Day of the Dragonstar (20 page)

* * *

Stanley Linkowski, Copernicus flight controller, stared uncomprehendingly at his screens. The
Andromache
had fired her engines and slipped quickly from lunar orbit. There was no response from her by radio and the Security shuttle which had been launched to rendezvous with her was left far behind in the wake of a full-power thrust of her ram-impulse engines.

Alarms were sounding in the Tower and men were screaming and running around all over the place. For a moment, Linkowski could think of nothing other than the fact-that he had committed a supreme foul-up and that they were going to have his ass in a crack for it.

One of his assistants had tapped him on the shoulder to tell him that he had a call on the Priority channel. As though in a daze, Stanley picked up the phone.

“Yes? This is Linkowski. . . .”

“What in hell’s going on over there?” said a violently angry voice.

Stanley recognized the voice of Gregor Kolenkhov, who was in charge of Copernicus Base while was Kemp was off on a
mission.

“Doctor Kolenkhov? I’m sorry, I’m not sure . . . I think we’ve had one of our ships hijacked.”

“No shit!” cried Kolenkhov. “I want you to track that ship and get me a projected course as soon as possible. How in the hell did you let something like this happen, dammit!”

“I’m short-handed today, Doctor, and I . . .” Stanley fumbled for the right words but nothing would come to him. It was going to be a long day . . .

* * *

Within the hour, Copernicus Base received an official communique from TWC Headquarters in Mecca. The crux of the message stated that the Third World Confederation disclaimed any responsibility for the armed take-over of an IASA vessel. They attributed the incident to the work of an underground terrorist organization calling themselves the Lunar Liberation Collective, and said that the TWC had no idea why the
Andromache
had been hijacked.

Diplomatic relations between the lASA Alliance and the TWC became strained to the breaking point as accusations and threats were hurled back and forth. There was the usual groundswell of public outrage, but nothing was actually done of any consequence in the geopolitical arena.

In a hurriedly assembled meeting of the Joint Directors of the IASA, Gregor Kolenkhov explained what was known about the hijacking incident. “ . . . and although we have not made this known to the media, the tracking stations have confirmed course projections for the
Andromache,”
He paused to clear his throat, and look each of the Directors in the eye. “It appears as though the ore-ship plans to rendezvous with the
Dragonstar
. . .”

“Oh Jesus . . . !” said Christopher Alvarez.

“But how could they know?!” said Nelson Pohl. “This is impossible . . .”

Kolenkhov shook his head. “Impossible, I’m afraid it’s not. Apparently, the security-leaks problem is more severe than any of us could have imagined. It is obvious that the TWC, despite their claims to the contrary, have known about the alien ship and realize its value as an economic and political tool, and that they plan to assume control of the vessel.”

“Is there any way we can catch them? Stop them?”

“It is quite doubtful. The only ship capable of overtaking them is the
Clarke
enroute to the Mars Installation. We are planning to re-route it and arrange for course rendezvous, but they will be at least a week behind the
Andromache.
Besides, the
Clarke
is an exploratory ship, not a military vessel. The crew is for all intents and purposes unarmed.”

“What do we know about the group that took over the
Andromache?
How many men? How heavily armed?”

Kolenkhov shrugged. “We know practically nothing. The TWC authorities claim to know very little . . . other than that a group of armed terrorists, of
indeterminate number,
commandeered the receiving docks at Ramadas, and reached the oreship by piling into one of the hold-modules.”

“They know how many men. They know what’s going on,” said Pohl. “They’re just not telling . . .”

Kolenkhov grinned ironically. “Would
you
tell us anything, if you were them?”

“Has Colonel Kemp been told about this?” asked Alvarez. “That’s the worst part, gentlemen. The last transmission we have received from the
Goddard
was that the alien ship had been successfully rigged for course alteration, and that they were bringing it in. Since then, almost twenty-four hours ago now, we haven’t heard a thing.”

Everyone started talking at once and Nelson Pohl called for quiet. “So we have no way of reaching the
Goddard?”

“No sir,” said Gregor. “I’m afraid they’re on their own.”

THE ILLUMINATOR PUSHED
its light down steadily . Even if a scrap of cloud happened to obscure part of it, there was still plenty of hot bright rod showing. Bloody little shade, too, mused Ian Coopersmith as he wound his way through a boulder-strewn pass. And what there was tended to be a jungle area, like being wrapped in a hot, smotheringly wet blanket.

He climbed over a large rock and then turned around to make sure Becky could manage. Though she didn’t exactly blithely leap over it, she didn’t seem to need any aid. She was handling herself very well, Becky was, considering the fact that they’d been bumbling about in this monster-inhabited world-within-a-ship for five weeks now. Well, not bumbling, exactly, thought Ian. Close enough. At least they were alive.

Becky skipped down, flashed a brief smile and continued ahead of him, all without a word. Nothing unusual, that. They went without words for hours at a time now, communicating through the odd body gesture or expression. It was as though they shared a certain state of mind that opened up an essential telepathy of survival between them. They functioned as a single unit now, in the rhythms of their walking, caution, food-seeking, Sleeping, and . . .

Say it, Coopersmith. Spit it out,
he told himself. Dammit, he had to come to grips with it, before it tore him apart . . . and lovemaking.

He rubbed the sweat from his eyes with the back of his hand, and took a deep breath of the strangely tanged air. Dust motes spun before him in their odd, primeval dance of physics. A stray insect buzzed somewhere near, unseen. Coopersmith put his legs into an automatic mode of left-right-left-right and watched as Rebecca Thalberg advanced along the path in front of him. Her movements were fluid, almost feline now. She’d recovered rapidly from the awkwardness suffered at the beginning of their wanderings. Her muscles had hardened, she’d lost ten pounds at least, and clearly she was adapting well to the situation. Oh, sure, she complained a lot, but that was release . . . an escape valve. In fact, at this point she almost seemed to accept their dilemma better than
he
did.

She certainly accepted the sex they’d gotten into better. These modem women, thought Coopersmith . . . particularly the Americans . . . know exactly what they want and when they get it, they have no qualms, no guilt.

Of course, in Becky’s case, neither did she have a spouse and kids. That was part of what grated in Coopersmith’s mind. He
loved
Leticia. Every time he made love with Rebecca, he felt, however absurdly, that he was betraying his wife. Marital treason, to say nothing of dispensing with all that his very strict parents had taught him. The fact that he enjoyed the blooming relationship with Becky, indeed
needed it,
did nothing to assuage his uncertainty. Having sex with Becky had nothing to do with survival, no matter what the insatiable woman claimed. If they made it out of this place, what then? He didn’t know if he’d want to lose Becky. He was falling in love with her.

One thing truly refreshing about the woman. The race business didn’t bother her one jot. Coopersmith had grown up in a warm and loving home with racially mixed parents, whereas Becky’s parents had been divorced early in her life. She’d barely known parental love, and she hungered for constant attention and affection of just the sort that Ian was able to give freely and easily. No, it was just the situation that had cleared the way for their love. They were truly compatible.

That they were still alive to share any kind of relationship was a tribute to their resourcefulness and their ability to learn the rules of the environmental game as it was played in the late Jurassic. They’d spent three days among the ruins of the three pyramids, but found no clues as to who might have built the structures or to what purpose they might have served. All attempts to find an entrance into the pyramids had been failures. They’d deserted the ruins to make their way across the lowlands of the river valley, following the topography as it gradually ascended to the edges of a great plateau, which was less foliated. Lots of rocks. Mountainous. Coopersmith definitely preferred it.

Becky stopped, and Coopersmith ran into her.

His lack of sufficient reflex action troubled him. What was it? Getting tired, old boy. Getting soft? Old?

“What’s that, Ian?”

Coopersmith disentangled himself, and looked toward what she pointed at.

“Goodness gracious,” he said, forgetting all his previous preoccupations. “I think we’re onto something this time,” he added with wry good humor and not a little excitement.

A city.

Or what appeared to be a city, at any rate. Coopersmith stood by her side and stared into the afternoon haze, just distinguishing the collection of rectangular structures in the distance.

“Looks a bit like some South American ruins, Ian. Terraces! Stepped terraces. I can’t really tell at this distance, but it looks like they’re overgrown with vegetation.”

“Chariots of the Gods!”
Ian intoned gravely. He was grateful that even in uncomfortable situations, lie always managed to keep his sense of humor.

“Oh, come off it.”

Coopersmith folded his arms in contemplation. “No. Really. Do you think that von Danikan chap had something on the ball? Obviously Earth
was
visited by folks from another planet. The people who made this ship, as a matter of fact!”

“Yes, but that was millions of years before Daniken and the other screwballs say
their
aliens visited Earth.”

“But they
were
right in principle, you have to give them that.”

“I rather think all this is a little more amazing than what they had in mind.” She gestured expansively about the inside of the ship.

Ian glanced about. Yes. It still was a bit mind-numbing, staring at all this.
An entire world on the inside hull of a gigantic starship. A world of dinosaurs, of ruins, of long-kept secrets.
The horizons rolled on up into the haze on either side of them, and the illuminator burned steadily in center of the cylinder like a very long filament inside a very big vacuum tube.

“Just the same,” Becky continued. “One comes to accept it, if not grasp it.”

“You bloody better accept it, or you become a between meal snack for one of the carnivores,” Ian commented.

Becky said, “Do you think we can make it by nightfall?”

“Is that all you think about, woman?”

She stared blankly at him, then hit him lightly on the arm. “You know what I’m talking about, Ian.”

“I don’t know,” said Ian, seriously, as he checked his chronometer. “Hard to say how far away it is. And there’s a lot of open territory between here and there. We would have to be very careful.”

Becky nodded, then looked back towards the ruins. “I think we should chance it. If we make it, there will be plenty of places for cover. I’m sick of finding the tallest trees, to say nothing of squirming into cracks in the rocks.”

Ian smiled. “If you think you’re up to it, my girl! But don’t say I didn’t warn you. We’ve been lucky so far, you know.”

Since they had traveled up from the lowlands, they’d noticed a gradual change in the kinds of creatures which inhabited the highlands. The big Hadrosaurs and the even bigger Sauropods such as the Brontosaurus were not in evidence in this part of the interior because there was a scarcity of large lakes and marsh swamplands—their natural habitat. Consequently, the types of predators which feasted upon them were not seen as much, although Ian had noticed that a smaller species of Gorgosaurus seemed to have no territorial preference, He’d taken note of the prevalence of the more sturdy types of herbivores in the highlands, having seen large herds of Ceratopsians, Ankylosaurus, and other four-legged dinosaurs which affected thick, rhino-like hides and a vast array of spikes, horns, and armor-like plating.

You never get used to looking at those things, thought Ian Coopersmith. Any
kind
of dinosaur was frightening, not merely because of their potential danger. They sparked some primordial fear deep down . . . a very basic instinct. And they seemed so
alien,
even though they did originate on Earth.

He’d read the theories concerning the relationship of lizards and mammals. The smaller, weaker mammals were no doubt prey to the last of the dinosaurs. Hence, to escape from the saurians’ night-stalking habits, mammals were thought to have searched out nooks and crannies and caves and high trees, just as Ian and Becky had been doing these past terrifying weeks. There, in partial safety from their natural enemies, they developed a way to keep still for long periods of time. Sleep. At frequent intervals, they needed to rouse, enter a more aware state of repose. Dreams. And what would these first mammals dream about? Why, about the creatures who hunted them, of course. Dinosaurs. Dragons. The beginning of an archetype. Somehow, that archetype, whether genetic or truly part of the “collective unconscious,” as Jung thought, had traveled through the eons and lived now in Ian Coopersmith’s head. Coopersmith knew it. Traveling through this hellhole with its attendant natural demons was bad enough. When he slept, though, it was truly torture. Nightmares would emerge from the gunk of his unconscious mind, and reach out with razor claws or needlelike talons to tear and rip. Dead, icy, reptilian eyes would glare into his, bloodshot with rage and atavistic hunger. They would chase him across plains, and through swampy jungle, these terrible lizards, and they would catch him and rend him, and consume him, just as their brothers had done to poor Huff, and Hagar, and Pohl, and Valdone with the wife and the mother and father who grieved. But he would never die. Like an endlessly repeated film clip, it happened over and over, over and over . . .

Shuddering, Coopersmith realized how parched his throat was. He took a swallow of water from his canteen. Not too much, since it was hard to say when they’d see their next natural spring or stream with decent drinking water. Though it satisfied his thirst, somehow it didn’t do much for the dryness.

Ian Coopersmith had to admit to himself that he was frightened to the very roots of his being. Becky didn’t seem to be having as many problems as he was. To begin with, she had no shame about her fears. Her emotions were expressed readily, in tears or screams or whatever. And she had someone to rely on, a caretaker. In Ian she saw a trustworthy father-figure. He was her competent hero, able to take care of all situations at all times. Was that why they were lovers now? If they’d been thrown together in a less dangerous situation, would she have been cold and aloof?

He
did
feel extraordinarily protective of her. Another instinct, or was it love? Where did passion and need end, and true unselfish love begin?

Because of her obvious trust in him, he was afraid to show the fissures of weakness with which he felt himself riddled. Oh, he told her he was scared from time to time, but somehow she never believed him.

He didn’t want to die, but he didn’t know how much longer he could endure this internal and external pressure. He watched Becky walking ahead of him for a while, almost envying her. He wished
he
had a competent father figure, Somehow, all the responsibility seemed to be on his shoulders to get them out of here alive.

As they passed a large outcropping of rock which Ian rather fancied looked like a half-finished sculpture of a Stegosaurus
(Dammit, man, stop thinking of the things. You’ve got dragons on the brain!),
Becky pointed across the plain. “Ian. Look!”

There was a small family of Chasmosaurs within two hundred meters of their position. The group of stocky animals looked suitably fearsome with their heads covered with a large fan-shaped, bony sheath, further adorned with spike-like horns. The largest of the beasts was more than two meters high and twice that long.

“God bless. They’re kind of close, aren’t they? We’d better lay amongst these rocks until they’ve put some distance between
us.”

He grabbed Becky’s hand and led her back into the jagged stand of boulders, keeping his eyes on the Chasmosaurs. They climbed the rocks, and Ian could feel the trust in the warmth of her grip. Becky found his hold strong and reassuring. She was falling deeply in love with him, and obviously didn’t want to stop herself, despite Phineas Kemp. How easily people followed the whims of their heart despite their commitments. Coopersmith wondered if Kemp would understand. He knew that Leticia would. “Come now,” she’d say. “The old deserted island bit. A virile man and a lusty woman. I’d think it unnatural if there wasn’t a little hanky panky.” But even hearing her reassuring voice in his mind didn’t assuage Coopersmith’s guilt much.

They’d talked about their respective commitments, and Coopersmith could understand why Becky had fallen so easily for his natural warmth. Apparently old Kemp wasn’t a cold fish only in his command duties. One of Becky’s pet themes of conversation had been her frustrations with Kemp, and though Coopersmith never failed to stick up for the man, inwardly he was astonished. Did drive and ambition do that to a man’s capacity for love and intimacy? Coopersmith wondered if it was worth it. In fact, he questioned the value of his own meager ambitions which had vaulted him to his high level in the IASA, but had also landed him in
this
mess. Perhaps he should have been satisfied with a plain old Earthbound engineering job, living a long and healthy life in comfortable contentment.