Floating Worlds (68 page)

David came along the catwalk toward them. “I have to replace a crystal. The captain of that freighter has a message for you.”

“How long will it take?” Tanuojin said.

“I’m half done. About an hour.”

Tanuojin bobbed his head once. He went out of the dock to find the freighter’s captain. Paula watched him go. David said, “Sit in here and talk to me while I do this.”

She climbed into
Ybicket
after him. The instrument panel in the front of the cockpit was tilted up on its hinges, showing the guts of the drive system packed into the nose. She sat in the drive seat, where she could watch. David lay on his back on the curved floor and slid under the raised panel.

“Give me that tube of glue.” He waggled his hand at her. She bent down and put the squeeze-tube of glue into his fingers.

“Why did you take him back?” he said.

“Who, Ketac?”

“I don’t see how you could go from Papa to that.”

She ran her hand over the diamond-seamed upholstered seat. “There’s a lot you don’t know.”

“Are you fighting with my uncle?”

“I don’t call it fighting. You know I’m a pacifist.”

The wrench slid out across the sloping floor of the ship. The handle was pierced with holes for his fingers, spaced to keep his claws out of the way. She heard him counting under his breath. Finally, he said, “Do you need help?”

That surprised her. Her face was cold and she turned up the collar of her coat and slid her hands into her sleeves. “What if it meant helping Ketac?”

“Oh, there’s no saving Ketac,” David said. “He belongs to my uncle, eyes, hooks, and paranoia. I’ll help you.”

She raised her gaze to the hatchway, where Tanuojin stood. “Come put your suit on,” he said. She stood on the seat and stepped across the ship to the hatch and up to the dock. The locker door was folded back against the wall and Tanuojin was taking out his black pressure suit. Her special suit hung in the rear of the locker. “Here,” he said.

He gave her an order medal. She looked down at it, frowning: the symbol cut into the surface was the triple star.

“Whose is it?”

“Bokojin’s, I guess.”

She put the medal on the locker shelf and took out her suit. “The whole patrol is in the star.”

“Pretty much.”

Stooping, she lifted the heavy shoes over the lip of the locker. In the ship, David called, “I’m finished.”

Tanuojin said, “There aren’t five ships in the chevron as fast as
Ybicket
, and they don’t know when we’re leaving.” He pulled his suit over his shoulders and sealed the front together. “Put your helmet on, we have to launch hard.” He took his helmet out of the locker and went over to
Ybicket
.

She clumped after him, lifting her feet high in the thick-soled shoes. Inside the cocoon of the ship, Tanuojin was bent over the radio deck in the kick-seat. He said, “You fly her. I can handle both guns from back here.” She licked her lips. Her stomach fluttered unpleasantly. She would probably be sick; she was always queasy, flying in the Planet. David took her hands and helped her into the middle of the three seats.

Paula stuffed her hands into the gloves. David went out of the ship. She pulled the straps tight around her wrists. In the seat behind her, a metallic click sounded and an electric whine undulated louder up and down. When she put the heavy dark cylinder of the helmet on, the whine was painfully loud through the speakers above her ears.

“Can’t you turn that off?” She held the helmet at arm’s length away from her ears.

David swung himself into the ship and pulled the hatch closed. “There’s nobody for miles on the scan,” Tanuojin said. The piercing noise stopped. She lowered her helmet onto her head.

The launch nearly knocked her cold. She rested her forehead against the helmet, groggy. The green glare of the holograph shone over the front of the cab. Her suit was rigid as a shell around her. Above her ears, Tanuojin’s voice came out of the helmet.

“Take her down an M.”

“There’s a reef—”

“Stoop under it. Somebody’s coming.”

The ship rolled down into a dive. Paula swallowed the sour taste in her throat. Her eyes watered. Smoothly
Ybicket
swung into a wide rising curve.

“Where are they?” David said, in the top of the helmet.

“I think we lost them. Take her up again to—”

A sheet of white light flashed in her face. She could not breathe. She lost consciousness.

She woke up with a start, her ears ringing, alive. The ship was streaking through the magma. Her pressure suit was flexible again. She said, “David?”

Nobody answered. Her hands slipped on the helmet, and she pulled off the gloves. The helmet was jammed. She wrenched it back and forth until the seal popped. The air of the cockpit was icy cold. In the dark, she could hardly see; opposite her seat the wall seemed to be crumpled inward. She said, loudly, “David,” and unsnapped her harness and unhooked her suit from the lifeline.

The ship hurtled along, yawing slightly from side to side. The radio chirped behind her. She scrambled out of her deep seat forward to David’s seat.

He was slumped against the side of the ship. Like many of them he had not worn his helmet. The green light of the map cube shone on the side of his face. Blood coated his face. It had burst from his eyes, from his nose and mouth. She felt along his throat for his pulse. Her head hurt as if a vise were screwing down on her temples. He had no pulse. She tore open the front of his pressure suit and his overalls underneath and thrust her hand in to his skin. His head tipped forward onto his chest.

“David.”

On the instrument panel behind her a yellow light flashed. Something hummed. She pulled David against her, stroking his hair, his head on her shoulder. He smelled of blood. Behind her the hum turned to a beep.

She let him down again, cradling his head against her arm, easing him down against the black quilted seat. When she turned around, the yellow light made her squint. She wiped her mouth on the back of her hand. The control deck was divided into three panels, a sheet of dials on the left, four levers in the middle, buttons and switches on the right. The levers flew the ship. She squeezed down into the seat beside David and took hold of them.

When she pulled the outside levers down, the ship turned over completely and dumped her on her head. She put one hand on the ceiling and pushed the levers up again, and
Ybicket
righted. The ship was tearing like a bullet through the Planet. The beep and the flashing light unsettled her. She took the inside levers and drew them down, bracing herself in case the ship pitched, and slowly
Ybicket
raised her nose and began to climb. The beep fell to a hum, and after a moment the hum stopped, and the light blinked off.

She let go of the levers. The ship was still going terribly fast. She glanced at the holograph; the magma around them was clear green. The foot pedals were hidden in the dark under the instrument panel. She groped down along David’s legs to the floor. His feet were jammed down on the pedals. She pulled them back and made his knees bend and put his shoes on the floor.

The ship slowed. She sat back, watching
Ybicket
in the map. The narrow ship was climbing. The heavy sludge of hydrogen slowed her. Now another light glowed on the console. A wave lifted the ship and threw her backward. Paula lay back on the seat and put one arm around David.

The patrol would be looking for them. She had forgotten about Tanuojin. She climbed back through the ship, one hand on the wall. At the waist, the ship’s wall bulged in, the skin rippled. She had to squeeze past into the tail of the ship.

Tanuojin was folded forward over the radio deck. Like David he wore no helmet. She pushed uselessly at him. The ship rocked over a wave. She climbed into the back of the kick-seat, slid her hands under his arms, and heaved him upright.

He had not bled. His head flopped back against her shoulder. She put her hand over his mouth. His breath grazed her fingers. He was alive, deeply unconscious, inside healing himself.

She pushed him off. Her head beat painfully hard. It was impossible to think. If she waited long enough, he would waken, do the thinking, and fly the ship. Another wave laid
Ybicket
over on her side and swung her stern around. Paula crawled out of the seat. His helmet was still in the clamps on the ceiling. She fitted it over his head, in case the patrol found them, and straightened his legs and pulled him upright in the seat, fastening the harness around him to keep him there.

Ybicket
lay dead still in the magma. Paler green eddies lapped her hull, nudging her over sideways. Paula unsnapped David’s harness. If he had worn his helmet, he might not have died. She cranked the back of his seat down as far as it would go and dragged him over it into the middle seat.

She had to sit down. Her head was splitting. Something was wrong with her. She lay down beside David, her cheek against his cold cheek. The console was humming again, and another light burned. She put the back of the drive seat up and sat in it.

She moved the levers. The ship would not answer. She stretched her feet down toward the pedals. When she sat on the very edge of the seat she could reach them with her toes. Cautiously she pushed them down. Nothing happened. That was what the light meant:
Ybicket
was stalled.

She had seen Saba start the engine. She pressed the green button on the right panel and pushed down the pedals. The ship bucked violently. She moved the four levers up all the way and tried again, and this time the light went off, the hum stopped, and the ship moved slowly forward. When she stepped harder on the pedals,
Ybicket
gathered speed.

The radio behind her crackled. “Pan-patrol. This is H.C. All ships in sectors C-42, C-43, C-44, D-42, D-43, D-44, report in.”

She wondered where she was. Pulling down one outside lever turned the ship around. She did not want to go back, she had to keep going away from Yekka. She experimented with the other levers. When the ship dove below a certain level, the yellow light came on again. She fought off the ache behind her eyes. There was something wrong with her. Carefully she took the ship down just to the level where the yellow light flickered on and off. Maybe she could crawl under the patrol.

“Pan-patrol. This is H.C. Mark this craft. SIF-26
Ybicket
, three-man scout, Matuko-built, engines IQ, two guns fore and aft. Damaged. If sighted, report, intercept, take in tow, or destroy.”

She put her arm over her aching eyes. Her face was cold.

“H.C., this is 214. Do you have a last-reported on the mark?”

A blast of static blurred the voice. She watched the dials, decided that the long thin one on the top of the panel was the speed gauge, and pumped the pedals to teach herself how to read it.

“214, this is H.C. The mark was sighted Yekka plus 160, C-43, bearing 8-8-5, axis minus 38° Yekka, speed 1500. We hit her head-on with a compression bomb, the crew must be point-operable.”

Ybicket
reared up. Paula caught the seat harness with both hands, felt the ship falling over, and grabbed for the levers. The map showed a moving yellow ridge forcing the ship back on its tail. She pushed the middle levers up. Nothing happened. The pounding in her head grew louder. She stamped down on the pedals and pulled the levers down, and the ship rolled over. She fell out of the seat and climbed back into it, clinging to the harness with one hand. The reef passed overhead. Without her feet on the pedals,
Ybicket
was slowing, and the stall light began to flicker. Paula pushed the levers this way and that and got the ship righted.

She pulled the harness over her shoulders. The reef had turned
Ybicket
around. She was moving back toward Yekka. Paula pressed one lever and one pedal and swung the ship in a loop turn. She had to watch the holograph. If a reef caught her the wrong way it would wreck the ship. The harness kept slipping off her shoulders. The yellow light was blinking on and off. She wondered where she was going. The radio crackled behind her. Here and there in its random noise a word sounded, meaningless.

Daffodil-bright, a reef jutted up in the magma ahead of her, moving in the same direction as
Ybicket
. Paula pushed the levers around and steered the ship over it. Her damp palms slipped on the steering pins. The vise closed on her head. She slumped down into the seat. She could push the levers down and dive into the Planet, take David down into the heat and pressure that would make nothing of him and her. She ground her fist into her eyes.

The radio gave another burst of static.
Ybicket
bucked in a cross-current. She was getting sick to her stomach. Her eyes were sore. If she died, it would not matter that David was dead. There was Tanuojin, but he belonged in the deep Planet; it had made him and it could kill him.

That thought settled her mind. She was not finished with Tanuojin. She had not kept his secrets for so long to kill him now, with his work undone.

She turned
Ybicket
’s nose up and stamped on the pedals. Straining to reach, her legs ached along her calves and the backs of her knees. She held herself on the front of the seat by her grip on the levers. In a round dial on the left-hand panel, a red needle sliced across the numbers. The ship bucked, slid along a wave, and rolled back. The left lever was jerked out of her hand. She snatched for it. The ship lurched.
Ybicket
was falling back into the Planet. She hit a surging pale green wave and bounced up again, tail-first. Paula rammed the pedals down. She had to go faster now, flying against gravity. Her stomach rolled half a turn behind the ship. She pulled the levers and got the ship nose-up again.
Ybicket
raced through a clear patch of green.

“D-61, D-61, identify.”

Paula glanced back at the radio. A light flashed on it. She stepped hard into the pedals.
Ybicket
surged upward. The speed-gauge needle climbed steadily. Paula watched the map. A faint green cone of a wave streamed back from
Ybicket
’s bow.