Orphans - Kevin Killiany [22]
“Here,” Abramowitz handed each of them an oblong case about twelve centimeters by twenty-four.
“What’s this?”
“Generic emergency radiation kits, complements of Dr. Lense,” Abramowitz said as she handed a blue case to Pattie and a red one to Soloman. “For your self-medication pleasure we offer hypo ampoules of hyronalin—daalisan for Pattie—triox compound, and species-specific cocktails of vitamins, nutrients, and appropriate goodies for hemoglobin production, tissue regeneration, and general damage control.”
Stevens turned the kit over until he found the clip and attached it to his belt. He noticed Kairn had attached his to a loop high on his vest and wondered what normally went there. The hanging kit covered the hilt of the dagger that Pattie liked so much.
“Is the darker vegetation along rivers?” Abramowitz asked, looking out over the view as the others attached the kits to their utility belts.
“Usually,” Tev replied.
“Then why are all the rivers parallel?” she asked.
These Stevens did see. Remarkably regular strips of blue-green vegetation running across their field of view which seemed to start and stop at random intervals.
“Ship’s rotation.” Tev didn’t actually say “obviously,” but it was in his voice. “Inertia and angular acceleration would dictate any sizable volumes of water flow against the ship’s spin. Prevailing winds will do the same.”
“We will learn nothing more up here,” Kairn said.
He stepped off down what might have been the merest trace of a trail without a backward glance.
* * *
Not my idea of sitting this one out,Faulwell thought as he set the anchors on the Klingon pattern enhancer pylon. Of course it was bigger and more massive and more awkward than the Federation model. But they got here first, so we use their equipment.
The Qaw’qay’ had hard-landed two dozen locator beacons on the colony ship’s hull during its first survey while the da Vinci was still orbiting. When the repair phase began, they used the beacons as transporter targets, beaming their first wave of engineers directly to the spinning surface. (“Must have felt like a near-warp transport,” Conlon had said.) Those pioneers had then set up pattern enhancers that allowed others to beam over with much less drama.
The problem was, there were nearly three thousand square kilometers of outer hull and far too many trouble spots to keep using the “shoot and jump” method. Pattern enhancers had to be preset in strategic locations. This meant personnel not essential to the nuts-and-bolts repairs lugging enhancer grids across the surface of the ship and setting them up while the engineers worked. Since the mysterious power drain seemed limited to the leading face of the ship, the enhancers could be set up to await remote activation whenever a team needed to use them.
“Why not just beam the enhancers where you need them to be?” Faulwell had asked when his new job was explained to him.
Gomez had just given him that weary smile engineers reserved for particularly naive questions from soft scientists and handed him his itinerary.
It was probably a perfectly good suggestion.Faulwell tightened the straps on the Klingon null-grav sled. They just didn’t want to admit they hadn’t thought of it.
Fortunately, the Klingon beacons were positioned so that every point on the surface could be triangulated. And moving from place to place consisted primarily of lifting clear of the ship, but not out of range for the gravimetrics, and letting it rotate beneath you. Hardly difficult, but definitely monotonous. He strapped himself into the driver’s seat and double-checked the next destination against the Klingon beacon grid. Muttering an Algonquin curse, he punched the actuator and the sled leapt free of the surface.
CHAPTER
12
“What do you think?” Tev asked, eyeing the lace-work of ceiling cracks emanating from the pile of rubble blocking the stone corridor.
Pattie measured the wall’s lean with an improvised plumb line. “If this were a planet, I’d say quake damage. As it is…”
“Could the exterior bombardment have been responsible?” Soloman