The thin disc shown weirdly in the light of the tortured binary, and
Jon guided Deanne's suit-bloated figure up over its lip, then clambered
to its sleek metal surface himself. It was a tricky business, without
weight, and without sufficient handling knowledge of the alien-built
power pack to attempt the delicate maneuvering required with it.
Together, wordlessly, they reeled in the cylindrical capsule which
contained their tools.
A scant ten thousand miles off, B-Haaq waited in the Flagship. Waiting,
Jon knew, for an element of Tinker ships to arrive and form about him
in battle formation. And when they came. Yes, he knew what B-Haaq would
do.
He looked back, and could barely discern the dark mass of Stine's great
craft as it blotted out the myriad of stars behind it. Power against
power. They would have to hurry.
He moved toward Deanne, and she moved away. He grabbed her wrist,
pulled her to him, touched her helmet with his, and spoke rapidly.
"Keep your radio off, and we'll talk this way! Now do just as I say,
and before you put me down for a sellout, work like you've never worked
before! We may have thirty minutes--an hour maybe, before this whole
system goes to pieces! And less than that before the other fireworks
start!"
Then he was busy getting at the tools, getting at the heart of the
Justifier.
Stine's men had messed it up pretty badly. B-Haaq's men had not made
matters any better. The operation itself was a simple one, but there
was so much to be undone.
Wordlessly, Deanne worked with him in the awful silence. He thought as
he worked how ridiculous it must seem to whoever watched--two pygmies
on the face of a mechanism hardly a hundred yards across, pitting their
wits against a Nature gone mad--two pygmies, attempting to come to
grips with an entire solar system! Working alone, in the cold and the
dark, with only their helmlanterns to guide their eyes and hands.
Deanne worked smoothly where she recognized the few standard procedures
that Jon employed, fumbled a little as he took shortcuts that she had
never imagined possible. Yet somehow, he noticed, she managed almost
to keep up with him, seemed to be following his thinking almost by
instinct.
And that was about all it was that differentiated him from the standard
ITA technician. Instinct; imagination coupled with it, and the
knowledge that could only be learned by an ever-inquiring mind. Jon
Kane. Scientist.
Finally, he touched her helmet again.
"That does it, girl. She's going. Within twenty hours the storm'll
be over; within less than one, things will start taming down on the
planets. And then we'll get your uncle to take us back to Sol system,
and do a real job on the one there."