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.He did not like freefall at all.Dev watched the chronometer on the board in front of her tick off the seconds and, at the proper moment, hit the switch for retrofire.The internal acceleration was only about one pg, but nonetheless, after several hours of weightlessness, it was a heavy feeling, and most unpleasant.Foxfire drifted slowly surfaceward.At first there was little for Dev to do; the ship was committed to its course and the atmosphere through which they were traveling was still so thin that there was no appreciable turbulence.But after twenty minutes they began encountering crosscurrents, and Dev's job of piloting truly began.It was a delicate business, keeping themselves upright while they fell with all the gracefulness of a rock.Dev knew that Larramac, for all his boasting, would never have been able to manage this.No matter how skilled he was with an airplane, the aerodynamic differences between that and a spaceship were overwhelming.Planes had wings, and were designed to co-operate with air currents, using them for bouyancy.Spaceships were bullet-shaped, owing to the discovery that hyper-space was a viscous medium; they were streamlined to pass through hyperspace with minimal resistance, but merely tolerated atmospheric conditions.They were kept upright by gyros and, very occasionally, short blasts from side stabilizing jets.Atmospheric maneuvering was something every ship's captain hated, and yet was the most essential part of his duties.Any half-trained idiot with a skilled astrogator and engineer could guide a ship through hyperspace.But landing well was an art that comparatively few could master.As her hands played across the control console largely by feel, Dev kept her eyes on her instruments—particularly the chronometer.They were fast approaching the point where they would come over Orrork's horizon and be spotted by the gods.From that point on, they would be in constant danger, a target moving ever closer to the barrel of unknown weapons."Horizon point," she announced at last."They now have a direct line of fire to us if they want, and we have nothing to return to them for eight and a half minutes.They'll be close enough then to get the effects of our backwash.We can only hope they're too astonished to act in the meantime."As the sound of her voice died away, a silence descended on the control room.Dev's hands stayed near the power switches.If the gods decided to take target practice, she wanted to be ready to move in any convenient direction—most particularly upward.Regardless of Larramac's bullying threats, she was prepared to run if the gods mounted a serious counterattack before Foxfire could bring its backwash into play.Let him fire her then—it would be infinitely preferable to dying in a smashed-up spacecraft.And maybe by that time Larramac would see how hopeless their fight really was and give up.Mount Orrork, however, remained still.Time wound down past the four-minute mark, and still the gods failed to react.Every human in the control room, even Dev, was sweating, despite the comfortably cool temperature.Only Grgat did not seem visibly affected by the tension—but then, he might not fully appreciate the dangers of the situation.'They must have seen us coming, Dev knew.They must have computed our orbit and know we'll be coming down on top of them.They use gravitic drives for theirangels, so they know what our backwash can do.Why are they waiting?Of course, it was possible that Larramac was right, that they simply knew they had no weapons capable of defending against a spaceship.But even if the gods were descendants of a defeated army in a space war, the first thing they would have done upon establishing a base would be to ensure their own defense against future attacks; subjugation of the natives would have had a much lower priority.Perhaps time was a factor.If the gods had been here long enough, they might have dismantled their defenses when it became obvious they were no longer needed.Or the weapons might have failed after such a long period of disuse; perhaps even now the gods were desperately shooting at Foxfire with no result.Dev could not allow herself to hope for that, though.After all, the gods were not sure what weapons Foxfire itself had; the most likely explanation was that they were holding their fire until they were positive they could achieve a direct hit on their first shot.It was not a comforting thought.The war of nerves ground inexorably down to the crucial moment."One minute to passover point," Dev announced."Be prepared for a bumpy flight."They were close enough that they could make out details on the mountain.It looked more like a volcano to Dev than anything else, being conical and tapering evenly to a peak.There was no sign of a crater or any volcanic activity, though, and the top of the mountain was covered with snow.Near the summit, Dev could distinguish a small swarm of black shapes, occasionally reflecting a bit of the late afternoon sun.The angels have all gathered for Armageddon, Dev thought.They know they'll be wiped out if they're still there in another minute, so they must have some plan in mind.Her hands were poised over her controls, ready for anything.The attack came in a single blinding instant.Flashes of light erupted from the mountainside, almost burn-ing out Dev's eyes with their intensity.The captain moved quickly.First she used a short blast from her attitude jets to knock them slightly sideways; with her other hand she switched off the external cameras so that the screen in front of her went dead.She needed her eyes for work right now; she couldn't risk another blinding flash from the screen.There was a loud boom that carried even through the walls of the ship.Concussion waves from the explosion rocked them from side to side, jarring them mightily.Dunnis cried out; it turned out that the shock had caused him to bite his own tongue, drawing blood.That, at the moment, was a minor concern to Dev.Foxfire was now too close to the mountain to run away; the gods weren't just throwing firecrackers.The only chance they had was to follow through on their initial plan and hope they'd survive long enough to complete it.Foxfire had to swing over the mountain and kill those weapons with its backwash [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]