Part 4 (1/2)
”A couple of hours. You can stand it all right.”
Rich cut in at this point.
”Suppose the machine pa.s.ses over your robot's location before getting rid of its speed, Mr. Sakiiro? What will the autopilot do? Try to dive in at that point?”
”Certainly not. This is a vehicle, not a missile. It will circle the point at a distance which doesn't demand more than an extra half-G to hold it in the turn. If necessary, it will try to land the s.h.i.+p; but we should be able to avoid that.”
”How? You don't expect Easy to fly it, do you?”
”Not in the usual sense. However, when she's down to what we can call 'flying' speed, the main buoyancy tanks of the 'scaphe should be full of the local atmosphere. Then I'll tell her how to start the electrolyzers; that will fill them with hydrogen, and the s.h.i.+p should float, when they're full, at an alt.i.tude where boosters can be used.
Then she and her young friend can trim the s.h.i.+p so that 66 CLOSE TO CRITICAL.
she's hanging nose up, and fire the rest of the boosters. We can be waiting overhead.”
”I thought you said the boosters weren't connected to the control panel yet!”
Sakiiro was silent for a moment.
”You're right; I'd forgotten that. That complicates the problem.”
”You mean my kid is marooned down there?”
”Not necessarily. It's going to call for some tight maneuvering; but I should think we could rig boosters on this boat so as to be able to reach the 'scaphe when it's floating at its highest. The whole design object, remember, was for the thing to float high enough for hydroferron boosters to work; and if they'll work on one frame, they'll certainly work on another.”
”Then you can rescue her.” The statement was more than half a question. Sakiiro was an honest man, but he had difficulty in making an answer. He did, however, after a moment's hesitation, staring into the face of the middle-aged man whose agonized expression showed so clearly on his screen.
”We should be able to save them both. I will not conceal from you that it will be difficut and dangerous; transferring an engineer to the outside of the 'scaphe to finish up wiring, while the whole thing is floating like a balloon, from a rocket hanging on booster blasts, will present difficulties.”
”Why can't you transfer the kids to the rescue s.h.i.+p?”
”Because I'm pretty sure their s.p.a.ce suits won't stand the pressure at the 'scaphe's floating height,” replied Sakiiro. ”I don't know about Drommian designs, but I do know our own.”
”Mr. Sakiiro.” Easy's voice cut back into the conversation.
”Yes, Easy.”
”Is there anything more I can do? Just sitting here doesn't seem right, and-it scares me a little.”
Communication; Penetration; Isolation 67 Rich looked appealingly at the engineer. As a diplomat, he was an accomplished psychologist, and he knew his daughter. She was not hysterical by nature, but few twelve-year-olds had ever been put under this sort of stress.
He himself was not qualified to suggest any reasonable occupation to hold her attention; but fortunately Sakiiro saw the need, too.
”There are pressure gauges to your left,” he said. ”If you can give us a running report on their readings, while your friend tells us when he can first detect signs of dimming in the stars, it will be of some help. Keep it up unless you get too heavy to be able to watch easily; that may not be too long.”
Rich looked his thanks; if Aminadabarlee was doing the same, no one was able to detect the fact. For long minutes the silence was broken only by the voices of the children, reading off numbers and describing the stars.
Then Easy reported that the s.h.i.+p was banking again.
”All right,” said Sakiiro. ”That means you're about over the robot. From now until your speed is killed, you're going to have to take better than three and a half gravities. Your seat folds back on its springs automatically to put you in the best position to stand it, but you're not going to be comfortable. Your friend can undoubtedly take it all right, but warn him against moving around. The s.h.i.+p's traveling fast in an atmosphere, and going from one air current to another at a few thousand miles can give quite a jolt.”
”All right.”
”The stars are getting hazy.” It was Aminadorneldo.
”Thanks. Can you give me another pressure reading?”
The girl obliged, with detectable strain in her voice. Until the last turn had started, the 'scaphe was in relatively free fall; but with its rudimentary wings biting what little there was of the atmosphere in an effort to keep it in a turn the situation was distinctly different.
CXUSE TO CRITICAL.
Why the vehicle didn't go into a frame-shattering series of stalls, none of the engineers could see; the turn had started at a much higher speed than had been antic.i.p.ated by the designers of the machine. As it happened, the whole process was almost incredibly smooth-for a while.
Sakiiro, with no really objective data to go on, had about concluded that the vessel was down to gliding speed and was going to describe the location of the electrolysis controls to Easy when the motion changed.
A series of shuddering jars shook the s.h.i.+p. The girl's body was held in the seat by the straps, but her head and limbs flapped like those of a scarecrow in a high wind; the young Drommian for the first time failed to stay put. The jolting continued, the thuds punctuated by the girl's sobs and an almost inaudibly high- pitched whine from Aminador-neldo. The elder Drommian rose once more to his feet and looked anxiously at the screen.
The engineers were baffled; the diplomats were too terrified for their children to have had constructive ideas even had they been qualified otherwise; but Raeker thought he knew the answer.
”They're hitting raindrops!” he yelled.
He must have been right, it was decided afterward; but the information did not really help. The bathyscaphe jerked and bucked. The autopilot did its best to hold a smooth flight path, but aerodynamic controls were miserably inadequate for the task. At least twice the vessel somersaulted completely, as nearly as Raeker could tell from the way the Drommian was catapulted around the room. Sheer luck kept him out of contact with the control switches. For a time the controls were useless because their efforts were overriden-a rudder trying to force a left turn will not get far if the right wing encounters a fifty-foot sphere of water, even though the water isn't much denser than the air. Then they were useless because they lacked enough grip on the atmosphere; the s.h.i.+p had given up enough kinetic energy to Communication; Penetration; Isolation 69 the raindrops to fall well below its stalling speed-low as that was, in an atmosphere seven or eight hundred times as dense as Earth's at sea level. By that time, of coa.r.s.e, the s.h.i.+p was falling, in the oldest and simplest sense of the word. The motion was still irregular, for it was still hitting the drops; but the violence was gone, for it wasn't hitting them very hard.
The rate of fall was surprisingly small, for a three-G field. The reason was simple enough-even with the out- side atmosphere filling most of its volume, the s.h.i.+p had a very low density. It was a two-hundred-foot-long, cigar-like sh.e.l.l, and the only really heavy part was the forty-foot sphere in the center which held the habitable portion. It is quite possible that it would have escaped serious mechanical damage even had it landed on solid ground; and as it happened, the fall ended on liquid.
Real liquid; not the borderline stuff that made up most of Tenebra's atmosphere.
It landed upside down, but the wings had been shed like the speed brakes and its center of gravity was low enough to bring it to a more comfortable att.i.tude. The floor finally stopped rocking, or at least the Drommian did-with the vision set fastened to the s.h.i.+p, the floor had always seemed motionless to the distant watchers.
They saw the otterlike giant get cautiously to his feet, then walk slowly over to the girl's chair and touch her lightly on the shoulder. She stirred and tried to sit up.
”Are you all right?” Both parents fairly shrieked the question. Aminadorneldo, his father's orders in mind, waited for Easy to answer.
”I guess so,” she said after a moment. ”I'm sorry I bawled, Dad; I was scared. I didn't mean to scare 'Mina, though.”
”It's all right, kid. I'm sure no one can blame you, and I don't suppose your reaction had much to do with your friend's. The main thing is that you're in one piece, /V CLOSE TO CRITICAL.
and the hull's intact-I suppose you'd be dead by now if it weren't.”
”That's true enough,” seconded Sakiiro.
”You've had a rough ride, then, but it should be over now. Since you're there, you might take a look through the windows-you're the first non-natives ever to do that directly. When you've seen all you can or want to, tell Mr. Sakiiro and he'll tell you how to get upstairs again. All right?”
”All right, Dad.” Easy brushed a forearm across her tear-stained face, unfastened the seat straps, and finally struggled to her feet.
”Golly, when are they going to cut the power? I don't like all these G's,” she remarked.
”You're stuck with them until we get you away from there,” her father replied.
”I know it. I was just kidding. Hmm. It seems to be night outside; I can't see a thing.”