The Hard Way Up - A. Bertram Chandler [33]
Grimes kept going, although—as he put it, later—he didn't know if it was Christmas Day or last Thursday. The ship was in Free Fall now, and he pulled himself rapidly along the guide rail, was practically swimming in air as he dived through the hatch into Control.
Von Tannenbaum had the watch. He was busy at the auxiliary machinery control panel. A fan restarted somewhere, but a warning buzzer began to sound. The navigator cursed. The fan motor slowed down and the buzzer ceased.
"What's happened, Pilot?" demanded Grimes.
"The Phoenix Jennie I think, Captain. Vitelli hasn't reported yet . . ."
Then the engineer's shrill, excited voice sounded from the intercom speaker. "Auxiliary engine room to Control! I have to report a leakage of deuterium!"
"What pressure is there in the tank?" Grimes asked.
"The gauges still show 20,000 units. But . . . "
"But what?" Grimes snapped.
"Captain, the tank is empty."
Grimes pulled himself to his chair, strapped himself in. He looked out through the viewports at the star-begemmed blackness, each point of light hard and sharp, no longer distorted by the temporal precession fields of the Drive, each distant sun lifetimes away with the ship in her present condition. Then he turned to face his officers—Beadle, looking no more (but no less) glum than usual, von Tannenbaum, whose normally ruddy face was now as pale as his hair, Slovotny, whose dark complexion now had a greenish cast, and Deane, ectoplasmic as always. They were joined by Vitelli, a very ordinary looking young man who was, at the moment, more than ordinarily frightened.
"Mr. Vitelli," Grimes asked him. "This leakage—is it into our atmosphere or outside the hull?"
"Outside, sir."
"Good. In that case . . ." Grimes made a major production of filling and lighting his battered pipe. "Now I can think. Mphm. Luckily I've not used any reaction mass this trip, so we have ample fuel for the emergency generator. Got your slipstick ready, Pilot? Assuming that the tanks are full, do we have enough to run the inertial and interstellar drives from here to Brooum?"
"I'll have to use the computer, Captain."
"Then use it. Meanwhile, Sparks and Spooky, can either of you gentlemen tell me what ships are in the vicinity?"
"The Dog Star Line's Basset," Slovotny told him. "The cruiser Draconis " added Deane.
"Mphm." It would be humiliating for a Courier Service Captain to have to call for help, but Draconis would be the lesser of two evils. "Mphm. Get in touch with both vessels, Mr. Deane. I'm not sure that we can spare power for the Carlotti, Mr. Slovotny. Get in touch with both vessels, ask their positions and tell them ours. But don't tell them anything else."
"Our position, sir, is . . . ?"
Grimes swiveled his chair so that he could see the chart tank, rattled off the coordinates, adding, "Near enough, until we get an accurate fix . . ."
"I can take one now, Captain," von Tannenbaum told him.
"Thank you, Pilot. Finished your sums?"
"Yes." The navigator's beefy face was expressionless. "To begin with, we have enough chemical fuel to maintain all essential services for a period of seventy-three Standard days. But we do not have enough fuel to carry us to Brooum, even using Mannschenn Drive only. We could, however, make for ZX1797—Sol-type, with one Earth-type planet, habitable but currently uninhabited by intelligent life forms . . ."
Grimes considered the situation. If he were going to call for help he would be better off staying where he was, in reasonable comfort.
"Mr. Vitelli," he said, "you can start up the emergency generator. Mr. Deane, as soon as Mr. von Tannenbaum has a fix you can get a message out to Basset and Draconis . . . "
"But she's properly awake," Deane muttered. "She's torn open the silk cocoon, and the outer canister is opening . . ."
"What the hell are you talking about?" barked Grimes.
"The Princess. When the power went off the refrigeration unit stopped. She . . ." The telepath's face assumed an expression