VOR 04 The Rescue

by Ellis, Don

  Then it closed off forever, slicing off the war like a guillotine taking off the head of the last revolutionary.

  A single burst of plasma made it through the opening. It was a partial shot at that; the rear half of the bolt had been left on the other side. David had seen so many of them in the past few minutes that he watched it with cool detachment, waiting for it to flash harmlessly past. But it came straight on, and he had just enough time to realize they were in trouble before it hit.

  The ship lurched backward. A moment later the gravity failed, casting everyone up into the dome. Most of the crew members grabbed something and hauled themselves back down, but David and Raedawn had been holding on to each other and by the time they reached out for support they were already a few meters off the deck and rising.

  Harxae reached upward and snagged David’s leg, drawing them back down. He turned to Navrel, and the two locked eyes in silent communication again.

  “We must get you to safety,” Navrel finally said to David. “You are the hope of escape for my race and others.” He said to Harxae, “You know what to do. Get him to safety. He is the important one.”

  “Oh, thanks a lot,” said Raedawn.

  Overhead, the surface of the dome crackled with energy. David steeled himself for the explosion he knew was coming. The other ships had lasted only a few seconds before the plasma charge had overloaded their power plants. This hadn’t been a complete burst, but it looked bad enough to do the job.

  Then Harxae whirled around, grabbed David and Raedawn in his powerful arms, and leaped toward the doors. He bounced off the door frame, careened into the corridor beyond, and pulled himself up short at the first doorway beyond it. It was open, and the interior was the first small room they had seen on the ship. It held two wide benches with shoulder straps for maybe ten occupants to sit side by side and a single bucket seat at the far end facing a small circular window.

  “Lifeboat?” David asked wonderingly.

  Harxae shoved them down on the right-hand bench, then pulled himself inside and slapped the control that closed the door. “Hang on,” he said as he took command of the ship and pressed one of the control buttons.

  There was a loud bang, and the lifeboat lurched under heavy acceleration. David and Raedawn clutched at the straps, but they wound up plastered against the door, afraid to move for fear of hitting the wrong button and pitching themselves out into space.

  Then came a clatter like hail on a metal roof just behind them, and the lifeboat shook violently.

  “That was the ship blowing up, wasn’t it?” asked Raedawn.

  Harxae didn’t answer, but the debris flashing past the window was all the answer they needed.

  “I’m sorry,” said David. He felt stupid saying it. The words were never enough, but they were all he had to give.

  Harxae steadied the ship, then lowered their acceleration to a quarter gee or so. David and Raedawn crawled uphill to the end of the benches nearest his chair and strapped themselves in across from each other where they could both see out the window.

  The new planet glistened below them. Harxae’s fingers ran over the controls, and undecipherable strings of alien figures appeared on a monitor set in the middle of the control panel. “How hot do you like it?” he asked.

  “What?” David was too stunned to make sense of the question. He’d just watched everything he knew vanish for the second time. His home was now two universes away, and Harxae was asking about the temperature?

  “Living conditions,” Harxae said. “What environmental extremes do you prefer?”

  “Living conditions? What?”

  “This is not a shuttle. It’s a life pod. We get one landing, and I detect no sign of technological civilization below, so we had best make a good choice the first time.” He looked back at them and said, “I am not fond of what you call snow.”

  “Me either,” said Raedawn.

  “Wait a minute.” David took a deep breath, trying to clear his head. “You’re talking about picking a place to settle down? As in live out the rest of our lives?”

  “Is he always this slow?” asked Harxae.

  That had to be a thought robbed from Raedawn’s subconscious. He ignored it. “We’re not even going to try to go back?”

  “You may try if you wish,” said Harxae, “but we have no spaceship and no pulse bombs. Perhaps your descendants will be able to create them.”

  “Descendants.” He glanced across at Raedawn, who looked just as stunned as he. “We’re supposed to play Adam and Eve?”

  Harxae snorted. “Whether it is play or not will depend to a great degree upon where we land. How warm do you like it? How much vegetation? Do you prefer mountains, or plains? Your minds are not clear on any of these subjects.”

  “We’re . . . not used to thinking in those terms,” Raedawn said. Her eyes were still on David’s, and he almost laughed when he realized he’d instinctively sat up a little straighter and squared his shoulders.

  “You will grow accustomed to it,” said Harxae.

  David supposed they would. It was either that or die, and the human survival instinct was strong enough to change practically anyone’s behavior when their life depended on it. And the lives of their family.

  Assuming they could actually have one. “Even if the Tkona doesn’t fry us first, inbreeding would turn our progeny into lobsters within a few generations.”

  Harxae said, “I have healing powers. I am not as fast as a trained medic, but over time I can stabilize your genetic code.”

  “What about you?” Raedawn said. “You’re going to just grow old and die here while we restart humanity?”

  “I certainly hope not,” said Harxae. “I still have a good two hundred years left. Plenty of time to start a family of my own.”

  “But—there’s only one of you.”

  Harxae made his lip-smacking laugh. “You are thinking in human terms. Your way may be more entertaining, but mine is more efficient. I will restart the Kalirae race here myself.”

  More likely they would die side by side at the whim of the Tkona, but the planet certainly looked untroubled by its chaotic surroundings. It had survived this long; who knew how much longer it could last. Maybe long enough for two races to grow up side by side from the very beginning.

  Even if that was possible, could they actually live together, or would they descend into warfare like the other races thrust together in the Maelstrom?

  David studied the new world below them. It was a big planet. There should be room enough for everyone for a very long time.

  He couldn’t deny the lure of the challenge. He’d always considered himself a pioneer, and this looked like a wonderful place to try it. He’d never really felt at home anywhere and had yearned for one somewhere deep down. But at what price would he get one now? They’d been cast away from everyone and everything they knew without even the chance to say good-bye.

  He thought of Boris, lying in his hospital bed while the regenerator repaired his broken bones. A nurse would come in to check his progress, he would ask what had happened to his friends, and the nurse would tell him that they had died in battle. He would lie back, saddened by the news, and maybe later when he had healed he would drink a toast to their memory, but then he would go on. He had his own unknown fate to live.

  Uncertainty seemed to be the hallmark of the Maelstrom. But it looked like David actually had a choice, at least for the moment. He looked out at the new planet and said, “Mountains. Someplace with a fishing stream.”

  “Wait a minute,” said Raedawn. “I want ocean. Sandy beaches, coconut palms, grass huts. You know. Tropical paradise.”

  “With mountains,” David said.

  Harxae turned around in his chair. “I prefer desert.”

  “Why am I not surprised?”

  They looked at one another, three refugees from another dimension with their lives quite literally laid out before them. This was the moment when they would decide how the future would go. Could t
hey agree on this most fundamental question?

  Raedawn laughed softly. “It sounds like we want southern California.”

  California. David had never considered living there, not with its overpopulation and pollution and acres of pavement. But someplace like that, before civilization had overrun it . . . yes, that could work. And maybe they would have the chance to do it right this time.

  Harxae nodded. “There is no California here, but I understand the concept.” He turned back to the controls.

  David reached across the narrow space between himself and Raedawn. She smiled her enigmatic “don’t count on it” smile, but she reached out to meet him halfway as the lifeboat kissed the top of the atmosphere.