Faith has its price. When misfortune strikes the true believer, he assumes he has done something to deserve punishment, but isn’t quite certain what. The realist, recognizing that he lives in a Darwinian universe, is simply grateful to have made it to another sunset.
—Gregory MacAllister, Preface to James Clark: The Complete Works
Hours to breakup (est): 255
“Both landers?” Marcel was horrified. “When?”
“Just now.”
“For God’s sake, Kellie, how could that happen?”
“The Star’s boat fell into a hole. Ours went down behind a hill and exploded. Randy and I are on our way over there now. But there’s a lot of smoke.”
“Who was in the lander?”
“MacAllister and the woman he came down with. Both passengers from the Star. They must have tried to get clear, but I don’t think whoever was flying knew what they were doing.”
“Anybody else hurt?”
“Their pilot’s gone, too. I’m sure he’s dead. Fell into the same hole as his lander.”
Marcel stared openmouthed at Bill’s image, which was watching from the overhead monitor. Nobody from either of the Academy ships had been hurt. But it sounded as if it had been a clean sweep for the Evening Star. What the hell were those people doing down there in the first place?
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll let Captain Nicholson know. And I’ll arrange to get another lander out here. Keep me informed.”
“Will do, Marcel. We’re on our way out now to the crash site.” Marcel signed off and massaged his forehead. “Bill,” he said, “who’s close enough to get here in time?”
“I’ll check,” the AI said. “Should be somebody.”
Huddled in the tunnel, Hutch had a more immediate problem. The roof had fallen in and blocked her exit. Nevertheless, the implication left her chilled. “Both of them? Well, that’s sure good news.” She played her lamp beam against the rock, rafters, and dirt that sealed the passageway. “I hate to add to your problems,” she said, “but I could use a little help myself.”
“Chiang should be there any minute.”
One dead. Maybe three or four.
“Kellie,” she said, “call Marcel. Tell him what happened. We’re going to need another lander.”
“I’ve already done that. He’s working on it. Told me not to worry.”
“Uh-oh. I always get nervous when people tell me that.”
“Have no fear.”
“Hutch.” Chiang’s voice. “How’re you doing?”
“As well as could be expected. I’m not hurt.”
“Did you want us to hang on until you get out?” asked Kellie.
“No. Leave Chiang. But do what you can for MacAllister and the woman. And Kellie ...”
“Yes?”
“Try to salvage the lander. I don’t need to tell you how helpful that would be.” She switched back to Chiang. “Where are you?”
“I’m in the far passageway, near the armory.”
“No sign of Toni?”
“Not yet.”
She felt cold.
“I’ll start digging,” he said.
“Be careful. It probably wouldn’t take much to bring more of this place down.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll start from this end.”
“It’s going to take a while,” he said.
“At your leisure, Chiang. I’m not going anywhere.”
She heard his laser ignite. Hutch put her lamp down and got to work.
MacAllister had no idea what to do. He shut off Casey’s suit and tried to revive her, but she didn’t respond. Thirty meters away, the lander lay in the snow, scorched, crumpled, burning, and leaking black smoke.
He surveyed the place where they’d come down: flat barren hills, a few trees, some brush. He felt terribly alone. Where was that idiot woman who wanted to run everything? Now that he could use her, she was nowhere to be seen.
He contemplated the odds against a quake hitting just as he was doing the interview, and considered not for the first time whether the universe was indeed malicious.
They had crossed a line of hills, so he could no longer see the tower. He sat helplessly, cradling Casey’s body, feeling responsible, wondering how he could ever have been so stupid as to leave the safety of his stateroom on the Star.
He was immensely relieved to see two figures come out of a defile. One was the woman they called Kellie. The other was Nightingale. They paused and looked his way. He waved. They waved back and started toward him, trying to hurry through deep snow.
“Mr. MacAllister.” Kellie’s voice in his earphones. “Are you all right?”
“Casey’s not breathing,” he said.
They struggled up to his side and Kellie sank into the snow beside him. She felt for a heartbeat, then for a pulse.
“Anything?” MacAllister asked.
Kellie shook her head. “I don’t think so.” They worked on her for a while, taking turns.
“Looks as if we wrecked your lander,” MacAllister said.
“What happened?” asked Nightingale. “Don’t you know how to fly it?”
“I wasn’t the pilot,” he said. “Casey was. I don’t have any experience with these things.”
“What went wrong?”
“She wasn’t used to it. It was too big. Or something.” He looked down at her limp, broken form. “She was out here on a birthday gift. From her parents.”
After a while they gave up. Kellie sighed and laid Casey’s head gently in the snow and walked silently over to the wrecked spacecraft.
She circled it a couple of times, and they heard her banging on something on the far side.
“What do you think?” asked Nightingale nervously.
She reappeared from behind the tail. “It’s scrap. We’ll want to see what we can salvage.”
MacAllister tried to read her eyes, to see whether she was worried. But her expression was masked. “We’d better inform whoever’s in charge,” he said.
“It’s been done.”
He was weary, exhausted, frightened. He’d brought two people with him, and both were dead.
MacAllister had trained himself over the years to avoid indulging in guilt. You have to beat your conscience into submission, he’d once written, because the conscience isn’t really a part of you. It’s programming introduced at an early age by a church or a government or a social group with its own agenda. Avoid sex. Respect authority. Accept responsibility for things that go wrong even when events are out of your control.
Well, earthquakes are goddam well outside my control.
Bill’s bearded features reflected the general concern. “Yes, Marcel?” he asked. “What can I do?”
“Inform the Star, personal for the captain, that there’s been an earthquake at the site. Ask him to call me.”
“I will get right on it.”
“Tell him also that his lander was wrecked. Ask him if he has another on board.”
“Marcel, our data banks indicate the Star carries only a single lander.”
“Ask him anyhow. Maybe there’s been a mistake somewhere. Meantime, do a survey. I.need to know who’s within six days’ travel time. The closer the better. Anybody with a lander.” Most vessels did not carry landers. There was usually no need, because ports were all equipped to provide transportation to and from orbit. Routinely, only research flights to frontier areas in which a landing was contemplated, or cruise ships, which occasionally scheduled sight-seeing tours in remote locations, made room for one.
Beekman came in. “I heard,” he said. Several others entered behind him. “Are Kellie and Chiang okay?”
“As far as we know. But we’re going to bring them home. The ground mission is over.”
“I concur,” Beekman said.
Marcel was angry, frustrated, weary. “How much time do we have to get them off?”
Beekman glanced at the calendar. “They should be reasonably safe until the end of the week. After that, it’s anybody’s guess.”
Marcel tried to call Hutch on the private channel. But he couldn’t even pick up a carrier wave.
“Is she still in the tower?” asked Beekman.
“Yes. Last I heard.”
“Marcel.” It was the AI. “I’m sorry to break in, but your message to the Star has been delivered. And I can find only one ship with a lander within the required range. The Athena Boardman. It’s owned by—”
“I know who owns it,” said Marcel. The Boardman was part of the Kosmik fleet, a vessel he had piloted himself on occasion when he worked for the government-subsidized terraformer during the early years of his career. “How far are they?”
“They can be here in four days. And we have an incoming from the Star. Captain Nicholson wants to speak with you on the cobalt channel.”
Encrypted. “Set it up, Bill.”
“Who died?” asked Beekman. “Do we have any names?”
“Two that we know of. The pilot of the Star’s lander. And a young woman passenger. Maybe more. I don’t know yet.” Marcel had been scribbling in his notebook. “Bill.”
“Yes, Marcel.”
“Send a four-bell message to the Boardman: ‘Wendy Jay is declaring an emergency. We have people stranded on Deepsix vulnerable to impending Morgan event. Require your lander and your assistance to perform rescue. Time presses. Request you proceed immediately. Clairveau.’ Standard closing. Give them our coordinates.”
“Okay, Marcel. And I have Captain Nicholson on the circuit.”
Marcel asked those who’d accompanied Beekman to withdraw, and closed the door. Then he told the AI to proceed. Nicholson’s image appeared on-screen. He looked scared. “Captain Clairveau,” he said. “How bad is it?”
“It’s bad,” said Marcel.
Nicholson spotted Beekman and hesitated,
“Professor Beekman,” said Marcel, “is the director of the Morgan Project, and he is the soul of discretion. One of his people is down there, too. As are several others.”
Nicholson nodded. Muscles worked in his cheeks. “What exactly happened?”
Marcel told him.
He lost all of his color, and his eyes slid shut. “God help us,” he said. For a long moment he was silent. Then: “Forgive me, but did you say both landers have been destroyed?”
“Yes. That’s why I asked whether you might have an extra one available.”
It was hard to believe he could have gone even whiter, but he did. “You mean you don’t have a backup vehicle?”
“We didn’t have a lander at all, Captain. Hutchins used the one from Wildside.”
“I see.” He nodded and seemed to be having trouble breathing. Marcel thought for a moment that a stroke might be imminent. “Okay,” he said finally. “We don’t have one either, so we’re going to have to get help.”
“We’ve already done that. The Boardman’s only a few days away.”
“Thank God.” He was trembling. “You will let me know when you hear more?”
“Of course.”
“Hutch, I found her.”
He sounded grim and her heart sank. Hutch sat propped against a wall, tired, trying to catch her breath. Her air was beginning to get stale.
“She’s dead,” he said softly. “Looks as if she was killed outright. I don’t think she suffered.”
Hutch squeezed her eyes shut.
“Hutch, you reading me?”
She killed her transmitter until she could get control of her voice. “Yes.” Another long silence. “Can you get her free?”
“I’ll need a couple of minutes. You doing okay?”
“Yeah. I’m fine.”
“Kellie tells me she’s been trying to reach you.”
“Signal’s not getting through. What’s the situation?”
“I’ll relay it. After Kellie’s done, Marcel wants to talk to you, too.”
Kellie sounded frightened. “The woman passenger’s dead,” she said. “MacAllister’s okay.”
“How about the lander?”
“Wrecked.”
“No chance at all?”
“None.”
Three dead. And the rest stranded. My God. “Okay,” she said. “We’re talking about the Wildside boat, right?”
“Yes.”
“What about the other one? The one that fell in the chasm?”
“Haven’t looked.”
“We’ll want to look. Maybe we got lucky.”
“Hutch,” Kellie said, “how are you doing?”
“I’ll be fine as soon as I see daylight again. You know about Toni?”
“Chiang told me. I’m sorry.”
“We all are.”
After a while, Chiang got on again: “I’ve got Toni out, and I’m cutting into your wall. Stay as far away from it as you can.”
“Okay. I’m clear.”
“Putting Marcel on.”
“Thanks.”
Marcel tried to sound encouraging. “Chiang tells me he’ll have you out in a few minutes. You’re not hurt, are you?”
“No.” She looked around at the rubble.
“The Boardman’s nearby. Should be here in a few days.”
“That the best we can do? A few days?”
“Yes. Sorry. It’s all we have.” And lucky to have that, his voice told her. “Hang in there, Hutch. We’ll have you all off as soon as we can.”
Bill came back: “I have some mail for you. Did you want to see it?”
“Sure.” What better time? “Go ahead.”
“Hello, Priscilla. This is Charlie Ito.”
She projected his image into the center of the chamber. This was a man who looked as if he’d enjoy collecting taxes. He had an unctuous smile and was vaguely familiar.”You remember we met at your aunt Ellen’s birthday party last spring. You might recall that at the time you mentioned how you’d like one day to move to Cape Cod. As it happens, an incredible deal came up yesterday, and I thought of you right away. We have a luxury seaside home that just came on the market. And I know what you’re thinking, but bear with me a moment—”
She went to the next message.
“Hi, Priscilla.”
It was her mother. Bright, beautiful. And as always, arriving with impeccable timing.
“I’m looking forward to seeing you again when you get home. It would be nice if we could take a few days and maybe go to the mountains. Just us girls. Let me know if that’s okay, and I’ll reserve a cabin.
“I know you don’t like my bringing up men, but your uncle Karl recently introduced me to the most gorgeous young architect. I’d say he has a brilliant future—”
She tried again:
Hi, Hutch.
This one was audio only. Audio transmissions were less expensive.
“I know it’s been a while since we’ve talked, but I just heard you were on Wildside when it got diverted to Deepsix” It was from Frank Carson, an archeologist with whom she’d been through a lot in what now seemed another lifetime. “Sounds as if you’re in on the action again. I envy you. I’d give anything to be with you. We’re still digging into Beta Pac, and beginning finally to translate some of the local languages. But you don’t care about that, right now. I just wanted you to know I was thinking about you. You’re a lucky woman.”
She managed a smile.
“Ms. Hutchinson.”
Another audio only. With a deep baritone this time.
“You might remember we met at the United Pilots Association Conference last year. My name’s Harvey Hutchins—that’s right, same as yours, which is how we got talking. Anyhow, I’m a program manager for Centauri Transport. We’re looking for experienced pilots. We haul supplies and personnel throughout the web. I can guarantee you challenging work, a generous signing bonus, and a wide range of fringe benefits. The openings won’t last long, but I can get you in if you like—”
And a young woman with a cloying Boston accent: “Hello, Ms. Hutchins, I represent the Northeastern University Alumni Fund-Raising Committee, and we wanted to ask for your help again this year—”
There were a few more, all more or less impersonal, all from people who knew her just well enough to evade the antijunk filters that never seemed to work anyhow.
There was nothing from any of the occasional men in her life. Times like this, she wondered if her charm had failed altogether. But she understood that nobody was anxious to accept a relationship with a woman who was never home. It was a lonely existence. And maybe pulling out after this was over wasn’t a bad idea. Go home and get herself a normal life.
She could hear Chiang getting close. Then light broke into the tunnel.
She helped him collect Toni’s body and get it up into the tower. The twenty minutes or so they spent doing that, moving her through the narrow passageways, trying not to drop her, struggling up those irritating dwarf staircases, were possibly the longest twenty minutes of her life. The e-suit was still on, so the body still felt warm and alive. She kept looking down at her, imagining Toni’s eyes, behind her lids, watching her accusingly. You brought me here ...
She was trembling when they finally got her up to ground level, took her outside, and laid her in the sunlight.
MacAllister lifted Casey in his arms, and they started back. Kellie had rummaged through the burnt-out lander, collecting whatever was left that might be useful: some clothes, a few snacks, and an extra cutter. The reddimeals were fried, so they’d have to survive on donuts for the time being.
They tried to divide the load, although only MacAllister was strong enough to handle Casey. The others attempted to spell him occasionally, but they stumbled along with the body until his patience gave way and he insisted on taking care of her himself. So he carried her and they simply took frequent breaks and moved at his pace. Chiang met them about halfway, after which he and MacAllister took turns.
When they got back to the tower, they found Hutch sitting stone-faced by Toni. They laid Casey beside her.
“What about the Star boat?” Kellie asked her. “Did you look for it?”
She nodded. Kellie saw no hope in her expression. After a minute, she walked out to the chasm.
The lander hadn’t fallen far. Only about fifteen meters. It was wedged between the rock walls, over a long drop to a snow-filled bottom. There was no trace of Wetheral.
Eliot Penkavic was captain of the Athena Boardman, outbound for Quraqua, hauling solar mirrors, DNA samples of over eleven thousand species of fish, birds, plants, grasses, and trees; and of more than thirty thousand assorted insect types. He had a full manifest of equipment for the ongoing effort to terraform Quraqua, and sixty-four experts and technicians of various stripes. He was three days away from his destination when the distress call arrived from the Wendy Jay.
It was not a side trip he wanted to make. But the code of conduct, and the law, was quite clear. When an emergency was formally declared, when lives were reported in jeopardy, vessels were compelled to assist. After several weeks on Boardman, no one was going to be happy about his extending the flight by another nine days or so. Especially lan Helm, who was going out to the new world to take over as director of operations.
He checked his database, looking for another ship that could go in and bail out the Academy group. There were a couple in the area that could get there, but nobody with a lander. Except the Boardman.
Unfortunate.
How could the nitwits possibly have gotten themselves into such a situation?
He wrote out his reply, and then read it to the AI: Sit tight. Cavalry coming. Boardman will be there in four days, six hours. Penkavic.
“I think that sums things up nicely, sir,” said the AI.
“As do I, Eve, Send it.”
“It is done, Captain.”
“Good.” Penkavic pushed himself out of his chair. “Now for the hard part.”
“Explaining it to Dr. Helm?”
“Precisely.”
Living well is a high-wire act without a net. It is a matter of locating one’s proper place and balancing it against the programming imposed by society. We’re surrounded by the wrecks of those who have crashed, the reformers, the upright, the various militants and the true believers who think the rest of us need their guidance.
—Gregory MacAllister, “The Best Revenge,” Lost at Moonbase
Hours to breakup (est): 252
“Marcel,” said the AI, “we have a response from the Boardman. They say they understand our problem and are on their way.”
Marcel breathed an audible sigh of relief.
“They anticipate arrival in four days and six hours.”
He informed Hutch, who tried to conceal the fact that she’d been holding her breath. Then he called the Star. Nicholson, who’d been delighted to hear that MacAllister was still alive, raised a fist in an unlikely gesture of exultant thanksgiving at this second piece of good news. He notified Beekman, so he could announce it to his people. When that had been done, he passed the word to the two passengers waiting on Wildside. He spoke to a woman, who commented that she was delighted help was on the way, that they’d been very lucky, and that she’d been against the mission from the start She implied that Marcel was at least partly responsible for a situation that had clearly gotten out of hand.
Captain Nicholson reached for another trank and watched his wallscreen convert itself into a hologram of a woodland scene. Thank God that at least there’d be no more deaths. Maleiva was remote from the travel lanes, and it could easily have turned out that nothing would have been close enough to come to their rescue.
Of course the damage already done was enough to ruin him. A dead passenger and a dead crewman. A wrecked lander. On a flight that violated regulations. How would he ever explain it?
It was the darkest moment in a life that had been relatively free of trouble and disappointment. But he knew that regardless of what happened now, he could not survive. He’d be hauled before a disciplinary panel, where it would be made quite plain to him and to the world what a scoundrel he was. He would be reprimanded, and he would be terminated. In the full glow of the worldwide media.
Subsequently, he could expect to be sued, held liable for any damages accruing to the families of the two victims, and for the loss of the lander. He might even be prosecuted. Not that TransGalactic would hunger and thirst after justice, but they could be expected to take every opportunity to disassociate themselves from him in an atmosphere rife with legal action.
How could he have been so dumb?
Scarcely three minutes had passed after his conversation with Clairveau when word came from the duty officer that the surviving passenger, Mr. MacAllister, desired to speak with him.
The transmission came in, audio only. “You know what’s happened here?” the great man asked.
Here was the person responsible for the captain’s plight. You’ll be able to set up a small shrine to a lost world, he’d said. People will love it Management will admire your foresight. Your audacity. “Yes, I’ve heard.” He tried to keep his tone level. “Are you all right, Mr. MacAllister?”
“Fine, thank you.” He seemed subdued. The charming arrogance that had informed his manner was gone. “I assume you’re in some difficulty as a result of this—incident.”
“I don’t expect any explanation I can offer will satisfy my superiors.”
“No, I thought not. I wanted to apologize, Captain.”
“Yes. Of course. Thank you.”
“It never occurred to me that anything like this could happen.”
“Nor to me. Captain Clairveau informs me you are temporarily stranded.”
“Yes. I’m afraid so. Until the rescue vehicle gets here.”
“It’s on its way. Now, I hesitate to ask, but there’s something you can do for me.”
“I understand, Captain. There’s no need for any of us to go publicly into the details of this unfortunate business.”
“Yes. Precisely.” Nicholson hesitated. There was always the possibility that someone somewhere was listening. Maybe even recording the conversation. He had no secure channel with MacAllister. “That’s probably best.”
When he’d signed off, the captain retired to his quarters and contemplated the dress uniform jacket he traditionally wore to meals with the passengers.
There might be a way.
He could delete the pertinent log entry and declare the flight unauthorized. That would leave Wetheral responsible.
That was not exactly to his taste, and it did not play well to his self-image. But Wetheral was dead and couldn’t be harmed by any conclusion a board of inquiry might draw. Moreover, the only other living party to the conspiracy had given his word not to reveal what he knew. And he would be motivated to keep that word, since he, too, could become legally liable should the truth get out. No one else was in a position to deny that Wetheral had taken the lander down on his own. All that would be necessary was to agree on a story explaining how MacAllister and Hayes came to be on board. And that was child’s play.
Maybe, he thought, he could come out of this unscathed after all.
MacAllister’s associates would never have accused him of possessing an overbearing conscience. Disagree with the great man on literary standards or on a matter of historical interpretation, and one was likely to find his or her judgment and taste questioned and possibly his or her native intelligence held up to ridicule in full view of the general public. He took particular delight in neutralizing those who desperately needed to be neutralized, those overblown, self-important, arrogant half-wits who were always running about dictating behavior, morals, and theology to everyone else. And he never looked back.
Yet he stood a long time at the edge of the chasm, staring down at the Evening Star’s crippled lander, thinking about the dead pilot, who had struck him as not particularly bright; and about Casey, who’d been too young to develop whatever talent she might have had. That they were dead was not directly due to any fault of his. But he understood clearly that had he not given in to the dark impulse that had prompted him to want to visit this godforsaken place, they would be alive. It would be an exaggeration to suggest he contemplated, even for a moment, throwing himself in. But it was true that for the first time in his adult existence, he questioned whether the world was better for his being in it.
The lander was wedged tight. Below it, the chasm fell away probably another hundred meters. It was a long way down. Heaps of snow lay at the bottom, if indeed it was the bottom. And somewhere down there, beyond reach, Wetheral had come to rest.
He was still staring when he became aware that someone was speaking to him.
Hutchins.
“Mr. MacAllister,” she said, “are you okay?”
“Yes.” He straightened a bit. “I’m fine.”
There was no way to preserve the bodies, and after a series of conferences among Nicholson, Marcel, and Hutch, it was agreed that Toni and Casey be buried on the plain where they died.
They picked a spot about thirty meters to one side of the tower, cleared away the snow, and dug two graves. An armed party consisting of Chiang, MacAllister, and Kellie trekked to the patch of forest, cut down a couple of trees, and fashioned two makeshift coffins.
Meantime, Hutch and Nightingale collected background information from the ships. They cut three slabs of rock from the tower walls to serve as markers and engraved them. They wrapped the bodies in plastic brought originally for the artifacts. By then night had fallen, and their colleagues had returned. They stored the coffins inside the tower, posted a guard, built a fire, and slept in the open.
There was a ghostly quality to it all. Ordinarily, Flickinger fields were invisible, but they tended to reflect light in the 6100-6400 angstrom range. Orange and red. So they all developed a mild glow whose gradations varied with the intensity of the flames. When occasionally the fire flared, golden auras became visible, providing a flavor of the angelic. Or of the demonic, if one preferred. In either case, Hutch hoped it would be more than enough to keep whatever creatures might haunt the neighborhood at a respectful distance.
She took the first watch. They were well away from the tower, to ensure that the guard, equipped with night goggles, had a good view in all directions. Nothing moved in that vast wasteland, and after two hours she wearily turned the duty over to Nightingale and curled up in a snowbank.
But she couldn’t sleep, and for a time she watched him pacing nervously around the camp. It was snowing lightly, and the sky was overcast.
It had been a mistake to bring him. Even the news that help was on the way had failed to cheer him measurably. While the others had collectively taken a deep breath, and Hutch herself had shed the pall of concern that came with knowing it could easily have gone the other way. Nightingale had seemed not to react. “Good,” he’d said. “Thank God.” But his tone had been flat, as if it didn’t really make much difference.
Nightingale wasn’t young, and the next few days, with no food, were going to be difficult. She wondered how he’d hold up. Wondered how any of them would hold up. They had nobody, as far as she knew, with the kind of background they were going to need to make themselves reasonably comfortable. They had only the donuts and a few other assorted snacks. But hell, how hungry could they get in four days? If necessary, maybe they could nibble on leaves. It would be just a matter of putting something into their stomachs.
Nightingale stood in the glare of the fire, scanning the area. He seemed discouraged. Part of that obviously stemmed from the casualties they’d taken, and she wondered whether he was shocked by their loss, or whether he was sensing a kind of parallel with his earlier experience on this world. She also knew he had no confidence in her. He hadn’t said anything overt, but she could read his feelings in his eyes. Especially since their situation had turned difficult. Who are you, his attitude asked, to be making decisions? What’s your degree? Your level of expertise in these matters? You’re not even an archeologist.
A mild tremor rolled through the night. It was barely discernible, but she wondered whether it wouldn’t be a good idea to head out somewhere tomorrow. Get a reading from Marcel and make for a safer place.
Nightingale knelt close to Chiang and brushed snow away from his converter. They were in no danger even if the device did become buried, of course. If the air flow into the Flickinger field were cut off, an alarm would sound.
Hutch’s heat exchanger put out a barely audible hum as it warmed the envelope of air circulating inside her suit. She heard it change tone and looked at her link. The outside temperature was fifteen below. A fairly constant wind was blowing out of the northwest, and the snow was getting heavier.
Four and a quarter days until help came. It wasn’t exactly a hardship situation. The e-suits would protect them from the cold, but it would occasionally be necessary to shut them off, when eating or performing other basic functions. They’d established a privacy area behind the tower. It wasn’t very private, though, because Hutch insisted no one go back there without an escort. MacAllister, who had often remonstrated against the foolishness of puritanical ideals, seemed particularly upset by the arrangement. If one had to use the facility during the night, it was necessary to wake one of the others. It was not a circumstance that would help morale, he pointed out.
“Getting eaten,” Hutch told him, “does nothing for morale either.”
In the morning, under lowering skies, they held a farewell ceremony. Kellie recorded it for the next of kin.
Toni had been a Universalist, Wetheral a Methodist. And Casey was not known to be affiliated with any religious group.
Hutch spoke for Toni, a difficult assignment because Universalists did not believe in mantras or formal prayers. One always spoke from the heart. They all mourned the loss of one so young, she said. Nothing they could recover from the site would be worth the price they’d paid. She added that she personally would always remember Toni, who had refused to allow her to come alone to the tower.
Captain Nicholson, using VR, performed the ceremony for Wetheral. He spoke of selfless service, dedication to duty, a willingness always to put forth extra effort. Hutch concluded that Nicholson and his officer were strangers, and it seemed to her particularly painful that the man had died with no one present who knew him as a human being. His first name, she’d discovered, was Cole. She wished, at least, that they could have recovered his body.
The marker for Toni read Faithful Unto Death. Wetheral’s might easily have read Buried by Strangers.
MacAllister surprised her by asking to speak for Casey.
“I knew her only briefly,” he said. “She seems to have been an honest woman in an honest profession. Maybe no more need be said. Like Toni Hamner, she was only at the beginning of her life. I will miss her.”
He stared down at the marker, which at his suggestion had been engraved with only her name and dates, and the single word Journalist.
When they were finished, they put the two coffins in the graves and replaced the soil.
“Wait a minute,” said Helm. “Tell me again what we’re going to do?”
“Five people are stranded on the surface of Maleiva III. It’s the world that’s going to—”
“I know about Maleiva III. Why are we going there?”
“To rescue them,” Penkavic said.
A chessboard was set up on his desk. Helm sat behind the black pieces, but his cold blue eyes had locked on Penkavic. He ran long fingers through thick gray hair and nodded, not to the captain, he thought, but to some inner compulsion of his own.
They were in Helm’s private quarters. The tabletop that supported the chessboard was buried under disks, notes, schematics, printouts. “Why is that our concern?” he asked, keeping his tone polite. As if he was honestly curious. “We’re, what, several days away, aren’t we?”
“Yes, sir.”
Helm was Kosmik’s chief engineer and director of the terraform-ing project at Quraqua. “So why do they need us?”
“They need the lander. They don’t have any way of getting their people off the surface.”
“What happened to their lander?”
“It got wrecked. In a quake.”
“That seems shortsighted.”
“I don’t know the details. In any case, we’ve already jumped out of hyper. We’re maneuvering onto a new heading, and as soon as we have it we’ll make the jump again. The sooner we—”
“Wait just a minute. We’re carrying a full load of equipment, supplies, people. All needed at Quraqua. We have constraints on when we have to get there, Eliot. We can’t just go wandering around the region.”
“I understand that, sir. But there’s nobody else available to do this.”
Helm’s tone suggested a gentle uncle trying to reason with an adolescent. “Surely that can’t be.”
“I checked it, sir. We’re the only ship close enough. The only one with a lander.”
“Look, Eliot.” He got up, walked around the table, sat down on it, and pointed to a chair. Penkavk stayed on his feet. “We can’t just hold up the cargo. Or the people.” He leaned forward and looked at the captain. “Tell me, if we were to do this, make the run, how late would we be getting into Quraqua?”
“About nine days.”
“About nine days.” Helm’s face grew rigid. “You have any idea what that would cost?”
“Yes, sir. But I didn’t think that was a consideration.”
“Come on, Eliot, it’s always a consideration.”
“What I know,” Penkavic said, striving to keep his anger under control, “is that the law, and our own regulations, require us to provide assistance to anyone in distress. We can’t just ignore it. People will die.”
“Do you think the Academy will reimburse us for what this will cost?”
“No,” he said. “Probably not.”
“Then maybe we should consider our options.”
“We don’t have any options, Dr. Helm.”
Helm stared at him for a long moment. “No,” he said, “I suppose not. All right, Eliot. Let’s go off and rescue these damned fools. Maybe we’ll get some decent press out of it.”
After they’d finished the memorial, they trekked back to the Wildside lander and tried to salvage what they could of the artifacts. The tables and chairs were scorched, reduced to rubbish; the scrolls had burned; the pottery had melted. They couldn’t even find the pack and the garments it had contained. A couple of blowguns, some darts, and a javelin were all that had survived.
Listlessly they returned to the tower and cleaned and bagged the few remaining artifacts.
MacAllister glowered the whole time, and when Chiang asked him what was wrong, he looked over at Hutch with genuine anger. “The bottom line,” he said, “is that this is all just trash. It’s old trash, but that doesn’t change what it is.”
Hutch overheard, and in fact he’d obviously intended that she should. It was more than she could take. “You have too many opinions, MacAllister,” she told him. “I’ve read some of your stuff. You’ve a talent with the language, but most of the time you don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He’d looked at her with infinite patience. Poor woman.
They inventoried their new set of artifacts, weapons, pieces of cloth that had once been clothing, cabinets, chairs, and tables, and set them aside to wait for the rescue vehicle.
“What do we do about food?” MacAllister asked suddenly.
“We’ll have to run it down,” said Chiang. “Anybody here a hunter?”
MacAllister nodded. “I am. But not with this.” He glanced down at his cutter. “Anyhow, I don’t know whether anybody’s noticed or not, but there seems to be a distinct lack of game in the neighborhood. Moreover, there might not even be anything here we can eat.”
“I doubt,” said Nightingale, “that the local wildlife would supply nutrition. We never ran any tests, but at least it would fill our bellies. Provided there are no toxins or other problems.”
“Good,” said MacAllister. “When we catch one of them, you can sample it.”
“Maybe there’s an easier way,” said Hutch.
Kellie’s dark eyes narrowed. “To do what?” she asked. “Find a better guinea pig?”
“The Star lander isn’t too deep. It might be possible to go down there and retrieve the reddimeals. They’d help get us through until the Boardman arrives.”
“Not worth it,” said Kellie. “We’re better off trying the local menu.”
“I doubt it,” growled MacAllister.
“Hutch,” said Marcel, “it’s not your fault. You have to pull yourself together.” They were on the private channel.
“You know, Marcel, it just never...” Her voice was shaking and she had to stop to collect herself. “... It just never occurred to me that anything like this could happen.” He could hear her breathing. “I didn’t ask for this. I’m a pilot. They’ve got me making life-and-death decisions.”
“Hutch.” He made his voice as gentle as he could. “You were trying to do what you were directed to do. Everybody with you is an adult. They knew what you knew. It wasn’t just your decision.”
“I could have canceled it after the first tremor. Put everybody in the boat and gone back to Wildside. That’s what I should have done.”
“And if we all had hindsight up front, everybody’d be a millionaire.”
She was quiet.
“Hutch, listen to me. They’re going to need you until we get through this. You have to stop feeling sorry for yourself.”
“Sorry for myself? You think that’s what it is?”
“Yeah. That’s exactly what it is. Your job right now is to keep your people safe until we can get them back here. You can’t do anything about Toni. But you can see that nothing happens to anyone else.”
She broke the connection, and he took a deep breath. He understood she’d been through a horrific experience, but he had expected more of her somehow. Had the conversation continued, he’d been prepared to suggest she retire in favor of Kellie. He wondered whether he shouldn’t call her back and advise her to do just that.
But, no. Not yet. If everything went well, it was just a matter of biding their time until help came. He left the bridge and wandered down to project control, where a couple of technicians were trying to analyze the impossibilium.
Bill’s image formed on a nearby screen. “Marcel? You have a text message.”
Wendy was lingering in the area of the assembly, although Marcel would have preferred to return to orbit to be as close as possible to the stranded team. But he was helpless to do anything other than watch, so he’d indulged the researchers and granted their wish to stay near the giant artifact. They hovered within a few meters, while every instrument the ship possessed poked, scanned, and probed the shafts.
They lacked the laboratory facilities to do extensive evaluation of the onboard samples, but they were trying to determine melting and boiling points, specific heat and thermal conductivity, density, Young’s modulus, bulk and shear modulus. They wanted to define yield and ultimate strength, electrical conductivity and magnetic permeability at varying temperatures, currents, and frequencies. They wanted to know how quickly sound moved through it, and compile an index of refraction over a range of frequencies. Beekman and his people had begun to put together a stress and strain graph. It didn’t mean much to Marcel, but the researchers took turns gaping at the results.
“On-screen.”
TO: NCA WENDY JAY
FROM: NCK ATHENA BOARDMAN
SUBJECT: STATUS REPORT
FOR CAPT CLAIRVEAU. WE ARE ON SCHEDULE, MINUTES FROM MAKING OUR JUMP ONBOARD LANDER WILL BE PRIMED AND READY TO GO. MARCEL, YOU OWE ME.
“Is there a reply?”
“Tell him I’ll buy him lunch.”
Nothing kills the appetite quite as effectively as a death sentence.
—Gregory MacAllister, “In Defense of the Godly,” The Incomplete MacAllister
Hours to breakup (est): 252
It was almost 1800 hours, forty-two minutes since they’d made the jump into transdimensional space, when Penkavic ordered an inspection of the lander and retired to his quarters. He had just arrived when Eve, Boardman’s AI, reported all in order.
The ship had begun to quiet Many of his passengers had retired for the night. The common room had pretty much emptied out, and only two or three remained in the various planning or leisure areas. A small group of technicians and climate specialists were engaged in a role-playing game in the Green Room, a contest which would probably continue well into the morning. Several biologists were still in project control arguing about stocking procedures, and a few individuals were gathered in the relatively intimate Apollo Porch, where they could look out at the stars.
Penkavic was more rattled by his confrontation with Helm than he cared to admit to himself. It wasn’t just that he’d offended one of the most powerful people in the corporation. He had, after all, done the right thing, and kept both himself and Helm out of trouble. But there was a quality to Corporate’s chief engineer that unsettled Penkavic, inducing a reaction that went far beyond concern over what he might or might not do to damage the captain’s career. It was hard to pin down. Helm did not seem especially threatening or intimidating, but he invariably induced a sense that he and he alone understood the correct and reasonable course. In his presence, Penkavic inexplicably wanted very much to please him. Even when he disagreed strongly with the older man’s conclusions.
He climbed out of his uniform, showered, and slipped into bed. But the lights had just died when Eve’s voice filtered through the room. “Captain, we have a problem.”
He sat up. “What’s wrong, Eve?”
“The lander is preparing to launch.”
“Stop it.” He threw the sheet aside, put his feet on the deck, and waited for her response.
“I can’t. I’m locked out.”
He called for lights and threw on a robe. “Go to the red circuit,” he told her. “Shut it down. Shut everything down in the launch bay if you have to.”
He was out the door, headed for the lower deck.
“Negative,” she said. “Lander is sealing.”
She put a visual on a wallscreen. He watched the vehicle rotate, saw the bay doors open. “Who’s doing it?” he demanded.
“I can’t tell if there is a deliberate agency at work. There seems to be a partial breakdown in Delta comm.” In Eve’s ability to communicate with the various automated systems.
He watched the lights in the launch bay brighten and dim, as they routinely did at the start of an operation, and then the lander floated out into the gray mist.
Penkavic now made the history books. In the only known instance in which a commercial starship attempted to maneuver in hyperspace, he banked to port, tried to calculate the location of the lander, and made an effort at intercept.
He had to work manually because Eve’s condition had not stabilized. Jack Castor, his copilot, was already on duty.
He put Castor on the sensors despite his protests that they would not work.
They tried them anyhow. Short-range, long-range, pinpoint, and shotgun. It didn’t matter; all returns were negative. There seemed to be nothing out there but empty space. Optical visibility was limited to a couple of hundred meters, and attempts to activate the lander AI failed.
No one knew how to pinpoint a position in transdimensional space. Because the only other physical object in the field was the lander, and they did not know where it was, the notion of position became meaningless.
Eve came back up. “The disturbance seems to have abated,” she said.
“Can you tell where the problem originated?” Castor asked.
Not that the answer mattered. Penkavic knew who had arranged it.
“Lambda.”
The backup mission control.
Helm was dressed and waiting for him.
“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” demanded Penkavic.
“I’m aware,” he said. His eyes were hooded. He seemed unusually pensive. “I know exactly what I’ve done.”
“You’ve condemned those people. We were the only way they had of getting clear.”
“Eliot.” He nodded, agreeing with the accusation. “I wish there had been another way. But the Quraqua operation can’t afford a nine-day delay. Some of the material we have on board is time-sensitive. Extremely so. As are two critical operations that depend on our making a prompt delivery. The company would have been hit very hard. Very hard. It would have cost millions, at the very least. God knows how many ongoing efforts would have to be restarted. If we had gone off to the rescue, nobody at Corporate would have thanked us, believe me.”
“I don’t really care—”
“I do, Eliot. And so would you, if you knew the people involved, how hard they’ve worked to turn Quraqua into a second Earth. What the stakes are. These idiots got themselves into their situation, and they’re just going to have to get themselves out.” He seemed to be studying the chessboard. Penkavic noticed the position had not changed. “God help me, I wish it could have been otherwise.”
Penkavic stared at him.
“You’d have done the same thing,” Helm persisted, “if you’d had my responsibilities. Known what I know.”
“I don’t think so,” said Penkavic.
“Eliot.” The kindly uncle showed up again. “Your investigation will uncover a defective switch in the central system and a cross-connected R-box in Lambda. You’ll want to find both promptly and replace them so that the problem with the AI does not recur. Unfortunately, the launch was triggered when a signal intended to shut down the mess for the night was misrouted through the bad switch to the launch system. Because the R-box activated almost simultaneously, Eve was effectively locked off for several minutes and was unable to stop the sequence. An unfortunate accident. One in a million. But quite comprehensible. Responsibility will be laid on the AIs that run the inspection programs back at the Wheel, or possibly on design glitches. In any case, no one here need be blamed.”
For a long time, neither man spoke.
“Unless you insist.”
Penkavic sat down and tried to resist his inclination to look the other way.
“You have a choice to make now,” Helm continued. “You can accuse me, and log what you know. Or you can forget this conversation ever happened, and the incident will remain what it presently is, a piece of bad luck. I’d remind you there’s always a price to be paid for progress. And that there’s nothing to be gained by sending anyone to a hanging.” His fingers touched the crown of the black queen. He lifted her, moved her diagonally across the board, and settled her behind a protecting knight. “I’m in your hands, Eliot.”
“Incoming traffic, Marcel”
“On-screen, Bill.”
“You’re not going to like it,” the AI added.
TO: NCA WENDY JAY
FROM: NCK ATHENA BOARDMAN
SUBJECT: LANDER DIFFICULTIES
MARCEL: REGRET TO REPORT THAT SYSTEMS BREAKDOWN RESULTED IN UNCONTROLLED LAUNCH OF LANDER DURING HYPERFLIGHT. ALL ATTEMPTS AT RECOVERY FAILED. NO CHOICE BUT CONTINUE TO QURAQUA. REGRET UNABLE ASSIST YOU. ELIOT.
Marcel was reading the message a second or third time when Beekman broke in: “How the hell do you accidentally launch a lander?”
“I don’t know.” A chill was expanding at the pit of Marcel’s stomach.
“And they don’t have a spare?”
“No.”
He could hear Beekman’s slight wheeze. “There must be somebody else.”
“There isn’t. We checked.” The room had gone quiet.
“So what do we do now?”
Marcel couldn’t see there was anything they could do.
“I don’t think we should try it,” said Kellie. “What if you get inside the damned thing and it decides to go the rest of the way into the chasm?”
They were looking down on the Star lander. It was wedged sideways, starboard side up. The hull was gouged, and the cabin roof was hammered in. One wing was bent, one of the jets looked misaligned. And both landing treads had been broken off.
Hutch thought the descent looked more ,dangerous than it was. Her link tingled, and Marcel’s voice whispered her name. “I’m here,” she said. “How’re we doing?”
“Not so well, I’m afraid.”
She read it in his voice, knew what he would say before it went any farther. “What happened?”
“Boardman. They accidentally launched the lander in hyper-flight.”
“They lost it.”
“Yes.”
Hutch saw the others watching her. “How the hell could that happen?”
“Don’t know.”
“What is it?” asked Kellie.
They all looked scared. Even MacAllister. She switched the conversation onto the allcom. “Nobody else in the area?”
“No. Nobody.”
“What about the Patrol?”
“Not even remotely close.”
“No private vessels? A corporate yacht, maybe?”
“No, Hutch. Nothing with a lander.” She listened to him breathing. “I’m sorry.”
“What happened?” asked Nightingale. -
“We haven’t given up,” Marcel said.
“I don’t suppose that means you’ve thought of something else.”
“Not yet.”
“What happened?” Nightingale demanded, louder this time. The question hung there.
“What now?”
Hutch wasn’t sure who’d spoken. They stood on the brink of the chasm, staring down, while the implications settled around their shoulders.
MacAllister looked into the sky, as if to locate Wendy. “Captain Clairveau. Are you listening?”
A brief delay. Then: “I’m here, Mr. MacAllister.”
“What’s our course of action now?” he asked. “What do we do?”
“I don’t know yet. I haven’t had a chance—”
“—to analyze the situation.” MacAllister could summon the tones of an angry god. He did so. “As I understand our status, rescue would seem to be out of the question. Impossible. Am I correct?”
“It would appear so.”
“Am I correct?”
“Yes.” Hesitantly.
“Then do us a common courtesy, Captain: The situation here has deteriorated severely. You’ll make it easier on all of us if you confine yourself to the facts and refrain from cheerleading.”
Marcel was silent.
And MacAllister was right. Hutch was crushed by the finality of events. “Marcel,” she said, “we’re going to sign off for a bit.”
“Okay.” But she didn’t hear the distant click and knew he was still on the circuit. “I’ll be here,” he said at last. “If I can help.”
He signed off.
Chiang kicked some snow into the chasm. “We could all just jump in,” he said. “End it.”
“Save the gallows humor,” said Kellie.
“I wasn’t trying to be funny.” He folded his arms, and for an unsettling moment Hutch thought he really was considering it. She started cautiously in his direction, but Kellie got there first, took his arm, and pulled him away from the edge. He laughed. “Although,” he said, “I can’t see where it makes much difference.”
Hutch changed her tone, implying they were now getting to serious business. “How much time do we have left?” she asked. “Anybody know?”
“Impact occurs December 9,” said Kellie. “At 5:56 p.m. zulu.” Ship time.
MacAllister glanced at his watch. “What kind of time are we talking?”
“Zulu,” Nightingale sneered. “Orbital. Greenwich Mean. The time on your watch.”
It was just after midnight on the twenty-eighth. At the tower, it was a couple of hours after sunrise.
“But the place will begin to break up,” said Nightingale, “a day or so before the collision.”
“Pity.” MacAllister shook his head. “We have front-row seats for the most spectacular extravaganza in history, and we won’t be here at showtime.”
Chiang did not look amused. “Something to consider,” he said. “Do we have a way to make a painless exit? When the time comes?”
MacAllister pushed his hands down into his vest pockets. “What about tranks?”
“It’s a little premature to be talking like that,” said Hutch.
“Is it really?” MacAllister looked down at her from a considerable height. “Well, let’s all be sure to keep our spirits up. Wouldn’t want anything less, would we?”
“That’s enough, MacAllister,” she said. “Try not to get hysterical.”
“You know,” Nightingale said, “if you hadn’t panicked and tried to get clear with the lander, maybe none of this would have happened.” He let them see he was enjoying himself.
“Look, the lander was about to go into the ditch. We tried to save it.”
“You tried to save your fat ass—”
Hutch broke in and got between them. “Gentlemen, this isn’t going to help.”
“Sure it is,” said Nightingale. “There’s something to be said for truth. That’s what you always say, isn’t it, Mac? It doesn’t matter who gets hurt; let’s just get the truth out on the table. The truth is, you tried to run. The other lander was already gone, and you—”
“That’s enough, Randy.” She used the most threatening tone she could summon.
He glared at her and turned away.
“What is it with you two?” Hutch asked, looking at MacAllister.
The editor shrugged. “He objects to something I wrote a long time ago.”
“MacAllister,” she said, “you have friends everywhere.”
“Even at World’s End. I guess so.”
Nightingale stood, looking out over the abyss. The others hunkered down in the snow. Nobody said much. Hutch pulled her knees close and propped her chin on it.
Nightingale pushed his hands into his vest pockets. The wind had already blown a covering of snow over the graves. Chiang took Kellie’s arm and asked if she was okay. MacAllister glanced at the time every couple of minutes, as if he had a pressing appointment.
Hutch withdrew into her own black thoughts until Nightingale’s voice brought her out of it. “There might still be a way to get to orbit,” he said.
She looked at him bleakly. One did not walk off a planetary surface. “How?”
“There’s a lander on the ground. Not far from here, I don’t think.”
“Tess!” said MacAllister.
Nightingale nodded. “That’s good,” he said. “You remember after all.”
“I remember that you left one of the landers behind. But that’s twenty years ago.”
“I didn’t say there was transportation. I said there might be a way.” He was moving snow around with his foot, pushing it over the edge into the chasm. “It sure as hell beats jumping in there.”
Hutch felt a rush of hope. Any kind of chance looked pretty good at the moment. “You said not far, Randy. How far?”
“I’m not sure. Southwest of here. Probably about two hundred kilometers. We were a little bit north of the equator.”
Twenty years. Kellie shook her head. “The fuel will be long gone,” she said.
MacAllister looked from Kellie to Hutch to Nightingale, hoping someone would say something encouraging.
Hutch obliged. “Maybe not,” she said. “Marcel, we need you.”
It took a few moments, but he came on-line. “What can I do for you, Hutch?”
“Do you have access to the schematics for Tess? The lander that got left behind in the original expedition?”
She could hear him relaying the question to Bill. Then he was back. “I’m looking at them,” he said.
“What kind of reactor was it equipped with?”
“Direct-conversion Bussard-Ligon.”
“Okay.” Her spirits rose. “There might be a chance at that.”
“I see where you’re headed,” said Marcel.
Kellie was puzzled. “I still don’t understand where we’d get fuel for it.”
“Think about it a minute,” said Hutch. “Most landers are designed for the sole purpose of getting from orbit to surface. Up and down. Moving supplies and people between a ground base and a ship. The landers used in planetary exploration, though, like the one we came down in, or like Tess, are different: They were intended to get around on the ground. You take it down, and you keep it with you. It helps in the exploration, and you don’t have to run it back and forth to orbit every few flights to refuel.”
Kellie was starting to show interest.
“That’s why they carry the Bussard-Ligon,” continued Hutch.
“Which means what?” asked MacAllister.
“Their jets burn hydrogen, like all landers. The reactor maintains the ship’s normal power levels. It keeps batteries charged, powers the capacitors, keeps the lights on.”
“And?”
“It can also be used to separate hydrogen from oxygen to produce fuel.”
MacAllister’s face lit up. “You’re saying it can make jet fuel?”
“All we’ll need is some water,” said Hutch. “Yes. That’s exactly what it can do.”
“There was a river nearby,” said Nightingale.
“Well, how about that,” said MacAllister. “We finally get lucky.”
Nightingale allowed his contempt for MacAllister’s ignorance to show. “Landing sites for exobiologists,” he said, “were often near water. On beaches, near lakes, and so on. It’s where animals congregate.”
“And pilots are trained to use them,” added Hutch, “whenever they can. So they can keep the tanks topped off.”
“So how do we get the reactor running?” asked Nightingale. “What fuels it?”
“Boron,” said Hutch.
That induced a worried look. “Where do we get boron?”
“There should be a supply in the lander. There’d have to be.”
“How much would we need?” asked Nightingale.
She held thumb and index finger a few centimeters apart. “Not much at all. I’d think a couple of tablespoons will be more than sufficient to get us up and running. We’ll check the specifics later.”
MacAllister clapped his palms together. “Then we’re in business,” he said. “All we have to do is head over to the other lander, and we’re out of here.” He turned to Chiang. “I have to tell you, Chiang, I was worried there for a minute.”
“Well,” said Hutch, “we’re not exactly out of the soup. The jets will give us some power, enough to get around down here. But—”
“They won’t be enough,” said Kellie, “to get us off-world. For that we need the spike.”
“The problem we can expect,” said Hutch, “is that after all these years the capacitors will be degraded. Seriously degraded. We need the capacitors at full capability to run the spike.”
“You mean,” asked MacAllister, “we can’t use it to get into orbit?”
“That’s correct.”
“Then what have we been talking about?”
Hutch gazed down at the Star lander. “What we need,” she said, “is a fresh set of capacitors. Any idea where we might find them?”
The engine compartment of the Wildside lander had been thoroughly fried. But the Evening Star’s boat was a different story. It lay wedged in the chasm like a giant black-and-white insect. “Marcel,” Hutch said, “this thing’s big. How much do the capacitors weigh?”
There was a long pause. Then: “Uh-oh.”
“Give me the uh-oh.”
“On Deepsix, 43.4 kilograms. Each.” Damned near as heavy as she was.
It wouldn’t be practical to haul them overland. “We’ll pull them out,” she said, “and leave them in the tower. Come back for them after we get Tess up and running.”
“That won’t work, will it?” asked Beekman. “Can you operate the lander without capacitors?”
“Once we convert the water, sure. We just won’t have much lift capability.”
Marcel broke in: “Good news, folks. We’ve located Tess.”
“How far?”
“Looks like 175 kilometers, give or take. We figure you’ve got about twelve days to get there. Maybe eleven. Eleven Maleivan days.” Eleven nineteen-hour days.
“That doesn’t sound far,” said MacAllister. “A couple of us ought to be able to cover that in short order.”
“It wouldn’t be a good idea to stay here alone,” said Hutch.
“Why not? I can’t walk 175 kilometers.”
“You stay here, you’ll probably get eaten.”
He looked uncomfortable. “Leave me a weapon.”
“When are you going to sleep?”
“We’ve got plenty of time,” said Chiang, helpfully. “You’ll be able to make it.”
“Think about the big cat,” said Nightingale.
“Okay,” he said. “Point taken.”
She turned her attention to the chasm. “If that’s settled, let’s collect the capacitors and get on the road.”
The capacitor compartments looked accessible. It was just a matter of climbing down to them.
“There’s another possibility,” said MacAllister. “How about trying to fly it out?”
“It’s jammed in sideways,” said Hutch.
“You’ve got an AI. It’s not as if anybody would have to be on board when you made the effort.”
Kellie’s expression implied that she agreed.
It was conceivable. If it wasn’t wedged too tight, the thrusters might break it loose. Maybe they could bring it out, land it in front of the tower, climb in, and go home.
But it did look tight. Had to be tight.
The ship’s prow was angled down about ten degrees.
MacAllister saw her reluctance. “Why not?” he persisted. “If we can make it work, nobody has to risk his—or her—life climbing down and prying open engine compartments.” The use of the feminine pronoun was pointed. He was reminding her who was in charge and who, therefore, should take any such risk.
“What it would probably do,” said Hutch, “is rip the roof off the cabin.”
“What’s to lose? If we can’t get it out, we don’t care whether the cabin’s secure, do we?”
Kellie shook her head. “Fireball time,” she said. “Crunch the cabin, split the fuel tanks, everything goes up. Including the capacitors.”
“Even if we try to ease it out?” said Nightingale.
“We can try it,” said Hutch finally. She got the Evening Star duty officer on the circuit, and told him what they wanted to do.
“You sure?” he asked.
“No,” she said. And then: “Yes. We need your assistance.”
The duty officer spoke to the lander AI: “Glory, can you hear me?”
“I hear you, Mark.”
“What is your status?”
The AI ran off a series of numbers and conditions. On the whole, Hutch thought, the damage might not be as serious as it looked. There was some broken circuitry, which meant control problems. Maybe they could replace them with parts from the other lander. Maybe they could fly it over to Tess and use the two to make a fully functioning spacecraft.
The AI reported that thrusters were okay, and there was lift. “Although there seem to be balancing problems.”
“That’s because it’s on its side,” said Kellie.
The vehicle weighed probably eight metric tons.
“Glory,” said the duty officer, “the next voice you hear will belong to Priscilla Hutchins. I want you to code her. Do what she says.”
“I will comply, Mark.”
“Go ahead, Hutch,” he said. “She’s all yours.”
“Glory, this is Priscilla Hutchins.”
“Hello, Priscilla.”
“I want you to engage the lifters and raise the nose until I tell you to stop.”
They heard metal grind against the chasm wall. Snow broke loose and fell to the bottom. A piece of rock let go, and the lander slipped deeper into the trench.
“Glory, stop,” she said.
“Priscilla, I do not have freedom of movement.”
“Try firing the rockets,” said MacAllister. “That should break it loose.”
“Break it, period,” said Kellie. She leaned over and looked down. “We could try to cut away some of the rock.”
Nightingale made a face. “It would just slip down farther. If it changes its position, we might lose access to the capacitors.”
He was right. The best chance lay in the original idea: Collect the capacitors, then get the other lander. But it would have been so good, so elegant, to ease the spacecraft out into the open.
Chiang must have seen the hesitation in her face. “It’s your field of expertise, Hutch. Call it.”
MacAllister looked to heaven. “God help us, we’re in the hands of the experts. I think you ought to direct the AI to pour it on, stake everything on one roll of the dice. Get it over with.”
Below the spacecraft, the walls dropped away, gradually narrowing until they sliced down into the snow. Anyone falling would become a permanent feature of the crevice.
“No,” she said. “Glory’s our ticket out of here. We need to take care of her.”
“I’ll make the climb,” said Chiang.
She could see he was uncomfortable with the idea. Hutch herself had no love for precipices. But MacAllister was right: It was her responsibility, which she’d have happily ducked had Chiang looked a bit more confident. “It’s okay,” she said, trying to put steel into her voice. “I’ll do it.”
She hoped someone, possibly Kellie, would try to argue her out of it. Chiang nodded, relieved. Was she sure? he asked.
“Yeah,” she said.
Kellie tossed a rock over the side and watched until it dropped silently into the snow at the bottom. “That’s a long way down, Hutch.”
Thanks, Kellie. I really needed that. But she bit down on the comment.
Nightingale studied the situation. “We’ll just lower you and bring you back up,” he said. “No way you can fall. You’ll be safe as long as the lander doesn’t give way at the wrong time.”
“That should reassure her,” said MacAllister.
Hutch began by asking the duty officer to confirm that she retained verbal control over the AI. While she was doing that, Kellie and Nightingale retreated to the tower and returned .with two long pieces of cable. Hutch tied one around her waist and handed it to Chiang. She kept the other one looped and gave it to Kellie. “Toss it down when I tell you,” she said.
Marcel broke in. “Be careful.”
MacAllister surprised her. He looked genuinely worried, but she wondered whether he was afraid she’d fall into the pit before retrieving the capacitors. “I don’t think this is a good idea, Priscilla. There’s no need. Just tell the AI to put the throttle to it.”
She was touched. “Just hang on to me,” she told him.
There was no nearby tree or other solid object around which to secure the line. So Chiang and MacAllister drove a couple of stakes into the ground. When they’d finished and gotten set up, Hutch took a deep breath, backed out over the rim, felt the emptiness beneath her, and smiled diffidently at Kellie.
Kellie gave her a thumbs-up.
She knew how the professionals did it, bracing their feet against the face of the rock and walking down. But she couldn’t quite balance herself that well and instead simply dropped into a sitting position at the edge and eased herself over. “Okay, guys,” she said. “Lower away.”
They complied and she kept her eyes on the wall, which was earth-colored and rough and pebbly. Kellie was watching her and passing instructions and encouragement back and forth. “Okay, Hutch, you’re doing fine.”
“Hold it, she’s got an abutment to deal with.”
Trails of snow and pebbles broke loose and poured into the canyon.
There were no handholds. She realized belatedly that she should have looped the cable around her thighs instead of just connecting it to her belt and harness. It was dragging up on her, trying to pull her belt up under her vest. The Flickinger field did not provide sufficient resistance.
“You okay, Hutch?” Kellie asked.
“I’m fine. Keep going.”
She maintained a stranglehold on the cable, gripping it so tightly that her muscles began to hurt. She told herself to relax, and checked cautiously to see where the lander was, trying to keep her eyes away from the abyss. Occasional clumps of snow and earth spilled down on her.
Kellie and Nightingale were both looking over the edge now, and she wished they’d be more careful. Last thing she needed would be to have one of them land in her lap, but when she complained, both seemed surprised.
“Just a little more,” Kellie told the line handlers.
The lander was directly beneath her, and she reached down with her left foot, got nothing, wiggled around in the belt, tried again, and touched metal. She was delighted to discover that it did not drop lower as she eased her weight onto it. “Okay,” she said. “I’m on board.”
Safety line or not, she felt better kneeling rather than standing on the spacecraft. Despite its boxy appearance, the hull was adequately cycloid and aerodynamic. Wherever she touched it, it seemed to curve around away from her. She perched on the starboard side and gazed through the cabin windows. The door between the cargo hold and the cabin hung open. Two pieces of luggage had fallen out of the bins and lay against the downside bulkhead.
First things first: She worked her way to the communication pod, opened it, and removed as many of the parts as would come out. She also took the connectors and put everything in her vest.
The fuselage narrowed toward the tail. She moved cautiously in that direction, toward the capacitor compartments.
There was one on either side of the spacecraft, about halfway back. From her perspective, one faced up, the other down. She went after the easy one first. “Glory,” she said, “can you hear me?”
“I hear you, Priscilla.”
“Call me Hutch. And if you will, open the starboard compartment.”
The panel popped open. The capacitor didn’t look at all like the capacitors in her own lander. It was wide, silver and brown, and flattened. Hers was a dark blue box. She considered whether it would fit in Tess’s compartment, and concluded it would not. But that needn’t be a problem. If necessary, the installation could be done by putting them in the backseat and wiring them in.
“Glory,” she said, “release the capacitor.”
She heard a soft click. The unit came loose. “Okay, Kellie,” she said, “send the other line down.”
Kellie got it to her after several tries. Hutch tied it securely around the capacitor, knotted it, and looked up. Kellie waved.
Hutch put the assorted spare parts from the comm pod into a bag and attached it also to the line. “Okay,” she said. “Take it up.”
They began to pull. Hutch assisted, and the line lifted the capacitor out of its compartment and hauled it clear of the spacecraft. Kellie leaned out, trying to keep it away from the face of the cliff so it wouldn’t get damaged. It swung back and forth while it rose, and then it disappeared over the crest. A moment later the line dropped back in her direction. She gathered it in.
She was just moving back into her crouch when the spacecraft dropped a few centimeters. It wasn’t much, but her heart stopped. Everyone asked what had happened and whether she was okay. “Yes,” she said, trying to sound composed. “Going below.”
She slipped off the fuselage and dangled at the end of her line. “Lower away,” she said. “Not too fast.”
“Tell us when,” said Kellie.
“A little more.” She descended past the hull until she could see the port side. The down side.
“Glory,” she said, “is the remaining capacitor secure in its compartment?”
“Yes, it is, Hutch.”
“Open the compartment.”
Pause. “I can’t, Hutch. It doesn’t respond.”
“Okay. I’m going to try it manually.” She popped a panel, found the lever, and pulled on it. But it had too much give. “Not working,” she said. “Kellie.”
“Yes.”
“There’s a bar back in the tower. Have somebody get it for me.”
Kellie kept talking to her, telling her that the capacitor looked good, that everything was under control, while somebody tracked the tool down. Finally, MacAllister broke in: “We’ve got it.” And a minute later they were lowering the bar.
She caught it and went back to work.
The capacitor compartment was suspended over her head. She looked up at it and tried to insert the bar under the lip of the metal.
“Toward the top,”said Glory. “The problem’s near the top.”
It was difficult to work without a perch, to get any leverage on the bar when she had no place to plant her feet.
“How are you making out?” asked Chiang.
The bar was heavy. Her arms quickly got tired, and once she almost dropped it. The compartment door was jammed tight.
“Okay,” she said.
She struggled on. Chiang said he thought it was taking too long and they should pull her up and let him try.
“He thinks,” said Kellie, “we need more muscle down there.”
“He’s probably right.” Hutch slid the bar into her vest and took a minute to rest her arms. Despite her boyish dimensions, she was, like all women, somewhat top-heavy, and she had to fight a tendency to turn turtle. “Let’s stay with this a bit,” she said. “If I can’t get it, I’ll be happy to give Chiang a shot.”
Her vest was cutting off the blood in her armpits. She changed position, retrieved the tool, and tried again. She worked with increasing desperation and finally got the bar inside the compartment. She pulled down, pushed it in farther, and pulled again. Something gave, and the door popped open. The capacitor hung immediately overhead.
“I’ve got it,” she said. She secured the bar to her belt, reached up into the compartment, felt around, and estimated she had a reasonable amount of clearance. She tied the line around the front and rear of the capacitor and secured it.
“Okay,” she said. “Take up the slack. But not too tight.”
They complied. She got out from under the compartment. “Glory,” she said.
“Yes, Hutch?”
“Release the capacitor.”
It dropped out of the compartment and swung back and forth in a long arc. But the line held, and her knots held. To her immense relief it did not fall to the bottom of the canyon.
After they’d recovered the second capacitor, she resisted the temptation to get out of the chasm and instead pushed up through the airlock into the spacecraft.
She salvaged as many reddimeals as she could, breakfasts, lunches, and dinners packed in self-heating containers. They weren’t exactly food off the griddle, but for something to eat on the trail in an alien place, they were going to look pretty good. She picked up some coffee packs, found two bottles of wine, and some sandwiches and fruit from the refrigerator. The galley supplied unbreakable dishes, utensils, and mugs. She paused in front of the water tank. That was something they were going to need at the far end of the journey. She removed it, emptied it, folded it up, and put it in her vest.
There were other useful items: towels, washcloths, toothbrushes, soap, an extra e-suit, a lantern, a pair of Evening Star jumpsuits, more cable, two backpacks, and a medkit.
The lander slipped a few more centimeters.
She packed everything into plastic bags and they hauled them up. Kellie was urging her not to press her luck.
“Coming now,” Hutch said.
And then Glory’s voice: “Hutch?”
“Yes, Glory.”
“Are you leaving now?”
“Yes.”
“You won’t be back?”
“No, Glory. I won’t be back.”
“Would you shut me off?”
The capacitors were marked with the manufacturer’s name, Daigleton Industries, the date of manufacture, which was the previous year, and the Daigleton logo, a stylized atom.
They put them on the worktable and threw canvas over them, and MacAllister opened a private channel to Hutch. “Maybe we should leave a couple of people here to make sure they’re still here when we get back.”
“Who’s going to take them?” she asked.
“What about the cat?”
“I can’t imagine what it would do with them.” She adjusted the canvas. “No, we’re safer together. If this place is as dangerous as Randy thinks it is, we shouldn’t leave anybody here.”
“Congratulations, Hutch. Outstanding job.” Marcel sounded delighted, relieved, wiped out. Had he really been following all that?
“Thanks, Marcel. We’ve got a bunch of survivors here.”
“I see that. By the way, we have a message for you from the Academy.”
“Read it,” she said.
“The subject is ‘Aliens on Deepsix.’ It says: Priscilla, you are directed to make every effort to rescue whatever inhabitants of Deep- six you can find. Humanity requires no less of us. It’s signed by the commissioner.”
MacAllister snorted. “Gomez thinks she’s writing for the ages. ‘Humanity requires...’ Poor boob. They’ll be laughing at her for a thousand years.”