Freehold (25 page)

It was an important question; when one end of the converted cargo pod was tipped up, all the ore would slide to the other end. According to Stell's best guess, the car was about nine-tenths full with their bulk added. It wouldn't feel good to have tons of ore fall on you, especially since when they lifted off. The Gs they'd take would be plenty, without the added weight of crushed rock sitting on top of them. It didn't take the rest of them long to figure out the same thing, so they gave the question serious consideration. A long moment passed, and then Mueller spoke.

“I figure they've got to attach some sort of nose cone for aerodynamic reasons. That should make some noise, and when we hear it, we can run for that end.”

The car suddenly jerked forward, the weld now complete, and Stell felt his stomach lurch as the monorail's carriage mechanism was released and the car was swung up into the air. A moment later there was a loud clang to Stell's right, at the far end of the cylinder. “Mueller's right ... let's go!” he yelled, and they all scrambled on hands and knees toward that end of the car. A couple of times the top of Stell's helmet scraped along the underside of the metal hull, reminding him of just how little room there was. Their lights bobbed and swayed in the darkness, and they started miniature landslides as they moved the length of the compartment. Finally, they arrived. “All right ... be ready,” Stell said. “When this end goes up, we're going to lose our footing.”

His words were almost instantly prophetic. Suddenly, their end went up, and the bottom fell out from under them. It wasn't too bad, since there wasn't all that much room for the ore to move. But it did throw up an incredible amount of dust, making it hard to see. Once the dust had settled, Stell said, “Okay, everybody, make yourselves comfortable. We're going to take some Gs on lift-off, so get some of the softer stuff around you. It shouldn't be too bad, though ... with Fabrica's light gravity.”

Moments later they heard metallic sounds from behind them, and felt another series of bumps, thuds, and vibrations as huge robots went about their various chores. They're putting on the stabilizers, external tanks, and boosters, he thought to himself. Then he felt a heavy bump, which was followed by a loud hissing noise. “General! Look over here!” It was Stickley's voice.

Sitting up, he felt his helmet tap the forward bulkhead. Looking to his right, Stell could just barely see Stickley near the far bulkhead, and above him, some sort of rubber port. A large nozzle was sticking through the port into the interior of the compartment. Suddenly a stream of whitish goo shot out of the nozzle and drenched them with its sticky substance. “Lie down and let it come!” Stell ordered, forcing himself to do it. Within seconds, the substance closed over his visor, and plunged him into darkness. He chinned off his exterior light. No sense in wasting power, he thought, forcing himself to be logical ... to resist the panic that threatened to make him scream. It makes sense, he told himself. They couldn't have a loose cargo of ore shifting about in here ... so the foam provides padding. In fact, it will probably protect us. But no matter how logical he was, he couldn't get rid of the fear that gripped his gut and pressed down on his chest, making it hard to breathe. And if
he
felt that way, then so did some, if not all, of the others.

“Sergeant Stickley.”

“Sir?”

“Since we're all lying down on the job, this seems like a good time to review your last leave. Tell us about it.” There was a long silence and for a moment Stell feared that it wouldn't work.

Then Klien said, “Yeah, Sarge—tell us about your last leave—how was the library, anyway?” There was laughter and a barrage of friendly insults. Finally, whether as a result of the good-natured kidding, or because he understood what Stell was trying to do, Stickley gave a highly embellished account of his last leave. Somewhere during the part that dealt with the three Martian joy girls, the Chief of Police, and an amusing case of mistaken identity, they felt the cargo shuttle jerk into motion, on its way to the launch site. By unspoken agreement, they ignored it. Ignored, too, were the various vague thumps, bumps and clangs that accompanied their progress and final positioning for launch. They were halfway through a surprisingly hilarious story by Mueller when the boosters fired, and their crude ship lifted toward Fabrica's eternal cloud cover.

Stell felt the additional weight added to his chest. In spite of the lower gravity, it was bad, and though he fought to stay above it, he was gradually pushed down into soft darkness.

“General ... General, wake up.” The words were like sharp sticks poking at him through the darkness. “Come on, General, we've got to get out of this thing.” There was urgency in Stickley's voice, and somehow that made the difference. He forced himself to the surface and croaked, “I read you, Sergeant. Just taking a little nap.” There was nervous laughter from the troopers while he tried to sit up and found he couldn't move. Then he remembered the white goo. How the hell were they going to bail out when they were immobilized by that stuff?”

Just then the shuttle shook under the impact of a tractor beam that leaped out and locked onto their cargo pod. Swiftly, the beam pulled them toward the huge cargo carrier's black hull. Desperately, Stell tried to think of something they could do. Try as he might, nothing came to mind. “Just relax,” he told them. “Our chance will come once we're aboard the cargo ship.” He wasn't quite sure how ... but it sounded good.

There was a solid bump as they came alongside the huge ship. Four small robotugs, really not much more than tiny engines linked to on-board microcomputers, swarmed out to lock on to the shuttle and guide it into the freighter's enormous cargo bay. Given zero gravity, they needed very little power to get the job done. Pushing and pulling in concert, they quickly guided the shuttle into an empty cradle. The cradle was mounted on an endless belt assembly, which pulled it past a row of robostations.

The first consisted of nothing more than a self-guided hose, armored in some kind of metal mesh. It snaked up to the shuttle, located the small metal lock, activated it with a coded radio transmission, waited patiently for it to open, and then thrust itself into the rubber port thus revealed. The hose shuddered as green foam poured through it under pressure.

“Something's happening, sir,” Stickley said excitedly. “That white stuff is dissolving.” And sure enough, moments later Stell felt something give, and chinned on his helmet light to see the white goo melt away as it came into contact with the green foam. As the two substances combined, they seemed to dry up into powdery flakes, which were easily brushed off his visor and shoulders. Moments later the white material had completely disappeared, and they found themselves floating. They were in zero-G, and so was the ore. It floated all around them, making it impossible to see.

“Secure yourselves to some piping or something,” Stell ordered. “For the moment, let's stay where we are.” Groping around above his head, he found a pipe. Working by feel—since all he could see was floating ore—he pulled out a length of his retractable safety line and clipped it around the pipe.

Now, Stell thought, bring on the can opener and we're home free. He brought up his suit status display and gulped. Counting his fifteen-minute emergency reserve, he had twenty-six minutes worth of air left.

Meanwhile, the shuttle continued its movement past the robostations. As the hose and nozzle withdrew, a much larger hose wriggled its way up to the stern of the shuttle, sensed the lock there, made contact, and locked itself tight. At the urging of another coded radio signal, the small lock whined open, and the change in pressure tripped a huge motor located at the source of the hose. Within seconds it created an enormous suction, and ore began to flow smoothly up the hose, to be transported to the ship's cavernous holds.

Inside the shuttle, Stell felt the vibration as the ore at the other end of the craft was sucked out. At first he couldn't tell what was going on, but the floating ore began to dance in the light from his helmet, and gradually move to the other end of the craft. Then he felt the suction begin to tug at his suit, and realized that, if they didn't do something soon, they'd be sucked up as well.

“Sergeant Stickley.”

“Sir!”

“I need another door.”

“Where, sir?”

“It'll have to be the stem. Maybe we can disable that vacuum and make a hole at the same time. We'll need to do it soon ... before that suction becomes any stronger.”

“Yes, sir. Gomez, you all right?”

“Just fine, Sarge. One door, coming up.” Since he couldn't see the other end of the compartment, through the swirling ore, Gomez took a guess at dead center, and braced himself against the bulkhead so that he could hold the launcher steady.

“Hug the bulkheads, everybody,” Stell ordered, and promptly followed his own advice, praying the missile wouldn't hit a chunk of rock big enough to set it off prematurely. It was unlikely, since the ore was pretty fine stuff ... but not impossible. A second later there was a flash, followed immediately by a tremendous concussion as the remaining ore and the Fabrican atmosphere inside the shuttle was blown back at them. Fortunately, no one was hurt. And when things settled down a bit, Stell noticed that the vibration caused by the vacuum hose had stopped. Stickley pulled himself the length of the compartment, and confirmed that the vacuum hose was no longer operational. He also reported that only a glowing patch of metal showed where the mini-missile had struck. It wasn't too surprising. Trying to blow a hole through a durasteel hull with a mini-launcher was like trying to knock down a house with a peashooter. You shouldn't expect success right away. But still ... it was disappointing. Stell was all too aware of his dwindling air supply.

Nonetheless, he couldn't think of a better idea, and ordered Gomez to take another shot. Meanwhile, when Stickley returned, he asked the Sergeant to attempt radio contact. There wasn't much chance that the freighter's crew would be monitoring that particular channel, but anything was worth a try.

Gomez tried twice more without success, and then requested the back-up missiles carried by his mates. They passed them over. One by one, he fired them at roughly the same spot, using more guesswork than science, since the drifting ore made it impossible for him to see his target. When Stickley pulled another check, he reported that the whole area was glowing cherry red. Stell wondered how many tries they'd get before a rocket hit a sizeable chunk of ore and blew up, possibly near them. Finally, with only two missiles left, Gomez hit again, and the whole lock blew out with it went all the ore, plus the remaining Fabrican atmosphere, as the vacuum outside sucked everything toward it. Fortunately, their safety lines kept them from the same fate.

Stell heaved a sigh of relief, and yelled, “Come on, men—let's get the hell out of here.” Nobody needed further prompting. They unhooked their safety lines and quickly pulled themselves toward the hole, moving from one handhold to the next. One by one, they eased their way through the still glowing hole, careful not to touch the cooling metal.

Once outside, Stell grabbed hold of a stabilizer and paused to look around. It took him a moment to get oriented. Still panting from the scramble out, he tried to focus on the machinery that surrounded him, but couldn't quite seem to do so. There was some kind of buzzer going off in his helmet. He knew it was important, but he couldn't quite remember why. Something to do with air? Or was it time to get up? He was so tired. Just let me sleep for another half hour, he thought, as darkness pulled him down. One by one his fingers relaxed their grip on the stabilizer and let go. Slowly, he drifted away.

Stell awoke with one hell of a headache. And to make matters worse, someone was poking him, shaking his shoulder, and saying his name too loudly. “Mark ... it's time to wake up ... oxygen deprivation is no excuse for screwing off all day.”

Suddenly he wanted to wake up, if only to identify and kill his tormentor. One at a time, his eyes opened. There, looking down at him, a merciless smile on her cruel lips, was his ex-friend, and soon-to-be-Lieutenant, Samantha Anne Mosely. “Well, it's about time,” she said heartlessly. “Personally, I don't buy all this crap about running out of air. You just look hung over to me.”

He groaned, swung his feet over the edge of the bunk, and looked around. It took a moment for him to realize that he was in his cabin aboard the
Zulu.
He'd been dreaming that he was at the bottom of an open grave and couldn't move. Robots kept shoveling ore onto his chest. As they did, it became steadily heavier, until it was so heavy that he couldn't breathe. He wasn't sure which was worse—the dream, or waking up. As he stood up, he shot Sam a murderous look, which she ignored as she lit a dopestick and dropped into his easy chair.

Carefully, he shuffled over to his wash basin, splashed some water on his face, and then stared into bloodshot eyes. He was still alive. Having verified that important fact, he fumbled through his kit until he found some pain caps, swallowed four, and chased them with a cup of water. Walking carefully back to his bunk, he sat down and accepted the steaming cup of coffee Sam offered him. He sipped some, and felt its warmth slide all the way down to the pit of his stomach. “You,” he croaked, “are a sadist.”

“And you,” she replied with equal seriousness, “damn near wound up dead. I'm mad at you.”

“Let me see if I understand this,” Stell said. “I almost got killed ... so to show how much you care ... you tortured me.”

“Partly,” she admitted. “But it also happens that someone's got to make a few decisions. And you're the one they call the General.”

All of a sudden the whole thing came flooding back. Stell shook his head. “I'm the one they should call the
idiot,
” he relied.

“Not so,” Sam answered. “It could have happened to anyone. And you're certainly the only one who could've gotten everyone back alive. I hate to admit it ... but using that cargo module took some smarts. And I'm not the only one who thinks so. You should hear Mueller ... according to him you're a genius. Anyway, there's a good chance we can put it all to right.” She stood up. “We've scheduled a staff meeting in the wardroom for thirty minutes from now ... can you make it?”