Arrival (17 page)

“You’re a bright girl, Lynn. And from what Jack told me, you’ve got a lot of potential.”

“
Jack
said that?” Lynn was shocked. As far as she knew, Jack hated her.

Maria nodded. It wasn’t really what Jack had said, at least not in that context. But Lynn needed a little ego boost right about now. “Yes, he did.” It was a little white lie, and Maria felt badly about telling it. But sometimes it was necessary. “Now, come to the galley and eat some dinner before you insult Laura’s cooking.”

“I don’t know,” Lynn resisted as she checked her watch and looked out the window again, hoping that at any moment she would see Frank and the guys strolling up the boarding ramp. “Maybe I’d better wait here, just in case…”

“They’re big boys, Lynn. They’ll be fine.” Maria rose from her seat to head back to the galley, expecting Lynn to follow her. But Lynn didn’t budge. “As the ship’s doctor, I
can
order you to eat,” Maria threatened in pretense.

Lynn knew she was kidding, but decided not to argue. It might be just the distraction she needed.

* * *

Jack and Will sat by the open fire, enjoying its radiant warmth, hypnotized by the dancing flames. Building it had been rule number one in the survival manual, as fire did more than just provide warmth and illumination. It warded off curious, possibly carnivorous creatures that might prowl during the night in search of sustenance.

Building a fire had not been difficult. After digging a small pit, Jack had spread fire paste across the wood at the bottom of the pile and inserted an ignition strip deep into the paste. Within seconds, the chemical on the ignition strip reacted with the paste, bursting into bright yellow and blue flames that spread quickly across the paste-treated wood. A few minutes later, their fire was burning vigorously, to the point where Jack spent several minutes worrying that they might set their canopy ablaze by accident. His next fire would be started with a bit less wood and paste.

Luckily, he didn’t have to endure another meal of protein-energy bars, dried fruit and water. While conducting a more thorough inventory of their supplies, Will had come across an unmarked bag of miscellaneous, vacuum-packed, dehydrated pre-packaged entrees, apparently for use by people back on Earth while hiking and camping in the wilderness. A little water and some heat from the fire turned the packs into a hot meal to enjoy. In fact, it was quite delicious, with an unusual combination of seasonings that Jack could not identify. It had caused him to wonder just how many seasonings there were back on Earth. The Daedalus’s galley had most of the basic seasonings such as pepper, bay leaves, oregano, and even a limited supply of salt. The original chef commandeered a growing table in one of the agricultural bays to cultivate his own herb garden, having brought seeds of his own from Earth for fear that such ‘necessities’ would be left off the cargo manifest.

They enjoyed their meal by the roaring fire, kept warm by its heat, noisy crackle, and flickering light protecting them from the wild. Jack felt unusually tired. He wasn’t sure if it was the trauma of the crash landing, all the hard work he had done today, or the fact that he hadn’t experienced normal gravity in several months. Regardless, he was sure that he would sleep well tonight.

“Well, that was certainly much better than I thought it would be,” Will remarked as he set down his molded-aluminum dinner plate.

“Not bad at all.” Jack set his plate down on the ground and leaned back against the side of the pod. “I’m stuffed.”

Will rose and collected their dishes. “We’ll have to figure out a way to wash these tomorrow. Maybe we can find a safe water source nearby. I thought I heard running water while I was out collecting my rock samples, but I didn’t want to venture out any farther to investigate. At least not by myself.”

“I think we could spare some time to do a bit of exploring tomorrow. We’ve got a good little campsite going here. And it’s going to be at least a week before we’ll be strong enough to start making our way back to the others.”

“So, you really don’t think we should stay put and wait for rescue?”

“Well, assuming they got down without any significant problems, and that they’re able to retrieve and assemble the ATUV, and that we’re close enough for them to reach us within a few days journey,
and
that I can figure out a way to send them a signal so that they know we’re alive,
and
that…”

“Point taken,” Will interrupted.

“I figure if they don’t show up within a week, we should probably take it upon ourselves to rejoin them.”

“Why one week?”

“Well, I doubt that we’re very far from the landing site. After all, we did bail out only a minute or so after them. So I figure we can probably hike our way to them in no more than a few weeks. And since we have about one month of rations, that should leave us enough to get there in good health.”

Will thought about it for a moment, afraid to disagree with Jack. He was the mission commander, after all, and he had been trained for such situations. And even though Will held several degrees himself, he was a scientist, and had no command or survival training.

But he had to say something; he didn’t want to appear too meek. After all, one of the reasons he had agreed to go on this mission was to venture out, do something different, and face the unknown. “What if they come looking for us, and we’re not here?”

“That’s a good point,” Jack answered respectfully, a little surprised that Will had spoken up. Jack had heard more from Will in the last twenty hours than he had during the entire journey. “I thought of that as well,” he continued. “Don’t get me wrong, we’re not going to venture out blindly. I should be able to get a relative fix on our position before we leave. That way, I can estimate our course, and leave a note to that effect inside the capsule, just in case.”

“I see.” Will felt good about speaking his mind. And Jack had taken his comments surprisingly well. Maria had told him that Jack was the type of commander who welcomed comments and suggestions from his staff. But Will never thought that he would be the one giving the comments. “Even so, wouldn’t we be safer here?”

“Yes, we probably would be,” Jack admitted, “at least for a while. But what happens when our food runs out? If they can’t come and pick us up, we could starve here.”

“Surely we can find something to eat around here.”

“Probably, but I don’t want to bet our lives on it.”

“What if we make it to the landing site, and they’re not there?”

“There’s no place else for them to be, really. Knowing Frank, I’m sure they waited until the last moment to separate. That would force them to the tertiary landing site. Besides, even if they never made it down safely, at least we’d find the cargo pods. And with the pods, our chances of survival would be a hell of a lot better.”

Will let that sink in.
Never made it down safely
. It was an ominous phrase, one that he had never considered. The thought that he and Jack could actually be the only ones who did make it down safely was a sobering thought. Will was beginning to realize that Jack’s plan, as frightening as it was to him, made sense. Besides, what choice did he have? Jack could always just order him to go if he really wanted.

* * *

Frank was the first to enter, nearly falling from exhaustion in a puddle of rainwater on the floor of the cargo pod. Tony was next, with Mac right behind him, struggling to get the hatch closed to shut out the storm raging outside. It was pitch-black inside the pod, and none of them had thought to bring a flashlight along since they hadn’t planned on being out after dark. Outside, the light of the planet’s two moons had provided more than enough illumination. But the pod had no windows, and no interior light.

“Christ, I can’t see my hand in front of my face!” Tony exclaimed. “Isn’t there any light in here?”

“Not inside,” Frank told them. “There is a spot to plug one in on the outside, though.”

“A lot of good that does us.”

“There might be something in my pack,” Mac announced as he pulled the backpack from his shoulders and dropped it onto the deck. He began opening and rummaging through each compartment one at a time, feeling his way through them in the dark, trying to identify items with only his sense of touch. “You suppose this is what it feels like to be blind?”

“Do you have a light or not?” Tony snapped, growing impatient.

“Wait, I think I found something.” Mac felt a small package with several small tubes inside. He touched them with his fingertips for a moment, struggling to figure out what they were based on what he remembered from the contents of the pack.

“What did you find?” Frank asked, hearing the rustling of the plastic package as Mac pulled it out of the pack and felt it with both hands.

“I’m not sure, it feels like four small tubes.”

“Glowsticks?” Frank guessed. “Try cracking them in the middle and shaking them.”

Mac pulled one of the tubes out of the bag. Feeling his way along its length, he grasped it with both hands and gently bent the plastic tube until he heard a crunching sound. From between his two index fingers, the tube emanated a pale green glow. “Bingo!” he announced triumphantly as he began to shake the tube vigorously. Within seconds, the tube was glowing brightly, bathing them in ghoulish green light. “Here you go,” he offered, handing the glowstick to Frank. Mac repeated the procedure twice more, handing one stick to Tony, and keeping one for himself.

Frank held up the light, looking around the inside of the pod for anything that might be of use to them. Nearly half the pod’s contents had been vacated by off-loading of the ATUV parts earlier that day. The rest of it was packed to the hilt with various types of equipment and supplies.

If Frank remembered correctly, this pod was packed mostly with utility attachments for the ATUV, like the trailer kit used to tow the pods back to the landing site, and the crane kit for lifting and moving heavy cargo and equipment. So it wasn’t likely that there would be anything to help them get through the night unless it was shoved into some nook or cranny to utilize empty space.

Mac was busy going through his backpack. The four glowsticks obviously weren’t going to last all night, and he wanted to know what was in his pack before he lost the light. “Well, we’ve got some energy bars, a first-aid kit, radiation shelter, water purification tablets, dried fruit, some flimsy looking blankets, a large bottle of water…”

“Any lanterns?”

“Nope,” Mac responded as he rummaged further. “No lanterns.” Mac pulled out another package, “but we do have some more glowsticks!” He opened up the package and pulled them out. “Oh, and they’re red!”

“Great,” Tony said without enthusiasm.

“I might have an idea,” Frank announced as he continued to inspect the interior of the pod. “If I can find a hot wire somewhere, I can rig up that exterior floodlight and run it off the pod’s batteries.”

Mac and Tony joined in the search, holding their pitiful little glowsticks, straining to find a wire in the green-lit pod. “What’s that up there?” Tony asked, pointing toward the center of the ceiling.

Frank looked up. In the middle of the ceiling was an opening that led up to the top of the pod. Several wires led into the tube from just under the ceiling. Frank knew there was a pretty good chance that one of them was the power supply to the strobe light on top of the pod, since the batteries were located at the bottom under the deck.

“That just might be what we need, boys.” Frank glanced around again. “Let’s try to move that package over here so I can stand on it.”

After dragging the large package into the middle of the deck, Frank climbed up on top of it. There were at least fifteen wires of various thicknesses in the bundle. If he had normal white light, he could tell which one was hot. But under the green light from the glowsticks, many of the colors looked similar.

First, Frank eliminated the thinner wires, surmising that they were signal lines. Only one wire would be the hot one, probably feeding a power bus on top of the pod, and it would likely be the thickest of them all. But there were two of them, both equally thick. “Well, one of these two wires has got to be the right one. But without a multi-tester, there’s no way to tell.”

“Can’t we just try them both?” Mac asked.

“Yes, we can. I’m just trying to think of a way to keep from getting zapped by the hot one when I cut into it,” Frank explained.

“Here,” Mac told him, “try this.” Mac handed Frank a long buck knife.

“Where the hell did you get this?” Frank asked as he examined the knife.

“It’s been handed down through the men in my family. Great, great, great, great grand-pappy carried it with him in the army back on Earth. So don’t fuck it up!”

“I’ll do my best,” Frank promised as he clutched the rubber grip firmly in his right hand. He pulled the first wire down, grasped it tightly with his left hand and placed the knife against the wire’s outer insulation. “Here goes nothing.”

Frank closed his eyes and turned his head, pulling the knife down sharply, slicing through the insulation and severing the strands of copper wire with ease. Nothing happened, no sparks, no pop, and no shock. “Well, I guess we know which one is the hot wire.” Frank pushed the wire he now knew was the ground to the side and pulled down what he was pretty sure was the hot wire. “You guys both passed emergency medical training, didn’t you?”

“Yep, aced it” Tony assured him.

“We were supposed to have medical training?” Mac joked.

“You’re a riot, you are. Just make sure I’m truly
not
breathing before either one of you tries to give me mouth-to-mouth, okay?”

Tony looked at Mac.

“Don’t you worry,” Mac insisted. “You’re gonna have to be good and blue before I kiss you.”

Frank turned his head away again and sliced the wire with one quick motion. This time there was a loud pop and a blue spark bounced off the blade of the knife. But being well protected by the insulated knife handle, Frank felt nothing. “Mac, give me some of that gauze out of the med-kit.”

Using the gauze as an insulator, Frank carefully held the hot wire and stripped away some of the insulation to expose the copper wire underneath. Then he carefully twisted it around the hot prong on the floodlight plug. He managed to repeat the process with the ground wire without getting shocked, again using the gauze as protection. Using some nylon cord that Mac found in his pack, Frank hung the light from the center of the ceiling and switched it on, flooding the interior with familiar white light. “Now we’re in business,” he announced as he climbed down off the package. “Now let’s see if we can find anything of use in here,” he instructed as he handed the family heirloom back to Mac.