor was right, then the cruiser would come at her between Optron and Limnus Five. She looked around for a suitable outcrop to shelter behind and to sight the bolter. The Rippeareans would not be looking in for her, but their laser radar might detect the metal of her suit and the energy charge of the phason bolts as they approached. And if she failed to cripple their s.h.i.+p then there was no doubt they would soon pinpoint her position.

'This could be a bad move, Ace,' she muttered to herself, secure in the knowledge that the communicators were not functioning for fear the enemy would pick up the broadcast. Then she set off for the largest ridge within sight, hoping that the Doctor's estimate of how far behind them the cruiser was could be trusted not to be too optimistic.

She jumped easily over the ridge and into the shallow trench behind it. Too easily she almost overshot and for a moment feared she might go spinning off into s.p.a.ce. She was grateful that the asteroid was large enough to have any gravity at all, but she should not presume on its hospitality too much. Once she had settled back into a comfortable position, and her heartbeat had settled back into a comfortable rhythm, she lined the bolter up against the stars, resting the angled legs on the end of the muzzle into a cleft in the rock. Perfect; from here she covered most of the sky in the direction from which the cruiser must come.

She was entirely dependent on her vision no sound in the vacuum; no perceptors in case the Rippeareans caught an echo of the scansion fields. She began watching the most likely sectors of the starscape for movement, her eyes scanning slowly back and forth looking for the tell*tale movement of a star, or a point of luminance flickering brighter than the others as it caught and reflected distant light.

When it came it was quicker than she had imagined. She recognized the snub nose of the cruiser as it approached from the ident charts Fortalexa had shown her. But even so, it took a precious second to register that it was what she was looking out for. She fumbled the bolter slightly in her haste to align it, her visor knocking into the viewfinder as she tried to sight through it.

One shot was all she would get. If that it looked as if the s.h.i.+p was coming straight at her, intent on smas.h.i.+ng its way forcibly through the asteroid. Perhaps they intended to blast it after all.

Then at what seemed like the last moment, the enhanced image banked and s.h.i.+ed away. Ace had to track quickly to keep up with it. But she was at last getting an angle on the flank. The huge metal bulk panned smoothly across her line of sight, slowed almost to a standstill in terms of its normal speed as it paused to manoeuvre round the asteroid. Ace's brain registered the landmarks along its hull as they pa.s.sed: forward weapons arrays; auxiliary fuel and storage bays; armaments magazine on no account hit that. So the next identifiable section should be the aft weapons pods, and then the aft thruster feed section.

She almost missed the cross*hatched piping which signified the start of the section she must hit, and the bolter jogged a little as she moved it to catch up as the rushed towards her. The phason charge was away almost before she knew her hand had flexed on the trigger*grip. She watched the circular projectile spinning towards its target, the projecting detonator bolts a blur in the viewfinder.

Too early she had been over*eager. The charge was heading forward of the ideal detonation point. Heading for the weapons pod. If it hit that the resulting explosion might take out the magazine as well.

Ace muttered a well*worn military phrase she had often used in such times and ducked down behind the ridge her hands s.h.i.+elding the back of her helmet in a futile reflex.

Two of the bolters on the charge's outer casing made contact almost together on the hull of the Rippearean cruiser, They were both plunged into the casing by the force of the impact and detonated virtually together. The main phason charge exploded in the centre of its double skin, the heat and gas forcing their way outwards through the joints of the containment vessel.

The vessel burst under the pressure, shrapnel and the initial blast wave exploding outwards through the holes left by the two bolter caps which had started the reaction. As a result, the detonation that ripped into the hull at 10,996 meters per second was dissipated to about half the destructive power that the designers had intended. Even so, the weapons pods were smashed backwards through the bulkhead into the feed linkages for the rear thrusters, crus.h.i.+ng them beyond repair. The forward motion of the s.h.i.+p helped channel the explosion backwards, and the double*strength bulkhead screening off the magazine from the rest of the s.h.i.+p buckled but remained intact.

From initial impact to the complete destruction of the aft thruster feed linkage took just under one hundredth of a second.

A shower of debris and shrapnel splashed down on the ridge. Ace saw fragments of burning metal bounce along the top, and heard others scatter across her helmet. When the noise and yellow rain had stopped, she cautiously raised her head.

The cruiser was spinning slowly on its axis, the impact had knocked it round in a circle and stopped its forward motion. As the damaged side spun into view Ace could see the hole torn through the hull and the fires still burning in the thruster sections at the rear. As she watched, a mist of fire*r.e.t.a.r.dant gas sprayed out along the aft of the s.h.i.+p, and then the damage spun away out of sight.

'Hasta la vista, baby,' Ace said with satisfaction. Then the warning bleeper started.

She stabbed at the b.u.t.tons on her wrist and watched the read*outs scroll across the inside of her visor. Pressure was down and still falling. But where was the leak? A red*hot particle of metal from the cruiser must have penetrated her suit, though there was no obvious damage. She slumped into a sitting position.

She checked the oxygen levels. Too low. She adjusted the pumps which were trying to make up the shortage of pressure. At least what oxygen remained would ebb away more slowly now. But most had already been efficiently pumped into s.p.a.ce. She had to find the leak.

Ace started isolating areas of the suit and checking the pressure levels. She was looking for an area where the pressure was noticeably lower than other areas. Or should it be higher if that was where the oxygen was being forced out? d.a.m.n! She could hear her breathing becoming laboured within the helmet now. She had to concentrate. She was looking for abnormal pressure: low or high, either would do.

Left leg had to be. The figures were fluctuating all over the place. She stared down at the suit. Nothing to see, but the hole could be tiny. Probably was. Ace tugged at the zip of the pouch at her right thigh, forcing herself to stay calm and to pull steadily when her jerks failed to open it. The zipper tore silently across, plastic teeth grinning up at her as they parted and her vision started to blur.

She managed to get the tube of sealing gel out of the pouch, but she dropped it trying to unscrew the top. It bounced off the side of the rock her back was against and skidded just out of reach. With an effort she leaned forward, her fingertips scrambling to catch at it. The air was rus.h.i.+ng in her ears and her heart was pounding within her head when she finally managed to pick up the tube. It seemed far heavier than when she had dropped it.

The top came off easily and she smeared a thin layer of gel on to her leg, squeezing a blob just above the knee and spreading it across with the palm of her hand. Almost at once, at the top of the area she had covered, a bubble started to form. It blistered outwards, thinning and stretching. Then it burst in a tiny shower of pale droplets, releasing a breath of Ace's life into the emptiness of s.p.a.ce.

Her hand seemed to be seizing up as she reached across and squeezed a larger amount of gel over the point where the bubble had formed. She could feel the strain in her hand as she held the tube; she could detect the deterioration in her vision as the gel immediately began to blister before it had time to set. She managed to squeeze another lump of gel over the leak, but she could scarcely see what she was doing.

Ace's head lolled forward and she felt but could not see the tube of sealant slip from her limp fingers.

'All the evidence,' Bernice said, 'points to a civilization wiped out almost without trace. Whatever happened, it was over very quickly buildings completely destroyed and no other material evidence left intact.'

'And the Doctor sent you to confirm this theory?'

Bernice was not actually sure quite why he had sent her. 'Partly,' she hazarded. 'And partly because I think he felt there were some things that didn't add up.'

Braxiatel pushed himself forward off the desk and wandered over towards the cabinet containing the ma.n.u.script, 'Such as?'

Benny was not entirely sure about that either. But she had her own suspicions. 'The acoustics of the theatre are all wrong for one thing.'

Braxiatel clicked his tongue. 'Yes, we missed that.' He shook his head as if chiding himself for the mistake.

'You've been investigating it too?'

He ignored her question. 'What else?'

'Oh, I don't know. Lots of little things. It just seems weird generally. Then there's the problems with the research papers and source doc.u.ments. And the computer's simulation of the way the buildings were destroyed.'

'Yes.' He nodded. 'It never occurred to us to run a simularity on it.' He smiled suddenly. 'Never mind. Is that it?'

'Yes. And no. There's this machine I found. It projects an image of a play. A sort of simularity. But there's more to it than that.'

'What sort of more? What does the Doctor think?'

'I don't know. But it worries him. He thinks we think it's connected to whatever happened all those years ago.'

Braxiatel was pacing the room now, walking thoughtfully between the ma.n.u.script and the desk. 'Interesting...' he muttered. 'Very interesting.'

'You said you'd done some research as well and you've implied you have some theory for what happened on Maximus.'

He stopped and stroked his chin. For a moment he was quiet, then he seemed to come to a decision. 'Oh, I know what happened on Menaxus. That's why you have to go to the Doctor and warn him.'

'Warn him? What about?'

'About the machine; about an invasion.' He sat on the desk, shuffling backwards so his feet were just clear of the floor and stared intently into Benny's eyes. 'Let tell you about Menaxus,' he said. And then he told what had happened.