Chapter 8

Click.

The automatics chatter anxiously, just on the threshold of my awareness. Where am I? Is this another death dream? Agony in my chest - I've been shot! 

No, that happened a long time ago. The pain vanishes.

I take stock. Radar and radio still functioning. Fuel tanks at 1/3. Engines in standby mode but fully functional. Control surfaces operational. Hull integrity .... no data.

I settle back to consider the problem. Landing on Earth is no problem for an oil diver - if the hull is sound. A faint gnawing in my stomach, getting more insistant. I am hungry.

Hungry?

I should not be. My holds were full when I departed Titan. I flick my aerofoils - the oil diver equivalent of a shrug. I'll have to inspect visually.

The camera pod is still functioning, protected as it was near my spine. I select camera as my visual input, moving radar to my sense of touch. The pod nudges out of it's bay and rolls. My back is fine.

Forward.

White ceramic skin gives way to soot as the camera reaches my nose, the baked on residues of thousands of oil dives. The camera rounds the nose. The soot is gone, burnt off by a heat greater than any atmospheric entry. This does not look good.

I move back toward the tail. A ragged hole appears under the lights. The agony in my chest had been no dream.