"What do you th — umph!" Anderssen tried to shove him away, but Hummingbird was much stronger than she was. His fingers tapped a series of commands, then he stepped back. Gretchen shivered, shaking off a clammy feeling. "I'm running a diagnostic." She said in a cold voice.
"I told you to ignore any strange sounds or readings." Hummingbird was furious. "There will be more auditory…phenomena. There maybe visual events as well. You will ignore them. We will observe complete radio silence unless I initiate conversation."
Gretchen stared at him woodenly, trying to decide if she should speak her mind or not. Before she could say anything, he strode back to his ultralight and climbed aboard.
"Fine," Anderssen muttered, beginning to regret her impulsive decision to follow the Imperial judge. The other Midge's engines coughed to life and the sand anchors released with a bang. Gretchen flipped a series of switches controlling her own startup. The wings stiffened and the microcontrol comps woke up, subtly altering control surfaces and airflow guides in preparation for flight.
Hummingbird's ultralight bounced across the sand, turning away from the wreck and into an intermittent, gusty wind. Gretchen followed, her hand light on the stick. "Stupid ass," she said under her breath. Then one eye squinted in concentration as she thought about what he'd said: "Hmm. So, what could be listening for us?"
Mons Prion, Northern Hemisphere, Ephesus III
Sunlight blazed through the canopy of the Gagarin as the ultralight buzzed past a towering pinnacle of slate-gray stone. Gretchen squinted, waiting for her goggles to polarize against the brilliant light. They did, but slowly. The two aircraft had reached an altitude where there was very little atmosphere to diffuse the glare of the solar furnace. She was sweating — the heat load inside the cockpit was tremendous — despite the freezing wind roaring past outside. Both engines were honking fuel warnings and the wing edges had extended to try and generate as much lift as possible.
Hummingbird's insistence on reaching the peak as quickly as possible had resulted in a very dangerous approach. The late afternoon heat robbed them of colder, heavier air and the morning thermals had faltered and failed, so there were no updrafts to push them higher. With so little lift under their wings, both ultralights were burning fuel at a prodigious rate. The Gagarin wallowed between two more knife blade–thin towers of stone and the upper slopes of the mountain came into view at last. Prion loomed above a wilderness of ravines, plunging canyons, skyscraping cliffs and long tongues of shattered tumulus. Gretchen could make out the shining silver wing of Hummingbird's ultralight above and ahead of her, though the nauallis was having just as much trouble gaining altitude.
Broken dark rock slid past beneath her feet, glittering with streaks of frost. Anderssen had seen gloomy sections of canyon hidden from the burning white disc of the sun. Fantastic shapes hid in the shadows, glittering with quartz and garnet and amethyst. There were caves — yawning black cavities flipping past with dizzying speed — and sometimes she could swear strange lights gleamed in the inky depths.
The portside engine honked angrily and Gretchen's free hand danced across the control panel, manually adjusting the flow of hydrogen to the engines. Trying to climb through such thin air was burning too much fuel. The comp was overrunning safety parameters on a second-by-second basis and kept resetting, destroying the smooth microcontrol necessary to keep the Gagarin aloft. Ridges of jagged stone blurred past, talons reaching out for the ultralight's fragile skin.
"We won't be able to get down," she muttered, sweat trickling down her nose. "We'll be trapped on some Sister-forsaken mountainside — if we don't crash first."
Unexpectedly, the comm warbled in response to her cursing and Hummingbird's flat, tense voice filled her ears. "I see the ledge and the antenna. Forward and right three hundred meters. Follow me."
The nauallis's craft jerked up and away, out of her sight. Gretchen swore violently, then squeezed a last gasp of power from the laboring engines. The Gagarin lurched skyward and Gretchen swung the stick lightly to the right. The arc-shaped wing of the other Midge appeared again. Hummingbird's craft swung sideways and then went nose-up, bouncing down onto an impossibly narrow ledge beneath a massive black cliff.
Anderssen tried to stay calm and not jerk the stick wildly as bone-chilling fear flooded her body. The Gagarin swept across the ledge and she pulled up, skimming her landing gear only a meter from the roof of Hummingbird's canopy. There was a startled shout on the comm and Gretchen — teeth gritted tight — rolled left, the Gagarin's outstretched wing jarring away from a wall of basalt jutting from the mountainside.
"Oh most gracious Virgin," Gretchen chanted, her entire world focused down upon the control stick and the wildly gyrating view of mountains and sky and cliff flashing before the nose of the Midge. "In thy celestial apparitions on Mount Tepeyac, thou didst promise to show thy compassion and pity toward all who, loving and trusting thee…"
Gagarin made a wide circle out into the rarefied air and came around on a second approach to the outcropping. Gretchen caught sight of the nauallis darting out from under the wing of his Midge and running toward the far end of the slanted, rocky ledge. There was just barely enough room to land one ultralight. Anderssen caught a glimpse of a tall silver and black pole rising up from a crevice in the rock.
Russovsky only had this one Midge to land, Gretchen realized, feeling her stomach crumple into a contorted, burning knot. And she was a really, really skilled pilot. Oh, good little plane, remember how to do this!
"Get out of the way," she screamed into the comm mike. "I'm coming in!"
The ultralight wallowed down — much too fast, she realized as the forward wheel bounced violently across shale — and she threw the engines into reverse. Grimly hanging onto the stick, Gretchen was slammed repeatedly into her restraint harness as the Midge jounced and slid across the ledge. Loose rock skittered away under wildly spinning wheels. The entire aircraft crabbed to the side, away from the cliff wall, and Gretchen was suddenly staring out the port window and into the abyss of a canyon with no visible bottom.
"Sister, guide me!" Anderssen goosed the starboard engine and the Midge spun away from the edge. The aft-starboard wheel slammed into a protruding rock and the Gagarin bounced up with a jolt. Gretchen's teeth cracked together like a hammer. She tasted blood. The stick wrenched itself out of her hand and Gagarin clattered through a complete circle. Anderssen grabbed wildly for the stick — overcorrected — and the Midge lurched over the lip of the cliff.
The ultralight dropped like a stone. Gretchen was flung back into the pilot's chair. Mumbling prayers in a constant, unwavering stream, she slammed the stick forward, trying to raise the nose and let the wings catch some air. The entire control panel flashed bright red and a honking noise from her earbug drowned out the distant sound of Hummingbird shouting in alarm.
Stone and sky rushed past.
Floating in unexpected freefall, Gretchen blinked her eyes clear and immediately became dizzy. For an instant it seemed she was rushing forward across a flat, rocky plain, with queer looking mountains rising in the distance. Then her eye registered thin veils of cloud standing vertically from the plain and she remembered the Midge was plunging down the side of an enormous peak. Anderssen's eyes snapped to the control panel.
Both engines had shut down and — without power — both wing comps had locked out surface adjustment control. The wheels skittered across basalt and suddenly Gagarin was drifting away from the cliff face. Even without comp control, the Midge's curving wing could bite some air and get some lift. Gretchen closed her hand on the stick with infinite gentleness, feeling her stomach squirm with the unremitting sensation of falling. But we're miles up, she realized, and that means I have whole seconds, even as much as a minute, to react.
She pushed the stick forward, finding it terribly stiff without the comp providing powered support. The wings seemed to creak and the entire aircraft shuddered in reaction. Wind howled around the cockpit and Gretchen tried to
bring the nose up slowly. "Inspired, we fly unto thee, Oh Mary, ever Virgin Mother of the True God!"
The wings shimmied into the right cross section and there was a heavy jolt. The Midge wallowed into a glide, slowing, and the altimeter stopped spinning so wildly. Gretchen dragged the stick to the right a point, then two. Her course angled away from the spires of a lesser peak and into clearer air. "Though grieving under the weight of our sins," she heard herself shout, as from a great distance.
Anderssen punched a shutdown glyph at the upper right of the main comp. The panel flickered, then died abruptly. All machine noise ceased. There was only a shriek of air roaring under the wing and whining through the landing gear. A heavy hand pressed on her shoulders. "…we come to prostrate ourselves in thy august presence; certain thou wilt deign to fulfill thy merciful promises…"
Gretchen started to count the beats of her heart, mouth filling with blood. The yawning chasm of the canyons below her grew larger. She could see rivers of crumbled rock and stone twisting between towers of stone. The wind had carved huge, shallow caves from the cliffs and pierced some ridges with winding tunnels. There was no sign of life — no green, no blue — only black and gray and ever-present rust-red.
"And…sixty!" Gretchen managed to gasp out, past bloody lips. Her thumb mashed down on the panel restart and she groped to switch her air supply to an oxygen pack. Chill air hissed across her face, drawing a cry of pain.
The comp flickered and woke up. The Midge's flight control systems ran through a startup checklist, registered a dozen warning signs and flashed an amber alert on the panel. Gretchen overrode the query, hoping the engine failure hadn't fouled the fuel lines with ice. The mountains below had swollen into vast fields of brightly-lit boulders and gravel. She felt the stick quiver to life and the main panel rippled with light.
"Show me your mercy, blessed Sister!" She leaned right, swinging the stick over and the Gagarin's engines kicked in with a thready hiss. Comp control reasserted on the wing surfaces and the entire aircraft suddenly came alive. Giddy with relief, Gretchen swung the little plane away from the onrushing mountainside and roared south along a steep-sided, V-shaped valley. Momentum bled away and she turned the ultralight into a wide, climbing turn.
Once more, the shape of Prion filled the sky, blotting out the horizon.
Hummingbird had winched his Midge to the far end of the ledge by the time Gretchen came around for her third landing attempt. This time she managed to drop her airspeed almost to a stall as the Gagarin drifted over the tilted slab. All three wheels set down with a gentle clatter and the ultralight rolled to a halt. Anderssen felt the aircraft leaning to one side and she adjusted herself in the pilot's seat to compensate. Moving carefully, she locked the wheel brakes and shut down the engines. Gagarin gave out a weary sigh of settling metal, plastic and composite. The comp panels dimmed down to standby.
Getting out of the cockpit proved a slow process. Gretchen was sore from head to toe — again — and had trouble standing. She wound up crawling away from the Midge with the winch line over one shoulder. Reaching the wall, she leaned back against dark, gray-streaked stone with relief. Grudgingly, the medband consented to dispense an antitoxin to break down the fatigue poisons in her weary limbs. Feeling the familiar, welcome chill flushing through her body, Anderssen was content to lie at the base of the cliff, the winch pad adhered to the nearest rock surface, and close her eyes.
The view from the mountaintop was stunning. The Escarpment slashed left and right to the rim of the world. She could make out the slowly advancing terminator of night to the east. Another vast desert lay there, though the feet of the mountain chain were deeply buried in blown sand. Tiny shining lights sparkled across the distant plains.
When Gretchen felt she could stand up without having both legs buckle under her, she stumbled back to the ultralight and released the wheel brakes by hand. Another trip back to the base of the cliff left her a little dizzy. Too much altitude, too little oxygen for the rebreather, she realized, checking the medband. The clever little device indicated a variety of oxygenating compounds were already flowing into her bloodstream. Be fine in awhile. Gretchen propped herself against the cliff again.
The nose winch on the Gagarin whined and complained, but managed to pull the ultralight up close to the cliff. Both wings had collapsed into their storage configuration. Squatting under the pitted canopy, Gretchen secured the wheel brakes again and managed to wedge the sand anchors into crevices in the crumbling stone.
"Hummingbird?" Where is he? There was no answer on the comm, though the indicator lights showed two responding units within range. Hmm, Gretchen worried, he's left the Midge comm open. Shouldn't be wasting power like that.
Gretchen surveyed the ledge — a hundred meters of tilted, corroded rock jutting from an equally decrepit-looking mountainside — with a frown. The nauallis's Midge was parked fifty meters away to her right, the whip antenna she'd seen while landing at the far end of the ledge to the left. For no particularly good reason, she set off to the right, clambering over rough-edged stone and slabs of tilted rock. She was halfway to the other ultralight when a cave mouth appeared in the cliff face. The opening was tall, slanted and narrow. Anderssen peered at the floor, making a face when she saw the outline of boot prints in the gravel and dust.
"Old crow?" She whispered into the throat mike. Again, there was no answer, though some odd warbling static began to filter in around the edges of the comm band. Wary of the shadows — who knew what kind of life they sheltered? — Gretchen crept into the cave, her goggles dialed to light-intensification mode.
To her surprise, the cave seemed totally empty — there were no effusions of the spindle-and-cone flora which had overtaken the shuttle or even the tiny spikelike clusters she'd seen in the discarded pulque can. Instead the floor was a jumble of fallen stone, pebbles and dust. A blotchy series of tracks led off down the passage. Gretchen paused, digging a light out of her tool belt and adjusting the wand's radiance to the lowest possible setting. Her goggles would take care of the rest.
With the wand held out of her line of sight, Anderssen padded down the slot for another twenty meters or so. The ancient crevice ended, opening out into a larger chamber with a tilted roof of jammed-together boulders. Gretchen halted quietly and pressed herself against the wall, her thumb switching off the wand.
A queer blue radiance filled the chamber, reflecting from a ceiling covered with pendant crystalline fronds. The branches and whisker-thin needles seemed dead and lightless themselves, but the faceted surfaces gleamed with puddles of cobalt and ultramarine. Below them, the floor of the cavity was a bowl of crushed rock, surrounded by a thin circlet of something like blue moss. Gretchen resisted the urge to dial her goggles into magnification, though she supposed the "moss" was truly a forest of tremendously thin filaments, swarming with Ephesian life.
The unexpected presence of Doctor Russovsky captured her attention instead.
Anderssen froze, suddenly, simultaneously aware of the geologist lying on the floor of the cave, wrapped up in an old red-and-black checked blanket, and a muscular, gloved hand pressing against her stomach. Hummingbird was crouched at her feet, one arm out stiff to hold her back. A few centimeters from her boots, the circle of bluish filaments was crushed and broken, leaving a black gap in the carpet.
Gretchen backed up very slowly, unable to keep her eyes from Russovsky's recumbent form. Behind the sleeping figure was a camp table holding a big service lantern. A gear bag and an insulated foodbox sat next to the table. Humingbird rose, blocking out the scene, and together they moved carefully back down the tunnel.
Outside, the eastern sky had darkened further. Winds were playing among the spires of Prion, flinging a constant rain of sand to rattle against the Midge s. Gretchen stopped just inside the mouth of the cave and dialed her comm to very short range. "That wasn't the real Russovsky?"
Hummingbird shook his head. Gretchen could see the corners of his eyes were tight with tension.
"No," he said after adjusting his own wrist-mounted comm. "No respiration. No carbon dioxide residue in the air. It's some kind of copy — something like what you saw on the ship — but I don't think it moves or speaks."
"But she was here," Gretchen said, thinking of the whip antenna. "She must have slept in the cave at least one night, perhaps two, while she was installing the relay."
The nauallis nodded. "You saw the dead moss on the floor? I think she cleared most of the local microfauna out of the cave to make a safe place to sleep."
"Yes." Gretchen adjusted her breather mask. At this height, you needed to keep a tight seal to reduce oxygen loss. "Her lantern is a multispectrum one. If she left it tuned to UV all night, nothing would be able to get at her."
Hummingbird grunted noncommittaly. "But she didn't kill everything in the cave."
"Maybe she knew what was dangerous and what wasn't. Not everything in this ecosystem will want to consume us and our equipment." Gretchen smiled. "Just enough of them to kill us if we're not careful. So — what is this afterimage made of? Dust, like the other one? Something else?"
The nauallis shrugged slightly. "I'm not sure that is important, though an interesting question. She looks like the real thing. The table, the cloth — you can't tell a difference with the goggles dialed to hi-mag — but they aren't real."
"How can you tell?" Gretchen bit down on a follow-up question, seeing Hummingbird stiffen. "Ah, master crow, you don't have to keep secrets from me! We're all bundled up tight together, aren't we? Sharing the same piss-pot and cup." With a mighty effort, Anderssen kept a sarcastic tone from her voice, though she dearly wanted to twit him again. "Your secrets are safe with me. I swear I will never tell another soul — and if you doubt me, then when we're back on the ship, you can have me clapped in irons and sent off to the helium mines on Charon."
With the mask and breather and hood, Gretchen couldn't tell if Hummingbird smiled or not, though she was fairly certain at least the tiniest ghost of amusement might have creased his weathered old face. There was a distinctive hiss-hiss on the comm channel.
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