“We’ve got to get out of here!” he heard himself yell, and crammed on
power. Shock smashed through him. Metal shrieked. The world whirled in
the screens. For an instant, he saw what had happened. Without sight or
sensors, in the turbulence of the air, he had descended further than he
knew. His spurt of acceleration was not vertical. It had side-swiped a
mountaintop.
No time for fear. He became the boat. Two thrust cones remained, not
enough to escape with but maybe enough to set down on and not spatter.
He ignored the flock and fought for control of the drunkenly unbalanced
grav drive. If he made a straight tail-first backdown, the force would
fend off the opposition; he’d have an uncluttered scan aft, which he
could project onto one of the pilot board screens and use for an
eyeballed landing. That was if he could hold her upright. If not, well,
it had been fun living. The noise lessened to wind-whistle, engine
stutter, drumbeat of beaks. Through it he was faintly astonished to hear
Djana. He shot her a glance. Her eyes were closed, her hands laid palm
to palm, and from her lips poured ancient words, over and over. “Hail
Mary, full of grace–”
Her? And he’d thought he’d gotten to know her!
V
–
They landed skull-rattlingly hard. Weakened members in the boat gave way
with screeches and thumps. But they landed.
At once Flandry bent himself entirely to the spitgun. Locked onto target
after target, the beam flashed blue among the attackers that wheeled
overhead. A winged thing slanted downward and struck behind the rim of
the crater where he had settled. A couple of others took severe damage
and limped off. The remainder escorted them. In a few minutes the last
was gone from sight.
No–wait–high above, out of range, a hovering spark in murky heaven?
Flandry focused a viewscreen and turned up the magnification. “Uh-huh.”
He nodded. “One of our playmates has stayed behind to keep a beady eye
on us.”
“O-o-o-oh-h-h,” Djana whimpered.
“Pull yourself together,” he snapped. “You know how. Insert Part A in
Slot B, bolt to Section C, et cetera. In case nobody’s told you, we have
a problem.”
Mainly he was concerned with studying the indicators on the board while
he unharnessed. Some air had been lost, and replenished from the reserve
tanks, but there was no further leakage. Evidently the hull had cracked,
not too badly for self-sealing but enough to make him doubt the
feasibility of returning to space without repairs. Inboard damage must
be worse, for the grav field was off–he moved under Wayland’s half a
terrestrial g with a bounding ease that roused no enthusiasm in
him–and, oh-oh indeed, the nuclear generator was dead. Light, heat, air
and water cycles, everything was running off the accumulators.
“Keep watch,” he told Djana. “If you see anything peculiar, feel free to
holler.”
He went aft, past the chaos of galley and head, the more solidly
battened-down instrument and life-support centers, to the engine room.
An hour’s inspection confirmed neither his rosiest hopes nor his
sharpest fears. It was possible to fix Jake, and probably wouldn’t take
long: if and only if shipyard facilities were brought to bear.
“So what else is new?” he said and returned forward.
Djana had been busy. She stood in the conn with all the small arms
aboard on a seat behind her–the issue blaster and needier, his private
Merseian war knife–except for the stun pistol she had brought herself.
That was bolstered on her flank. She rested a hand on its iridivory
butt.
“What the deuce?” Flandry exclaimed. “I might even ask. What the trey?”
He started toward her. She drew the gun. “Halt,” she said. Her soprano
had gone flat.
He obeyed. She could drop him as he attacked, in this space where there
was no room to dodge, and secure him before he regained consciousness.
Of course, he could perhaps work free of any knots she was able to tie,
but–He swallowed his dismay and studied her. The panic was gone, unless
it dwelt behind that whitened skin and drew those lips into disfiguring
straight lines.
“What’s wrong?” he asked slowly. “My intentions are no more shocking