Dirge - Alan Dean Foster [107]
Consistent, disciplined activity was the norm on the bridge behind him as Rothenburg gazed out the port. Mallory was right, he reflected. Treetrunk One was not much of a moon. Easily overlooked, it was hardly worthy of the astronomical designation. Looking at it put him more in mind of a captured asteroid than a moon. But it was more than large enough to hide a small ship behind. Something as small as a lifeboat would be swallowed entirely.
He had seen the tridees of the tiny vessel Mallory had used to escape the holocaust that had swept over Treetrunk. The interior had immediately struck him as uninhabitable. The outside was worse. Somehow the irascible engineer had not only coerced it into lifting off without exploding on ignition, but had managed to coax it to the point of achieving escape velocity. Without its outmoded navigation equipment to automatically hone in on a destination, Rothenburg knew it would have gone sailing silently off into the starfield, never to be seen or heard from again.
Instead a quirk of luck had led to its being found by ingenuous aliens and its pilot being returned to his people. Subsequent events had precipitated a sequence of scarcely credible concurrences culminating in the arrival proximate to the minor satellite of Treetrunk of the most powerful expeditionary force this sector of starfield had ever seen. It was hardly to be believed.
Rothenburg believed it, just as he believed that in a very short while that same pilot was going to embark on a return visit to the scene of his recent madness. All the medical technology human science and experience could muster was going to be brought to bear on that singular individual to ensure that a recurrence of his dementia did not take place. Even so, Rothenburg knew that nothing was certain. The best minds and the most skilled techniques could not warrant that upon setting foot on Treetrunk One Alwyn Mallory would not go stark raving mad or lapse into coma or otherwise react in a fashion guaranteed to drive Rothenburg, Nadurovina, and everyone else connected with the current enterprise a little crazed themselves.
They could only hope and do their best and put more trust than they wanted to in the ministrations of an ordinary duty nurse with a less-than-extensive professional history.
As so often happens at such times, events progressed in ways unforeseen by even the most adept prognosticators. Mallory allowed himself to be suited up without complaint or hesitation, joking at the ongoing process and lending a hand when and where he was able. Meantime, while everyone was focusing on the indispensable patient, they neglected to consider the condition of his personal attendant. Having never worn an environment suit before, much less been outside a ship in space, Irene Tse was rapidly working herself into a state of near hysteria.
The consequences of this were as salutary as they were unforeseen. Instead of being left to worry about himself, Mallory spent the last moments before disembarking working to soothe and reassure the nurse. Only when he was convinced of her well-being did he condescend to board the military repair vehicle that would carry them from the vast cocoon of the dreadnought to the surface of the tiny moon below. This time it was he who gripped her hand reassuringly.
They were not alone. A small flotilla of armed lifeboats, repair craft, and other vessels awaited, hovering like so many incandescent bees around a darkened, mottled hive. Their operators had been primed to respond instantly to any requests from Mallory—once these had been quietly cleared by Major Rothenburg or one of the two extensively briefed lieutenants who were assisting him.
The major’s declaration that if circumstances demanded it they would tear the moon apart to find the mollysphere was held in abeyance. Stir up the satellite’s surface and they might bury the inestimably precious recording permanently. Or worse, the abysmally low gravity might allow it to drift