“Five seconds,” Spock said flatly.
The seconds went past slowly. Finally Spock said, “Engine shutdown. Now! Release tractor beams in ten seconds.”
“We did it!” Sulu said.
At that moment the screen went fuzzy. The small moon and the rest of the ships disappeared into a haze of static. The Gamma Night was upon them.
“Release tractor beam, Mr. Sulu,” Kirk ordered.
“Released, sir,” Sulu said.
“Well, Mr. Spock,” Kirk said. “Is Sulu right? Did we do it?”
“I won’t know exactly for ten hours, Captain.”
“I was afraid you’d say that,” Kirk said.
He stared at the fuzzy screen. All the colony ships were drifting along with them. And with the small moon.
None of the ships could really move safely, or needed to. They would all maintain the formation behind the moon, adjusting only if something happened.
“This is going to be a long ten hours,” McCoy said, staring past Kirk at the fuzzy images on the screen.
“Ten hours is always exactly ten hours, Doctor,” Spock said. “Nothing more, nothing less.”
Sulu laughed.
All McCoy could manage was a shake of the head and a mutter—something about green blood that Kirk couldn’t quite hear.
Kirk got to his feet. At least at the moment his two friends weren’t arguing. That would have made the ten hours even longer than it was already going to be.
Countdown: 4 Days, 3 Hours
Lilian Coates came out of her home and looked at the faint light of sunrise in the sky. The morning air was crisp and fresh, biting at her face. Last night, after talking to the governor, she had decided she needed a few hours’ sleep if she was going to be looking for Reynold alone. The worst thing that could happen to her would be to trip in the dark and break a leg, with no one around to find her.
She had set an alarm for right before dawn, slept a few hours, made herself some breakfast, taken a shower, then changed clothes for the first time in more days than she wanted to think about. Now, as the sun was coming up, she was refreshed and ready to go again.
Around her the silence was like a hand holding the air out of her mouth. The row of empty dome homes felt to her like a row of tombstones. And down the hill she could see some of the empty main colony compound. She had felt alone after Tom died on the way here. But then she had Reynold and all the other colonists and friends around her. Now she really was alone.
Alone on a planet with six lost children she somehow had to find by herself in the next four days.
The task seemed impossible.
With one more look at the empty colony below and the row of dome homes stretching away from her through the trees, she headed down the hill toward the stream that flowed below the main colony compound. It had been searched, she knew. But so had every place else around here. Maybe there was something along that stream that someone had missed.
Just as she had done for days, every one hundred paces she called out Reynold’s name.
The emptiness of the planet echoed her call back to her. The echo wasn’t the answer she was looking for.
Countdown: 4 Days, 2 Hours
The sun was coming in bright, filling the mouth of the cave with light, when Reynold woke. The others were still asleep in their sleeping bags, but that didn’t matter. The sunlight was all that mattered. He was going home now. Not even Danny could talk him out of it.
“Hey!” he shouted, his voice echoing in the cave. “The sun is up!”
He climbed out of his bag and started rolling it up to put it away. Beside him Danny sat up and rubbed his eyes. “What are you doing?”
“Going home,” Reynold said.
Danny looked over at the mouth of the cave, then smiled. “All right!”
Within minutes they were all up and ready to go. With Danny leading the way, as always, they crawled through the small opening and the brush that covered it and stood in the trees outside.
Reynold had forgotten how good the sun felt.
“Sure is quiet,” Diane said.
“Real early in the morning,” Danny said. “We can be home in just over an hour, in plenty of time for breakfast.”
Reynold liked the sound of that.
With a shout, they started off down the hill toward home. He was really looking forward to seeing his mom again.
Chapter Sixteen
Countdown: 3 Days, 20 Hours
GOVERNOR PARDONNET had tried to sleep during the ten hours of Gamma Night, but had finally given up. The nightmares had chewed at him like rats on a dead body. First there was the image of a moon floating like a balloon in front of his face. Back and forth, in and out, constantly blocking his vision. Every time he’d try to reach for it, to shove it out of the way, it would explode.
Then another moonlike balloon would take its place.
Back and forth. In and out, until he reached for it and it would explode.
Each time it exploded he woke up. Sweating.
But it wasn’t that dream that had sent him scrambling from the bed. No, it was the faces of six children.
Six children calling out to him.
Begging him not to leave them, floating around him like the balloons, in and out, back and forth.
Finally, when he could stand it no longer and reached for one, the child’s head exploded.
He had woken up screaming and shaking and sweating even more.
Now, after a shower and breakfast, he stood beside Captain Chalker, waiting for the end of Gamma Night, trying to push the memory of the last nightmare as far back into his mind as he could.
There was another full hour to wait and Captain Chalker wasn’t much of a conversationalist. But standing here, doing nothing, waiting, was far, far better than being alone with his thoughts.
And his nightmares.
Countdown: 3 Days, 19 Hours
Kirk stood beside Dr. McCoy, staring at the fuzzy images on the screen as they slowly cleared and became distinct. Gamma Night had passed for another twenty hours.
The other colony ships were all still in formation around the Enterprise, following closely behind the small moon as it plunged inward toward Belle Terre and the Quake Moon.
“All ships are reporting in fine,” Uhura said, smiling, clearly relieved.
“Spock?” Kirk said.
Spock glanced away from his board. “The moon is on trajectory, Captain. We will need to make another twenty-second correction in forty minutes, however.”
“Great!” Kirk said, feeling the relief relax him a little. Not knowing if their last critical maneuver right before Gamma Night had worked or not had bothered him for ten hours.
“Any chance of a ship breaking away,” McCoy asked, “and going back to Belle Terre?”
Kirk knew what Bones was asking. Lilian Coates and those six children were still there. “Spock? Enough free time available for one ship to break free?”
“I don’t think it would be prudent, Captain,” Spock said. “We have, over the next twenty hours before the next Gamma Night interference, exactly seventeen short course and speed corrections to effect on the moon. One ship leaving formation will seriously reduce the chances of success.”
“We’re talking seven lives here, Spock,” McCoy said, clearly angry.
“There are over sixty-two thousand lives at risk in these ships and their future at stake, Doctor,” Spock said. “The choice is logical.”
Kirk had to agree. And he had to stop this discussion. “Besides, Bones,” Kirk said, “we don’t know for certain that Lilian Coates and the six children will not survive if we succeed.”
McCoy stared first at Kirk, then at Spock. Then with a grunt turned and headed for the door.
Kirk watched him go for a moment. He understood exactly how the doctor was feeling. He felt the same way. But Spock was right. Maybe after the next Gamma Night there would be time. But for the moment, they had to focus on getting that small moon into the right po
sition.
Going the right speed.
At the right time.
There was no room for error and no being late. They couldn’t even spare one shuttle. For the moment, Lilian Coates and those children were going to have to fend for themselves.
Kirk dropped down into his chair. “Uhura, open a channel to all ships. Mr. Spock, tell them what you need them to do. Let’s get ready for the next push.”
Countdown: 3 Days, 19 Hours
Sunn strode back onto his bridge and glanced at Roger, who shook his head negative. They had been speeding at warp six for seventeen hours, sensors at full out, searching for anything that might resemble the big Blackness that had passed Nevlin.
Their results? Nothing.
Sunn was truly starting to believe they were on a wild-goose chase, as the old expression went. He wasn’t even sure why he was even trying. Maybe because he had discovered the olivium in the moon and Kirk and his people had discovered it was going to blow up. Maybe he was being overly cautious this time. But he knew that if they went back now, Kirk would ask about the Blackness and he wanted to have some answer.
But if they didn’t get that answer pretty soon, they weren’t going to get it. There was just over three and a half days until the Belle Terre moon exploded. He wanted to be back and reporting to Kirk at least a half a day before that. So that left three days.
At full warp, they were just over one day away from the Belle Terre system right now, and getting farther away by the minute. He figured they had ten more hours safely; then they’d turn around and head back.
Ten hours to find a large blackness in the openness of space. They were going to have to get very lucky.
He glanced at the course heading. Leaving Nevlin, they had set a course directly following the path the Blackness had come from one hundred years earlier. Dar had been the one to suggest this direction, since the Elah culture had an ancient record of a blackness coming from the same direction as the one that wiped them out. Dar figured that maybe that whatever the Blackness was, it originated from this direction. Or if nothing else, it was following a very long pattern.
Sunn knew it was a long shot, but so was chasing after something that had passed a planet one hundred years earlier. This way seemed slightly less a long shot.
Sunn watched the images of stars sweeping past in warp on the main screen, then suddenly got an idea. Maybe the Elah civilization wasn’t alone in its problems with the Blackness.
“Dar,” Sunn said, “scan for planets on this course that the Blackness would have come close to.”
“How close?” Dar asked.
“As close as the Nevlin pass,” Sunn said. “Inside the system at least.”
“Assuming that thing flew in a straight line,” Roger said. “We’re a lot of light-years away from where that line started.”
“Let’s just assume,” Sunn said. “Humor me for the moment.”
“I’ll let you know if I see a system that fits that exact bill,” Dar said.
The three of them sat in silence as the time and distance clicked away. Sunn wondered how Kirk was doing in his fight to save the Quake Moon. With luck, the planet they had found wouldn’t matter, other than as an interesting record of something that happened in this part of space. There were a lot of planets that had once held lost civilizations. If Belle Terre survived, maybe the colony would send an expedition there at some point, to learn what they could from those long-gone people. At least that way the entire race wouldn’t have died in vain.
Chapter Seventeen
Countdown: 3 Days, 19 Hours
REYNOLD SAT on his bed, the tears gone now. An hour before, he and Danny and the rest had come down off the hill, but no one was here anymore. They had all gone.
Danny checked his house.
Diane had checked hers.
Their parents had all left them.
Danny had been wrong. The moon was going to explode and everyone had left without them.
All of them had cried.
Even Danny, who always acted so tough and know-it-all. Even Danny cried.
They had run down into the main part of the colony, calling for anyone.
The colony was empty. It was the spookiest place he’d ever been, so he’d come back up here to his house, running all the way. He didn’t know where the rest of them had gone. He didn’t care anymore.
He was never going to talk to Danny again.
Reynold came back to his room and stood there, looking around. There was nowhere else Reynold wanted to go. He couldn’t even think of anyplace else to go.
He sat on his bed and looked at the picture on his dresser of his mom and dad and him at the amusement park on Earth. Before they came here.
Before Dad got killed.
They had all been smiling. It still made him smile. It had been a fun day and he liked looking at the picture. He took it now and lay down on his bed. Maybe the cave and his mom being gone was all a bad dream and if he just slept it would all go away.
His bed felt good after sleeping on the ground so long. Really soft.
He kicked his shoes off because Mom always got mad at him when he got on his bed with his shoes on. And she was going to be mad enough at him when she came back. He didn’t want her yelling at him about his shoes on the bed, too.
He knew she would never leave him. Even though he’d run away, she would never leave him. He knew she would come back. She would understand why he did it. But boy was she going to be mad.
With the picture against his chest he lay down and closed his eyes, trying not to think about all the empty buildings in the colony down the hill. Instead he tried remembering that day on Earth at the amusement park.
It had been a fun day.
Countdown: 3 Days, 16 Hours
To Kirk the routine was growing very old, even as it got more and more critical. Every half hour or so for the last six hours, Spock had directed all the ships to push the moon at an exact speed, for an exact amount of time. At least a dozen tractor beams had failed, plus two ships’ engines, but so far the system of dual colony ships for every tractor beam attached to the moon was making it work.
The little moon called the Needle was gaining speed and passing the eighth planet, headed toward Belle Terre. It still had a long way to go, and some pretty good turns ahead of it, but for the moment it was right where Mr. Spock wanted it to be.
Scotty and the other engineers from the Starfleet ships had spent most of the last six hours beaming from one ship to the next, helping the colony ships keep their very tired engines working. At one point Mr. Scott had reported in that he didn’t think the supply of bubble gum was going to hold out.
Kirk had told him to start using the baling wire.
Now Spock had just finished yet another short eighteen-second push successfully.
“Stand by,” Spock told all the ships. “Next maneuver in thirty-seven minutes, ten seconds.”
Uhura cut the connection with the other ships.
“I assume it went as well as planned, Mr. Spock?”
“It did, sir,” Spock said, without looking up from his station.
“I then assume you don’t need me at the moment?” Kirk said. His stomach had been rumbling for the last hour and he figured it was time to do something about it.
“For what, sir?” Spock said, glancing up.
“For—” Kirk glanced around, then laughed. “Never mind. I’ll be getting some lunch. You have the bridge.”
“As you wish,” Spock said, then went back to work.
Kirk headed to the door. This was going too smoothly for his comfort. Yet at the same time, he was very glad it was. It was just a minor problem that in the middle of this emergency, he didn’t know what to do with himself. He had no doubt that that would change shortly.
Countdown: 3 Days, 14 Hours
Lilian Coates limped into her home, kicked off her shoes, and went directly for a glass of water. Her blouse was soaked in sweat from the warm day, and she had scrat
ches on both her arms and face from clawing her way through brush. Her feet hurt worse every hour, but so far it wasn’t bad enough to slow her down. For five straight hours she’d looked and called along the stream below the main compound.
Nothing.
Now she was back here, in her home above the abandoned colony compound. Because all the buildings and streets were so new, it felt odd to have it all be abandoned. Not at all like ruins or a ghost town. This place felt as if people should come out of the doorways at any moment. But she knew no one would. She was on her own.
She allowed herself two full glasses of water, then headed back for the bathroom. A quick shower and a change of clothes and shoes and she would head back out. There was over a half day left of daylight. She couldn’t waste it.
She passed the open door of Reynold’s room and was all the way into the bathroom before what she had seen registered in her mind.
It couldn’t be!
She was starting to hallucinate.
But at the same time she knew it wasn’t a dream.
She scrambled back to his room and stood there in the doorway, staring at her sleeping son, in shock.
He really was lying there on his bed, taking a nap just as he did most afternoons.
He had come back.
Almost as if he had never left.
Before she realized it, she was on his bed, hugging him and crying.
He was crying, too, while he kept saying, “Mom, Mom, I’m sorry.”
Over and over.
Countdown: 3 Days, 11 Hours
Sunn must have been dozing slightly in his chair when Dar said, “Got one!”
“Got what?” Sunn asked, coming up out of his chair, trying to get his thoughts back on track as quickly as possible.
The screen showed that they were still in warp and moving at a high rate of speed. Had Dar found the Blackness?
“A Class-M planet the Blackness might have passed,” Dar said. “Dead ahead.”
“Bring us out of warp and into standard orbit,” Sunn said, “and don’t waste any time about it.”
Belle Terre Page 14
