2061 Odyssey Three

chapter 30 Galaxy Down
In the wardroom, the sudden surge of full thrust came like a stay of execution. The horrified officers had seen the collapse of the chosen landing site, and knew that there was only one way of escape. Now that Chang had taken it, they once more permitted themselves the luxury of breath.

But how long they could continue to enjoy that experience, no-one could guess. Only Chang knew whether the ship had enough propellant to reach a stable orbit; and even if it did, Captain Laplace thought gloomily, the lunatic with the gun might order him down again. Though he did not for a minute believe that she really was a lunatic; she knew exactly what she was doing.

Suddenly, there was a change in thrust.

'Number Four motor's just cut,' said an engineering officer. 'I'm not surprised - probably overheated. Not rated for so long at this level.'

There was, of course, no sense of any directional change - the reduced thrust was still along the ship's axis - but the views on the monitor screens had tilted crazily. Galaxy was still ascending, but no longer vertically. She had become a ballistic missile, aimed at some unknown target on Europa.

Once more, the thrust dropped abruptly; across the video monitors, the horizon became level again.

'He's cut the opposite motor - only way to stop us cartwheeling - but can he maintain altitude - good man!'

The watching scientists could not see what was good about it; the view on the monitors had disappeared completely, obscured by a blinding white fog.

'He's dumping excess propellant - lightening the ship -'

The thrust dwindled away to zero; the ship was in free fall. In a few seconds, it had dropped through the vast cloud of ice crystals created when its dumped propellant had exploded into space. And there beneath it, approaching at a leisurely one-eighth of a gravity acceleration, was Europa's central sea. At least Chang would not have to select a landing site; from now on, it would be standard operating procedure, familiar as a video game to millions who had never gone into space, and never would.

All you had to do was to balance the thrust against gravity, so that the descending ship reached zero velocity at zero altitude. There was some margin for error, but not much, even for the water landings which the first American astronauts had preferred, and which Chang was now reluctantly emulating. If he made a mistake - and after the last few hours, he could scarcely be blamed - no home computer would say to him: 'Sorry - you've crashed. Would you like to try again? Answer YES/NO...'

Second Officer Yu and his two companions, waiting with their improvised weapons outside the locked door of the bridge, had perhaps been given the toughest assignment of all. They had no monitor screens to tell them what was happening, and had to rely on messages from the wardroom. Nor had there been anything through the spy mike, which was hardly surprising. Chang and McCullen had very little time or need for conversation.

The touchdown was superb, with hardly a jolt. Galaxy sank a few extra metres, then bobbed up again, to float vertically and - thanks to the weight of the engines - in the upright position.

It was then that the listeners heard the first intelligible sounds through the spy mike.

'You maniac, Rosie,' said Chang's voice, more in resigned exhaustion than anger. 'I hope you're satisfied. You've killed us all.'

There was one pistol shot, then a long silence.

Yu and his colleagues waited patiently, knowing that something was bound to happen soon. Then they heard the locking levers being unlatched, and gripped the spanners and metal bars they were carrying. She might get one of them, but not all -The door swung open, very slowly.

'Sorry,' said Second Officer Chang. 'I must have passed out for a minute.'

Then, like any reasonable man, he fainted again.