Alien Emergencies - James White [41]
In silence they landed on the derelict’s hull. Because of the vessel’s slow spin, Conway had to use his feet and wrist magnets to keep from being tossed gently away again, while Prilicla used its gravity nullifiers in combination with magnetic pads on the ends of its six pipe-stem legs. Carefully they climbed through the gap in the plating and out of the direct sunlight. Conway waited until his eyes adjusted to the darkness, then he switched on his suit spotlight.
There was an irregular natural tunnel in the wreckage, leading down for perhaps thirty meters. At the bottom was a projecting piece of metal, which had been daubed with luminescent green marker paint and a smear of grease.
“If the Tenelphi’s officers marked a route for you,” Fletcher said when Conway reported the find, “it should speed the search for Sutherland. Always provided he hasn’t been diverted from the marked path. But there is another problem, Doctor. The farther you go into the derelict, the more difficult it will be to work your radio signals. We have more power here than you have in your suit power pack, so you will be able to listen to us long after we will cease hearing you. I’m referring to spoken messages, you understand. If you switch on your radio deep inside the ship, we will still be able to hear it, as a hiss or a burst of static, and vice versa. So even if we can no longer talk to each other, switch on your radio every fifteen minutes to let us know you’re still alive, and we’ll acknowledge.
“It is possible to send messages by short and long bursts of static. It is a very old method of signaling still used in certain emergency situations. Do you know Morse?”
“No,” said Conway. “At least, only enough to send SOS.”
“I hope you don’t have to, Doctor.”
Following the marked path through the wreckage was slow, dangerous work. The residual spin on the derelict made them feel as if they were climbing up towards the center of the ship, while Conway’s eyes and all of his instincts insisted that he was moving downwards. When they reached the first daub of paint and grease, another mark became visible deeper inside the ship, but the path inclined sharply to avoid a solid mass of wreckage and the next leg of the journey angled in a new direction for the same reason. They were progressing towards the center of the ship, but in a series of flat zigzags.
Prilicla had taken the lead to avoid the risk of Conway falling onto it. With its six legs projecting through its spherical pressure envelope—Prilicla’s bony extremities were not affected by vacuum conditions—it looked like a fat metallic spider picking its way gracefully through a vast, alien web. Only once did its magnetic pads slip, when it began to fall towards him. Instinctively, Conway reached out a hand to check the creature’s slow tumble as it was going past, then pulled his hand back again. If he had gripped one of those fragile legs, it would probably have snapped off.
But Prilicla checked its own fall with the suit thrusters, and they resumed the long, slow climb.
Just before communications with the ambulance ship became unworkable, Fletcher reported that they had been gone four hours, and asked if Conway was sure that he was following the missing Sutherland and not just the path marked by the party of the Tenelphi crew-members. Conway looked at the patch of luminous paint just ahead of them, and at the smear of grease beside it, and said he was sure.
I’m missing something, he told himself angrily, something that is right in front of my stupid face…!
As they moved deeper into the ship the wreckage became less densely packed, but the apparent gravity pull exerted by the spin had diminished so much that quite large masses of plating, loose equipment and demolished