The getaway special (33 page)

"You sound like Carl."

"Who is Carl?"

Somewhat reluctantly, Allen described the mission specialist on their shuttle flight, and his objection not only to the way Allen had distributed the plans for the hyperdrive, but to the hyperdrive itself. He made it sound like Carl was a classic head-in-the-sand Luddite, but even so, Tippet said, "His fears are well grounded. Even if your nations avoid war, the loss of population could lead to an industrial decline that may never recover."

"So what if it does?" Allen said. "We've been spoiling the planet with industry as it is. Maybe slowing down a little would be a good thing."

"Maybe," said Tippet. "I would not wish to experiment on my own homeworld in such a way."

"You don't want the hyperdrive?" Allen asked.

"I have not been offered the hyperdrive," Tippet replied. "And no, that is not a veiled request for it. But even if you were to offer it, and I were to accept, I would not take it back to my homeworld without preparing them for it in advance."

Allen sighed. "I honestly don't get it. I thought people would be excited by the prospect of getting around the light-speed limit, but the only things they can think about are the economic and political consequences."

"Those are significant concerns." Tippet paused a moment, then said, "There is also the quarantine issue to consider. The immense distance between stars has until now served to keep the galaxy's intelligent races from interacting. What will happen now that the barrier is gone? You and I have become friends, but will our entire societies react the same way to one another? That remains to be seen. And . . . wait. Something just happened."

Judy had actually been relaxing, despite the topic of discussion, but now she felt her pulse rate climb. "What? Not
another
ship?" She raised up on her elbows so she could look at Tippet.

"No, but the French submarine has expelled several landing vehicles. They are firing rockets to reduce their orbital velocity."

"What?" Allen asked. "Retro-rockets? That's stupid. They've got to have hyperdrive engines on board if they want to get back to the submarine. They could do a tangential vector translation and they wouldn't have to waste the energy."

Judy laughed. "It's the military, Allen. They don't care about efficiency."

"But—"

"They've probably got the emergency descent modules from
Mir
. They have a standard procedure for using them, so that's what they're going to do, even if they launch them out of torpedo tubes." She imagined what that must be like: roaring out of the sides of the sub one after the other, lining up in formation, and lighting the engines. It would be a kick and a half! Maybe that's why they were doing it that way: for the sheer fun of it.

Allen sat up and turned around to face her and Tippet. "How many of them are there?" he asked.

"Ten," Tippet replied. "They seem to be aiming for a continent about a third of the way around the planet to the west of us."

"That's smart, at least," Judy said. "That'll give them most of a day to explore before dark. What's surprising is that they're launching so many at once. They're all going to wind up coming down in the same place."

"That's how the military does things," Allen said.

Judy couldn't decide if he was mocking her or not, but either way, he was right. They might send a single scout if the situation demanded it, but if not, they would send a squad. She looked over at the bright yellow
Getaway Special
resting on its pad of crushed foam insulation, its 4 X 4 framework and steel reinforcement cables clinging to its sides like bargain-basement scaffolding. That was about as far from the military way of doing things as a person could get. The thought of a military invasion force landing on her planet—even if it was a continent away—raised the hair on the back of her neck. She had never taken the French very seriously, even when they had broken off diplomatic relations and closed their borders to Americans, but now that they had mounted a military expedition all the way out here, they didn't seem quite so insignificant.

"How are they doing?" she asked Tippet.

"They're just entering the atmosphere now. We can see plasma trails forming behind them as their passage heats the air. Their radio signals are beginning to deteriorate, but we're following them down telescopically." He continued to report on their progress as they slowed down through the upper atmosphere, then regrouped using their attitude jets and free-fell to within a kilometer of the ground before opening their parachutes. They were clearly trying to land as close together as possible.

"They've got guts, I'll give them that," Judy said.

"Perhaps, but their targeting skills could be improved," Tippet replied. "Their formation flying is impressive, but the whole fleet is going down in a forest, one much more densely overgrown than this. The first of them is approaching the top of a large tree now . . . and has crashed through it. The parachute has been drawn tight over the tree's canopy, which would indicate that the vehicle has fallen through and is hanging by the shroud lines above the ground. The others are going in as well, some punching through and some getting hung up in the branches. One has vanished, leaving a spherical hole in the treetop it landed in. The tree . . .
skkkkt
. . . the tree is thrashing its remaining branches back and forth. Amazing."

"They bugged out with the hyperdrive," Allen said. "And they took the top of the tree with them. I wouldn't be happy about that, either."

"You are speaking of the tree," Tippet said.

"Right."

"I remain skeptical that a tree can feel anything, but the evidence does seem to support your claim. It is now bending over . . . no, it is falling. It has ripped two of the landing vehicles from neighboring trees on its way down. Now it is on the ground and. . . 'twitching' is the only word to describe it." Judy looked up at the trees around them. If she hadn't seen one moving last night, she would never have believed what Tippet was describing now. But this was an alien planet, and the rules apparently weren't the same here as they were back home.

"How about the astronauts?" she said softly. "Can you see if they're okay?"

"None have emerged from their vessels yet. There are several simultaneous radio transmissions, but they all seem to contain only one word. It is not in the dictionary."

"What is it?" Judy asked.

"It sounds like 'Merde,'" Tippet replied. "Just 'merde, merde, merde,' over and over again."
38

Judy's first impulse was to go help them. They were fellow astronauts in a bind, after all, no matter what their nationality. But they were also a third of the way around the planet, and even if she and Allen could locate them precisely enough to land anywhere nearby, they would only wind up dangling from the treetops with them.

She sat cross-legged on her sleeping bag while Tippet described the unfolding situation as the French astronauts on the ground emerged from their capsules, cut down the ones caught in the trees, and helped their companions out. There were two per capsule, which made eighteen in the landing party. The tree that had been topped by the hyperdrive had quit twitching, but the humans milled around on the ground next to it for a while, the other treetops obscuring all but the most general impression of their motion that could be detected through infrared sensors.

After fifteen minutes or so, during which Judy supposed they were testing the air and cleaning out their spacesuits, they began dragging their landing vehicles together. That must have been a huge job, but they managed it one capsule at a time, six of the landing party going out for a lander and hauling it into the clearing made by the dead tree, then another six going for the next one, then the last six, and so on until they had retrieved them all.

Then they started cutting down more trees.

"What the hell do they think they're doing?" Judy demanded when Tippet reported another tree flailing its limbs, then falling over. "Didn't they see what happened the first time?"

"They apparently don't care," Allen said.

"I believe they have orders to create a secure perimeter that they can defend," Tippet said. "We are making a little progress deciphering some of their language, based on English cognates, and that seems to be the gist of the transmissions from orbit."

"Military thinking again," Judy said. "Never mind if the trees are sentient beings; if they're in the way, cut 'em down."

"Calling them 'sentient' might be overstating their abilities," Tippet said. "They react to injury, but they don't seem to be able to defend themselves, or even to notice that their neighbors have been killed."

"The one we saw last night was curious, and when we shined our flashlights at it, it took off like a scared rabbit. That's sentient behavior as far as I'm concerned."

"Perhaps so," Tippet said, but he didn't sound convinced.

Judy grew more agitated as he continued to relay the French soldiers' actions. They felled a dozen more trees, then cut them into sections and dragged the trunks into a circle around their landing vehicles. By that point, the butterflies on Tippet's starship could see directly into the camp through the gap in the forest, and they could see in detail as the soldiers also cut the limbs into lengths, which they attempted to use for tent poles. The rubbery branches proved too flexible for that, so they tried setting one on fire, and when that worked satisfactorily, they cut the rest into smaller lengths and stacked them in the middle of the camp.

"Holy shit," Judy said. "The trees burn when they're green. How can that be?"

"There must be a lot more oxygen in the atmosphere than we thought," Allen asked.

"It is nearly one part in three," said Tippet.

"That would explain it. We're used to twenty-one percent."

Judy wondered if that was why the stove had burned so hot. She would have thought the fuel would be the limiting factor, but maybe the burner design wasn't totally efficient and the extra oxygen had reacted with the unburned excess.

That still didn't answer her first question. "If green wood burns here, how could the forests keep from burning down? There'd be nothing to stop a fire. The first lightning strike would set off the entire thing, wouldn't it?"

"Maybe the trees run away," Allen said.

Maybe they did. But if that was the case, then why didn't they run away from people with axes?

And why had the one last night run away from them when they simply shined a light at it?

They might get the chance to answer that question soon, or at least gather some more data. The sun was setting behind the mountains; in another hour or two, it would be dark. Not a moment too soon, either. The hike to the river and back had evidently taken more out of Judy than she had thought; she was definitely ready to call it a day.

While it was still light enough to see, she set to work boiling water, then pouring it into the three empty beer cans where it could cool off and remain sterile. That way they would have water ready to drink in the morning, and they wouldn't have to carry the stove with them if they decided to explore some more. The wind in the treetops picked up while she was doing that, and she made sure the stove was stable. She didn't want it tipping over and catching the ground cover on fire, especially not with the air thirty percent oxygen—and at higher air pressure than on Earth at that. Allen puttered around the
Getaway Special
, tightening straps and checking the parachutes to make sure everything was ready to go, then as the sky darkened and the shadows deepened beneath the trees, they climbed inside the tank and settled in for the night. Judy put the water bucket back where it had been before, and carefully nested the open circuitry beside it. The open beer cans fit tightly into the corrugations in the side of the tank, where they wouldn't get knocked over in the night. Judy's watch said 3:42. That seemed awfully early for sunset, but then she realized it was 3:42 a.m. The longer day here had lulled her into forgetting the time. And she had only eaten one real meal today. No wonder she was so tired.

She wondered how Tippet was holding up. "How long is the day on your home planet?" she asked him. For all their talk today, there were still a million things they didn't know about each other. He had settled in on top of the main hyperdrive engine, where he would be safe from human clumsiness in the dark. Allen had set his walkie-talkie on the water bucket so its speaker wouldn't blast Tippets ears every time he spoke. "Our day is nearly twice as long as here," Tippet said. "What about yours?"

"Shorter," Judy said. "It's already early morning by our clocks."

"Does that cause difficulties for you?" he asked.

"A little. We'll be okay after a little sleep."

Allen had already crawled into his sleeping bag. "That's exactly what I intend do if you two will quit yakking," he said. "Wake me up if anything interesting happens." Tippet waited a few seconds, then said, "Allen! A member of my overmind has just confirmed the reliability a new method to differentiate between
skkttp
and
sttkkp
during power-up."

"What?"

"You said to wake you if—"

"Interesting to
me
," Allen said.

"You didn't specify that. Ha, ha, ha."

"Very funny."

Judy giggled, only partially at Tippet's joke. There was an alien staying the night in her spaceship!

And they were lying low to see if an ambulatory tree would come for a visit again tonight. When she stopped to think about it, she either had to laugh or scream.

She switched out the light and settled into her own sleeping bag, leaving it unzipped so she could get out of it in a hurry if she had to. She listened for sounds from outside, but the forest was silent save for the soft whisper of air moving through the tops of the trees. She focused on it, letting it soothe her jangled nerves, until she drifted off to sleep.

The smoke was thick enough to mask the neon
Open
sign in the window, and the jukebox was blasting out a rap rampage at top volume, but Judy didn't care. She was just diving into her second helping of batter-fried butterfly with hearts of palm on the side when Tippet's voice cut through the dream.