Encounter With Tiber Read online

  A shuddering lurch ran through the pressurized rover as the crane broke at the upper pivot; at the same instant a hideous scream rang in Chris’s helmet, coming through his suit radio.

  He bounded to the top of the framework in one hard leap, and was inside the Pigeon, through the EVA, in another instant.

  The Encyclopedia lay in a sideways diagonal in the nose hatch, where it had slid as the breaking crane released it. Under one corner of it was Xiao Be’s left leg, and an edge pushed deep into her abdomen, her rib cage all but hanging over it; the pressure suit was stretched tighter than any he had ever seen before. He could hear the harsh, bubbling rasp of her breathing through the suit radio.

  9

  CHRIS DIDN’T THINK AT all; he rushed forward and jammed his shoulder against the Encyclopedia, trying to push it back through the hatch. It wouldn’t move at all; he saw that it had wedged, with Xiao Be as one point of the wedge. He shoved again as hard as he could. Still he had no luck.

  “Cut it loose, push it in, get me home,” she gasped suddenly.

  “What?”

  “Crane broke, didn’t it? I saw it.”

  “Yeah, it did.”

  “Get the cable off it. Don’t try to get it out of here. Use the crowbars to lift it, drag me out, drag it in, close the hatch. Fly home.” She was breathing hard and he could hear the agony in her voice. “Don’t know what it did but it doesn’t feel good. Some kind of injuries inside. Jiang’s a medic, but he can’t do surgery or treat a broken back. Have to get home for that. Without the crane you can’t get it out. So get it in and let’s go home, fast.”

  Chris stood. It made sense, but it wasn’t going to be easy. He leaped back out of the EVA hatch and climbed forward on the top surface of the craft to the Pigeon’s nose. With the emergency knife from his suit he slashed through the straps, so that the crane hook suddenly fell away; then he swore and flattened himself as the crane tower, which had been leaning over sideways, held up by the cable, fell over and crashed past him, kicking up dust and sending a reverberating thud through the ship. Xiao Be had started to breathe harder.

  He jumped down to the pressurized rover. In falling over the crane had bounced off the side of the main fuel tank, there was a dent there that he might have checked if there were time, or anything he could do about it, but there was neither. Chris grabbed up the crowbars and was back in the Pigeon in three short bounds.

  At first he could find no angle that wouldn’t push the huge object harder onto Xiao Be. Then he realized that if he could at least force the edge out of her abdomen, though it might drag the corner across her leg and do more damage, at least it would relieve the terrible pressure on her internal organs and let her breathe easier. He jammed the tip of the crow in and heaved as hard as he could; the Encyclopedia bucked a foot inward and up, and with his foot he swept Xiao Be’s body in toward himself. With a silent crash he felt through his boots, the Encyclopedia hit the deck, two inches from the tip of his boot. He looked at how it had landed; it seemed to be braced at a steeper angle than before, with more of a corner sticking outside.

  He turned to Xiao Be and she was whispering into the radio, “Close the hatch and let’s go home. Close the hatch and let’s go home.”

  Risk of a broken back or not, she wouldn’t survive if she were just lying on the bare deck when they took off; he carried her to her acceleration couch, the low lunar gravity making the job easy, belted her in, plugged in her hoses, and turned on the life support. Then he returned to the Encyclopedia.

  Ten more minutes convinced him of the grim truth: he couldn’t move it at all. When it had fallen into its new position, one corner had slammed into an upper surface, making a deep dent that it stuck into. To get it out of there would take more than the strength he had. And another corner still stuck out the hatch.

  At that moment his suit radio crackled, and a very deliberate voice said “Tiber Prize, this is Mission Control. Please report your status. Can you explain what’s happening?”

  Quickly Chris explained the situation. He was expecting a long three-second delay, but another voice spoke at once. “Chris, this is Peter. Bring the ship back here. It’s a short ballistic hop. Three of us should be able to get it into order, and there ought to be enough fuel left with a little bit of margin for you to make it back to Earth’s surface. After all, this Pigeon Rack was configured with a lot of extra fuel. I’m sending over the coordinates for the flight right now—should be in your computer. And while you’re doing the hop we can recheck. Just program the hop and jump for it with the door open; you’ve got some time left in your suit, don’t you?”

  Chris checked. “Nearly an hour. I’ll have to jump soon if I do that.”

  He turned to the control panels and began the power-up for liftoff, doing things much faster than he ever had before, doing all kinds of quick shortcuts and changes, rarely looking at instruments to confirm that anything was coming on-line. The voice of Mission Control crackled in his ears again. “Tiber Prize you are go for abort to Tiber Base—Chris, it’s the only plan we’ve got at the moment. Good luck. We’ll be back in touch as soon as you’ve lifted off.”

  “Right.” Chris’s hands slammed at the computer keys, the thick gloves forcing him to type with two fingers. The coordinates from the base had come through just fine; he plugged them in and told the Pigeon to get him there. “I’m no pilot,” he muttered to himself, “not for one of these things, so I sure hope this software knows what it’s doing.”

  Six times it demanded to know whether he was aware the doors were open; six times he told it to override, that the situation was an emergency. At last it told him to stand by for emergency procedure, and he leaned back into his acceleration couch, plugging in his life support and comm connections to conserve what was left in his suit.

  A great vibration thundered through the ship, and when Chris leaned back so that his helmet touched the couch, he could hear the low sound reverberating. With a wash of flame that flipped over the wrecked pressurized rover once again, the Pigeon Rack rose into the lunar sky on a hard engine burst, taking off at half a g. Beside him he could hear Xiao Be crying out in pain as the acceleration crushed down on her internal injuries; a moment later he heard Mission Control again. “We have downloaded your flight plan from your computer,” a voice said, “and we have confirmed that you have enough fuel for both a hop to base and for a return to Earth. You are go for your plan. Godspeed.”

  “Thanks, Mission Control,” Chris said, not sure what else to say. A moment later the engine shut off; now the Pigeon Rack soared upward in a ballistic arc, like an artillery shell, headed over and down toward where Peter and Jiang waited for them. It fell for long moments of weightlessness.

  “Xiao?”

  “Still sort of here. Passing out a lot. Get me home, Chris. I’m scared.”

  “I’ll get you home,” he said.

  “Don’t leave me alone on the Moon.”

  “I won’t. Do you want an injection of painkiller? I’ve got it right here.”

  She said nothing; her voice rasped and groaned. According to the first aid training, you couldn’t use a painkiller on someone who was unconscious; he just hoped she wasn’t feeling anything right now.

  The attitude jets cut in and the ship rolled over slowly, end for end, until it was falling toward the Moon with its engine pointed downward again. Then the engine fired and Xiao Be woke up again with another scream; deceleration force rose steadily and Chris heard her labored breathing in his headphones getting rougher and harsher with each gasp. At last, with a final burst, it stopped, and again he felt normal lunar gravity.

  Peter climbed in through the EVA door, Jiang right behind him. Chris unstrapped and he and Peter crawled forward to the Encyclopedia, heaving and pulling on it; Jiang stayed back with Xiao Be, working feverishly as he ran through all the through-the-suit diagnostics.

  With two people to balance and coordinate, it took only a few hard heaves to get the Encyclopedia out of the nose and
to slide it down onto the place that had been set up for strapping it in; after all the drills together, Peter and Chris had it lashed into place almost at once. Behind them they heard Jiang dogging the nose hatch closed, and a moment later he said, “Stand by to pressurize.”

  Air pressure returned to the cabin almost instantly, and Chris unfastened his visor and pulled it up. He had had fifteen minutes of suit life support left.

  There was a terrible smell, and they looked back to see Jiang lifting the helmet off of Xiao Be. “She’s bleeding, she’s vomited, and I think she lost her bowels as well,” he said. He lifted the phone and spoke into it.

  “Mission Control, this is Jiang Wu. I have examined Xiao Be. Blood pressure has taken a big drop which may be due to a hemorrhage, but it’s currently stable. Breathing is strong but irregular. She’s fighting for air. No evidence of chest punctures or any problem with the pleura, but we can’t rule out broken ribs given where she was hit. Tiber Prize, out.”

  “I can move my feet,” Xiao Be said, very softly. “Wiggle my toes.”

  Jiang grunted. “That’s the first good news so far. Probably no serious spinal injury.” He looked at the graphs and said, “Most likely we have injuries consistent with one very severe blow to the abdomen. Impossible to diagnose further under these conditions. She’s got to get back to Earth. No possibility of treatment here, nor do I think she’s likely to recover without treatment. Well, that’s one issue. Is there any way we can transfer the Encyclopedia to the other lander?”

  “Not a prayer,” Peter said. “It would be like the three of us trying to carry a small car from one third-floor apartment to another, back home.”

  Jiang sighed. “I was afraid of that. All right, then, what I’m recommending to my government is that we get Xiao Be home on the other lander as quickly as possible and leave the Encyclopedia here until a larger crew can move it safely to a lander for return to Earth. If you didn’t notice before now, the main fuel tank is not only dented, but there’s a little bit of hydrogen snow around the dent—you’ve got a slow leak there. I don’t think this ship is fit for the Earth return.” His fingers clattered over the keys as he filed his report.

  “I concur,” Chris said, “and I’d figure as mission commander it’s my call. Okay, let’s send in that report.”

  There was a crackle in the intercom. “Sending the report,” Jiang said.

  They waited for three seconds, and then Mission Control said, “You are go for a return to Earth with the injured crewperson and the Encyclopedia both.”

  “Mission Control, that’s got to be a negative,” Chris said. “We have reason to doubt the functioning of the lander and we are unable to transfer the Encyclopedia. We have urgent need to return with Xiao Be at once, please reference Jiang’s medical report.”

  The three-second delay came and went; finally another voice came over the intercom, a different one from what they had ever heard before. “This is Liu Wan Xi, representing the People’s Republic of China. We do not accept this analysis of the situation. We emphasize that we have a right both to the return of our national heroine and to immediate access to the Encyclopedia. Pressure loss has not been substantial in the main fuel tank and we believe this is an unnecessary delay being inflicted to increase the pain to our citizen and to deprive China of its rightful place, as the place where civilization began and has reached its highest level, to be first to receive the information contained in the Encyclopedia. We demand that if this proposal be accepted that both the People’s Heroine Xiao Be and the Encyclopedia be returned by the first available all-Chinese crew directly to China.”

  “Bastards,” Jiang said very softly. “Liu is a political hack. He thinks he can turn this to his advantage—”

  Mission Control broke in and said, “We’re not happy with this, Chris, but as we see it the best of possible solutions is immediate return. Even if you have a leak, you still have a large fuel reserve, and besides the pressure record shows only a momentary loss right when the crane hit it; there’s probably no hole but just a bit of overpressure forced some hydrogen out through a safety valve—”

  “Idiots!” Denisov shouted, “There is hydrogen snow right around—”

  The voice said, “This is an order; you are go for immediate return to Earth with both Xiao Be and the Encyclopedia. And the very best of luck to you.”

  “Mission Control, we strongly advise against that,” Chris said. “Mission Control, I repeat, we have reason to believe that may be dangerous.”

  Three seconds went by, then ten, and Denisov shook his head. “Well, do we try to restart the debate, do we follow orders, or do we do what we think is best?”

  Jiang groaned. He had spoken more in the last hour than he had in all the time Chris had known him, and for the first time Chris was beginning to feel some liking and respect for the Chinese astronaut. “It’s a direct order. And they may be right. And if they are right it really is the best thing for Xiao Be. All of those things are true. But I feel in the pit of my stomach that they are making a terrible mistake … and yet … well, I can’t disobey orders.”

  Reluctantly, Chris nodded. “We can’t second-guess Mission Control. They’ve still got more information than we do, like it or not.”

  “You never heard them respond to anything I said about hydrogen snow!” Peter said, urgently. “You don’t know that they have all the facts. All they have is the complete telemetry—”

  “Which is many more instruments than we can read in the time we have,” Chris pointed out, firmly. “Peter, they do have more information. And your guy Liu might be a bastard, but I can’t believe that everyone would just roll over for him,” he added to Jiang. “I don’t think he could be exerting much influence, not if he’s just gotten in on the situation. We shouldn’t let ourselves be distracted by that. If they say go, we have to go—we’re never going to know enough to second-guess them. On the other hand, you two are supposed to stay over, and I’m the mission commander. So I’m going, Xiao Be’s going, and the Encyclopedia is going. You’re staying. And I’m taking off as soon as we can get a trajectory and get you guys clear.”

  “But—”

  “Sorry, Peter, I don’t see any other way. And if I do have a slow leak, the situation is getting worse every second, so get out of here before I lose any more fuel.”

  Jiang and Denisov glanced at each other and began to suit up; in a moment they were gone, and Chris looked out to see them trudging back to the parked habitat. He thought with longing of his bunk, a shower, and a hot meal there; he watched them walk away in the ghost light and wished he hadn’t had to order them to go.

  He told the computer to calculate and carry out a fastest-trajectory return to Earth; he knew that might well mean even higher g forces for Xiao Be, but the one thing he most had to have was time. As the computer began its countdown, he stretched out on his acceleration couch, hooked up his life support, and looked over at Xiao Be; only her life-support equipment readings told him she was still alive. “I’m right with you,” he said, in case she could hear. “You’re not going to get left on the Moon.”

  The engine fired and they rose from the lunar surface; he had just a glimpse of Tiber Base again, with its silent lander and rows of cairns, and then they were arcing up high and far above the lunar surface, the engine roaring for all it was worth. He breathed deeply from the suit air supply; this would be an eight-minute burn, direct to Earth orbit injection, not even taking a setting up orbit around the Moon because even though it would take them three days to fall back into orbit around the friendly old Earth, every second of delay at this end translated into a second at the other, and who knew how many seconds Xiao might have left? He could only hope that she could last through this acceleration; after that at least the weightlessness would not force more hemorrhaging, though of course it might well cause blood to pool in unusual places and create more nightmares for the surgeons back home.

  Two minutes under acceleration, and they were now far above th
e surface; the radio crackled and Mission Control said, “Tiber Prize, we’ve got you now, loud and clear. You are go for TransEarth Injection per your flight plan. Looks like you’re going—”

  He felt a thud through his feet. Abruptly, he was weightless. Alarms sounded, but Chris knew what it must be: a tank had breached and the computer had shut down the engines. So rather than check the instruments, he twisted around to peer out the window. A great billow of white was pouring out of the side of the DT, from right where the dent had been.

  Unperturbed, still on the other side of the three-second delay, Mission Control went on, cheerfully talking about a “successful completion even with some rough spots, and …” There was a long silence.

  The screen flashed a message: INADEQUATE FUEL. ABORT TO GROUND (YIN)? Chris’s gloved finger pounded the Y key, giving the simplest of instructions to the computer—get them back down onto the Moon, for a soft landing, anywhere it could. He started his and Xiao Be’s life-support packages onto fast, emergency recharge; there was some risk of damaging batteries doing this, but if he had to walk back carrying her, he wanted both of them able to breathe.

  He tried not to estimate how far that walk might be, or how far he could go.

  The computer let the ship ride out its upward ballistic trajectory and begin to fall back toward the Moon. The voice of Mission Control said, “Chris, our estimates of your fuel are extremely unreliable at this point.”

  He was looking out the window again; back along the Pigeon Rack he could see white wisps and flows eddying around the ship. “I’m not surprised,” he said softly.

  “We’re guessing it’s about fifty-fifty whether your landing is soft or not. No prediction on whether you’ll find a spot that’s fit to land on, either,” Mission Control went on. “And you have no fuel to hover or search. This will be a blind landing for all practical purposes.”

  Chris looked out at the Moon, which was becoming less round and more a flat swath of land every moment as they fell toward it at an ever-rising speed. “Good luck to you, Chris, and we hope it works out. Set off your radio beacon as soon as you’re down. And we’ve got someone here to say something.”