twenty eight metres between the shell and the datum line of the hull, so there is no physical obstruction, but we can't detect any field-type forces. I don't like it. I'm going to back off.'
'There's no need for that,' Renard said. 'Push a bit harder.'
The officer at the smaller console to Dallen's left raised his head. 'There's no indication of any threat to the ship.'
'I don't care,' Lessen replied, strutting nervously like a dove. 'Traffic Central said conditions were normal at all other portals, but they can't vouch for anything here. We'll have to dock somewhere else.'
'Lake hell we will,' Renard said. 'I've got an agricultural station and a team of bloody expensive research workers waiting for me down there. We’re going in right here.'
'You want to bet?' Lessen palmed a master control with showy vigour, asserting his authority.
Watching him closely, Dallen saw a look of spiteful triumph which lasted only a few seconds and vanished as the patterns of red and orange on the console changed. New audio alarms began an insistent buzzing. Dallen felt vulnerable and totally helpless as he tried in vain to interpret the various information displays around him. it's all part of a process, came the fugue-thought. Orbitsville doesn't catch fire for nothing…
'We're not gaining any altitude,' the officer on his left said.
'Don't tell me things I already know,' Lessen snapped, specks of saliva floating away from his lips. 'Get me an explanation.'
His subordinate's jaw sagged. 'But…'
The protest was drowned in the clamour of yet another alarm, this time not the discreet warning emitted for the benefit of flight managers but a blood-freezing bellow which deliberately mimicked the obsolete klaxon to achieve maximum effect. Three blasts were followed by a recorded announcement:
'EMERGENCY! EMERGENCY! THE PRESSURE HULL HAS BEEN BREACHED. ALL PERSONNEL MUST PUT ON SPACESUITS WITHOUT DELAY. EMERGENCY!'
The message was repeated until Lessen killed the control deck speakers, and even then it could still be heard booming through the ship's lower compartments.
Dallen watched in sluggish disbelief as Lessen and the other officers went purposefully to lockers and opened them to reveal the dark-mawed golem-figures of spacesuits. Renard, too, seemed unable to move. Looking exasperated rather than alarmed, he stood with gold-freckled arms folded across his chest and gaped at the men who were struggling into suits.
'This isn't a safety drill,' Lessen called out, his gaze fixed on Dallen. 'You'd better get down to your cabin and look after your family. You'll find two suits in the emergency locker and a pressure crib for the boy.'
'I don't feel any pressure drop,' Dallen said, unable to shake off a dull obtuseness.
That's right,' Renard put in. 'What's all the panic?'
Lessen, now fully suited except for the helmet, said, I don't know what's happening, but I can assure you this is a genuine emergency. Something kept us from making contact with the shell, and when we tried to back off something else pushed us back down again. Both those forces are still at work. We're in a vice and something is winding hard on the handle — that's what the strain monitors say — and the hull is beginning to split.'
'You don't seem all that worried to me,' Renard accused.
'That's because I’m in my suit' Lessen gave Renard a malicious smile, refusing to cease feuding with him regardless of how dire he believed the situation to be.
Renard swore and ran towards the stairs in an ungainly slouch, his stirrups clacking noisily on the metal- cored deck. Dallen followed him as in a slow-motion dream. The emergency warning continued being broadcast on the lower decks, but he still had to contend with a sense of unreality.
Lessen had spoken of a mysterious 'something' which, although invisible, was exerting a crushing force on the starship — but did it actually exist? Space was a sterile vacuum, not the habitat of mysterious entities who attacked ships. The Hawkshead was long past its best, and a more likely explanation for all that had occurred was that some of its systems had gone haywire. After all, the only evidence for the putative emergency was in information displays, and such devices could easily be…
Crangf Crip-crip-crip-crip-CRANG!
The sounds of a metal structure failing under stress came as Dallen was between Decks 4 and 5, and were followed by a slamming of unseen metal doors. This time his eardrums responded to a drop in air pressure, and now the emergency was real and now he was afraid. Truly afraid. Several people, Silvia among them, were gathered on Deck 5 helping each other with the unfamiliar task of putting on spacesuits. Giving Silvia a tense half- smile, Dallen slipped by them and went into his own cabin. Mikel, a toy vehicle clutched in each hand, was staring up at him uncertainly, but Cona was drowsing in her bed, oblivious to the disturbance.
'Everything is fine, son,' Dallen said. 'We're going to play a new game.'
Keeping up a flow of reassuring patter, he opened a red-painted closet door and removed the pressure crib. It was an egg-shaped affair, with a transparency near one end, and had ample room for an infant. His hands trembling with haste, Dallen put Mikel inside it and closed the seals. Mikel gazed at him through the transparency, startled and reproachful, then began to cry. The sound reached Dallen by way of a speaker on the crib's life support control panel.
'I'm sorry, I'm sorry,' he mumbled. 'I promise it won't be for long.' He took an adult suit off its clips in the closet and began the more difficult task of getting Cona inside it. She was too drug-laden to offer any wilful resistance, but the sheer flaccidity and mass of her body, coupled with the lack of leverage due to zero gravity, hindered his every action. Within seconds he was sweating profusely. His co-ordination was impaired by anxiety, the constant aural battering from the PA system and Mikel' s sobbing, plus the repetitious chanting in his head.
What's happening to the ship?
What's happening to Orbitsville?
When he finally got the suit dosed around Cona and was reaching for the helmet she flung her head back in an involuntary spasm and struck him squarely on the bridge of the nose. Half-blinded by tears, he snorted out several quivering beads of blood and fitted Cona's helmet in place. She gave him a seraphic smile through its crystal curvatures, closed her eyes and lapsed back into sleep.
Grateful for the respite, he unclipped his own suit and was partially into it when the ear-punishing warning broadcast abruptly ceased. There was a moment of silence, then Lessen's voice was heard at a more tolerable volume. He spoke with irritating deliberation, either for clarity or in an effort to inspire confidence.
'This is Captain Lessen. The ship has suffered severe damage to its pressure hull. We have no alternative but to abandon the ship. Do not be alarmed. All crew and passengers should assemble immediately in the main airlock in the first quadrant of Deck 4. I repeat — do not be alarmed. You have only thirty metres of open space to cross, and there will be ropes to prevent anyone from drifting free. Go immediately to the main airlock in the first quadrant of Deck 4.'
Dallen finished donning his suit and fitted the helmet in place, an action which activated the oxygen generator and temperature control systems. He had never worn a spacesuit before, except in safety drills, and felt oddly self-conscious as he tethered the crib to his belt and went to the cabin door with Cona awkwardly in tow. The other passengers had already left the ring-shaped Deck 5, but a crewman on his way to the next level saw Dallen's difficulty and came to his aid, taking responsibility for getting Cona up the narrow stair.
'Thanks,' Dallen said. 'I had to give her some heavy sedation,'
'Save some for me,' the man replied, his voice made disturbingly intimate by Dallen's helmet radio.
They reached the airlock and were impatiently counted into it by another suited crewman. The square chamber was large enough to hold the entire ship's company, all of whom seemed to be present judging by the babble of sound transmitted into Dallen's helmet. With the crib in his left arm and with Cona's bulk damped to him by his right, he forced his way into the throng as a metal door slid shut behind him. The noise level increased abruptly as red lights began to glow on the walls and ceiling to indicate that the chamber's air was being bled off. More tremors coursed through the deck.
Suddenly Lessen's voice, augmented by his command transmitter, cut through the din. 'Quiet, please. As you will have noticed, our suit radios operate on a common frequency. Stop all unnecessary talk immediately, otherwise… Well, I'm sure you can all see the need for speed and efficiency…' His voice was lost in a renewed burst of sound which was followed at once by a guilty near-silence.
Dallen became aware of the inner skin of his suit tightening itself against his limbs. A few seconds later a
