Starbridge (29 page)

A few minutes later, as though he had read her thoughts, Rob said, "How's your air holding out?"

"One hundred and sixteen minutes," she said. "How about yours?"

"One hundred and eight," he said. "As we predicted, I'm burning my O2

supply faster than you are."

"That means that Dhurrrkk' has a little more than ninety minutes left," Mahree calculated, her mouth going dry. "The Simiu breathing paks hold less than ours do, and Simiu lungs require more oxygen than human lungs. And we can't share our air with him, because our paks won't fit his suit couplings!"

"I know," Rob agreed bleakly. "Nearly half his air's gone.

184

Maybe we ought to tell him to go back to the ship and wait for us there, while we continue searching."

Mahree shook her head. "Dhurrrkk' won't do it. We'd just be wasting time and air trying to convince him. He'd regard leaving us out here as being cowardly and dishonorable. I know that without even asking."

"Well, then, we'll just have to allow enough air for all of us to make it back to
Rosinante."

She licked her lips, trying unsuccessfully to moisten them. "What for, Rob?"

Resisting the urge to slam her gloved hand against the nearest rock in frustration, she managed to keep her voice calm. "What's the point of that?

We'd just be postponing the inevitable for a few hours. I'd rather spend our last minutes out here
trying,
than lying around the ship watching those final seconds tick by. I don't think I have enough courage to face that. Do you?"

Rob did not reply.

A few minutes later he abruptly halted, announcing, "Right in front of us are the O2 coordinates I pinpointed earlier."

Both of them hurried forward, then Mahree let out a low cry of

disappointment. There was nothing to see.

Nothing.

Nothing but the bare, upthrust ridges of blackish rock, small, tumbled boulders, pebbles that lay nearly buried in a comparatively deep layer of the soil, and a growth of the fleshyleaved moss-plants. The ubiquitous mist drifted as their feet displaced it, eddying away from them, then settled again.

Rob's voice filled her helmet, harsh with dismay. "But ... but these are the right coordinates, I
swear
I didn't make a mistake! This is crazy! These are the same plants as before, but there aren't nearly enough of them to cause the O2 concentration I measured just a couple of hours ago!"

"Is the oxygen level any higher, here?"

He consulted the instrument again. "The overall oxygen level is a little higher, but it's dropped considerably from what I saw earlier. I just don't understand it!"

Mahree felt sick with defeat. She bent over, staring intently at the ground.

"These plants look funny," she observed, after a moment. "They're shinier than the ones we saw earlier, though they appear to be the same species."

"You're right," he said. "That's odd."

185

She walked slowly around, peering down at all the plants in the area.

"They're all the same," she reported. "Could there be some kind of natural process going on that causes the change from dull to shiny, producing oxygen as it does so?"

Rob shook his head dubiously. "Maybe. That makes as much sense as anything on this crazy planet. But I don't see any agent that could be the cause of such a change. No other vegetation, nothing. It's also possible you know that these plants represent a different variety of the basic species. You know, like long- and short-stemmed roses--one type is naturally shiny, and the other is naturally dull."

"I've never seen a rose, except on a holo-vid," Mahree reminded him.
And it
looks like I'm never going to see one, now.
Resolutely, she squelched that train of thought. "Look, Rob, we
have
to discover one of those patches that's still emitting O2, so we can find out where the oxygen readings are coming from. I think we should search this entire area. Maybe your coordinates were just a little off?"

"Not a chance," he replied grimly. "I checked those readings four times, and then Dhurrrkk' verified them after me. But we might as well do as you suggest--there's nothing else we
can
do, except keep trying."

Mahree leaned over to touch her helmet to Dhurrrkk's, and explained what had happened. The Simiu nodded silently.

"I'll go first from now on. You watch the scanner, Rob," she said, beckoning them to follow her. Trying to choose the clearest path, she increased her pace until she was traveling at the fastest walk possible, given the broken ground.

The three explorers began circling around the area Rob's coordinates had indicated, searching for any sign of the mysterious higher-oxygen pockets.

Dhurrrkk' gamely followed the two humans' lead, but Mahree knew that her Simiu friend was nearly blind in the dim light, and thus would be of little help.

Ninety minutes of air left,
she noted, reading from her gauge, and had to clench her jaw against panic.

They kept going as the minutes slipped by, Mahree in the forefront, picking the smoothest path possible, Rob behind her, scarcely taking his eyes off his sensing device, and Dhurrrkk' bringing up the rear.

Eighty-two minutes.

Grimly, Mahree fought the urge to glance constantly at her air

186

gauge; avoiding obstacles on the rocky ground required all her

concentration. But every so often, she just
had
to look up.

Seventy-one minutes.

Rob's breathing sounded harsh in her ears. Mahree thought of what it would be like to have to helplessly listen to that sound falter and cease, and fought the desire to ask him how much air he had left.
You're better off not knowing,
she thought.
Keep your mind on your job.

Fifty-four minutes.

Now there was no question of trying to head back for
Rosinante
and the few hours of air remaining aboard the ship.
Rob's taken me at my word,
she realized, grimly.
We're going to keep going until we drop in our tracks.

She swallowed as she realized that Dhurrrkk' had little more than a half hour of air remaining.
Exactly how many minutes?
she wondered, mentally comparing the ratio, but losing track of the numbers in her growing panic.

She tried to fight the fear, but it was like a live creature writhing inside her, gnawing at her mind, until she wanted to shriek and run away.

Calm, calm. You have to stay calm! Dhurrrkk's life may depend on you not
losing your head! Breathe slowly . . . slowly. In . . . out
... in ...
out . . .

Gradually, her fear ebbed; she was able to control her breathing.

Seconds later, Mahree turned a corner around a low outcrop of rock, then halted so abruptly that Rob bumped into her. "Look! What are those things?"

"Damned if I know," he said, staring.

The ground before them was covered with the moss-plants, but lying among them, obscuring them in patches, were five large, thick, phosphorescent shapes. They shone white-violet in the red dimness and were roughly rectangular.

Each faintly glowing growth was a meter or so long by three-quarters of a meter wide. They were entirely featureless. The moment she saw them, Mahree found herself irresistibly reminded of a fuzzy white baby blanket her brother Steven had dragged around with him until it fell apart--these things were exactly the same size and shape, and even their edges were ragged, just like Steven's security blanket.

She turned eagerly to regard Rob as he scanned the patch. "Have we found the O2 emitters?" she asked.

He shook his head, and even in the vacuum suit she could see

187

his shoulders sag. "Negative," he said, in a voice that betrayed the fact that
he'd
experienced a flash of hope, too. "The oxy level's a little higher, here, true enough, just like in the shinyleaved place, but these things aren't emitting anything. I scan
no
photosynthesizing capability at all--which fits.

Look at their color."

Mahree walked out into the midst of the moss-plants, whips of red mist swirling around her boots. Feeling a strange reluctance to get too near any of them, she placed her boots with exaggerated care. "Are they plants?"

"No. More like fungi." Rob checked his readings again. "Actually, they share some kinship with lichens, too. They must derive nourishment from the moss-plants as they decay."

Mahree glanced at her air gauge and squared her shoulders.
Forty-nine
minutes.
"We'd better keep going," she said.

Rob raised his hand to halt her. "Wait. I want Dhurrrkk' to stay here. This place is easily recognizable, and I've got its coordinates. You and I can circle around and wind up back here in fifteen or twenty minutes. Tell him to lie down and conserve his air. That'll increase his time by five minutes or so.

Otherwise, he doesn't have a prayer."

"He'll never agree, Rob!"

"Try, dammit!" he insisted. "Tell him that if he insists on accompanying us until he drops, we'll just end up using the last of our air carrying him."

"That's a good point," she admitted. Kneeling beside the Simiu, Mahree touched her helmet to his, repeating Rob's plea.

The Simiu looked uncertain, then, slowly, he nodded and deliberately lay down in the midst of the plants, also being careful not to touch any of the phosphorescent growths.

Surprised, because she hadn't expected him to give in so easily, Mahree peered down into Dhurrrkk's helmet, trying to make out his features in the dim light.
He looks kind of funny,
she thought, worried.
Abstracted. Glassy-eyed. Could the Simiu equivalent of hypoxia be hitting him already? Or is he
praying or something like that?

Once more, she touched helmets. "Dhurrrkk', are you okay?"

"I feel fine, FriendMahree," the alien said remotely, as though he was listening to her with only part of his mind. "I promise that I will wait for you here."

188

As he followed Mahree away from the recumbent Simiu, Robert Gable couldn't resist a last glance back at the alien.
He's got about twenty-five
minutes to live,
he thought,
give or take five minutes. And I've got twenty-eight minutes and forty seconds.

"How you fixed for air?" he asked Mahree.

"Forty-five minutes and thirty seconds. You?"

"I'm okay," he replied. "Thirty-nine minutes, here."

Her voice was puzzled and suspicious in his radio. "But before, you were
eight
minutes less than me," she said. "You
gained
a couple of minutes?"

"It takes a lot more effort to lead out here than to follow," he said, using his most reasonable tone. "You're burning O2 much faster now that you're going first."

She started to say something else, but Rob snapped, "Watch out! You nearly snagged your leg on that rock!"

"I did not!" She increased her pace a bit, and Rob struggled to match it without stumbling. "I hope Dhurrrkk' is okay," she muttered. "He looked sort of odd."

"If there's something wrong with him, there's not a damned thing either of us can do about it," Rob pointed out. "The only chance any of us has, now, is for us to locate the source of the oxygen emissions--pronto."

"And if we do?"

"Then you can take off your helmet, lie down, and wait there, while I use the last air in both our breathing paks to carry Dhurrrkk' back to the ship. Then he can take off and pilot
Rosinante
closer to the oxygen emissions source, and I'll come back and get you--then we'll both collect the plants."

"Why do I have to be the one that stays, while you go rescue Dhurrrkk'? Why not the other way around?" Mahree demanded irritably.

"Because you need less O2 to breathe, and I'm stronger than you are," Rob replied calmly, forcing himself not to glance at his air gauge. "Dhurrrkk's no lightweight, even at a half gee."

"Oh. But how will you come back to get me if you use up the last of our breathing paks carrying Dhurrrkk' back to the ship?"

"I've got a two-hour supply of pure oxygen in the oxy pak in my medical kit. I can use it to recharge two breathing paks. Pure oxygen will last us longer than standard airmix. That'll give us each slightly more than an hour's worth of air."

189

"Oh," Mahree said again. After a moment, she asked hesitantly, "Rob ... do you really think that plan will work?"

"No," the doctor said tightly. 'I don't think it has a snowball's chance in hell of really working. But if you can think of anything better, I'm all ears."

Mahree had no response. Rob was relieved, because his powers of invention were drying up. He glanced at his air gauge.
Twenty-one minutes.

Knowing full well that he would use up his air faster than Mahree, the doctor had decided before they left
Rosinante
that their only hope might lie in keeping her going as long as possible, so he had surreptitiously disabled the emergency broadcast unit in his suit. Otherwise, as his breathing pak ran out, she would have been warned as to his status.
Worrying about me
running out of air would only make her use her own supply faster,
he thought, repressing a twinge of guilt.
But if by some miracle we both survive
this, she's going to be pissed
. . .

Struggling to keep up the swift pace Mahree set, while checking the sensing device he carried, Rob had little time to note his surroundings. He knew from the location grid in his helmet that Mahree was leading them in a wide circle, gradually taking them back to the spot where Dhurrrkk' waited.

A flat, computer-generated voice suddenly spoke inside the doctor's helmet.

"Automatic reminder to the occupant of this suit. You have fifteen minutes of air remaining. Fifteen minutes of air."

Fifteen minutes to live. I feel like Dorothy when the witch turns over that big
hourglass. Fifteen minutes . . .

Rob found himself remembering how he'd arrived at this moment. Memories of his parents, his sisters, of medical school, and the Lotis Plague flicked through his mind like flat, grainy images from one of his antique black-and-white films. He grinned wryly as he followed Mahree, careful to keep glancing at his sensing device every few seconds.
So it's true, what they
say--
your life does flash before your eyes . . .