Pancho realized that her necklace was tucked inside the dratted softsuit. She couldn’t reach it. Couldn’t whip it off her neck and toss it at the goon. Prob’ly wouldn’t have time to do it before he drilled me, anyway, she thought as she slowly climbed to her feet and raised both gloved hands over her helmeted head. She nudged the laser slightly with her boot. It was still on, still cutting away at the honeycomb shield outside the dome’s wall.
“Who the devil are you?” the guard demanded, walking slowly around the minitractor, a pistol leveled at Pancho’s navel. He looked African but spoke like an Englishman. “And what the devil do you think you’re doing?”
Pancho shrugged inside the softsuit. “Nothin’,” she said, trying to look innocent.
“My god!” the guard yelped, seeing that hole cut into the dome wall and the bright red hot spot the laser was making on the honeycomb shield. “Turn that thing off! Now! Don’t you realize you could—”
At that instant the honeycomb cracked open and a rush of air knocked Pancho flat against the curving dome wall. The guard was staggered but kept his senses enough to realize what was happening. He turned and ran as fast as he could, which wasn’t very fast because he was leaning against a gale-force wind trying to rush out of the hole Pancho had cut.
The loudspeakers started yammering in Japanese, then in another language Pancho didn’t understand. She slid down to the floor and slithered out of the break, hoping the softsuit wouldn’t catch or tear on the broken edges of the holes the laser had made.
Outside, she looked around the barren lunar landscape. The dome was on the crest of the ringwall mountains that surrounded Shakleton. The ground sloped away, down toward the floor of the crater. Nothing to see but rocks and minicraters, some of them no bigger than a finger-poke into the stony ground. Damn! Pancho thought. I’m on the wrong side of the dome.
Without hesitation she began sprinting, looking for the launchpads, happy to be able to run inside a space suit. Inside the old hardshell suits it was impossible to do anything more than lumber along like Frankenstein’s monster.
That guard’ll be okay, she told herself. There’s plenty of air inside the dome. They’ll get the leak plugged before anybody’s in any real danger. Jogging steadily, she grinned to herself. Meantime, while they’re chasing around trying to fix the damage I’ve done, I’ll get to one of the hoppers and head on home.
A sickly pale green splotch of color appeared on the left side of her helmet. The earphones said, “Radiation warning. Radiation level exceeding maximum allowable. Get to shelter immediately.”
“I’m trying!” Pancho said, surprised at the suit’s sophistication.
Before she took another dozen strides the color went from pastel green to bright canary yellow.
“Radiation warning,” the suit said again. “Radiation level exceeding maximum allowable. Get to shelter immediately.”
Pancho gritted her teeth and wondered how she could shut off the suit’s automated voice synthesizer. The launchpads were still nowhere in sight.
Nobuhiko was back at the base’s infirmary, this time in a screened-off cubicle barely large enough to hold a bed, looking down on a heavily sedated Daniel Tsavo. A spotless white bandage covered the upper half of the Kenyan’s black face. He was conscious, but barely so, as the tranquillizing drug took effect.
“… she blinded me,” he was mumbling. “Blind … can’t see…”
Yamagata glanced impatiently at the African doctor standing on the other side of Tsavo’s bed. “It’s only temporary,” the doctor said, trying to sound reassuring. He seemed to be speaking to Yamagata, rather than his patient. “The retinal burns will heal in a few days.”
“Failed,” Tsavo muttered. “Failure … blind … nowhere to go … career ruined…”
Bending slightly over the bed, Nobuhiko said, “You haven’t failed. You’ll be all right. Rest now. Everything will be fine in a day or two.”
Tsavo’s right hand groped toward the sound of Yamagata’s voice. Nobuhiko instinctively backed away from it.
“Did you find her?” the Kenyan asked, his voice suddenly stronger. “Did you get what you wanted from her?”
“Yes, of course,” Nobuhiko lied. “You rest now. Everything has turned out very well.”