Tripoint (47 page)

They got in at the rear, jammed in as closely and as tightly as they could, fourteen, maybe fifteen suited bulks, before the doors shut and the lift jolted out of synch with the passenger ring.

Immediately after, one fractional pass of the ring about the core, the car banged into lock with the zero-g frame.

Automatic doors let them out on a dark hold. The cold of space froze their attending puff of humidified air into ice crystals in the spotty glare of the helmet lights. Hold lights flared on around them, illuminating loading machinery, racks, and tiers of cans that jammed their hold right up to the red line. A group of white-suited figures was going forward, down the still-empty cargo chute—he saw officers’ sleeve patches on that lot. All around him, bodies moved, white, bulky, anonymous except for sleeve patches, non-com crew fanning out in silence along hand-railings, taking station out among the tiers of cans, ready to sort those racks out onto the main delivery track and secure the spent carriages when they came down the return track.

Saby grabbed his arm briefly, hit his chest with her hand and got his suit light on, illumination for the shadowed areas.

He wasn’t tracking a hundred percent. The suit read-out wasn’t in the familiar order in the chin-level display—he hadn’t realized his light wasn’t defaulted on; and crew knocked into them in their delay, making a gap in the line, hindering an already dangerous effort. A jump-queasy stomach and the beginnings of a headache argued he could easily become a worse problem, and he was determined not to be.

An enemy in the system?

Colors flashed, in memory. Sound wailed at them.

Got to have that card in the slot and that message input, Tommy. If Patrick comes at us, and he will, got to have that message input. Then that old hulk’s our friend.

Sweat ran, a trickle down his face he couldn’t wipe. He moved where Saby and the rest moved. Words echoed out of the dark in his skull, red and blue flashes smeared and ran while he hauled himself along on the hand-rail.

God, release the line brakes… The 4-meter cannisters, with the mass they carried… could probably survive the offload without bursting, if they were good, double-walled cans, no temperature-constant stuff—but Austin had called for hazard pay volunteers on the release end, and he’d seen first-hand what happened when a can broke under stress. He’d seen it happen to a ship on a station dock, brake lever accidentally jammed open. Can flew off, hit the deck, hit a support girder, killed one dockworker, sent fourteen to hospital—

“
Look out
!” came over his helmet-com. Somebody bumped him, passing down the line in a hell of a hurry. Didn’t know who it was. He moved, out of breath, hand over hand down the rail that led along the can-track, trying to hit the rhythm Saby did, ahead of him—he was trying not to hold up the line behind them, because there was nobody in front, and he couldn’t get his breath… colors washed across his vision. Remembrance of smell-taste-hearing, bone-deep sound, all but pain…

They were well past the hold lights, now. The can-track was a continuous-loop railing in the dim overhead, the exit-chute wall was narrowing around them, and light came as a scatter of patches where their suit lights picked out solid objects, a back-pack, a hand, a section of safety rail as they hand-over-handed into the absolute night of the chute.

Then the cargo check console materialized in Saby’s chest-light, nobody manning it. Saby left the line, moved in with authority, threw the console switch that started the red motion warning strobing in the overhead… he hesitated, sailed off the hand-rail to clear others’ way, and grabbed the console edge.

“
Run ‘em out. “
That was Austin’s voice over the com, on the general channel. “Get them moving, we’re waiting up here.”

Up here. Austin was forward, then, in the mate-up zone… that wasn’t where the captain belonged, damn him…

“
We got precious little time, “
Austin was saying. “
Skit’s coming our way, but the sumbitch can’t fire til he passes. “

“
Cans are going to be all over that hold, “
somebody said. “
Damn free-fall billiards. “

“Yeah, yeah, best we can do, Deke, sorry, neat isn’t in our capacity right now, we’ll be real satisfied with out of here. “

“We got high-mass stuff in this load!”

“
Deke, just watch the damn line
—
she’s rolling
!”

Cans had started to move. Tom caught a look at Saby, lights from the console a multicolored constellation on Saby’s mask

… busy and on a hair-trigger. Saby flipped other switches, engaging can-pickup robotics that moved the cans on their tracks way back in the tiers… he understood the board—he knew what process had just started; the carriages were picking up cans back there, sliding into the motorized track. The inspection brake at this console only slowed a can enough for the laser-reader to find the can customs-tags, and a deft hand to snatch off any remaining monitor plug… but then the tractor-chain caught the carriage and ran the can up to whatever rate of delivery the end-line brake was supposed to control.

If it wasn’t latched down. Which left Saby’s brake as the only regulator on a line not even designed for free-fall—God knew what motion the cans were going to pick up as they hit the chain…

Stupid, stupid,
stupid
place to off-load, he said to himself, having the whole picture now, why crew had lined up along the exit track… human muscle, to keep those cans under control.

And no instructions… they’d done it before.

“You all right here?” he asked her. “You need help?”

“
My job, “
Saby said. “
I got it. You know the board
?”

“Half-assed. I’m going on the line.”

“You can stand back-up. Stay out of the track!”

Danger, then. Danger of a glitch in the line—crew forward couldn’t do anything but help those cans across whatever inevitable bump in the track the mate-up with the other hold might make—never done a handoff to another ship, but it couldn’t be a perfect mate—always a glitch-point, even with dockside. He moved, followed the hand-rail, knew he was heading for a potential accident-point, if somebody was going to lose a hand, once the walls narrowed—worst of all when the cans were in the mate-up, where carriages this side released and carriages the other side had damned well better be ready and adequate—

Can passed him, another, caught by the moving chain, then—he saw both sway as they whisked past him on the last tractor-section, into the cargo-chute’s section, into the dark—didn’t want any swinging, a swing started here could impact the side-rails, slow the cans, make a jam-up on the line.

He found a place to hang, wall at his back, safety rail between him and the track—a crewman was working there, and he joined in, met can after can with his gloved hands, until he hit a rhythm in the moves, move of his foot, move of his body—breath came too short at first, raw fear. Then he acquired a feel for the fractional degree and vector the cans tended to sway, and it became saner—the panic almost left him. He had wind enough; he heard somebody else breathing into an open mike… he thought it was Saby. He could hear the terse slow-up and speed-up orders to Saby’s station from some officer forward in the chute, and fell into the rhythm until he all but forgot there was anything else in the universe but those cans coming faster and faster. Then something happened up ahead that shouldn’t happen, the whole track shook for no reason. He couldn’t hear it, but he saw the shudder in the cans—”
Damn
!” he heard over the com, and somebody else said: “
Track’s warping, she’s shot a rivet, ease back, ease back. “

Oh,
damn
, he thought, we’re not going to make it; and Saby said:

“I got it slowed, I got it… Tom, get down there, get a look, tell me how bad. “

He didn’t ask—Saby didn’t have eyes for what was happening ahead in the chute, the rig was stressed past design limits, and somebody on com was yelling at Saby to keep it rolling, dammit, keep it rolling, and giving orders to shunt tier five-c off to last-loaded, they’d run that set of cans out if the rig held and they had time…

Something in that load, he said to himself, something high-mass they weren’t sure the equipment could take. He hauled himself along the hand-rail, along the outbound chute, as far as a section where the cans had picked up a hell of a bobble.

Cans were still coming past him. Guys were working ahead, damping down the motion with their hands and bodies, the same as they’d done higher up the line—you didn’t know what kind of mass was coming at you in a given can, whether you were going to meet foam rubber or foam steel in a load. It was terrifying, but the receiving zone was yelling hurry up, speed up.

“Saby!” he said. “They got a hand-span swing at the rate you’re sending ‘em now, you copy?”

“I copy. Get back here. “

“I’m all right, do you copy?”

“
We got no damn time
!” somebody else broke in. “
Get on it, dammit, move it, move it up plus two, Saby, she’ll take it
—”

That was an officer talking, by the sound of it, and he didn’t belong on com. He found a space next to a big guy as the cans’ delivery rate began to speed up—the several of them acting as living buffers to keep the cans moving steadily.

“
It’ll be all right, “
came over his com, over somebody’s hard breathing.

Didn’t even know who the guy was until he’d worked up a total sweat and a can swung back, knocking him into the wall. The big guy sent the can on its way with a shove, and a one-handed reach met his grip as he rebounded off the wall—hauled him out of danger of the track, to a hand-hold he could reach.

Tink looked startled.

“‘S all right,” Tom breathed, “I’m all right, Tink, thanks.”

Wasn’t time to talk. Cans were passing them, fast as nightmare, now. Oscillation at the warp-point had proliferated, and all he could do was keep one hand to the safety-hold, a straight-arm block to damp the motion in his area ever so little, next man to take a little more swing off, and on to the next, like assembly-line robots.

Couldn’t let it stress the clamps. The track had already bowed under a mass-heavy can at too much
v
, no telling when another might come down the line—
hope
the crew in the hold were reading labels.

Oscillation grew worse. A can hit the wall, acquired a real nasty motion, slowed.

“
Hold it
!” somebody yelled. “
Got a hang-up, hold, hold, hold
!”

Cans bumped, all the way down the line. Tom hauled himself back, panting, shoulder to shoulder with Tink.

Then Austin’s voice came on, and channel A’s indicator flashed, general override. “
We’re dear, we haven’t got damn forever, Saby, let’s get a move on. “

The cans started to move again. Tom held his breath—one can had to nudge another into motion, all the way back from Saby’s station, where she could let loose cans to the inertial line, that was all.

Bump, bump, bump, cans came out of the dark, nudging each other with a swing they had to damp, and the line moved, faster, faster, faster. He thought—nightmare flash—about that hostile ship out there… time lost, maybe fatal time.

He’d gotten the shakes into his knees, scared—exhausted, he wasn’t sure.

Patrick, Capella’d said.

Patrick. Noise in the dark.

Runny blues and reds, sound that went through the bones… he couldn’t remember. Except Capella saying,
A freighter screaming…

He shoved at cans as they came, one after the other, the rack assembly moving uninterrupted, now, cans one behind the other, a moving wall of shadowed white.

Somebody screamed, on A, screamed, where official voices went back and forth. He heard Christian, then, somewhere, he had no idea where.

“
Just stay clear, stay back, it’s all right. Patch it, patch! dammit, he’s losing air
—”

“Got it, got it. It’s just his finger. “

“
What’s our time
?” somebody else asked, and Christian answered, “
Just do it, dammit. Keep your damn hands clear, we’re one row to go. “

Almost through. They could make it. Suddenly he couldn’t get enough air, touched the air-flow regulator—but cans came in, bumped a slower can, set it in motion. Careful, careful, he wished Saby, don’t lose it, don’t lose it—he ignored his shortened breath, shoved as cans passed, to the limit of his strength and his grip on the hand-hold bar.

Bumping in the line had started another oscillation, cans endangering workers along the walls—he flattened, had enough room until the effect dissipated down the line. Cans bumped one another, threatened another jam, and then didn’t—Saby was controlling the feed back there, finessing it, best she could…

“
Captain
. Sprite’s
moving this way. “

Sprite’s…

Moving.

“
Oh… shit
!” Tink said.

He didn’t know he’d moved, but he had, he didn’t realize Tink had made a grab for him, but he’d slung Tink’s hand off—didn’t know where he was going, but he shoved with his foot on a can and shot forward, the walls a blur in his vision as he richocheted off cans, off the wall, grabbed for a handhold where the railing climbed to the release zone. Brain caught up to body, then—he wanted escape, wanted forward, where ship’s officers were, where Austin was, where the truth was, as much as they hadn’t told to him, who that ship was, that was coming at them.

Bright lights now, vacant stretch of hand-rail, at the top of the cans now, the cargo-lock mate-up area, cans bumping in the guide rails, where the line started a process to shunt the cans on
Corinthians
rails off into the mated rail in the other hold—both cargo locks standing wide open, all the way into the hulk they were dealing with.

Com D light was blinking. Saby wanted him. Maybe Tink did. Breath was ragged. The suit regulator wouldn’t give him more oxygen.