The suit put out a long flexible arm and spun it rapidly clockwise. The suit itself slowly turned counterclockwise, bringing the jointed, saw-edged arm around toward the passing cable, and yanked it in. Snakelike flexible arms reached out, gripped the cable and hauled back hard. The suit ran up the cable like a spider up its thread.
A roar of oaths and orders burst from the communicator. The tug hauling the cable cut loose and dove in a blaze of rockets. The suit arrived at the end of the cable holding out a set of jointed toothy jaws like scrapers on a power shovel. From overhead, the other tug dove, and clamped on to the opposite end of the line. The suit switched holds and went flailing up the line toward the second tug.
Buzzel suddenly sucked in his breath, whacked the keys on the frequency control, and grabbed for the microphone. Crandall jerked his gaze from the suit, and saw the documentary ship jockeying around in the background for a better view. Crandall leaned forward, reached out as if to steady himself, and put his hand squarely on the frequency control, changing the setting. Buzzel grabbed Crandall’s hand, reset the control, and began barking orders into the microphone. Crandall made another grab in the air as if to recover his balance, then straightened, relaxed, and saw tug number two hastily let go the line as the latest model delGrange suit arrived at the end poising a big oversized drill.
Buzzel’s voice, snapping orders for the dock-you ship, came to Crandall’s ears, and Crandall switched his attention rapidly back and forth noting both the frenzied stream of Buzzel’s orders, and the delGrange suit, now hurtling down the line toward tug number one, which had again taken hold the opposite end of the line.
In the background, the front end of the dock-you ship lit up in a brilliant display of flashing lights which, Crandall hoped, signified that a large footage of documentary film was now being taken. Crandall permitted himself the luxury of visualizing for a moment a dim room packed with cabinet officers, members of Congress, sedately smiling Space Force officers, and Planetary Development officials with bottles of sedative sticking out their pockets. On a large screen at the front of the room was the projected legend:
HALF-BILLION DOLLAR
PDA MACHINE
GOES WILD
OFF CYGNES VI
Buzzel abruptly cut himself off. In a bewildered voice, he said, “They’re taking them anyway—”
He sucked in his breath. Crandall, out of the corner of his eye, saw Buzzel give a light yank on the microphone cord. The already unplugged end jumped out from between some switches and fell on the floor.
On the screen, the delGrange suit was now scrambling wildly up the cable, brandishing drills, claws, and jackhammers. On Monitor, a squat black cylinder was rising up out of the central sphere. In the background, getting it all down on film, the dock-you ship flashed its lights.
Buzzel made a strangling sound. Crandall whirled. “Something wrong?”
“You . . . You—” Buzzel grabbed the plug. Crandall lost his balance again, hit the frequency control, then said, “Look on the screen!”
The suit, a long thin extension wrapped around a ringbolt on one of the tugs, clung and hauled itself in as the tug put on rapid bursts of power to break free. A second long extension reached out and gripped the tug. The tug went into a fast dive, then swung up and around with the suit pulling steadily nearer and easing its drill closer and closer to the ship.
Crandall and Buzzel looked on, speechless.
In the background, the dock-you ship moved around to get a better angle.
From the direction of the Monitor burst tiny streaks of light. The second tug swung down near the first, and the two straightened into a flat run past Monitor; the suit got its drill near the tug, and hitched itself closer. The drill slid ahead once again.
The tiny streaks of light swung down fast into the tangle of suit and tug. The suit jerked, spun around, hauled toward the tug, broke loose, and floated in free space, two of the flexible limbs dangling from their attachments, the rest wrapped tightly around the upper part of the suit.
A third tug joined the other two, trailing a three-cornered cargo net. The tugs clamped the net, dove on the suit, and caught it in the center. One of the tugs folded a corner of the net around the suit, swung up from below, clamped that corner to the opposite side of the net, and let go. The suit sprawled loosely inside the net, as motionless and inactive as a cargo crate being transshipped in space. Various limbs and power tools trailed out through the net to the rear.
Crandall watched the suit closely, then turned to Buzzel.
Buzzel was staring at the screen, the microphone dangling forgotten at his side. He blinked, took a slow breath, and looked at Crandall. “Shock,” he said. “The operator’s in a state of shock. He’s got the equivalent of two broken arms.” Buzzel looked back at the screen. “Well, now we can get him out of there and—”
The documentary ship swung around for a long-distance shot of the two tugs carrying off the inert latest model delGrange suit. Buzzel let out an angry growl, lunged forward with the wire and plug, and roared orders into the microphone.
An alien hiss and cackle burst from the speaker. Buzzel blinked his eyes rapidly. Crandall leaned forward and stared at the frequency setting.
“Sir,” said the voice of the Monitor’s commanding officer “we’ve got the thing. Now what do we do with it?”
Crandall glanced around. “Just have those two tugs stand by with it.” He turned to Buzzel. “Is there some reason you want that ship with lights taken out of there?”
Buzzel was looking at Crandall the way a hungry soldier looks at a ration that has bits of rock in it. “Yes,” Buzzel said, “Yes, I do want it taken out of there and I want the film impounded. And now if you’ll kindly let go the microphone cord, and keep your hands off the frequency setting, I will order just exactly that.”
“No trouble at all,” said Crandall courteously. He turned to the Monitor’s officer on the screen. “Take that documentary ship into custody. Get it out of here and down to Space Force H.Q. Impound the film. But take good care of it. Don’t damage it. And treat all the personnel with proper courtesy.”
The officer gave a wolfish grin. “Yes, sir.” He turned away and barked out orders.
Crandall thought it well to leave the Planetary Development ship shortly afterward.
* * *
The two days of the arrival and descent to Cygnes VI of the delGrange suits and their operators had seemed to Crandall as long as several ordinary weeks. The following few weeks seemed to take years in passing, as the avalanche of criticism got past the Chief of Staff on Terra and broke on Crandall’s head.
At the same time that violent demands were being forwarded from all branches of the government, Crandall had to deal with innumerable petty crises caused by the daily routines of martial law. Through this, Crandall clung grimly to the awareness that two hundred and eighty-six men would die if they did not leave their suits on schedule. A parade of specialists passed through Crandall’s office to testify to this and other facts. Where the facts were concerned, the specialists generally agreed unanimously. Where interpretation and prediction based on the facts were concerned, the specialists generally disagreed unanimously.
The trouble, Crandall told himself, was that this had never happened before, so no one knew how to weigh the factors involved. Once it had happened, it would all be explained, and everything would be obvious. Right now it was another matter, and no one knew how it would turn out.
One of the most certain on this matter of not knowing was Buzzel, who formally requested Crandall to release Paley. Buzzel insisted that he, himself, was not fitted to handle the job. Paley’s superior intellect, his swift reactions, his long experience and meritorious service—all argued that he, not Buzzel, should have the opportunity of dealing with the situation.
Crandall was inclined to agree. He had Paley brought up for an interview, while a phalanx of guards waited outside the door. As Crandall told Buzzel, it all depended on whether or not Paley would co-operate. Noting Paley’s expression, Crandall thought that the prospects were not inviting.
“Well,” said Paley, “do I stand at attention? Should I salute? What happens next? Where am I, anyway?”
“From your point of view,” said Crandall, “you’re back in the Day of the Warrior. The fossil has you in its jaws.”
Paley colored. “What do you want?”
Crandall described what had happened to the suit. Paley sneered and implied that Crandall had handled it all wrong. Crandall mentioned that the operator afterward had failed to remember anything that happened while he was in the suit. Paley said, “Protective amnesia,” and looked condescending. Crandall suggested that they might possibly be dealing with unknown factors and ought to prepare for unpleasant possibilities. Paley remarked that Crandall was out of his province. Crandall said that he would either go a step farther and take direct control of Planetary Development, or a step back and return control to Paley. Paley said that, in the first case, Crandall would find himself out of his depth.