The Rings of Tantalus Read Online Free PDF Page B

perfectly. For a few seconds he jetted around in the airlock chamber, getting the feel of them once more. It had been a long time since he had used suit jets. But it was like riding an antique bicycle. Once you had the knack, you never lost it. Finally, he was satisfied. He signalled the nav deck.
    “All systems go. I am now about to open the air-lock and jet over.”
    “Still no response,” reported Kwango. “That thing is as dead as a dodo. Good luck, Boss.”
    “Thanks.”
    “Be very careful, James,” said Indira.
    He was glad she had called him James, and knew why.
    It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her that the only living spacemen were the careful ones; but he thought better of it. “I’ll be extremely careful,” he assured her. Then he added softly: “Remember Applecross.” Apple-cross was the place to which he had once taken her in the North West Highlands of Scotland. It had been a lovely interlude. And it seemed a long time ago.
    “I was afraid you might have forgotten it,” she said.
    “No chance. That was one of the golden times… Over and out.”
    He de-pressurised the air-lock, comparing his own pressure metre with the one on the bulkhead. Both registered the fall identically. When the chamber was evacuated, he pressed the stud that operated the entry-port. The steel panel slid smoothly to one side.
    Conrad jetted out into space. He glanced around him at the vast wilderness of stars, remote, diamond-sharp, beautiful. James Conrad was a hardened atheist; but when he was alone in space, he always experienced a strange impulse to pray. Not because he was afraid, but because he was always overwhelmed by the sheer splendour of the cosmos.
    He glanced back at the Santa Maria , now some hundred meters away, taking care not to turn his visor toward Regulus. Not that it was too dangerous to glance at the brilliant sun. The phototropic visor would react instantly to its radiation, darkening to shut out the glare. But, when he turned away, the visor would take a second or two to become completely translucent once more. He did not want to be partly blind even for a couple of seconds.
    He gazed at the vessel ahead. It was so vast that he felt as if he were an insect—a tiny fly buzzing towards a huge piece of cheese. He took one more look at the Santa Maria . Once it had seemed to him to be a massive vessel; but, compared to the alien ship, it was like a toy.
    Sunlight caught the nylon thread connecting him to the Santa Maria . He felt for a moment as if he were some strange, armoured spider spinning a long tenuous strand. Then he put such fanciful notions out of his head and concentrated on the alien vessel, now only about five hundred metres away. He gave a small retro-blast on his suit jet to slow himself down. He wanted to arrive slowly, very slowly—not like a guided missile, more like a feather drifting.
    Kwango’s voice came over the radio. “How goes it, Boss?”
    “Well enough, I’m going dead slow from here on, I don’t want to excite anybody, and I want a good look at the ship before I touch down.”
    “You won’t be exciting anybody—except, of course, the good Lieutenant Smith, who is discreetly biting her finger nails. That thing is dead, Commander. Matthew says so, the computer says so, and—most important of all, I say so. You have bought yourself a mausoleum.”
    “Thanks, Kurt. But don’t forget to hit the D.M.W. button if the mausoleum yields up ghosts.”
    There was a chuckle. “Lieutenant Smith already has one finger poised. If she sneezes, you’ll be hauled back so fast you’ll spread like jam on impact. Over and out.”
    “Over and out.”
    Two hundred metres. Conrad gave another retro-blast. He wanted time to study the thing.
    It was huge.
    It filled him with awe.
    It made him feel humble and insignificant.
    Whatever race had built the vessel must have been far, far ahead of mankind in science and technology, even if it was not an F.T.L. ship.
    Conrad allowed