Salvation

It was two flights of stairs up to the walkway that led to the top of the tanks. He was sweating by the time he got up there. The cases were heavy, and he had an electron cutter slung over his back.

Loader rails ran parallel to the walkway, silent and still since the pressure warning started. He glanced at the blue plastic canisters frozen in position, stretching all the way back to the loading bay. Each one had a prominent radiation warning emblem. Ordinarily that might bother him; today he just didn’t care. Like they’re going to make a difference if we screw up.

Dokal had shown him the confidential file Johnston had provided. It had estimates of the potential damage should the tank rupture. Likely quantity of plutonium particles to spew out, wind patterns, ground dispersal…Emergency evacuation procedures to enact for anyone within two hundred kilometers, contamination effects on local wildlife and vegetation. Cost of a clear-up—shocking in both financial and environmental terms.

“Mini Chernobyl,” she had said grimly.

Apollo had shown him that file. It banished his usual level of confidence, which he fought hard to hide from his crew.

They arrived at the cluster of tanks. Each one had a couple of airlocks on top, the size of oil drums, with a feeder mechanism above them to channel the canisters off the loader rails.

“Alana, clear the insulation off the top of our tank, enough for a blister. Moshi, get me a temperature reading, then prep a puncture charge. Colin, the blister, please. And guys—”

They turned to look at him, caught by the unaccustomed gravity in his voice.

“Calm and careful, okay? We cannot afford screwups.”

“You got it, chief.”

While the others got organized, he took a minute to study the tank and the lattice of steel girders that held it in place, working out where the supports would have to be cut. The schematic his mInet threw up across the hazmat helmet visor confirmed the load points. Twenty of the bastards.

Alana used a power plane to slice the insulation foam off the tank, cutting a circle more than a meter across.

“Thirty-eight Celsius,” Moshi said. “That’s well inside tolerance.”

“Good,” Callum said. “Let’s keep it that way. Place the charge.”

Colin put the puncture charge in the middle of the area—a black plastic circle like a fat coin, three centimeters across.

Callum opened the first of his cases. The portal it contained was a disk thirty centimeters in diameter. On one side it was a hole that opened into a metallic chamber in Haumea station, while the other side was a twenty-centimeter strata of molecular circuitry, stabilizing the entanglement. When Callum looked through, the portal was facing a wide airlock hatch, with amber caution lights strobing around it. As always, he had to resist sticking his hand through and wiggling it around.

“Henry? How are we doing?”

“I’m in the ventchamber. Portal is locked in position. Ready to open outer door.” Henry’s space-suited hand came into view through the portal, giving a thumbs-up.

“Stand by.”

Colin held up the blister—a hemisphere of incredibly tough metalloceramic, with a meld-bonding rim. Callum twisted the portal disk into its locking slots in the apex of the blister, and they both lowered it onto the patch Alana had prepared.

“Seal it,” Callum said. “Henry, open the ventchamber hatch, please.”

“Confirmed, chief. Opening now.”

Callum watched the data Apollo was throwing onto his visor display, seeing the pressure inside the blister wind down to zero. “Fitz, status, please.”

“Haumea systems all stable,” the operations director said. “Portal power supply confirmed and buffered. You’re go, Cal.”

“Raina, update?”

“Blister seal melded to the tank. It’s secure, Cal. Good to go.”

“Thank you. Moshi, blow the puncture charge.”

There was a dull crump from the blister. Callum heard a loud whistling sound. Apollo showed him the pressure in the blister rising sharply.

“It’s venting, chief,” Henry reported. “Good plume. Mostly gas. Some particles.”

It took three minutes for the tank to empty. Callum, Moshi, Alana, and Colin all kept watch on the casing, but although it trembled as the gas was expelled, nothing else happened; the whistling noise reduced to nothing after a couple of minutes. “Right, then. Let’s get it prepped for dumping,” Callum said. “Henry, I’m looking to start threading up in about an hour.”

“I’ll be ready at this end, chief.”

Moshi had the job of blowing the horizontal support struts that fastened the tank to the surrounding lattice. He clambered along the metal girders, fixing a double charge to each strut. Alana and Colin used their electron beam cutters and severed the disposal pipe at the bottom of the tank below the jammed valve, then went on to slice out a two-meter section. When they were finished, there was a clear space below the valve.