The Mote in God's Eye

Four minutes at six gravities. Four minutes of agony, then the alarms hooted. There was a moment of blessed relief. Kelley’s Marines clattered through the ship, diving in the low, shifting gravity as MacArthur turned end for end. There wouldn’t be acceleration couches back there where the Marines would cover hangar deck. Webbing straps to suspend the men in corridors, others in the hangar space itself hung like flies in a spider web, weapons ready—ready for what?

The alarms sounded, and jolt meters swung again as MacArthur braked toward the pod. Rod turned his screen controls with an effort. There was hangar deck, cold and dark, the fuzzy outline of the inner surface of the ship’s defensive field an impossible black. Good, he thought. No significant heat storage. Plenty of capacity to take up the rotational energy of the pod if it had any, slow down the impact to something that MacArthur might be able to handle.

Eight minutes at six gees, the maximum the crew would be able to stand. Then the intruder was no longer ahead as MacArthur turned and fell toward it sidewise. The crushing acceleration ended, then there was low side thrust as Cargill fired the port batteries to slow their headlong rush to the pod.

It was cylindrical, with one rounded end, tumbling through space. As it turned Rod saw that the other end was jagged with a myriad of projections—thirty-two projections? But there should have been shrouds trailing from those knobs, and there was nothing.

It was moving up to MacArthur far too fast, and it was too big to fit in the hangar deck. The thing was massive, too damn massive! And there was nothing to brake with to the sides but the port batteries!

It was here. Hangar deck camera showed the rounded end of the intruder, dull and metallic, pushing through the Langston Field, slowing, the rotation stopping, but still it moved relative to MacArthur. The battle cruiser surged sidewise, terribly, throwing the crew against their harness straps, while the rounded end of the pod grew and grew and—CRUNCH!

Rod shook his head to clear it of the red mist which had formed again. “Get us out of here. Mr. Renner, take the con!”

Jolt meters swung before the acceleration alarms; Renner must have set up the course in advance and slapped the keys the instant he was given control. Blaine peered at the dials through the crimson mist. Good, Renner wasn’t trying anything fancy; just blast lateral to MacArthur’s course and let the sun whip her around. Were they accelerating in the plane of Cal’s planets? Be tricky to rendezvous with Lermontov

for hydrogen. If they couldn’t bring Mac in on this pass, she’d have dry tanks… fuzzily Blaine touched display controls and watched as the main computer showed a course plot. Yes. Renner had set it up properly, and fast work too.

Let him do it, Rod thought. Renner’s competent, better astrogator than I am. Time to inspect the ship. What happened to her when we took that thing aboard? But all the screens covering that area were blank, cameras burned off or smashed. Outside it wasn’t much better. “Fly her blind, Mr. Renner,” Blaine ordered. “Cameras would just boil off anyway. Wait until we’re moving away from Cal.”

“Damage report, Skipper.”

“Go ahead, Commander Cargill.”

“We’ve got the intruder clamped in with the hangar doors. It’s jammed in solid, I don’t think we can rattle it around with normal acceleration. I don’t have a full report, but that hangar deck will never be the same, sir.”

“Anything major, Number One?”

“No, sir. I could give you the whole list—minor problems, things jarred loose, equipment failed under impact stress—but it boils down to this: if we don’t have to fight, we’re in good shape.”

“Fine. Now see what you can get me from the Marines. The com lines to Kelley’s station seem to be out.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

Somebody would have to move around at six gees to carry out that order, Blaine thought. Hope to God he can do it in a travel chair. A man might just slither along under that strain, but he wouldn’t be good for much afterwards. Was it worth it? For probably negative information? But suppose it wasn’t negative…

“Marine Corporal Pietrov reporting to Captain, sir.” Thick accent of St. Ekaterina. “No activity from intruder, sir.”

“Cargill here, Captain,” another voice added.

“Yes.”

“Do you need Kelley? Mr. Potter was able to get a line to Pietrov without leaving his scooter, but there’s a problem if he has to go further.”

“Pietrov’s fine, Number One. Good work, Potter. Corporal, can you see Mr. Kelley? Is he all right?”

“The Gunner’s waved at me, sir. He is on duty in number-two air lock.”

“Good. Report any activity by intruder immediately, Corporal.” Blaine switched off as the warning horns sounded again. Fifty kilos lifted from his chest as the ship’s acceleration cased. Tricky thing, this, he thought. Got to balance between getting too close to Cal and cooking the crew, and just killing everybody from the gee stress.