Voyage of the Dogs by Greg Van Eekhout

Author:Greg Van Eekhout
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2018-06-20T16:00:00+00:00

Eleven

THE FIRST FEW HOURS IN the agricultural dome were a time of healing but not resting. Daisy licked Champion’s wounds clean and tore pieces of cracked wall panel to shape a splint. It turned out she had a talent for first aid. Meanwhile, Lopside and Bug tried to figure out how long they could hold out in the dome.

For water, the dogs could drink from the hoses that irrigated the crops. For food, they had only a scant supply of Emergency Rations Pellets left. Lopside had made the choice to drag and push and cajole Champion through the garbage chute instead of hauling the last bag of ERPs Champion had risked her life for. He spared a guilty glance toward the crop rows, where he’d dug out a shallow nest for the chicken eggs and covered them with heating packs he’d pilfered from the medical supplies.

But before they ran out of food and water, they would run out of power. They’d turned one of the solar lamps back on, but just enough to provide a little bit of light and a stingy amount of heat.

Using Lopside’s back as a stepping stool, Bug scrambled up on the dome’s main control panel. He spent a few minutes examining the readouts, and Lopside could tell he didn’t like what he saw.

“I’ll give you the good news first,” Bug said. “Most of the dome’s systems run independently from the rest of the ship’s systems. The dome is designed that way so that when it detaches to land on Stepping Stone, it can still function. We have gravity, and the dome’s air recyclers are working. As long as we don’t venture out, we have air.”

“What’s the bad news?” Champion cut in, limping over.

“The usual thing,” Bug said. “We’re still running the batteries dry. The mission plan was that when we reached Stepping Stone and the dome separated from the Laika, the batteries would keep it going until its solar cells started soaking up energy from Stepping Stone’s sun.”

“And we’re too distant from the star to get solar power,” Lopside said, saving Bug the trouble.

Champion’s eyes looked strong, but her tail sagged. “We have to conserve those batteries. We’ll run on absolute minimum power from now on. Maybe . . . somehow . . . we’ll figure out a way to get closer to the star.”

“We have to keep the dome heated or we’ll freeze,” Bug said. “We need gravity, because the dome’s not designed to be a zero-gravity environment. There aren’t enough straps and pawholds to keep us from just floating around all over the place.”

Champion turned to him. “What else can we cut to save energy?”

“The freezers,” Bug said, bowing his head to avoid meeting Lopside’s eyes. “They use a huge amount of energy. We’d save a lot of battery power by shutting them off.”

Lopside felt heat rising to his head. Losing the crops was one thing. But this was a step too far. The freezers contained the embryos of sheep, goats, pigs, and cows.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.