Runaway World

The Remainer

     Widmark was a fit, healthy man. He reached the underside of the cargo rover before Andrew, who was panting as he tried to keep up. Arness arrived soon after to find the first two men stooping to fit under the rover's rear end, staring up at the immaculate steel surface above their heads.

     "How do you open the hatch?" demanded Widmark, pulling at the recessed handle which stubbornly refused to move.

     "I told you, you can't while the inner airlock door's open," Andrew replied. "But there's a way to close it from out here." He began searching the underside of the rover.

     "How long will that take?"

     "Just a couple of minutes."

     "Too long. We'll use explosives. Blow the doors open."

     "You can't do that! You'll decompress the whole rover."

     "I don't have a problem with that," said Arness flatly.

     "Well I do," said Andrew, surprising himself with the firmness of his voice. "If Valentina's not wearing her helmet, it'll kill her. Ah, there it is." A short distance further along was another recessed handle, folded neatly into several short segments. He pulled it out and fitted its segments together to create a long crank handle that he began turning.

     "What are you doing?" asked Widmark.

     "This will close the inner airlock door," Andrew replied. "Unless she's wedged it open. It seems to be turning okay, though." He cranked the handle around and around, grunting with the effort, until a green light lit up beside it. "That's it," he said. "The hatch should open now."

     Widmark pulled at the handle again and this time the hatch opened, releasing a brief gust of air that froze instantly to fall to the ground as a shower of ice crystals. The soldier stared up through the circular hole, wondering how he was going to pull himself up through it, until Andrew reached up to pull down a steel ladder. The soldier gave him a glance of slight annoyance, then began to climb.

     The hatch opened into a cylinder, two metres long, that reached up through the rover's lower level to another hatch in the floor of the airlock. Reaching and opening it, Widmark cautiously raised his eyes high enough to look around. "I can't see her," he said, "but I can only see the airlock."

     "Joe said she wanted to plant explosives around the atomic generator," said Andrew, "so she's probably in the lower level. The access hatch down to it is in the floor of the cockpit. No, wait!" he said as the soldier braced himself to climb up into the airlock. "She shot your two men but she didn't shoot Joe. She let him go."

     "So?" said the soldier.

     "She was probably reluctant to hurt someone she knew. You're strangers. She may have found it easier to shoot strangers. If I go in, I may be able to talk her down without any shooting."

     "She may have killed two of my men," said Widmark coldly. "I'd have no problem shooting her if it proves necessary."

     "What if your bullet hits the atomic generator? You could release a lethal dose of radiation. Let me go in. I may be able to talk her down."

     "I can't risk the life of a civilian. We're trained for this kind of situation."

     "You don't know her. I do. I know what to say. Let me go in."

     "No, Andy!" came Susan's voice over the radio.

     "It's okay, Susy," said Andrew. "It's Val. I can't believe she'll hurt me. Not if I go in unarmed, just to talk. The soldiers had guns. She was defending herself. She can just point a gun at me and tell me to keep back." He turned back to Widmark. "Please," he begged. "Please let me try."