Eyes of the Calculor Read Online Free Page A

could hear to make for the captain's cabin, and to ignore the parachutes. He got a mixed reception from the passengers, and even his authority could not convince them that true safety did not lie with immediate
    escape. The captain seized a woman who was leading her two children aft, shouting at her to come with him. A confused man knocked him to the deck and tried to lead the family away. Watch Officer Varel shot the man dead.
    Fifteen minutes after the catastrophic failure, three more passengers on the Titan were dead, asphyxiated in the corridors whose air pressure had by now become equal with the rarefied atmosphere outside. After half an hour the sunwing had shed six miles of its height and was down to thirty thousand feet. In the captain's cabin, two men, three women, and two children were huddled together in the increasing cold, yet they could still breathe. The cabin was airtight, and had contained no electrical devices. Through the single forward observation plate they watched as detail on the Mirrorsun-lit ground gradually grew more distinct. They moved little. One of the crew, a monk of the Avianese Gentheist Church, talked them through meditative breathing exercises. They were down to eighteen thousand feet at the end of the first hour. Slowly the captain bled the air from the cabin, and breathing became more difficult.
    "I thought the idea was to save air," said the mother of the children.
    "The Titan is descending more slowly in the denser air, so I don't know how long it will take to reach a level safe for parachuting."
    "What do you mean?"
    "The pressure in here is that of two thousand feet above the ground, and we are nine times higher. The air outside can be breathed but it is very thin. Decompression sickness will soon kill us if we open the door and jump now, so we need to slowly accustom our bodies to the lower pressure."
    "And if we are approaching the salt water before we are accustomed?"
    "Then we take a chance and jump anyway."
    After two hours they were a mere mile above ground.
    "We are over Southmoor territory," said the captain. "Not a good place to jump."
    "Fras Captain, will we reach the Rochestrian Commonwealth?" asked the watch officer.
    "Yes. In ten minutes, I estimate. Now listen to me, and listen carefully. The pressure outside must be nearly the same as in here, so I am about to open the door. Go to your cabins and collect all your money and papers. Put on the heaviest clothing and boots that you have, then come back here for your parachutes."
    The air outside the cabin was cold but breathable as they emerged, but Captain Terian discovered another problem. There had only been twelve parachutes aboard the Titan. Eight had been taken by those who had jumped at twelve miles.
    The passengers quickly returned, dressed in coats and boots. The officers shed their jackets for bush coats.
    "The mother, Watch Officer Varel, Frelle Tarmia, and yourself will have parachutes," the captain said to Seegan as he helped him into a parachute's harness. "You and Varel can hold a child each as you jump."
    "That is only six of us, Fras Captain."
    "I know. You will have to look after the group on the ground. Get them to Rochester and the safe house."
    "You are going down with the wing?"
    "In the absence of any realistic suggestions to the contrary, yes. I hereby surrender my authority to you, beginning when the Titan crashes."
    Two hours and forty-five minutes after the invisible pulse of electromagnetic energy had crippled the Titan, the captain helped the six other survivors out through the rent in the sunwing's fabric made by the musketeer. In another five minutes all six were alive and gathering together on the ground in the darkness while the sunwing glided on, trailing smoke from the central section. Aboard the Titan, the fires set by the captain consumed sensitive documents and maps while he exchanged clothing with one of the dead passengers.
    The ground was very close as the captain selected a bulkhead