Land and Overland - Omnibus (77 page)

Readiness to kill is no yardstick of courage. Although the symbonites abhor the taking of life, they will do so if they adjudge it necessary—but they are not the ones with whom you will have to contend. The native Farlanders are the instruments of the symbonites … and they are numerous … and they are untroubled by any scruples over the shedding of blood.

"Nor are we when the cause is just," Toller said. "Will the symbonites become aware of us before we land?"

Probably not. No mind—telepathic or otherwise—can continue to function unless it protects itself from the spherical bombardment of information. I became aware of you mainly because of the special relationship with Bartan.

"Are you permitted freedom of movement?"

Yes
—I
roam the planet at will.

"In that case," Toller said, still dully astonished at his ability to commune with a mental apparition, "surely it is within your power to guide our skyship to some remote and lonely spot—at night, if need be—where we could meet you and take you on board our craft. A few seconds should suffice—it is not even necessary for the ship to touch down—and then we could be on our way back to Overland."

The extent of your presumption amazes me, Toller Maraquine. Do you dare to imagine that your analysis of the possibilities, carried out on the spur of the moment, is superior to mine?

"All I'm…"

Do not trouble yourself to answer. Instead, let me put another question to you—for the last time, is it totally inconceivable that you can be persuaded to turn back?

"We go on."

If
that is the way of
it,
Sondeweere's image was retreating as she spoke,
we will meet under your terms. But I guarantee that all of you will come to rue the day you left Overland.

The
Kolcorron
completed two orbits of the planet at a height of more than three thousand miles, hurtling through the tenuous outer fringes of the atmosphere. And then, after Sondeweere was satisfied that she had taken all variables into account, she gave instructions for a series of firings of the main engine, the effect of which was to kill the ship's orbital speed.

The
Kolcorron
began to drop vertically towards the surface of Farland.

At first the rate of fall was negligible, but as the hours went by the speed built up and those on board began to hear a burbling rush of air against the planking of the hull. Tipp Gotlon was at the controls. Under Sondeweere's seemingly omniscient guidance, he brought the ship into a vertical attitude, tail down, and fired a long blast on the engine which not only checked the descent but produced a small upward velocity. At that stage the ship was surrounded by air which, although still rarefied, was capable of supporting human life for a reasonable period. The ship's upward movement would soon be halted and reversed by Farland's gravity, but for the time being the exterior working conditions resembled those of Overland's weightless zone—and the task of deploying the skyship began.

Before going outside, Toller went to the top deck for a final word with Gotlon, ascending the ladder with some difficulty because of his skysuit and the added encumbrances of the parachute and personal propulsion unit. A single ray of sunlight from a porthole was slanting across the compartment, casting a lemon-coloured glow over the pilot's face, upon which was an expression of moody discontent.

"Sir," he said on seeing Toller, "how is Zavotle coping with the outside work?"

"Zavotle is coping very well," Toller replied, aware of what was in Gotlon's mind. He had been disappointed on being told that he was to remain with the ship, and had argued that only the able-bodied members of the crew should take part in what promised to be an arduous and dangerous rescue mission. Toller had countered by saying that the role of the
Kolcorron
was of paramount importance to the whole project, therefore logic demanded that the best pilot should be left in control of the vessel. The tribute to his flying skills had mollified Gotlon only a little.

"The work I am given could as easily be done by a sick man," he said, returning to his original argument.

Toller shook his head. "Son, liven Zavotle is not merely a
sick
man. He would not thank me for telling you this, but there is little time remaining to him, and I think it is in his heart to be buried on Farland."

Gotlon looked uncomfortable. "I hadn't realised. So that's why he has been so crabbed of late."

"Yes. And if he were to be left here alone on the ship, and chanced to die, what would become of the rest of us?"

"I didn't say goodbye to him. I was resentful."

"He won't be concerned about that. The best thing you can do for Zavotle is to make sure that his logbook is returned safely to Overland. There is much in there that will be invaluable to future space travellers, including all that he has learned from Sondeweere, and I am charging you with the personal responsibility for · ensuring that it is delivered into King Chakkell's hands."

"I'll do my utmost to…" Gotlon paused and looked at Toller with eyes which had become strangely aware. "Sir, the mission… Are you in any doubt about the outcome?"

"No doubt at all," Toller said, smiling. He gripped Gotlon's shoulder for a second, then drew himself back to the ladder and went down it, controlling his bulk with difficulty in the confined space because of the weightless conditions.

When he got outside the ship, into the boundless sky, movement became effortless. The others were already at work, separating the skyship section from the main body of the
Kolcorron,
and Farland was an enormous, mind-stunning convex backdrop to their activities.

A white polar cap was visible on the planet, which had more cloud than Land or Overland, giving it a reflective power which enveloped the floating figures in a storm of brilliance. The sky in the lower half of the sphere of visibility had returned to the dark blue coloration with which Toller was familiar, but above him it shaded into a near-blackness in which the stars and spirals shone with unusual clarity.

He took a deep breath as he relished every aspect of the unearthly scene, feeling privileged, savouring the fact that he had been born into unique circumstances which had directed his life to this unparalleled moment.

Ahead of him was a new experience, a new world to ravish his senses, a new enemy to conquer; within him was the kind of fevered joy he had first known when riding down on Red One to engage a Lander fleet.

But there was something else there—an undertow of panic and despair. The worm at the core of his life had chosen that very instant to resume its coiling and uncoiling, reminding him that after Farland there was nowhere else to go.
Perhaps,
the now familiar thought came stealing,
my
grave is down there on that alien globe. And perhaps that is where I want it to be…

"We need those muscles of yours, Toller," Zavotle called out.

Toller jetted down to the aft section of the ship. The criss-cross ropes which bound the section to the main hull had already been slackened off the lashing pins, but the mastic was exerting an obstinate cohesive force which preserved the unity of the structure. Toller helped drive in wedges, work which was irksomely difficult because of the need to cling to the ship with one hand and contain the reaction of the hammer within his own frame. Levers were quite useless for the same reason, and in the end separation was only achieved by the group working their toes and fingers into the partial gap at one side and using their combined muscle power to rip the skyship clear of the mother craft.

It tilted away, wallowing gently, exposing the exhaust cone of the engine which would take the main ship back to Overland. Dakan Wraker had disconnected the control extensions in advance, and his task now was to rejoin the various rods to both engines and to check that they were functioning properly.

"We should have had jacks," Zavotle commented, his face pale and gleaming with sweat. "And have you noticed that it isn't cold here? We're farther from the sun and yet the air is warmer than in our own weightless zone. Nature delights in confounding us. Toller."

"There's no time to fret about it now." Toller flew to the skyship and took part in pushing it sideways, clear of the
Kolcorron,
with the combined thrust of five personal jets. The crew then began drawing the folded balloon out of the gondola, straightening it out and connecting the load lines. The acceleration struts, which had been sectionised to fit into the ship, were tricky to assemble, but the routine had been practised before the start of the voyage and was completed in good time. Wraker finished his work on the mother ship and within a few minutes of returning to the gondola had fettled its engine in readiness for inflation of the balloon. The operation was facilitated by the fact that the whole assemblage was slowly falling, creating a drift of unheated air into the balloon and helping prepare it for the influx of hot gas.

Toller, as the most experienced skyship pilot, took the responsibility for starting the engine in the burner mode and inflating the balloon with no heat damage to the lower panels. As soon as the insubstantial giant, with all its geometrical traceries, had been conjured into being above the gondola he turned the pilot's seat over to Berise and went to the side.

The
Kolcorron
was now falling slightly faster than the skyship, its varnished timbers gradually slipping downwards past those who watched from the gondola's rail. Gotlon appeared at the open midsection door and waved briefly before closing it and sealing the ship.

A minute later the main engine began to roar. The spaceship stopped sinking, hovered for a fleeting moment and started to climb. Its engine seemed to grow louder as it moved above the skyship and Toller felt the hot miglign gas blasting out of the exhaust, disturbing the equilibrium of the balloon and gondola. He watched the larger ship until it passed out of sight behind the curving horizon of the balloon, and suddenly he felt in awe of Gotlon, an ordinary young man who nevertheless had the courage to fly off into the void alone, trusting a woman he had never met to guide him into orbit with ethereal commands.

Not for the first time, it came to Toller just how foolhardy he had been in setting out to cross interplanetary space with scarcely an inkling of the dangers ahead. Such hubris surely merited disaster. For himself and Zavotle the ordained penalty was perhaps acceptable, but he had to do all that was in his power to ensure that his youthful companions were not drawn into the maelstrom of his own destiny.

The same thought was to recur to him many times during the six days that it took to descend to the surface of Farland.

Associating with the young fighter pilots, especially Berise, had shown him how much they resented any attempt at what they saw as wet nursing. He had to respect their feelings, but was in a dilemma because he knew their outlook was tinged with overconfidence, the unconsciously arrogant belief that they could triumph over any adversary, survive any danger. The exhilaration of riding jet fighters through the central blue had persuaded them that recklessness was a viable philosophy of life.

His own career hardly gave him the right to take a different standpoint, but he was haunted by the knowledge that from the start he had been woefully unfit to lead an expedition to Farland. Even Zavotle had not understood that in space a moving ship can continue at the same speed for ever with its engine shut down, and that the effects of any extra thrusts were cumulative. They would all have died on entering Farland's atmosphere had it not been for Sondeweere's intervention—and she had been right to condemn him for another crass oversight. He had not even considered the idea that Farland might be populated with ordinary beings, let alone talented super-creatures with powers far beyond his understanding. Sondeweere had assured him that landing on the planet would mean death for the astronauts, and as the descent continued he found it harder and harder to erect barriers of disbelief against her prediction.

Another contributor to his disquiet was Sondeweere herself. Her telepathic visitations had been no surprise to Bartan; Berise and Wraker seemed to have accommodated her in their systems of belief without much difficulty—but Toller had spent too many years as a materialist and sceptic not to feel his inner universe quake every time he thought of her.

The story about the symbon spores had been truly astonishing, but at least he could comprehend every part of it, and with comprehension came acceptance. The notion of direct mind-to-mind contact was in a different category, however.

Even though he had seen the curiously elusive image of her and had listened to her silent voice, something within him rebelled each time he recalled the experience.

It smacked too much of mysticism. If there really were other levels of reality, not accessible to his five ordinary senses, who was to say—to choose but one example—that religious beliefs about the transmigration of souls were unfounded? Where was one to draw the line? Sondeweere's private message for him was that his conviction that he understood the nature of reality, give or take a few minor areas of uncertainty, was and always had been a ludicrous conceit—and that was hard to swallow at his time of life.

Unsettling through Sondeweere's manifestations were, he had little respite from them. She appeared to the crew many times during the descent, especially in the final stages, giving instructions to slow their downward speed, to hover, and once even to ascend for an hour. Her objective was to guide them down through wind layers and weather systems, which were more evident than on Overland, to a landing site she had chosen.

At one stage she correctly warned them of a region of intense cold, many miles in depth, in which the temperature was even lower than that of the weightless zone although the air above and below was relatively warm. In reply to Zavotle's question she spoke of the atmosphere reflecting away some of the sun's heat and of convection currents carrying more of it down to sea level, resulting in a cold layer.