Crashlander

Angel said, «Julian, look what he's doing.»

«Yes. Very clever. Only a human pilot would think of that.»

Ausfaller had maneuvered the Hobo Kelly between us and the tugs. If the tugs fired a conventional weapon, they'd blast the dome and kill us all.

The tugs came on.

«He still does not know what he is fighting,» Forward said with some satisfaction.

True, and it would cost him. Three unarmed tugs were coming down Ausfaller's throat, carrying a weapon so slow that the tugs could throw it at him, let it absorb Hobo Kelly, and pick it up again long before it was a danger to us.

From my viewpoint Hobo Kelly was a bright point with three dimmer, more distant points around it. Forward and Angel were getting a better view through the phone. And they weren't watching us at all.

I began trying to kick off my shoes. They were soft ship slippers, ankle-high, and they resisted.

I kicked the left foot fire just as one of the tugs flared with ruby light.

«He did it!» Carlos didn't know whether to be jubilant or horrified. «He fired on unarmed ships!»

Forward gestured peremptorily. Angel slid out of his seat. Forward slid in and fastened the thick seat belt. Neither had spoken a word.

A second ship burned fiercely red, then expanded in a pink cloud.

The third ship was fleeing.

Forward worked the controls. «I have it in the mass indicator,» he rasped. «We have but one chance.»

So did I. I peeled the other slipper off with my toes. Over our heads the jointed arm of the Grabber began to swing … and I suddenly realized what they were talking about.

Now there was little to see beyond the dome. The swinging Grabber, and the light of Hobo Kelly's drive, and the two tumbling wrecks, all against a background of fixed stars. Suddenly one of the tugs winked blue-white and was gone. Not even a dust cloud was left behind.

Ausfaller must have seen it. He was turning, fleeing. Then it was as if an invisible hand had picked up Hobo Kelly and thrown her away. The fusion light streaked off to one side and set beyond the dome's edge.

With two tugs destroyed and the third fleeing, the black hole was falling free, aimed straight down our throats.

Now there was nothing to see but the delicate motions of the Grabber. Angel stood behind Forward's chair, his knuckles white with his grip on the chair's back.

My few pounds of weight went away and left me in freefall. Tides again. The invisible thing was more massive than this asteroid beneath me. The Grabber swung a meter more to one side … and something struck it a mighty blow.

The floor surged away from beneath me, left me head down above the Grabber. The huge soft-iron puppy dish came at me; the jointed metal arm collapsed like a spring. It slowed, stopped.

«You got it!» Angel crowed like a rooster, and slapped at the back of the chair, holding himself down with his other hand. He turned a gloating look on us, turned back just as suddenly. «The ship! It's getting away!»

«No.» Forward was bent over the console. «I see him. Good, he is coming back, straight toward us. This time there will be no tugs to warn the pilot.»

The Grabber swung ponderously toward the point where I'd seen Hobo Kelly disappear. It moved centimeters at a time, pulling a massive invisible weight.

And Ausfaller was coming back to rescue us. He'd be a sitting duck unless –

I reached up with my toes, groping for the first and fourth buttons on my falling jumper.

The weaponry in my wonderful suit hadn't helped me against Jinxian strength and speed. But flatlanders are less than limber, and so are Jinxians. Forward had tied my hands and left it at that.

I wrapped two sets of toes around the buttons and tugged.

My legs were bent pretzel-fashion. I had no leverage. But the first button tore loose, and then the thread. Another invisible weapon to battle Forward's portable bottomless hole.

The thread pulled the fourth button loose. I brought my feet down to where they belonged, keeping the thread taut, and pushed backward. I felt the Sinclair molecule chain sinking into the pillar.

The Grabber was still swinging.

When the thread was through the pillar, I could bring it up in back of me and try to cut my bonds. More likely I'd cut my wrists and bleed to death, but I had to try. I wondered if I could do anything before Forward launched the black hole.

A cold breeze caressed my feet.

I looked down. Thick fog boiled out around the pillar.

Some very cold gas must be spraying through the hairfine crack.

I kept pushing. More fog formed. The cold was numbing. I felt the jerk as the magic thread cut through. Now the wrists –

Liquid helium?

Forward had moored us to the main superconducting power cable.

That was probably a mistake. I pulled my feet forward carefully, steadily, feeling the thread bite through on the return cut.

The Grabber had stopped swinging. Now it moved on its arm like a blind questing worm as Forward made fine adjustments. Angel was beginning to show the strain of holding himself upside down.