LINKS
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The Christa Affair
Book Two
Open, Sesame!
Chapter Fifteen
For twelve hours the entire crew of the \Klondike\ slept while the ship's computer kept the watch. The bubble was up -- probably unnecessary, considering the hostile nature of the dead planet on which the ship now rested -- and all scanners probed deeply into space and repeatedly crisscrossed the frozen surface in all directions to the horizon.
Some of the crew had questioned Jashi's decision to leave the control room unattended, but he'd insisted, wanting them all rested and refreshed for the task ahead. To satisfy them, he'd instructed the computer to up-ship under maximum thrust if anything should suddenly appear on the surface of the planet within scanner range.
Since their landing, Eight-Ball had rotated almost a quarter-turn on its axis; a few stars were now visible on the eastern horizon as Jashi, Rang, and Toko stood looking out the viewport at the jet black landscape beyond the \Klondike's\ starboard airfoil. Mowii hadn't yet made an appearance, Suu and Karli were in the galley preparing breakfast, and Roi and Lito were in the number one hold readying the quick-dome generator for the day's task. "I'm not looking forward to this at all," thought Jashi, shivering slightly at the memory of their earlier experience on the hostile surface below.
(.... Laughter .... "Can't imagine why ....") came Karli's voice in his head. (.... "A good hot breakfast and thick socks should make you toasty warm. Where's your sense of adventure, My Darling? ....")
(.... "It froze yesterday! Along with my feet ....") replied Jashi, turning from the port as the control room door slid silently open to admit the two females; they were carrying steaming trays of proto, disguised to look more or less like bacon and eggs. "The start of a perfect day," he grumbled aloud. "Phony food on a frozen planet! How'd we get into this mess, anyway?"
"GSS... The Good Samaritan Syndrome," laughed Suu, as she and Karli began to set the table. "And quit-chur-bitchin... You know you can't tell processed proto from the real thing. It's all in your head! Everybody got coffee? Where's Mowii?"
"Still in our cabin," replied Rang. "She wants to go home!"
"She's gonna get her wish if we run out of \this\," said Jashi, as he sat down at the table and poured himself another mug. "How much we got left?"
"About a year's supply, Jash," answered Karli. "Just shut up and eat! Want me to go get Mowii?"
"Just let her be," Rang answered. "If she wants to be difficult, there's no reason she should make the rest of us miserable. I want to get inside and find out why we were sent here. Just call Roi and Lito, and let's get moving."
*********
Supported by six grav-plates, the quick-dome generator floated barely a foot above the surface of the dead planet, centered directly above the concealed entrance to the interior of the frozen world. Closely spaced around the generator was the entire ship's complement of six heaters. To conserve space inside the dome once it was erected, Jashi had decided to blow in the atmosphere from the ship's main lifesupport system, instead of using the auxiliary atmosphere plant; the twelve-inch conduit was already strung from the \Klondike\ to a point in what would become the near wall of the dome. Placing of the equipment had been accomplished without incident.
While the four males worked outside, Mowii had decided to put in an appearance, and now seemed as excited as the rest of the crew as they stood looking at the scene below, awash in the harsh glare of the \Klondike's\ floodlights. Jashi activated the generator with the remote control unit, and there was a collective sigh of relief as the forty-foot dome-shaped force-field materialized over the equipment on the surface below.
In reality, it wasn't one force-field, but two -- one inside the other -- with a six-inch space between them; the outer field was specially adjusted to be visible under the ship's floodlights. Jashi touched another control and the south side of the dome changed shape to form an airlock facing toward the aft of the ship.
Satisfied with what he saw, Jashi activated the injector system; a white foam began to fill the space between the two fields. Two minutes to fill, thirty seconds to cure, and the twin force-fields collapsed, leaving a shimmering silver, free-standing dome that was both air-tight and radiation-proof. A small cheer went up from the group and Jashi crossed to the main console to activate the atmosphere control.
*********
Three pressure-suited figures moved carefully about in the crowded interior of the dome. The generator had been moved to the west wall to clear the floor where the door was supposed to be, and a set of high intensity glowtubes floated overhead, bathing them in brilliant blue-white light. The six heaters continued to operate at full capacity. They had been rearranged around the sides of the dome to allow room to work, but the dome was crowded -- and it was raining.
"We didn't count on this," Jashi commented wryly as he watched Toko play the beam of the lasertorch back and forth across the sheet of ice that had formed over the entire floor of the structure. As the ice covering the door melted, Roi sucked it up with a flexible conduit attached to a hole they had cut in the wall of the dome. It exploded into spray in the outside vacuum, where it settled to the surface as tiny crystals of ice.
As the heaters burned their hydrogen fuel, they gave off water vapor. The heated vapor rose to the top of the dome where it condensed into water from contact with the cooler surface and fell to the floor as a miniature rainshower, instantly freezing solid as it hit. The warm-up procedure had gone faster than the computer projection, but in the thirty-six odd hours it had taken to bring the floor temperature within the operating parameters of the pressure suits, the sheet of ice had grown to more than a foot thick.
"Didn't count on it being this hot, either," grunted Roi, as he straightened up from vacuuming a large pool of water formed by the beam of the lasertorch. Sweat dripped from his face inside the helmet and Jashi could see that the collar of his coveralls was drenched. "Suit temp's nearly sixty degrees and we've been in here less than twenty minutes... What's going on, Jashi? I thought this plan was supposed to give us a comfortable working environment. Even my \feet\ are hot!" The air inside the dome was one hundred seventy-five degrees Federation-Standard -- the temperature the computer had indicated as required for the necessary warm-up of the surface around the door.
In spite of his considerable discomfort and frustration, Toko couldn't help laughing as he switched off the lasertorch and turned to face the others. "Main thing that's wrong is that our exalted Captain is a hypership pilot and not a hostile-environment specialist! The computer didn't take into account any of the variables... You asked it a straight question and it gave you a straight answer."
"Well \you\ give me a straight answer!" snapped Roi, flinging the vacuum hose across the room. "What's wrong and how do we fix it? We've gone to a damn-lot of trouble just to switch from freezing to being incinerated! I'm tired of this... I think Mowii has the right idea. Let's go home. To hell with this shit!"
Alarmed by the sudden tirade of his usually easy-going crew-mate, Jashi crossed to where Roi stood, and activated the readout panel on the back of his helmet. Roi's body temperature showed a fever of slightly more than three degrees and his pulse was rapid. "Toko, check your biostats," he ordered, as he quickly scanned his own internal panel. "Take Roi back to the ship, now! Run this thru the computer and tell me how to reset the heaters. I'll be up as soon as I get it done. Hurry!"
Before Toko could respond, Roi's knees buckled and he crumpled to the floor unconscious. "What's going on, guys?" Lito's voice over the comm betrayed her alarm. She had probably been in telepathic contact with Roi when he lost consciousness; at any rate, Jashi's order to Toko had been monitored in the control room.
Though silent, Karli had been with him during the entire operation inside the dome -- now she spoke. (.... "Got it, Jashi....") The telepathic contact had made her aware of his needs even before the order became conscious thought. (.... "Computer says kill three of the heaters -- set the other three to range beta. They'll have to be vented to the outside to stop the rainshower, but you can do that later. Set em and get out of there....")
(.... "Thanks Karli ....") Even as he formed the thought, Jashi was setting the heaters. He finished quickly and turned to Toko, who was hoisting Roi's rather-large unconscious frame across his shoulders. "Belay that," Jashi transmitted. "Try to carry him and you'll be out too! I'll get you a plate."
Switching it off, Jashi removed one of the six grav-plates from beneath the still-hovering dome generator; the generator sank a couple of inches toward the floor as the remaining five struggled to take up the added load.
A red warning light blinked wildly on two of the lift units and too late Jashi realized his mistake. Overload protectors cut out simultaneously on both disks, and as Jashi scrambled clear, the unevenly supported generator toppled from the three still-functioning grav-plates to the icy floor.
Though its mass was considerable, the dome generator was built for rough service; the six inch fall did no more damage than to put a slight wrinkle in one corner of its housing. The danger came from the three still-active lift-disks.
Severely overloaded, there wasn't sufficient time for the safety cut-outs to activate before the generator slid from them to the floor. Operating at full lift, all three shot upward at incredible speed. Two of them made it to the roof of the dome; the flight of the third was arrested by the glowtube fixture, which exploded into a million tiny pieces, plunging the interior of the structure into total darkness. The noise was deafening, even inside the pressure suits.
Originally designed for military service, quick-domes are tough -- they have to be. Because of the severe conditions on Eight-Ball, they had constructed this one from class eight foam -- the strongest available. As he slid clear of the falling generator, Jashi rolled into a ball and covered his helmet, expecting explosive decompression and the collapse of the dome. None came... Only the resounding double impact of the two grav-plates striking the top of the structure with terrific force, followed by the sound of shattered glass raining down around them... Then silence. Finally he dared breath again.
Jashi rolled onto his back and switched on his helmet-mounted floodlight. Floating just above his face-plate was one of the renegade lift units; he swatted it aside and sat up. Another of the runaway disks floated a few feet away toward the center of the dome; the third was nowhere to be seen. Moving carefully thru the broken glass that littered the icy floor, Jashi made his way to Toko and the unconscious Roi.
Toko was sitting on the ice, laughing and pointing toward the roof. Jashi's eyes followed the beam of his lamp and his pointing finger; imbedded fast in the metallic foam twenty feet overhead was the missing grav-plate -- its amber "parameters violated" warning light blinking angrily. "Jash, grab one of those mavericks to carry Roi on and let's get back to the ship," Toko said, when he could stop laughing. "I'd just as soon not be here when that thing pulls itself loose!"
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
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