Playing God(113)

He felt old. Old and tired and worried. There were Humans in there, and he was responsible for them. Esmo was with them. If the Dedelphi were not willing to talk … Alternatives would be found. He would get the people out.

Movement on the camera display caught his eye. His heart froze. Something white and about the size of a grain of sand drifted away from the Ur, heading at a forty-five-degree angle up from its disk. Another flew in almost a straight line from the plane. Another dropped off at a ninety-degree angle.

The bridge crew must have noticed it, too, because the camera suddenly zoomed in on the first of the grains. First, Keale saw it was round. Then, he saw it was clear with a dark center.

Then he saw it was a rescue ball. With an occupant.

He touched the intercom key. “This is Keale. Pull the shot out again.”

“Acknowledged,” came the voice of Holger Redding, the Graves's copilot.

The camera's view pulled back. More white grains had joined the first, each heading on a separate trajectory from the others, spreading out at every possible angle. Some of them got caught in the ship's gravity field and bounced hard against the dome, eventually settling into orbit around the big ship like tiny moons.

Keale had an abrupt vision of a cluster of Dedelphi in the number five airlock grasping the Humans in their rescue balls and heaving them out into the vacuum.

Deliberately scattering them to keep us at a rescue for as long as possible. Keale felt his mouth harden. And it's going to work, too.

His attention was still glued to the screen, but his hands flew across his portable's keys, slaving the Graves's intercom to the rest of the fleet.

“Attention, all personnel. This is now a rescue mission. Top priority. We have to assume there's going to be the full thousand of them.” And we are going to get them all.

“Anderson?” He hailed the Graves's pilot. “Head us in, top speed. Shuttle group, fan out, make sure we cover all sides of the Ur. Aubrey, Maturin, Hough, you take the far side. Tamulevich, Deku, Brian, take the downside. Everson and Sampson will take the near side. Hale, hang back and circle us, pick up anybody who slides through.”

Affirmative replies flooded back to him, and he felt marginally better. A lot was going to depend on the pilots. Much of the success of this rescue boiled down to a physics problem: velocity, trajectory, and force.

And speed.

“Suits, people.” Keale planted his magnetic slippers on the deck and undid his couch straps.

All security personnel on the Bioverse rolls were trained in as many kinds of space-based search and rescue as the system guard could think up. They could do this. They would do this.

Down in the hold, Keale shut himself into one of the suit lockers. He stripped out of his clothes and put on a skintight, white singlet that covered him from toe to neck. In a stall that was the size of a small shower, careful waldos covered him with organic insulation and a bright yellow layer of pressure webbing. Over it, he strapped the backpack harness with the helmet collar attached. He pulled a patch cord out of the collar and hooked it up to his temple implant. He locked on the helmet, slid on the gloves, knee and elbow braces, and boots.

Out in the common area, he helped his people on with their batteries and air tanks, and was helped on with his. Nobody spoke beyond the ritual fit-and-function checks. Everyone was too distracted by what they'd seen outside.

The Ur‘s actual crew members were experienced spacers. They'd be all right. The rest of the personnel, though, a lot of them would just be sim trained. Right now, they would be tumbling around, frightened, confused, and probably a mess, with their own vomit bouncing around the bad with them. Most of them would be completely unable to see that help was on its way.

Keale and his people made their way down into the cargo bay. The shuttle had not been designed as a rescue vehicle. Instead of one huge hatch like ambulance ships, it had three small airlocks on either side of its single, cavernous bay. The Graves was empty of cargo, but not for long.

“I want six to a lock, two outside to grab, two to run the hatches, and two to get those people out of the rescue balls and make sure they're all right. Rotate positions every two hours.” Keale rattled off assignments, finishing with, “Ashe, Deale, Chung, Skelly, and Vera, you're with me at number four.”

Ashe and Vera followed Keale into the number four lock. Skelly shut the inner door. The world hummed and whirred and whooshed as the small chamber depressurized. Each of them instinctively grabbed one of the handholds.

The outer door cycled open and let in all the light-flecked darkness of the universe. Keale felt the brief dizziness that came from having nothing between himself and infinite vacuum.

Purpose and training took over. Ashe pulled a tether out of its rack. She jacked one end into the socket to the right of the airlock and hooked the other end to Keale's belt. She turned around, and Keale connected her to the left side of the lock. They held on and waited for their chance.