Then number two monitor showed a faint haze of detail. Chamber wall and a pod directly in Meg’s suit spot, he’d bet his life on it.
“She’s all right,” he said, feeling the shakes himself. “Sir, she knows her business.”
Porey wasn’t saying a thing about the transmission difficulties, wasn’t giving any orders now, he just muttered, “Kady’s on notice with me, you make that clear, Mr. Graff.”
“Yes, sir,” Graff said.
Word came from another channel that the Pod Rescue Unit was being deployed. At least some of the rescue squad had gotten there, and was launching the track-guided equipment that could tow the pod.
Meanwhile an engineer was giving instructions and Meg started identifying and freeing up the bolts that released it from its track.
“Shit…” came over the com; and froze his heart.
“What’s the matter?” the chief asked; but he could see it for himself, the pod’s number decal—number three. The pod they’d been scheduled for.
“That’s Jamil,” he said, to whoever cared, and looked for a chair free. But there wasn’t one. “Jamil and his guys took our slot—said they could use the time…”
Didn’t take much calc to find a lighted, open hatch, and Meg beelined for it, braked and took a shaky bent-kneed impact, another showout miner-trick, with a hand-up catch at the rim of the lock to stop the rebound. She cycled the lock on battery power, breath hissing with shivers—it wasn’t cold coming through the suit, not this fast, it was shock starting to work, in the loneliness of the airlock. Let the rescue crew do the maneuvering with the PRU, the chief had said, they wanted her out of there and that lock shut before they powered up the mags and she agreed, she didn’t know shit about the tow system: it was on now, it was moving, bound for a pod access lock where meds were waiting, and they weren’t going to need her unless the mags were definitively crashed.
Moment of intense claustrophobia then, just the ghostly emergency light, then a door opened into a brightly lit ready-room full of guys willing to help with the suit.
She got the helmet off, drew a breath of icy clean air and got a first welcome bit of news—power-up was proceeding, pods were answering; they for sure weren’t going to need her again out there, and she could unsuit and take the lift out to gravitied levels and the lockers. Good job, they told her, good job, but they were busy and she got herself out of the way, let them tend the suit, unaccustomed luxury for a miner-jock, and boarded the lift out of there.
Slow, slow business in the recovery of the pod, and they could only watch, in 1-dcck Security ops. Dekker hung at draffs back and Percy’s, listened to the output from the rescue team on the open speaker.
They were working into dock now, at access 3. “That’s copy,” he heard a voice say, and flashed on cold, on dark, on inertia gone wild—
Enjoy the ride, Dekker….
“That’s him,” he said of a sudden—had everyone’s attention, and he looked to Graff, who understood what he meant, Graff surely understood.
“ID that man,” Graff snapped, “isolate mat voice. —Mr. Dekker—“ as he headed for the door. “Hold it.”
“Dekker!” Porey said atop Graff’s order, but he’d already stopped and faced them.
“I want you to listen,” Graff said. “I want you to pick out that voice, all the voices that might be involved.”
“Is he meaning the attack on him?” Porey wanted to know, and Graff nodded, leaning over the master com in ops. “Yes, sir, that’s exactly what he means. —Play it back, ensign.”
“That’s copy,” the recording said, among others, and Dekker said with absolute conviction, “Yes. That one.”
“Who’s carded to that area right now?” Porey asked. “Nobody’s leaving that area without carding out, hear me?”
“Yes, sir,” the com tech said; and relayed to Fleet Security.
“Not everybody’s carded in,” Graff said. “They probably let medics and techs in wholesale—anybody with a security badge…”
“Sir,” the tech said, “I think I’ve got it pinned. That output’s on e-com, I’ve got the serial number on the unit.”