Ring Around the Sky - Allyn Gibson [28]
Stevens followed the line of her fork and looked down at his plate. “This?” he said with a slight frown. “Looks fine to me.” He shrugged. “Even if I couldn’t pronounce it.” He took another forkful, shoved it in his mouth, and began to chew.
Abramowitz rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Don’t blame me,” she said, “if you end up in sickbay, eating something you shouldn’t have.”
“From lunch?” He crinkled his nose. “Not going to happen. Not with my cast-iron stomach.”
A Kharzh’ullan came running along the boardwalk toward them. He ran past the café’s outdoor tables. Stevens paid him no attention, but Abramowitz turned and followed him with her eyes as he continued down the boardwalk. He stopped and looked up into the sky. She nodded slowly—the elevator was sure to be in everyone’s mind today—and turned back to her lunch.
“That was odd,” she said quietly.
“Hmm?” said Stevens. She hadn’t realized she had spoken loud enough for Stevens to hear her.
“That Kharzh’ullan that ran past us.” She turned back and gave him another look. Where he stood, there now had gathered a crowd. “He was in too much of a hurry. The elevator won’t be collapsed for another few hours.”
Stevens nodded. He glanced up at the elevator shaft.
“Carol,” he said. “Turn around. Take a look.”
“What?” she said as she turned in her chair.
Her gaze followed Stevens’s.
The elevator shaft was listing.
What had been a straight line from horizon to sky was now bent, and far above the terminus was detached from the Ring.
“Fabian,” she said.
He stood. “I think we have a problem.” He tapped his combadge. “Stevens to da Vinci. What’s going on up there?”
Chapter
9
“Gomez!” exclaimed Gold as he rose from the command seat. Red alert sirens screamed. “What happened?”
Gomez turned from the rear science station and took in the sight on the viewscreen. The elevator terminus appeared to have risen above the Ring in its geosynchronous orbit. Eevraith huddled over her shoulder and fidgeted nervously. “The elevator shaft decompressed when we detached it from the Ring.” He nodded toward the viewscreen. “The decompression caused premature detonation of the charges we planted five hundred kilometers above the base.”
Gold came to the railing and looked to Gomez. “Decompression? Explain.”
Gomez frowned as she tried to put her thoughts into words.
“I can explain, Captain,” said Eevraith.
Gold said, “Go ahead, Minister.”
“The structural integrity fields we used to keep the elevator intact. In keeping the elevator shaft too rigid, we may also have made it too heavy.”
Gomez nodded. Structural integrity fields could make matter artificially as dense as neutronium, increasing its weight temporarily. “That could be why the Ring was stressed by the SIF. It wasn’t holding the elevator shaft up. It was holding it down. When we detached the terminus from the rest of the Ring, it would bounce up like a coiled spring.”
“Precisely, Commander,” said Eevraith. “By ‘springing’ up, the elevator could have jarred the charges enough to cause them to detonate prematurely.”
Gold nodded.
“Captain,” said Shabalala, “Mr. Stevens is hailing us. He wants to know what’s happening.”
Gold sighed. “I want to know that myself. Tell Stevens to stand by.” He turned to Songmin Wong at the conn. “Position us above the elevator terminus, Wong.” The lieutenant’s hands danced across his console. “Engage,” said Gold.
The da Vinci was thousands of kilometers out of position. The plan had been for the da Vinci to make a tractor lock on the elevator terminus, then detonate the charges. Now that the elevator was in motion, Gomez wondered, would the da Vinci be able to prevent tragedy?
“I’m needed on the bridge,” said Tev as he sat up on the sickbay biobed. Red alert sirens screamed in the corridors and they could be heard in sickbay.
Lense moved to block him from leaving as he stood. “No,” she said, putting her arm across his chest, “not until I say you can.”
“With all due respect, Doctor,” said Tev, his voice low,