The planted bomb in the cargo hold had destroyed the rear assembly completely. Three passengers sitting in the rear had been sucked out of the ship by the aerodynamic pressure. With them had gone Julia Merlin’s oblong box with the body of the Goblin packed inside it. Passengers and box dropped together towards the dark wastes of the Antarctic Ocean.

The computer took the seating plan of the remaining passengers, computed total maximum survival probability for the group, and slid the rear set of emergency doors out of the fuselage walls and across the width of the cabin. Three crew members were trapped aft of the seal.

Oxygen was released into the forward part of the cabin from the emergency supply. The tough plastic of the emergency doors bellied under the pressure, but it held easily. Four seconds after the explosion, the atmosphere was again able to support life. While the surviving passengers gulped in oxygen and held their ears against the agony of the sudden pressure changes, the computer began Stage Two.

The rear control surfaces were gone. The computer switched off all flight power, jettisoned the self-contained nuclear reactor unit a fraction of a second before the captain could do it, and flashed an estimated landing location to the Search and Rescue System.

The rear braking chute had gone, too. Computed impact speed, even with the deployment of the forward chute, would still be too high. The computer trimmed all surfaces to minimize descent speed. It prepared to deploy the forward chute, and positioned the air-bags to release the instant before ground impact. The craft would hit inland, seven thousand feet above sea level on the polar ice cap. The Search and Rescue Satellite also computed a trajectory and sent back a confirmation of the estimated arrival point. Messages had already gone out to the nearest ground-based Search and Rescue teams, telling them the number of passengers and crew, their ages and physical condition.