The Winds of Altair Read online

  "Do you really think Jeff will be okay?" Amanda asked him as they sipped wine and stared up at the stars from his recliner chair. It had not been built to hold two people, but neither of them minded the crowding.

  "That snake may have done us a big favor," Carbo said.

  "You mean by forcing us to separate Jeff from the wolfcat."

  He nodded, then took a long draft of the ruby-red wine from his goblet.

  "What are we going to do down there?" Amanda asked. "How are we going to feed those apes and keep them working without killing them off?"

  "I talked to Peterson about that. We can't shut down the oxygen conversion equipment just because the apes can't take it."

  "But they're dying off."

  "I know. We'll just have to find replacements. And we'll have to train more of the students to control the animals."

  "Even more work for us," Amanda said.

  "For you. I'll be spending more and more time down on the surface, implanting probes."

  She shifted her body slightly and turned her face toward him. "I hate that. I'm afraid every second you're down there."

  With a grin, he answered, "I don't like it much myself. But it's got to be done."

  "There must be a better way," Amanda murmured.

  "Find it! I'd be overjoyed to learn how we can tame this planet more easily."

  She sighed.

  "Now we've even got a worse problem," Carbo said. "Food. The game herd's gone."

  "So what can you do?"

  "Peterson said we'll synthesize food for them."

  "Will they eat synthetics?"

  "They'll eat it or starve," Carbo said.

  "Or run away."

  "Not while they're under control."

  "Then we'll have to have them under control twenty-four hours a day," Amanda said.

  "Which means we'll need still more students."

  "They won't be very effective, at first. New trainees take a while before they learn how to really control their animals."

  "It's got to be done," Carbo muttered.

  "Can't we move the camp further south, out of this cold weather?" Amanda asked.

  Carbo shook his head. "Higgins and the other engineers won't hear of it. They'd have to give up on all the months of work they've already put in here. Besides, this location was picked for its meteorological advantages. The oxygen they produce at this site will get the best possible distribution throughout this entire continent. The site was picked very carefully. It's the best place."

  "Not for the animals."

  "The animals," Carbo sighed. "They are all going to die, sooner or later. We can't afford to be kind to them."

  Amanda leaned her head back onto his shoulder and stared up through the ceiling window at the glowing stars spread across the darkness of infinity.

  "Which one is Earth?" she asked.

  Carbo breathed in the scent of her hair and murmured, "Cara mia, you can't see Earth from here. I'm not even certain which one of those pinpoints is the Sun."

  When Jeff woke up again he had no idea of what time it was, except that it was still dark in the infirmary, and that meant it must still be night. He listened carefully, but could no longer hear voices nearby.

  Everyone must be asleep, he told himself. Lying on his back, he began to test his body, to see if the effect of the drug that Amanda had given him had worn off. He lifted his right arm off the bedsheet, then his left.

  He pulled up both his legs and let them relax again. Everything felt normal, under full control.

  Jeff sat up, swung his legs off the bed, and slowly got to his feet. No dizziness, no weakness. In fact, he felt stronger and better-rested than he had in weeks.

  His eyes were adjusted to the dimness, and he saw that there was a closet built into the wall on the other side of the bed. He padded over to it and slid its door back. Sure enough, his coveralls and slippers were neatly stowed there. He put them on quickly, leaving his hospital gown on the closet floor.

  Turning, he edged the partition around his bed back a crack. He saw three other beds in the infirmary room, all of them empty. Tiptoeing to the door that led to the corridor, he hesitated as he gripped the door's handle. There would be security cameras out there. But would they automatically trip an alarm if they saw a student walking along a corridor at this hour?

  What hour is it? he wondered. Patting his coverall pockets, he found his wristwatch and clamped it on. Its glowing numerals told him that it was not quite 4 a.m. No wonder it was so quiet. Everyone should be asleep, except the few people on third shift. But it would be dawn soon on Windsong. Jeff had to be there when Crown awoke.

  He cracked open the corridor door and saw that his way was blocked by a monitoring station, where a sleepy-looking young nurse sat reading something on her video screen. Lucky his own bed hadn't been plugged in to the monitoring system, otherwise alarms would have gone off when he got out of bed. Jeff saw that only two of the viewscreens on the nurse's monitoring panel were lit up. That meant that only two patients were under automatic observation.

  He grinned to himself with an idea.

  Silently, he slithered out of the room, keeping himself pressed flat against the wall of the dimly lit corridor. Just like a wolfcat stalking his prey, Jeff thought. He slipped into the next room. One of the patients under observation was in there, deeply asleep. Above his bed, a solid bank of monitoring instruments glowed with green and yellow lights. Jeff tiptoed to the bed and touched the nurse's call button. Then he dashed to the door and flattened himself against the wall beside it.

  Just in time.

  The nurse pushed the door open and strode briskly into the room, heading straight for the bed where the call button was glowing red in the darkness. Jeff ducked around the door and sprinted for the infirmary's exit. He barely heard the nurse's puzzled grumble as he left.

  Outside, on the greenpath, he forced himself to walk at a normal pace. It would look odd enough to the security computer to see a student moving around at this hour; a running student might set off an alarm. He only hoped that no one had programmed the security computer with an order to keep Jeffrey Holman in the infirmary.

  Apparently no one had. Jeff made his way to the contact lab without any trouble. He pushed through the door to the outer office area and made his way straight to the control room of the contact chamber he had used for so many months. Overhead lights flicked on automatically for him as he sat at the control console and tapped the phone's keyboard.

  "Amanda Kolwezi, please," he told the phone computer.

  Jeff stared impatiently at the blank viewscreen until the computer printed NO ANSWER in green letters across the screen's face.

  "Where could she be at this time of the night?" he asked himself aloud.

  Jeff leaned back in the contoured plastic chair, stymied for a moment. Without Amanda I can't . . .

  Then a new idea hit him. He shook his head, telling himself it wouldn't work, but after several minutes sitting alone in the control room facing the blank phone screen, he finally gave a resigned shrug and tapped the phone button again.

  "Laura McGrath, please."

  The screen stayed blank, but this time he heard Laura's groggy, "Hello . . . what is it?"

  "Laura, it's me. Jeff."

  "Jeff!" Her voice became more alert. "What . . . it's four in the morning!"

  "I know. I need your help. Right away."

  She sounded puzzled, dumbfounded, but she promised to meet him at the contact lab in fifteen minutes. Jeff paced the length of the control room as he waited for her.

  At last Laura showed up, still rubbing at her sleepy eyes. She had hastily dressed in a pair of blue coveralls. Her thick red hair hung loosely around her shoulders.

  "What's going on, Jeff?" she asked. "Why are you . . ."

  "I've got to get down to the surface; I've got to get back in contact with Crown."

  Her eyes widened. "Now?"

  "Yes."

  "Where's Dr. Carbo? Where's .
. ."

  Jeff grasped her by the shoulders. "Never mind the others. I've got to get down there right away and you're the only one who can help me."

  "I can't do that!"

  "Yes you can. I'll show you how."

  Over Laura's protests, he showed her the control panel and its instruments. "It's almost entirely automatic," he assured her. "The only reason they use a human operator at all is to keep an eye on the contactor and start the disconnect sequence when they decide it's time to quit."

  Laura was shaking her head, but watching and listening.

  Finally he walked her into the contact chamber. "And, of course, you'll have to help strap me down on the couch and put the helmet on me."

  "Now wait, Jeff," Laura said firmly. "Wait. Does Dr. Carbo know what you're doing?"

  "No." he admitted.

  "Does Amanda Kolwezi or any of the other staff?"

  "Nobody knows except you and me," he said.

  "You mean you're . . ."

  "Laura, Crown is dying down there! They want to keep me away from him, but I've got to do what I can to help him. You've been in contact with the animals down there, you know what it's like!" His voice was almost pleading.

  "But what you want to do is illegal, Jeff. If they find out—if Bishop Foy learns about this . . ."

  "I know I'm asking you to take a big risk. But you're the only one I can depend on. I need you, Laura."

  For a couple of heartbeats she said nothing. Then, "But I might make a mistake with the controls. I might even kill you."

  "You won't. The controls are almost foolproof."

  "Jeff, I can t . . ."

  "Please, Laura," he begged. "I've never asked you for anything, but I need you now. Please!"

  Her eyes, green as a forest pool, locked onto Jeff's. He reached out and took both her hands in his and whispered once again, "Please, Laura."

  Finally she nodded, slowly. "You're going to get us both excommunicated."

  Jeff grinned at her. "Then we'll have to start our own religion."

  He hopped up onto the couch and started strapping the cuffs around his ankles. Laura watched him, saw how eagerly he attacked the task, and knew that there was nothing she could do except help him.

  When Crown awoke the pain was still there, throbbing in his leg. But it had not spread any farther. He could still see, still breathe. His heart still beat.

  He lifted his massive head up from the ground. It had snowed again during the night, and he had to clamber painfully to his paws to shake the stinging, burning flakes from his back. The bitten midleg would not unfold, it was paralyzed.

  But he was alive.

  Food is the best medicine, his mind seemed to say. He looked down at the dead snake's body, half covered by the night's snowfall. Pushing aside the grayish, gritty flakes with one forepaw, Crown sniffed at the snake's body, wary of its poison.

  It's all right. The poison glands are up in its head. Clamping one forepaw over the snake's head, Crown tore into the long, coiled body. It was mostly bone, but there was a lot of it. The snake was more than five meters long.

  Feeling slightly better, but still aching from the snakebite, Crown limped back toward the humans' camp.

  It was cold. Each day seemed to be colder, grayer, snowier than the last. As he limped slowly along the crest of the ridge line, under the trees where the snow was thinner, Crown could see the ocean through breaks in the dying underbrush. The water looked dead gray and chilling. The sky was grayer still, and even the beach was gray and grimy looking, under the snow. The carbon flakes would dissolve as the day wore on, but each day they seemed to cling to the ground longer before the sun's heat finally evaporated them.

  Not a thing stirred in the woods. As far as Crown could tell, he was the only living creature left in the entire forest. Even the trees had curled up their leaves tightly against the cold. The wind ruffled Crown's fur and made him hold his head low as he limped painfully back toward the camp.

  It was going to be a long trek, Crown knew. A long, bitter, hungry journey back to the camp, with his bitten leg flaring in agony every time he tried to move it.

  Disconnect.

  Crown kept limping through the frozen grass, feeling the sooty snow crackle under each step he took.

  Disconnect. Power down. The animal's all right and he's supposed to be in the infirmary.

  For a moment it all looked alien to Jeff: the lights, the walls, the ceiling, the couch. Then Laura and Amanda came into his field of vision.

  "We got caught," Laura said.

  They lifted the helmet off his head and unstrapped the cuffs.

  "You're lucky it was me who came in here first," Amanda told him, "and not Dr. Carbo."

  Sitting up, Jeff asked, "You can report me if you want, but leave Laura out of it."

  Amanda glanced at the redhead, then gave her sternest gaze to Jeff. "Do you realize all the things that could have gone wrong with this harebrained stunt of yours?"

  "I know."

  "Do you?" Amanda snapped. "Do you realize what danger you put yourself in? And what danger you put Laura in? If anything had happened to you, what do you think Foy would have done to her?"

  Jeff started to answer, but realized that whatever he said would sound weak and foolish. He shut his mouth.

  "I did it voluntarily," Laura said. "He didn't have to twist my arm. I knew what the risks were."

  Amanda scowled at her. "You should have your head examined. Just because you're in love with this lunk is no reason to behave so foolishly."

  Laura's face flamed red. Jeff felt his insides flip over. Laura's in love with me? Impossible!

  A grin broke out on Amanda's face. "All right, Miss McGrath, get yourself back to your quarters, or chapel, or wherever you're supposed to be at this time of the morning. And don't let me catch you messing around with this equipment again."

  "No, ma'am," Laura whispered, falling back into her Church-trained humility. She glanced once more at Jeff, blushed again, then quickly turned and left the lab.

  "As for you, Jeffrey Holman," Amanda scolded, "for a man who says he cares so much about the moral rights and wrongs, you're awfully damned quick to put your friend in danger."

  "I didn't realize . . ."

  "You didn't think," Amanda said. "Never mind what could happen to her if Foy found out about this escapade. Suppose you had died while she was sitting there in the control room? How do you think that might have hit her?"

  Jeff hung his head.

  "All you could think about was that big cat down there, wasn't it?"

  "I . . . Crown needed me."

  "No he didn't," she answered, more softly. "You needed him. Don't you realize that when you worry about Crown, you're really worrying about yourself?"

  He stared at her. "But . . ."

  Amanda arched an eyebrow at him. "Think about it. And you're going to get plenty of time to think it over. I'm going to put this lab off-limits to you, until further notice."

  "What? You can't do that!"

  "Watch me," she said. "The medical staff agrees that you need a rest. So you're going to get a rest, even if I have to put an armed guard at the door to this lab."

  "Amanda, please don't."

  "You're too close to the problem, Jeff. You're tearing yourself apart. Crown's all right . . ."

  "Until he dies of oxygen poisoning."

  That stopped her, for a moment. "Yes, you're right. Until they all die . . . until we kill them all."

  "Don't lock me out of the lab, Amanda. Please don't."

  "I've got to, Jeff. Lana Polchek and the psychologists have put it into the official record. You are not allowed to resume contact work until further notice."

  For a long moment neither of them said anything. Then Jeff slid off the couch and headed for the door.

  Amanda wanted to call out to him, but knew that she shouldn't, she mustn't.

  Jeff stopped at the door and turned back toward her. "What makes you think that Laura's in love with me?
"

  Amanda almost laughed, she was so relieved that his mind was moving in that direction.

  "Only a blind man would ask such a silly question," she replied.

  Jeff's brow knitted in puzzled frustration. Amanda saw clearly that he did not understand. But that didn't matter. At least he had something to look forward to, something vital and important, something that just might keep him from being crushed as they killed off all the native life on Altair VI.

  CHAPTER 19

  Jeff awoke the next morning, dressed as usual, and was heading down the dormitory corridor toward the autocafeteria when he remembered that he was no longer on duty. He would not be allowed into the contact lab. He had nowhere to go.

  For the first time in months, he allowed himself a leisurely breakfast, and surprised himself by downing a large stack of pancakes, a trio of eggs with simulated bacon, and several glasses of synthetic milk. The long rows of tables filled up, gradually at first, but then almost the entire student body arrived within a few minutes, jamming the serving lines, filling up the tables, making the cafeteria echo with their talk and laughter. Jeff had not seen so many lively men and women since his first day at the contact lab.

  He knew that he should feel angry with them, or at least deeply disappointed that they could appear so happy and free of worry in spite of all the problems the Village faced. Yet their laughter and youthful high spirits were infectious. Jeff grinned at the students who sat with him at the cafeteria table.

  And they clearly respected Jeff with an admiration that came little short of adulation.

  "What're you doing here so late, Jeff?"

  "Yeah. You giving the wolfcats a rest today?"

  He gave them a slight shrug. "I'm on vacation. They've ordered me to take a rest."

  "Holy Nirvan! A rest! How did you finagle that?"

  "It wasn't my idea."

  "Hey, Jeff, will you be able to go to chapel this morning with us?"

  "Sure," he said.

  "Laura!" one of the women called across the noisy cafeteria. "Over here! Jeff's with us!"

  She came to their table and the other students made a place for her beside Jeff. He wondered, Does everybody know about "us" except me?