Apes and Angels Page 23
He got a vision of his shelter being scooped up by the storm winds and sent flying, like one of the eggs from Beta in reverse.
I should have weighted it down somehow, he thought. Then he added, Good thinking, after the fact.
“A monster!” Mnnx shouted from behind him.
Still sitting beneath the table, Brad whirled around, banged the top of his helmet against the table above him, then ducked to lie prone beside Mnnx and Lnng. Crouched on the roofline was one of the cats, all six of its paws gripping the edge of the opening where the shattered remains of the roof poked out their broken, soggy limbs.
The cat was looking down at them as it teetered uncertainly on the roof’s edge.
How does it know we’re in here? Brad wondered as he slowly, carefully took aim. It can’t see us from outside the building. Does it have a super sense of smell? Some other sense that we don’t know about? Or is it simply programmed to go through every building it sees?
No time for speculation. The cat was bunching its muscles, tensing before leaping to the floor. Brad squeezed the pistol’s trigger and the red laser beam hit the beast in the throat. Greenish blood spurted and the animal gave out a strangled roar, then fell to the floor with a thud that shook the building.
“Is it dead?” Mnnx whispered. “Truly?”
Brad nodded inside his helmet as the green blood spread across the rain-soaked floor. The monster was sprawled in a heap; it shuddered convulsively, then stopped breathing.
“Truly,” he said.
The downpour was definitely slackening, Brad realized as he stared at the dead beast. Looking up from beneath the table, he saw that the sky was brightening. Gray clouds were still scudding by, but the wind sounded softer, weaker.
I think we’re going to make it, he said to himself.
He thought about the silence of his communications link. Transmissions go from the suit to the shelter, then up to a commsat in orbit. The satellites must have been torn away by the close passage of Beta. But the equipment in the shelter should be able to reach the ship on its own. If it’s still functioning. If its antenna hasn’t been ripped off or bashed to pieces.
The day brightened slowly, but eventually the rain stopped and warm sunlight lanced through the scattering clouds.
“The storm is over,” said Lnng. Brad thought the translation sounded happy. Why not? he asked himself. They’ve lived through their version of doomsday. They’ve survived.
One of the Gammans from downstairs climbed up to their level and said, “It seems safe to go outside now, Brrd. May we go?”
Scrambling out from under the table, Brad replied, “I think so.” He stretched and heard vertebrae pop; it felt good.
Mnnx asked, “Will you go with us, Brrd? There might still be monsters outside.”
Checking the charge in his pistol’s power pack, Brad said, “Yes. I need to find my shelter and see how it got through the storm.”
“You can sleep with us, Brrd,” Lnng offered. “You can have Drrm’s place.”
Inside his suit’s helmet, Brad grimaced. The idea of sleeping with these aliens filled him with something close to disgust. Careful, he warned himself. You don’t want to be elected chief.
As they started down the steps toward the ground floor, Brad saw that the floodwaters were already receding, no more than ankle deep. Mithra’s bright light made the world look warmer, safer.
Mnnx called out to his fellow Gammans, “Brrd and I are going to search for his shelter. Who will go with us?”
Practically every one of the nearly five dozen Gammans raised their hand in a very human gesture. They want to be near my gun, Brad thought, grinning inside his helmet.
“All right, then,” he said. “Let’s go.”
ALONE
Felicia had drifted into sleep sitting in their recliner as she watched Brad’s transmission from Gamma. She was dreaming of her childhood, of the time when the coastal area was hit by a tsunami, a giant wave that rose up from the sea and smashed homes and boats and trees and everything in its path. Eight-year-old Felicia watched the news videos of the horrible destruction, shaking with fear even though their house was on the other side of the coastal mountains, safe from the disaster. Then her father wrapped his strong arms around her and told her she was safe from all harm.
In her dream, somehow her father turned into Brad, holding her, comforting her.
But then he said, “I’ve got to stay here, Fil.”
“Don’t go,” she begged. “Don’t leave me alone.”
“I’ve got to stay here,” he repeated. And disappeared, leaving her alone and frightened.
It was Emcee’s familiar soft voice that woke her. “Dr. Steiner called,” the computer’s avatar said gently. “She’s wondering why you haven’t returned to the biology laboratory.”
Felicia opened her eyes to see Emcee’s calm, faithful face smiling gently at her.
“I must have fallen asleep,” she said, feeling slightly embarrassed.
“You have been asleep for two hours and eleven minutes,” Emcee informed her. “The past fourteen minutes you have been in REM sleep. Did you have pleasant dreams?”
Felicia shook her head. “Not really. How’s Brad? Could you put on the vid from Gamma, please?”
“Transmission from Gamma has been interrupted.”
“Interrupted?” Felicia’s heart constricted. “What’s wrong?”
“Transmission was cut off one hour and thirty-nine minutes ago. All attempts to reconnect have been unsuccessful, so far.”
Her pulse thundering in her ears, Felicia commanded, “Connect me with Professor Kosoff. Now!”
* * *
Followed by almost the entire troop of Gammans, Brad trekked over the hills that surrounded the village toward the spot where his shelter had been.
The clouds were definitely breaking up; warm sunshine was pouring down from a brilliant blue sky. The floodwaters were sinking into the muddy, gummy ground.
As they squished across the sloping ground, Brad tried to reach Emcee every few minutes. Always the NO SIGNAL message flashed inside his helmet.
The shelter, he told himself. Got to find the shelter. It’s got the comm relay; maybe the problem is simple enough for me to fix.
“A monster!” one of the Gammans shouted.
They all froze into immobility, gripping their hunting sticks and staring at one of the six-legged beasts from Beta.
It was writhing on the muddy ground, its mouth yawning widely, its legs twitching as it rolled from one side to another, obviously in pain.
“It’s dying,” Mnnx said.
The forty-seven of them edged backward slowly as they watched in awed silence while the cat thrashed, moaning its last breath. At last it stilled, yet the Gammans didn’t move. They simply stared at it, hardly daring to breathe themselves.
At last Brad said, “It’s dead.”
“How did you kill it, Brrd?” asked Lnng.
“I didn’t kill it,” Brad answered. “It died by itself.”
And he thought, It was programmed to die. After killing all the Gammans, the beasts are programmed to die.
* * *
When the troop of Gammans at last reached the spot where Brad’s shelter had been, they found no trace of the oval white structure.
Brad could see the trail that the shelter had made when it slid in the floodwaters downslope to the boulder that had stopped it. The boulder was there, with a big muddy smear on it, but the shelter was nowhere in sight.
Brad stared at the empty spot. All my food is in the shelter, he knew. The communications system, medicines. I can’t live inside this suit for more than a day or two.
He looked at the Gammans, standing uneasily around him. Can I survive without the suit? Even if I can breathe the air and there aren’t any pathogens in it to kill me, I can’t eat their food. Maybe I can drink water from their streams, but with all the flooding the water must be contaminated. I’d probably come down with dysentery.
Don’t panic, he told himself. Search for the shelter. It’s got to be around here someplace.
But a bitter voice in his head contradicted, The storm could have blown it a hundred kilometers from here.
“Spread out,” he called to his companions. “Help me to search for my shelter.”
They followed his command easily enough, although Mnnx said, “We should get back to the village before the day is out. We need to see how the farm is, what condition the new Folk are in.”
Brad nodded inside his helmet. “Mnnx, you’re right. Why don’t you take as many Folk as you need and go back to the village. The others can stay with me and help me search.”
Eleven Gammans went with Mnnx, several of them obviously reluctant to go back to their usual work instead of searching for the shelter.
As they left, Lnng said to Brad, “How will the new Folk live, with us still in the village?”
“We’ll build a new village for them.”
“But the cold time will be upon us soon. None of us can live through the cold time.”
Brad got a vision of a mini ice age freezing the planet.
“My people will help you to survive,” he said, with a confidence he really didn’t feel. “We’ll get you through the cold time.”
Lnng accepted his word. Brad thought, He’s got more faith in me than I do.
They searched through the sloping grassy field where the shelter had been. Nothing. Hot red Mithra climbed higher in the sky, the floodwaters dwindled away, leaving the ground gooey and foul-smelling. No sign of the oval white shelter.
Despite his suit’s climate control system whining away, Brad was sweating by the time they reached the edge of the woods. He clicked his helmet’s telescopic lenses into place and started scanning the trees.
And there it was! The shelter was nestled high in one of the trees, which had been bent far over by the powerful winds of the storm.
Brad stared at it. Cradled in the branches high above, the shelter looked intact. He could see no rips or holes in its surface. He touched the keypad on his wrist and the lenses slid away from his eyes.
“There it is.” He pointed. The Gammans stared up at it.
“How can we get it?” Lnng asked. “It’s too high for us to reach.”
Brad realized they had never tried to climb the trees. They had no tools for climbing, no experience. Neither do I, he told himself.
He tried his communications system again, and again got nothing except NO SIGNAL. The comm gear must have been damaged by its ride through the air, he concluded.
Turning to Lnng, he said, “You take the others back to the village. I’ll stay here a while. I’ll be back by sundown.”
Lnng shuffled uncertainly.
“Go on,” Brad insisted. “The monsters are dying. You’ll be all right.”
As they reluctantly started off, Brad told himself, All right, you’re alone here. Kosoff and the others are still in orbit around Alpha. Felicia’s there, probably worried sick about me. Nothing I can do about that, not right now.
He squinted up at the shelter again. So close. No more than thirty or forty meters away. But the distance was vertical and he had no way to climb it.
Once the Gammans were out of sight, Brad went through the ugly business of defecating and burying the sanitary container. No more containers in the suit, he saw. The rest of them are in the shelter. With my food.
He felt like sinking down onto the muddy ground and giving up. Which will kill me? he asked himself. Starvation or infection?
* * *
Felicia sat in front of Kosoff’s desk, every nerve in her body strung tight.
“But surely you realize,” the professor was saying, in a tone that was close to condescending, “that we can’t break orbit here and fly to Gamma just because your husband might be in danger.”
“He might be dead!” Felicia burst.
“Then he’s beyond our help,” Kosoff said.
“But we’ve got to get there. Now! Brad might be hurt. We could save him.”
“Now, now,” Kosoff said, trying to soothe her. “Brad’s had survival training. He apparently got through the worst of the storms. It’s probably just a communications glitch that will be cleared up soon.”
“He’s alone and in danger on an alien world without anyone to help him. We’ve got to go to Gamma and save him!”
Kosoff’s office door slid open and Captain Desai stepped in, wearing his formal black uniform with silver piping. Trying to impress me, Felicia thought.
“You called me,” Desai said, hesitating at the doorway, looking puzzledly at Felicia.
“Yes,” said Kosoff. Gesturing to one of the chairs before his desk, he said, “Sit down, please, and explain to this distraught young woman why we can’t take off for Gamma for another few days.”
Lightly as a dancer, Desai went to the chair and settled his lean body into it.
“Our flight plan has us breaking orbit around Alpha the day after tomorrow. By that time Gamma and Beta will be separated far enough so that there will be no gravitational complications to prevent us from establishing a stable orbit around Gamma once again.”
“But we could go now if we had to,” Felicia prompted.
Desai glanced at Kosoff’s stony expression and replied, in his soft voice, “If we had to. There is some risk, of course. All of the commsats we had placed in orbit around Gamma have been ripped away by the gravitational tides of Beta’s sweeping past. We mustn’t put this ship at such risk. In two days it should be quite safe. Until then, not.”
Felicia stared at his dark, serious face. Turning to Kosoff, she recognized his unyielding expression. They’re right, she thought. They can’t risk the whole ship for one man. One man who might already be dead.
But she heard herself say, “Couldn’t you send a communications satellite to Gamma now and try to reestablish a link with Brad?”
Desai looked questioningly at Kosoff. “I suppose that is possible,” the captain said.
For long moments Kosoff said nothing. He stared at Felicia, making her feel uncomfortable.
At last he nodded curtly and said, “Yes. We could do that. For you.”
Felicia felt a cold chill tingle along her spine.
SURVIVAL
Standing alone at the edge of the battered, rain-soaked forest, Brad realized that he had to find the shuttlecraft that had carried him to Gamma’s surface.
It’s got food, tools, equipment, he remembered. And its own communications system. I could contact the ship with it! Then his momentary exhilaration faded. If the storms haven’t blown it away or damaged it.
Then he realized, It’s also got a homing beacon! His fingers trembling with excitement, Brad pecked out the beacon’s code on his wrist keyboard.
The most beautiful hum Brad had ever heard sounded gently, steadily, in his earphones. Brad felt exultant. If the beacon’s working, he thought, chances are the shuttle’s other electronic systems are working, too.
He started tramping across the soggy ground as if following the music of a marching band.
The shuttle’s built to fly me back to the starship, he told himself. Captain Desai’s people can shoot an automated program to the shuttle’s computer and the bird can take off and bring me to Alpha and the ship. And Felicia.
He recalled that there was a three-minute time lag for two-way communications from Alpha. Okay, so they’ll send a complete program, take off, fly through the atmosphere, and establish orbit. That will be the hard part, with me sitting there doing nothing. Everything preprogrammed, automated. Once in orbit around Gamma, getting to Odysseus in orbit around Alpha should be easy.
But he thought about Mnnx and Lnng and the other Gammans. I told them I’d be back tonight. What’ll they do when I don’t show up? Can they survive without me?
And Felicia. Will she be glad to
see me? Is she angry that I didn’t return to her when I had the chance?
Do the Gammans know how to build a new village, for the generation that’s about to come to life? The biologists will go crazy, studying a new life form, an intelligent species that grows out of the ground, like plants.
I can’t leave them, Brad knew. I’ve interfered with their life cycle and now I’ve got to help them through the next steps. Before their long winter sets in.
I can’t leave them.
His triumphal march through the soaked, muddy meadow slowed to an almost reluctant pace. He passed the carcasses of two more of the monsters from Beta, dead and already rotting.
I can’t leave them, he repeated to himself. I’ve got to help them.
Then he spotted the shuttlecraft in the distance, sitting in the meadow where he had left it a seeming lifetime ago. Its silvery metal skin glowed warmly, invitingly, in the afternoon sunlight.
* * *
Kosoff looked down the long conference table. Every department head was present, chatting in hushed tones.
“We’re all here,” Kosoff said, by way of calling them to order. “Let’s start.”
Ursula Steiner, sitting tall and regal halfway down the table, said, “I haven’t received an agenda for this meeting.”
“Neither have I,” said Pedersen, the planetologist. “Just an announcement that you wanted us here at sixteen hundred hours. Like a summons, almost.”
“There isn’t an agenda,” Kosoff replied. “Not yet. In a sense, I’ve called this meeting to thrash out what our agenda should be once we return to Gamma.”
“That’s … unorthodox,” Steiner said.
Kosoff answered, “We’re faced with an unorthodox situation. Very unorthodox.”
Littlejohn, seated at Kosoff’s right, looked uncomfortable, upset. “You’re referring to MacDaniels’s interference with the Gammans.”
“More than that,” Kosoff said. “Much more than that.”
From the far end of the table, Elizabeth Chang spoke up in her soft, smoky voice. “MacDaniels has violated the basic rule of alien contact. He’s interfered with the aliens’ fundamental beliefs. He’s cast himself in the role of savior, almost a god.”