Accidental Flight Part 6

"All right," Docchi said in a low, hard voice. "Jordan, take it out.

Hit the sh.e.l.l with the bow of the rocket."

The s.h.i.+p hardly quivered as it ripped through the transparent covering of the rocket dome. The worst sound was unheard: the hiss of air escaping through the great hole in the envelope.

Jordan sat at the controls, gripping the levers. "I couldn't tell," he said slowly. "It happened too fast for me to be sure. Maybe Vogel did have the inner sh.e.l.l out of the way. In that event, it's all right because it would close immediately. The outer sh.e.l.l is supposed to be self-sealing, but I doubt if it could handle that much damage."

He twisted the lever and the s.h.i.+p leaped forward.

"Cameron I don't mind. He had enough time to get out if he wanted to.

But I keep thinking that Nona might be in there."

Docchi avoided his eyes. There was no light at all in his face. He walked away.

Jordan rocked back and forth. The hemisphere that held what remained of his body was well suited for that. He set the auto-controls and reduced the gravity to one-quarter Earth normal. He bent his great arms and shoved himself into the air, deftly catching hold of a guide rail. He would have to go with Docchi. But not at the moment. He felt bad.

That is, he did until he saw a light blinking at a cabin door. He had to investigate that first.

Jordan caught up before Docchi reached the cargo hold. In the lesser gravity of the s.h.i.+p Jordan was truly at home.

Docchi turned and waited for him. Jordan still carried the weapon he had taken from the pilot. It was clipped to the sacklike garment he wore, dangling from his midsection, which, for him was just below his shoulders. Down the corridor he flew, swinging from the guide rails lightly, though gravity on the s.h.i.+p was as erratic as on the asteroid.

Docchi braced himself. Locomotion was not so easy for him.

Jordan halted beside him and dangled from one hand. "We have another pa.s.senger."

Docchi stiffened. "Who?"

"I could describe her," said Jordan. "But why, when a name will do at least as well?"

"Nona!" said Docchi. He slumped in sudden relief against the wall.

"How did she get in the s.h.i.+p?"

"A good question," said Jordan. "Remind me to ask her that sometime when she's able to answer. But since I don't know, I'll have to use my imagination. My guess is that, after she jammed the lights and scanners in the rocket dome, she walked to the s.h.i.+p and tapped the pa.s.senger lock three times in the right places, or something just as improbable. The lock opened for her whether it was supposed to or not."

"As good a guess as any," agreed Docchi.

"We may as well make our a.s.sumptions complete. Once inside, she felt tired. She found a comfortable cabin and fell asleep in it. She remained asleep throughout our skirmish with the geepees."

"She deserves a rest," said Docchi.

"She does. But if she had waited a few minutes to take it, she'd have saved you the trouble of crawling through the tubes."

"She did her part and more," Docchi argued. "We depend too much on her. Next we'll expect her to escort us personally to the stars." He straightened up. "Let's go. Anti is waiting for us."

The cargo hold was sizable. It had to be to contain the tank, battered and twisted though it was. Equipment had been jarred from storage racks and lay in tangled heaps on the floor.

"Anti!" called Docchi.

"Here."

"Are you hurt?"

"Never felt a thing," came the cheerful reply.

Jordan scaled the side of the tank. He reached the top and peered over. "She seems all right," he called down. "Part of the acid's gone.

Otherwise no damage."

Damage enough, however. Acid was a matter of life for Anti. It had been splashed from the tank and, where it had spilled, metal was corroding rapidly. The wall against which the tank had crashed was bent and partly eaten through. That was no reason for alarm; the scavenging system of the s.h.i.+p would handle acid. The real question was what to do for Anti.

"I've stewed in this soup for years," said Anti. "Get me out of here."

"How?"

"If you weren't as stupid as doctors pretend to be, you'd know how. No gravity, of course. I've got muscles, more than you think. I can walk as long as my bones don't break from the weight."

No gravity would be rough on Docchi; having no arms, he would be virtually helpless. The prospect of floating free without being able to grasp something was terrifying.

"As soon as we can manage it," he said, forcing down his fear. "First we've got to drain and store the acid."

Jordan had antic.i.p.ated that. He'd swung off the tank and was busy expelling the water from an auxiliary compartment into s.p.a.ce. As soon as the compartment was empty, he led a hose from it to the tank.

The pumps sucked and the acid level fell slowly.

Docchi felt the s.h.i.+p lurch familiarly. "Hurry," he called out to Jordan.

The gravital unit was acting up. Presumably it was getting ready to cut out. If it did--well, a free-floating globe of acid would be as destructive to the s.h.i.+p and those in it as a high velocity meteor cl.u.s.ter.

Jordan jammed the lever as far as it would go and held it there. "All out," said Jordan presently, and let the hose roll back into the wall.

Done in plenty of time. The gravital unit remained in operation for a full minute.

As soon as she was weightless, Anti rose out of the tank.

In all the time Docchi had known her, he had seen no more than a face framed in blue acid. Periodic surgery, where it was necessary, had trimmed the flesh from her face. For the rest, she lived submerged in a corrosive liquid that destroyed the wild tissue as fast as it grew.

Or nearly as fast.

Docchi averted his eyes.

"Well, junkman, look at a real monster," snapped Anti.

Humans were not meant to grow that large. But it was not obscene to Docchi, merely unbelievable. Jupiter is not repulsive because it is the bulging giant of planets; it is overwhelming, and so was Anti.

"How will you live out of the acid?" he stammered.