***I’m able to maintain position, Johnny…propulsors are at half power…I can skate around these molecules pretty well…I’ve safed all effectors and assumed minimum radius…like riding out a storm***
“Suit yourself,” Winger decided, but he didn’t really believe it. He was too pre-occupied with running up his own propulsors.
It was hard to say when he realized he was truly trapped in the outer fringe of the vortex. Without realizing it, he had run up propulsors to max and still, the current drew them on. Worse, there was some kind of rotation in the flow and he found himself getting dizzy. The pull of the centrifugal force soon became palpable.
Don’t panic, he told himself. There has to be a way out of this. Atomgrabbers can handle anything. Like a pilot in a spin, he tried different maneuvers, contorting his hypersuit in different directions, firing suit boost jets at strategic moments, even deploying the tiny canard surfaces at his shoulders that made the hypersuit look like it had angel wings .
None of it had any effect. The vortex drew him on and the pull grew stronger with each passing moment. Slowly, inexorably, but with increasing speed, he was being sucked into the center of the whirlpool and the force of the water pressed against his helmet with steadily increasing force.
…and then it came. A snap flash, like a camera going off. An image of geometric forms—icosahedrons, polygons, trapezoids—all compressed into a tunnel, a long curving corridor and he found himself hurtling at breakneck speed down this corridor, until—
With a hard bump, his whole body jarred from the impact and when he opened his eyes, caught his breath and came to his senses, he was in.
Inside where?
He didn’t know for sure, but he was certain he had been here before.
Johnny Winger shook the blur out of his eyes, which stilled rolled from the centrifugal force of the vortex spin. He was on his knees, still in the hypersuit, on open ground, out in the open. No ocean, no whirlpool, no other swarm.
It was an open, level plain, like a vast field of cornstalks feathered back and forth by a gentle breeze. With a grunt, he got to his feet, wondering where Doc II was. He tried the coupler circuit, made several calls. Then at one frequency, he caught a snatch and his receiver auto-tuned to grab the whole signal and bring it in.
It was Doc II. Somehow, unaccountably, the bot master was back in containment, back inside the belt capsule.
“How the hell did you get inside the capsule?” Winger checked the port. Shut tight. The capsule registered mass inside…it was the Doc II master bot for sure. He tried tuning the coupler a little more….
***….to understand what happened, Johnny…it was some kind of quantum effect…there were centrifugal forces…I lost structural integrity…like a quantum collapse--***
“Stow it, Doc. Forget it. At least, you’re safe. Verify all systems and give me a report—“
The bot did that and came back a moment later.