John Maddox Roberts - Space Angel by John Maddox Roberts Read Free Book Online

in the hold. But then, she rarely said anything to anybody. Finn, on the other hand, would regale him for hours with stories of his travels and experiences, most of which Kelly decided were outrageous lies. Lafayette continued to ride him unmercifully whenever Kelly's duties threw them together. On one occasion, he complained of this to Torwald.
    "Look, Kelly, traditionally, the newest, youngest man on ship catches hell from the man who was formerly in that position. That's been going on in ships since before Lord Nelson was a middy."
    "Lord who was a what?"
    "Look it up. Now, get back to work."
    The day arrived when they reached the outer rim of the solar system and could go into interstellar drive. Kelly, like all the rest, was a bit light-headed from fasting and using purgatives. The others had assured him that this regimen would make the experience less unpleasant. When the warning came over the intercom, Kelly retired to his compartment, strapped himself on the toilet, and tied a bag over his mouth. One of the physical effects of the Whoopee Drive was that all bodily systems began to behave erratically, causing bowels and bladder to let go and the stomach to convulse in projectile vomiting. Perspiration drenched the body, eyes watered, and the nose streamed mucus. After that came the hallucinations.
    The subsonic twang went through the ship, and
    Kelly braced himself. It did no good. After the worst of the convulsions were over, he saw to his horror that his room swarmed with tiny, metallic termites, and they were nibbling away at the walls of the cabin. When they had eaten through the side, he knew he would die of explosive decompression. They were almost through when the second twang was felt. It was the cockcrow that made spacers' demons return to wherever they came from.
    When he'd washed up, Kelly slowly made his way to the mess, where he found the other crew members, like him, a bit pale and shaky. Michelle was trying to get everyone to eat soup to replace some of the fluids they had lost.
    "Is it always that bad?" Kelly asked Ham in a hoarse croak.
    "Sometimes it's worse. You made it here under your own power, so it wasn't as bad as it could have been. Next time, you'll know something of what to expect, so the transition won't be such a shock."
    "You should see what it's like on a thirty-thousand-man troop transport," said Michelle. "Sometimes we had to take them through in free fall with nothing but netting to separate the men."
    While Kelly was deciding that perhaps his experience hadn't been so bad after all, the skipper bustled in, looking no worse than usual. Rumors had it that some spacers actually liked Whoopee Drive transition, and he suspected that she was one of them.
    "Finn," she said," you brought us out right on the money. We'll be in parking orbit around Alpha Tau in two hours. Good navigation. My compliments to your computer." The skipper turned to Popov. "The landing pad built for the Navy during the War was abandoned, but they left a beacon. Do you know if Strelnikov found a suitable landing site near the crystal?"
    "He thought that it might be feasible, but he's no pilot
    He didn't dare ask any of the Navy pilots for fear of arousing suspicion."
    We'll land on the Navy pad, then," said the skipper. We'll send the atmosphere craft to scout the site. I hope we can locate a good berth there; it would be hell transporting the crystal all the way back to the base.
    "All right, then; everybody lay in a substantial meal, we 've got work ahead of us. Tor, break out some respirators. Oxygen's a bit thin down there. Michelle, any medical precautions we should take?"
    the Admiralty manual says there's nothing down there a human can catch unless it was left there by the Navy. The primary's a low-radiation type, so the mutation rate is low. No plant life more highly evolved than a giant fern and the highest animal forms are multilegged insect equivalents—none venomous to humans. Gravity's about 10 percent