The getaway special (28 page)

"I want it to do
something
."

He looked at the tree, then back at her again. "This is nuts, you know that?"

"You got a better idea?"

In lieu of an answer, he simply switched off his flashlight and ducked down so his head was even with the rim of the hatch. Judy did the same, dropping all the way down and hunting around in the dark until she found the pistol. It had fallen off the auxiliary hyperdrive into her spacesuit helmet. She pulled her sleeping bag up over her shoulders, leaving her feet free to move, and stood back up. They waited. Five minutes seemed like forever. Ten became an eternity. She was just about convinced that they might as well settle back in to sleep when the tree made a soft creak like the noise of a door swinging open. Judy rose up just enough to look over the edge, but even with her eyes adapted to the dark again, there wasn't enough light to see more than faint shadows in the deeper darkness. The creak sounded again, and this time she could tell it was coming from the ground. It grew louder until it became a rumble that could be felt as well as heard, then there was a slurp and a pop. A moment later the whole sequence repeated, then a third time, and a fourth.

Judy rested her thumb on the hammer of the pistol, ready to cock it and fire if the tree reached in through the hatch. She had no idea what part of its anatomy to shoot for, but from inside the tank she didn't exactly have a wide field of view to choose from. Fortunately she didn't have to try; the squelching noises picked up their pace and a dark shadow moved away overhead, leaving stars in its wake. The ground shook with heavy thumps, like the footsteps of a giant. Judy stood up a little higher, and as long as she didn't look straight at it, she could see motion in the darkness. Receding. The tree was running away.

There was a loud crash and a splintering of branches. Judy flipped on her flashlight just in time to see the tree smash headlong into one of the others that hadn't moved. It teetered, nearly falling over, then stretched out a root and caught itself. It lurched to the side, roots rippling like snakes and branches waving wildly for balance, and it staggered another couple of steps before coming to a stop.

"Turn that off!" Allen hissed.

"Why?" Judy asked, but she killed the light.

"Because I don't want it to come back and trample us, that's why."

"I don't think there's much chance of that," Judy said. "It's terrified of us."

"Yeah, right. That's why it stops every time we turn a light on it." He had a point, but it wasn't necessarily the right one. "Maybe the light blinds it, and it doesn't want to move if it can't see."

"And maybe the light attracts it. Plants are phototropic, after all."

"Earth plants are." But she left her light off, straining to see by starlight alone. The tree remained motionless for another minute or two, then, just as Judy thought to turn on the video cameras and see if they could pick up an image in this dim a light, it creaked to life again. She held her breath, gripping the pistol tight in her hand, but she relaxed when the tree thumped off deeper into the forest.

To heck with the video cameras. When they could no longer hear or feel the vibration from the tree's headlong flight, Judy flipped on her light again and shined it at the ground around the tank. The fern carpet was ripped up like a bus seat after a street gang had tagged it. She checked the base of the other trees, but they hadn't moved an inch.

"Well, that's a relief," she said softly. "At least all of 'em aren't mobile." Allen sat back down inside the tank. "One is crazy enough. You happy now?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You wanted strangeness. I'd say you got it."

She knelt down and put the gun on the bucket again, then tucked her feet into her sleeping bag and settled back against the wall. "I certainly can't complain."

There was a tiny flash of blue-green light from Allen's half of the tank: his wristwatch's backlight.

"What time is it?" she asked. She had taken her watch off when she'd settled in to sleep, and didn't want to hunt for it in the dark.

"About three."

"a.m.?"

"Yep."

It wasn't nearly that late local time, but it had already been afternoon when they'd left Rock Springs. They should have picked a landing spot closer to the night half of the planet if they'd wanted to keep their biorhythms in synch with the day/night cycle. Of course they had no idea how long this place's days were, so that might not have lasted through the night anyway.

It didn't matter. In her years as an astronaut, Judy had learned how to adjust to practically any schedule. As long as she got a couple hours of sleep for every ten or so she spent awake, she could function indefinitely.

She was falling behind tonight, but there were still hours of darkness to go. Provided no more inquisitive trees came to see who had landed in their midst, she should be okay.
32

The sun had just cleared the horizon when Judy woke. She stretched lazily as the first rays lit up the
Getaway
, then found her watch in the corner where she'd put it last night and checked the time. 10:38

a.m. Here was another dream come true: she'd found a planet where there were more than twenty-four hours in the day.

Allen was already awake and bustling around outside. Judy heard him muttering to himself, or so she thought at first, but then she heard the squawk of a radio and another voice answering him. Tippet! He'd come back already!

She had never undressed last night; now she slid her sleeping bag down over her feet, put on her boots, and climbed out of the tank.

The air was chilly, but not so bad that she needed a coat. She looked at the trees, half expecting to see them all gathered in a circle around the
Getaway
, but they weren't. They were spaced evenly, their canopies giving each other plenty of room to collect sunlight, just like they had been yesterday. Judy couldn't find the one that the curious one had smashed into last night. None of them had broken branches or gaps in their foliage.

The ground cover had repaired itself, too. A couple of tons of tree running amok had ripped up the fern and left big gouges everywhere, but that was all smoothed over now and covered with fresh greenery. That stuff would be worth its weight in gold for no-maintenance lawns if it could be imported safely, but Judy doubted it could. Non-native plants that spread by seed or vine were bad enough; plants that actually picked up and walked from place to place would be an ecologist's nightmare. Allen was sitting on the ground with his back against the big rock, holding the computer in his lap, and Tippet was standing on his right hand, riding the top knuckle of his index finger while he typed and manipulated the mouse pointer with his thumb on the glide pad.

"Good morning," Judy said, walking toward them.

Allen looked up at her with a big grin. She had seen that look on his face before, and she was just about to ask him what new kind of mischief he'd dreamed up when the radio—a walkie-talkie that he'd propped up on the rock beside him—crackled with momentary static, then a clear voice said, "Good morning, Judy. Allen and I have been discussing the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics and the ramifications of Bell's inequality. Would you care to join us?" She stopped with one foot still upraised to take a step, then slowly lowered it to the fern. "You what?"

"Allen and I have been discussing the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics and the ramifications of Bell's inequality. Would you care to join us?"

There was a moment of silence while she tried to bring her brain up to speed, but Allen burst into laughter before she could think of a response that wouldn't make her sound like an idiot.

"Gotcha!" he said.

"What?"

"I just taught him to say that. He doesn't understand a word of it." She resisted the urge to hit him. Tippet might think she was going for
him
. So she just stuck out her tongue at them both and sat down beside Allen. The fern was cool and damp underneath her butt, and the rock was cold against her back; she immediately wished she had brought her sleeping bag to sit on, but she ignored her discomfort and said, "So what else have you taught him?"

"Quite a bit, actually."

Allen pointed at the walkie-talkie, and Tippet said, "Radio." He pointed at his right foot, and Tippet said, "Boot."

"Right or left?" Allen asked.

"Right."

Then he pointed at the computer screen, and Tippet said, "Wheel." Judy leaned over to see what was on the screen, and sure enough, it was a picture of a bicycle. Allen's finger rested on the front wheel.

"Where'd you get that?"

"The screen saver. It's got a ton of image files." Allen clicked the mouse pointer on the "Demo" button and the bicycle started pedaling itself around the screen.

"Roll," Tippet said.

"Yes, that's right. He's got nouns down cold," Allen said. "He picks 'em up as quick as I can display

'em. And he gets verbs almost as fast, once he realizes I'm interested in the action. I'm thinking of trying him on the alphabet and turning him loose with a dictionary."

He didn't sound like he was kidding. "You're serious?"

"Hey, it's worth a shot." Allen opened a text document and typed the word "Tree," then said it out loud: "Tree." He pointed at one for good measure.

Tippet did his little victory dance on the back of Allen's hand. "Yes," he said. "Understand." Allen typed half a dozen other words, naming them as he did, then he pointed out the similar letters, sounding them out within the words. Tippet echoed the sounds, stumbling a little over long and short vowels, but it was clear that he was already familiar with the concept of writing. Judy left them at it and went off to pee and freshen up as best she could without water. She stopped beside one of the trees and reached out cautiously to touch it, half expecting it to shy away like a nervous horse, but it stood there like any other tree. She laid her palm against its bark and felt for a pulse. None. The branches bent when she pulled on them, and lifted back into place slowly rather than springing up like an Earthly tree branch, but that was the only major difference she could see between it and any other bushy-looking palm.

She whacked the trunk with her hand, ready to leap away if that got a response, but it absorbed her blow with hardly a sound. A knife might get its attention, but she wasn't ready to try that yet. So she just hunkered down out of sight of Allen and Tippet and did her business, then went back to the
Getaway
and dug around in the grocery bag until she found a couple of apples and a can of beans. It was the most breakfast-like food they had brought with them unless she wanted to cook potatoes, which she didn't. Not without some water to clean up with afterward. She looked at the three remaining cans of beer, but left them where they were. The apples would have to be enough liquid for now. She took the food back outside and gave one of the apples to Allen, then opened the can with her Swiss army knife and stuck a spoon in the beans. Tippet learned the names for everything while they ate, and Allen spelled out the words for him.

"We've got to go get some water today," Judy said.

Allen nodded. "Yeah. Maybe we can carry the computer with us and keep up the language lesson while we do it."

"Have you asked him about the trees?" she asked. "Is it safe to walk around in the forest?"

"I tried, but we got hung up in the vocabulary. He doesn't seem to get it when I talk about them moving around."

"Hmm. That's kind of strange. Maybe it's not all that common."

"Or it's so common he doesn't get what I'm asking about. When I told him one of the trees was checking us out last night, maybe he was like, 'So?' "

"Maybe. Well, we didn't get eaten yesterday, and we've got to get some water if we want to stick around, so I think we're going to have to risk it."

"Yeah. Let's see if we can get that idea across to him." Allen switched the computer display to the screen saver again and searched through the image files until he found a picture of a stream. "Water," he said.

"Water," Tippet echoed through the walkie-talkie.

"Judy and Allen go water," Allen said.

Tippet thought about that for a moment, then said, "Judy go water before dark." She blushed. He'd recorded it, too. "Not that kind of water," she said. "We need fresh water. To drink." She mimed scooping some up in the empty bean can and drinking from it. "New water."

"What is new?"

Oh boy. How could she get that across to him? She fished in her pocket for some coins, thinking she might have a shiny one and a worn one that she could use for comparison, but she didn't have a cent on her. She looked around her, thought about using rocks, but there were too many other interpretations. Apples? Sure! Allen hadn't eaten his yet—he was too busy playing with the computer—but she'd wolfed hers down in about six bites. She picked up the gnawed core that she'd set on ground beside her and said, "Old apple," then she picked up Allen's whole one and said, "New apple." Tippet said, "Maybe understand. Before dark is old day; this light is new day?" His voice over the radio even got the inflection right to make it a question.

"Got it!" she said. "We go get new water."

"Got it," Tippet echoed.

They didn't have canteens or bottles or even Ziploc bags to carry it in. Judy climbed back inside the
Getaway
and dug through their equipment for anything that would work, but the best things she could come up with were the empty beer and bean cans. She and Allen would drink that much just walking back from the river.

She eyed the white plastic bucket that housed the auxiliary hyperdrive engine. They had drilled holes in the lid for wires to pass through, but they had intentionally left the bucket intact just in case they needed it. And five gallons would be enough water for a couple of days, if they could just carry it back without killing themselves. That would be the trick.

Unless . . . "Hey." She stood up and stuck her head out through the hatch. "Allen, ask him if there's any water closer than the river."