Ring Around the Sky - Allyn Gibson [25]
Gold rubbed his chin. “That could take some time, Gomez. There’s no need to rush this.”
Gomez nodded. “I agree, Captain, but collapsing the elevator will be simple and straightforward.” She turned to Tev. “Grab a quick nap, Commander. You’ll need it.”
Chapter
8
Tev materialized in space, alone. Tev, Gomez, and Pattie were beamed to locations one hundred twenty degrees apart around the damaged elevator shaft, two hundred kilometers above the base. There they would await the transport of antimatter charges to be clamped magnetically to the shaft’s outer surface.
He opened his eyes, which had been closed tightly before he dematerialized aboard the da Vinci, and ten meters in front of him was the elevator shaft casing. “Daokhra!” he exclaimed as he lost his equilibrium in the zero gravity environment.
The elevator shaft dominated his view, filling his vision as far as his eyes could see in any direction. The shaft was ten kilometers in diameter at this point along its length, and from Tev’s perspective the curvature was so slight that the shaft appeared to be flat, not curved. Had he been able to look down in his environmental suit he would have seen Kharzh’ulla two hundred kilometers beneath his feet. Tev felt queasy in his stomachs.
He heard Gomez’s voice in his ear through the open comm circuit. “Tev, can you read me?”
“I…I read you, Commander,” he said, his voice quiet and hoarse.
“Are you all right?”
Tev squeezed his eyes shut. His breathing went ragged. “Fine, Commander. I’m fine.”
“Tev, I need you to focus.”
Tev’s breathing became shallow and fast. “Tev!” he heard, but as he began to hyperventilate in his environmental suit he couldn’t answer Gomez. His breathing slowed, he began to pant—the suit’s atmosphere changed, recirculating carbon dioxide and decreasing the oxygen content.
He caught his breath and began to breathe deeply. Lancing pain sliced through his eyes. Distant voices sounded over the comm channel, probably Gomez and the bridge, but he couldn’t focus on them. Despite the head pains, despite the confusion his body felt at the zero-gee environment of open space, he felt peaceful. Calm.
“Commander,” he said, after several seconds, “I’m all right.”
“Tev,” he heard, recognizing Captain Gold’s gravelly voice, “what’s your status?”
“A touch of space sickness, sir.”
He heard in the background what he thought was Dr. Lense’s voice. “Tellarites don’t handle null gravity well. Upsets their equilibrium. We might want to beam him back, have someone else place the detonation charges.”
“I will be fine, Doctor,” Tev said. “Might we continue with the mission?”
“I agree with Tev,” said Gomez. “If he says he’s fine, I’ll take him at his word, then expect him to visit sickbay once he’s back aboard. But he’s in place now, so let’s move on.”
Moments later a detonation charge materialized silently between Tev and the shaft. It was large—a circular based cone two meters around and five tall. Within the cone was an antimatter pod and a remote detonator to collapse the antimatter containment field, causing an annihilation capable of destroying the elevator shaft.
Tev touched the maneuvering thruster control on his right arm and moved slowly toward the charge. “Contact,” he said as he grappled with the handle at the end of the cone.
“Contact,” Gomez said.
“Contact,” said Pattie a few moments later.
Using the maneuvering thrusters, Tev pushed the cone toward the elevator shaft. A minute later he felt a slight jolt as the broad base of the cone made contact with the shaft, and he cut off the thrusters. He ran his hand along the side of the cone, touched the maglock control, and locked the cone to the side of the shaft.
“Cone in place, Commander,” he said.
“I copy that, Tev.”
He let go of the cone and floated in space beside it. He closed his eyes, touched the maneuvering thruster control by memory, not sight, and oriented himself with his back toward Kharzh’ulla. He opened his eyes to look straight up the length