The Blue Marble Gambit (8 page)

I
waited, forming a mental image of my eyebrows climbing so high up my head that
they started down the
back side
. Ned, of course, would see this and
understand: Hurry.

He
leaned forward further, as if to whisper in my ear. “We seem to have a rider."

I
felt like
I
was
three steps behind
Ned
. That was natural.
I
was
three steps behind
Ned
. “A rider?"

Again
he pointed up. “Metallic.
One meter
square. Atop the ship."

I
felt a stricken look splash itself across my face.

"What
is it?" Trina asked, finally fed up with this odd dialogue. Of course, she could see and hear only
half of it, since Ned was a
carefully-controlled
,
sentient, hallucination.

"What
is it?" I whispered to Ned.

"Based
on known Etzan preferences for explosives design and detonation delivery packages-"

Those
words tend to seize one's attention-

"-
it
appears to be a Etzan flit mine. We likely picked it up at TL insertion."

Those
words slapped me hard across the face,
then
kicked my
skull. The Admiral had warned that
the Etzans might try something - but they had been unexpectedly quick off the
mark.

"A
mine," I repeated dully.

"A
mine?" Trina said inquisitively.

"A
mine!" Ned said urgently.

"And
the Etzan cruiser is just waiting for us to vanish into a puff of smoke."

"Well,
a cloud of hot gas, debris, and plasma, actually, but you've got the right
idea."

"Any
idea what type of mine?"

"Oh
yes." Ned examined his fingernails in a bored fashion.

"Is
it survivable?"

He
glanced up from what looked to be a perfect manicure. “Don't be silly. It's a plasma-antimatter mine. The cruiser is holding just outside the
maximum blast radius."

I
sat back. “Oh, good," I said,
expecting for some reason to be blown up at that very moment. Somehow it wouldn't have surprised me. But we weren't. I waited another few moments. We still weren't.

I
sat forward. “Well, I'll have to go
get it."

"Go
where?" Trina asked.

I
checked our speed. Well into the
trans-light regime. Ned was
tracking my eyeballs, and knew what I was thinking.

"Not
good," he said. “We can't slow
down - that might detonate it. Etzans often use c sensors." He paused, then shook his head and
muttered, "I don't like it. Very risky."

"No
riskier than leaving it out there," I replied.

"True. Can the girl do it?"

I
was offended. I had some sense of
gallantry, no matter how anachronistic. “No. She can't. Besides, she's more important than
me. I can't work that Time
Oscillator."

"Actually,"
Ned corrected, "I wasn't thinking of you. I'm the most important one here. And since I'm inside you, I would prefer
that you not risk me by strolling about outside."

I
thought for a moment. It was
dangerous, there was no doubt, and for a host of reasons mankind never
suspected until the first TransLight drive was developed. But at least if anything went wrong I'd
be taking Ned with me.

"Too
bad," I said.

CHAPTER
5. SPACEMINE

One
of the most amusing historical misconceptions about outer space was the belief
in its emptiness. While it is
pretty much empty, that province happens to lie a long and exciting way from
truly empty. In fact, deep space is
positively cluttered with stray atoms of gas - hydrogen, helium, some nitrogen,
even nitrous oxide (laughing gas, though how I found that out is another
story), plus random ions and subatomic particles, and a host of other tiny
bits. And therein lies the
catch. For when you're moving
appreciably faster than light through this not-so-empty void, all that stuff
blows against you.

In
essence, it's windy.
Gusty, actually.
Space is as calm and smooth as a mirror, until you hit a gas
pocket. Then all those molecules
tug and rip and yank at you. Since
you never know when you'll go through a gas pocket, the danger is that while
nattering about you'll get blown into the void. Not only has it happened,
but
no one it's happened to has ever been found. And while there are no first-hand
reports, it seems a safe bet that spinning off into space isn't a very
interesting way to spend eternity. The view's great, the accoutrements lousy.

I
was well aware of all this as I suited up. But the fact was, I might not get blown off. And if I didn't risk go out there, I
would get blown up.
Certain death versus probable death.
Not much of a choice. Once again I cursed my Uncle.

Blowing
into space

is
better than blowing up

but
not by too much.

Then
I cursed my alternate identity as Erran T. Scansion, and my haiku-addled
brain. Ned agreed, with a wince.

I
slipped into my space suit, a clumsily thick TL unit, and snapped on the
helmet.
A quick pressure
check.

Trina's
lips were moving. I turned on the
speaker.

"What
were you just mumbling?" she asked.

"Nevermind."

She
frowned, was about to say something, decided not to, and instead asked,
"Are you sure this is safe?"

I
gave the helmet a hard twist. “I'm
sure it's not safe."

"Well
what am I supposed to do if you don't come back?" she said petulantly.

"You'll
think of something. After all,
you're the scientist." I was a little gruff, admittedly, at the notion of
being blown into space and spending eternity adrift. It wasn't just the lingering awful
death. It was the boredom.

"But-"
she said.

I
clicked off the speaker and shuffled into the lock, no bigger than a
closet.
A
toothless Iron Maiden that nevertheless could gum you to death.
I hit the switch and watched the
pressure drop as the ship inhaled the air.

"No
need to be nasty," Ned counseled.

"Shut
up.”

The
outer hatch irisced open. Stars,
stars, and more stars.
White, blue, red, and green.
I was swimming in a sea of them.
They were the au jus
,
I was the meat
. They were a huge tapestry, I a single pixel.

Bowl
of glowing stars

Eternity
adrifting

what
a way to g-

"Oh
knock it off," Ned interrupted. “We're going to use a safety line, aren't we?"

We?
We? I thought bitterly.

"It's
my butt too," Ned said.

You
don't even have a butt, I thought.

"An
expression,
is all."

"A
safety line," I said aloud, "will do us no good. If we hit a gas pocket, it'll peel us
off like a rocket exhaust blasting away an ant." Against the misty
translucence of a distant nebula I glimpsed the sinister black occlusion of the
Etzan cruiser. It looked plenty
deadly, which I knew was a vast understatement.

Ned
sighed. “Fine. Then at least follow the service channel
between the starboard and port engines. That'll give us some protection."

I
moved out, carefully pulling myself along. The stars in this particular section of the galaxy were thick enough to
give off enough light to see a little. The good ship Blue Bean was a dull dark gray splotch against the darker
black below me.

I
worked my way into the service channel, a deep furrow carved into the
ship. Hand over
hand,
I slid along it, using the various holds. Deep spacecraft, for complex reasons, were littered with odd
protuberances, pipes and antennas and navigational surveyors, all of them
strengthened against the solar wind and interstellar gases. But at the end of the channel, which I
quickly reached, I would have to climb onto the skin itself, and be exposed.

"Hang
on!" I cried to Ned, who of course had no hands, and leapt to my
feet. My mag boots thunked onto the
hull.

I
actually felt Ned flinch - an odd sensation, as if part of my brain had
temporarily relocated. I quickly
grabbed the handholds and pulled myself forward. With Ned's direction I headed for the
top center of the small ship. At
least, it was the top center when the ship was squatting on its thick tripod
landing pads.

I
saw a satchel-sized metal disk, squatting evilly. It looked welded to the hull. The mine.

"What
in Zot's name am I supposed to do with that?" I muttered.

Ned
appeared, a ghostly translucence in the void. “I calculate that a number five spanner
might be able to reach under it, through that electrical conduit," he
said, pointing with one pale shimmering hand. He looked funny, floating in space
without a suit.

Aren't
you cold? I thought inanely, but said, "Fine." I dug a number five
spanner from the tool belt at my waist, and wedged one end into the recessed
channel holding the black cable of the conduit. I tested the long handle - it gave me a
fair amount of leverage. This, I
realized, just might work.

"Go
ahead," Ned urged.

A
long-forgotten piece of what I had once thought to be trivia surfaced in my
brain. It came from a Fist lecture
on Etzan mines.

"Don't
these self-monitor for tampering? Are you sure this won't just set it
off?" I asked suspiciously.

"I
was worried about that at first," Ned said darkly. “But not anymore. Hurry, now."

In
the back of my mind I was wondering what the rush was, and why Ned wasn't
worried it would explode. But this
was no time for debate. I yanked
upward. The mine popped free and
began to slowly spin off into space. At this rate, we'd probably be at a safe distance in a matter of
months. I stared at it hanging
there.

"Good. Now get inside," Ned urged. “Hurry."

"What's
the Zot-infested rush? That thing isn't going to blow right here, is it?"

"Not
a chance," he said grimly.

I
stopped short, halfway back into the channel. “Wait. How could you possibly know that?"
Peripherals like Ned only had so much information at
their
,
so to speak, fingertips. They
weren't magic.

Ned
turned himself into a
rapidly-ticking
old-fashioned
stopwatch. “I have a very good
reason," he said through the face. “Which I'll explain later. Now get going."

"If
you have a very good reason you'll explain it now," I said, not
moving. I had a right to know what
was going on.
Every
right, in fact.
I idly
looked around at the distant star specks. How scenic. So scenic, in
fact, that
their
appreciation suddenly required some
study.
Perhaps a
sonnet or three.

Ned
read my resolve and caved. “Because," he said testily, "as soon as the Etzan cruiser
detected you, it began moving in. The Etzans are now well inside the blast radius.
And closing fast.
Therefore, it is safe to conclude that
the mine will not be detonated, since the blast would also destroy them."

I
thought about all that for one millisecond.

"Exactly,"
Ned said, even before the shock registered on my face. He was quicker than a neuron. “They detected our tampering. Now they are coming. The mine is either a dud, or
timer-controlled. “ His tone turned
chatty. “I didn't mention it before
because I didn't want to distract you. Oh, by the way, the Etzans will be in weapons range in ninety
seconds."

I
reached the cockpit in thirty.

Trina
was staring mutely out the cockpit window at the blossoming shape. From this perspective it looked like a
dagger.

I
jumped into the pilot's seat and shoved the throttles forward while twisting us
in an evasive corkscrew. I thought
madly.
A
Etzan fast cruiser could manage c7. The
Blue Bean
could hit only
about c4. As for weapons, the
cruiser could carbonize a planet. We were unarmed.

I
knew all this as I stared at the consoles.

"Diz,
dear," Trina said. Bless her
heart; she was no pilot, but she was trying. “That's a big nasty ship. We better get our screens up."

Screen
generators are heavy.
And big.
The
good ship
Blue Bean
was light. And small. My stricken look spoke volumes.

"Oh
my, oh my," said the Blue Bean's computer.

"My
god," she yelled. “I knew we
had no weapons. But are you going
to tell me we have no screens?"

I
shrugged. I wasn't going to tell
her that. There was no need to tell
her. Bright gal - no, bright brain
- that she was, she'd already figured it out.

"Oh
no, oh no," said the
Blue Bean's
computer.

Trina
pointed at a monitor, which was tracking the Etzan ship with a
long range
lens. Two four-gun batteries were converging on us. The cruiser was so long, and those
batteries so far apart, that we were about to be caught in a crossfire.
From one ship.

There
was no debris nearby. We couldn't
hide. The Etzans were faster. We couldn't run. I swallowed my pride. It went down hard and sharp, like dry
oatmeal. “Ned?" I asked. I hated asking him for help, but I hated
being killed even more.

He
flashed into pallid existence for only a moment, shaking his head. “We're goners," he said,
then
vanished. “I always knew you'd be the end of me," remarked his disembodied
voice.

Trina
punched me in the chest. “Well, hot
shot? This is your end of things. What do we do?"

"I'm
only three hundred and seven! I'm too young to die!" wailed the
Blue Bean's
computer. “I'm still under warranty! Perhaps we
can reason with them! Maybe-"

"Lifeboat,"
I said.