Survey Ship by Bradley Marion

Author:Bradley, Marion [Bradley, Marion]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction
ISBN: 9780441791125
Publisher: Ace
Published: 1980-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

Survey Ship

CHAPTER EIGHT

It was a clamoring, deafening cacophony; and twelve years of reflex training and safety drills took over, without need for conscious thought. Peake found himself struggling into a pressure suit, his helmet latched shut, even before Teague managed to move toward the dial that would cut off the sound. Moira, even as she clamped her helmet, looked reflexively toward the bin where her cello was stored. In the moment before the helmet cut off sound, and before she got the sound in the suit hooked on, Fontana heard Teague slam the control that closed bulkheads all over the ship, confining airloss to the module which had actually suffered injury.

But only after Teague had closed off the deafening clamor, and all helmets were latched shut, the sound system opening their voices once again to each other, did anyone speak to put into words what had happened.

“A meteor,” Moira said, in shock. “We're struck, we're holed! But how could that be? We were so carefully programmed to be outside the asteroid belt — ”

“We are,” Ravi said, “but we wouldn't have to be anywhere near the asteroid belt. There are stray bits of flotsam everywhere in the universe; and a piece no larger than a grain of sand, hitting at our velocity — which, I now venture to remind you, is more thousands of kilometers per second than I like to think about — could do very substantial damage to any module it hit.“ Only then did he think to ask, ”Is everybody alive and all right?”

One by one, with wavering voices, they confirmed presence and well-being. Moira was thinking, in shock, So that's what I was scared about, that's why I screamed be/ore it hit us. She let herself slide down toward the floor. “I'm all right,” she said sharply, to Peake's concerned question, “just a — a little shaky.”

“Whatever it was — ” Teague heard his own voice wobbling as if it belonged to someone else and he had no connection with it, “it's not in here; the air is all right and the module's integrity isn't breached.” He heard the technical language with dismay; he'd intended to say, this particular cabin is still in one piece. Strange, how reflexes superseded thought. He checked the tell-tales again and confirmed. “Air level in here, normal. Helmets can be unlatched for the moment. DeMags, as far as I can tell, intact, gravity normal.”

Whatever had struck them, then, it was somewhere else in the clustered modules of the Ship, and the first order of business was to find out where, and how badly.

Peake said, “I don't suppose there's any possibility that it's a false alarm, like the DeMags in the gym going off — something that triggered the alarm system?”

“I wish I thought so,” said Teague, but Moira, rising to her feet, said, “Not a chance. Listen, I've got to get to the Bridge — ”

“You think the trouble's on the Bridge?” Fontana asked, wondering if Moira's psychism was still operative.

“I

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