The Space Opera MEGAPACK ®. Jay Lake

      Nothing but a metallic smear edge with red, a paste of flesh and blood and bone, an ooze of organic and inorganic compounds from which trailed the wire which had fed his force field.

      “God!” Pendris’s voice echoed his terror. “What happened?”

      “His field collapsed.” Durgan fought his rising terror as he stood, afraid to move, afraid even to breathe for fear that any movement, no matter how slight, would send him after the engineer.

      “His field—we’ve got to get out of here!”

      Pendris turned from where he stood and began to move towards the open port of the vessel. Over the radio, his breathing was harsh, ragged, the sound of a man on the edge of panic. Durgan caught his arm as he drew level.

      “Wait!”

      “Let me go! For God’s sake, man! Let’s get out of here!”

      “Watch your feet! Break the wire and you’ll die. Move carefully. If you fall, who knows what might happen?” Durgan swallowed, hating the dryness of his mouth, the fear that sent sweat oozing from every pore. “Be careful, damn you! For God’s sake, go easy!”

      Carefully he edged towards the open port, moving in inches, dying a hundred deaths at each tiny step. Always there had been the danger, but now it had become horribly real. He had seen what the pressure could do, had actually seen it. Nanset had died before his very eyes!

      He reached the edge of the port, climbed in, moved through the air lock and into the cabin. With exaggerated care, he moved to the pilot’s couch and called soft orders.

      “Make sure that both wires are well within the cabin. Right?”

      “Right.”

      “Then hit your couch. Fasten restraints. Right?”

      Again Pendris said, “Right.”

      Durgan moved his hands. The outer door swung shut, sealing the hull. The inner door followed to seal the cabin. The engines woke to life, the roar of power drumming with heavy vibrations through the vessel. On the screen, the blast looked like a sword of impossibly brilliant flame.

      Praying, his mouth filled with the taste of blood from his bitten lips, Durgan sent the ship streaking upwards from the Jovian terrain.

      * * * *

      “Sheila to Brad. Come in Brad. Sheila to Brad. Come in Brad. Answer please. Answer, damn you! Sheila to Brad.”

      “Are you going to answer?” Pendris had caught the voice over the intersuit radio. His own was suggestive. “You don’t have to. For all they know we died down there with Nanset.”

      “Watch your pressures!” Durgan concentrated on the instruments, the red hand of the gauge. He had relaxed a little now that they had risen well into the atmosphere, passing the danger point, the engines thrusting them even higher towards the empty cleanliness of space.

      “Pressure compensated.” Pendris operated his valves. “We won’t explode. We can cut the field now and maybe get out of these damned suits.”

      “Not yet.”

      “Hell, why not? We’re high enough for the hull to take normal pressure. “We’ve got solid oxygen in the tanks and all we need do is warm it and clear the cabin of accumulated gas. I’m sore,” he complained. “And I itch like the devil. That ride up wasn’t easy.”

      He hadn’t known the half of it, his inexperience saving him from the worst. A man couldn’t fear what he didn’t know, but Durgan had known all too well. He had ridden on his nerves, eyes strained as they checked the instruments, imagination cringing as he visualized what could so easily happen. A flaw, a single fragment of metal crystallizing beneath the pressure and vibration, anything and they would have joined the engineer in instantaneous extinction.

      Now he rode the winds like an artificial bird, rising higher with each passing second, his relief an intoxication.

      “Sheila to Brad. Come in Brad. For God’s sake answer, damn you! Sheila to Brad. Come in Brad.”

      “They’re hungry,” said Pendris. “Eager for the loot.” His voice carried his disgust. “A lousy five million. That’s all they wanted to pay for the price of a world. To hell with them!”

      The ship bucked a little. Durgan steadied it and said, “You’ve got ideas?”

      “Maybe.” Pendris was cautious. “You going to clear the cabin? Give us some clear air to breathe?”

      Durgan reached out and threw a couple of switches.

      Heating coils would vaporise the stored blocks of solid oxygen. He would flush the cabin when the pressure grew high enough and when they had reached near-space. Then more blocks would provide a breathable atmosphere.

      “Give it some time,” he said. “These ideas of yours—what have you in mind?”

      “You need me to spell it out? Hell, Durgan, you’re no fool, you can recognize the big time when you see it.” Pendris was eager. “That stuff we collected is worth how much? Sold legitimate, a real bundle—and sold under the counter, a damn sight more. The combines alone would give us more than what Creech promised. And how do you know that he’ll delíver? We’ve done the job, and he won’t need us any more. A couple of shots and he’s saved a bundle. The girl, too—she won’t be needed, either. We do the dirty work and Creeeh gets all the reward.”

      “We made a deal,” said Durgan flatly.

      “Sure we did—and it was completed when the waldos failed. From then on we were working for ourselves. Why else do you think we agreed to take that kind of a risk? You didn’t spell it out, Durgan, but you didn’t have to. The stuff’s ours any way you want to look at it. We sweated for it, and Nanset died getting it. I don’t figure on letting it go.”

      “No,” said Durgan. “I didn’t think you would.”

      A lamp flashed on the panel. There was the thin whine of escaping air. On the screens, the clouds suddenly thinned to wisps of vapor, fell as the ship continued to climb, merged with the misty ball of Jupiter. On a close orbit, the ship swung over the mighty planet, building velocity so as to spiral from the savage tug of the gravity well.

      “We’ll be able to breathe soon,” said Pendris. “Real air instead of this regenerated stink. What do you say, Durgan?”

      “I’m thinking about it.”

      “What’s there to think about? We’ve got our hands on the jackpot, and all we need to do is to hang on to it. Creech? He can be taken care of. The girl? She’s yours if you want her. I’ve a couple of contacts who can handle the sale and pay cash on the nail.”

      The lamp flashed again, and a needle rose on a dial. Pendris grunted and lifted his hands to his face-plate. A gush of vapor came from within the suit as it opened, air heated by his own body-temperature, loaded with the moisture from his sweat.

      Painfully he released the couch-restraints and swung his legs to the floor of the cabin. Moving awkwardly, he began to divest himself of the cumbersome suit.

      “I can’t manage,” he said. “Durgan, help me get out of this thing and I’ll do the same for you.”

      Durgan turned. Pendris looked a wreck. Blood seeped from raw patches on his hands and wrists, more from the side of his jaw. His face was red, lined with strain and fatigue, his eyes blood-shot, red-rimmed and angry.

      Durgan was in no better condition. He felt gritty and knew he stank. He needed a long, hot bath, a massage and about twenty hours sleep.

      He flipped the catches on Pendris’s suit, then returned to the controls. Pendris moved to the back of the cabin where the salvaged cargo was stored. The man was clearly excited, eager to see what they had won.

      “What do you think, Durgan? Should we rendezvous with Creech and take care of him? We could use his ship,