clearance codes and papers Cameron had left with his note, I was fully expecting there to be trouble getting the
Icarus
off the ground. To my mild and cautiously disbelieving surprise, there wasn’t. The tower gave us permission to lift, the landing-pad repulsor boost got us up off the ground and into range of the perimeter grav beams, and a few minutes later we were hauling for space under our own power.
After Tera’s revelation about the archaic computer system we’d been saddled with, I had been wondering just what kind of shape the drive would be in. But there, too, my pessimism turned out to be unnecessary, or at least premature. The thrusters roared solidly away, driving us steadily through the atmosphere toward the edge of Meima’s gravity well, and with each of my periodic calls back to the engine room Nicabar assured me all was going just fine.
It wouldn’t last, though. I knew it wouldn’t last; and as the capacitors in the nose cone discharged into the cutter array and sliced us a link hole into hyperspace, Iwarned myself that things were unlikely to continue running this smoothly. Somewhere along the way, we were going to run into some serious trouble.
Six hours out from Meima, we hit our first batch of it.
My first warning was a sudden, distant-sounding screech sifting into the bridge, sounding rather like a banshee a couple of towns over. I slapped the big red KILL button, throwing a quick look at the monitors as I did so, and with another crack from the capacitors we were back in space-normal.
“McKell?” Nicabar’s voice came from the intercom. “You just drop us out?”
“Yes,” I confirmed. “I think we’ve got a pressure crack. You reading any atmosphere loss?”
“Nothing showing on my board,” he said. “Inner hull must still be solid. I didn’t hear the screech, either—must be somewhere at your end of the ship.”
“Probably,” I agreed. “I’ll roust Chort and have him take a look.”
I called the EVA room, found that Chort was already suiting up, and headed aft. One of the most annoying problems of hyperspace travel was what the experts called
parasynbaric force
, what we nonexperts called simply
hyperspace pressure
. Ships traveling through hyperspace were squeezed the whole way, the pressure level related through a complicated formula to the ship’s mass, speed, and overall surface area. The earliest experimental hyperspace craft had usually wound up flattened, and even now chances were good that a ship of any decent size would have to drop out at least once a trip to have its hull specialist take a look and possibly do some running repairs.
Considering what I’d seen of the
Icarus
’s hull back on the ground, I was frankly surprised we’d made it as far as we had.
Tera and Everett were standing in the corridor outside the EVA room when I arrived, watching Jones helpa vacsuited Chort run a final check on his equipment. “Well, that didn’t take long,” Tera commented. “Any idea where the problem is?”
“Probably somewhere here on the larger sphere,” I said. “The computer didn’t have any ideas?”
She shook her head. “Like I said, it’s old and feeble. Nothing but macro sensors, and no predictive capability at all.”
“Don’t worry,” Chort assured us, his whistly voice oddly muted by his helmet. “That screech didn’t sound bad. Regardless, I will find and fix it.”
“Someone’s going to have to go into the wraparound with him, too,” Jones put in. “I checked earlier, and there aren’t any of the connections or lifeline-feeds of a standard airlock.”
I’d noticed that, too. “You volunteering?” I asked him.
“Of course,” he said, sounding surprised that it was even a question. “EVA assist
is
traditionally mechanic’s privilege, you know.”
“I’m not concerned with tradition nearly as much as I am whether we’ve got a suit aboard that’ll fit you,” I countered. “Tera, pull the computer inventory and see what
Icarus
off the ground. To my mild and cautiously disbelieving surprise, there wasn’t. The tower gave us permission to lift, the landing-pad repulsor boost got us up off the ground and into range of the perimeter grav beams, and a few minutes later we were hauling for space under our own power.
After Tera’s revelation about the archaic computer system we’d been saddled with, I had been wondering just what kind of shape the drive would be in. But there, too, my pessimism turned out to be unnecessary, or at least premature. The thrusters roared solidly away, driving us steadily through the atmosphere toward the edge of Meima’s gravity well, and with each of my periodic calls back to the engine room Nicabar assured me all was going just fine.
It wouldn’t last, though. I knew it wouldn’t last; and as the capacitors in the nose cone discharged into the cutter array and sliced us a link hole into hyperspace, Iwarned myself that things were unlikely to continue running this smoothly. Somewhere along the way, we were going to run into some serious trouble.
Six hours out from Meima, we hit our first batch of it.
My first warning was a sudden, distant-sounding screech sifting into the bridge, sounding rather like a banshee a couple of towns over. I slapped the big red KILL button, throwing a quick look at the monitors as I did so, and with another crack from the capacitors we were back in space-normal.
“McKell?” Nicabar’s voice came from the intercom. “You just drop us out?”
“Yes,” I confirmed. “I think we’ve got a pressure crack. You reading any atmosphere loss?”
“Nothing showing on my board,” he said. “Inner hull must still be solid. I didn’t hear the screech, either—must be somewhere at your end of the ship.”
“Probably,” I agreed. “I’ll roust Chort and have him take a look.”
I called the EVA room, found that Chort was already suiting up, and headed aft. One of the most annoying problems of hyperspace travel was what the experts called
parasynbaric force
, what we nonexperts called simply
hyperspace pressure
. Ships traveling through hyperspace were squeezed the whole way, the pressure level related through a complicated formula to the ship’s mass, speed, and overall surface area. The earliest experimental hyperspace craft had usually wound up flattened, and even now chances were good that a ship of any decent size would have to drop out at least once a trip to have its hull specialist take a look and possibly do some running repairs.
Considering what I’d seen of the
Icarus
’s hull back on the ground, I was frankly surprised we’d made it as far as we had.
Tera and Everett were standing in the corridor outside the EVA room when I arrived, watching Jones helpa vacsuited Chort run a final check on his equipment. “Well, that didn’t take long,” Tera commented. “Any idea where the problem is?”
“Probably somewhere here on the larger sphere,” I said. “The computer didn’t have any ideas?”
She shook her head. “Like I said, it’s old and feeble. Nothing but macro sensors, and no predictive capability at all.”
“Don’t worry,” Chort assured us, his whistly voice oddly muted by his helmet. “That screech didn’t sound bad. Regardless, I will find and fix it.”
“Someone’s going to have to go into the wraparound with him, too,” Jones put in. “I checked earlier, and there aren’t any of the connections or lifeline-feeds of a standard airlock.”
I’d noticed that, too. “You volunteering?” I asked him.
“Of course,” he said, sounding surprised that it was even a question. “EVA assist
is
traditionally mechanic’s privilege, you know.”
“I’m not concerned with tradition nearly as much as I am whether we’ve got a suit aboard that’ll fit you,” I countered. “Tera, pull the computer inventory and see what
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