24 Billion and counting

Chapter 20 Escape back to Mars, but love inexplicably fails

We thrust back to the tender, and almost before the lock was shut Mitch lifted off at full power, so that Becky and I were tumbled over each other banging into the seats we should have been strapped into.

"I am sorry both of you, but every second counts and you will not come to any harm. Do not bother to strap in. I am pressurising the tender. As soon as I tell you, take off the suits."

We were thrusting towards the freighter which itself was now swinging to point outwards from the axis of the comet's path. Mitch was really working at a phenomenal pace. He was handling the freighter, working out an injection into a Mars orbit biased towards getting away from the comet as fast as possible, he was controlling the tender on its little orbit from the comet to the tender lock, and he was producing detailed instructions to Becky and me, to minimise mission time. I noted he was cutting corners with many of the safety checks which meant that he was doing quantities of probabilistic number crunching to work out the best odds.

"Remove space suits." The voice was devoid of expression and I guessed Mitch was using every available chip for calculating, rather than for voice control.

Taking off the suits in the confined space of the tender was not easy, but after ten minutes of scrunching squeaking plastic we managed. The tender was not designed to carry four people, and the environmental suits nearly occupied a seat space each. We lay them like bodies on the floor and rested our legs on them.

"That machine is a star performer, Becky. I'd hate to know how much arithmetic he's handling."

Becky looked at me but with tears just leaking from her eyes. Not howling, or grimacing. Just the silent tears of wholly overwhelming grief. "What darling, what's the matter?"

"Henry," she said. "There's a bomb there too. They'll set that off. They'll kill them. They can't kill us and not them too. They'll think there's a bomb with Georgy and Malo, but that's the one in orbit you took out. They'll set them all off. Don't you see? We were never meant to settle on Mars. It was a big swindle to get people to pay for the comet bomb without letting anyone know. And make lots of money for monsters like McDeviot."

"Jesus. You can't be serious."

"We'll ask Mitch when he isn't so busy, but he'll agree with me. Remember I've been doing the work with him."

My mind rejected the theory but in my heart I feared for all of our dear friends. My brain attempted another thought - McDeviot was - but it skidded away refusing to function. I became temporarily numb, and I felt as if a door in my mind momentarily opened, and something dark, yellow-slit-eyed and reptilian skittered out, and the door slammed shut again. I shook myself into the real world once more.

Mitch said tonelessly, "My next instruction will be when the freighter inner lock door is open. Rebecca, you go to the control room by the stairs and start putting on your pressure suit. Lewis you clamp the tender down. Forget the suits. Then, Lewis, you get 

into the lift to the control room. This is most important, for I will as soon as you are in the lift accelerate at two gee away from the comet. Take the lift to the control room. Then you and Rebecca get your pressure suits on as quickly as possible, and into the couches. I will then execute a nine gee eight minute burn. Is all that clear?"

"Yes, Mitch," we said together.

Mitch piloted the tender as if it were his stunt plane, corkscrewing it into the lock and banging it down so cleanly I am sure that it was centred and aligned to a millimetre. Becky wiped her eyes, and we kissed intensely.

"I love you," she said, "see you in a bit."

We heard the outer lock whine closed, the hiss of air, and the inner lock open just that bit earlier than normal with a scream of a motor on maximum load and a thumping wind of released gases that rocked the tender. We could hear the main turbines singing at full speed but no load, waiting for the earliest moment to apply thrust.