‘Okay,’ he said, and Scotonis set the recording running.
The Argus station just continued hanging in space, the image unremarkable for a few seconds, then things beginning to change. Any light from behind it faded away, until it lay in a circle of blackness. It distorted, as if that circle outlined the position of a concave lens, then it was gone, completely enclosed in a large silvery bubble. It was a flattened sphere dimpled at the pole, on the side they could see, rather like a doughnut whose central hole had just about closed up, while right on the edge of that bubble some sort of explosion ensued, then the image froze again.
‘That blast came from part of the space docks,’ Scotonis noted, ‘sheared off then torn apart by tidal forces.’
‘What?’ Clay had no idea what he was talking about.
‘The next bit,’ Scotonis continued, ‘we put together from the cams we’re using to detect debris, because the cam originally focused on it soon lost sight of it.’
The image was set in motion again: the stars behind the bubble blurred as it slid off frame. Another frame recaptured it to one side of the first, the object bobbing up and down and then jerking from view again, until another cam feed picked it up in yet another frame on the multi-screen. Clay was left in no doubt, as the frames proliferated across in front of him, that he was seeing footage of something travelling very fast indeed. Then the bubble slammed to a halt and a bright flash obliterated the view for a second. The image next slid back from pixelated chaos to show the Argus Station at the centre of an expanding globe of glowing matter and rocky debris.
‘It struck an asteroid half a kilometre across,’ explained Scotonis. ‘The asteroid was destroyed, but the station itself appears completely undamaged.’
Clay just kept on staring at the image and, as he finally managed to absorb what this meant, he could not resist turning to Trove. ‘Seems you
She just glared at him.
‘This changes things,’ he continued. ‘How far did they move?’
‘Six hundred thousand kilometres in about eight seconds,’ Scotonis replied. ‘They were travelling at nearly a quarter of the speed of light.’ A short silence ensued as they all took that in, then Scotonis continued, ‘It doesn’t make much difference to our arrival time since they seemed to be trying to take the clearest route out of the belt, which ran transversely to our own approach.’
‘But, still, what is the point in us going after them?’ Clay asked.
‘I’m still amazed at your stupidity,’ Trove interjected. ‘We have to go after them because if we don’t, we’re dead.’
‘Why? I just don’t see your reasoning.’
‘What is your opinion of Commander Liang and his staff?’ asked Scotonis.
‘He’s a useful idiot,’ replied Clay, ‘your archetypal fanatic . . . oh.’
‘Oh, indeed,’ said Scotonis. ‘He and his staff command two thousand troops, most wearing vacuum gear and all heavily armed. If we mutiny now, all the readerguns aboard would not be enough to stop him taking over this ship.’ Scotonis grimaced. ‘Galahad was careful to ensure that it would be difficult for any of us to tip the balance of power aboard. That’s either because she’s very clever or very paranoid.’
‘I’d plump for the latter,’ said Clay. ‘So why didn’t you tell me this before?’
‘Because you are an untrustworthy little worm,’ said Trove, before Scotonis could reply.
‘And you trust me now?’ Clay asked.
‘We don’t have to,’ said Trove. ‘You’re dead, remember?’
Decidedly uncomfortable with the implications of that, Clay focused his attention back on Scotonis. ‘So you intend to get Liang and his men out of the ship first?’
‘Damned right,’ the captain replied.
‘But still you need to get to the Argus Station to do that.’
‘Yes, and if that drive remains undamaged and they start it up again . . .’
Clay could see no way round that. After all this time, they were still days away from Argus Station.
‘We’ll have to talk to our friend Alex,’ said Gunnery Officer Cookson. ‘He’s the only resource we can use.’
Clay nodded. ‘If he can sabotage something—’
‘Then, of course, we have another problem,’ interrupted Scotonis, now drawing his sidearm and pointing it at Clay.
‘Problem?’ said Clay.
‘Well,’ said the captain, raising his left arm and peering at his watch, ‘you were supposed to be dead as of two minutes ago.’
Clay didn’t hear the crack of the gunshot, just felt the sledgehammer impact on his chest. Then he felt nothing at all.
17
Air Supply
