Man-Kzin Wars IX, Larry Niven [leveled readers TXT] 📗

Sweat gleamed on his brow. Tyra felt it on her own face and soaking her armpits. She wondered how much of it was due to excitement—fear?—and how much was the body trying to maintain temperature. The compartment, the whole interior had gotten unpleasantly warm, and still the temperature crept upward.

The thermostatics weren't failing; they struggled as best they could against an input for which they weren't intended. Caroline had unfolded her extra radiation surfaces, like huge wings, their thinness tilted normal to the swollen sun-disc. Unless you have vapor to release, as the kzin venturer had had, radiation is the single way to shed excess heat in space, and it does not work very fast.

The wings of an angel, speeding on an errand of mercy— Memories arose of themselves in Tyra, childhood, church, the steel steeple of St. Joachim's shining above Munchen . . . during the kzinti occupation, it stood in more human minds than hers as a symbol of freedom, eventual liberation, but you seldom said such things aloud, never where kzinti might hear, because then they would likely tear it down. . . .

Caroline was closing in, sensors at maximum, autopilot adjusting vectors like a high-wire walker. . . . Yes, Wunderlanders had revived quite a few such acts during the war, more often performed for live audiences than cameras, another silent declaration that humans were not cattle. . . .

Optics gave a clear view of the sundiver, massive, ungainly against the stars, but—she must admit—its own sign of indomitability. She could magnify until a single section filled the screen for close study. She saw the holes strewn over the outer hull, small, not really very many, but sufficient to let the water seethe unchecked away. And forward she identified a damaged outercom dish. That explained why there had been no contact on any band. The damage didn't look great to her. Crew could readily have fixed it and regained communication, except that none could venture outside and live to do the work. Could a robot? Kzinti technology seemed to lag others when it came to robotics. Nevertheless— But maybe there was no robot, or maybe no person left who was able to dispatch one.

Minute by minute, the image expanded. Caroline was closing swiftly in on the reality.

Raden finished at the keyboard, rose, and stretched, seeking to limber muscles too long tautened. "Is the medical care station ready?" he asked. Laying everything out for that had been her job.

"Yes," she snapped.

"I'm sorry. Stupid of me to ask. You're always competent." He sighed. "Not long now. I damn near wish it were. Then we could perhaps— But we'd better prepare ourselves."

She gave him a smile.

He did pause to frown at the spacecraft's image. "Quite a bombardment," he muttered. "I doubt it holed the inner hull. I'd expect somewhat different spectroscopic readings in that case, and sheer off right away. As is, all we know is that it's an oven inside there."

They started aft. "Have you any idea what did it?" she asked. "Does Pele have a ring of meteoroids?"

"No, Maria would have identified one, even a thin strewing of gravel, and told us. Implausible anyway, on general principles. I have been speculating, though, whenever I got a chance. A notion has occurred to me. It may be utterly wrong."

An eagerness flickered amidst the forebodings. "What is it? I promise not to laugh."

"Thanks. I badly needed a grin." Raden spoke on as they made their way to the space gear lockers and busied themselves there. "Do you remember the anomalous iron content Maria found in the high Kumukahi atmosphere?" She nodded. "We don't yet know what spews it out. I'd say the best guess is convulsions in the planetary body; then rising air currents—what storms those must be!—bring it aloft. Pele isn't an ultraviolet emitter on the scale of Sol or Alpha A, but that close, Kumukahi surely gets plenty to split molecules or radicals into atoms—ionized atoms—once they're up where the air is thin. Then—here's my guess—tremendous magnetic fields are interacting, the star's and the planet's, changeably, chaotically. It may result in vortices that pull ferromagnetic atoms together over an enormous range. They join into macroscopic clumps, pellets, perhaps still carrying some charge. Then a surge in the fields accelerates them to escape velocity, or nearly. They're thrown out of the atmosphere, probably in bursts, like shotgun fire. The sundiver ran into a cluster. The planet had given her such a velocity of her own that the encounter riddled her.

"Whether I'm right or wrong, the notion suggests precautions for the future, doesn't it? We need data, data, data, observations, missions, year after year before we can hope to make a halfway decent computer model." His tone and eyes came ablaze. "Unique in our experience. What a wild fluke of luck! What a chance to learn!"

For a moment the enthusiasm caught her too. She had always been fascinated by science, but none of her men before now had been scientists. To see, to be a part, of truly doing it— If nothing else, life with Craig would never be dull.

The mood chilled and hardened in them both. They had work on hand.

Elementary prudence dictated wearing space gear. It needn't be cumbersome full armor, simply protection against possible hot spots, noxious gases, or the like. They stripped off their clothes—gazes flying up and down, and a pulse in the throat—and took skintights from the suit locker. Those were easy to pull on. The molecules flowed to make a dermis from neck to ankles, shinily reflective, leather-tough, silk-flexible, veined with electronics and tiny capillaries for exuding sweat vapor or other unwanted fluids but sealing the body off from the outside. Boots snuggled similarly to feet and ankles. A backrack went on nearly as readily, for powerpack, airtank, regulators, water supply. The collars of the clear, hard helmets made themselves fast to shoulders and coupled to the rack. The wearers could talk by radio or, with sound amplification, directly; they likewise had good hearing, while sensors woven into the integument