Flight of Exiles e-2 Read online

  “Dan’s still down there.”

  Before he turned, he knew it was Valery’s voice. In the golden light coming up from the planet, she looked like an ancient goddess, shining against the darkness of the observation center’s dim lighting. Her face, though, was very human: worried, almost frightened.

  Larry said, “The shuttle came back about fifteen minutes ago. Estelella brought the two girls and Vic O’Malley with him. Dan and Cranston stayed. Dan made certain that he sent every gram of deuterium they had processed.”

  “And now he’s in the middle of the storm.” Her voice was calm, but just barely. Larry could hear the beginnings of a tremble in it.

  “They’ve got the underground shelter. He’ll be all right.”

  “Has he sent word? Do you know for sure…?”

  Larry jerked a thumb toward the storm cloud. “Can’t get radio transmission through that stuff. We’ve tried every frequency. Too much electrical interference.”

  “He could be dead.”

  “No. He’s tough and smart. He’ll get through it all right.”

  She stared out at the swirling muddy-colored storm cloud.

  “It looks alive… like some monster eating—” Val reached out for Larry. “Can’t you do anything! Send the shuttle down for him? Something!”

  He took her in his arms and rocked her gently. “There’s not a thing we can do but wait. The shuttle would be wrecked trying to fly through that. All we can do is wait.” And his mind was asking him, If it were you down there and Dan safely up here, would she be this upset?

  “It makes you feel so helpless,” Val whimpered.

  “I know. I know.”

  “How long will the storm last?”

  Larry shrugged. “Nobody knows. Not enough data on the weather patterns of this planet. The last one took two days to blow past the camp. But we don’t know if it was an unusually big one, or…” He let his voice trail off.

  “Or an unusually small one,” Valery finished for him. “This one looks bigger, doesn’t it?”

  Larry didn’t answer.

  She kept staring out at the planet, at the storm. “Oh, Larry, if he dies there…”

  “It’ll be my fault.”

  Val turned sharply enough to bounce slightly away from the plastiglass. “Your fault? Why should it be your fault?”

  “I sent him down there, didn’t I?”

  “It’s part of his job. He wanted to go.”

  Larry said, “I could have stopped him. I could have ordered somebody else to go down instead. I knew it was dangerous down there.”

  Val was drifting freely in a small semicircle around Larry. He had to turn his back to the plastiglass to keep his eyes on her. She floated in midair, a golden goddess shining against the night.

  “Did you want him to be exposed to danger?” she asked.

  “You mean, did I want him to risk getting killed?” Larry closed his eyes and found the answer in his mind. “No, I didn’t.”

  “Not consciously,” Val murmured.

  “What?”

  “You knew he’d be running into danger.”

  Nodding, Larry admitted, “Sure. I even thought about going down there with him… but I’m not qualified for any of the jobs that need doing down there. I couldn’t justify taking up space on the shuttle and in the camp, just to show everybody I’m as brave as Dan is.”

  “But in the back of your mind you knew he might be killed.”

  “Of course. But that doesn’t mean…” He began to see what she was driving at. “Val, you don’t think that I…you can’t believe that!”

  “I don’t,” she said. But it sounded weak, unconvincing.

  Larry thought, it would certainly settle all the problems if he got killed down there. Then another part of his mind screamed, And that would make you a murderer, whether you planned it beforehand or not!

  Valery seemed to sense the turmoil in his mind. She took him by the hand and pushed against the plastiglass wall, driving the two of them into a slow drift across the big, darkened, empty-looking chamber.

  “I guess you’re right,” she said over her shoulder to him. “There’s not much we can to except watch and wait.”

  “Val… I didn’t want it this way, honestly. I didn’t…”

  “I know,” she said soothingly. “I know.”

  They touched down on the floor easily, their velcroed slippers catching and holding gently against the carpeting there.

  “As long as we’re here,” Valery said, letting his hand go and walking carefully, in a slow zero-g glide, toward the desk and instruments in the middle of the room, “I might as well show you what I’ve found out about the other stars.”

  She’s changing the subject, Larry realized, trying to get both our minds off Dan.

  Val sat at the desk while Larry stood beside her. She touched buttons on the desktop keyboard and pictures appeared on the viewscreen.

  To Larry, they all looked like tiny white dots. The stars were bigger and brighter; in some pictures they were glaringly bright. But the planets around the stars were all featureless blobs of light.

  Valery shook her head after showing about twenty of the pictures. “Those are the best we have so far. And it’s all pretty depressing. Nothing even close to being Earthlike.”

  Larry blinked at her. “None of those planets…”

  “They’re mostly gas giants, like Jupiter. Or little balls of rock, like Earth’s Moon.”

  “Can you be sure?”

  She ran a hand through her hair. “Oh, I’m still working on it, trying to get better data, more precision in the spectrograms and visuals… but it looks very bad.”

  Larry sagged into a half-sitting, half-leaning position against the desk’s edge. “And this goes for both Epsilon Indi and Epsilon Eridani.”

  “Yes, both stars. I’m afraid the planet here is the only choice we’re going to have, Larry.”

  He sat there a moment longer, his mind turning slowly, wearily. “When … when will you report this to the Council?”

  “I want to make the data much more precise,” she answered. “I haven’t shown this to anyone yet… you’re the only one. In a week or two, I’ll report it to the Council.”

  He nodded dumbly.

  Valery went to turn off the last picture from the viewscreen. “Oops!” She pulled her hand away from the keyboard as if it were burning hot. “I almost hit the ERASE button. That would’ve been stupid.”

  “Huh?”

  “All this data—weeks and weeks of work—would be erased from the computer’s memory bank if I had touched that button just now.” She pressed the proper button and the viewscreen went blank. Looking up at Larry, she added, “The only two places where the data’s stored are in the computer’s memory bank … and my own head.”

  Larry nodded at her, but said nothing.

  12

  The wind was getting even worse.

  Dan tried to flatten himself into a niche between two of the big water-treatment tanks, but he felt the wind tearing at him, trying to pry him loose and bowl him along like the solar panels had been blown away. It was getting hard to stay on his feet. The noise was overpowering, and he could barely see a dozen meters ahead because of the dust and flying sand. He could hear the gritty stuff grinding against his suit; a yellowish film was building up on his helmet faceplate. He wiped at it awkwardly with a gloved hand, smearing it even worse than before.

  Can’t slay here, he knew. Got to get into the shelter.

  He edged away from the metal tanks far enough to poke his head around their curving flanks and look at the tent. A sudden gust of wind nearly knocked him over. The tent was flapping wildly in the roaring wind, snapping and tearing like a huge blanket. It cracked against one of the slim metal pipes leading from the squat round dome of the centrifuge and the pipe went clang! and snapped in half. Dan suddenly got a picture of what would happen if that tent-whip hit him.

  It was getting difficult to move the arms of his suit. M
uscles tired… or are the joints getting jammed with grit? Probably both.

  Then he started wondering what would happen if his suit sprung a leak, if the sulfurous air ate through his plastic oxygen tubing, if the grit made the suit completely immovable, if…

  Stop it! he commanded himself. Try to think. Think calmly. Are you safer here or should you try to get into the shelter?

  The question was answered for him. A half-dozen spears of lightning flickered off in the distance, far enough to be still out over the sea, close enough so that the thunder exploded almost immediately with shattering noise.

  Lightning! Dan remembered what he’d been told about the last storm. The lightning bolts loved the big high-standing metal equipment that stood there. Dozens of bolts had hit the refinery.

  If I’m out here when the lightning starts striking…

  He knew he had to get to the shelter.

  Slowly, carefully, Dan hunkered down onto his knees and then flattened out on his belly. The wind-blown dust was even worse down at ground level, he could barely see an arm’s length before him. The wind tried to lift him up off the ground, sail him like a glider. He pressed himself into the ground as hard as he could.

  He crawled. Centimeter by agonized centimeter, he crawled on all fours toward the tent. He was guided more by the flapping, whip-cracking sounds of the tent’s loose fabric than by vision. All he could see was flying sand and wind-flattened yellow grass.

  It seemed to take hours. Dan knew it was only a few meters from where he had been standing to the edge of the tent, but it seemed more like lightyears now. A new blast of lightning, turned everything glare-white for an instant, and the thunder seemed to be trying to crack him open like an eggshell. Every muscle in his body ached and burned, and he was drenched with sweat.

  Got to stop…rest. But something inside him said fiercely, Stop now and you’re dead. Keep going, dammit! Keep going!

  He inched along. A lightning bolt struck metal somewhere close beside him with an unbelievable burst of light and a deafening explosion. Something hit Dan’s right leg and the suit seemed to go completely stiff there. He couldn’t move the leg at all.

  Or is my own leg hurt? He didn’t feel any extra pain there, but he knew that shock sometimes cut off pain. And besides, every part of him already hurt so much.

  His outstretched hand bumped into something. The flat, circular plastisteel foundation of the tent.

  Dan raised his head and saw the tent’s fabric looming up, flapping wildly, right in front of him. Like a nightmare monster.

  Rising up, up, filling all his visions with its rippling, snapping immensity. Then with a whip-crack it flattened out again, only to begin rising once more immediately.

  Can’t go through that, Dan realized.

  He fumbled at his belt for the suit’s tool kit. It was almost impossible to feel shapes with the gloves on, but at last he pulled out the little pistol-shaped laser that they used for cutting and welding.

  Hope it’s charged up. Dan pressed the snub nose of the laser against the edge of the tent’s foundation and pulled on the trigger. The pistol didn’t make a sound or vibration, but after a moment or two Dan could see the plastic fabric of the tent glowing, tearing, separating from the foundation.

  With an agonized screeching sound, the plastic ripped free of the foundation and went billowing into the wind, disappearing into the howling storm like a giant bird suddenly let loose.

  Dan clung to the foundation’s edge for a long, weary moment, then pulled himself slowly over the lip. He dragged himself, using his arms and his one movable leg, groping for the hatch to the underground shelter Desks, chairs, viewscreens, even the heavy computer consoles had been blown over by the wind, bowled away like so much dust. Another bolt of lightning struck with shattering force, blinding and deafening Dan for several moments.

  Then his hands found the hatch. He pulled himself up onto his elbows, nearly unconscious with pain and exhaustion. Eyes stinging and nearly blinded with sweat, he groped for the control switch. He found it and leaned on it heavily. It wouldn’t move. He forced his weight on the tiny switch as hard as he could. Nothing.

  Jammed by the grit.

  He raised a fist, taking all the strength he had, and pounded on the hatch itself. If Cranston’s down there…if he’s not dead… Even his thoughts were getting fuzzy now. Pound. Raise the fist and let it drop. Raise the fist and let it drop…

  The hatch moved. It pushed against his inert arm. A straining, rasping sound and Dan could see the hatch lifting slowly. A gloved hand was pushing it open from the inside.

  Everything seemed to go hazy, foggy, blood-red and then dead-black. Dan could feel his body moving—being moved?—and the noise of the wind’s evil howling dimmed, muffled. Somebody was talking to him, urgent words crackling in his earphones. Then the blackness swam up and surrounded him and pulled him downward into oblivion.

  When he awoke, his helmet was off. Cranston was completely out of his suit, dressed only in blue coveralls. The little underground shelter seemed cool and snug and safe. The wind was a distant mumble somewhere outside. The shelter was bright and quiet. Its curving walls and ceiling seemed to gather around him protectively. Its bunk felt soft and comfortable.

  Cranston was standing by the cooking unit.

  “Do you think you could eat something?” he asked, looking worriedly at Dan.

  Dan realized he was sitting on one of the bunks, slouched against the curving wall of the shelter.

  “Yeh. …sure.” Every muscle ached. His head throbbed horribly. His mouth felt dry and caked with dust.

  Glancing down at his legs, he saw that Cranston had taken off the bottom half of his suit, as well as his helmet.

  “There was a bad dent on the left leg of the suit,” the computerman said. “I was worried that your own leg might’ve been hurt. It’s bruised pretty bad, but I don’t think it’s anything worse than that.”

  “When …” Dan tried to lick his lips, but his tongue was dry. He croaked, “When did you…come into the shelter?”

  Cranston flashed him a guilty glance, then turned his attention to the cooker. “Uh…I tried calling you on the radio… no answer. I didn’t know what was happening. Then… uh, the tent… it looked like it was going to collapse—”

  “It did,” Dan said wearily. “You did the best thing.”

  “Oh… okay…” He smiled, still looking slightly guilty.

  Dr. Hsai’s quarters looked like pictures of Japanese homes that Valery had seen on the education tapes.

  The compartment was no bigger than any other single man’s quarters. But it looked different. There were living green vines climbing along one wall, reaching upward to the ceiling light panels. A painting filled part of the same wall, showing soft green hills and a river with a delicate bridge arching over it. The vines seemed to blend into the picture, the two merged and became a single experience. The bunk was austere, hard-looking, but a beautiful red drape hung beside it. There was no other furniture visible, except two little pillows on the floor and a low-slung black lacquered table.

  Dr. Hsai himself was dressed in a loose-fitting robe of black and white, with just a hint of gold thread at the collar.

  “What a beautiful robe!” Valery said, despite herself, as Dr. Hsai ushered her into his quarters.

  “Thank you very much.” The psychotech smiled pleasantly. “It belonged to my great-grandfather and has been handed down through four generations.”

  “It’s very lovely.”

  He smiled again and bowed ever so slightly. “I am afraid,” he said, “that I have no western furniture for you to sit upon. I usually receive visitors in the office of the infirmary. But you seemed so insistent—”

  “I can sit on the floor,” Val said. She curled up next to the bunk.

  Dr. Hsai offered her one of the pillows, and Val put it behind the small of her back, then leaned against the edge of the bunk.

  “You wish to ask me a medical question?” D
r. Hsai inquired, sitting in the middle of the tiny room.

  “A psychological question,” Val replied.

  He nodded. “I might have guessed. Unfortunately, my knowledge of psychiatry is far from expert, although I have been studying the available tapes on the subject very carefully these past few weeks.”

  “Why?” Val asked. “Do you think there’s a killer aboard the ship, too?”

  Hsai smiled patiently. “Not at all. At least, I hope not. But certain individuals believe that there might be a killer among us, and I am trying to pin down the origins of these fears.”

  “There have been these… accidents.”

  “Yes.”

  “Including my father.”

  “Yes.”

  Valery was starting to feel uncomfortable. What she wanted to ask suddenly began to sound silly in her own mind. Worse still, she felt that Dr. Hsai knew what she wanted, but was being too polite to bring up the subject himself.

  “Dan Christopher has been under great emotional stress,” the psychotech said, mainly to keep the conversation from faltering. “He is a very troubled young man. Perhaps it would have been wise to revive one or more of our sleeping psychiatrists, to examine him thoroughly.”

  “Yes, I was wondering why you didn’t do that,” Val said.

  “Larry Belsen said it wouldn’t be necessary. As Chairman, he has the responsibility to pass on all requests for revival.”

  “Larry disapproved?”

  “Yes. I asked him specifically if he wanted us to revive a psychiatrist… It was when Dan Christopher was in the infirmary for observation, and I could find nothing psychologically wrong with him “

  “And Larry said he didn’t want a psychiatrist revived?”

  Dr. Hsai almost frowned “Not in those words, but he told me he thought it would be unnecessary. You know, of course, the difficulties involved in reviving a person, and the limited resources we have. It cannot be done lightly. And we cannot ask the person, once revived, to return to sleep a few days or weeks later It is not medically wise, for one thing.”