The Mote in God's Eye - Larry Niven [141]
“Yes, sir.”
“We have to get those civilians out. Can you hold a route from bulkhead 160 forward? Maybe I can get some help in to let the scientists get that far.”
“I think we can, sir. But, Captain, I can’t get to the Field generator room! How do we scuttle?”
“I’ll take care of that, too. Get moving, Number One.”
“Aye aye, Skipper.”
Scuttle. The word had an unreal sound. Rod breathed deeply. The suit air had a sharp metallic taste. Or perhaps it wasn’t the air at all.
It was nearly an hour before one of Lenin’s boats pulled alongside the cutter. They watched it approach in silence.
“Relay from MacArthur through Lenin, sir,” the coxswain said. The screen lit.
The face on the screen wore Rod Blaine’s features but it wasn’t his face. Sally didn’t recognize him. He looked older, and the eyes were—dead. He stared at them, and they stared back. Finally Sally said it. “Rod, what’s happening?”
Blaine looked her in the eyes, then looked away. His expression hadn’t changed. He reminded Sally of something pickled in a bottle at the Imperial Museum. “Mr. Renner,” the image said. “Send all personnel over the line to Lenin’s boat. Clear the cutter. Now all of you, you’re going to get some funny orders from the boat’s pilot. Obey them, exactly as given. You won’t have a second chance, so don’t argue. Just do as you’re told.”
“Now, just a minute,” Horvath bellowed. “I—”
Rod cut him off. “Doctor, for reasons you will understand later, we are not going to explain a damned thing. Just do as you’re told.” He looked back to Sally. His eyes changed, just a little. Perhaps there was concern in them. Something, a tiny spark of life, came into them for a moment, anyway. She tried to smile, but failed. “Please, Sally,” he said. “Do exactly as Lenin’s pilot instructs you. All right. Out. Now.”
They stood immobile. Sally took a deep breath and turned toward the air lock. “Let’s go,” she said. She tried again to smile, but it only made her look more nervous.
The starboard air lock had been reconnected to the embassy ship. They left by the port side. Lenin’s boat crew had already rigged lines from the auxiliary vessel to the cutter. The boat was almost a twin for MacArthur’s cutter, a flat-topped lifting body with a shovel-blade reentry shield hanging below the nose.
Sally pulled herself gently along the cable to Lenin’s cutter, then cautiously moved through the hatch, She was halted when she entered the airlock. The mechanism cycled, and she felt pressure again.
Her suit was a woven fabric that fitted like an extra skin. A baggy protective garment covered that. The only space inside her suit that she didn’t fill was the helmet that joined the skintight body stocking with a neck seal.
“It will be necessary to search you, my lady,” a guttural-voiced officer said. She looked around: two armed Marines stood in the air lock with her. Their weapons weren’t aimed at her—not quite. But they stood alertly, and they were afraid.
“What is this?” she demanded.
“All in good time, my lady,” the officer said. He assisted her in detaching the air-bottle backpack from her suit. It was thrust into a transparent plastic container. The officer looked into her helmet after he took that off, then put it in with the backpack and her coveralls. “Thank you,” he muttered. “You will please now go aft. The others will join you there.”
Renner and the other military personnel were treated differently. “Strip,” the officer said. “Everything, if you please.” The Marines did not even do them the courtesy of pointing their weapons slightly away. When they had removed everything—Renner even had to put his signet ring into the plastic container—they were sent forward. Another Marine officer indicated battle armor, and two Marines helped them into it. There were no weapons in sight now.
“Damnedest strip-tease act I ever saw,” Renner said to the pilot. The coxswain nodded. “Mind telling me what it’s about?”
“Your captain will explain, sir,” the coxswain said.
“More Brownies!” Renner exclaimed.
“Is that it, Mr. Renner?” Whitbread asked