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.The launch entered the enemy's hull through a great rent that had been torn either by some Space Force weapon or by a secondary explosion.The hole was so big that it seemed to Polly that half of the pastel sunset billows making up the nebular sky outside were still visible after they had entered.But she still found herself holding her breath, with the sensation that gigantic jaws were about to close on her and crush her.Inside the enemy's battered hulk, patches of heated, glowing metal were visible in every direction.When the glow of the hot metal was augmented by that from the nebula outside, there was enough light to keep the bowels of the berserker from being really dark.Not satisfied with this erratic illumination, Iskander sent searchlight beams stabbing out from the launch.The lights, playing back and forth at varying angles, revealed more twisted metal along with other objects, shapes and textures, some of which remained unidentifiable.At places inside the berserker, the continually outgassing fumes from internal damage were thick enough to interfere with vision, even with the launch's searchlights on.Running one last time through the operator's checklist of her armored suit—quiteunnecessarily, but it gave the mind something to do—Polly knew terror, remembered her children and asked herself why she was doing this.The answer to that question was not hard to find—Domingo had asked her to do it.But that answer, she reflected, was the kind that did you no good when you had found Page 46ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlit.Now that the launch was completely inside the berserker, their communications with the Pearl were almost entirely cut off.Radios stuttered and rasped with static.Domingo had been expecting this problem.He got around it by maneuvering the launch back to the lip of the wound through which they had entered the enemy's carcass and pausing to set up a small robotic relay station there.He had to get out of the launch in his armored suit to do so.Waiting for him inside the launch, Polly and Iskander held their craft in position.They were too busy watching for signs of enemy activity to talk, beyond the minimum of necessary communication, or even to look at each other.But the metal body of the enemy around them, dead or dying, still had not reacted to their presence.Polly could begin to breathe again.The EVA lock cycled; Domingo came back in.Sitting in the pilot's seat again, the outer surface of his suit frosting over lightly with the cold it had brought in, he exchanged a few words with the Pearl, confirming for himself that communications had now been solidly reestablished.Next, driving the launch very slowly, he moved it deeper inside the largely hollow body of the enemy and with a magnetic grapple secured the prow of the small craft to a central projection within the ruin.Then Domingo once more unfastened himself from his seat and stood up, drifting.The artificial gravity in the launch had not been turned on, conserving that much power against sudden need.He said: "You both know what we're looking for.Keep in contact with each other at all times.""One more thing," said Baza."We're locking up after us.Don't want any mice getting in while we're out." Iskander grinned mirthlessly."Hatch reentry code will be Baker Eps-lon Pearl.Okay?"The two people with him acknowledged the code.Now the three explorers were ready to begin serious investigation.Domingo disembarked first and looked around before the others came out.Then he beckoned them.Baza, last one out of the small vessel, closed and sealed the hatch.Then the three separated, moving away from the launch in three different directions.On first touching the metal bones of the berserker, Polly could feel, through the gauntlets covering her hands, how those structural members quivered faintly with the ongoing throb of some machinery.Everything here was not totally dead.But the hulk seemed basically stable, and getting around inside it proved not to be difficult, at least at the start.When necessary the boarders used the small jets on their armored suits to maneuver.But most of the time, in the effective absence of gravity, they were able to scramble readily from one handhold or foothold to another
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