Lifeboat Read online

  Also by Harry Harrison

  Star Smashers of the Galaxy

  Rangers Planet of the Damned

  The Technicolor Time Machine

  The Best of Harry Harrison

  Lifeboat

  Harry Harrison and Gordon R. Dickson

  First published in Great Britain in 1977 by Futura Publications Limited Reprinted 1985

  Copyright © Harry Harrison and Gordon R. Dickson 1977

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  ISBN 0 7088 81688

  Printed in Great Britain by Richard Clay (The Chaucer Press) Ltd,

  Bungay, Suffolk

  Futura Publications

  A division of Macdonald & Co (Publishers) Ltd Holywell House Worship Street London EC2A 2EN

  A BPCC pic Company

  Lifeboat

  1

  The explosion drummed and shuddered all through the fabric of the Albenareth spaceship, just as Giles reached the foot of the ladder leading up from the baggage area into passenger territory. He grabbed the railing of the spiral staircase that was the ladder and hung on. But almost on the heels of the first tremor came an unexpected second explosion that tore him loose and threw him against the further wall of the corridor, smashing him into the metal surface.

  Stunned, he stumbled back to his feet. He began to pull himself up the staircase as fast as he could, gaining speed as he went His mind cleared. He could not have been unconscious for more than a few seconds, he thought At the top of the stairs he turned hastily back down an upper corridor toward the stem and his own stateroom. But this wider, passenger corridor was already filling with obstacles in the shape of bewildered, small, gray-suited men and women—arbites indent to Belben; and abruptly the loud and terrible moaning of an emergency, ship-out-of-control signal erupted into life and continued without pause. Already the atmosphere of the corridor had the acrid taste of smoke, and there were cries to him for help from thehalf-seen figures of the arbites.

  The incredible was happening. Below them and around them all, the great spaceship had evidently caught fire from the two explosions, and was now helpless, a brief new star falling through the endless distances of interstellar space. Spaceships were not supposed to bum, especially the massive vessels of the Albenareth —but this one was doing so.

  A coldness began to form in the pit of Giles’ stomach; for the air around him was already warming and now beginning to haze with the smoke, and the sounds of arbite terror he heard tore at his conscience like sharp and jagged icicles.

  He fought off his ingrained response toward the frightened indentees around him, walling it off, surrounding it with his own fury. He had a job to do, a duty to finish. That came first, before anyone or anything. The arbites aboard were not his direct responsibility. He began to run, dodging the hands of the reaching figures that loomed up through the smoke ahead of him, brushing them aside, now and then hurdling a fallen one who could not be sidestepped.

  And all the while around the cold core in him, his fury grew. He put on speed. Now there was occasional debris in the corridor; here and there, panels in the walls, glimpsed through the smoke, sagged away from him like sheets of melting wax. None of this should be happening. There was no reason for wholesale disaster. But he had no time now to figure out what had gone wrong. The moans and cries of the arbite passengers still tore at him, but he plunged on.

  A darker, narrower-than-human figure loomed suddenly out of the smoke before him. A long, oddly boned hand, a three-fingered hand, caught his bright-orange shipsuit and held him.

  “To a lifeship!” brayed the Albenareth crewman, almost buzzing the human words. “Turn about Go forward! Not to the stem.”

  Giles checked his instinct to surge against the restraining hand. He was large and powerful, stronger by far than any arbite, except those bred and trained to special uses; but he knew better than to try to pull loose from the apparently skinny fingers holding him.

  “My Honor!” he shouted at the alien, using the first words he could think of to which an Albenareth mind might respond. “Duty —my obligation! I’m Steel—Giles Steel Ashad, an Adelman! The only Adelman aboard here. Don’t you recognize me?”

  The alien and he were trapped in a moment of motionlessness. The dark, lipless, narrow face stared into his from inches away. Then the hand of the Albenareth let go and the alien mouth opened in the dry cackling laughter that meant many things, but not humor.

  “Go!” said the crewman. Giles turned and ran on.

  Just a little farther brought him to the door of his suite. The metal handle burned his fingers and he let go. He kicked the door with a grunt of effort, and it burst open. Within, the bitter taste of thick smoke took him solidly by the throat.

  He groped his way to his travel bag, jerked it open, and pulled out the metal box inside it. Coughing, he punched out the combination, and the lock of the box let go, the lid sprang open. Hastily he pawed through the mass of papers within. His fingers closed on the warrant for extradition, crammed it into a suit pocket, and dipped down to rip open the destruct trigger that would incinerate the box with all the rest of its contents. A white-hot flare shot up before him and the metal frame of the container collapsed like melting ice. He turned, hesitated, and pulled tools from inside his shipsuit. He had meant to hide these carefully, once his job was done; but there was no point in hiding anything now. Still coughing, he tossed the tools into the heat of the still-flaring container, turned, and plunged once more into the clearer air of the corridor, heading back finally toward the bow of the vessel and the particular lifeship he had been assigned to.

  The Albenareth crewman was gone from his post when Giles passed that point again. Under the ceiling lights, the corridor was misty with smoke, but free now even of the figures of arbites. A small hope flickered in him. Perhaps someone else had taken charge of them by this time. He ran on. He was almost to the lifeship. There were voices in conversation just ahead—then something large and dark seemed to flicker up in front of him, out of nowhere, and something else that felt like a giant flyswatter slapped him from his feet.

  He was momentarily staggered, but recovering even as he fell backward to the soft surface of the corridor. His head clearing, he lay for a second fighting to stay conscious. Now that he was down where the smoke was thinner, he could see that he had run into a door someone had left standing open. As he lay there, he heard two arbite voices—one male, one young and female—talking.

  “You heard that? The ship’s breaking up,” the man said. “There’s no point our waiting out here now. The lifeship’s just down that short hall. Let’s go.”

  “No, Mara. Wait ... we were supposed to wait ...” The man’s voice hailed off.

  “What’re you afraid of, Groce?” The girl’s voice had an edge to it. “You act as if you don’t dare breathe without permission from her! Do you want to stay here and choke to death?”

  “It’s all right for you ...” muttered the male voice. “I’ve never been mixed up in anything. My record’s perfect.”

  “If you think that matters—”

  Giles head was clear now. He rolled to his feet in one quick motion, stepped around the open door, and joined the two smaller gray-suited figures beyond it.

  “All right,” he said, crisply. “You’re correct, girl. The lifeship’s just down the corridor, here. You—what’s your name? Groce? Lead off!”

  The male arbite turned without a word and obeyed, responding in
stinctively to the note of command he would have heard from Adelborn all the days of his life. He was a short, round-headed, stocky man in early middle age. For a second, before following, Giles glanced curiously at the girl arbite. She was small, as all those of the lower class were, but good-looking for an arbite. Under her light-brown, close-cropped hair, her pale, narrow face was composed and unafraid. No doubt some high-caste blood in her ancestry somewhere, Giles thought “Good girl,” he said more gently. “You follow me, now. Hang on to my jacket if the smoke gets too thick to see.”

  He patted her on the head before stepping out in front of her. He had turned away and did not see the sudden wild flash of indignation and anger that twisted her features as his hand touched her head. But the look was gone almost as soon as it had appeared. She followed him with the normal calmness of arbite expression on her face.

  Giles reached out ahead to close his hand on the right shoulder of Groce. The man flinched at the touch.

  “Steady, there!” snapped Giles. “All you have to do is obey. Move, now!”

  “Yes, Honor,” muttered Groce, doubtfully. But his shoulder squared under Giles’ fingers. His step became firmer, and he led the way into the smoky corridor.

  The smoke thickened. They all coughed. Giles felt the hand of the girl, Mara, grope for the slack of his jacket in back and take hold of it.

  “Keep moving!” said Giles, between coughs. “It can’t be much further.”

  Suddenly they came up against a barrier.

  “A door,” said Groce.

  “Open it. Go on through!” snapped Giles, impatiently. The arbite obeyed—and suddenly they were all in a small area where the smoke was less dense. Mara pushed closed behind them the door by which they had just entered.

  There was another door directly in front of them, also closed. A heavy airlock door. Stepping past Groce, Giles pushed at it without being able to open it, then pounded on its activating button with his fist The door opened slowly, swinging inward, away from them. Beyond was an airlock space and a further airlock door, open.

  “Go,” said Giles briefly to the two arbites, pointing to the other open lock. Mara obeyed, but Groce hesitated.

  “Honor, sir?” he asked. “Please—what happened to the spaceliner?”

  “An explosion somewhere aft. I don’t know what caused it,” answered Giles, shortly. “Go ahead, now. The lifeship’s through the further lock, there.”

  Groce still hesitated.

  “What if there’s others coming?” he asked.

  “Anyone coming will be here soon,” Giles said. “With this smoke already in the corridors, there isn’t much time. This lifeship is going to have to be launched soon.”

  “But what if, when I get inside—”

  “When you get inside,” Giles said, “there’ll be an Albenareth there to tell you what to do. There’s an alien officer in charge of any lifeship. Now, move!”

  Groce went. Giles turned back to make sure that the airlock door behind him was closed. The smoke was eddying around him, although he could not see the source of the air current that was moving it, now that the shipside airlock door was closed. A loudspeaker over the closed door echoed suddenly to the sound of distant coughing.

  “Sir,” said the voice of Groce, unexpectedly behind him, “there isn’t any Albenareth in the lifeship yet.”

  “Get back inside. Wait there!” he snapped at the arbite, without turning his head. The sound of coughing from the loudspeaker was louder now, echoed by the clang of stumbling feet approaching. One of those coming, Giles thought, had better be the Albenareth officer. Giles could pilot his own yacht around the Solar System, but as for handling an alien lifeship ...

  He punched the “open” button. The inner lock door swung wide. Dim figures were stumbling toward him in the smoke. Giles swore. They were all human, dressed alike in the dusty gray of their arbite shipsuits. There were five of them, he counted as they came closer, clinging to one another’s clothing, several of them whimpering when they were not coughing. The one in front was an angular, gray-haired woman who dipped her head briefly in an automatic gesture of respect when she saw him. He opened the inner door and motioned them inside, moving aside so they would not brush against him as they went. Before the last one was in, the corridor lights flickered, went out, came bade on again—then died completely.

  Giles closed the door behind the five and touched the glow button on his watch. Under normal conditions the light from the dial was normally quite strong, but now it only lit up the rolling smoke, let in from the corridor. The air holding the smoke was hotter too; the fire could not be far away. He was coughing again, and could not control it, his head aching from the fumes.

  With a sharp clang a section of the airlock wall fell away and Giles turned in that direction. The air current from a hidden source was suddenly stronger, and there was an elongated opening in what had appeared to be solid metal. The smoke was being sucked into it strongly. In the partially clear air a tall, thin form appeared, stooping with its head to pass through the opening.

  “About time!” Giles said, coughing. The Albenareth did not answer him, moving quickly in a typical broken-kneed gait to the lock, with Giles close behind. Once they were both inside, the Albenareth turned and dogged shut the inner lock door. The action spoke for itself; the clash of the dogged lock echoed on Giles’ ears like the closing of a coffin lid.

  The voices of the arbites had dropped into silence as the Albenareth and Giles entered, and those already there moved warily aside from the alien. Still silent, the gaunt figure reached down into a slot in the soft flooring and pulled up a metal frame laced with flexible plastic. It was an acceleration cot, and a good deal of dust came up with it.

  “Open the cots like this,” the Albenareth ordered, the human words coming out at last high-pitched and buzzing. “Strap down. Motions will be abrupt.”

  In the continuing silence, he turned and strode to the control console in the lifeship’s nose, and belted himself into one of the two control chairs there. His three-fingered hands moved swiftly. Lights glowed on the panels and the two viewscreens before him came to life, showing only the out-of-focus metal walls of the lifeship capsule. Giles and the arbites aboard had just enough time to pull up their cots before the launch button was hit They clutched at the frames of their cots as the sudden acceleration pounced on them.

  Explosive charges blew away the hull section covering the lifeship capsule. Gravity forces pressed them hard against the webbing of their cots, as the lifeship was hurled away from its mother ship, into space. The acceleration changed direction as the life-ship’s drive took over and moved it away from the dying ship; and a nauseating sensation rippled through their bodies as they left the gravity field of the larger vessel and the weaker grav-simulation field of the lifeship came on.

  Giles was aware of all this only absently. Automatically his hands were locked tightly about the metal frame of his cot to keep him from being thrown off it, but his eyes were fixed on the right of the two viewscreens in the bow. The screen on the left showed only stars, but the right-hand screen gave a view directly astern, a view filled with the image of the burning, dying ship.

  There was no relation between the jumble of wreckage seen there and the ship they had boarded in orbit high above the equator of Earth, twelve days before. Twisted and tom metal glowed white-hot in the darkness of space. Some lights still showed in sections of the hull, but most of it was dark. The glowing wreckage had shrunk to the size of a hot ember as they hurtled away from it; now it maintained a constant size and moved from screen to screen as they orbited about it. The Albenareth that had joined them was speaking into a grille below one of the screens, in the throbbing buzz of his own tongue. He or she was pronouncing what were clearly the same words, over and over again, until there was a scratching hiss from the speaker and another voice answered. There was a rapid discussion as the burning wreck was centered on the forward screen, then began to grow in size once more.

/>   “We’re going back!” an arbite voice shouted hysterically from the darkness. “Stop him! We’re going back!”

  “Be quiet!” Giles said, automatically. “All of you—that’s an order!” After a second, he added, “The Albenareth knows what has to be done. No one else can pilot this ship.”

  In silence the arbites continued to watch as the image of thewreckage grew before them, enlarging until it filled the screen— until it appeared they were driving down into it. But the smooth play of the Albenareth’s six long fingers on the control console keys controlled the lifeship’s motion, sent it drifting inward, slipping past jagged fangs of steel that swam into view in the lifeship’s forward viewscreen. Suddenly, there was a smooth, unscarred section of hull before them and they clanged against it. Magnetic clamps thudded as they locked on, and the lifeship was moved spasmodically, with loud grating sounds, as it was orientated with something on the hull. Then the alien rose from the controls, turned, and strode back to undog the airlock. The inner door ground open—then the outer one.

  There was no rush of air, for they were sealed tight to another airlock—one on the spaceliner. The outer door of this lock, chilled from space and white-frosted with condensation, opened a crack, then stopped. The Albenareth wrapped a fold of his smocklike garment around his hands, seized the open edge, and pulled strongly until it opened all the way. Smoke haze beyond it cleared briefly to reveal another airlock and the gaunt figures of two more Albenareth.

  There was a rapid conversation between the three aliens. Giles could make out no expression on the creased and wrinkled dark skin of their faces. Their eyes were round and unreadable. They punctuated their words with snapping gestures of their threefingered hands, opening and closing the mutually opposed fingers. Suddenly, their talk ceased. Both the first Albenareth and one of the others reached out to touch the fingertips of both their hands, briefly, with those of the third, who stood deepest within the lock.