Deepsix

by Jack McDevitt

  The ceremony was short. “You’ll all want to get a good night’s sleep,” Captain Clairveau told them at its conclusion. “We’ve set up special quarters for you. I’m told you already know about that, and you know where they are. We’ll escort you there anyhow when we’ve finished here.” He grinned. “Consider yourselves in the military for the duration. Your morning will start early. I’d like to remind you that after you leave this room everything becomes real.”

  They gave Janet the last word. She thanked her fellow Outsiders, assured them she’d be with them throughout the operation, and gave them their final instructions.

  Pity. Antonia would have been thoroughly aroused by his pending exploit. Pindar consoled himself that he was making a magnanimous sacrifice and trooped off with the others.

  Before bedding down for the night he called her. Her lovely image took shape and shimmered in front of him. She’d adapted her signal to present herself with precisely the degree of insubstantiality that enhanced her natural beauty. “It’s going fine,” he assured her. “They’re breaking us into groups of two and three. I’ve been assigned as a team leader. Can you imagine that? Me, a skyhog?”

  “You will be careful?” said Antonia. “I want you to come back to me.” She tried to purr, but it didn’t work because she was really worried for him, and that knowledge stirred him, demonstrated it was not just his position and power that had won her over. It forced him to recognize once again that he must be an extraordinary person to command such affection from one so lovely.

  “Have no fear, Amante,” he said. “You just relax and enjoy the rescue.”

  “Pindar.” She peered at him closely, as though to see into him. “You’re really not afraid?”

  “No,” he said. “Everything will be fine.”

  “Will I be able to see you?” She meant on the viewscreens.

  “I’m sure you will.”

  She tilted her head and smiled. “I’ll be glad when it’s over.”

  In the morning, they were awakened early, at about five, and marched back to the same dining room, where they received a light breakfast. Afterward he met his partner, an attractive brunette whose name was Shira DeBecque. He and Shira boarded a shuttle headed for Wendy. They talked over their tasks en route, and arrived on the science ship in good spirits. There they met the shuttle pilot who’d be working with them during the balance of the morning, received their schedules, and set up their gear.

  Marcel could see the dismay in Ali Hamir’s eyes. Ali was Wendy’s lead technician. He’d thought there was a decent chance to reconfigure the scanners and conduct a successful search for the capacitors. But resolution below the surface of objects smaller than a human being had not proved possible. The wave action had picked up and re-deposited millions of rocks and other pieces of debris. There was no way to determine which two, if any, might be the missing units.

  Marcel blamed himself for the failure at the tower. There’d been time to get to Tess and recover the capacitors had he not relied on the wave projections. He should have hustled them along. He should have insisted they do what they had finally done: split up and make best time for the lander. He and Hutch had discussed it, but she’d believed the danger too great to leave anyone behind. Marcel had gone along with her, reluctantly. Now he saw the magnitude of his error.

  Several of Ali’s people were seated in front of the operational screens, forlornly watching hundreds of markers blinking. Rubble in the muck beneath the newly created inland sea.

  “Hopeless,” said Beekman.

  Moose Trotter, a mathematician from the University of Toronto and, at 106, the senior member of the mission, had always seemed unfailingly optimistic. But Moose now looked like a man in pain, wandering from station to station, neglecting the work that had brought him there.

  Marcel had been asked whether, if the sky-scoop initiative didn’t work out, communication with the ground party should be cut off as conditions worsened. Benny Juarez, a close friend of Kellie’s, thought anything less than granting the victims their privacy during their last hours, if it came to that, would be indecent.

  Nicholson was getting an update from his engineer when Mercedes Dellamonica called him. “What have you got, Meche?” he asked.

  “A delegation,” she said. “Maybe a dozen people at the moment, but it looks like more coming. They’re unhappy about the rescue effort.”

  The locator put her on the bridge. “On my way,” he said. He called the kitchen and ordered several cartloads of refreshments sent up and then left the operations center and took the elevator topside. He rehearsed his comments on the way. But he was taken aback by the sheer number of angry passengers. More were trying to push into the area from outside.

  The exec was standing behind a table trying to talk into a microphone. He strode through, got to Mercedes, and turned to face the crowd.

  They got louder. Nicholson knew many of them. He was almost an ideal cruise-ship captain. One of his strengths was that he never forgot a name. Laramie Payton, a building contractor from the American Northwest, asked the question Nicholson knew would be at the top of the agenda: “What’s this about our being welded to that alien thing?”

  “Laramie,” he said smoothly, “I’ve explained all that already. There’s no danger. You can rest assured I wouldn’t do anything that would put the Evening Star at risk. We will be welded, but keep in mind this is a very big, ship. If we need to, at any time, we’ll be able to break away from the assembly as easily as you could break an egg. So you just don’t have to worry about that at all.”

  Hopkin McCullough, a British communications tycoon, demanded to know how he could be so sure. “They’re talking about pushing that thing down into the atmosphere. How do we know we won’t go down with it?”

  Nicholson raised his hands. “We have engines, Hop. The fact that we’re helping push isn’t going to affect our ability to maneuver if we have to. It’s just not a problem. Anybody else?”

  He gave a few more reassurances. The donuts and coffee arrived. The disorder subsided, and the captain strolled out among his patrons, clapping some on the back, and chatting idly with others. “I can understand why you’d be worried, Mrs. Belmont,” he’d say, “but there’s really no cause for concern. We’re going to rescue those people tomorrow and then we’ll be on our way.”

  PART 3

  SKYHOOK

  * * *

  XXVI

  There is little that is actually impossible if one is in a position to apply energy and intelligence. It is our willingness to conclude this or that cannot be done that usually defeats us. Consider for example how long the outhouse was with us.

  —GREGORY MACALLISTER, Notes from Babylon

  Hours to breakup (est): 54

  NEWSLINE WITH AUGUST CANYON

  “This is August Canyon reporting from Deepsix, where, as you can see, Morgan’s World has become by far the dominant feature in the sty. You’re looking at the gas giant as it will appear tonight over the largest continent on the planet, a place aptly named Transitoria, where the Gregory MacAllister group remain stranded.

  “A last-ditch rescue effort continues today, in which Universal News will play an integral part. At this moment, the science research vessel Wendy Jay is lying alongside the skyhook counterweight which scientists found here several days ago.

  “To fill us in on the details of the mission, Miles Chastain, captain of the UNN starship Edward J. Zwick, is with us, although he’s actually speaking from the Wendy Jay, where he’s advising the rescue team.

  “Captain Chastain, how precisely is this going to work?”

  Miles had just completed mounting lasers in the auxiliary housings on the hulls of four of the shuttles, and was now reviewing the allocation of the shuttle fleet to the needs of the operation. They had a total of seven vehicles: three from Wendy, two from the Star, and one each from the other two ships. He was consequently feeling a bit crowded when he got on the circuit with Canyon. He delivered a few responses
that might charitably have been described as curt, and excused himself. But Canyon made it work, emphasizing the point that things were accelerating, that the operation was on the move, and that there was simply no time for small talk. It was all very dramatic.

  Miles had expected, as he sat down to go over mission requirements, that Canyon would be miffed. Instead, the newsman called to express his appreciation for what he called Miles’s performance. “It was superb,” he said. “Couldn’t have scripted it better.” He grinned. “I believe, Miles, if you ever get tired of piloting, you could have a career as a journalist.”

  They landed near a lake, refueled, and then hurried on to pick up MacAllister and Nightingale. It was a gloomy reunion. Hutch got a lot of commiseration. “Nice try,” and “You did what you could.” And: “Maybe this sky scoop will work.”

  Kellie remained uncharacteristically quiet.

  The reactor switched on as soon as the engines were off, and commenced recharging the various systems. Mac slipped into a seat and commented how good it was to be indoors again.

  The ground shook constantly.

  “After a while,” said Nightingale, “you don’t notice it.”

  Morgan’s wide arc was just dropping out of sight, behind the trees. The eastern sky was brightening, and the clouds had cleared off. It looked as if, finally, a sunlit day was coming. “So what about the sky scoop?” asked Nightingale. “What is it? Will it work? When does it happen?”

  Hutch and Kellie had received more details from Beekman. But the planetologist, to use Kellie’s phrase, had never learned to speak English. The description had been too technical, even for Hutch. She understood in general terms what they proposed to do, but she simply couldn’t credit impossibilium with the capabilities they claimed for it. On the other hand, what else had they? “They’re telling us day after tomorrow. Local time.”

  “Day after tomorrow?” Mac was horrified. “Aren’t conditions supposed to be a little rough by then?”

  “It’s the best they can do. Pickup will be out over the Misty Sea. During late morning.”

  “Where in hell is that?” demanded Mac.

  “The Misty Sea? Off the west coast. The rendezvous won’t be far from here, really.”

  “Bottom line,” pressed MacAllister. “Will it work?”

  Surely Beekman’s physicists knew what they were talking about. “Yes,” Hutch said. “I’d guess it’ll be tricky. But I think we’ll get clear.”

  “Tricky?”

  “The timing.”

  “When you say you think,” said MacAllister, “it doesn’t give me confidence.”

  “It’s a long shot,” said Kellie.

  MacAllister was working hard to control his voice. “Okay,” he said. “Now we’re talking about being here a couple more days. What about this deterioration we keep hearing about? I mean, it’s already a little weathery out there. How bad’s it going to get? What’s actually going to happen?”

  “You really want the details?” asked Hutch.

  “Of course.” And then Mac’s voice softened. “Please.”

  Everyone turned to look at her. “There’ve already been major quakes. Apparently none in this area yet. But there will be. And they’ll get worse. Off the scale. We can look for chunks of land to be shoved as much as fifteen or twenty kilometers into the sky. There are going to be more volcanoes. Bigger and better. And giant storms.” She paused momentarily and let them listen to the wind. “Higher tides than last night. Much higher. We’ll have to find high ground somewhere. In three days, more or less, the atmosphere will get ripped away. We should be well away by then.”

  “That seems like a good idea.”

  “The oceans will go a few hours later.

  “The outer crust will melt. That’s tidal effects and volcanic activity, as I understand it. At that point the planet will seriously begin to come apart. They’re figuring midnight Thursday or maybe a little later ship time, which is coincidentally about the same time here. Approximately forty hours later, the pieces will fall into Jerry and go splash.”

  “My God,” said MacAllister. “There must be some way we can get off this goddam place. If the scoop doesn’t work. Maybe we could get aloft, get swept off when the atmosphere goes, and then get picked up.”

  “Not possible,” said Hutch.

  “It’s a chance.” His eyes flashed angrily. “You sit here and keep telling us what won’t work. What will?”

  “It’s not a chance,” said Kellie. “Even if we did get tossed free without getting boiled, which wouldn’t be very likely, there won’t be anybody to pick us up.”

  MacAllister’s breathing was becoming labored. “Why not?”

  “Because the collision’s going to put out a lot of energy. The neighborhood’s going to explode like a small sun when things begin to happen. They’re going to have to get the ships well clear before then.”

  “Speaking of which,” added Hutch, “we ought to head for safer ground.” She didn’t like the way the area constantly bobbed and weaved.

  MacAllister sighed. The endless supply of glib comments seemed finally exhausted. “You said Wendy’s still looking for the capacitors. That means there’s still a chance to find them, right?”

  “There’s a chance,” Hutch said.

  “Maybe we should go back and look ourselves,” said Mac. “It’s not as if we have any other pressing business.” He sounded betrayed.

  “We don’t have working sensors,” said Hutch.

  “Which means,” observed Nightingale, “that all we could do would be to spend our last hours mucking around hip-deep in the water. You really want to do that?” He gazed at MacAllister for a long moment, and then turned back to Hutch. “How the hell did we get into this, anyhow?”

  They were casting about for someone to blame. Kellie hadn’t revealed the details of their abortive attempt to retrieve the capacitors, Hutch was sure. But they felt resentful and frustrated, and they were scared. They’d certainly been listening during the salvage effort. They could not have missed Kellie’s pleas. Hutch knew what that must have sounded like. Cowardly pilot blinks at the critical moment.

  And she herself could not avoid thinking how easily things could have turned out differently. It had been only a matter of minutes. How many minutes had they squandered during the nine days of the march? If they’d left a little earlier one morning… Walked a bit later one night… Not stopped to poke into the chapel… If they’d left Nightingale and Mac sooner rather than later…

  MacAllister turned a beaten gaze out the window. A wide stream gurgled past, tall green trees like nothing ever seen on Earth sparkled in the early-morning light, and a bright golden bird with red-streaked wings was walking around on the fuselage. The scene was idyllic. “Are we sure we can’t ride this thing out of here? It doesn’t seem as if it would hurt to try.”

  “We’re sure. Essentially, what we’ve got is a rocket-assisted jet aircraft. The rockets are for maneuvering in zero gee, but they don’t pack nearly enough punch to get us into orbit. We can use the spike to negate our weight, but only for a little while. A few minutes or so.”

  “So if we tried it…?”

  “We’d probably get up to twelve, thirteen thousand meters, maybe a little higher. We’d have a couple of minutes to wave, and then we’d fall back. And incidentally, if we exhausted our lift capability in the effort, we’d have no way to land.”

  “I don’t suppose,” Mac persisted, “that one of the ships could come down to twelve thousand meters and pick us up?”

  “No,” said Kellie. “The superluminals can’t navigate in the atmosphere.”

  “Nor the shuttles?”

  “Nor the shuttles.”

  “So all we’ve got is the scoop.”

  “No.” Kellie stared out at the rain. “Hutch is right: There’s not much chance of finding the capacitors. But I don’t think it would hurt to look. Maybe we’ll get a break.”

  Hutch agreed, seeing no more useful way to sp
end the time, and Nightingale reversed his position and decided it was the only reasonable thing to do. Hutch engaged the spike and took off.

  They sat quietly during the early minutes of the flight, as if by refusing to talk they could halt the passage of time and cling to these last hours. Nobody laughed anymore.

  They were leaving the area of the bay when Hutch’s commlink vibrated, Marcel calling. She put him on the allcom. “How are you folks holding up?” He sounded artificially cheerful. Marcel was a good guy and a competent captain, but she was discovering he was the world’s worst actor.

  MacAllister grumbled something she couldn’t make out.

  “We’re okay,” she said.

  “I’ve a message for you.”

  “For me?” asked Hutch.

  “For all of you. In fact, we have a lot of messages, thousands of them. The whole world is following this. And wishing you well.”

  “Nice to be at the center of attention,” said MacAllister.

  “Of course,” he continued, “they’re all at least two days old. The people sending them don’t know about…”—he paused, trying to find a diplomatic way to phrase it—“…about losing the capacitors.”

  “You said there was one message specifically?”

  “Two, actually.”

  “You want to read them?”

  “First one’s from the General Commissioner of the World Council. She says: ‘We admire your bold effort to expand the limits of human knowledge and your willingness to embrace the hazards that inevitably accompany such undertakings. Be assured that all humankind joins me in praying for your safe return.’ Signed Sanjean Romanovska.”

  “Good,” said MacAllister. “We’ll all get monuments. Maybe even streets in Alexandria named after us.”

  “What else have you got?” asked Hutch.

  “One from Gomez. It’s for you.”

  “Read it,” she said.

  “‘Priscilla, I need not tell you that we here at the Academy are delighted that there will apparently be a happy ending to this unfortunate incident. You had us worried for a while.’”