promote growth, as well as chemical combination. But of course metal is ultra-scarce here, so the molecule became highly efficient at stealing it.”
“At eating things.” Carita stared before her. “That's close enough to life for me.”
“The normal environment is low-energy,” Yoshii said. “Things must go faster during the day. Not that there is much action then, either; nothing much to act on, any more. But we set down on our metal landing gear, and pumped out light-frequency quanta.”
“And it… woke.”
Yoshii grimaced but stayed clear of semantic argument. “It must be strongly bound to the underlying rock. It was quick to knit the feet of our landing jacks into that structure.”
“And gnaw its way upward, till I—”
He caught her hand. “You couldn't have known. I didn't.”
The deck swayed underfoot. The liquor sloshed in Carita's glass. “But we're blacked out now,” she protested, as if to the devourer.
“We're radiating infrared,” Yoshii answered. “The boat's warmer on the outside than her surroundings. Energy supply. The chemistry goes on, though slower. We can't stop it, not unless we want to freeze to death.”
“How long have we got?” she whispered.
He bit his lip. “I don't know. If we last till sunrise we'll dissolve entirely soon after, like spooks in an ancient folk tale.”
“That's more than a month away.”
“I'd estimate that well before then, the hull will be eaten open. No more air.”
“Our suits recycle. We can jury-rig other things to keep us alive.”
“But the hull will weaken and collapse. Do you want to be tossed down into… that?” Yoshii sat straight. Resolution stiffened his tone. “I'm afraid we have no choice except to throw ourselves on the mercy of the kzinti. They must have arrived.”
Carita ripped forth a string of oaths and obscenities, knocked back her drink, and rose. “Shep is still on the loose,” she said.
Yoshii winced. “Man the control cabin. I'm going to suit up and get back into the engine compartment.”
“What for?”
“Isn't it obvious? The energy boxes are stored there.”
“Oh. Yes. You're thinking we'll have to take orbit under our own power and let the kzinti pick us up? I'm not keen on that.”
“No! But I don't imagine they'll be keen on landing here.” He rejoined her an hour later. By starlight she saw how he trembled. “I was too late,” dragged from him. “Maybe if I hadn't had to operate the airlock hydraulics manually. What I found was a seething mass of— of— The entire locker where the boxes were is gone.”
“That fast?” she wondered, stunned, though they had been in communication until he passed through into the after section. And then, slowly: “Well, the capacitors in those boxes are— were fully charged. Energy concentrated like the stuff's never known before. Too bad so much didn't poison it. Instead, it got a kick in the chemistry making it able to eat everything in three gulps. We're lucky the life-support batteries weren't there, too.”
“Let's hope the kzinti want us enough to come down for us.”
Shielding a flashlight with a clipboard, they activated the radio, standard-band broadcast. Yoshii spoke. “SOS. SOS. Two humans aboard a boat, marooned,” he said dully. “We are sinking into a— solvent— the macromolecule— You doubtless know about it. Rescue requested.
“We can't lift by ourselves. The drive units in our spacesuits have only partial charge, insufficient to reach orbital speed in this field. We can't recharge. That equipment is gone. So are all the reserve energy boxes. We can flit a goodly distance around the planet or rise to a goodly height, but we can't escape.
“Please take us off. Please inform. We will keep our receiver open on this band, and continue transmission so you can locate us.”
Having recorded his words, he set them to repeat directly on the carrier wave and leaned back. “Not the most eloquent speech ever made,” he admitted. “But they won't care.”
She took his hand. Heaven stood gleamful above them. Time passed.
Occasionally the vessel moved a bit.
A spaceship flew low, from horizon to horizon. They had only the barest glimpse. Perhaps cameras took note of theirs.
Carita choked. “Alien.”
“Kzin,” Yoshii said. “Got to be.”
“But I never heard of anything like—”
“Nor I. What did you see?”
“Big. Sphere with fins or flanges or — whatever they are — all around. Mirror-bright. Doesn't look like she's intended for planetfall.”
Yoshii nodded. “Me too. I wanted to make sure of my impression, as fast as she went by. Just the same, I think we have a while to wait.” He stood up. “Suppose I go fix us some sandwiches and also bring that bottle. We may as well take it easy. We've played our hand out.”
“But won't they— Oh, yes, I see. That's no patrol craft. She was called off her regular service to come check Prima. We being found, she'll call Secunda for further orders, and relay our message to a translator there.”
“About a five-minute transmission lag either way, at the present positions. A longer chain-of-command lag, I'll bet. Leave the intercom on for me, please, but just for the sake of my curiosity. You can talk to them as well as I can.”
“There isn't a lot to say,” Carita agreed.
Yoshii was in the galley when he heard the computer-generated voice: “Werlith-Commandant addressing you directly. Identify yourselves.”
“Carita Fenger, Juan Yoshii, of the ship Rover, stuck on Prima— on Planet One. Your crew has seen us. I suppose they realize our plight. We're being… swallowed. Please take us off. If your vessel here can't do it, please dispatch one that can. Over.”
Silence hummed and rustled. Yoshii kept busy.
He was returning when the voice struck again: “We lost two boats with a total of eight heroes aboard before we established the nature of the peril. I will not waste time explaining it to you. Most certainly I will not hazard another craft and more lives. On the basis of observations made by the crew of Sun Defter, if you keep energy output minimal you have approximately five hundred hours left to spend as you see fit.”
A click signaled the cutoff.
Werlith-Commandant had been quite kindly by his lights, Yoshii acknowledged.
He entered the control cabin. “I'm sorry, Carita,” he said.
She rose and went to meet him. Starlight guided her through shadows and glinted off her hair and a few tears. “I'm sorry too, Juan,” she gulped.
“Now let's both of us stop apologizing. The thing has happened, that's all. Look, we can try a broadcast that maybe they'll pick up in Shep, so they'll know. They won't dare reply, I suppose, but it's nice to think they might know. First let's eat, though, and have a couple of drinks, and talk, and, and go to bed. The same bed.”
He lowered his tray to the chart shelf “I'm exhausted,” he mumbled.
She threw her arms around him and drew his head down to her opulent bosom. “So'm I, chum. And if you want to spend the rest of what time we've got being faithful, okay. But let's stay together. It's cold out there. Even in a narrow bunk, let's be together while we can.”
The sun in the screen showed about half the Soldisc at Earth. Its light equaled more than 10,000 full Luna’s, red rather than off-white but still ample to make Secunda shine. The planetary crescent was mostly yellowish- brown, little softened by a tenuous atmosphere of methane with traces of carbon dioxide and ammonia. A polar cap brightened its sintered northern hemisphere, a shrunken one the southern. The latter was all water ice, the former enlarged by carbon dioxide and ammonia that had frozen out. These two gases did it everywhere at night, most times, evaporating again by day in summer and the tropics, so that sunrises and sunsets were apt to be violent. Along the terminator glittered a storm of fine silicate dust mingled with ice crystals.
