Deepsix

by Jack McDevitt

  “Okay,” he said. “Point taken.”

  She turned her attention to the chasm. “If that’s settled, let’s collect the capacitors and get on the road.”

  The capacitor compartments looked accessible. It was just a matter of climbing down to them.

  “There’s another possibility,” said MacAllister. “How about trying to fly it out?”

  “It’s jammed in sideways,” said Hutch.

  “You’ve got an AI. It’s not as if anybody would have to be on board when you made the effort.”

  Kellie’s expression implied that she agreed.

  It was conceivable. If it wasn’t wedged too tight, the thrusters might break it loose. Maybe they could bring it out, land it in front of the tower, climb in, and go home.

  But it did look tight. Had to be tight.

  The ship’s prow was angled down about ten degrees.

  MacAllister saw her reluctance. “Why not?” he persisted. “If we can make it work, nobody has to risk his—or her—life climbing down and prying open engine compartments.” The use of the feminine pronoun was pointed. He was reminding her who was in charge and who, therefore, should take any such risk.

  “What it would probably do,” said Hutch, “is rip the roof off the cabin.”

  “What’s to lose? If we can’t get it out, we don’t care whether the cabin’s secure, do we?”

  Kellie shook her head. “Fireball time,” she said. “Crunch the cabin, split the fuel tanks, everything goes up. Including the capacitors.”

  “Even if we try to ease it out?” said Nightingale.

  “We can try it,” said Hutch finally. She got the Evening Star duty officer on the circuit, and told him what they wanted to do.

  “You sure?” he asked.

  “No,” she said. And then: “Yes. We need your assistance.”

  The duty officer spoke to the lander AI: “Glory, can you hear me?”

  “I hear you, Mark.”

  “What is your status?”

  The AI ran off a series of numbers and conditions. On the whole, Hutch thought, the damage might not be as serious as it looked. There was some broken circuitry, which meant control problems. Maybe they could replace them with parts from the other lander. Maybe they could fly it over to Tess and use the two to make a fully functioning spacecraft.

  The AI reported that thrusters were okay, and there was lift. “Although there seem to be balancing problems.”

  “That’s because it’s on its side,” said Kellie.

  The vehicle weighed probably eight metric tons.

  “Glory,” said the duty officer, “the next voice you hear will belong to Priscilla Hutchins. I want you to code her. Do what she says.”

  “I will comply, Mark.”

  “Go ahead, Hutch,” he said. “She’s all yours.”

  “Glory, this is Priscilla Hutchins.”

  “Hello, Priscilla.”

  “I want you to engage the lifters and raise the nose until I tell you to stop.”

  They heard metal grind against the chasm wall. Snow broke loose and fell to the bottom. A piece of rock let go, and the lander slipped deeper into the trench.

  “Glory, stop,” she said.

  “Priscilla, I do not have freedom of movement.”

  “Try firing the rockets,” said MacAllister. “That should break it loose.”

  “Break it, period,” said Kellie. She leaned over and looked down. “We could try to cut away some of the rock.”

  Nightingale made a face. “It would just slip down farther. If it changes its position, we might lose access to the capacitors.”

  He was right. The best chance lay in the original idea: Collect the capacitors, then get the other lander. But it would have been so good, so elegant, to ease the spacecraft out into the open.

  Chiang must have seen the hesitation in her face. “It’s your field of expertise, Hutch. Call it.”

  MacAllister looked to heaven. “God help us, we’re in the hands of the experts. I think you ought to direct the AI to pour it on, stake everything on one roll of the dice. Get it over with.”

  Below the spacecraft, the walls dropped away, gradually narrowing until they sliced down into the snow. Anyone falling would become a permanent feature of the crevice.

  “No,” she said. “Glory’s our ticket out of here. We need to take care of her.”

  “I’ll make the climb,” said Chiang.

  She could see he was uncomfortable with the idea. Hutch herself had no love for precipices. But MacAllister was right: It was her responsibility, which she’d have happily ducked had Chiang looked a bit more confident. “It’s okay,” she said, trying to put steel into her voice. “I’ll do it.”

  She hoped someone, possibly Kellie, would try to argue her out of it. Chiang nodded, relieved. Was she sure? he asked.

  “Yeah,” she said.

  Kellie tossed a rock over the side and watched until it dropped silently into the snow at the bottom. “That’s a long way down, Hutch.”

  Thanks, Kellie. I really needed that. But she bit down on the comment.

  Nightingale studied the situation. “We’ll just lower you and bring you back up,” he said. “No way you can fall. You’ll be safe as long as the lander doesn’t give way at the wrong time.”

  “That should reassure her,” said MacAllister.

  Hutch began by asking the duty officer to confirm that she retained verbal control over the AI. While she was doing that, Kellie and Nightingale retreated to the tower and returned with two long pieces of cable. Hutch tied one around her waist and handed it to Chiang. She kept the other one looped and gave it to Kellie. “Toss it down when I tell you,” she said.

  Marcel broke in. “Be careful.”

  MacAllister surprised her. He looked genuinely worried, but she wondered whether he was afraid she’d fall into the pit before retrieving the capacitors. “I don’t think this is a good idea, Priscilla. There’s no need. Just tell the AI to put the throttle to it.”

  She was touched. “Just hang on to me,” she told him.

  There was no nearby tree or other solid object around which to secure the line. So Chiang and MacAllister drove a couple of stakes into the ground. When they’d finished and gotten set up, Hutch took a deep breath, backed out over the rim, felt the emptiness beneath her, and smiled diffidently at Kellie.

  Kellie gave her a thumbs-up.

  She knew how the professionals did it, bracing their feet against the face of the rock and walking down. But she couldn’t quite balance herself that well and instead simply dropped into a sitting position at the edge and eased herself over. “Okay, guys,” she said. “Lower away.”

  They complied and she kept her eyes on the wall, which was earth-colored and rough and pebbly. Kellie was watching her and passing instructions and encouragement back and forth. “Okay, Hutch, you’re doing fine.”

  “Hold it, she’s got an abutment to deal with.”

  Trails of snow and pebbles broke loose and poured into the canyon.

  There were no handholds. She realized belatedly that she should have looped the cable around her thighs instead of just connecting it to her belt and harness. It was dragging up on her, trying to pull her belt up under her vest. The Flickinger field did not provide sufficient resistance.

  “You okay, Hutch?” Kellie asked.

  “I’m fine. Keep going.”

  She maintained a stranglehold on the cable, gripping it so tightly that her muscles began to hurt. She told herself to relax, and checked cautiously to see where the lander was, trying to keep her eyes away from the abyss. Occasional clumps of snow and earth spilled down on her.

  Kellie and Nightingale were both looking over the edge now, and she wished they’d be more careful. Last thing she needed would be to have one of them land in her lap, but when she complained, both seemed surprised.

  “Just a little more,” Kellie told the line handlers.

  The lander was directly beneath her, and she reached do
wn with her left foot, got nothing, wiggled around in the belt, tried again, and touched metal. She was delighted to discover that it did not drop lower as she eased her weight onto it. “Okay,” she said. “I’m on board.”

  Safety line or not, she felt better kneeling rather than standing on the spacecraft. Despite its boxy appearance, the hull was adequately cycloid and aerodynamic. Wherever she touched it, it seemed to curve around away from her. She perched on the starboard side and gazed through the cabin windows. The door between the cargo hold and the cabin hung open. Two pieces of luggage had fallen out of the bins and lay against the downside bulkhead.

  First things first: She worked her way to the communication pod, opened it, and removed as many of the parts as would come out. She also took the connectors and put everything in her vest.

  The fuselage narrowed toward the tail. She moved cautiously in that direction, toward the capacitor compartments.

  There was one on either side of the spacecraft, about halfway back. From her perspective, one faced up, the other down. She went after the easy one first. “Glory,” she said, “can you hear me?”

  “I hear you, Priscilla.”

  “Call me Hutch. And if you will, open the starboard compartment.”

  The panel popped open. The capacitor didn’t look at all like the capacitors in her own lander. It was wide, silver and brown, and flattened. Hers was a dark blue box. She considered whether it would fit in Tess’s compartment, and concluded it would not. But that needn’t be a problem. If necessary, the installation could be done by putting them in the backseat and wiring them in.

  “Glory,” she said, “release the capacitor.”

  She heard a soft click. The unit came loose. “Okay, Kellie,” she said, “send the other line down.”

  Kellie got it to her after several tries. Hutch tied it securely around the capacitor, knotted it, and looked up. Kellie waved.

  Hutch put the assorted spare parts from the comm pod into a bag and attached it also to the line. “Okay,” she said. “Take it up.”

  They began to pull. Hutch assisted, and the line lifted the capacitor out of its compartment and hauled it clear of the spacecraft. Kellie leaned out, trying to keep it away from the face of the cliff so it wouldn’t get damaged. It swung back and forth while it rose, and then it disappeared over the crest. A moment later the line dropped back in her direction. She gathered it in.

  She was just moving back into her crouch when the spacecraft dropped a few centimeters. It wasn’t much, but her heart stopped. Everyone asked what had happened and whether she was okay. “Yes,” she said, trying to sound composed. “Going below.”

  She slipped off the fuselage and dangled at the end of her line. “Lower away,” she said. “Not too fast.”

  “Tell us when,” said Kellie.

  “A little more.” She descended past the hull until she could see the port side. The down side.

  “Glory,” she said, “is the remaining capacitor secure in its compartment?”

  “Yes, it is, Hutch.”

  “Open the compartment.”

  Pause. “I can’t, Hutch. It doesn’t respond.”

  “Okay. I’m going to try it manually.” She popped a panel, found the lever, and pulled on it. But it had too much give. “Not working,” she said. “Kellie.”

  “Yes.”

  “There’s a bar back in the tower. Have somebody get it for me.”

  Kellie kept talking to her, telling her that the capacitor looked good, that everything was under control, while somebody tracked the tool down. Finally, MacAllister broke in: “We’ve got it.” And a minute later they were lowering the bar.

  She caught it and went back to work.

  The capacitor compartment was suspended over her head. She looked up at it and tried to insert the bar under the lip of the metal.

  “Toward the top,” said Glory. “The problem’s near the top.”

  It was difficult to work without a perch, to get any leverage on the bar when she had no place to plant her feet.

  “How are you making out?” asked Chiang.

  The bar was heavy. Her arms quickly got tired, and once she almost dropped it. The compartment door was jammed tight.

  “Okay,” she said.

  She struggled on. Chiang said he thought it was taking too long and they should pull her up and let him try.

  “He thinks,” said Kellie, “we need more muscle down there.”

  “He’s probably right.” Hutch slid the bar into her vest and took a minute to rest her arms. Despite her boyish dimensions, she was, like all women, somewhat top-heavy, and she had to fight a tendency to turn turtle. “Let’s stay with this a bit,” she said. “If I can’t get it, I’ll be happy to give Chiang a shot.”

  Her vest was cutting off the blood in her armpits. She changed position, retrieved the tool, and tried again. She worked with increasing desperation and finally got the bar inside the compartment. She pulled down, pushed it in farther, and pulled again. Something gave, and the door popped open. The capacitor hung immediately overhead.

  “I’ve got it,” she said. She secured the bar to her belt, reached up into the compartment, felt around, and estimated she had a reasonable amount of clearance. She tied the line around the front and rear of the capacitor and secured it.

  “Okay,” she said. “Take up the slack. But not too tight.”

  They complied. She got out from under the compartment. “Glory,” she said.

  “Yes, Hutch?”

  “Release the capacitor.”

  It dropped out of the compartment and swung back and forth in a long arc. But the line held, and her knots held. To her immense relief it did not fall to the bottom of the canyon.

  After they’d recovered the second capacitor, she resisted the temptation to get out of the chasm and instead pushed up through the airlock into the spacecraft.

  She salvaged as many reddimeals as she could, breakfasts, lunches, and dinners packed in self-heating containers. They weren’t exactly food off the griddle, but for something to eat on the trail in an alien place, they were going to look pretty good. She picked up some coffee packs, found two bottles of wine, and some sandwiches and fruit from the refrigerator. The galley supplied unbreakable dishes, utensils, and mugs. She paused in front of the water tank. That was something they were going to need at the far end of the journey. She removed it, emptied it, folded it up, and put it in her vest.

  There were other useful items: towels, washcloths, toothbrushes, soap, an extra e-suit, a lantern, a pair of Evening Star jumpsuits, more cable, two backpacks, and a medkit.

  The lander slipped a few more centimeters.

  She packed everything into plastic bags and they hauled them up. Kellie was urging her not to press her luck.

  “Coming now,” Hutch said.

  And then Glory’s voice: “Hutch?”

  “Yes, Glory.”

  “Are you leaving now?”

  “Yes.”

  “You won’t be back?”

  “No, Glory. I won’t be back.”

  “Would you shut me off?”

  The capacitors were marked with the manufacturer’s name, Daigleton Industries, the date of manufacture, which was the previous year, and the Daigleton logo, a stylized atom.

  They put them on the worktable and threw canvas over them, and MacAllister opened a private channel to Hutch. “Maybe we should leave a couple of people here to make sure they’re still here when we get back.”

  “Who’s going to take them?” she asked.

  “What about the cat?”

  “I can’t imagine what it would do with them.” She adjusted the canvas. “No, we’re safer together. If this place is as dangerous as Randy thinks it is, we shouldn’t leave anybody here.”

  “Congratulations, Hutch. Outstanding job.” Marcel sounded delighted, relieved, wiped out. Had he really been following all that?

  “Thanks, Marcel. We’ve got a bunch of survivors here.”

  �
��I see that. By the way, we have a message for you from the Academy.”

  “Read it,” she said.

  “The subject is ‘Aliens on Deepsix.’ It says: Priscilla, you are directed to make every effort to rescue whatever inhabitants of Deepsix you can find. Humanity requires no less of us. It’s signed by the commissioner.”

  MacAllister snorted. “Gomez thinks she’s writing for the ages. ‘Humanity requires…’ Poor boob. They’ll be laughing at her for a thousand years.”

  PART 2

  OVERLAND

  * * *

  XIII

  One of the sure signs of a moron is that he, or she, babbles about the glories of the wilderness. Moonlight. Cool crisp air. The wind in the trees. Flights of birds overhead. Be assured these people always do it virtual. That way one drags no mud into the house.

  —GREGORY MACALLISTER, “Boy Scouts and Other Aberrations,” Editor at Large

  Hours to breakup (est): 240

  They melted snow, boiled the water, and drank it down. There’d been water in the lander, but there had been no practical way to retrieve it MacAllister predicted they’d all break out in hives by dinner. He added, more seriously, that they’d better start learning how to hunt. They estimated that they had a six-day food supply. “That means,” he added, “we’ll be traveling on empty stomachs when we get to Tess.”

  Their destination lay south-southwest but they couldn’t immediately proceed in that direction because they had no way to cross the crevice that now divided the landscape as far as they could see.

  They made snowshoes and put all their gear and food into sample bags and the two backpacks Hutch had salvaged from the lander. Hutch provided MacAllister with a cutter and showed him how to use it. Then they took a last look at the tower and the capacitors and struck off across the plain.

  “You’ll be out of the snow in a day or two,” Marcel told them. That was good news. Once they had solid earth underfoot they’d be able to move more quickly. But it was a struggle for the two older men right from the beginning. Nightingale developed a blister after they’d gone about a kilometer. Hutch treated it with ointment from the medkit. Within another hour, MacAllister was limping and grumbling.