Read Online Torchship by Karl K. Gallagher - Free Book Online Page B

bank,
bouncing light among the droplets, it was an aquarium tank letting photons go
straight through. When fractured it split along the planes of the crystal. The
edges produced were single lines of aluminum atoms. TAl instruments were widely
used in surgery.
    The intruder groped for a
hold on Mitchie’s arm while she steered him onto one of the window shards. The
arms flung wide as the tip pierced the propellant tank on his back. Mitchie
kept her thrusters on until the tip came through the intruder’s chest and
punctured her suit. She stopped thrust and kicked away from the ship. A red
circle appeared on the crazed-white faceplate. Another overlapped it a few
seconds later.
    Mitchie looked down at her
belt pouch. Her hands shook too much to get it open. She pushed her left hand
onto her chest, quieting but not eliminating the hiss of escaping air. The
other finally got the pouch open. She bounced off the chasm wall. Her right
hand pulled the sealant tube out. Trying to take the cap off without releasing
the pressure on the leak sent the tube spinning off. Catching it took both
hands. She panted frantically trying to fill her lungs from the thinning air.
First glob of sealant bounced off the suit. Second was in place. She smeared it
flat. Blessed silence. Another squeeze of sealant to thicken it. Air still felt
thin. She twisted the oxygen valve. A cold breeze blew on her cheek. Mitchie
took deep breaths, feeling her pulse slow.
    The intruder’s faceplate was
solid red. His limbs swayed limply. Mitchie looked away, scanning the chasm for
Bobbie’s bubble. She headed up the wall, waving her flashlight about in hopes
of seeing a reflection.
     
    ***
     
    The hold was calm now. Bing
had used a pair of magnets to roll her bubble over to the suit locker. She
could pop her bubble, open the locker, grab out her suit, slide it on, and seal
it up in . . . about sixty seconds. Which is about how long it would take to
pass out from hypoxia. And assuming that a full body case of vacbite wouldn’t
slow her down. So she just waited, rehearsing how to do it without any missed
steps, hoping someone else would come along in a suit before her bubble’s air
ran low.
    Professor Tsugawa was in his
pressure tent. He also had a bubble with him so he had plenty of air available.
He kept worrying about his data. The observatory was vacuum-rated but he had no
idea how well it stood up to the explosion. One of those gunshots would have
completely destroyed it. He couldn’t see it from the window of his tent.
Without that data this whole trip would have been a waste. Part of him felt
guilty that he wasn’t worried about the lives at risk from the violence. But he
was just an innocent bystander and no one else was going to worry about the
data.
    Billy’s improvised leak seal still
held tight. Other things in the big tent were less stable. “I know that, and
you know that, but the captain said you’re underage, so the age on this ship is
higher than that! Stay at your damn end of the tent.”
    Bing had twisted her bubble
around until she could look over the rest of the hold. The intruder looked very
dead on that spike. She wondered how that’d happened. Two tents were occupied
and a couple of rescue bubbles floated loose in the hold. She’d seen all three
grad students donning bubbles when the blow-out happened. Hopefully the third
was safe in the chasm. She suppressed a vision of a bubble drifting against a
window shard and being blown about by air escaping from the cut.
    “Mitchie to Fives Full .
Anyone there?”
    Bing grasped her handcomm. “Bing
here. How are you? Where are you?”
    “I’m outside. No injuries.” If
you don’t count some vacbite to the chest . “I have Bobbie, she’s
unconscious.”
    “Good. Someone took out the
intruder. I don’t know what’s up with Mussa.”
    Guo broke in. “I took Musha
out. Lower deck is shafe now.”
    “You’re alive!” cried Bing. “You
sound like hell.”
    “Jusht woozy,”