The Death of Sleep (3 page)

Immediately, Lunzie put the thought away. Wryly, she decided she was frightening herself. "I'll have to treat myself for paranoia soon, if I'm not careful." But the feeling of uneasiness persisted. Not for the first time, Lunzie wished that Fiona was here to talk to. She had always discussed things with Fiona, even when she was an infant. Lunzie turned the hologram in her hands. The girl was growing and changing. She was already as tall as her mother. "She'll be a woman when I get back." Lunzie decided that her dissatisfaction was because she was spoiling for a good chat with someone. Her remote cubicle was too lonely. Since "office hours" were over, she would run down the corridor to the rec area and see if anyone else was on break.

Abruptly, Lunzie realized that the everpresent hum of the engine had changed, sped up. Instead of the usual purr, the sound had an edge of panic to it. Two more growling notes coughed to life, increasing the vibration so much Lunzie's teeth were chattering. They were trying to fire up the dorsal and ventral engines!

"Attention, all personnel," Captain Cosimo's voice blared. "This is an emergency alert. We are in danger of collision with unknown objects. Be prepared to evacuate. Do not panic. Proceed in an orderly fashion to your stations. We are attempting to evade, but we might not make it. This is not a drill."

Lunzie's eyes widened, and she turned to her desk screen. On the computer pickup, the automatic cutoff devolved to forward control video, and showed what the pilot on the bridge saw: half a dozen irregularly shaped asteroids. Two that appeared to be the size of the ship were closing in from either side like pincers, or hammer and anvil, with more fragments heading directly for them. There wasn't room for the giant ship, running on only one of its three engines, to maneuver and avoid them all. Normally, asteroid routes could be charted. The ship's flight plan took into account all the space-borne debris to be avoided. At the last check, the route had been clear. These must have just crashed into one another, changing their course abruptly into the path of the
Nellie Mine.
The huge freighter 'was incapable of making swift turns, and there was no way to get out of the path of all the fragments. Collision with the tumbling rocks was imminent.

One of the asteroids slipped out of view of the remote cameras, and Lunzie was thrown out of her chair as the huge ship fired all its starboard boosters, attempting to avoid collision. Crashing sounds reverberated through the corridor, and the floor shook. Some of the smaller fragments must have struck the ship.

The red alert beacons in the corridor went off. "Evacuate!" the captain's voice shouted. "We can't get the engines firing. All personnel, evacuate!"

As the klaxon sounded, Lunzie's mind reached for Discipline. She willed herself to be calm, recalling all her training on what to do in a red alert. The list scrolled up in her mind as clearly as it would do on a computer screen. Make sure all who are disabled or too young to look after themselves are safe, then secure yourself—but most importantly, waste no time! Lunzie paused only long enough to grab Fiona's hologram off the desk and stow it in a pocket before she dashed out into the corridor, heading for her section's escape capsule.

The crew section was a curved strip one level high across the equator of the spherical freighter. When the ship was making a delivery run, she could carry as many as eighty crew in the twenty small sleeping cubicles, ten on either side of the common rooms. At intervals along the corridor, round hatchways opened onto permanently moored escape capsules. Lunzie's office was at the far left end of the crew section.

The ship rocked. They'd been struck again, this time by a big fragment. There was a gasp of life support fans and compressors speeding up to move the air in spite of a hull breach. All the lights in the corridor went out, and in the center of one wall, a circle of bright red LEDs chased around the hatch of the escape capsule, which irised open as Lunzie ran toward it.

She waited at the hatch, staring down the long corridor toward the center of the crew section to see if anyone was coming to board this escape shuttle with her. Her heart hammered with fear and impatience. The capsule iris would close and launch automatically thirty seconds after a body entered the hatchway, so she forced herself to wait. Lunzie wanted to be certain that there was no one else in this section that she would be abandoning if she took off alone in the capsule.

There was a deafening bang, and then a roar like thunder echoed in the corridor. A section of rock the size of her head burst through the bulkhead less than a hundred feet down the passage, cutting her off from the rest of the crew. Lunzie ducked the splinters, and grabbed with both hands at the edge of the hatchway, as the vacuum of space dragged the ship's atmosphere out through the tear in the hull. Gritting her teeth tightly, she clung to the metal lip, and watched furniture, clothing, coffee cups, atmosphere suits fly through the air toward the gap. The air dropped to near freezing, and frost formed swiftly on her rings and sleeve fasteners, and on her eyelashes, cheeks and lips. Her hands were growing numb with cold. Lunzie wasn't sure how long she could hang on before she, too, was sucked out into space through that hole. This was death, she knew. Then: a miracle.

She heard a rending sound, and her desk and chair flew out of her office door, ricocheted off the opposite corridor wall with individual bangs, and collided in the tear in the hull. The tornadic winds died momentarily, blocked by her office furniture. Lunzie grabbed the opportunity to save herself. She dove through the hatchway headfirst, tucking and rolling to land unhurt between the rows of impact seats. She arched up from the floor to punch the manual door control with her fist, then crawled to the steering controls, not bothering to right herself before sending the pod hurtling into space.

The capsule spun away from the side of the
Nellie Mine.
Lunzie was flung about in the tiny cabin. She caught hold of the handloops, yanked herself into the pilot's seat and strapped in.

The lumpy shape of the mining ship looked like another asteroid against the curtain of stars. The brief strip of living space raised across a 60 degree arc of the ship's midsection bloomed with other pinpoints of light as the rest of the crew evacuated in vessels like hers. She regretted that there hadn't been opportunity for anyone else to join her in the escape pod, company until rescue could reach them, but Space! when the alarm sounds, you go, or you die.

She could see where the gigantic asteroid had struck the
Nellie.
It had torn away a large section of the crew quarters at the opposite end of the strip from hers, creased the hull deeply, and sailed away on a tangential course. The second asteroid, the size of a moon, would do far more damage. The ship, still on automatic pilot, was slowly turning toward her, firing on all the steering thrusters down one side, so the jagged rock would take it broadside instead of a direct strike. She watched, fascinated and horrified, as the two immense bodies met, and melded.

Her little pod hurtled outward at ever-increasing speed, but much faster still came the explosion, the overtaxed inner engine kicking through the plating behind the living quarters, imploding the shells and then kicking the debris forward of the directionless hulk. Pieces of red-hot hull plating shot past her, some missing her small boat by mere yards. The planetoid deflected away, its course changed only slightly.

Lunzie let go of the breath she had been holding. The disaster had happened so quickly. Only minutes had gone by since the alert was broadcast. Her Discipline had served her well—she had acted swiftly and decisively. She was considered by her masters a natural Candidate, who had already achieved much on her own. Basic training in Discipline was recommended for medics and Fleet officers of command rank and above, especially those who would be going into hazardous situations—much like this. Over the years, Lunzie had achieved Adept status. It was a pity she hadn't been able to go on with her lessons since reaching Tau Ceti. Lunzie was grateful for the instruction, which had probably saved her life, but she realized that her capsule was still at least two weeks travel away from the Mining Platform. She switched on the communication set and leaned over the audio pickup.

"Mayday, Mayday. This is
Nellie Mine
Shuttle, registration number NM-EC-02. I repeat, Mayday."

A wave of static poured out of the speaker. Underneath it, she could hear a voice. The static gradually died, and a man's voice spoke clearly. "I hear you, EC-02. This is Captain Cosimo, in EC-04. Is that you, Lunzie?"

"Yes, sir. Is everyone else all right?"

"Yes, dammit. All present and accounted for but you. We thought we'd lost you when Damage Control reported a punchthrough in your wing. That was one hell of a bang. I knew it would happen one day. Poor old
Nellie.
Are you all right?"

"I'm fine."

"Good. We've been signaling, but there's no one in immediate range. Before the blast, we sent off a message to Descartes 6 advising them to send someone out for us. Lock in your beacon to 34.8 and activate."

Lunzie found the controls and punched in the command. "How long will it take for them to reach us, Cosimo?"

There was more static, and the captain's voice broke through it, fainter than before. ". . . flaming asteroid interference. It'll be at least two weeks before the message reaches them, and I'd estimate it'll take them four more weeks to find us. I am ordering cold sleep, Doctor. Any comments or objections?"

"No, sir. I concur. It would be an emotional strain for so many people to spend six weeks awake in such close quarters, even providing the synthesizers and recyclers hold out."

"That's for certain. There are two crew on this shuttle, including the Ryxi, who're squawking about their damned eggs and claustrophobia. I wish you were here to oversee the deepsleep process, Doctor. Hypodermic compressors make me nervous." Cosimo didn't sound in the least distressed, but Lunzie was grateful to him for keeping the mood light.

"Nothing to it," she said. "Just remember, pointed end down."

With a hearty laugh, the captain signed off.

Inside the shuttle's medical supply locker were several vials containing medicines: depressants, restoratives, and the cold sleep preservative formula alongside its antidote. Lunzie removed the spraygun from its niche and loaded in a vial of the cryogenic. She would have only moments before the formula took effect, so she prepared a cradling pad from stored thermal blankets, and wadded up a few more under her head as a pillow. She fed instructions to the ship's computer, giving details of her identity, allergies, next of kin, and planet of origin for use by her rescuers. When all was prepared, Lunzie lowered herself to the padded deck. She could feel the adrenaline of the Discipline state wearing off. In moments, she was drained and exhausted, her strength swept away. In one hand she held the spraygun. In the other, Lunzie clutched the hologram of her daughter.

"Computer," she commanded. "Monitor vital signs and initiate cold sleep process when my heart rate reaches zero."

"Working," the metallic voice responded. "Acknowledged. "

Her order was unnecessary, since the module was programmed to complete the cold sleep process on its own, but Lunzie needed to hear another Standard-speaking voice. She wished someone had been close enough in the corridors of the damaged carrier to have boarded the pod with her. For all her theoretical training, this was the first time she would experience the cryogenic process. Lunzie gazed into the lucite block, smiled into the image of Fiona's eyes. "What an adventure I'll have to tell you about when I see you, my darling." She pressed the nozzle of the spray against her thigh. It hissed as the drug dispersed swiftly through her body. Where it passed, her tissues became leaden, and her skin felt hot. Though the sensation was uncomfortable, Lunzie knew the process was safe. "Initiating," she told the computer indistinctly. Her jaw and tongue were already out of her control. Lunzie could sense her pulse slowing down, and her nervous responses became lethargic. Even her lungs were growing too heavy to drag air in or push it out.

Her last conscious thoughts were of Fiona, and she hoped that the rescue shuttle wouldn't take too long to answer the Mayday.

All lights on the shuttle except the exterior running lights and beacon went down. Inside, cold cryogenic vapor filled the tiny cabin, swirling around Lunzie's still form.

PART TWO

Chapter Two

When his scout ship was just two days flight out of Descartes Mining Platform 6, Illin Romsey began to pick up hopeful signs of radioactivity. He was prospecting for potential strikes along what his researches told him was a nearly untapped vector leading away from Platform 6. He was aware that in the seventy years since the Platform became operational, the thick asteroid stream around the complex had had time to shift, bringing new rock closer and sweeping played-out space rock away. Still, the explorer's blood in his veins urged him to follow a path no one else had ever tried.

His father and grandfather had worked for Descartes. He didn't mind following in the family tradition. The company treated its employees well, even generously. Its insurance plan and pension plan alone made Descartes a desirable employer, but the bonus system for successful prospectors kept him pushing the limits of his skills. He was proud to work for Descartes.

His flight plan nearly paralleled a well-used approach run to the Platform, which maintained its position in the cosmos by focusing on six fixed remote beacons and adjusting accordingly. Otherwise, even a complex that huge would become lost in the swirling pattern of rock and ice. It was believed that the asteroid belt had originated as a uranian-sized planet, destroyed in a natural cataclysm of some kind. Some held that a planet had never been formed in this system. The sun around which the belt revolved had no other planets. Even after seven decades of exploration, the jury was still out on it, and everyone had his own idea.

Illin held a fix on the vector between Alpha Beacon and the Platform. It was his lifeline. Ships had been known to get lost within kilometers of their destination because of the confusion thrown into their sensors by the asteroid belt. Illin felt that he was different: he had an instinct for finding his way back home. In more than eight years prospecting, he'd never spent more than a day lost. He never talked about his instinct, because he felt it would break his luck. The senior miners never twitted him about it; they had their own superstitions. The new ones called it blind luck, or suggested the Others were looking after him. Still, he wasn't cocky, whatever they might think, and he was never less than careful.