Across the Sea of Suns (17 page)
the people in orbit, I can’t see much but ferget the others, only survivors are gonna be in the modules an’ not too blessed many a ’em either I’ll bet
Sylvano, I’m getting nothing on insuit for A14 to A36 inclusive, you overlay on that?
are we safe? safe? damn I dunno we’re two hunnert thousan’ klicks out maybe that’s enough distance but what else has that satellite got, answer me that an’ I’ll say
I never guaranteed pressure seals against whatever that orange was hell Stein measured a three kilo Torr jump in a couple millisec on an interior bulkhead, then all the instrumentation crapped out probably crushed ’em I’m sending the curves over now what you make of that
no, all their antennas are stripped, I can see that much, that’s why we can’t get
A14, A36 please respond
shit can’t pick up anything this range no dish
they’re tumbling anyway can’t aim the inboard rifle antenna at us even if look Nigel I tell you there’s no way I can find that out so get off my band and let me
lookit at here in the IR the whole side of module A burned away looks like see right there as it comes aroun’ into the light kind of brown and
Alex here, look I checked those insuit wavelengths and yeah I can tune the big dish for that we’re operational in that band if we pull in the lobes a little but you sure the ordinary link is out I mean you know I’m standing by on emergency so
of course it’s out cretin their antennas are gone if there’s any electronics active in their suits they’ll be broadcasting a Mayday with just sodding suit wiring and the only way to pick it up Alex at this range is through you
yeah Reynolds is moving as fast as he can I’d say ETA is four hours plus easy so
yes I well look I know and well fuck off Ted I bloody
look I got hey hold off a minute Nigel one minute I got from Nichols the suit ID and I’m online, reading now you can knock it off look there’s we’re getting it 2.16 gigahertz right, yeah, hope this right yeah there’s lines here, three, four, I count eight, sharpening them a little now, I can read off the IDs maybe straight from the scope face here just a sec
Nikka’s A27, Alex, that’s 2.39 gigahertz
you say 2.39 yeah Nigel got that one and 2.41
next to it they’re straight Maydays only 2.43 is out
and 2.45 too
how long do you think
Ted we’re under boost awready an’ ’at was damn fine for the conditions seems to me considerin’
I want to be sure you don’t walk into whatever happened to them, so you’ll have to take a slow approach, nothing too
okay putting us there in 2.68 hours, I make it a trajectory with Ra at our backs that’ll maybe be some help
reduce our visibility but we’ll have to maneuver y’know to reach all that debris it’s spreading out fast
Alex says that’s not necessary anymore. There are six no eight suits responding to our relayed medical interrogation and they’re in two capsules
Jesus eight out of how many was it thirty-six?
Yes, that’s why I want extreme caution, though God knows with that response time the crews couldn’t have done anything even if they had been armed, with no warning they
Nigel oh Zak look can you find Nigel for me, sounds like, I said, this is Alex, sounds like a madhouse in Central can you
hold it, oh, okay here
send Reynolds those coordinates pronto I want
Nigel, glad I found you look I’ve been monitoring all the insuit Maydays and several of them are going spotty on me it’s not a relay problem I’m sure of that or pretty sure anyway and
nope there’s nothing from the satellite, no interference so that can’t be causing it
Alex Alex this is Nigel here I’ve cross-checked and there’s no other explanation how long until the rescue team
hour twenty-seven minutes more Central says
hell can’t they
I’m sorry, I, look we just lost one of the insuits, I thought you’d, I called cause it’s the 2.39 gigahertz one Nigel, it’s just clean gone.
The white caked skin was dead and dry, leached of color. Nigel reached out and rubbed it tentatively. He felt lightheaded and vague, the residue of many hours. Her right eyelid was closed. Her left had been burned away. The left side of her face was waxy and hardening. In the enameled impersonal phosphor light he traced a trembling finger across the familiar lines, the weathered fretworks and canyons, and marveled that the wrinkles flowed smoothly into the firming new flesh without a sign of the transition.
“They’ll have the … eyelid … back on in an hour … they said,” Nikka mumbled. The shiny skin was still tight and her lips were swollen, purple. She had trouble with pronunciation.
“Quiet.”
“I’m still not … taking orders … Nigel.”
He stared at her, unable to think of anything to say.
“You … were right.”
“No, I was simply cautious.”
The bright yellow medmon continued to nuzzle her left side, pausing to manufacture more skin and then nuzzling again, patient and doglike.
“When my suit intervened and … shut down circulation … on my left arm I thought …”
“I know.”
“I still don’t see … how …”
“It chilled you down by venting gases at the right ports. Tricky. That was the only way out.”
“I … didn’t think suits could …”
“They can’t, not without a processor linking into a good metabolic control program. When your suit stopped broadcasting, we calculated it was probably trying to conserve its power, use its reserves on insuit medical. So Alex focused the big dish for transmission, and I called up the needed programs. Alex stepped up his power level and managed to overrule your suit. He interrogated it, got it to relinquish control and patch through to us. The shipboard programs told your confused little suit-mind how to shut you down, put you on the back burner.”
“You make it sound … very … lighthearted.”
His patient-visiting facade vanished instantly.
“You always were a … terrible actor.”
“Yes, dreadful.” He should have known he could not keep the strain and fatigue out of his face.
“I was sure I was dying out there, Nigel.”
“So was I.”
“I wanted to call out to you …”
“I know.” There wasn’t anything to say, so he held her right hand. It had a soft and worn and kneaded texture. He watched her face as passing storms of emotion swept across it silently, revealed in slight shiftings of expression in the swollen, discolored, patchy flesh.
Through a small window nearby he could see the other survivors lying on white slabs, being operated on by teams of smocked figures. Three were being readied for Sleepslots; their damage was too extensive and deep for
Lancer’s
capability. They would he stored in a silent, dreamy nothingness until the return to Earth.
“Has … has anything more come out of that …”
“No. It looks dead as ever. The other satellite shows no signs of activity, either. Mysterious.”
She studied him. “Unconvincing.”
“Ummmm?”
“You’re piecing this together … aren’t you?”
“Having a go, yes.”
“You don’t think the EMs … put up those … things …”
“No. But I have only intuitions. I should never have let bloody cretinous Carlotta—”
“I … know.” She squeezed his hand and attempted a smile. “We both … Carlotta and I … reacted … to something … I don’t know, your way of putting it … so …”
“Undiplomatic.”
“Direct, at least.” Her dark eyes focused on the glowing ceiling. The medmon altered pitch in its constant labor and she moved uncomfortably. “You … you aren’t the same now. Nigel. Your … I always sensed an equilibrium … in you. Now …”
“Yes.” He looked at her and remembered the long nights together, when they had first met, lying in a cramped bunk buried beneath the Moon, Nikka patient and analytical, while he carried on, ragged and rusty-eyed, pressing against what appeared to be the problem and failing to see into it for what it was, to clutch it to him. The forward tilt in his life sent him down strange routes, kept shaping and reshaping him. In those distant days there had been no equilibrium, not even the dynamic equilibrium like walking, which was a process of falling forward and catching yourself just in time. Not even that was possible when the world showed itself as a riddle and twisted away, manifesting its greased-pig persona which was only another face, but one which had to be answered, that kneaded and molded him as part of the riddle itself, pressing—
“You’re going out again … aren’t you?”
So she sensed it. “Not to the satellites, no.”
“The surface.” She scowled. The pasty stuff they had used to secure her hair transplant crinkled and a small bubble popped in its surface, leaving a yawning gray crater that quicky filled in. “In person? Or in servo?”
“Servo for me, more’s the pity. I’m too much of a tedious tottering wreck to allow on the surface. I’m to be a flunky, really. Daffler gets to make the overtures—he’s a comm type. Cool-headed, as well.”
“At least they should … let you set foot …”
“Impossible, I’m afraid. But Ted is finally consenting to a direct contact, so we’ve won that. It’s the only good thing to come out of this satellite farce.” Nigel’s eyes danced with anticipation. “Plus, I’ve gotten consent for Daffler to do the overtures in person. Minimum suit.”
“Why?”
“So the EMs can see he’s a living creature. Not another damned machine.”
“I don’t understand. Why not send a carefully coded signal down to them?”
“That might be a bit of a dicey proposition, really. Ted and some of his theoreticians brought up an interesting argument against it. The surface team on Satellite A found a web of radiosensitive, metallic stuff all over the rock, woven into it in some fashion. The thing seems extraordinarily sensitive. It can quite easily resolve and monitor the EM transmissions.”
“And ours.”
“Quite. But it hasn’t bothered us, not until we did something out of the ordinary. Apparently our signals, coming from orbit farther out, don’t bother the thing. It’s—”
“A watcher. Transmissions of that slow chant from the EMs … they’re okay. So are ours, since they’re coming from far away?” She frowned.
“Yes, Watcher—not a bad name. Point is, what happens if we start returning the EM’s hailing signal—that old radio show? How will the Watchers react?”
“So Ted’s strategy group thinks … we should hail the EMs from the surface. Where it won’t look … unusual.”
“That’s the theory.”
“What do you think?”
Nigel shrugged “Those things are bloody dangerous. Best to be careful.”
“If we only … knew more about them …”
“Ah, but we do. A bit, anyway. The surface team transmitted a spectral analysis of the rock. It was fused in some high-temperature process, about 1.17 million years ago.”
“Ummm. Fits with the estimate of the lifetime of their orbits.”
“Yes. But about two hundred thousand years older than the maximum limit on their orbit lifetime.”
Her eyelids flickered; she was becoming drowsy, the knottings of strain in her face relaxing. Nigel felt a surge of elation himself, a conviction that the crisis was past for her. “I … see. Interesting … but …”
“Exactly. Where were the Watchers for those extra two hundred thousand years?”
Nigel was helping cool down a greenhouse compartment when Carlotta found him. He watched the winter landscape form as the cool air forced a rapid cycle. The condensation of mere moisture, he reflected, was an infinite source of beauty. First frost made her sketches on the panes of the observing station. Curled leaves applauded the winter wind. Fall came, setting forth ice like the best bone china.
“I dropped the ball,” Carlotta said. He glanced up at her and she shrugged. “Your self-serve is revoked. I thought I had all the admin programs blocked, but—”
“Ah, well. Cheeky of me, anyway, wanting to slip out from under the microscope.”
She put her arm around him. “Think they’ll pull you out of servo work?”
“Depends on my next physical.” He rubbed his hands together, studying the knuckles. “The joints have been protesting lately.”
“Naw, they’ll keep on the Grand Old Man.”
“Grand Old Crank is more the tune. At staff meetings I keep nattering on about the
Snark
and
Marginis
and machine civilizations in the galaxy. All quite unverifiable, unsubstantial stuff. I …” He gathered himself, stopped rubbing his hands, and stood up straight.
“Nigel, you look tired.”
“Optical illusion. See here, let me throw some of that Grand Old Sod tonnage around and get you some extra people. I think I know the right lever to use.”
“Listen, I am sorry I messed up.”
“Carlotta, that wasn’t some sort of sly jab. I never thought I’d get away with it for long, anyway.”
“If I’d just thought of that one retrieval option, I …” She leaned against a bulkhead. “
Madre de Dios
.”
“You’re the one who needs the help. Extra work for the mission, Nikka’s scrape—I’ll get you a shift off.”
“No, really, I …” It was his turn to put an arm around her. “Nonsense. It’ll serve other uses, to boot. Just the sort of thing to get Ted’s attention. A touch of special influence peddling, quite the way a Grand Ole Schemer would.”
“Ummm,” she murmured wearily. “So?”
“It’ll make me seem a bit more active, stirring up ship politics and all.”
“Oh. Listen, I think the medmon won’t flag you until after this surface mission, anyway.”
He kissed her on the forehead. “Good. Any chance there’s a way round that, ah, ‘retrieval option’ in future?”
She frowned. “Well, if I … um, maybe.”
“Good. Might need it later. Can you make it look as though we never tried this dodge?”
“Well, if I move fast—Hey, you figuring you might need it again?”
He said lightly, “Could be.”
Nigel moves restlessly on the brow of the hill. He has been told to stay in place, hold his position. The first attempt at contact must be orchestrated with care and each person will cover a piece of this long, sloping valley, but still he has been the quiet, persistent pressure forcing Bob Millard and Ray Landon toward this attempt, and he feels he should make the try himself, he has a sense of these creatures. Now the moment approaches and he is in a fixed spot, ready to flank the converging swarm of EMs and reinforce Daffler’s moves, listening to the voices as they report in the EM movements, waiting with the rest.
First chance I get, I’m off,
he had told Nikka this morning, half in jest, but the years of working in teams have blunted somewhat his oblique skepticism, and so he clanks across the hillface, listening, servo’d into this carapace which casts a shadow like an insect on a nearby slate-gray valley wall. A passing mist has cleared the air of sulfur dust. Nigel can hear small animals reviving as the oxy-absorbing dust becomes mud. High clouds let pass a restless flickering of direct Ra light, giving the humped land a glow of sullen rot.
