Deepsix

by Jack McDevitt

  Penkavic now made the history books. In the only known instance in which a commercial starship attempted to maneuver in hyperspace, he banked to port, tried to calculate the location of the lander, and made an effort at intercept.

  He had to work manually because Eve’s condition had not stabilized. Jack Castor, his copilot, was already on duty.

  He put Castor on the sensors despite his protests that they would not work.

  They tried them anyhow. Short-range, long-range, pinpoint, and shotgun. It didn’t matter; all returns were negative. There seemed to be nothing out there but empty space. Optical visibility was limited to a couple of hundred meters, and attempts to activate the lander AI failed.

  No one knew how to pinpoint a position in transdimensional space. Because the only other physical object in the field was the lander, and they did not know where it was, the notion of position became meaningless.

  Eve came back up. “The disturbance seems to have abated,” she said.

  “Can you tell where the problem originated?” Castor asked.

  Not that the answer mattered. Penkavic knew who had arranged it.

  “Lambda.”

  The backup mission control.

  Helm was dressed and waiting for him.

  “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” demanded Penkavic.

  “I’m aware,” he said. His eyes were hooded. He seemed unusually pensive. “I know exactly what I’ve done.”

  “You’ve condemned those people. We were the only way they had of getting clear.”

  “Eliot.” He nodded, agreeing with the accusation. “I wish there had been another way. But the Quraqua operation can’t afford a nine-day delay. Some of the material we have on board is time-sensitive. Extremely so. As are two critical operations that depend on our making a prompt delivery. The company would have been hit very hard. Very hard. It would have cost millions, at the very least. God knows how many ongoing efforts would have to be restarted. If we had gone off to the rescue, nobody at Corporate would have thanked us, believe me.”

  “I don’t really care—”

  “I do, Eliot. And so would you, if you knew the people involved, how hard they’ve worked to turn Quraqua into a second Earth. What the stakes are. These idiots got themselves into their situation, and they’re just going to have to get themselves out.” He seemed to be studying the chessboard. Penkavic noticed the position had not changed. “God help me, I wish it could have been otherwise.”

  Penkavic stared at him.

  “You’d have done the same thing,” Helm persisted, “if you’d had my responsibilities. Known what I know.”

  “I don’t think so,” said Penkavic.

  “Eliot.” The kindly uncle showed up again. “Your investigation will uncover a defective switch in the central system and a cross-connected R-box in Lambda. You’ll want to find both promptly and replace them so that the problem with the AI does not recur. Unfortunately, the launch was triggered when a signal intended to shut down the mess for the night was misrouted through the bad switch to the launch system. Because the R-box activated almost simultaneously, Eve was effectively locked off for several minutes and was unable to stop the sequence. An unfortunate accident. One in a million. But quite comprehensible. Responsibility will be laid on the AIs that run the inspection programs back at the Wheel, or possibly on design glitches. In any case, no one here need be blamed.”

  For a long time, neither man spoke.

  “Unless you insist.”

  Penkavic sat down and tried to resist his inclination to look the other way.

  “You have a choice to make now,” Helm continued. “You can accuse me, and log what you know. Or you can forget this conversation ever happened, and the incident will remain what it presently is, a piece of bad luck. I’d remind you there’s always a price to be paid for progress. And that there’s nothing to be gained by sending anyone to a hanging.” His fingers touched the crown of the black queen. He lifted her, moved her diagonally across the board, and settled her behind a protecting knight. “I’m in your hands, Eliot.”

  “Incoming traffic, Marcel.”

  “On-screen, Bill.”

  “You’re not going to like it,” the AI added.

  TO:

  NCA WENDY JAY

  FROM:

  NCK ATHENA BOARDMAN

  SUBJECT:

  LANDER DIFFICULTIES

  MARCEL: REGRET TO REPORT THAT SYSTEMS BREAKDOWN RESULTED IN UNCONTROLLED LAUNCH OF LANDER DURING HYPERFLIGHT. ALL ATTEMPTS AT RECOVERY FAILED. NO CHOICE BUT CONTINUE TO QURAQUA. REGRET UNABLE ASSIST YOU. ELIOT.

  Marcel was reading the message a second or third time when Beekman broke in: “How the hell do you accidentally launch a lander?”

  “I don’t know.” A chill was expanding at the pit of Marcel’s stomach.

  “And they don’t have a spare?”

  “No.”

  He could hear Beekman’s slight wheeze. “There must be somebody else.”

  “There isn’t. We checked.” The room had gone quiet.

  “So what do we do now?”

  Marcel couldn’t see there was anything they could do.

  “I don’t think we should try it,” said Kellie. “What if you get inside the damned thing and it decides to go the rest of the way into the chasm?”

  They were looking down on the Star lander. It was wedged sideways, starboard side up. The hull was gouged, and the cabin roof was hammered in. One wing was bent, one of the jets looked misaligned. And both landing treads had been, broken off.

  Hutch thought the descent looked more dangerous than it was. Her link tingled, and Marcel’s voice whispered her name. “I’m here,” she said. “How’re we doing?”

  “Not so well, I’m afraid.”

  She read it in his voice, knew what he would say before it went any farther. “What happened?”

  “Boardman. They accidentally launched the lander in hyper-flight.”

  “They lost it.”

  “Yes.”

  Hutch saw the others watching her. “How the hell could that happen?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “What is it?” asked Kellie.

  They all looked scared. Even MacAllister. She switched the conversation onto the allcom. “Nobody else in the area?”

  “No. Nobody.”

  “What about the Patrol?”

  “Not even remotely close.”

  “No private vessels? A corporate yacht, maybe?”

  “No, Hutch. Nothing with a lander.” She listened to him breathing. “I’m sorry.”

  “What happened?” asked Nightingale.

  “We haven’t given up,” Marcel said.

  “I don’t suppose that means you’ve thought of something else.”

  “Not yet.”

  “What happened?” Nightingale demanded, louder this time. The question hung there.

  “What now?”

  Hutch wasn’t sure who’d spoken. They stood on the brink of the chasm, staring down, while the implications settled around their shoulders.

  MacAllister looked into the sky, as if to locate Wendy. “Captain Clairveau. Are you listening?”

  A brief delay. Then: “I’m here, Mr. MacAllister.”

  “What’s our course of action now?” he asked. “What do we do?”

  “I don’t know yet. I haven’t had a chance—”

  “—to analyze the situation.” MacAllister could summon the tones of an angry god. He did so. “As I understand our status, rescue would seem to be out of the question. Impossible. Am I correct?”

  “It would appear so.”

  “Am I correct?”

  “Yes.” Hesitantly.

  “Then do us a common courtesy, Captain: The situation here has deteriorated severely. You’ll make it easier on all of us if you confine yourself to the facts and refrain from cheerleading.”

  Marcel was silent.

  And MacAllister was right. Hutch was crushed by the finality of events. “Mar
cel,” she said, “we’re going to sign off for a bit.”

  “Okay.” But she didn’t hear the distant click and knew he was still on the circuit. “I’ll be here,” he said at last. “If I can help.”

  He signed off.

  Chiang kicked some snow into the chasm. “We could all just jump in,” he said. “End it.”

  “Save the gallows humor,” said Kellie.

  “I wasn’t trying to be funny.” He folded his arms, and for an unsettling moment Hutch thought he really was considering it. She started cautiously in his direction, but Kellie got there first, took his arm, and pulled him away from the edge. He laughed. “Although,” he said, “I can’t see where it makes much difference.”

  Hutch changed her tone, implying they were now getting to serious business. “How much time do we have left?” she asked. “Anybody know?”

  “Impact occurs December 9,” said Kellie. “At 5:56 P.M. zulu.” Ship time.

  MacAllister glanced at his watch. “What kind of time are we talking?”

  “Zulu,” Nightingale sneered. “Orbital. Greenwich Mean. The time on your watch.”

  It was just after midnight on the twenty-eighth. At the tower, it was a couple of hours after sunrise.

  “But the place will begin to break up,” said Nightingale, “a day or so before the collision.”

  “Pity.” MacAllister shook his head. “We have front-row seats for the most spectacular extravaganza in history, and we won’t be here at showtime.”

  Chiang did not look amused. “Something to consider,” he said. “Do we have a way to make a painless exit? When the time comes?”

  MacAllister pushed his hands down into his vest pockets. “What about tranks?”

  “It’s a little premature to be talking like that,” said Hutch.

  “Is it really?” MacAllister looked down at her from a considerable height. “Well, let’s all be sure to keep our spirits up. Wouldn’t want anything less, would we?”

  “That’s enough, MacAllister,” she said. “Try not to get hysterical.”

  “You know,” Nightingale said, “if you hadn’t panicked and tried to get clear with the lander, maybe none of this would have happened.” He let them see he was enjoying himself.

  “Look, the lander was about to go into the ditch. We tried to save it.”

  “You tried to save your fat ass—”

  Hutch broke in and got between them. “Gentlemen, this isn’t going to help.”

  “Sure it is,” said Nightingale. “There’s something to be said for truth. That’s what you always say, isn’t it, Mac? It doesn’t matter who gets hurt; let’s just get the truth out on the table. The truth is, you tried to run. The other lander was already gone, and you—”

  “That’s enough, Randy.” She used the most threatening tone she could summon.

  He glared at her and turned away.

  “What is it with you two?” Hutch asked, looking at MacAllister.

  The editor shrugged. “He objects to something I wrote a long time ago.”

  “MacAllister,” she said, “you have friends everywhere.”

  “Even at World’s End. I guess so.”

  Nightingale stood, looking out over the abyss. The others hunkered down in the snow. Nobody said much. Hutch pulled her knees close and propped her chin on it.

  Nightingale pushed his hands into his vest pockets. The wind had already blown a covering of snow over the graves. Chiang took Kellie’s arm and asked if she was okay. MacAllister glanced at the time every couple of minutes, as if he had a pressing appointment.

  Hutch withdrew into her own black thoughts until Nightingale’s voice brought her out of it. “There might still be a way to get to orbit,” he said.

  She looked at him bleakly. One did not walk off a planetary surface. “How?”

  “There’s a lander on the ground. Not far from here, I don’t think.”

  “Tess!” said MacAllister.

  Nightingale nodded. “That’s good,” he said. “You remember after all.”

  “I remember that you left one of the landers behind. But that’s twenty years ago.”

  “I didn’t say there was transportation. I said there might be a way.” He was moving snow around with his foot, pushing it over the edge into the chasm. “It sure as hell beats jumping in there.”

  Hutch felt a rush of hope. Any kind of chance looked pretty good at the moment. “You said not far, Randy. How far?”

  “I’m not sure. Southwest of here. Probably about two hundred kilometers. We were a little bit north of the equator.”

  Twenty years. Kellie shook her head. “The fuel will be long gone,” she said.

  MacAllister looked from Kellie to Hutch to Nightingale, hoping someone would say something encouraging.

  Hutch obliged. “Maybe not,” she said. “Marcel, we need you.”

  It took a few moments, but he came on-line. “What can I do for you, Hutch?”

  “Do you have access to the schematics for Tess? The lander that got left behind in the original expedition?”

  She could hear him relaying the question to Bill. Then he was back. “I’m looking at them,” he said.

  “What kind of reactor was it equipped with?”

  “Direct-conversion Bussard-Ligon.”

  “Okay.” Her spirits rose. “There might be a chance at that.”

  “I see where you’re headed,” said Marcel.

  Kellie was puzzled. “I still don’t understand where we’d get fuel for it.”

  “Think about it a minute,” said Hutch. “Most landers are designed for the sole purpose of getting from orbit to surface. Up and down. Moving supplies and people between a ground base and a ship. The landers used in planetary exploration, though, like the one we came down in, or like Tess, are different: They were intended to get around on the ground. You take it down, and you keep it with you. It helps in the exploration, and you don’t have to run it back and forth to orbit every few flights to refuel.”

  Kellie was starting to show interest.

  “That’s why they carry the Bussard-Ligon,” continued Hutch.

  “Which means what?” asked MacAllister.

  “Their jets burn hydrogen, like all landers. The reactor maintains the ship’s normal power levels. It keeps batteries charged, powers the capacitors, keeps the lights on.”

  “And?”

  “It can also be used to separate hydrogen from oxygen to produce fuel.”

  MacAllister’s face lit up. “You’re saying it can make jet fuel?”

  “All we’ll need is some water,” said Hutch. “Yes. That’s exactly what it can do.”

  “There was a river nearby,” said Nightingale.

  “Well, how about that,” said MacAllister. “We finally get lucky.”

  Nightingale allowed his contempt for MacAllister’s ignorance to show. “Landing sites for exobiologists,” he said, “were often near water. On beaches, near lakes, and so on. It’s where animals congregate.”

  “And pilots are trained to use them,” added Hutch, “whenever they can. So they can keep the tanks topped off.”

  “So how do we get the reactor running?” asked Nightingale. “What fuels it?”

  “Boron,” said Hutch.

  That induced a worried look. “Where do we get boron?”

  “There should be a supply in the lander. There’d have to be.”

  “How much would we need?” asked Nightingale.

  She held thumb and index finger a few centimeters apart. “Not much at all. I’d think a couple of tablespoons will be more than sufficient to get us up and running. We’ll check the specifics later.”

  MacAllister clapped his palms together. “Then we’re in business,” he said. “All we have to do is head over to the other lander, and we’re out of here.” He turned to Chiang. “I have to tell you, Chiang, I was worried there for a minute.”

  “Well,” said Hutch, “we’re not exactly out of the soup. The jets will give us some power, eno
ugh to get around down here. But—”

  “They won’t be enough,” said Kellie, “to get us off-world. For that we need the spike.”

  “The problem we can expect,” said Hutch, “is that after all these years the capacitors will be degraded. Seriously degraded. We need the capacitors at full capability to run the spike.”

  “You mean,” asked MacAllister, “we can’t use it to get into orbit?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Then what have we been talking about?”

  Hutch gazed down at the Star lander. “What we need,” she said, “is a fresh set of capacitors. Any idea where we might find them?”

  The engine compartment of the Wildside lander had been thoroughly fried. But the Evening Star’s boat was a different story. It lay wedged in the chasm like a giant black-and-white insect. “Marcel,” Hutch said, “this thing’s big. How much do the capacitors weigh?”

  There was a long pause. Then: “Uh-oh.”

  “Give me the uh-oh.”

  “On Deepsix, 43.4 kilograms. Each.” Damned near as heavy as she was.

  It wouldn’t be practical to haul them overland. “We’ll pull them out,” she said, “and leave them in the tower. Come back for them after we get Tess up and running.”

  “That won’t work, will it?” asked Beekman. “Can you operate the lander without capacitors?”

  “Once we convert the water, sure. We just won’t have much lift capability.”

  Marcel broke in: “Good news, folks. We’ve located Tess.”

  “How far?”

  “Looks like 175 kilometers, give or take. We figure you’ve got about twelve days to get there. Maybe eleven. Eleven Maleivan days.” Eleven nineteen-hour days.

  “That doesn’t sound far,” said MacAllister. “A couple of us ought to be able to cover that in short order.”

  “It wouldn’t be a good idea to stay here alone,” said Hutch.

  “Why not? I can’t walk 175 kilometers.”

  “You stay here, you’ll probably get eaten.”

  He looked uncomfortable. “Leave me a weapon.”

  “When are you going to sleep?”

  “We’ve got plenty of time,” said Chiang, helpfully. “You’ll be able to make it.”

  “Think about the big cat,” said Nightingale.