The rim of the ferry with the firing chambers spun at high speed around the cockpit at the hub. Kelly had expected to be aware of that gyroscopic motion, to feel or hear the contact of the bearing surfaces surrounding him. There was no such vibration, and it was only as he found himself straining to hear the nonexistent that the veteran realized he had not been blown to fragments above the Texas desert the way the test units had gone.
Worrying about minutiae was probably the best way available to avoid funking in the face of real danger.
There was a pause. Thrust was replaced by real gravity: lower than surface-normal, but genuine enough that Kelly felt himself and the couch on which he lay begin to fall backward.
Instinct then told him falsely that there had been a total propulsion failure. His mind flashed him images of air crashes he had seen, craters rimmed with flesh and metal shredded together like colored tinsel, all lighted by the flare of burning fuel –
Fuel. And the slamming acceleration resumed. The chambers began valving the internal hydrogen as reaction mass in place of the atmosphere which had become too thin to sustain the laser-powered ferry’s upward momentum.
This was worse than insertion by parachute – at least Kelly’d done that before. If the Nazis didn’t scare him any worse than the manner of the reaching them was doing, he was still going to wind up the mission with white hair.
Though that, unlike carrots for the eyes, was wholly myth.
Because operation of the monocle ferry was new to Kelly, the occurrence of something that would have amazed Dr. Desmond did not cause the veteran to wonder what was happening. The reaction chambers continued to blast in rapid succession, but the feeling of acceleration faded into apparent weightlessness. Only then did the vibration stop, leaving Kelly to think about when and how Wun and his fellows would reach the ferry.
Whether they would reach the ferry.
And then the cockpit opened, the two halves moving apart as smoothly as if they were driven by hydraulic jacks instead of the arms of gray, naked monsters like the creature dead at Fort Meade.
Kelly’s first thought was that the pair of aliens stood in hard vacuum, having somehow walked to the rising ferry without a ship of their own. He began to lift himself against the cockpit coaming, gripping the metal firmly with his thick gloves for fear of drifting away. There was, to the veteran’s surprise – weren’t they in orbit? – gravity after all; a slight fraction of what he was used to, perhaps a tenth, but enough to orient and anchor Kelly while he untangled his suited legs.
The monocle ferry floated against light-absorbent blackness that held it as solidly as had Earth gravity and the concrete pad. The aliens who had undogged the cockpit had firm footing also, on something invisible a hand’s breadth above the mirrored surface.
Kelly could see the monocle ferry, his own suited limbs, and the aliens clearly, though without the depth that shadows would have given. There was, however, no apparent source of light nor any sign of stars, of the Sun, or of the Earth, whose sunlit surface should have filled much of the spherical horizon at this low altitude.
The veteran was still supporting himself on the lip of the cockpit. Grimacing, he took his hand away and found that he did not fall back onto the seat. He reached down into the cockpit for the equipment he had brought with him, noticing that he moved without resistance but that, apart from volitional actions, his body stayed exactly where he had last put it.
“Very well done, Mr. Kelly,” said Wun’s voice through the helmet earphones that Kelly had not reconnected. “How much time do you need before we place you at your Fortress?”
“Wun, can you hear me?” Kelly asked, turning and wondering whether he should open his face shield. The two visible aliens, stepping back on nothing now, wore no clothing, protective or otherwise.
Wun stood a few yards behind the veteran. Unlike his fellows, he wore a business suit and a human face which was at the moment smiling. “Yes,” he said, his lips in synch with the voice in Kelly’s earphones, “very well. And please do not open your helmet. It will not be necessary.”