“That’s right,” Leo said.
“But my problem isn’t guilt. It’s grief. I keep seeing all those horribly deformed fetuses. And I’m afraid when this comes out, that’s all anyone else will see when they look at me.”
When the silence within the shuttle fell again, it remained until they landed at Leo’s home.
As they entered the house, Mike told Leo, “You look tired. I suppose you might want to catch some sleep.”
“Now that you mention it, I would. All part of my circadian rhythm experiment, you know. And I’m going to let the exoskeleton remove itself for a while, just feel like myself a little bit.” Leo padded toward his bedroom, paused at the door. “We’ll talk some more later.” He went into the bedroom, and the door shut quietly, leaving Mike alone with his thoughts.
He couldn’t long endure them, and he knew they would never let him sleep, not just yet. So while Leo rested, Mike called up some of the reports on the planet. He’s learned so much here, Mike thought as he read through several articles. “A World Without Jungles” showed that Keleni’s constant windstorms prevented jungles from forming, and that Leo obviously eschewed the usual dry titles of scientific papers. “Cue Ball Planet” explained how a world smaller and cooler than the Earth with such a rapid spin lacked plate tectonics and the tall mountains and deep ocean basins that went with them. “Moonless Sky” looked at how Keleni’s axis, which tilted back and forth chaotically across millions of years, might have settled down if the planet had formed with a natural satellite. He’s a one-man science factory, Mike thought.
After a couple of hours reading, Mike settled into his chair and managed to doze, though he was haunted by vague dreams of manta gliders filling the skies and the Asaph Hall skimming the oceans of this rapidly spinning world.
As the sun made its all-too-quick reappearance, Mike awakened as the bedroom door opened and Leo returned to the living room.
Mike sat up in his chair. “I read a bunch of your reports.”
Leo favored Mike with a grin as he sat. “They’re good, aren’t they?”
“You’re doing important work here.”
“The most important work of my life.”
“All of which has led me to a decision. I’m going to talk to your concerned friends—”
“Who weren’t concerned enough to come check on me themselves.”
“Anyway, Leo, I’m going to tell them of the great work you’re doing here, and how happy you are. And that they shouldn’t be worried about you. You’re where you should be.”
“I appreciate that.”
“That’s something I’ve known about myself for nearly ten years on Asaph Hall.”
“But now—?” Leo prompted.
“I lost the woman I loved. Her name was Linna Maurishka, and she was an empath.”
“A rare gift.”
“A rare woman.”
“And you don’t know if you can keep exploring. What does it all mean, is it worth it compared to someone’s love?”
Mike folded his arms and held down the resentment Leo’s words evoked within him. “You make it sound like none of that’s important.”
“Of course it’s important. But when you don’t have it, you’ve still got an entire galaxy full of surprises and wonderment all around you.”
“It’s not a substitute.”
“No, it’s not. But it is a comfort.”
“Sometimes,” Mike said, “I find the sheer size of this galaxy daunting. My greatest blessing and eternal curse. In a way, I envy you for your focus on a single world.”
“Don’t. Even this one world is more than I can encompass in a single lifetime—or as much of one as I have left.”
“How did your sleep experiment go?”
Leo said, “It was more of a nap.”
“Yeah. This would be a tough world for Humans to colonize.”
“I suppose I’m a colony of one. How’d you like to take another trip?”
Mike asked, “Is this all you do? Go out on these little missions all the time?”
“Do you see a problem with that? I don’t have a lot of time left, Mike.” Leo grinned. “Each nap could be the last one. I savor them, but then I get back to work.”
Mike stood up. “Let’s go, then.”
It was back into the crawler for the next jaunt. Leo told Mike as they pulled away to the south from Leo’s home, “I know a place about ninety K from here that has the most marvelous animal life.”
“More interesting than the trackers and manta gliders?” Mike asked.
“You can decide that for yourself. The amazing part is that they could be the closest thing this world has to intelligent life.”
“But this world’s too unstable, isn’t it? This business with the axis tilting—in a few million years the poles are going to be pointing toward the sun, and not for the first time. Each ecological niche changes completely. I’d bet some just disappear.”
“So what you’re wondering is how any one species has the chance to survive long enough to develop intelligence.
“Well, Mike, I guess they’d just have to be a bunch of mean sons-a-bitches.”
“Or very smart ones?”
“I’d say a bit of both. Wait until you see what’s waiting for us up ahead.”
A couple of hours later, Leo halted the crawler at the top of a low rise overlooking a broad plain to the south and got out, Mike close behind.
The usual wide, red and blue plants with the cylindrical leaves that Leo called sunnysiders dominated here, though Mike also spotted some tall, thin shoots that bent down low in the slightest gust only to snap upright again during a rare calm moment. Leo saw Mike looking at them, and said, “I call those spring willows. Not for the season—because they spring back up all the time.”
Just to the southwest, Mike saw about a dozen trackers foraging, their pointy legs digging into the dirt, sharp beaks thrusting for those tasty grubs. Just beyond them stood a low rock formation that Mike guessed was their refuge when they felt they were in danger.
Leo pointed to the southeast, to what looked like a barren patch of ground. “See that?”
“Yeah. What keeps the plants from growing there?”
“Be patient.”
The patch moved, and began undulating among the sunnysiders. “So it’s not a patch,” Mike said as the creature neared the trackers. “Is it a manta glider?”
“You’d think so from above. But it’s actually very different. I call it a daggerhead.”
“Why do you call it—”
The daggerhead’s broad, flat body folded itself in an instant into a spear shape with two thick legs. Its thin, narrow head, now revealed, thrust itself forward and impaled a tracker’s body against the soft ground as the other trackers fled. The wounded tracker squealed in agony as its body thrashed around, oozing brownish blood. But it had nowhere to go and bled out in moments.
“Next time I’ll just shut up for another two seconds and have my answer,” Mike said, raising his voice again to be heard over the wind, which was starting to pick up.
The daggerhead’s small eyes, situated toward the back of the head, peered at the now-still tracker. It placed a foot on the tracker’s body and pulled free, then began to feed, taking small, almost dainty bites, as if it were a finicky eater.
“The daggerhead resembles a much more benign beastie from beneath, the copper-crawler. At the same time, looking like a manta glider from above protects it from predators that don’t happen to find the gliders tasty.” Leo tilted his head, as if listening for something in the distance. “Hear that?”
Mike didn’t hear anything unusual. “What am I listening for?”
“A low tone, beneath the sound of the wind. It’s the daggerhead, calling the rest of its tribe.”
More daggerheads appeared, this time in what Mike thought of as their “folded” mode. The other trackers were long gone, but the daggerheads gathered around the dead tracker and took their share. Leo said, “With a
ll of them going at it, they’ll have it down to a pile of bones in just a few minutes.” A sudden gust made Leo stumble. Mike reached out to him, but Leo held up a hand. “I’m fine. One thing I need to do, though… ” He touched behind his left ear to activate his datalink. “Crawler—settle.”
The crawler eased itself to the ground, its wheels retracted, and its claw-shaped supports dug into the earth. “Can’t be too careful,” Leo said.
Mike said, “So the daggerheads communicate with those low tones?”
“And high ones,” Leo said, bracing himself against the wind. “Whatever tones they can find to either side, you might say, of the sounds of the wind. But they have other tricks, too. At night they expand into that mode where they resemble the mantas from above and they glow and change colors. They apparently have pretty good eyesight, too. I’ve done some tests, and I think they can even perceive starlight.”
“Pretty important on a world with no moon. So you think they could develop intelligence?”
“If they’re given a chance. But there’s that business of Keleni’s axis tilting. In a few tens of thousands of years, the poles will be lined up with the primary. Keleni will be rolling along its orbital path like a bowling ball down a lane. Who knows what conditions will be like then?”
Another sharp gust, the sky grew dark, and this time Mike did grab hold of Leo to keep him from falling. And this time Leo didn’t object, he just said, “We’d better get into the crawler. These storms can come up quicker than you’d imagine.”
“I don’t know,” Mike said. “I can imagine a lot.” But he followed Leo toward the crawler without an argument. In the distance, he saw several trackers, no doubt stragglers, headed toward the safety of their rock formation. The daggerheads’ bodies flattened out into their manta-resembling mode and hunkered down.
Leo’s purposeful strides, courtesy of his exoskeleton, brought him to the crawler, then inside to the small galley and sleeping area. Mike was close behind. As the hatch closed behind them, Leo sat on a bench and said, “We’ll sit this one out right here.”
Mike asked, “Any idea how strong this will be, or how long it’ll last?”
Leo reached past Mike to activate a bank of sensors. “Oh, I’ve got it all here—satellite views, deep radar, real-time updates—it tells me pretty well what’s happening right now, and none of it’s worth a damn in predicting what’s going to happen two seconds from now. The whole planetary weather system’s just too chaotic.”
The crawler shook from the force of a particularly violent gust. Leo reached past Mike again. “Excuse me. I’m putting on the gravitics for this one.” He touched a control, and the crawler’s movements became imperceptible.
“Thank goodness.”
“I do it reluctantly, Mike. You spend a lifetime in your shell of a starcraft, protected from everything.” Leo indicated the gravitic control. “Not that I take needless risks. But if you don’t let yourself feel the bumps in the road, nothing ever disturbs you.”
Mike said, “Plenty has disturbed me. I’ve told you what we’ve gone through on Asaph Hall these past few months.”
“And I’m not making light of that. But live a life a bit more visceral, and your emotional needs fall into proper context.”
Mike peered through the porthole in the hatch. “Is that a tornado out there?”
Leo peered over Mike’s shoulder. “Yep. There’s another one right behind it. If we get a lightning flash or two, I bet we’d see a couple more. Nothing they don’t see in Kansas ‘bout every year.”
Though they couldn’t feel the wind buffeting the crawler, the noise from outside revealed the intensity of the storms all around them. Mike said, “I’m guessing we’re up to hurricane-force winds?”
“Sure are,” Leo said. “Over 120 kph, and straight-line winds. You can imagine what it’s like inside those tornados.”
The roar of the winds grew again. Mike’s eyes widened and he asked Leo, “Isn’t the ground starting to tilt?”
Leo looked out the hatch window again. “It’s not—we are!”
Mike instinctively looked for something to grab onto, despite not being able to feel the crawler tilting—but there was nothing. “Don’t you have a strap or a seat belt or—something? ” he asked Leo.
“Never needed it. But I think the ground itself is giving way beneath us—one of those tornados must have struck us dead-on.”
“Don’t say ‘dead,’“ Mike told Leo, the other man’s concerned expression perhaps more frightening than the view outside.
Leo said, “We’re like a tree being uprooted!”
Even though the gravitics kept him from feeling the crawler rise up or tilt, Mike found himself holding on to the bench and one corner of the equipment module next to him.
The view outside the crawler rushed past much faster, then became obscured, and then Mike felt an impact, was thrown into a wall, the lights went out, and the winds rushed over him for a time he couldn’t measure.
By the time Mike’s eyes fluttered open, the winds had abandoned them, at least for a time. He raised his head just enough that he was eye-level with a tracker. Its slit-like eyes regarded him dispassionately. The little brain behind those eyes apparently decided he was neither food nor threat, and the tracker went back to its search for grubs. Its sharp feet sank into the earth several centimeters with each step. I’d trip trying to walk, was Mike’s thought as he watched the creature spear a tasty grub. Then he remembered he had more important matters to focus on.
Where’s Leo? Where’s the crawler? Where the hell am I?
He rolled onto his back and saw clear skies, smelled the lingering scent of rain. A glimpse across the landscape revealed debris from the crawler all around him, scattered around a rock outcropping. The storm smashed the crawler, Mike thought, but the internal gravitics held on just long enough that I wasn’t killed.
But what about Leo?
Mike rolled over again and tried to push himself up. But he didn’t have the strength, and even that minimal effort made his head start to swim, his consciousness begin to fade. Then he caught a glimpse of Leo, watched helplessly as he realized Leo’s exoskeleton was in action, lifting the other man like a puppet. I can’t tell if he’s alive or dead, Mike thought. I know he came here to die, but he said he wasn’t ready yet. Not yet.
Mike slumped to the ground again as roaring filled his ears and he wondered whether the distant roar becoming louder by the moment was the advent of yet another storm.
As Mike’s consciousness returned again, all was quiet. Without opening his eyes, he could tell he was sitting up with his head slumped against his chest. He tried to move, but something restrained him; not straps of any kind, but something that touched his arms, legs, and body at countless points beneath his clothing.
Mike emitted a groan and immediately heard Leo’s voice: “Thank goodness, Mike—I was beginning to worry you weren’t coming back.”
Mike opened his eyes. He was sitting in a chair in Leo’s living room. A portable nanodoc module stood next to him. “How the hell did I get here?”
“I called the shuttle,” Leo said. He was slumped on a couch across from Mike, his shoulders hunched, face seeming to sag more than Mike had seen before. “It homed in on my datalink and picked us up.”
“How’d you get me onto the shuttle?”
Leo smiled. “I didn’t. I got myself on board and settled into the pilot’s seat. Then I had a little help getting you in.”
Mike shifted in his chair, suddenly realizing what was restraining him. “Your exoskeleton!”
“It’s a one-size-fits-all model. I had it detach itself from me and pick you up, which I couldn’t have done on my own even with its help. Ready to sit up on your own now?”
“More than ready. With all respect to it, and to you, it creeps me out a little bit.”
Leo touched behind his left ear to activate his datalink. “Retrieve,” he said, and it was as if an electrical pulse went down Mike’s spine as
the exoskeleton detached itself. I wouldn’t have said something metal could slither, he thought as the exoskeleton slid down Mike’s body and limbs, formed into the outline of a man, and walked itself toward Leo. Another round of slithering motion, and the exoskeleton disappeared beneath Leo’s clothing. Leo, in response, sat up straight, shoulders back. Even his facial features seemed firmer.
A transformation as much psychological as physical, Mike thought. Not that it’s any less real for that. “Thank you,” Mike said. He glanced at the nanodoc. “How’m I doing?”
“You’ll be fine,” Leo said. “A bit of a concussion, breath knocked out of you. I’ve been through worse.”
“And will be again, I’m sure.”
“If I’m lucky.” Leo said. “In the sense of surviving, I mean.”
Mike grasped the chair arms, flexed his legs, tried to stand. After a moment, he quit trying. “I guess I should’ve learned that lesson before. I suppose I’ll stay here a nighttime cycle or so, then call up for the Asaph Hall to come get me.”
“I’m glad you came here, Mike. And you’re welcome anytime.”
“But you’ll be glad to have the planet to yourself again.”
“Can’t deny it. Tell my friends they shouldn’t be concerned about me.”
“Wouldn’t dream of telling them anything else.”
Leo leaned forward. “And what are you going to tell them when you get back to Asaph Hall?”
“About myself, you mean?”
Leo gave a nod, then an expectant look.
Mike said, “I told you about what I called a catalog of horror. How I was afraid everyone would see that, and not who I really was. How I began, and not what I’ve become.”
“Anyone who spends more than two minutes with you and doesn’t see who you really are is a fool. Just keep in mind that other thing you told me.”
“What’s that?”
“About the sheer size of this galaxy. Blessing and curse, you said. Come across a place that doesn’t appreciate you, and there’s always someplace else, and another beyond that, and another beyond that.”
“Or the one right place. Like Keleni is for you.”
Analog Science Fiction and Fact 01/01/11 Page 11
