"A physical meeting might not be a good idea. At least for now."
"Transmission coming in," said Kane. "Audio only." He put it on the speaker.
They were back to blips.
One.
Two. Three.
And fourteen.
"Fourteen?" demanded Tripley.
"It's not a series," said Yoshi.
Emily took a long deep breath. "I agree. But what are they trying to tell us?"
The sequence repeated. One. Two. Three.
Fourteen.
And repeated again.
"They're telling us to go away," said Emily. "Fourteen doesn't fit the series. They want to break off."
"So what do we do now?" asked Tripley.
"Go home," suggested Kane. "Take the hint and leave. I don't think you can do anything here except cause damage."
"We can't do that, Markis," said Tripley. "It's crazy."
Emily looked tired. "What do you suggest, Kile?"
"Markis, do you still think they're adrift?"
"Yes. There's no question about it."
"Then we can't just leave." He was in an agony of indecision. "We don't know how far they are from home. And we don't know whether they've got help coming." He looked at Emily. "Would you want to leave them here, have them get sucked into that-" he indicated the gas giant, "-and live with it for the rest of your life?"
"Why don't we wait to see whether anyone comes to rescue them?" suggested Yoshi. "If nobody shows up within a reasonable time, then we could try to take them on board."
"What's a reasonable time?" asked Tripley. "For all we know, they're running out of life support while we debate. God knows how long they've been here."
"But they're telling us," said Emily, "to go away."
Yoshi frowned. "I'm not so sure. Maybe the message is a distress call. You break off the sequence, that means there's something wrong. Maybe they think we should recognize that. Just like we think they should recognize the open door."
Tripley was out of patience. "Look," he said, "what's the worst that could happen if we pick them up? We go back to Greenway-"
"-St. Johns is closer."
"-Greenway. We're going to need help. We'll have a team waiting for us when we get there. Do whatever needs to be done for the poor bastards. Then we give them the keys to the city and send them on their way."
"If it works," said Yoshi, "it'd be a great way to begin relations."
"Then we're agreed. Markis, you have any reservations?"
"I'd keep hands off. But it's your call, Kile. I'll go along with whatever you decide."
"Let's do it."
"How?" asked Yoshi.
Tripley took a deep breath. "What you said. The thing doesn't seem to have much maneuverability. Let's just take them on board."
Emily and Tripley suited up, went below, and depressurized the cargo bay.
"When I tell you to," Kane instructed them, "open the door. But not before. I don't want you getting a direct dose of local radiation. We'll keep the star on the far side of the ship. But it still won't be safe so we want to handle this with dispatch. Once the door's open, you shouldn't have to do anything. I'll bring the turtle shell on board. But if there's a reaction and we have to maneuver, make sure you hold on to something. As soon as it's inside, close up. Okay?"
"Okay, Markis," said Tripley.
Thrusters along the starboard hull fired and the Hunter moved sidewise toward the target.
Carrying their helmets, they went into the air lock and sat down on the bench. The screen embedded in the outer door performed all the functions of a window. Kim's angle however did not reveal what they were able to see. "So far there's no response," said Kane.
He took almost an hour to negotiate the distance. When he was satisfied, he signaled and Tripley opened the inner air-lock door. And then the outer.
"Still nothing," said Kane. "It's about two minutes away."
They moved out of the lock, giving Kane room to operate.
"We're about to cut gravity. Stay clear of the object. If it does anything unexpected, let it go. Somebody dies, it's a lot of paperwork, and in this situation it wouldn't take much."
"You all right?" Emily asked her partner.
"I'm fine," said Tripley.
"Okay." Kane's voice was a monotone. "We're about to shut gravity down. Don't make any sudden moves."
The celestial appeared outside the open air lock.
"Stay clear," warned Kane. "The turtle-shell will come through the door without help. When it's safely inside, close up. And then give it lots of room."
The Hunter's, outside lights swept across the turtle-shell. Kim noticed what she had not observed before: The geometry suggested the hyperbolic vehicle that had attached itself to the Hammersmith.
"Don't worry," said Emily. "We'll be fine."
"I'm sure you will. But keep your distance until we're sure it's safe. When we've done that, we'll have to figure out how to secure for the trip home."
"Maybe," said Yoshi, who was watching from the corridor, "we should have talked this out a bit more."
The turtle-shell was just outside the air lock. Kane was apparently moving the Hunter gradually toward it.
Tripley stood watching. He was too close. Maybe mesmerized, but his face was obscured by the helmet.
Emily took him by the arm and pulled him gently out of the way.
It entered the lock. Passed through and drifted into the hold. Into the lights.
"Hey," said Kane, "we're getting a visual."
Tripley threw a startled glance at one of the monitors. The picture of the spacecraft blinked off and was replaced by the butterfly. Its antennae were weaving and the singsong cadence had gone up an octave.
"I think it's frightened," said Emily.
"Maybe." Tripley looked from the screen to the microship. "They'll be grateful soon enough."
Tripley started toward the air lock, intending to close it. But the ship moved. It rotated a few degrees around its own axis, pointed its prow at the open sky beyond the air-lock door, and started forward. It was a kind of lurch, as though the directing force had less than total control.
"Stay clear," warned Kane. "It wants out."
Emily tried to pull Tripley back. "They're terrified," she said. "They've just discovered how big we are.
Don't make any threatening moves." And then, incredibly, she walked in front of the ship and held up her hands. "It's all right," she told them. "We only want to help."
Several things happened at once. Tripley punched a button and the air lock started to close. Kane snouted a warning to Emily that they couldn't hear her and to get out of the way. The butterfly image vanished from the screen.
Foolishly, Emily held her ground, blocking the vessel's route back through the door, which was closing fast. "Please," she said. "Give us a chance."
Twin beams of red light lanced from the fork on the ship's prow. They struck her squarely in the abdomen and propelled her into the air lock and sent her tumbling out the door. Tripley screamed and made a grab for her but he succeeded only in changing her course and very nearly going out himself. He stared after her retreating form, turned, and charged the turtle-shell. Kane ordered Tripley to stop. But it was too late.
The mission director seized the microship and his momentum carried both of them across the chamber.
They crashed into a wall and Tripley bounced away in the zero gravity, still holding tight to the celestial.
The outer door closed.
"Going to one gee," Kane said.
Tripley and the microship fell to the floor.
Emily, picked up by one of the screens, continued drifting away, trailing red bubbles.
"Monitoring zero-" Kane's voice broke. He needed a moment to regain control and finish: "-Zero pulse."
Yoshi was adamant. "I say we turn them loose. Turn them loose, get away from here, and forget it ever happened."
"They killed Emily," said Tripley. "How can we just let them go?"
"They were scared. They wanted out."
"There was no need."
Kane broke in: "Nobody has more reason than I do to want the little bastards dead." He stopped and his jaw worked. "But this is a special case. Yoshi's right. Point them toward the hydrogen-" he meant the gas giant, "-and let them go."
Tripley shook his head. "That means she'd have died for nothing. What do we tell people when we get home? We found some celestials, but they didn't want to talk a whole lot. Don't know how the ship works, we didn't get a chance to ask. Don't know where they're from. Otherwise ask us anything. By the way, we lost Emily."
"What do you want to do?" asked Kane.
"I say we take them with us. We're committed. For God's sake, Markis, we've paid the price. We owe it to her."
"If we'd used our heads-"
"It's late for recriminations. You want me to take the blame? Okay, it's my fault."
"That doesn't bring her back, Kile."
"I know. It was stupid. We took a chance. But we've got to make it count for something. How could we possibly walk away from this now?"
**"A"i7e?" Yoshi's voice, strained. "I don't think any body'll thank us for this."
"What do you mean? How can you say that? This is it! It's the Holy Grail."
"People will be happy to have the discovery, but we'll be a laughingstock."
Tripley shook his head desperately. "You wanted to bring them on board as much as I did."
"Think about it," said Yoshi. "We don't know what kind of hypercomm messages they've been sending out.
Look out for the giants with their open doors. Shoot on sight. What do you think people are going to say to the pictures of you charging the ship and banging it against a wall?"
"Markis, is that really on the log?"
"Yes, I'm afraid so, Kile."
"My God. But the bastards are killers."
"Only because they were being hijacked," insisted Yoshi. "That's the way they saw it. And the way the media will play it. Look, I'm not trying to blame anybody. But we need to think about this. Reputations, careers, everything's going to go. We'll even show up in the history books as dummies of the first order.
They'll be laughing at us for centuries."
They were in mission control. Emily's body had been retrieved and placed in her bunk. The celestial was centered on their screens, lying pinned by gravity to the cargo deck. "We can't just throw this away,"
Tripley pleaded.
No one answered.