Blood and Fire (20 page)

Parson strode forward angrily, followed by Brik, who actually had trouble keeping up with her. Parts of the corridor were less than three meters high and he had to crouch low to get through.

They stepped through a series of sealed hatches and arrived at the Forward Airlock Reception Bay—identified by large block letters on the bulkhead as FARB—to find Williger readying a crash cart and a makeshift Med Bay. She was wearing a starsuit—all she needed was the helmet. She had two robot-gurneys collapsed and ready; all their sidebar equipment was blinking green. Several Quillas stood by, either preparing equipment or testing it—or putting on starsuits of their own.

Chief Engineer Leen and the Black Hole Gang were installing a set of field-lenses throughout the length of the reception bay and the airlock. The Martian arrived from somewhere aft, rolling a rack of plastic bottles containing artificial blood; he was a small, ugly creature of indeterminate description, but he was thorough. He pushed the rack into place beside an ominous-looking operating table and then disappeared aft again.

Williger was everywhere, bustling from one station to the next, loading equipment and supplies onto the gurneys, directing others to do the same. “HARLIE? I need this gurney programmed
now
.”

“Both gurneys have been programmed, Dr. Williger,” HARLIE said quietly. “But I cannot activate the programs without Captain Parsons' authorization.”

Williger started to swear; turning around she bumped into the captain. “Oh, good—you're here. Tell HARLIE to let go of the damn gurneys.”

“Dr. Williger—”

“You said get ready. I'm getting.”

“I haven't made my decision yet—”

“Well, you'd better make it soon. We're running out of time.”

“I won't be stampeded, Molly—” Parsons grabbed the doctor by the arm and pulled her physically backward, back into the keel, and into an access leading to the ship's farm; Brik followed at a distance, primarily to keep anyone else from approaching the two. “Listen to me. I know how
you ended up on this ship, I know why. I know where you should have been sent instead. It took some digging, but I found out. If you're trying to redeem yourself—or if you're going after a Heinlein Prize here—”

“Is that what you think this is about?” Williger shot back. “Awards? Redemption?”

“You're in a starsuit, Doctor. Where the hell do you think you're going?”

“Captain, we have a better understanding of this problem than we've ever had before. Sooner or later, someone is going to have to take this chance.
If not here, where? If not now, when?
”

“And what if you're wrong?”

“What if I'm right?”

“I'm not convinced that we can do this safely—neither is Mr. Korie.”

“He talked you out of it?”

“He expressed concerns—”

Williger nodded. “We all agreed that we would put a security bag around the entire operation. You've seen the preparations. HARLIE will be monitoring every step of every procedure. What do you think we're missing? What else do you want us to do? Paint ourselves blue? Chant a prayer to Saint Mortimer? Stand on one foot? Captain, don't do this. Don't dither. There comes a moment when you have to make a decision—and you and I both know that you've already made
this
decision.”

Before Parsons could answer, the entire starship began to vibrate; a note like one struck from a gigantic gong resonated through the polycarbonate hull of the vessel, it sang through their bones—and straight through their souls. Even as they paused, a deeper sound added itself, and then a darker, deeper note underneath the first two. Like the floor of the universe rumbling. It was the combined throbbing of multiple repulsor fields, a heterodyning pressure.

From somewhere ahead came Leen's ecstatic shout, “Gotcha!” And then, “The fields are up, Doctor. You can proceed any time.”

Parsons turned back to Williger. “Listen to me, Doctor—up until this moment, it was all a ... a drill. A dry run. An exercise. A thought experiment. But the minute that we bring one of those gurneys back aboard this ship with a patient on it, it's no longer pretend. We're committed. Up until this moment, I've always had the option of backing out. And I've held onto that possibility as desperately as a life-preserver. Because the minute I give the order to go ahead, I'll be ordering something that no other ship has ever survived. So I don't care how tight a bag you've put this operation in, Doctor. I have to look at this situation from more
than one perspective. It's not just about saving Korie and the mission team; it's about saving everyone onboard
this
ship too. And if that's dithering, then so be it.”

She stepped out of the access and back into the keel, only to come face-to-face with Chief Engineer Leen. He was carrying several rolls of optical cable and field arrays. He nodded courteously. “Everything is working. In addition to the repulsor fields already installed in the transfer tube, we've got four more repulsor valves in the airlock. That gives us seven concentric barriers. Once we begin processing, we're going to be opening and closing a lot of hatches in a hurry, so we're going to be totally dependent on the fields. You've got two hours of power and some change, maybe three max. Dr. Williger says she can do the job in that time, but you don't have a lot of margin for error.”

Standing behind Parsons, Williger said, “It'll take less than a minute to neutralize the plasmacytes in each person's blood, but we'll give them ninety seconds to be sure. As soon as the scan comes up green, the gurney will come back through the transfer tube and we'll connect the patient up for a high-speed blood replacement.”

Parsons ignored the chief medical officer's lobbying. “Chief? What's your confidence on those fields?”

“Each valve will stop ninety-nine percent of the wavicles that hit it. Seven phased fields should give us a practical barrier. But ...”

“But?”

“But ... it's still theoretically possible that if a sufficient mass of wavicles were to assault the first valve, a few might make it all the way through to the last one. That's what HARLIE says.”

“One would be enough, wouldn't it?” She looked to Williger.

“Theoretically, there would have to be 100 quadrillion wavicles hitting the first repulsor field for one to get through the last repulsor field.”

“Yes,” said Parsons. “
Theoretically
. There's that word again.”

“Theoretically ... yes. But I doubt there are 100 quadrillion wavicles on the
Norway
. HARLIE estimates maybe fifty quadrillion at most. They're flickering in and out of existence.”

“Fifty quadrillion ...” Parsons considered it. “That means half a wavicle could get through.”

Leen wagged his head. “The odds are fifty-fifty.”

“Can we increase the odds a little bit more?” Parsons asked.

“We don't have the power for more than seven repulsor fields.”

“Shut down all nonessentials. Go to battery power—fuel cells?”

“We already have.”

Parsons felt exasperated. “Mr. Leen—go work a miracle.”

Leen met her gaze. “That's ... that
was
Hodel's department. Hodel was our warlock.” Then, embarrassed, he ducked his head and said, “Sorry.”

Parsons looked from Leen to Williger, frustrated. She was looking for a reason to say yes. This wasn't it. She and Williger stared at each other, each one helpless in her own side of the dilemma.

“Captain?”

“I know.”

“We're running out of time,” said Leen.

“
They're
running out of time,” corrected Williger.

Another long look between them. Parsons sighed. To Williger, she said, “I'll expect you to testify at my court-martial.”

Without missing a beat, Williger asked, “For which side?”

“All right, Doctor. You win. Go make history.” Parsons waved her forward. Brik looked to Parsons, a questioning expression on his broad features. Parsons nodded to him; Brik stepped over to the airlock control station and popped the hatch open. Williger spoke to her headset, giving the go-ahead command to the robot-gurney. The wheeled table rolled forward into the airlock; unfolding its arms and grabbing handholds along the way to steady itself against the insistent push of the repulsor fields. The air
crawled
across their skins.

“Captain?” Molly Williger called. “I want all nonessential personnel to evacuate this area now.”
This means you
.

“Mr. Brik—” Parsons said. “Let's monitor this from the Bridge. They stepped back through the same series of hatches. As they moved aftward through the keel, back toward the Bridge, Parsons felt herself alone with her terribly complex feelings. She glanced sideways—and
up
—at Brik. Yes? You have something to say?

As if reading her mind, Brik said, “You should have killed her for insubordination . . .”

“We don't do that in this fleet.”

“Stupid policy. Capital punishment slows down repeat offenders.”

Parsons wasn't sure if Brik was joking or not. Morthans weren't famous for their sense of humor.

The last hatch popped open and Reynolds was waiting there. “Captain?”

Parsons was expecting him to step out of the way, but when he didn't, she looked at him annoyed. “Yes, Reynolds, what is it?”

“As you know, I'm the union representative.”

“Is this official business?”

“I'm afraid so. I have to ask you ... to not proceed with the rescue operation. I call your attention to Article Seven of the contract, the safety of the crew. I've been asked to ... That is, the crew is concerned—”

“Afraid, you mean?”

“Whatever.” Reynolds was unembarrassed. “Some of the crew are afraid that the
Star Wolf
will be infected. After all, if the
Norway
, with all of its precautions, could be infected, what protection do we have?

Parsons allowed her annoyance to show. “This isn't a democracy, Reynolds. The crew doesn't get a vote. We're not abandoning our shipmates. Now go back to your station. Besides, I've already told the doctor to proceed.”

Reynolds didn't answer immediately. Without taking his eyes from the captain's, he nodded knowingly, as if this was exactly what he'd expected. “I understand your position, Captain. I'll be logging a formal protest.”

Parsons shook her head in wry amazement. A formal protest? “I'll help you fill out the paperwork,” she replied. “Dismissed.”

Unchastened, Reynolds stepped out of her way and she and Brik continued aft. As soon as she felt they were out of earshot, she said—to herself as much as to Brik—“A formal protest? Give me a break. If we survive, I'm going before a court-martial.”

She glanced over, but the big Morthan's face was carefully blank.

“Y'know, you may have a point,” she added. Brik raised an eyebrow in a question mark expression. “About policy.”

“Oh,” said Brik. “Would you like me to—?”

The captain sighed. “We're not Morthans. And we're not going to be. Not as long as I have anything to say about it.”

A blue-white dwarf and a red giant circled each other off-center, a stately gavotte—but the dwarf was feeding off the giant, pulling long strands of fire out of its partner, wrapping them around itself in a spiral veil of flame. Distorted by its smaller partner's gravity, the crimson monster had flattened into an oblate spheroid, pulled outward in a teardrop shape.

Much smaller—much harder to find, were two tiny starships also linked together. Plunging toward the tongues of flame, they echoed the partnership of the stars—one of the vessels was trying to pull the fire out of the other—

Closer now—inside the Cargo Bay of the
Norway
, everything was suffused with the multiple deep tones of the repulsor fields—the uneven low warble of the
Norway
's failing barriers and the darker chords of the
Star Wolf
's multiple barriers.

Two robot-gurneys had come rolling across the link between the two ships, hatches slamming open before them, slamming shut behind them every meter of the way. They rolled into the
Star Wolf
airlock, into the transfer tube, through the repulsor fields, into the
Norway
's airlock and finally into the
Norway
's Cargo Bay.

Berryman knew what to do; Easton moved to help him. He ran a quick readiness-check on the gurney, just to satisfy himself that the trip through the repulsors hadn't altered any of its parameters. By then, the second gurney had come through the hatch, and he moved to check that one too. Before he had completed his status checks, Yonah Jarell was already climbing onto the first cart. Blintze stood, waiting uncomfortably by the second.