Meet Me at Infinity by James Tiptree Jr. Page A

murmured. “Podchutes, perhaps, could be attached to these holes? I suggest as many as possible.”
    “The engine arrives!” Sylla popped out of the turret as the massive shape of Imray appeared around the Rosenkrantz’s stern, propelling a drive unit bundled in a working shield.
    “Two gross nanocircuits must I get,” he grumbled as they all wrestled the inertia of the big unit. They brought it into line with the turret lock. Imray glanced in.
    “You check how it steers, Syll?”
    “That rather mystifying secondary panel on the rocket console,” said Svensk. “Perfectly obvious, once the power leads were exposed. I shall have no trouble.”
    His long figure contorted as he groped for the leads to his thermal vest.
    “Fou-t’en!” Sylla slid between him and the turret. “Is this a swamp for overheated serpents to combat themselves in? Desist—you will be worse than the ants. It is I who go, of course.”
    “So.” Imray turned on Quent, who was moving in on the other side. “You want go, too?”
    Quent grabbed the lock. “I’m the obvious choice.”
    “Good,” said Imray. “Look here.”
    He tapped Quent on the shoulder with one oversized gauntlet and suddenly straightened his arm. Quent sailed backward into Sylla and Svensk. When the three sorted themselves out they saw that Imray had clambered into the turret, which he filled compactly.
    “Close up engines, boys,” he blared jovially into their helmets. “Watch tight, is hot. Syll, you set me good course, vernt?”
    The three lieutenants glumly coupled the drive unit, bolted and thermofoamed the extra chutes, and piled back up to the bridge.
    “Foxed you, didn’t he?” grinned Pomeroy. He sobered. “They’re still tearing up the chiefs house. We may have them figured all wrong.”
    The screens showed Imray’s vehicle lurching past on a climbing course above the dark moonscape.
    “Svensk, explain to him the navigation.” Sylla crouched over his console. “He must modify to azimuth thirty heading two eighteen or he will burst into their faces at once. Now I devise the settings for his burn-down.”
    “Sure, sure,” said Imray’s voice. They saw his rocket module yaw to a new course. “Svenka, what I do with pink button?”
    “Captain,” Svensk sighed, “if you will first observe the right-hand indicators—”
    “At least the impellors work,” said Quent.
    Pomeroy fretted: “This is all guesswork.”
    Svensk was now relaying the burn configuration, which the ursinoid repeated docilely enough.
    “At one-one-five on your dial, check visual to make sure you are well below their horizon. Do not use energy of any sort until you are two units past horizon. Captain, that is vital. After that you are on manual. Brake as hard as you can, observing the parameter limit display and—”
    “After that I know,” interrupted Imray. “You take care ship. Now I go, vernt?”
    “You are now go,” said Sylla, motioning to Pomeroy.
    “Gespro-oo—” trumpeted the voder before Pomeroy cut it.
    “What does that mean?” asked Quent.
    Tve never known,” said Svensk. “Some obscure mammalian ritual.”
    “Our captain was formerly a torch gunner,” Sylla told Quent. “But perhaps you—”
    “I’ve heard of them,” said Quent. “But I thought—”
    “That’s right,” said Pomeroy. “Ninety-nine percent casualties. Flying bombs, that’s all. He can run that thing, once he gets down.”
    “He will be out of the moon’s shadow and into their sensor field in fifteen seconds,” said Svensk. “One trusts he remembers to deactivate everything”
    Pomeroy switched up. They heard Imray humming as he tore planet-ward at full burner. Sylla began chopping futile cut-power signals. The humming rumbled on. Pomeroy squeezed his eyes, Sylla chopped harder. Svensk sat motionless.
    The rumble cut off.
    “No more emissions. His course appears adequate,” said Svensk. “I suggest we retire to a maximally shielded position and signal