Children of the Comet (12 page)

He nodded at the blanket men, and they stretched it tightly between them. They held it as close to the ground as possible; there could be no swinging it back and forth in the low gravity to build up momentum.

Torris's captors pushed him down on the blanket, holding him down briefly to prevent him from bouncing. When all motion was stopped, they stepped back. Torris had a moment to contemplate the ominous new star overhead. He spotted­ the hovering flutterbeast, which seemed to have taken an interest in the proceedings. Then someone handed him an arrow. His hand closed unwillingly around it. It was the bloodstained arrow that had killed Brank. It was an unclean object and was to be sent into eternity with him. Torris lay there rigidly, and then someone gave him his bow, forcing his hand around it when he was slow in taking it. The bow was an unclean object too.

Claz nodded again. The blanket men gave a mighty heave, and Torris went sailing into space. He twisted his head to see the scene below, which was rapidly dwindling. He could not make out individual people anymore, just a circular muddle against the snow. He turned to locate the flutterbeast. It was moving now, spitting reaction mass to try to intercept him.

Then the new star suddenly winked out, and he was plunged into darkness.

CHAPTER 18

6,000,000,000 A.D.

The Oort Cloud

“Okay, the drive's off,” Chu said. “We're coasting. Don't worry, Nina. Your tree's safe. We're still a couple of astronomical units away from it. Let's have a look at your bat.”

He zoomed in on the fluttering midge until it filled the screen, still blurry but its shape plainly visible.

“You're right, princess. It does sort of resemble a bat, but of course it's not flying. Those appendages that look like wings are just twitching reflexively.
There!
That's how it maneuvers in a vacuum! Did you see that little jerk when it changed trajectory? It somehow jettisoned a blob of reaction mass. What kind, I can't guess.”

A gasp had escaped Joorn. “Life!” he breathed. “Some kind of animal life in naked space!”

“Let's have a look at what it's after,” Chu said. He jiggled verniers on his board until he captured the other speck. This time they all gasped. Magnified, the speck had the unmistakable shape of a human being.

“How …” Joorn choked. “After six billion years! How could they survive as human beings? The early hominids came and went after only a few million years. After six
billion
years …”

“A space-dwelling hominid?” Chu suggested.

“He's a man,” Nina said firmly. “And he's not adapted for space. At least not completely. He's wearing some kind of homemade spacesuit. It looks quilted, and I think I can see embroidery on it. And his helmet's not rigid—it's sort of like a hood, with a glassy mask. And that thing that looks like a bat is going to eat him.”

They watched in horror as the winged creature adjusted its course several times to intersect the man's trajectory.

“He has nothing that he can use for reaction mass to throw, not even an air tank,” Joorn said grimly.

“That thing on his back that looks something like a bagpipe must be where he gets his air,” Chu said. “Very primitive.”

“Isn't there something we can
do
?” Nina pleaded.

“Not from here, baby,” Joorn said. “We're still planetary distances away.”

“What's that he's holding?” Chu asked. “It looks like a stick. What the … He's bending it. It's a bow!”

The distance was too great for them to see the flight of the arrow, but there was a jolt that stopped the beast's motion as something invisible impacted it and sent it spinning. Gouts of what must have been blood spurted into space, contracting into a swarm of perfectly spherical globules that followed the twisting creature as it disappeared into the void.

“Well, he can take care of himself, but he can't breathe in a vacuum,” Joorn said. “How long will it take till we get to him?”

The computer matched trajectories and velocities. Chu read the answers off his board. “About six and a half hours, if his air holds out that long. There'll have to be a forty-five second burn at eight G's at the end. The ship can't take that, and neither can the passengers. We'll have to deploy one of the lifeboats. They can do an easy eight G's on a chemical burn.”

Joorn started to get up. “I'll get Martin,” he said. “We'll get a boat ready. Nina, you better find your mother. We're finally going to have work for an anthropologist. She'd never forgive me if she missed out on first contact.”

Chu stopped him. “Stay where you are, Skipper. You're needed to take the helm. You can't do eight G's, and you know it. I'm two generations behind you and still as fit as an ox. Martin and I will take the boat. And Irina can wait here with you till we deliver her first specimen. Bringing an armed aborigine back might be dicey.”

Joorn reluctantly acquiesced. “Don't take any chances, Chu. And that includes your last-minute burn. Irina can line up her assistants and figure out a first contact protocol. I think the best she was hoping for was some kind of surviving six-billion-year-old algae in the ruins of an asteroid settlement.”

Chu closed out his board and got up. “Where will I find Martin?” he asked.

“He'll be with the dolphins,” Joorn said. “They'll be getting into their excursion pods now that the drive's off. But the outside inspection can wait. I'll let them know.”

“Okay,” Chu said. “He's probably already in his spacesuit by now. Ring him up and tell him to meet me in the boat lock next to the dolphin pool.” He hurried out, with a nod to the guards at the door.

Nina slid out of her chair. “I'll go find Mother.”

Joorn was absorbed in his control panel and indicator displays. Without looking up he said, “Tell her she can watch the show from the observation deck. I'll have a larger-than-life feed going on there, and if Chu transmits any close-ups from the boat, I'll include those too.”

Nina was already at the door. A guard opened it for her and said, “Do you want an escort, miss?”

“What for?” she said, and hurried off down the corridor.

CHAPTER 19

He was tumbling, with no way to stop it except to vent air, and he wasn't going to do that. Torris watched the stars swoop by in great circles—the two little sisters, the red stepsister, and a sprinkling of the lesser stars that ordinarily wheeled by in a stately circle that marked a full day. The red star looked different from out here in the void, away from the thin miasma provided by the Tree. He could see now that it was not merely a brilliant point of light like other stars but a tiny circle, and that frightened him.

The tumbling wasn't bad enough to make him dizzy. It had resulted from the fact that the arrow he had loosed was several hand spans above his center of mass. He hadn't wanted to risk trying to aim it from waist level. But the slight pooling of blood in his head and feet made him feel a little odd.

He could catch a glimpse of the Tree about twice a minute, every time his spin put him in the right position. It was tiny at this distance, like any other Tree he had seen growing out of a passing comet. He could see that Claz had been right; his world was actually a round ball that was dwarfed by the God-Tree that clutched it in its roots, and he could see that someday it would be consumed by the Tree's thirst. When that day arrived, the Tree would spread its reflective leaves and search out another comet to attach itself to, just as he had seen in his Dream when he himself had been the Tree. That thought frightened him too; the world was not as solid and immutable as he had believed. No wonder the tribe needed a priest to make sense of things.

For the first time, he thought about what it would mean to cease to exist. The last of his air would run out in a few hours. The stovebeast, whose warmth he could feel at the small of his back, would outlast him for a while; they could do without air for longer than a man. Then it too would cease to exist, if it and other animals were at all aware of their own existence.

That thought was more dizzying than the spin. He felt more alone in the void than he had ever felt in his life. The sudden disappearance of the new star had indeed been a sign that was meant for him.

He got ready for another fleeting glimpse of the Tree, suddenly anxious to see it again. This time he could see an even tinier Tree beyond it that must be Ning's home. The young bucks on the two Trees must be in a frenzy by now, preparing for their respective bride raids. It was strange to think of so much life going on without him.

He must have dozed then. He was having strange dreams, almost like his Tree dream. Brank was in it, dead but somehow alive, and Ning, and his father, and Secondmother, holding out a bloodstained arrow and insisting that he take it. He woke, feeling muzzy. He didn't know how long he'd been asleep, but his air tasted stale, and his chest was heaving painfully as he tried to breathe.

He was still slowly spinning, the distant stars swinging around him. He could not see the Tree and its iceball anymore; they were lost in the depths of space. But the three familiar stars that had ruled his life were still there, undiminished, glinting off the clear resin of his faceplate as he turned.

When he saw another glint in the sky, like something reflecting the light of the three stars, he thought he was hallucinating.

A bonfire flared above him, the brightest fire he'd ever seen, and an impossibility in the airlessness of space. He cried out in terror, and in the span of a breath or two the fire disappeared, leaving him temporarily blinded.

As his vision returned, another impossibility happened. A long, sleek shape, like the biggest creature that ever could be, glided to a stop beside him. He had no word for it. It was no kind of animal, except perhaps one like the little shell creatures that crept up the trunk of the Tree munching fungus and leaving a trail of slime behind them.

As he watched, a square mouth opened in its side, an opening as big as a cave entrance. He tried vainly to stop his spin and face it and finally settled for slowing the spin down by stretching his arms upward as far as he could and extending his length. He increased the radius of the spin by holding his bow by one end and reaching upward with it. That slowed him enough so that he could keep an eye on the thing.

Two men floated out of the square mouth, trailing tethers behind them. At least they looked something like men, except that they were smaller, maybe only about two-thirds of Torris's length. They wore spacesuits that must have been made by a wondrous tailor; you couldn't see any stitching, and the fabric had a smooth continuous surface without any sign of quilting. They had no proper helmets or Faces—transparent globes enclosed their heads instead.

Torris reached reflexively for his quiver, then realized that he had no arrows, only his useless bow. But these peculiar little men had no bows or any other weapons that he could see.

He watched helplessly as they floated toward him, propelled by small handheld objects that emitted puffs that looked like frozen breath. They halted themselves on either side of him, trailing their tethers. Torris prepared himself for a struggle. Perhaps he could tear off those transparent globes.

Instead they reached out for him and, with the aid of the little propulsion devices, stopped his spin. One of them was trying to talk to him. Torris watched his lips closely but couldn't make any sense out of it. It was just gibberish. The man—if he was some sort of man—didn't seem to know how to speak no-air talk.

Then the two of them seemed to be talking to each other but without touching helmets. Their lips were moving, but it was just more gibberish. And they weren't particularly looking at each other's lips, so it couldn't be no-air talk anyway.

Nevertheless, they came to some sort of decision, took him gingerly by the elbows, and nudged him gently toward the square opening in their shell creature's side.

Now! This was the time to attack if he was going to defend himself at all. But it seemed pointless. There was nothing he could use to grip those smooth transparent globes, no way to pull them off. He had nothing sharp to puncture their suits with. And there was no way to strike a blow when you were weightless and you had nothing immovable to brace yourself against. The reaction would only propel these strange dwarfs to the ends of their tethers and send him drifting back to eternity. His air was almost gone anyway. Better to die quickly.

He said a prayer to the Tree as they carried him through the opening. Then he had a shock as the opening magically closed itself. He was in a small enclosed space that was somehow lit, though there was no torch, no fire, no opening that could let in light.

He had another surprise as the back wall slid aside and disappeared. He could tell, even with his suit on, that a rush of air had filled the space. The little men urged him forward, and the wall slid back behind them, sealing off the enclosed space.

He was in a larger space now, a place made of something that was neither wood nor stone nor animal hides. He understood that it was some sort of hut but one that was many times larger than the family lean-tos in his own tribe's cave. It was warm here, though there was no fire, and well lit, without any obvious light source.

In the middle of the floor was a sort of container, bigger than any bottle or jar he had ever seen, big enough, in fact, for several men to fit inside. Though these men were dwarfs, they had the utensils of giants.

They were taking the transparent bowls off their heads and, with smiles and gestures, urging him to do the same. He didn't hesitate; he could feel the warmth and air all around him, and his faceplate was starting to fog up.

The air was like no air he had ever breathed before—thick and heavy and full of strange smells. There were no cooking odors or wood smoke, no sweat or smell of unwashed feet, or any of the other odors of human habitation.

He looked more closely at his captors. One was a young man, about his own age, with black hair and the same blue eyes that were common in his own tribe, looking very human, in fact, despite his small stature. The other was an older man with thinning hair and dark humorous eyes whose shape was somewhat altered by a sort of fold in his eyelids.

Then the older man did something peculiar. He started talking his gibberish to the empty air, as though there were someone else in the room. More peculiar still, he acted as though he were listening to this nonexistent person answering him, even nodding as if in agreement. Then he repeated his gibberish to the younger man, who nodded back at him in turn.

The two of them then began talking earnestly to Torris with words and gestures, neither of which he understood. He began to understand when they pushed him toward the gigantic container. They wanted to show him something.

Torris towered over them. They hardly reached his chest. But they seemed to be very strong, and they were politely insistent, so he didn't resist.

The long container was lying on its side, but even so, Torris was the only one who was tall enough to look down on it. The first thing he saw was that it had a square opening covered by a transparent lid that looked like some huge faceplate. The next thing that struck him was that the container was filled with water—more water than Torris had ever seen in one place in his entire life. The lid slid back just as the wall in the airlock had done, and he could see something huge stirring in the water.

Torris jumped back in alarm as a large animal heaved itself up out of the water and supported itself on the rim of the opening with a pair of stubby limbs the way a human might rest on his elbows.

It was as big as a meatbeast but much more fearsome. It had a long tapering snout that was curved upward in the semblance of a smile and two dangerous-looking rows of serrated teeth. It looked as if it could easily bite off an arm or a leg and swallow it whole.

Then it amazed him by speaking.

It was more of the gibberish spoken by the men, but it was squeaky and high-pitched, like a child's voice. As it continued, its voice rose higher and higher, full of pops and whistles, until it could no longer be heard by human ears. The younger of the two men held up a hand to stop it, and it responded by diving to the bottom of its container. It surfaced a moment later wearing a sort of necklace with a round medallion made out of some sort of hard material like bone. When it resumed talking, its mouth moved as before, but its voice came out of the round medallion. This time its voice was lower in pitch, sounding more like the humans, and the pops and whistles were gone, replaced by long intervals when the medallion seemed to be speaking on its own.

The three of them were jabbering at him all at once, the men giving him little encouraging pushes. Then it dawned on Torris that they wanted him to get into the container with the beast. They wanted to feed him to the creature!

Torris backed away hastily. The men caught him and held him in place easily with their immense strength. They exchanged jabber, in obvious consternation, and the creature in the tank joined in, its voice getting squeaky again. It seemed upset about the globules of water that had escaped and were floating in the air. It emitted a final burst of agitated high-speed squeaks and submerged itself. The square lid slid back into place, sealing the creature inside.

The men looked at each other and exchanged shrugs. They let go of Torris and stood back, still within reach. Torris rubbed his arm where one of them had squeezed too hard and glared at them. The older dwarf disappeared through an opening into another part of the hut, but the younger one stayed by Torris's side. Torris stared warily at him, ready for anything.

A low rumbling sound filled the hut, and the floor began to vibrate. The dwarf who had stayed with Torris moved his feet apart and planted himself in a wide stance. After a moment Torris did the same.

He became aware that his weight was slowly increasing. In moments he weighed as much as he had ever weighed in his life—the ounces had pressed him down at the surface of the comet.

Incredibly his weight continued to increase. His legs began to ache, until at last they would no longer support him. He went tumbling helplessly, but the little man caught him before he hit the floor. In an easy movement, he picked Torris up as though he weighed nothing and started to carry him over to the water-filled vessel. Torris struggled but found that he had no strength because of the relentless increase of his weight. Even the dwarf was having trouble now. How he managed to stay upright, Torris could not understand.

The floating globules of water splashed to the ground along with a few small objects that had been carelessly placed. His bow, which he had been holding onto stubbornly, slipped out of his grasp and rattled against the floor. He was helpless as a baby, and he didn't care for the feeling.

As the dwarf staggered the last few feet to the vessel, its lid slid open and the animal popped up above its rim to regard them. The creature's long jaw was wide open, showing those frightening rows of sawteeth. The little man who was holding him reached up with one hand and deftly pulled Torris's helmet over his neck ring, where it snapped into place.

From some inexplicable reserve of strength, he heaved Torris over the rim of the opening and gave a final push that dumped him into the water. The lid, all by itself, slid closed and sealed him in with the creature.

But the huge jaws did not close around his head or an arm as he expected. Instead they were delicately manipulating rows of small protrusions under the water, then somehow nudging a tube into place in Torris's depleted air sack. All at once Torris was aware that he was breathing a fresh supply of air, air like he had never breathed before. There was no hint of staleness, no suggestion of all the scents that came from the air that gathered in the cave or that you tapped from the Tree's air pockets, nothing that made you sneeze or have itchy eyes. And it was unusually rich, so that you could breathe more slowly and still have the sensation that it was enough.

There was another effect of being submerged in water. It was almost like being weightless. He could move his limbs again, and though he was still aware of the unnatural mass he had gained, the terrible drag of the new gravity had been nullified.