The Prefect by Alastair Reynolds Page B

engines themselves. It was as if they had been ripped off; amputated. The vessel was crabbing, moving sideways instead of nose-first. The hull itself showed evidence of grave assault: great fissures and sucking wounds where armour had been plucked away to reveal hidden innards; machinery that was now glowing red-hot from some unspecified assault. Coils of blue-grey vapour bled into space, forming a widening spiral trail behind the slowly tumbling wreck.
    The ship, Dreyfus realised, was burning from inside.
    â€˜I guess we’re seeing what passes for justice in Ultra circles,’ Sparver said.
    â€˜They can call it what they like,’ Dreyfus snapped back. ‘I asked for witnesses, not a shipload of charred corpses.’ He turned to Pell. ‘How long until it hits the edge of the Glitter Band?’
    â€˜Four hours and twenty-eight minutes.’
    â€˜I told Jane we’d destroy it three hours before it reaches the outer habitat orbit. That gives us ninety minutes’ grace. How are the nukes coming along?’
    â€˜Dialled and ready to go. We’ve identified impact sites, but we’ll be happier if we stabilise the tumble before we blow. We’re looking at options for tug attachment now.’
    â€˜Quick as you can, please.’
    The tug specialists were good at their job, and by the time Dreyfus had finished his coffee they had already anchored the three units in position at various stress-tolerant nodes along the wreck’s ruined hull.
    â€˜We’re applying corrective thrust now, sir,’ one of the tug specialists informed him. ‘Going to take a while, though. There’s a million tonnes of ship to stop tumbling, and we don’t want her snapping like a twig.’
    â€˜Any sign of movement or activity aboard?’ Dreyfus asked.
    â€˜Fires are out,’ Captain Pell said. ‘All available air appears to have vented to space by now. Too much residual heat to start looking for thermal hotspots from survivors inside the thing, but we’re still sweeping her for electromagnetic signatures. Anyone human still alive in that thing has to be wearing a suit, and we may pick up some EM noise from life-support systems. It’s really not likely that we’ll find anyone, though.’
    â€˜I didn’t ask for a likelihood estimate,’ Dreyfus said, nerves beginning to get the better of him.
    It took another thirty minutes to bring the tumbling ship under control. The specialists rotated the hull so that its long axis was pointed at the Glitter Band, minimising its collision cross section should something go amiss with the nukes. There was no possibility of using the tugs to shove the lighthugger onto a safe trajectory; at best, all that could be done would be to aim her at one of the less densely populated orbits and hope that she slipped through the empty space between habitats. From this far out, the Glitter Band appeared to be a smooth, flat ring of tarnished silver: the individual glints from ten thousand habitats blurring into a solid bow of light.
    Dreyfus kept reminding himself that it was still mostly empty space, but his eyes couldn’t accept it.
    â€˜How long?’ he asked.
    â€˜You have just under an hour, sir,’ Pell informed him.
    â€˜Give me an airlock as close to the front kilometre of the ship as you can manage. If anyone’s survived, that’s where they’ll be.’
    Pell seemed reticent. ‘Sir, I think you need to look at this first, before you go aboard that thing. We just picked up a burst of radio, stronger than anything we’ve heard since we began our approach.’
    â€˜What kind of burst?’
    â€˜Voice-only comms. It was faint, but we still managed to localise it pretty well. As it happens, it matched one of the hotspots we’re already monitoring.’
    â€˜I thought you said you couldn’t see any hotspots because of all the thermal noise.’
    â€˜I was talking about