Lifeline

But why? Nothing on Earth could help him. If he was lucky, some amateur radio operator might pick up the signal, but to what purpose? Had the Filipino boy gone crazy? Did he hope that someone on Earth would relay the message to Orbitech 1? Not if he spoke nonsensical gibberish.

“Anna, please listen to me!” Karen Langelier’s voice burst out of the intercom speakers.

“Be quiet!” Anna shouted.

The sudden stillness in the control room closed around her, making Anna feel the churning anxiety. Her head pounded, and she found herself breathing shallowly. Why was it so cold in here?

“Computer, raise the temperature in the command center!”

Ramis Barrera’s transmission had upset her. She didn’t know how to respond. Anna struck the arm of the command chair with a fist. “Who is it? What is he saying?”

Chapter 57

L-5—Day 72

It was not the hissing sound of static that brought Luis Sandovaal out of his sleep inside the sail-creature’s core. He had been dreaming of airships flying over Baguio City in the summer heat. But he immediately snapped awake upon hearing the clipped, high-pitched sounds of a message being shouted in Tagalog.

Tagalog!

It seemed like a dream. Sandovaal blinked open his eyes, not quite believing that he was hearing his native Filipino tongue.

“—if you can hear me! Dobo, Dr. Sandovaal—this is Ramis. Steer away from L-5! Somehow, you must get away. The Kibalchich plans to destroy Orbitech 1 with some sort of weapon. Save yourself and warn Orbitech 1! Please hear me—I cannot risk transmitting again. Holy Mother Maria, watch over all of us.”

The transmission cut off.

Sandovaal drew in deep breaths. It was not a dream. He glanced at the radio, bringing his head up from the soft wall of the sail-creature’s body. His helmet distorted the view, but he did not dare sleep without his suit, since even a small leak in the sail-creature’s cyst would destroy the fragile internal environment.

Sandovaal yanked off his helmet and listened to the radio speaker, raw and unfiltered from the bone-conduction circuit in his helmet. He heard little hissing or static. That was nothing unusual, but still … had he really heard Ramis’s voice?

Holy Mother Maria …

The boy had never much embraced Catholicism, but Sandovaal remembered the day that his parents had been killed in the accident. The boy had stood with his head bent down, President Magsaysay holding his shoulders, and had wiped a single tear from his face. It seemed to usher in the era of rebellion, his assertion that there was nothing on the Aguinaldo—or in the universe—that could stop him in his quest to prove himself.

Holy Mother Maria.

Sandovaal punched up the direct communications link and discovered that it was already on. “Dobo, wake up!”

“I am awake, Dr. Sandovaal,” came Dobo’s reply. “That was Ramis on the radio. What are we going to do? We will be over the center of the Lagrange well in an hour.”

If Dobo had heard the transmission, too, then Sandovaal was not imagining things. He scowled, already burying himself in the problem. “Let me think, Dobo.”

He did not bother quizzing his assistant on the consequences of possible decisions. He would have to decide for himself. Dobo would look to him for answers—and Ramis himself was obviously hoping that Sandovaal could rescue them all. The boy would never expect a proud and brave Filipino like Sandovaal to heed the warning he had issued.

Sandovaal drew in a deep breath and smelled the humid musk of wall-kelp. He reached out and switched on the outside monitor. The sail-creatures moved slowly enough that he could not risk a rash decision—any alteration in trajectory would take a long time to correct. He pondered what he could do that would have a suitable … flair.

At the moment, the cluster of sail-creatures were headed for a point just above the ecliptic plane, where they would perform a final tacking to stop their motion relative to the L-5 gravity well. The movement was programmed into the flight computer that controlled motion stimulus to the mosaic of creatures. Orbitech 1 would be ready to send out its emissaries with MMUs to help the two of them exit from their sail-creatures and to package up the dormant nymphs for the return journey.

Sandovaal swung the exterior camera around and surveyed the broad armada of sails. They were oriented perpendicular to the Sun, already slowing in their journey, converting kinetic energy to potential. Soon, the computer-generated signal would initiate one last command, to tack to a slow drift. Sandovaal inched the camera to a view of Orbitech 1 and panned across to the torus of the Kibalchich. Everything seemed tranquil and unmoving.

Save yourself and warn Orbitech 1, Ramis had called. The boy was not one to make up fanciful stories. Sandovaal knew he could take him at his word.