by Eric Flint
Xander laughed. “No, it didn’t. Just saw the strain gauges shift the way we were hoping. Kids, you’ll have to take one more dive to check, but I think—I think—you’ve just cleared the engine!”
Chapter 34
“By God, those kids are hard workers,” Campbell said to Pearce as they cleared away brush and stones and other debris from the chosen camping area.
“They are that,” she said. “Of course, their families were chosen for early settlers, so you’d expect them to be pretty adaptable.” She looked to where the sea could be glimpsed, glittering in the very-slowly dropping rays of Lincoln’s setting sun. “But stranded on that ship alone…yes, it’s impressive.”
“Hopefully we can get everyone together soon,” Campbell said, then raised his voice slightly. “Tavana, what’s the status on Emerald Maui?”
“The jet was damaged,” Tavana said, “but not too badly. The nanomaterial can repair itself with the right direction, which we are giving it now. That will be…oh, six to eight hours, I think. Then we can test it and make sure there’s nothing else wrong.”
“How about navigation? Clearing up their window, maybe?”
“The extra nanodust could do it, and we’ll get that started,” Pearce said. “But that’s going to take more time than we want to take. Since that quick-and-dirty fix of the antenna worked, though, there’s an easier way.”
“Omnis, you mean?”
“Exactly!” Sakura said, dragging one of the smaller tents that had been in storage up from their cargo. “The Vaneman adhesive will be perfect to bond a couple of those omnis to the front of Emerald Maui and their cameras are more than good enough to navigate with. Once we’re sure everything’s mechanically functional, it’ll take Hitomi and Francisco maybe an hour to get that set up. Then me and Tav can remote-drive them home.”
“Excellent news. Doc—Laura—sounds like you’d better get everything prepped to take care of Whips.”
“Yes, I’m already working on that.” Campbell noticed that neither she nor Akira were visible. “We’ve found a nice flat exposed surface, probably the base of that broken column you noticed. It was one of the ones with a sealed-off base. That will be good for an operating surface once I get it cleaned off.”
“How you figure to sterilize it?”
“Emerald Maui has what I need; there’s a UV sterilizer light that will do the job. Worst comes to worst we could douse it with alcohol and set it on fire; Akira doesn’t think that would do too much damage to the underlying structure but it would certainly kill anything on the surface. We’ll also be able to put a shelter up over it to serve as an operating theater.”
“Sounds good. Let us know if you need anything.”
“Ow!” Sakura was hopping around holding her foot.
“What happened, Saki? You get stung by something?” Tavana was immediately next to her.
“No, no…ow, that hurts…it was just that rock there, I went to kick it out of the way and it stayed there, must be stuck or something.”
Melody and Caroline had just arrived, carrying a bunch of gathered deadwood for a fire. Melody dumped her load and went to look at the offending object.
Campbell saw the little girl—well, not so little anymore, she’s started to shoot up—freeze. That immediately put his senses on alert. “What is it, Mel?”
Melody grunted, a surprisingly deep sound from such a slender girl, and hefted the irregular object in both hands. Campbell could see the muscles on her arms standing out with the effort of holding it. “This isn’t an island rock,” she said, and her soprano voice was grim.
“I can see that. What’s the problem?” He knew there was a problem. Melody tended to be quiet—sometimes sulky, sometimes just private—unless she was either showing off, which had according to her parents gotten a lot rarer over the time they’d been marooned, or if there was something really important to say.
“It’s a meteorite,” she said flatly, flipping her straight black hair back. When he just raised his eyebrow, she went on—with only a hint of self-satisfaction—“We’ve only tried clearing, what, a few hundred square meters of Lincoln? And now I, well, no, Sakura finds a meteorite, and one in pretty good shape? Either we’ve just done what Dad would call hitting the jackpot, or meteorites are pretty common here.” She let it drop with a thud to the ground. “That lagoon at the end of our island? Round hole, like it was punched through. Always figured that was a meteor. Your old island? Big round lake, probably meteor. And a big meteor just almost killed us all. Both landmasses we’ve been on, hit by at least one big meteor, and a third big one hit just a few kilometers away.”
Campbell was getting the picture and he didn’t like it. “You’re saying it’s common that things like this happen.”
Mel seesawed her hand. “Well…lot more common than it is on Earth or most other inhabited worlds.”
“Melody, do you have any idea how often?” Caroline asked.
Melody’s black eyes looked distant; Campbell recognized the look of someone reviewing things on a retinal display. “Well…only a guess, really, but if you remember, we’re always seeing comets and meteors. Comet orbits intersecting planetary orbits, you get a meteor shower. Bigger comets can break up and give you bigger chunks, I’d think.”
Campbell looked up and to the left; sure enough, he could make out one of the bigger comets in the sky, even in daylight.
“Well, come on Mel,” Sakura said, having sat down and let Tavana take a look at her toe.
“Best guess…um, there’s quite a few bigger-sized meteors, like the one we just survived, coming down every year, I think. Of course, Lincoln’s huge and most of it’s going to be in ocean far from any of the islands, and if you’re far enough away it won’t cause much damage. Still…a hit like that one probably will come close enough for us to notice every few years. Maybe every ten? I don’t know. Not enough data. But definitely it’s a real threat, it could happen again, and not like a hundred years from now. Maybe even a bigger strike.”
“Damnation.” He wanted to argue the points, but his gut agreed with Melody. They’d had a major meteor strike within a year or so of landing, and there were lots of other meteor signs. Lincoln wasn’t done with them yet; it had now revealed that it was a cosmic shooting gallery. “And no way to predict when or where.”
Melody bit her lip, then shook her head. “I can sort of see some patterns from the year or so we’ve been here—like when we had heavy meteor showers—but with that many comets on so many different periods, there’s probably always a chance of something big dropping.”
Caroline had been looking up, a thoughtful expression on her face. “Xander, Sergeant, the satellites have cameras that look down; can they be made to look up?”
Campbell blinked, then grinned. “That’s a damn good question, Caroline. My first thought is ‘probably’; anyone got a better answer?”
“Oh, sure they can, Sergeant!” Maddox looked excited. “I was looking at their specs and they can rotate around their axes pretty easily. You’re thinking of making them a sort of skywatch for meteors, Caroline?”
“That is the idea, Maddox,” she said with a smile; Maddox smiled back eagerly. “Could they do it? Detect a big meteor in time to warn us?”
“I…think so? They’ve got pretty good telescopic capability and high resolution, and nothing to blur things in space.”
“Well, that’s something to look into. Maddox, why don’t you and Melody get on that? I think it’s something the two of you can do while the rest of us are doing our other work,” Xander suggested, with a glance at Campbell, who nodded, and at a vague nothingness that Campbell was sure was an omni-projection of Laura Kimei. She had evidently also agreed, because Xander nodded to thin air and grinned.
“Okay! Want to do that, Mel?”
“Now? Um…” Melody looked a bit flustered, but then nodded sharply. “Yes. Yes, let’s. The faster we get something watching, the safer we’ll be.”
Campbell smiled.
“Okay, we’ll keep setting up camp, then. Hitomi, Francisco, you guys okay out there?”
“We’re fine, Sergeant!” Hitomi answered promptly. “Francisco is making dinner and then we’re going to play some Jewelbug together!”
“A good end to a day. By the time you get up tomorrow, it’ll be dark, but the engine should be ready and with luck we’ll start bringing you home then.”
“Oh, I hope so!”
Laura’s warm laugh came over the omnis. “So do we, honey. Now you have a good night, and call us if there’s any problems.”
“We will!”
Tavana started building a fire. “Then it is time for us to start getting dinner, too!”
“Sure is,” Campbell agreed. He looked up at the sky, where the hidden stars were watching.
He just hoped none of them were getting set to fall.
Chapter 35
“All right,” Tavana’s voice came over the omni, “Are we all ready?”
“Ready!” said Hitomi, checking her straps to make sure she was fastened into her seat properly.
“Ready,” agreed Francisco, in the seat next to her.
“Okay, testing engines in three, two, one…”
A deep hum rose, resonating from the rear of Emerald Maui, a new sound for Hitomi, but she saw a brilliant white smile on Francisco’s face as a gentle pressure pushed her back in her seat. “It works!” Francisco shouted.
“Oui, it definitely is working,” Tavana said, and she could hear the smile in his voice. “Xander, Pearce, everyone—does it all look good to you?”
“Looks good to me,” Xander said.
“It’s just a little rougher than spec,” Pearce said, “but nowhere near a problem. Running it for a while will probably show us where the issue is, and then nanorepair can deal with it.”
Sakura and Maddox both agreed that everything looked good. “Okay,” Tavana said, “then you guys can unstrap now. Time to put eyes on Emerald Maui so we can bring her home.”
“Where do we put them?” Hitomi asked.
“Been modeling that,” Sakura said, “with Tav’s help. You’re going to want to put two of them up front, one just on either side of the front port—we’ll mark the coordinates in your omnis so you can get them right where they should go. One in the back, just so we have coverage back there.”
“We’ll only have four spare omnis left after that,” Hitomi said, remembering the box. “You sure?”
“A good question, Hitomi,” said Mommy. “But yes, we’re sure. Emerald Maui might be working for us for many years, and she needs good eyes.”
“Okay, Mommy. We’ll put those on now!”
“It’s dark out there,” Xander said. “Are we sure we want them doing it now?”
“We can turn on the lights outside,” Hitomi said. “And I know the omnis can, um…” she searched for the word, found it, “…enhance the view, so we should be able to see just fine.”
“That’s not what the captain’s worried about, I think,” Sergeant Campbell said. “If I guess right, anyway.”
“You usually do, Sergeant.” Xander’s voice was deadly serious, and Hitomi could tell he was worried. “I remember talking about fishing—with Tav and some of the others—and Tav mentioned there were fish that got attracted by light—”
Hitomi felt like something icy-cold had just draped itself around her. Her mind showed her the brightly-lit Emerald Maui with two little kids working on her, and something looking up from the black water below…something that she couldn’t see coming…“Ugh.”
“Ugh is right,” Daddy said. “You’re completely correct, Xander. A number of predators on at least six or seven worlds would be attracted to lights on the surface, and of course with them working in the illumination the children wouldn’t be able to keep an eye out. And it’ll be harder to see raylamps coming out of the water, too. Laura, can we wait until the sun rises?”
Hitomi saw her mother’s face looking thoughtful. “I don’t know, Akira. That’s another ten hours, and Whips’ suspension is really…experimental. The telemetry from him isn’t exactly what I hoped. I don’t know if anything’s going wrong…but it might be. And remember that it will take them at least ten hours more to get home, if there’s no problems on the way.”
“Which we probably shouldn’t bet on,” Pearce Haley said.
Xander sighed. “Sounds like we have to go forward, then.”
“Have to…no,” said Mommy. “But…I really want Whips back as soon as possible.” Hitomi heard her swallow. “But I don’t want to risk the other children, either.”
“I don’t want Whips to die, Mommy!” Hitomi said loudly.
“Honey, none of us do. But if you get hurt…”
“It shouldn’t be too much of a problem, Mom,” Melody said.
“Mel? Thought you were working on the meteor-watch.”
“We are,” she said. “Still heard the argument. Look at the way Emerald Maui’s built. If they work sitting on the inside—toward the center—they’ll be well on top of the ship. Nothing’s going to be able to just grab them with a jump, unless it somehow knows the edible parts are up on top, which would be weird.”
“Mel has a point,” Tavana said, voice more relaxed. “An island-eater’s not coming after something that small, and so far nothing big seems interested in Emerald Maui. More normal predators, like the finny-types? They won’t be able to grab our kids without warning.”
“I see,” Daddy said; his head was nodding the way it did when someone gave him the right answer. “And since we have the exact design of the Emerald Maui, we should be able to program their omnis to recognize if anything’s crawling towards them, even if their eyes don’t immediately spot it.”
“Easy to do. Take me ten minutes, max,” Maddox said. “Leave it to me.”
“Go to it, little bro,” Xander said with a grin. “Okay, so we’re doing this, right?”
“Right!” Hitomi said, unstrapping. “We’ll keep the lights off until we’re on top of the ship, okay?”
“Works for me. Be careful, kids.”
“We will!” She thought of the dark water and the monsters that might wait beneath it, and shivered. “We will.”
It didn’t take more than a few minutes to get up top; the fact that there were two brilliant comets lighting the night helped a lot. One of them looked about as bright as the Moon back home. Still wasn’t really enough light to work with, so they were going to have to turn on the lights.
Hitomi looked up at the stars as Francisco clambered up next to her. “What are you looking at?” he asked.
“Just…the stars. We came from there. I wonder what Lincoln thinks about us, coming here from so far away.”
“I don’t know. Lincoln doesn’t think, does it?”
“Maybe. Tav and Saki and the others still haven’t figured out where those weird radio waves come from. Maybe it’s the planet, thinking.”
Francisco looked nervous. “That is creepy, Hitomi.”
“Why?” She thought the idea of the planet having thoughts, maybe long, slow thoughts like the Ents in one of Saki’s favorite books, was kind of cute.
“Because…” Francisco’s face wrinkled, then he gave a low laugh. “I…will think about it. It is creepy, but I find…I don’t know how to explain why.” He turned towards the front. “Okay, Emerald Maui, turn on interior and exterior lights.”
Instantly white radiance filled the area; at the same time, Hitomi felt that was kind of creepy, because it made the stars fade and the night around them looked even darker. It was as though Emerald Maui had to suck the light out of the rest of the universe to make itself bright.
Stop it. Focus. Focus. She saw her omni marking two small bright red squares at the edges of the forward port. The ridge below the port that contained the cleaning equipment and protective shield would make it easy to stand there, so they should be able to place them safely. As she brought her brain slowly under control, she could see the exact position she’d have t
o stand in, and the way that Francisco would…“Tavana, can we put them a few centimeters lower? I don’t know if I can reach the right place where you’ve put them; we can’t really stand on the forward port, we’ll slide off.”
“Oh, baka,” Sakura said. “Of course they can’t. Tav?”
“We can drop them a decimeter without interfering in the view too much. Is that enough?”
“Show us?” Hitomi asked.
The red rectangles drifted down the sides of the port. Hitomi, having slid to the ridge at the bottom of the port, was now able to walk over and reach up. “Yes, I can reach there now!”
“Great!”
Her omni pinged, showing an app update from Maddox labeled “Raylamp Detector.” “Got your update, Maddox. What do we do to use it?”
“It’s automatic right now. All you guys have to do is take a look around every few minutes so it can update its scan and let you know if anything’s changed.”
“We can do that,” Francisco said. “Ready, Hitomi?”
“Ready!”
“Okay. The first thing we do here is strip the protective coating off. Found this out when I was trying to put on our new antenna, the bonded coating really doesn’t want to let anything stick to it. Maybe Vaneman UA would anyway, but I don’t want to go getting that angry at something again, so we do it right the first time.”
He handed her a small can and gloves. “Put the gloves on and only open the can after you have them on. The debonder is not nice stuff.”
She remembered his hands having white burns on them that day and nodded. “How do I put it on?”
“Paintbrush—I’ll give it to you once you’re ready. Then I’ll go do the other one.”
A few minutes later she was armed with a paintbrush and the can of sharp-smelling debonder. Her medical nanos alerted her not to breathe the fumes if possible. That’s funny! We’ve done so many more dangerous things than that!
Still, there was no reason to make anything more dangerous, so she carefully kept the can as far from her as she could. Focusing, her world narrowed to the projected red rectangle on the hull of Emerald Maui, Hitomi carefully painted the debonder precisely onto that rectangle, covering every square millimeter with a thick coating of the chemical. She then closed the can and backed away, as faintly-visible fumes began to rise from the hull. Her nanos reported that that stuff would be even more dangerous, and even the tiny whiff she got of it made her very sure she didn’t want to smell any more.
