the crew’s quarters or behind Cargo and Stores.
She passed a lounge where the ceiling had fallen. There were body parts protruding from the rubble, no sign of movement. But, despite her own pain, she had to stop and scan for life. There was none. Beyond that, she came to a pressure barrier slammed across a corridor. Crew’s quarters.
The hold, then. She turned and shimmied down an access tube, crawled through a smoke filled duct, and battered her way out the duct’s register into the cargo area. Here she could barely hear the beat of the emergency announcements and alarms. Her light carved a tunnel through the smoke, and she scanned for signs of life as she went, glad that she had the map of the ship engraved in her memory.
And then she felt them. Familiar. Desperate. Which way? She wasted precious seconds trying to listen mentally, then remembered she could still speak. “Idom! Zuchmul!” Her worn voice was husky and muffled by the breathing mask.
She advanced, flashing her light this way and that, certain they had to be at one of the pod hatches in the bulkhead in front of her. “Zuchmul! Idom! Zuchmul!”
“Kyllikki?” It was the luren’s voice. “This way!”
His Influence grew to a flare, then cut off with a guilty start. He’s not wearing his Inhibitor! Then she remembered. Zuchmul had been on his way to feed. The only time he was permitted to set the inhibiting device aside was when he was using his Influence on his food animals, a physiological imperative.
A dim glow emerged from the smoke and gradually became a pair of emergency lanterns. Two shadows developed into Idom and Zuchmul struggling with a tumbled pile of crates that blocked a pod hatch with glowing ready lights. Together, they heaved, and the last of the crates crashed aside. Idom smacked the control and the hatch swung open.
Zuchmul grabbed Kyllikki’s elbow and propelled her toward the opening ahead of him. Knees sagging, she took one last look around and suddenly realized which pod ejector she was entering. It would throw the pod straight aft.
“No!” She pulled back, breaking the luren’s hold.
“We’re the last aboard,” said Idom. “Come on!”
“No!” She pointed. “We’ve got to get down to that pod! This one will hit a flight of proximity mines! Come on!”
They followed as she beat her way aft and starboard, in one place crawling over containers that might well be the weapons no passenger liner should be carrying. No. If they were here, they could have been jettisoned manually.
They found another pod hatch with ready lights showing but the controls didn’t open the portal. “Here, let me!” Zuchmul shouldered her aside and ripped the panel open, studying the circuitry. “Stand back.” He snatched a tool from his belt and rammed it into the mechanism.
The door flicked open faster than it was supposed to. “What if it doesn’t close?” she asked.
Idom said, “Decompression will stop the fire. In this hold, anyway. Go!”
They piled in, and the pod’s own hatch closed. The launch was rougher than she remembered from the drills, but they were away and safe.
In unison, they lifted their breathing masks and took huge breaths.
Zuchmul went to the control board and glanced over the displays. “Anyone trained to fly this thing?”
“Not me,” said Idom. “I thought you—”
“Not me,” asserted Zuchmul. The two looked at Kyllikki.
“I was trained as pod medic.”
They looked at each other. The pods didn’t really need pilots. The distress beacon was automatic. All they had to do was wait. But a young colony like Barkyr wouldn’t have unlimited resources to chase stray life pods. The closer they could get, the better their chances of survival. She had launched only one other pod without a certified pilot, and that one had had a boy who held an insystem yacht license.
Idom laughed first. Zuchmul joined and Kyllikki found her own hoarse voice wheezing along with them. “The last three ship’s officers, so careful in their duty to see the passengers safe, and what do we do? Pack ourselves into a pod without a pilot!”
CHAPTER TWO
“Only one thing to do,” announced Idom, turning toward the control console. “Find the instruction manuals.”
“In that compartment.” Zuchmul pointed.
“No, this one,” said Kyllikki. “That’s blueprints.”
Neither contained the manuals. “Well, has to be this one then,” said Kyllikki and opened the slim door placed symmetrically to the one she’d just opened. And there were the three gleaming manuals, each able to display data in the three main languages of the Metaji. Idom grabbed one and Kyllikki took another, set the display language, and settled into the only chair. The manual had its own power and memory, so it could be consulted no matter how ignorant the user was. “Pod pilot,” she muttered, “is only a two day course. We probably have that long before pickup. Maybe longer.”
But in a few moments, she abandoned the instructions, finding that the display controls were familiar enough. The pilot’s station was designed for one person to manage helm, environmental, communications, and basic course plotting.
Kyllikki’s head was pounding, her body felt pulverized, and her vision was blurring, but she had to know what was going on out there in the space around them.
The detectors on the pod produced displays that were like caricatures of the real thing, but she did locate the four remaining attackers on course for the Station. “I think those little blips there are Barkyr Defense ships,” she told Zuchmul, who was hanging over her shoulder, mesh mask fastened over his face. She filled in her companions on what she’d seen from the Window. “Defense may be able to handle those four now they’ve been warned and now that the jump-cannons are gone.” At the price of six lives, but they’re gone.
“How close are we to Prosperity?” asked Zuchmul.
She shifted the display and read the figures, feeling Zuchmul’s apprehension. He knew the pod’s hull wasn’t able to protect luren from all the sorts of radiation they were sensitive to. “But I’ve no idea what that means for you.”
Idom leaned over her other shoulder and poked at the helm controls. “I’ve figured out how to steer. Move.”
She traded places with him and leaned over his shoulder so she could see while he played with helm controls. “There they are!” she cried as the screen filled with tiny green flags. It was the cloud of pods ejected from Prosperity. A few had jockeyed clear and were driving toward Barkyr, but most were drifting, moving with the ship toward Barkyr while drifting away on ejection momentum. Not far enough away.
Zuchmul pulled out the third manual, muttering, “We must have a com-projector to reach other pods.” He broke off and clamped a hand onto Kyllikki’s shoulder. “You’re the Com Officer! Get Wiprin and get this mob organized! Wiprin’s probably with the Captain’s pod because he’s Com First—”
“Wiprin’s dead, I think. Crew’s quarters were holed and he was on sleep shift. Lee went off to pack the passengers into pods, and I never
