A Separate War and Other Stories (21 page)

She opened the med kit and looked at the eyepills, but put them back. I wouldn't want them either, with the high contrast. She shook out a stimmy and put it under her lower lip. “Hang on, mon.” She edged the joystick forward.

She was pretty good, keeping it around a hundred, slithering on the turns occasionally, but she really was better at it than I was. It wasn't her fault that the machine crapped out on us.

There was a sudden really ominous sound, like metal grinding while an electric arc sputtered, and the GPV(E) stopped E-ing with a vengeance. It juddered to a stop, I think with all the tracks and wheels locked. The dim interior lights and the external floodlight went dark. Junior was high enough that we could see a little, though.

“Shit!” Whoopie rattled the joystick around and stomped on pedals, to no effect, and then sat and listened. The machine creaked and popped. Smell of hot metal and ozone.

“Mercer's going to love this,” I said.

She tapped on the screen. Nothing. “If and when he finds out about it. We're in real trouble, mon. John.”

“Try the suit radios?”

She nodded. “Better get into the suits, anyhow. I think we've got a leak.” There might have been a little chlorine, masked by the ozone.

We stripped and helped each other into the suits, nice butt, and tried the airlock. We had to use the manual emergency levers, and the outside door stuck in the open position.

My heads-up said I had three and a half hours of air, normal activity. “Did you top off the spares?”

“Huh-uh.” I hadn't either. They had maybe an hour each, if nobody'd been at them.

I followed her around the tank to the other side. She opened the three access panels to the engine, transmission, and fuel cells. “There you go.”

The fuel cell terminals were fused, still hot and smoking. “What could do that?” I said. “Something short them out?”

“I can't imagine what. Maybe something inside? Do you know how fuel cells work?”

“You're the big driver.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“Calm down, calm down. It's just that you know more about cars and things.”

“Ya, ya. You want to call Fearless Leader?”

“Not especially.” But I tapped out the home-base sequence on my wrist plate. “Shit.”

“Nothing?”

“Not even static. Something's really wrong.”

She tried hers and it didn't work, either. She looked north and raised a hand as if to scratch her nose. It clanked against the helmet. “Damn. It's only a few kilometers more. We could walk to it.”

“Leave the tank? Our food and water—”

“Which don't do any good, you can't take off the helmet. This press thing is going to be there at eight o'clock. There will be a chopper.”

“It might just be a remote camera.”

“Even so.”

I sank back onto the tank's fender. “This can't all be happening at once.”

“Ya, well, when was the last time you check the suit radios? Topped off the reserve oxygen?” She shook her head, though I could only see the gesture because I was looking directly into her helmet. “Or me. The motor pool don't check, they don't get a written order.”

“Look, Mercer knew when we stopped last night. He'll know we've stopped now, and call. When he doesn't get an answer, won't he send a chopper out?”

“I don' think so. What's gonna send the signal we stopped, we ain't got power?” She looked at her watch. “Unless he bothers to call before Press Time, it'll be two hours before he knows somethin's wrong. Then how long before they start lookin'?”

Knowing Mercer, he might go off to breakfast with the reporter, especially if she was female. Then chat her up while we learn to breathe chlorine. “Okay. Let's carry the spare oxygen.”

I started to get up and instead fell to the ground. We said “Shit!” in unison; the tank was starting to move on without us. Whoopie ran around to the airlock side, and I followed as soon as I could get to my feet.

She was inside, both doors open. I swung up and staggered in, too.

“Damn! Nothing!” She was working the joystick with both hands. The tank continued to crawl along at a fast walk.

She leaned forward and looked at the dash. “I don' know what the hell. Where's it gettin' power?”

“Maybe it's some fail-safe thing,” I said. “A backup power supply. Is it following the default path?”

“I don't think so—Jesus! It's headed for the edge!” I popped open the cabinet next to the airlock and unshipped the two reserve oxygen tanks. Whoopie grabbed one and we both half jumped, half fell out of the door. We sat and watched the machine crawl toward its doom.

But at the edge, it slowly spun left and continued on its way. We got to our feet and followed it.

“It's not headed back,” Whoopie observed. “So it's not some kind of homing program.”

“And it's not following the default I traced. But it is headed roughly in the right direction.”

“That's where it's goin'.” She checked her wrist compass and almost tripped over a rock. “Might even be a more direct route.” It certainly wasn't afraid of skirting the edge of the canyon, something I'd avoided, mapping with the stylus. Maybe it did have a kind of homing “instinct,” but toward its destination rather than back to the motor pool.

Keeping up with it was exhausting. The suits aren't uncomfortable in the short term, but they reminded me of when your mother overdressed you for playing in the snow: you walk kind of like a zombie in a movie. Very comical.

After stomping along for about an hour and a half, we topped a rise and could see the artifacts, which were impressive. Three identical Lalandian heads, maybe a hundred meters high. In another fifteen minutes, the GPV rolled as close to the artifacts as it could get, on the edge of a sheer cliff, and stopped.

It took us a while to get our breath, and it was about time to stop breathing so hard. My heads-up said thirty-eight minutes left.

“Whatta you make of it?”

“Been here a while. If they were on Earth, I'd say they were thousands of years old. This atmosphere's more corrosive, though. Um…”

We had stared at them for several minutes, in silence, before either of us realized it was odd.

“John,” she said, still staring.

“Yeah,” I said. “This is crazy.”

“Let's both look away now. On the count of three.”

“Hell with counting. Just look away.”

It was like not looking at a beautiful painting, combined with not looking at a horrible accident. I looked at my feet, and every muscle in my neck was trying to make me raise my head.

“This is max bad,” she said, and I could tell from her voice that her teeth were clenched.

Some kilometers away, I could hear the throb of a helicopter. With some effort I was able to look in its direction. It was the big cargo one, good. It would have at least six oxygen tanks.

Then it stopped. It was going thump-thump-thump and then nothing. I saw it autorotate about halfway to the ground, and then it stabilized and continued toward our position.

But the engine wasn't going; the blades weren't turning. It was evidently magicked the way our tank had been.

Whoopie and I lost interest in the chopper and stared back at the statues. They were a little more fascinating than anything I'd ever seen. When the helicopter landed next to us, we glanced at it, and then returned our attention to the three heads, ugly and compelling.

Mercer got out of the helicopter, followed by two Lalandians and another human, the newsie. Through her faceplate I could see she was beautiful. I looked back at the statues. I could hear Mercer breathing hard through the suit's external speakers.

“What is…” Mercer began. “What, um.” He was staring at them, too.

One Lalandian was our translator, Moe. “I see it works on you, too,” it said, lisping the esses and making a strange click-sound for the tees.

“What works?” the newsie mumbled.

“I told the Mercer. The three spirits.”

“You said ‘compelling.'” Mercer tried to look at the creature, but turned his attention back to the three.

“Are they not?” Mercer didn't answer.

I tried to concentrate. “How old are they?”

“Who knows? Old.”

The newsie cleared her throat. “Do you know, build, what? Wait.” You could hear her take a deep breath. “Do-you-know-who-built-them?”

Moe said something in his own language, and the other answered with a syllable. “They've always been. They're not like a building.”

I tried to close my eyes but couldn't. It seemed to be getting worse. “Long? How long?”

“I'm sorry?” it said.

“How…long-does-it-last?” Whoopie said.

“It has lasted, how you calculate, thousands of thousands of days.”

Both of the Lalandians flipped, their tail ends in the air. They stared at each other almost nose to nose. “Many died here, starve and thirst, before we learned the way.”

“Die here,” Mercer said. “People stand here till they die?”

“Not people; not humans. You are the first to be here.”

“You didn't tell me!”

“No. If I had told you, you would not have brought us out here. These two, John and Whoopie, would have died if they didn't know the way. We like them.”

“The way?” I said. “That's what you're doing now?”

“Yes,” Moe said, and the two of them started moving away, stepping in unison.

“Wait!” Whoopie said. “We can't…we can't walk with our butts in the air!”

“I think it's not the way you do it,” Moe said. “It's who you are with. This is my mate,” and he said her name, which sounded like a digestive emanation.

“None of us have mates,” Whoopie said. “Not here.”

“It only has to be someone you are…attracted to? You concentrate on him. If he is also attracted to you, you can both walk away.”

“Oh my God,” Whoopie said, and half turned toward me. “You don't like women.”

“I'm here,” Mercer said, tattoos and jowls and all. Her complexion turned a little grey, and she shook her head slowly.

“Whoopie,” I said softly. “Look at me.” With a huge effort I stepped around, facing away from the statues. She took two steps toward me.

I stared into her blue eyes, so striking against her dark skin. Soft skin that I had to admit I'd wanted to touch. Her mouth opened slightly in an expression of surprise. “There's one woman I do like.”

“You have a funny way of expressing it.” Our faceplates clicked together, and she giggled and tried to put her arms around me. It was an awkward gesture in the clumsy suits, but unambiguous. The compulsion was suddenly gone, replaced by a more pleasant feeling. I returned her embrace, and we began to shuffle away.

“How far do we have to go?” I called to the Lalandians.

“Out of sight,” Moe said.

“Wait!” the newsie shouted. “What the hell are we going to do?”

Good point. If I were in her position, I'd be doomed. “How much air do you have?” They each had four hours.

“We can't carry them,” Whoopie said. “Maybe her, but not him.”

“They might fight it, too.” We whispered out a plan, trying to ignore Mercer's pleading with the woman, which would have been funny if it weren't a life-and-death situation.

We wound up waltzing back to the GPV, where we clumsily kicked open the front storage locker. There was a cable attached to a winch there. We managed to detach it and make a loop.

It served as a kind of lasso. We tried it on the woman first, looping it under her arms. She couldn't cooperate, but she didn't resist until we actually began to pull. She dug in and tried to stay, but after a couple of tugs she fell down. We dragged her as fast as we could, back down the rise that led to the ledge. After a couple of hundred meters, we reached the two Lalandians, and she said she was okay. Whoopie and I were free to look at something besides each other.

“You're a funny guy,” she mumbled, looking at her feet.

“Just versatile,” I said, though it was not something I'd known about myself. I felt intensely confused, but not unhappy.

“So now you go back and get Mr. Popularity?” the newsie said.

We looked at each other and laughed. “Don't even think it,” Whoopie said.

He was a little more trouble, heavy and ornery. Once he was safe, we still had to go back and collect four air tanks.

Of course we still weren't completely out of trouble. The Lalandians said they thought our radios would work when we were sufficiently far away, but then they didn't really know anything about radios; they were no more or less magical than the statues.