[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

might not. 1 couldn't take the chance on letting the hot hammer of air in on
our p retti Cs.
I tried to think of a way of plugging the shaft, maybe by pushing all the
tailings back in again, but although my brain wasn't working very well I could
see that that was stupid.
So the only way to solve that problem was for us to wait outside in the breezy
Venusian weather. The one consolation was that it wouldn't be too much longer
to wait. The other part of that was that we weren't equipped for a very long
wait. The little watch dial next to our life-support meters, all running well
into the warning red now, showed that Cochenour should in fact have arrived by
now.
He wasn't there, though.
I squeezed into the crawl-through with Dorrie, locked us both through, and we
waited.
I felt a scratching on my helmet and discovered Dorrie was plugging into my
jack. "Audee, I'm really very tired," she told me. It didn't sound like a
complaint, only a factual report of something she thought I probably should
know about.
"You might as well go to sleep," I told her. "I'll keep watch. Cochenour will
be here pretty soon, and I'll wake you up."
I suppose she took my advice, because she lowered herself down, pausing to let
me take her talk line out of my helmet jack. Then she stretched out next to
the tie-down clips and left me to think in peace.
I wasn't grateful. I wasn't enjoying what I was beginning to think.
Still Cochenour didn't come.
I tried to think through the significance of that. Of course, there could have
been lots of reasons for a delay. He could've gotten lost. He could have been
challenged by the military. He could have crashed the airbody.
But there was a much nastier possibility, and it seemed to make more sense
than all of them.
The time dial told me he was nearly five hours late, and the lifesupport
meters told me that we were right up against the "empty" line for power, near
it for air, and well past it for water. If we hadn't had the remaining tunnel
gases to breathe for a few hours, saving the air in our tanks, we would have
Page 49
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
been dead by now.
Cochenour couldn't have known that we would find breathable air in the Heechee
tunnel. He must believe that we were dead.
The man hadn't lied about himself. He had told me he was a bad loser.
So he had decided not to lose.
In spite of my fuzzy brain, I could understand what had gone on in his. When
push came to shove the bastard in him won out. He had worked out an endgame
maneuver that would pull a win out of all his defeats.
I could visualize him, as clearly as though I were in the airbody with him.
Watching his clocks as our lives ticked away. Cooking himself an elegant
little lunch. Playing the rest of the Tchaikovsky ballet music, maybe, while
he waited for us to get through dying.
It wasn't a really frightening thought to me. I was close enough to being dead
anyway for the difference to be pretty much of a technicality.. . and tired
enough of being trapped in that foul heat-suit to accept almost any
deliverance, even the final one.
But I wasn't the only person affected here.
The girl was also involved. The one tiny little rational tho~ight that stayed
in my half.poisoned brain was that it was just unfair for Cochenour to let us
both die. Me, yes, all right; I could see that from his point of view I was
easily expendable. Her, no.
I realized I ought to do something, and after considering what that might be
for a while I beat on her suit until she moved a little. After some talk
through the phone jacks I managed to make her understand she had to go back
down into the tunnel, where at least she could breathe.
Then I got ready for Cochenour's return.
There were two things he didn't know. He didn't know we'd found any breathable
air, and he didn't know we could tap the drill batteries for additional power.
In all the freaked-out fury of my head, I was still capable of that much
consecutive thought. I could surprise him-if he didn't stay away too much
longer, anyway. I could stay alive for a few hours yet
And then, when he came to find us dead and see what prize we had won for him,
he would find me waiting.
And so he did.
It must have been a terrible shock to him when he entered the crawl-through to
the igloo with the monkey wrench in his hand, leaned over me, and found I was
still alive and able to move, when he had expected only a well-done roast of
meat.
If I had had any doubt about his intentions it was resolved when he swung
immediately at my helmet. Age, busted leg, and surprise didn't slow his
reflexes a bit. But he had to change position to get a good swing in the
cramped space inside the crawl-through, and, being not only alive but pretty
nearly conscious, I managed to roll away in time. And I already had the drill
ready to go in my arms.
The drill caught him right in the chest.
I couldn't see his face, but I can guess at his expression.
After that, it was only a matter of doing five or six impossible things at
once. Things like getting Dorrie up out of the tunnel and into the airbody.
Like getting myself in after her, and sealing up and setting a course. All
those impossible things ... and one more, that was harder than any of them,
but very important to me. Dorrie didn't know why I insisted on bringing
Cochenour's body back. I think she thought it was a kind gesture of reverence
to the dead on my part, but I didn't straighten her out just then.
I just about totaled the airbody when we landed, but we were suited up and
strapped in, and when the ground crews came out from the Spindle to
investigate Dorrie and I were still alive.
xiii
They had to patch me and rehydrate me for three days before they could even
Page 50
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]