Tales of Pirx the Pilot Read Online Free PDF

think of it, so far neither had he… Silence reigned in his earphones. Both flies were crawling along the blister’s surface such that their shadows grazed his face, and for the first time he cringed at the sight of them—at their tiny black paws, grotesquely magnified to look like suction disks, at their bodies glittering metallically in the glare of the lights…
    “Dasher-8 Aresterra calling Triangle Terraluna, quadrant sixteen, course one-hundred-eleven-point-six. I have you on convergent course eleven minutes thirty-two seconds. Advise you to alter course. Over.”
    Just my luck! Pirx mentally grumbled. Always some smart-ass trying to bugger up the works… Can’t he see I’m flying in formation?
    “AMU-27 squadron leader Triangle Terraluna JO-2 ditto JO-2, calling Dasher-8 Aresterra. Negative, am flying in formation, proceed to carry out deviation maneuver. Out.”
    While he was transmitting, he tried to locate the unwelcome intruder on the radar. There he was—less than 1,500 meters away!
    “Dasher-8 to AMU-27 Terraluna, reporting malfunction in gravimeter system, commence immediate deviation maneuver, point of intersection forty-four zero eight, quadrant Luna four, perimeter zone. Over.”
    “AMU-27 to Dasher-8 Aresterra, JO-2 ditto JO-2 Terraluna. Will commence deviation maneuver at 2039 hours. Yaw maneuver to commence at ditto hours behind squadron leader at optical range, northern deviation Luna sector one zero point-six. Am firing low-range thrusters. Over.”
    Simultaneously he fired both lower yaw jets. The two JO ships responded at once, all three veered off course, and stars glided across the video screens. Dasher thanked him as he flew off to Luna Central, and in a surge of self-confidence, Pirx wished him a happy landing—a touch of class, seeing as the other ship was in distress. He followed his navigation lights for another thousand kilometers or so, then began guiding the two JO ships back onto their original course, which was easier said than done: going off course was one thing, finding your way back onto a parabola was another. Pirx found it next to impossible, what with a different acceleration, a computer so fast he couldn’t keep up with its coordinates, and the flies, which, if they weren’t crawling all over the computer, were playing tag on the radar screen. Where did they get all the energy? he wondered. It was a good twenty minutes before they were back on course.
    Boerst probably has smooth sailing all the way, he thought. Him? Get into trouble? Not wonderboy Boerst.
    He adjusted the automatic thrust terminator to achieve a zero acceleration after eighty-three minutes, as instructed, and then saw something that turned his sweat-absorbent underwear to ice.
    Above the dashboard a white panel had come unclamped. Not only that, but it was starting to work its way down, a millimeter at a time. It was probably loose to begin with, he reasoned, and all the vibrating during the recent yaw maneuvers—Pirx’s handling of the ship hadn’t exactly been gentle—had loosened the pressure clamps even more. With the acceleration still running at 1.7 g, the panel kept inching its way down as if being pulled by an invisible thread. Finally it sprang loose altogether, slid down the outer side of the glass wall, and settled motionlessly on the deck, exposing a set of four gleaming copper high-voltage wires and fuses at the back.
    Why all the panic? he told himself. An electrical panel has come loose—so, big deal. A ship can get along without a panel, can’t it?
    Even so, he couldn’t help feeling a trifle nervous; things like that weren’t supposed to happen. If a fuse panel can come loose, what’s to stop the stern from breaking off?
    There were still twenty-seven minutes of accelerated flight to go when it hit him that once the engines were shut down, the panel would become weightless. Could it do any damage? he wondered. Not much. It was too light for that, too light even to break glass.