The cockpit trembled again as Lazarus engaged the powerful fusion engine. Languidly, like fog on the surface of a pond, the tendrils of the nebula drifted past the vessel.
The superficial conversation, having succeeded in adequately smoothing over the tension of the previous night's conversation, lapsed into silence as Lazarus initiated the launch sequence. First, he flashed the powerful spotlights on the front of the asteroid pod three times, briefly bathing the cavernous landing bay in bright white light. This seemed to be a signal to the crew members who were working along the periphery of the bay, who quickly stopped what they were doing and made for the nearest exit. This was a reminder to Lamont that the area was so inundated with radio waves that, even at such a short distance, the workers were not guaranteed to receive a normal signal from the pod.
Like so many extraordinary things, the rest of the procedure had become almost routine for Lamont, who idly anticipated nearly every step before it took place. Lazarus pushed a button, and Lamont felt his seat vibrate as the cargo hatch of the pod closed; another button push, and there was a small jolt as the airlock sealed. The pilot's hands flew over his console, and the lights in the bay changed from soft white to red, bathing the cockpit in a lurid orange through the amber-tinted windows. Outside, some loose pieces of debris drifted along the floor as the precious oxygen was siphoned out of the bay and back into Westward's reservoirs. Then, the gravity plates were deactivated as the large bay door slid open to reveal empty space. The stars outside were stationary; Ed and his team had evidently managed to arrest the ship's slow spin. Just visible near the edge of the rectangular opening was the needle-like outline of the tower, shining in the dull blue of the gas giant and the garish clouds that drifted outward from the system's dying sun. Lamont felt his stomach rise to his throat as Westward's synthetic gravity was disengaged, and drop again as the gravity plates in the asteroid pod were switched on.
Lazarus repositioned his arms and the asteroid pod trembled as its tiny ionic jets guided it with minuscule puffs of plasma out of the airless, weightless bay and into the vastness of empty space.
Slowly, the small vessel rolled until the tower foreshortened into a shining point against the matte blackness of the moon from which it emerged. Perpetually backlit by the awesome mass of the gas giant it orbited, the moon was impossible—for Lamont, at least—to take in without seeing the image of a single watching eye in the night. The movement of the pod further created the illusion that the eye was turning toward them, regarding them with cold indifference.
The cockpit trembled again as Lazarus engaged the powerful fusion engine. Languidly, like fog on the surface of a pond, the tendrils of the nebula drifted past the vessel. Lamont had to remind himself that they were in fact accelerating to a cruising speed of thousands of miles a second. Nevertheless, it would take them the better part of an hour to reach the moon.
"Why," he wondered aloud, "Don't we just put Westward in orbit around the moon, and use the space lift to shuttle up and down? Or is the ship too badly damaged for that?"
"It took a Herculean effort to move Westward this far away from the moon after it was damaged," Carter explained. The multicolored clouds outside were painting sickly splotches on the pale skin of his long face.
"Oh, right—" Lamont recalled, suddenly realizing the stupidity of his question. "Because of the…the…"
"The objects, whatever they were, that moved across the path of the tower and discharged the electricity that damaged the ship," Phobos finished. "Those objects are still orbiting the gas giant at a tremendous velocity, presumably capturing kinetic energy from the journey. Sometime, we don't know when, they'll come around again."
"And God knows we'd better be keeping our distance if we're still here when that happens," Francis agreed.