There was a small movement of her shoulder, and he felt her hand creep gently into his and grip the fingers tightly, and he knew that she, too, was remembering that first contact and all the tension and terror of the protracted, technological nightmare that had preceded it.
It had happened during one of their early shared training exercises, when they were still trying to familiarize themselves with what the supervisor, a being renowned for the magnitude of its understatements, referred to as the basic tools of the trade.
The tools of their trade…
Tool One, the hypership: the largest general-purpose vessel operated by the Galactics; just under half a mile in length, one-third that at its widest point, bristling with such an angular, metallic outgrowth of hyper-drive generator assemblies, normal-space drivers, tractor and pressor beam projectors, weather control machinery, and long- and short-range sensors that it was incapable of making anything but the most catastrophic of crash landings on a planetary surface. Internally it was packed with enough power generation equipment to satisfy the demands of one of the Galactic’s most energy-hungry cities, as well as a small army of monitor and self-repair robots, fabrication modules capable of producing anything from a pair of boots to a medium-sized interplanetary space vessel, synthesizers for the crew’s organic consumables, and, in executive charge of ail these systems, a computer which, to describe it as superhuman would have been to damn it with faint praise indeed. In spite of its virtual omniscience, the main computer was subservient to the wishes of its organic crew, although not always without argument.
This was one of the Galactics’ standard-issue tools, varying from ship to ship only in the control interfaces, living quarters, medical support, and food and translation systems required by its organic occupants at the time.
Tool Two, the lander: a small, fast, low-level reconnaissance vessel and surface lander, with crew positions for two but capable of being controlled remotely by the mother ship. Designed as a secure base for the First Contact specialist, it carried the full spectrum of communications equipment and, in the event of the contact going sour, its meteorite screen was also capable of protecting the occupant from ground or air attack by anything short of nuclear weapons.
Tool Three, the protector: a small, surface observation vehicle capable of operating within the most hostile of environments while enabling its crew to communicate with any intelligent inhabitants who might be present. For defense it relied principally on high mobility, but in the event of it encountering a threat from which it could not run away and which threatened the life of an organic occupant, it had power sufficient for a short-range matter transmission link with either the lander or the hyper-ship.
The other tools were much smaller, more specialized, and tailored to the needs of the Earth-human life-form. These included mobile, self-powered protective envelopes, proof against any hostile environment they were likely to encounter; a variety of nonlethal or psychological weaponry; and a two-way translator terminal so small that it could be disguised as a piece of ear or neck jewelry, and possessing a silent voice-bypass facility which enabled the contacter to hold simultaneous conversation with the mother ship without the risk of giving offense to an alien contactee.
But in that first major test, given without prior warning during the start of an otherwise routine training exercise to power-up a cold lander, the majority of those increasingly familiar tools were deliberately withdrawn from use.
It was a simulated, near-catastrophic malfunction which had opened the hypership to space and taken out the on-board power generation and all of the systems controlled by the main computer. They protested, reminding the supervisor that they had been taught that the hypership’s design philosophy made such an event impossible. But they were told that it was a simulated and not a real event, that it was designed to test, under conditions of extreme stress, their suitability for their chosen specialties, and that if they put into practice everything they had been taught up until that time, they should be able to survive the test without serious damage or life termination.
Within seconds of the first malfunction alarm, the lander’s hull sensors reacted automatically to the loss of external pressure and simulated radiation build-up by sealing all entry and inspection ports, effectively trapping them in a ship within a ship.
Considering then- level of technological ignorance at the time, it was obvious that they could not do anything about the condition of the distressed hypership, so that the most that was expected of them was to act as they would have done had the situation been real, and call for help.
But the distress beacon was mounted outside the hypership’s hull, and they were trapped inside a lander whose power cells and consumables were all but depleted. A hurried inventory showed that they had enough energy to maintain an air supply for two people of thirty-six hours, provided they remained at rest and did not use the available power for light, heat, artificial gravity, or communication with anyone or anything outside the lander.
Plainly they had to breathe less, but communication was vital.
The main computer was down, and with it all of the mother ship’s remote control systems. Through the crackle of simulated radiation interference, Beth was able to make intermittent contact with the three, self-powered repair robots assigned to the lander dock area. The robots were capable of performing a variety of delicate, precise, and quite complex tasks, she told Martin, provided they were given equally precise and complex instructions. Being in-organic and capable of operating in an airless, radioactive environment, it was possible for them to be given directions for finding and operating the manual release for the distress beacon-if she could remember the complicated internal geography of the mother ship and none of the different paths she programmed them to follow were blocked by simulated wreckage. But the first two robots died on her long before reaching their objective.
Beth complained angrily that the stupid things had done what they were told, not what she wanted them to do, and began the even more precise and careful instruction of the third and last one.
While she was working, Martin opened the seal between the flight deck and lock chamber to allow maximum circulation of their remaining air. Then he detached the wide, one-piece padding from their control couches and tied the attachment straps together to form a makeshift sleeping bag which he anchored loosely beside the direct vision port. Since the heating had been turned off, it was becoming colder by the minute-doubtless the rate of heat dissipation into space was being accelerated for the purposes of the test. He checked the food storage locker again, finding only two water bulbs and the characteristic shape of a self-warming food container, but the glow coming from their only working communicator screen was too dim to let him read the label.
Martin had succeeded in detaching one of the cabinet’s short, metal shelves when the communicator began producing louder and more regular hissing sounds overlaying the background interference-the distress beacon was functioning. A few minutes later the communicator screen went dark as Beth directed what little power remained to air production.
Hastily they shared the hot food and fumbled their way into the makeshift sleeping bag. Then they put their arms around each other, the first time they had done so, and breathed slowly and economically and remained otherwise motionless. There was nothing they could do but try to conserve the remaining air, pool their body heat, and await rescue.
They had no way of knowing how long that would take, or if it would come in time. Their supervisor would not deliberately let them die, they thought, but it was a completely alien lifeform with a metabolism utterly unlike their own, and a misjudgment might occur.
It was also possible that then’ rescuers had arrived, and were trying vainly to raise them on the dead communicator before beginning a long, time-wasting search of the entire hypership. That was why Martin, at what he thought were reasonable intervals, reached outside their cocoon of relative warmth to hammer his piece of shelving against the nearest bulkhead, to signal their presence and position to rescuers who were probably not there yet.
A subjective eternity passed as they drifted weightless in the utter darkness, staring out of an unseen viewport at an equally dark lander dock. The temperature continued to fall, the air-maker’s status light had dimmed to extinction, the air was thick and stale and painfully cold in the lungs. The sweat on Martin’s face felt like a film of ice and there was a pounding ache in his head that seemed louder than the noise he was making with the shelf. Through their thin coveralls he was aware of every curve and contour and movement of Beth’s body, which had begun to shake with a motion that was slower but more violent than shivering. It was the uncontrollable tremor of fear.
