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Let that be enough, she thought fervently. And somehow, against all logic, she
knew; the kick from her thrusters had loaned the Sabre angular momentum enough
to tear free of the planer's killer hold. Dorren steered a course similar to
her own, but in the opposite direction.
'Let that be enough,' Ataine repeated aloud. Her voice shook. The Quest's
direct-link systems had been punished to the edge of failure. If Dorren gave
chase, she'd be finished.
Suddenly a buzzer shrilled. Ataine opened her eyes to a star burst of alarm
lights. Then sharp pains in her chest bent her double. Aware that malfunction
of the Quest must be the cause, she blinked back tears of agony and studied
the indicators. The Quest's main fuel line had ruptured.
Ataine yanked the headset off. The pain faded instantly. Stressed and tired,
she leaned on the console, swore, and killed all power in the drive systems.
The move was necessary to prevent explosion, but afterwards she felt as though
she'd cut her own throat. She was helpless. Her instruments showed she still
had enough momentum to escape the gas-giant's gravity field. Yet without
thrust, she had no control over drift. Helpless.
Despair enveloped her. She cursed her early, impetuous destruction of the
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transmitter. The distress beam-arc still functioned, if she reconnected the
hotwire, yet emergency codes were unselectively monitored. Ataine buried her
face in her hands. Rescue would come, but from Station, and subsequent
examination of the Quest's logs would expose her intentions to the
anti-national faction she had left base to destroy.
I can drift, Ataine thought; drift until the Quest's oxygen canisters could no
longer recycle air. She reviewed the gauges.
~o4
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Her speed was considerable. If she could last forty-eight hours before hooking
up the distress 'arc', her signal might be received by an outbound transport.
Law would compel pick-up, and if the crew was loyal to government, she might
yet escape with the Quest's log intact.
Shaking, Ataine straightened in her seat. The odds were like light years,
inconceivably long. But no other alternative remained. Resigned to her fate,
she dredged her memory for the timetable, and hoped bad luck would roost
elsewhere.
Her wish proved futile. She'd barely converted the chronometer reading back to
Station time before an uncanny sensation of company invaded her cockpit. The
presence was familiar.
'Dorren? Never had his mental touch been clearer. Ataine banged her fist
against the console and shouted angrily, as though he could hear. 'Don't pick
me up. Please, Dorren, grant me that much.'
But his contact only intensified. 'I'm coming for you.'
'No!' Ataine felt her throat constrict. 'You owe me, remember?' If she hadn't
spared him, the Quest would not be crippled.
I'm coming. Unarguably final, the response seemed graven in stone.
Outraged by his ruthlessness, Ataine laced stiff fingers through her hair and
tried desperately not to weep. Tell them I'm dead! But she knew he was beyond
listening to her pleas. He would come for her, and short of suicide, she had
nothing left to prevent him...
The bump as the Sabre's docking collar made contact jostled Ataine where she
sat hunched over dead banks of controls. She reached listlessly for her
helmet. Anger had ebbed, leaving resentment no sentiment could thaw, and
numbed by the immediacy of defeat, she sought nothing but the chance to hurt
the man who had stolen her inner trust, and betrayed her.
She sat, helmet clutched in cold fingers, as seals meshed with the Quest's
hatch and locked her craft in tow. A signal from Dorren's console opened the
lock. Pressure equalized, rippling the hair against her neck.
'Damn you,' she said succinctly, aware her suit mike would now transmit to
Dorren's cockpit. A wave of consciousness probed her barriers in response.
Passionless as ice, she rejected him.
~o5
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A soft, shuddering sigh arose from her helmet, followed by Dorren's voice,
thinly and inadequately amplified. 'My dear lady, this time we're in the same
boat. Will you let me explain?'
Driven to viciousness, Ataine said, 'Don't try. Just take me back and collect
your commendation from the Commander.'
'Ataine.' His breath caught. 'Ataine.' And the quaver in his tone spilled
chills down her back. Something was wrong.
Ataine rose and pushed off for the hatch, unable to stop her reaction. Hatred
withered as, incapable of denying the link, she stopped fighting. Dorren was
ill, and in trouble, and afraid for her life.
Too bewildered to analyze, she caught the seal ring and passed through into an
air lock no Sabre ever built could possess.
Ataine paused, arrested by shock. 'They sent you after me in the Challenger!'
'No.' Dorren's voice sounded queerly strangled. 'I stole it.'
He was wrestling nausea, Ataine realized, because he'd forgotten, or had no
time, to take drugs against the effects of the direct-link system. He hadn't
lied. Puzzled, she left her helmet weightlessly adrift and headed for the
cockpit.
The companionway door opened into gloom punctured by the glow of instruments. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]