For a moment Armis hung, his hands gripping the handhold outside the shroud, his boots anchored to some part of the plumbing mechanism within while angular acceleration tried to throw him into space, and caught his breath. Releasing one hand, he found purchase on the inner lip of the shroud assembly. There was a raised ring, part of the seal, a ledge about four centimeters wide against which he could push.
Shifting his magnetic boots blindly from metal surface to metal surface, he pushed himself down until he could grip the end of the nozzle with one hand. Releasing the lip of the shroud, he began pulling himself further in.
Finally his back was against the cylinder itself, his legs astride the emerging pipes. The valve controls were almost directly in front of him, while the nozzles themselves were above—although it felt like below—his head.
Pulling a loop of slack in his safety line, still belayed to the handhold outside the shroud, he lashed himself firmly in place.
“In position,” he reported.
“Great,” Brogden’s voice seemed faint. Armis hoped that was an effect of the shroud blocking transmission and not the man’s succumbing to his injuries. “Open in nine.”
“Ready.”
There were four pipes and four valves, though Armis wasn’t sure if that indicated four separate compartments inside the tank. He could reach three: one just to his left, the second directly in front of him, and a third a long stretch to his right. He knew the fourth was out of reach on the other side of the bundle of pipes.
Until he knew how long he had between vents ...
“Now!” Brogden’s shout interrupted his thoughts.
Armis grabbed the two valves closest to hand and yanked them open. Fortunately, they were simple open/close levers, not wheels, and full flow was immediate.
Now acceleration was added to the centrifugal force of the cylinder’s tumble. Blood rushed to Armis’ head as his suit creaked, straining against the lashings. A chill ache penetrated his suit and spread through his thighs as the decompressing water rushed through.
“Close! Close! Close!” Brogden’s frantic shout came faintly. Definitely the shroud muffling the signal, thought Armis as he snapped the levers shut. The other cadet was clearly fully conscious.
Armis shifted his left hand from the first valve to the one directly in front of him and stretched his other to the valve at the far right. In case there were four compartments, he wanted to get the maximum thrust from each flow.
By the third revolution, Armis had the pattern. Every thirty-seven seconds he’d open the vents for six seconds. The ventings—Armis thought of them as “burns”—seemed a little long to him, but he wasn’t in a position to see what was happening. There was no choice but to trust Brogden.
After the fourth vent Armis loosened the line holding him to the pipes. Keeping his grip through the fifth was difficult, pain shot through his lower back and already aching legs as the thrust tried to push him upward. The fact that he could hold on confirmed his suspicion that the force of the ventings had diminished.
As soon as the fifth vent ended, Armis scrambled awkwardly around the pipes in the confined space until the valve that had been out of reach was in front of him. The valve that had been to his left, the one he had only used once, was now under his right hand.
With no time to lash himself in, he jammed his right leg as far into a gap between the cylinder and the valve assembly as he could, twisting his foot sideways until it was wedged firmly. He hoped that would anchor him if he lost his grip.
He rejected triggering the pain killer against the inevitable broken leg. He needed to keep his mind clear.
“Now!”
Armis opened the valves. His grip slipped against the thrust, definitely much stronger than the last. He felt his right knee pop as it torqued violently. But his leg held, even as the wave of pain and nausea threatened to knock him out. He was still in position, still conscious, when Brogden shouted the order to close.
Cursing his earlier machismo, Armis quickly chinned the yellow injector. There was a sharp chill as the dispenser blasted microscopic crystals of medicine through the soft flesh over his jugular vein. A wave of giddiness passed through him as the powerful analgesic took effect.
As he lashed his good leg to a pipe stanchion, he realized the deadline had passed. They should have been burned to ash by now. Had they generated enough thrust to bounce off the atmosphere? Or had they only delayed the inevitable by a few moments?
Almost in answer to his question, the shroud behind him seemed to throb heat. Intermittent friction, he realized, as the water cylinder tumbled through the outer fringes of the atmosphere. When—if—they dug in a little deeper the leisurely rotation would snap the other way with the force of an inertia ram. He’d be crushed to paste before he felt anything. Right now all he felt was heat, though there must be a lot of it if he could feel it through his back pack and shoulder jets.
His shoulder jets.
In a panic he vented the jet pack’s fuel reserves. There was no place for the mist of microscopic droplets to go inside the shroud, of course, but there was little danger of the loose liquid igniting. His suit would protect him against a burning cloud of unconfined fuel in any case. A fuel tank explosion would have cut him in half.
“Now!”
The icy cold of the venting water coursing between his legs contrasted sharply with the sweltering heat building up inside his suit. What was Brogden feeling, tied to the outside of the cylinder, unshielded by the shroud?
“Close!”
“You okay out there?” Armis tried to keep his tone light.
“A little lemon with
