Death Sentence Read Online Free PDF Page B

nose-to-nose, or with a booster stage attached, there was no data that anyone could find in a hurry about whether it was such a good idea to fly them docked nose-to-nose and with a booster. The idea was to transfer as much of the load and dynamic stress away from the docking ports and onto the main structure of the Sholto and the Adler .
    The engineers were all confident the cables would provide sufficient additional stiffening and strengthening to keep the combined vehicle safe. Hannah was glad to hear that--although she couldn't help thinking that the engineers weren't the ones who were going to be flying the monstrosity in question. What had her worried was how they were going to detach the cables when it was time to fly the Sholto on a solo run--and then how they were supposed to reattach them for the return flight.
    Never mind. Those were worries for later. She touched Jamie on the elbow and nodded toward a lock entrance a bit down the corridor. "Enough with the sightseeing," she said. "Time to move. That's where we're headed."
    Jamie frowned and pointed out the port. "The single-ships are, ah, docked sideways to the station," he said. "That's going to make getting aboard a little tricky. Gravity's going to take a ninety-degree twist. Or do they just have the grav generators shut off in the ships so they're in zero gee?"
    Hannah grinned. "That one they've managed to solve with the Sherlock -class ships. You'll see how. Come on."
    She led him through the entrance and down a short passageway that ended in the access tunnel they had seen from the viewport. They walked down and came to a closed hatch that was plainly sideways, rotated ninety degrees clockwise from where they were standing. Right-way up, it would have been two meters high and a meter across. There were the usual red arrows labeled RESCUE pointing to the latch fixing, and a whole raft of yellow signs in any number of human and xeno languages explaining, in incomprehensible detail, how to open the door in an emergency.
    In the center of the hatch, at eye level--or what would have been eye level if the hatch hadn't been on its side--painted in very official-looking black lettering, was a much larger notice. Hannah had to crane her neck to read it properly.
    United Government Vessel
    Bureau of Special Investigations
    Vessel S/N UGV-BSI-3369-MTA6.167-JMAO.708

    and, in elaborate red script under that,
    BSI-3369
    "Bartholomew Sholto"

    "Okay," said Hannah, "so we've got the right ship."
    "No we don't," said Jamie. "This is the Irene Adler ."
    Hannah looked at him oddly for a moment. "You having a little vision problem?"
    "No," said Jamie. "But the paint on the signs is still fresh. Almost still wet. You can smell it a little. I assume they wouldn't just freshen up the paint job for the heck of it when the ground crews are under a lot of pressure to get us launched quickly. And pretending that the Adler is the Sholto is a big part of the plan. What sense would it make to play that game if the first xeno ship that got within range to read her hull markings would know she was the Adler ?"
    Hannah nodded. "So someone decided they'd have to re-mark the Adler if we're going to make it believable." One of the side effects of the brief-and-boost policy for Special Agents was that there was next to no time to discuss things, to decide things, to report decisions. Someone would realize something needed doing and just do it without telling anyone.
    In the roughly one hundred minutes since the mission had been assigned, someone on the ground crew had shown enough initiative to repaint the hatch. There had no doubt been barely enough time to do the job itself--and there wouldn't have been a chance in the sky of getting it done if that someone had been required to get four approvals first. It was a system--if one could even call it a system--that required a good deal of common sense and initiative, and a great deal of trust among all the members of the team.
    And it also required