Excerpt
from Chapter 30: “Nosedive” Rescues the Tentacle
“Somehow they think that if I monitor my life-form indicator, we’ll be able to find it,” Scotty said. “They say it’s a little being, clinging to a rock.”
Readying a nice little vat of sterile solution and protein broth, she set it to “warm”, guessing, and turned again to Jim.
“I think I might have found it,” she told him, “and my life-form sensors seem to think that it may be a protein-based organism. So that’s what I’m setting up, as a rescue vat. But, I’m not sure of the exact location.”
“Reduce the sensitivity of your life-form sensors and set them to audio,” Jim told her.
For a moment there was no sound in the spaceship. Then, a low beeping started.
Jim maneuvered the ship up, above the meteor group, then applied just enough thrust, from the left thruster, to set the ‘Nosedive” hovering, circling like a hawk.
The audio signal tapered off, stopped; picked up again. He let the “Nosedive” drift gyroscopically until the sound was strongest, then applied the thrusters again, in a short burn, to straighten out. Then, he followed the slanting line in, using only enough thrust to avoid meteor collisions, and flying as slowly as possible.
“You’re going to have to look for it,” he told Scotty. “Keep adjusting the life form sensor lower, as we get closer, so we can home in on it. But, also, while you’re getting into your spacesuit,” she was already doing that, “look ahead through the front window. You take the right, and I’ll take the left.”
She leaned forward, still adjusting her space suit.
“I don’t know how we’re going to be able to see it, though,” Jim said, not taking his eyes away from the viewscreen. “I gather it’s small.”
“We have no description,” Scotty told him. “But we really only have the facilities to rescue a small one.”
For a moment she let the excitement come through in her voice. Then, “We’ll be able to handle it,” she said. “If it’s too large for this rescue vat, I can do a bigger one, in the cargo bay. But, where is it?! We might not have much time. I don’t know how long it was before we picked up the radio broadcast.”
Worried, she leaned closer to the righthand side of the viewscreen, then flicked a green, low-intensity light on, on that side.
“I think that’s it,” she said, in a hushed tone of voice.
She pointed to a little tentacle-shaped green curlicue, wrapped around an outcrop of rock, like a grapnel. The lower part of its body had settled into a coiled up mass. She couldn’t tell if it was coiled, or gelatinous, but it looked...comfy, but clinging...clinging to hope, she thought. Because they would never have been able to see it, if it had been all coiled up at the bottom. It was the part clinging to the outcrop that had caught her eye.
“I’m bringing her in,” Jim said, softly. “I don’t know how you’ll be able to get it untangled from that rock, but, if you have to, break that off and bring it in with you.”
He brought the “Nosedive” in close, being careful to keep the blast from his thrusters well away from the being. Then he settled the “Nosedive” into a parallel course with the meteor, toward where earth had been (the Lyrids still thought it was in the same place, anyway, he thought), and matched speeds.
“On hover,” he said to Scotty. “Use the upper hatch and automatic ladder, but be sure you’re on tether.”
“Will do,” she murmured. Would the being need to be encased in anything, before she was able to get it into the vat? It looked like it would fit in the vat, though. Also, if it was surviving, here, would it need to be in a vacuum? But she reminded herself they were rescuing it. Some organisms can survive in a vacuum for a while, she thought to herself. I’ll bet some can survive like that for many years. But, maybe not this one. Maybe they have to go through special training, like yoga, to be able to do that...
Closing the airlock in the back, and locking herself in to one of the tethers, she opened the hatch and rode the automatic ladder up to the roof of the “Nosedive”. She would just be able to reach it, with the ladder up at max, she thought. She reached her arms up, and stepped up to the second highest step, pressing her ankle firmly against the ladder, wedging it against it. It might take some pressure, if she had to break off this outcropping of rock. But some meteoritic materials, especially the igneous ones, break off fairly easily, she thought to herself. Hopefully, I won’t have to, but maybe it would be possible, without using too much force.
As she reached up, not exactly sure how to touch it, she cupped her hands together, forming a sort of bowl. She hadn’t realized how big these spacesuit gloves really were, cumbersome as they sometimes feel, she thought. Before she could touch the being, it gave a little shake, as if it were waking up, and its uppermost part looked down at her. Seeing her there, it seemed startled, but, still sleepy, acquiescing, it released its hold on the outcropping of rock, and whatever hold it might have had on the rock below, and fell into her outstretched arms. Most of it landed in her hands, but, since there was a little extra, she pressed it all gently to her body, and used her elbow to press the “down” button on the automatic ladder.
The ladder slowly descended, and as soon as she and the being were in, she pressed the “close hatch” button. The hatch closed with a click, and she called through her spacesuit intercom to Jim, “We’re in!”
“Great!” he answered. “Nice work!”
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