strapping himself in and turning his attention back to the tank.
The system drive was still engaged, but the hull, which Gabriel had put on audio via the computer, was muttering. Enda was now sealed in her e-suit, having clocked a time very little less than Gabriel's, and she was already halfway back to the cabinet where the floaters were kept. She yanked the cabinet open with nothing like her usual grace, pulled the can out, pulled its pin, and sprayed the contents in the approved pattern: up and down, side to side, aft to forward.
Thousands of small plasteine bubbles filled with a lighter-than-air gas burst out of the can, solidified, and began drifting toward the back of the ship. They would congregate near any leak, making it easy to identify for patching purposes. Then the plasteine would denature and the bubbles would vanish. Enda had already tossed away the floater can and pulled out the secondary can, the emergency patcher. This would produce contour flexfilm in amounts sufficient to patch quite a large leak, long enough for Sunshine to get down into atmosphere. Gabriel's concern, though, was that the entire back of his ship might be about to fall off, a possibility about which not even the floaters and the can would be able to do much.
Via the computer, the hull was now moaning more loudly as they dropped toward Grith. 'Where are you going to land?' Enda asked. 'It was going to be Redknife, but-'
Gabriel reached into the tank and brought up the schematic of the planet again. It zoomed in on the central continent and northward, looking for Redknife, found it, and locked in on it. Gabriel's mouth was going dry as he saw the course the leaking rear end of Sunshine was going to force on him-not the leisurely, low-fuel spiral he had been planning, but something rather faster: system drive up full, pushing the ship hard and straight down into atmosphere. It was a more stress-laden landing than he would have preferred, especially when the stresses might open the leaks out further. Might open one of them up big enough to crack the hull wide open and-Gabriel swallowed, or tried to, and put that thought aside forcefully. It would do him no good. 'We're going to have to make this one pretty quick,' he said. 'I don't want to linger and increase the stresses on the cargo bay. What about the floaters?'
'They were congregating mostly around the seal to the cargo bay,' Enda replied, sitting down and strapping herself in again. 'I have sprayed patcher all around there, and the floaters began to move elsewhere. But as our acceleration increases, they will no longer be much good as a diagnostic.' 'Just so long as they don't get in our way,' Gabriel said and concentrated on what he was doing. He increased the system drive a bit and heard the hull moan a little more, but there wasn't anything they could do about that now. They were committed, and atmosphere was already beginning to bite at Sunshine's wings. 'Redknife,' Gabriel said, 'six minutes.'
He glanced over at Enda, and even through her helmet's faceplate he got a glimpse of her swallowing hard: another gesture that humans and fraal apparently shared. Gabriel wondered if her mouth was as dry as his.
'It will be just like the ore pickups on Eraklion, I am sure,' Enda said, sounding completely calm.
Gabriel rolled his eyes at the thought of how simple flying had seemed then. Compared to this! The computer, of course, was ready to take this job away from him-but already Gabriel was enough of a pilot that the last thing he wanted to do was relinquish control, no matter how out of control he felt. Underneath them Grith was swelling, growing bright as they came past the terminator into the light of afternoon shading to evening. Gabriel headed straight down, gambling that the stresses would not increase too severely, that turning excessively would be worse for the hull-
Crack! He felt it more than heard it, and the hull shrieked protest as somewhere in the cargo bay a plate sprang away from its seams. A faint howling sounded from way in back, an increase in the way Sunshine was juddering as she arrowed in. Oh, this is fast, this is too fast, cut it back a little, Gabriel thought, but the computer still suggested that this was the smartest speed to hold, and for the time being Gabriel was not going to argue with it. Pressure in the cargo bay was showing 548 hPa, but that was not an unbelievable density for atmosphere. Now the question is, Gabriel thought, will the air currents lashing around in there make something else spring loose and start knocking bigger pieces out of the hull?
There was no way to tell and no time to worry about it now. Grith filled the whole of the cockpit windows, and Gabriel could see the northward-thrusting finger of green in which Redknife and its little landing facility were buried. The howling of the wind back in the cargo bay was getting louder and louder, which in its way was a good sign, but extremely unnerving. The ground was rushing up. The computer course graphic started flashing, suggesting emphatically to Gabriel that he should start flattening his glide path out now, and he agreed. He pulled her up, lowered her speed, and tried to feel for some glide.
Crack! That was something besides the cargo bay. He felt it distinctly through the tank and the control column. Not the hull, Gabriel thought, one of the control surfaces. Oh shit, oh shit! He fought with the control column, but it steadied down. The computer was compensating for the damage, whatever it was. The computer was now superimposing a graphic for Redknife's landing facility over the very faint visual Gabriel had of it, though that visual was getting clearer, and stronger, and closer by the minute as he glided toward it. This thing glides like a rock, Gabriel thought. Trouble. Sunshine was suddenly not responding as well as she had been. Gabriel could clearly see the landing flat and had done all the things the computer had told him to-had managed to decrease his speed, had cut his glide to just above stall, was coming down on landing jets. But one of the landing impellers seemed to be arguing the point with him, giving him more impulsion than he needed. 'No, no,' Gabriel shouted at it, 'cut it out, it's all right, throttle down, back off!'
But the impeller was paying no attention. In a wide and graceful curve, Sunshine shot right past and over what should have been her landing berth on the plain concrete strip at Redknife, thoughtfully reserved for her by the computer when it settled its course, and headed out into the jungle, losing altitude all the time.
They were over the highest treetops, which could mean anything depending on where you were on Grith. A hundred feet, five hundred... Gabriel saw a spot ahead of him that looked relatively empty of trees. He made for it, dropping altitude while counting seconds in his head to estimate by how much he had overshot Redknife. The ship was trying to continue that infernal curve, but he pulled the control column right over and fought with the attitudinals in the tank. 'No, no, no, no-'
The hole was right below him. He cut everything but the landing thrusters and held the column in place. 'Hang on!'
Crash!
Everything went white for a moment, and Gabriel thought, That's it, I've aced out the system drive; we're both going to be reduced to talcum powder, radioactive talcum powder!
Then again, how am I having time to think these thoughts if we are talcum powder?
He opened his eyes. They were on the ground. The cockpit windows were miraculously intact. Vague, misty red late-afternoon sunlight was coming in through them. All the computer's alarms were wailing about all kinds of problems, hull integrity, fuel reserves, system drive status-that one Gabriel did do something about, reaching out immediately to shut the drive down. But as for the rest of it, they were intact. He was, anyway.
'Enda? Enda!'
As he reached out to help unstrap her, she moved. Gabriel breathed again.
'I am well enough,' she said. She turned her head to him and gave him a wry look. 'Oh, Gabriel, I wonder whether at this rate we are ever going to run this ship at a profit.'
He laughed, and laughed harder. For a good several minutes he could do nothing else. Finally he was able to stop, unstrap himself, and get up to see what needed doing.
Sunshine was listing slightly to starboard, but there was no harm in that. She was otherwise mostly sitting flat. Gabriel got up and went to have a look at the seals to the cargo bay. They were still intact, but through the little bay-door window he could see daylight where the hull plate had sprung. He could just hear the not-entirely- regretful way in which some smallship repairman was going suck in his breath and say, 'Oh, that's going to cost you.'
'How is it?' Enda asked, working at her straps.
'Not too bad,' Gabriel lied. 'We're in one piece, anyway.'
He got up to the lift, tried it experimentally. It went down and came up again. 'Okay,' he said, 'at least we're not trapped in here.'
Enda made her way back to him, undoing her helmet. 'Well,' she said, 'there is a little daylight left. We still might get help today.'
They got into the lift together and headed downward. 'Maybe,' Gabriel said. He found that he was feeling a little lightheaded, but regardless, he added, 'Remind me to send a mail to the Delgakis people. The ship held up
