Even as he strode farther and farther away, the sounds of her laughter followed, ghostlike. As he walked he took vicious and ineffectual swings at the rust-colored leaves floating down uncaringly about him. And sometimes he didn’t even touch them when they dropped brokenly to the ground.
Chapter Fourteen
Then the sky wasn’t blue anymore. Nor light gray. It was pastel green.
He stopped flailing his arms and looked around, moving only his eyes. Pip stopped beating his pleated wings against his master’s face and flew off to curl comfortably against the nearest bed-bar, satisfied with the reaction it had produced. The minidrag’s tough constitution had apparently suffered few ill effects. Flinx didn’t know yet whether to curse it or kiss it.
He tried to sit up but fell back, exhausted by the brief effort. Oddly enough, his bones didn’t bother him at all. But his muscles! The tendons and ligaments too, all of the connective web that held the framework together. Felt like they’d been tied end to end, stretched out, rolled together into a ball, and pounded into one of Mother Mastiff’s less palatable meatloafs.
It was a trial, but he finally managed to sit up. The events of . . . how long had he been out? . . . came back to him as he rubbed circulation back into benumbed legs. As soon as he felt reasonably humanoid again, he leaned over and spoke into his shipmike. In case the others were in less positive shape than he, he enunciated slowly and clearly so as to be sure to be understood.
“Captain? Captain? Control? Is anyone up there?” He could sense all the other minds but not their condition, as his own was too addled to focus yet.
“Rahisi, kijana! Take it easy. Glad to hear you’re back too.” The trader’s voice was a familiar healthy boom but Flinx could read the strain on his mind. In another minute his picture flashed onto the small viewscreen. The blocky face had added another line or two, the beard a few white hairs, but otherwise the craggy visage was unchanged. And although his body and mind looked wearied by the stresses they had undergone, the face reflected old enthusiasms.
“Wolf and I have been up, although not about, by moyo. Uzito, what an experience! It seems that our friend the hard-headed philosoph, who wears his bones inside out, stood it better than the rest of us. He’s been up here rubbing us poor softies back into consciousness.”
The voice of the insect came over the speaker from somewhere off-camera, but Flinx could place the thranx from the strength of its thoughts, which were indeed better organized than those of its companions.
“If the rest of your body was as hard as your head, captain, you, at least, would not need my aid.”
“Je! Well, kijana, Tse-Mallory’s been up the longest of us poor humans, and I believe Der Bugg is just now bringing Atha ’round . . . yes, bless her flinty moyo. We were going to send him in to see you next, Flinx, but I see that’s not necessary.”
“Did we . . .?” but Malaika seemed not to hear and Flinx was too tired to probe.
“Mwanamume and mtoto, what a buggy ride! Sorry, bwana Truzenzuzex. No offense intended. It’s an old Terran saying, meaning ‘to go like blazes,’ roughly. I know only that it’s appropriate to our present situation. Perhaps it’s designed to invoke a friendly Mungu, je? Metamorphosis! Flinx me lad, me kijana, me mtoto, we went past that star so fast after hitting that field that our transversion ‘puter couldn’t handle it! The mechanism wasn’t built to program that kind of speed, and I’d hate to tell you where the cut-off max is! If there were only some way this sort of thing could be done on a commercial basis . . . owk!”
He winced and gingerly touched a hand to the back of his neck.
“However, I must admit that at the present time there appear to be certain drawbacks to the system. Uchawi! I would have given much to have seen the face of our friend the Baron when we shot off his screens, je! Unannounced, as it were. I wonder if he . . . but unwrap yourself from that webbing, kijana, and get thee forward. I’ve a bit of a surprise for you, and it looks even better from up front.”
Flinx could feel the tone beginning to return to his muscles. He undid the rest of the harness and slid slowly off the bed. There was an awkward moment as he had to grab the wall for support, balancing himself on shaky legs. But things began to normalize themselves quickly now. He walked around the room a few times, experimentally, and then turned and headed for Control, Pip curled comfortably about his left shoulder.
Malaika swiveled slightly in his seat as Flinx appeared on the bridge.
“Well? What’s the surprise?” He noted that Truzenzuzex had disappeared, but could feel the insect’s presence in another part of the ship.
Apparently Malaika noted his searching gaze. Or possibly he was becoming sensitive. He’d have to be careful around the big trader.
“He’s gone to try to help Sissiph. She figured to be the last to return, rudisha.”
That was undoubtedly true. Atha and Wolf he could clearly see busy at their instruments.
“Kijana, that big kick in the . . . boost we got shoved us far ahead of my anticipated schedule . . . on our prearranged path! I planned it that way when we were setting up the interception coordinates. No use wasting a brush with death if it can be utilized to profit also . . . but I honestly didn’t think the Glory’s field could hold us that steady. However, it did, and here we are.”
“Which is where?” asked Flinx.
Malaika was smug. “Not more than ninety minutes ship-nafasi from our intended destination!” He turned back to his desk, muttering. “Now if there’s only some way to make it commercially feas. . . .”
Flinx put together what he knew of how far they’d come when they were intercepted by the AAnn warship and how far they’d still had to go at that time. The result he came up with was an acceleration he had no wish to dwell on.
“That’s great, of course, sir. Still, it would also be nice if. . . .”
“Um? If what?”
“If when we get where we’re going we find some thing worth getting there for.”
“Your semantics are scrambled, kijana, but I approve the sentiment. Mbali kodogo, a little way off, perhaps, but I do indeed approve.”
Chapter Fifteen
The planet itself was a beauty. It would have been ideal for colonization if it hadn’t been for the unfortunate dearth of land area. But even the fact that ninety percent of the land was concentrated in one large continent might not make such exploitations prohibitive. Oceans could be farmed and mined, too, as on colony worlds like Dis and Repler. And those of Booster, as they had named it, were green enough to suggest that they fairly seethed with the necessary base-matrix to support humanx-style sea-culture. Fortunately the chlorophyll reaction had proved the norm on most humanx-type planets found to date.
By contrast the single continent appeared to be oddly dry. Especially discouraging to Truzenzuzex, as the thranx would have preferred a wet, tropical climate. He confirmed this opinion by voicing it every chance he got.
As far as they were able to determine from orbit, everything was exactly as it had been described on the star-map. Atmospheric composition, with its unusual proportion of free helium and other rare gases, UV radicount (est. surf./sq.mi./ki.), mean and extreme temperatures, and so forth. There was only one fact their observer had failed to note.
As near as their probes could estimate, at no place on the surface of Booster did the wind ever blow less than 70 kilometers an hour. At certain points over the oceans, especially near the equator, it was remarkably consistent. But it did not appear to drop below that approximated minimum. There was currently one gigantic storm system visible in the southeastern portion of the planet. The meteorology ‘puter guessed the winds near its center to be moving in excess of 780 kilometers per hour.
“Impossible!” said Malaika, when he saw the initial imageout. “Mchawi mchanganyiko!”
“Quite,” said Truzenzuzex. “Definitely. Go fly a kite.” The scientist indulged in the whistling laughter of the thranx.
Malaika was confused, by the
laughter as well as the referent “Translation, please?”
“It means,” put in Tse-Mallory over the insect’s laughter, “that it is more than possible.” He was gazing in complete absorption at the sphere turning below. The unusual silver-gold tinge to the atmosphere had aroused interest in his mind. “And there might be places, on the single continent, for example, where canyons and such would channel even higher velocities.”
The merchant took a deep breath, whooshed it out, and fingered the small wooden image that hung omnipresent about his neck. “Namna gani mahaili? What kind of place? No wonder there’s nothing more than one little continent and a few visiwabovu. Such winds would cut down high places like chaff!” He shook his head. “Why the Tar-Aiym would pick a place like this to develop their whatever-it-is I’ll not guess.”
“There is much we don’t know of the Tar-Aiym and their motives,” said Tse-Mallory. “Far more than we do know. From their point of view it might have been perfect. Maybe they felt that its very unattractiveness would discourage inspection by their enemies. And we have no final evidence as to what they considered a hospitable climate. We don’t even know for certain what they looked like, remember. Oh, we’ve got a vague idea of the basics. The head goes here, the major manipulative limbs there, and so on. But for all we really know they might even have been semi-porous. A nice three-hundred-kilo-an-hour hurricane might have been as a refreshing bath to them. In which case I’d expect the Krang to be some sort of resort facility.”
“Please!” said Malaika. “No obscenities. If that were true, why haven’t we found such winds on any of the other planets we know the Tar-Aiym inhabited?”
Tse-Mallory shrugged, bored with the turn of the conversation. “Perhaps the weather has changed since then. Perhaps they changed it. Perhaps I am wrong. Perhaps I am crazy. In fact, there are times when my suspicions of the latter approach certitude.”
“I’ve noticed,” said Truzenzuzex, unable to resist.
“Agh! If I knew all the answers,” said the sociologist, “I’d be God. In which circumstance I’d most certainly be outside this ship right now and not cooped up with the rest of you mental cases!” He returned his gaze to the screen, but Flinx could taste the humor in his mind.
“Captain?” broke in Wolf’s quiet tone. “Preliminary readout from geosurv probes indicates that the continent has a basaltic base, but is composed on the surface primarily of sedimentary rocks, heavily calcinaceous, and with a high proportion of limestones.”
“Um-hum. Figures. That would also tend to explain how the wind could knock down any mountains so quickly. In another million years, barring any rising of the ocean bed, there probably won’t be a plot of land sticking above the waters of this planet. Fortunately I do not have to worry about that, too.” He turned from the screen. “Atha, go and ready the shuttle. And get set to take us down. It doesn’t appear that we’re going to need airsuits, thank Mungu, but make damn sure the crawler is in good running condition. And see if you can’t turn up something for us to use as eye protection against this infernal wind. So that we won’t have to use the suit helmets. Je?”
She started to leave, but he halted her at the door, his face thoughtful. “And make sure we have plenty of rope. I’ve been on planets where the rain would eat right through a suit to your skin, if the fauna didn’t get to you first, if the flora didn’t beat the fauna out. But this makes the first one I’ve ever been on where my primary concern will be being blown away.”
“Yes, captain.” She left then, passing the arriving Sissiph on the way out. The two had recovered enough to glare at each other meaningfully for a moment but, aware that Malaika’s eyes were on them, said nothing.
“I don’t think we’ll have much trouble locating this thing of yours, gentlesirs—providing it does indeed exist. There don’t appear to be any canyons or other rugged areas where it could be hidden, and since your friend found it without seeming difficulty, I see no reason why we, with more sophisticated instrumentation, should not do likewise. Yes, we should get to it quickly, quickly. Afyaenu, gentlesirs. Your health!”
He clapped those huge hands together and the report they made in the enclosed space was deafening.
“He looks like a small child in expectation of receiving a new toy,” Tse-Mallory whispered to Truzenzuzex.
“Yes. Let us hope that it is indeed of an aesthetic rather than a lethal nature.”
The shuttle had its own balloonlike hangar in the bottom of the great cargo section. Sissiph, professing ignorance of maneuvering the pullways, had to be helped down. But the way she snuggled into an obliging Malaika suggested motives, other than incompetence. The powerful little ship was a complete space-going vessel, albeit a far more streamlined and less spacious one than the Gloryhole. It was powered by rockets of advanced design and, for atmospheric, suborbital flight, by ramjets. Being intended for simple ground-to-space, space-to-ground flights, it had limited cruising range. Fortunately they had only a limited area of probability to search. Conducted from the Gloryhole it would have been more leisurely, but Malaika wasn’t going to restrain himself any longer than was necessary, despite the attendant inconveniences. He wanted down.
The fact that they wouldn’t need the flexible but still awkward airsuits would be a great help. Atha had fitted them all with goggles whose original purpose was to protect the wearer from heavy UV. While dark, they would serve equally well to keep dust and airborne particles out of everyone’s eyes. For Truzenzuzex she had managed a pair from empty polmer containers.
Off in a corner, Sissiph was arguing petulantly with Malaika. Now that the fun of her escorted trip down the pullway was over. . . .
“But I don’t want to go, Maxy. Really I don’t.”
“But you will, my nrwanakondoowivu, you will. Njoo, come, we all stay together. I don’t think our playful AAnn friends will find us. I don’t see how they could, but I still fear the possibility. In the event of that obscene happening, I want everyone in one and the same place. And I don’t know what we’re going to run into downstairs, either. We’re going into the ruins of a civilization dead half a million years, more advanced than us, and utterly ruthless. Maybe they have left some uncouth hellos for late drop-ins? So every hand will be along in case it’s needed. Even your delicious little ones.” He smacked the collection of digits in question with a juicy kiss.
She pulled the hand away and stamped a foot (her favorite nonvocal method of protest, but ineffectual in the zero-gravity). “But Maxy . . .!”
“Starehe! Don’t ‘Maxy’ me. A definite no, pet.” He put a hand on her shoulder and spun her gently but firmly about, giving her a shove in the direction of the shuttle’s personnel port.
“Besides, if I were to leave you on board all by yourself you’d likely as not erase the navigation tapes trying to order dinner from the autochef. No, you come with us, ndegedogo, little bird. Also, your hair will look so pretty streaming away in the gentle breezes.”
Her caustic voice came faintly as they entered the lock. “Breeze! I heard you talking about the hurric . . .!”
Or, thought Flinx as he struggled with the gun and belt that Atha had given him, it is possible that our Captain hasn’t forgotten how neatly the AAnn seemed to find us. Maybe he thinks dear, sweet, helpless Sissiph is not entirely to be trusted. He went quiet, sought within the mind in question for a hint, a relationship that might bear out the merchant’s possible suspicion. If anything was there, it was too deeply buried or well-hidden for him to seek out. And there were other things that seeped in around the edges of his probe that embarrassed him, even a sixteen-year-old from Drallar. He withdrew awkwardly. Let Malaika keep the load on his mind.
He was far more interested in admiring the gun. The handle was all filigree and inlay, a good deal fancier than the practical destroyers he’d seen in the barred and shadowed gunshops of Drallar. Unquestionably, it was equally as deadly. He knew what this model could do and how to handle it. In those same shops he had fired this and simil
ar weapons with empty charge chambers while the owners had looked on tolerantly and exchanged patronizing comments with the regular customers.
It was beautiful. Compact and efficient, the laser pistol could cook a man at five hundred meters or a steak at one. It could weld most metals, or burn its way through any form of conventional plastic barrier. All in all, it was a useful and versatile tool as much as a weapon. While he hoped he wouldn’t need it down on the surface and still had Pip with him, the streamlined weight felt ever so comfortable hugging his hip.
At Malaika’s insistence they had all also been issued a full survival belt. Even Sissiph, who had complained that the negligible weight distorted her figure. This prompted an unflattering comment from Atha which fortunately went unheard by the Lynx, or they might have had another minor cataclysm in the tiny vessel’s lock.
The belt was equipped and designed for use on planets which varied no more than ten percent from the humanx norm. Besides hefting the mandatory gun, the belt contained concentrated rations and energy pills, sugarsalt solution, their portable communicator units, a tent for two which was waterproof, conserved body heat, and folded to a package smaller than one’s fist, charges for both comm and gun, tools for finding direction, making nails, or planting corn, among other things. There was also a wonderfully compact minimicroflim reader, with some fifty books on its spool. Among the selections were two staples: the Universal Verbal Communications Dictionary (in seven volumes, abridged), and the Bible of the United Church, The Holy Book of Universal Truths, and other Humorous Anecdotes.
The Tar-aiym Krang Page 15
