The Hard Way Up - A. Bertram Chandler [42]
Grimes aimed, and fired.
Again the blast caught him—but this time he hung in an untidy tangle facing the wrong way, looking at nothingness. He heard somebody inside the ship say, "It's blown up!"
What had blown up?
Hastily Grimes got himself turned around. The mysterious globe was still there, but between it and Adder was an expanding cloud of smoke, a scatter of fragments, luminous in the searchlight's glare. So perhaps the nonmetallic missiles weren't going to work after all—or perhaps this missile would have blown up by itself, anyhow.
The third rocket was loaded into the bazooka. For the third time Grimes fired—and actually managed to stay on his feet. Straight and true streaked the missile. It hit, and exploded in an orange flare, a cloud of white smoke which slowly dissipated.
"Is there any damage?" asked Grimes at last. He could see none with his unaided vision, but those on the control room had powerful binoculars at hand.
"No," replied Beadle at last. "It doesn't seem to be scratched."
"Then stand by to let the Pilot and myself back into the ship. We have to decide what we do next."
What they did next was a matter of tailoring rather than engineering. Adder carried a couple of what were called "skin-divers' suits." These were, essentially, elasticized leotards, skin-tight but porous, maintaining the necessary pressure on the body without the need for cumbersome armor. They were ideal for working in or outside the ship, allowing absolute freedom of movement—but very few spacemen liked them. A man feels that he should be armored, well armored, against an absolutely hostile environment. Too, the conventional spacesuit has built-in facilities for the excretion of body wastes, has its little tank of water and its drinking tube, has its container of food and stimulant pellets. (Grimes, of course, always maintained that the ideal suit should make provision for the pipe smoker . . .) A conventional spacesuit is, in fact, a spaceship in miniature.
Now these two suits had to be modified. The radio transceivers, with their metallic parts, were removed from the helmets. Plastic air bottles were substituted for the original metal ones. Jointures and seals between helmet and shoulder pieces were removed, and replaced by plastic.
While this was going on Beadle asked, "Who are you sending, Captain?"
"I'm sending nobody, Number One. I shall be going myself, and if any one of you gentlemen cares to volunteer . . . No, not you. You're second in command. You must stay with the ship."
Surprisingly it was Deane who stepped forward. "I'll come with you, Captain."
"You, Spooky?" asked Grimes, not unkindly.
The telepath flushed. "I . . . I feel that I should. That . . . That thing out there is awakening. It was as though that rocket was a knock on the door . . ."
"Why didn't you tell us?"
"I . . . I wasn't sure. But the feeling's getting stronger. There's something there. Some sort of intelligence."
"Can't you get in touch with it?"
"I've been trying. But it's too vague, too weak. And I've the feeling that there has to be actual contact. Physical contact, I mean."
"Mphm."
"In any case, Captain, you need me with you."
"Why, Spooky?"
Deane jerked his head towards the watch on Grimes's wrist. "We'll not be allowed to take any metal with us. How shall we know when we've been away long enough, that we have to get back before our air runs out?"
"How shall we know if you're along?"
"Easy. Somebody will have to sit with Fido, and clock watch all the time, really concentrating on it. At that short range Fido will pick up the thoughts even of a non-telepath quite clearly. I shall remain en rapport with Fido, of course."
"Mphm," grunted Grimes. Yes, he admitted to himself, the idea had its merits. He wondered whom he should tell off for the clock-watching detail. All spacemen except psionic radio officers hate the organic amplifiers,