“Two or three days. The heat of the fire leaking from this cave will show on infrared sensors.”
“Uncle Egg, we need a plan.” Charley wasn’t smiling. “After Solo gets rescued by his buddies and flies off into infinity, we are going to be stuck here with six billion people who think we have the formula for eternal life and won’t give it to them.”
“The formula is in the saucer’s computer,” Egg admitted, “and you are right. I won’t give it to them.”
“Six billion crazy people,” Charley said. “You are going to have to give them the formula or we are going to have to get the hell off this rock while the getting is good.”
“Go with Solo, you mean.”
“Uncle Egg, you can’t resist a tidal wave.”
Egg added another dead limb to the fire. They sat staring into the fire, thinking their own thoughts.
Rip broke the silence. “Who wants to go fishing?”
“I’m saving fishing for my old age,” Egg replied. “So I’ll have something to look forward to.”
“I caught my fish at Scout camp,” Charley said dryly. “That was enough.”
“No sense of adventure,” Rip grumped. He put his fishing pole together, checked the reel and line and hook, then made a little ball of bread and impaled it on the hook.
He walked to the edge of the water lapping at the dirt and cast the hook and bread in.
“You can’t catch a fish in here,” Charley objected. “You’ll have to go outside.”
The words were no more out of her mouth than something big hit the hook and the line bent and started ripping off the reel. Rip laughed and played the fish.
Charley Pine was watching Rip fight the fish and didn’t see Uncle Egg enter the saucer and close the hatch.
* * *
Adam Solo walked north along the shore of the bay. To his right the escarpment that held the cave was gradually getting lower, becoming first a hill, then just a swell in the land, then petering out altogether.
The shoreline curved around to the east. Solo paralleled it, walking through low birches and scrub covered by several inches of snow. The air was below freezing. A light snow, almost a visible mist, was sifting down on the westerly breeze. Visibility in this gray world was no more than two hundred yards.
In just a few days, Solo knew, the bay would begin to freeze along the shore, and the ice would march out into the bay, sealing the water from the snow and wind. Winter was on its way—not the winter of the temperate zone farther south, but a subarctic winter. Fortunately the snow was not accumulating much just now. He pulled his hat down hard on his head, turned his coat collar up and buttoned the top button.
He walked deeper into the forest, looking for tracks. He kept the rifle balanced under his right armpit with the barrel down and his hands in his coat pockets. His feet would be wet within an hour or so—if he didn’t find anything he would have to turn back. If he got lucky with a caribou, he could make good boots and gloves, even a hat that covered the back of his neck and kept snow from going down his coat.
All these things he had learned the hard way, once upon a time. When he was much younger.
He tried to recall how the land lay, but the memory was old and the forest no longer looked the same. Trees had grown old and died in the intervening centuries; beavers had altered the streams; meadows now existed where once creeks had flowed through gullies.
Solo was standing behind an alder, looking across an old beaver meadow, when he saw movement. Just caught it out of the corner of his eye.
Without turning his head, Adam Solo searched with his eyes and saw the flash of white moving through the brush on the other side of the meadow. He stood frozen, watching.
A bear. A white bear. With two cubs. They were heading north. When the ice froze on the bay, they could get out on it in search of their favorite prey, seals.
Solo made no move to lift the rifle. First, he didn’t have a bullet heavy enough to stop a polar bear unless he made a perfect, lucky shot, and there were three of them. Killing two and wounding the third would be as fatal as missing with the first shot.
The large adult paused and sniffed the breeze. Fortunately the gentle wind was in Solo’s face, not behind him.
She turned her head and visually searched downwind. She looked right at Solo and didn’t see him. She wouldn’t, unless he moved.
The Vikings had thought the white bears enchanted and were frightened of them. He remembered the bears and the contagious fear. With only shields, swords and battle axes, the Vikings lost many bear encounters, which meant the bears ate some of them. The bears had never met a creature they couldn’t kill and eat. Standing now with an inadequate rifle and no other weapon, Adam Solo felt the fear again. He stood as still as he possibly could, trying to minimize the white cloud caused by his exhalations.
Today, thankfully, the white bear and her cubs moseyed on north along the creek until they were out of sight. Solo waited for several minutes, listening to the silence, the whisper of the wind.
He heard something, just a suggestion of a sound, then a breathing in and out. The hairs on the back of his neck and arms prickled. He turned slowly.
Turned, and there stood a bear on its hind legs, just a few feet from him, its black eyes in its expressionless white face looking down upon him.
Instinctively Solo dropped to the ground, bringing up the rifle. As the bear lunged he was under it, with the rifle coming up, thumbing back the hammer. He jabbed the barrel toward the descending head as he pulled the trigger.
9
After Solo left the cave to hunt, Egg Cantrell wriggled his way into the saucer and turned on the power. Then, carefully, he donned a headset and arranged it just so on his balding dome.
He knew what he wanted—Solo’s memories of the Viking ship—and the computer provided it almost instantaneously. It was as if Egg remembered the event himself.
The ship was riding a heavy sea; he was wet and cold; the wind was howling and rain blew sideways. He shouted at the crew, gestured to row harder to maintain steerageway downwind, and felt the ship respond sluggishly as the oars bit into the foaming sea.
Time passed … the storm ended, the ship made a headland, Solo (Egg saw it as Solo had) ran the ship up on the beach, and the men leaped out to secure it to rocks and trees. Solo led a party inland, and soon they came to a village … a deserted village, because everyone had fled. Solo’s men ransacked the village and took all the food and drink they could carry. Several of them searched the nearby woods, and two of them dragged out a young mother. They raped her as the others searched for hidden food or valuables.
Soon the ship was at sea with the sail up, and the men were laughing and drinking mead. Egg could sense what it had tasted like. A bitter, creamy beer full of impurities.
Egg forced himself to think about America, and he saw the Viking ship approaching a beach with a cliff. It was this cliff, he sensed, and he saw the sheltered beach, now a cave, as Solo remembered it from oh, so long ago. The memories were hazy at times, the features of some faces hard to distinguish, and the timeline was scrunched and wavy. Whole weeks and months were missing.
What remained was vivid, powerful, images that Solo had never forgotten, images and sounds and smells and sensations and emotions that he could never forget.
Blood, murder, combat with swords, learning to use bows and arrows, sacking villages, burning, looting, raping …
Curiosity, hunger, anger, anxiety, revenge, longing, depression, guilt, revulsion, lust, rage … fear, panic … and joy.
There was a village, and a woman. Solo remembered her very well indeed, and—
Egg ripped off the headset. All those sensations left him drained and breathing hard. His emotions now were a tangle. He sat, trying to sort it all out.
Yes, he was sitting here in the pilot’s seat of this saucer; the machinery in the compartment behind him was humming ever so faintly; through the canopy he could just make out the flickering campfire.
> Egg turned off the reactor and watched the instrument panel go dark.
Several more minutes passed before he felt able to climb out of the saucer.
There stood the Viking ship, with its soaring prow and stern, resting on the sand, almost as if it were waiting for its crew to return and take it back to sea.
The emotions Egg felt now were almost overpowering. That ancient wooden ship was fear and adventure and the pure essence of life … a life lived to the hilt each and every minute. He forced himself to turn away from it and staggered toward the fire, trying to put the inputs from the computer into some kind of perspective.
Charley and Rip were wrestling a dead limb into the cave. Uncle Egg sat on a handy stone while they got it just so and stuck a tip of it into the fire. As the flames ate into it, Rip said to Egg, “What did you learn in the saucer?” Rip knew Egg had been in there only to wear the headband and communicate with the computer.
“Solo remembers the Viking ship,” Egg managed and hugged his knees.
“And?” Charley asked. She picked up a fish and the flint knife and began cleaning it. Rip had caught six nice ones, each a meal in itself.
“That ship,” Egg said, motioning with his head, as he searched for words. “Solo remembered being at sea in it. Vividly remembered. Wild storms, wind, blowing spray, wet, cold, bad food, good companions, shouts to the gods in Valhalla … He remembered.”
“It’s so small,” Charley said, examining the Viking ship with new eyes.
“They were men. No doubt of that. Crossed the Atlantic in those tiny ships. Sailed into the Med. Rowed up rivers into the heart of Europe. Sacked cities and villages. Sacked monasteries … Solo did all that and more. Watched his men carry away screaming women, cut down monks, kill farmers with pitchforks trying to protect what little they had. He was a pirate. They all were.”
“My God.”
“It was more than a thousand years ago, Charley. That was just a toss-off number. I’d say his memories on earth go back at least twelve hundred years, maybe thirteen hundred.”
“He’s a guilty man.”
“Who isn’t?” Egg demanded. “By God, who isn’t?”
Charley Pine wasn’t buying. “He wasn’t some illiterate barbarian from a Norwegian fjord,” she said acidly. “He was a space traveler, a voyager between the stars, a man from a higher civilization.”
“Whatever that is,” Egg remarked.
“You don’t just leave your morals at home when you go slumming,” Charley shot back. “Robbery, rape, murder?”
“Adam Solo was a saucer pilot marooned on a savage planet, amid savages, and he was going to have to become one of them or die,” Egg said heavily. “There was no other way. So he became a Viking. The best one. He was adopted by Eric the Red, claimed as a son.”
Rip stared. “So he was Leif, Eric’s son?”
Egg nodded affirmatively. “Leif the Lucky.”
“Talk about situational ethics,” Charley said tartly and tossed another handful of fish guts into the dark water. “Old Mister Whatever-It-Takes.”
“The ultimate survivor,” Rip said softly. “‘Judge not, and ye shall not be judged.’”
“I wonder how that fine old philosophy plays with the boys from Alpha Theta Six, or wherever in the universe Solo is from,” Charley said darkly. “If it ever occurred to them.”
“The human memory is such a strange thing,” Uncle Egg mused. “The things that happened yesterday, or in the recent past, you can recall, almost like a movie. But the things that happened long ago are lost except for specific vignettes, almost like snapshots engraved in your memory. How a certain person looked, an overwhelming emotion, an impression.” Egg shrugged. “Solo has many such scenes in his memory. Most are frozen, without context, vignettes of a past that is mostly forgotten. The rest of it—ai yi yi—gets jumbled and sometime mixed with things that might be imagined. Or the timeline gets bent, the memories get jumbled. Sorting truth from falsehood is the computer’s strength. It is man’s weakness.”
“Are you trying to say Solo didn’t do those things?”
“No. I’m saying the only things the computer captured are vivid memories, and they aren’t linear. It isn’t like a movie. That’s what I’m trying to say. If you want to see for yourself, get in that flying plate and put on a headset. Just ask for Solo’s memories.”
Rip looked at his watch. “He’s been gone almost three hours. The sun is low and it will be dark soon.” He stood and jammed his hat down over his ears. “I’m going after him. Wish I had some gloves.”
“If the wind rises, it will wipe out your tracks,” Egg said. “Come straight back.” He handed Rip the flashlight.
Charley stood and kissed him. “Be careful, Ripper.” Her kiss was sensual, promising. Her eyes were warm.
He hugged her, then headed for the crack in the rock that led outside.
* * *
Solo’s tracks were plain still, although beginning to fill in with tiny snowflakes driven by the breeze.
Rip hurried along in the subarctic half-light.
A half hour from the cave, he came across the bear tracks. They were big, almost six inches across, and the claw marks were deep and vivid. They came into Solo’s tracks at an angle, and Rip could see where the bear had driven his nose into the snow, smelling the tracks Solo had left. Then the bear’s tracks were superimposed on Solo’s.
Rip began to trot. The cold air cut his lungs.
Ten minutes later he found Adam Solo … and the bear. The polar bear lay across Solo’s legs. Blood spattered the snow.
The bear, a male, was dead. A bullet had gone in under his chin and come out the top of his head. Death must have been almost instantaneous. Even so, one paw had caught Solo on the top of his head and ripped his scalp open. He had bled profusely.
Rip checked to see if Solo was still alive. Well, his heart was pumping and he was breathing shallowly. His hands seemed warm enough, despite the temperatures. Amazing, that.
Solo, can you hear me?
No response.
Rip grabbed Adam Solo by the armpits and pulled mightily. The bear was a lot of dead weight; after repeated tugs, Solo’s legs came free.
“Solo, can you hear me?” He said it aloud this time, and still no response.
Rip checked the rifle, opened the action, ejecting the spent cartridge, and ensured the barrel was free of snow. He closed the lever, chambering a fresh round, and lowered the hammer. He laid the rifle carefully in the snow and checked Solo again. No other visible injuries.
A pirate. Murdered monks and farmers. Carried women away to be enslaved and raped. Leif the Lucky. Ah, yes … Lucky.
There was no tension in Solo’s body. He was unconscious. Whether from loss of blood, a concussion, or internal injury, Rip didn’t know.
He lifted Solo, marveling at how slight he was.
Rip draped the spaceman over his shoulder. He was tempted to abandon the rifle, but afraid he might need it later. With great effort he retrieved the rifle with his free hand and started following the tracks back the way he had come.
His burden was heavy and he was soon tired. The wind began to rise, blowing against his back as he trudged on into the gathering darkness.
Rip was at least a mile from the cave when he felt Solo stir. The muscles in his body tightened.
“Solo?”
A grunt in reply.
Rip laid the man in the snow on his back. He didn’t stay down but raised himself slowly to a sitting position. He looked around, looked at Rip and saw the rifle.
“You killed the bear and he darn near killed you.”
Solo merely nodded, then shoved his hands into the snow and tried to stand.
“Don’t do that, you idiot!” Rip ordered. “You’ve lost a lot of blood and probably have a concussion.”
Solo ignored him and got upright. He swayed, then steadied himself. Looked around.
“I can’t understand,” Rip said, “why you didn’t get hypothermia lyi
ng out there. Temp is damn near zero. Your hands ought to be frozen.”
Solo felt his head, examining the wound with his fingers. He scraped some of the dried blood away. His hair was coated with it, but there was nothing that could be done about that. His scalp seemed to be in place and it wasn’t bleeding.
“We gotta get back and see what we can do about sewing you up,” Rip said. He picked up the rifle and started walking. Solo followed. He staggered a time or two, but he remained upright with his feet going.
When they were back in the cave, Egg seated Solo by the fire and examined the wound while Rip explained about the bear. For illumination, Egg used the fire and the flashlight, which still had some juice left in its batteries.
“It’s very sore,” Solo said.
“It’s almost healed,” Egg said in amazement. “The wound is completely closed.”
Charley made a noise. “Let me look.” She took the flashlight and examined Solo’s scalp.
“Just an angry red line,” she said softly, and went around the fire to take a seat.
“Rip?” Egg queried.
“That polar bear nearly ripped off his scalp. He bled a lot and was unconscious when I found him. I carried him a mile or so, then he woke up and walked the last mile. There he sits.”
“Mr. Solo?” Egg murmured.
“Mr. Cantrell. I have been shot with bullets and arrows, stabbed, slashed, and have fallen from cliffs. I survived several explosions, extraordinary low temperatures that killed several of my companions, and two airplane crashes. And now, a bear attack. My body’s ability to repair itself has been enhanced.”
“Enhanced?”
“Enhanced. An induced genetic mutation.”
“Ye Gods,” Charley Pine moaned. “If those drug moguls find out about that, they’ll slice and dice you and put the pieces under a microscope.”
“Let’s hope they don’t find out,” Adam Solo said, fingering his healing scalp wound.
“Can you be killed?” Rip asked.
“Of course. If the wound is severe enough, I’ll die before my body can repair the damage.” Solo shrugged. “It will happen someday, a traumatic death, or my body will just wear out. I am mortal, as is every living thing. To be honest, as that white bear charged, I thought my time was over.”
Saucer: Savage Planet Page 11
