And here was Deanna's coat.
There were no signs of life.
Picard was not certain that he could make himself move, but move he did. He and the guards boarded the Calypso and circled the area again and again, but they found no sign of Worf or Deanna. It did not appear that they had jumped. The two rescued guards told how desperate the situation had been, how little time they'd had before impact.
There was only one logical conclusion.
Picard left the crash scene, still carrying Deanna's coat.
Worf and Deanna had been hit again and again with shrapnel from the explosion. Worf did his best to stop their bleeding. Then he broke apart the paraglider and used pieces of the frame to set Deanna's broken right arm. Shrapnel had torn so many holes in the paraglider's wings that he wondered how it had flown as far as it had.
Deanna was freezing without her coat and hat. He picked her up, tucked her inside his coat as much as he could, and started up the mountain. Shrapnel had ripped holes in his coat and torn off his communicator. Deanna's communicator had been attached to her coat. They had no way of calling for help, nothing to do but climb up to the smoking crash site. There lay their best hope of being picked up. He hurried on.
ATMOSPHERE COLLAPSE:
3 HOURS, 6 MINUTES, 17 SECONDS
Worf did not know when the three old women had come to them on the mountainside. He sat in their igloo and tried to remember, but could not. All of a sudden they had been there; they had taken Deanna out of his arms and carried her for him, and they had brought them here.
One of the women put a cup of something hot in his hands. Worf sipped the buttery liquid. “My name is Amalik,” the woman said. “My friends are Nenana and Ilingnorak. I've rescued many people from freezing before, but never a Klingon.”
“I thank you for what you have done,” Worf said. He looked at his watch and saw how little time they had. The women had no communicators, so he and Deanna still had to get up to the crash site. He watched the women wrap Deanna in a seal-fur parka and dress her in leggings. Worf thought she looked more beautiful than ever with her black hair contrasted against the white seal fur.
“We saw your ship coming down,” Nenana said.
“Then we heard it crash, and we saw the smoke,” Amalik offered.
“A different shuttle landed shortly after and took off again,” added Nenana.
“What?” Worf said. He set down the cup, and he was ashamed when he felt his hands trembling. “You saw a shuttle land and leave?” he asked.
The women nodded.
“Have other shuttles returned to the crash site?”
All of them shook their heads.
He and Deanna had been abandoned for dead, Worf knew. Soon they would indeed be dead. “How far are we from Anvik?” he asked.
“Eight kilometers,” said Nenana.
Worf picked up the cup and finished the warm liquid in a gulp. “We must go,” he said. “We have little time.”
But the women just sat there.
“Don't you know what's happening?” Worf asked.
“Of course we know,” Ilingnorak said, speaking for the first time. “But you can't rescue everyone—there aren't enough ships. We're old, Klingon. We built this igloo with our hands, and we are waiting together to die.”
Worf was quiet for a moment. “I admire your courage,” he said finally, “but I could never wait for death like this. I would fight to live.”
“Oh, to be young again and believe that life itself is reason enough for living!” Ilingnorak said.
Worf thought about that. More than people would die here, he knew. A way of life would end.
Deanna stirred. Worf helped her sit up. Amalik pressed a cup of water to her lips. Deanna coughed. “Where are we?” she asked, and Worf explained. He held Deanna in his arms and turned to the women.
“Give me the route to Anvik,” he said. “We have to try to get there.”
The women did the best they could without a map. They spoke the directions; then they drew the route in charcoal on the ice of the igloo floor.
“You will never find the way,” Ilingnorak said.
“Then we'll die in the attempt,” Worf said. He put on his coat and started to pull Deanna across the igloo floor toward the entrance.
“I'll take you,” Amalik said. “You'll never make it otherwise.”
“I'll go, too,” Nenana said.
Ilingnorak was quiet for a short time. “I did not want to die in a metal building,” she said, “but I'll go, too. Worse than dying there would be dying here alone.”
Worf waited a minute in the igloo entrance while the women prepared for the trip. They gave Deanna and Worf scraps of caribou skin to put over their noses and mouths. Breathing through the skin was smelly, but necessary, Worf knew. They had to protect their lungs. There would be air to breathe after it was too cold for anyone to survive—oxygen would be the third gas to freeze, after carbon dioxide and ozone—but breathing it was going to get harder and harder.
Each of the women carried spears made from caribou bone. “For bears,” Amalik said. “They were endangered on Earth. We gave them a second home here, but our kindness didn't change their nature.”
Amalik and Nenana hoisted Deanna to a standing position and supported her with their arms. “You go ahead to break trail,” Ilingnorak said to Worf. “Straight ahead, between those two rocks.”
Worf trudged forward, but soon looked back and realized he was outdistancing the women. They were not strong enough to travel as fast as he could, and Deanna was in no shape to walk, even with assistance. Worf paced back to the women and lifted Deanna into his arms.
It was going to be a long eight kilometers.
Picard stamped for a moment in the warmth of the captain's yacht docking bay on deck sixteen, while maintenance crews rushed to prepare the Calypso for a return trip. Picard had brought a load of children from Thule, including three from the hospital there. Those three were being rushed to sickbay.
Beverly Crusher was supervising the patient transfer. Picard looked at her and knew that she knew. He supposed that Data had told her about Worf and Deanna. She touched his arm briefly.
Neither of them said anything—but then, what is there to say? Picard wondered.
ATMOSPHERE COLLAPSE:
1 HOUR, 43 MINUTES, 37 SECONDS
Deanna drifted in and out of consciousness, but while conscious she knew she was in Worf's arms. She could taste blood on her lips, and quickly realized it was coming from her nose. The moisture was gone from the air, and as a result they all had nosebleeds. She watched Worf's breath pushing out the caribou skin around his nose and mouth when he exhaled, and she saw a slow trickle of blood run along the lower edge of the skin. A drop fell now and then onto her white seal parka. “Was it me, Worf?” she asked.
“What?”
“Did I do something to cause the crash?”
He walked a few steps before answering. “No,” he said. “I will ask for you again when I next fly a shuttle.”
Deanna knew he was telling the truth, and she felt relieved. “I can walk now,” she said.
Worf set her down and helped her stand, then stood breathing heavily beside her.
What a burden I've become, she thought.
“We can't stop,” Ilingnorak said. “Go ahead, Worf. We'll help Deanna walk. The way is downhill straight on, around that rock outcrop.”
Deanna walked until she thought she'd pass out again, then she walked some more. After a time, she awakened and realized she had passed out. Worf was carrying her again.
Worf rushed ahead, breaking trail, listening to the women's directions. He estimated they had covered only five kilometers so far. When they came to a steep embankment, Worf climbed it and put Deanna down on the crest; then he pulled up each of the Inuit women. All of them rested briefly, gasping for air. The cold when they weren't moving was painful, and it hurt to breathe. Worf pulled out his phaser and fired it at a rock alongside the trail. It s
oon glowed red and radiated heat. The snow and ice around it melted, creating a puddle of water that would soon freeze solid again. The women hurried ahead and huddled around the rock.
They had to rest, frigid atmosphere or no. Worf knew even he had to catch his breath. He carried Deanna to the rock and sat her down on one side of it. Just a few minutes, and they would be on the move again. . . .
None of them heard it coming. Suddenly in the dim light, barely discernible against the snow, Worf saw something white and huge rushing toward them.
Polar bear.
Worf drew his phaser, fired too quickly, and hit snow. He fired again and hit the bear—but the creature was not fazed. It stood on its back legs and roared. Amalik and Ilingnorak threw their spears. Amalik's hit the bear in the stomach, but the point barely grazed its flesh. Worf adjusted his phaser to a higher setting, hoping that being hit with a stronger charge would make the bear decide to go away.
The women crowded behind him. Worf fired again, and this time the bear was hurt. It sank back down onto all fours. With a growl, it swatted at the spear sticking out of its stomach, dislodging it, then lumbered away into the snow where none of them could see it.
Amalik ran to retrieve her spear.
“The bear will come for us again,” Ilingnorak said. “It is the way of bears. They do not give up.”
“I will kill it, then,” Worf said, and he reset his phaser a second time.
The air was noticeably colder than it had been a short time earlier. Blood had frozen on all their lips. Worf pulled Deanna to her feet. “Hurry!” he told everyone. “And keep watch for the bear.”
ATMOSPHERE COLLAPSE:
57 MINUTES, 23 SECONDS
They came to a flat plain, the beginning of a short stretch of relatively easy terrain that remained between themselves and Anvik. The plain was covered with unbroken snowdrifts. It was late afternoon, almost dark, but the way ahead was clear. The snow and ice would shine even after sunset.
Worf knew Deanna was getting weaker all the time, perhaps going into shock from her broken arm and shrapnel wounds. The women did not stop talking to Deanna. They all tried to keep her walking when she could, keep her talking, keep her going. Worf wondered if with all their talking the women were convincing themselves—if they were finding reasons to hope for life again. It would be cruel if their new hope and his words about not waiting for death went for naught. He knew how limited shuttle space was, but he swore that if they made it to Anvik in time, he would find a way to save these women.
“Do you know how the stars came to be?” Ilingnorak asked Deanna.
She did not answer right away. “Clouds of hydrogen atoms get compressed by—I can't remember what,” she said. “Something compresses clouds of atoms—”
“No! No. My grandmother from Earth told me it was like this: The first man and woman had six children, and polar bears hunted them. The Raven had not yet created the caribou or the seals, so there was nothing for the bears to eat but People. Whenever the man and woman thought they had found a safe place, the bears would find them, and the People had to fight them off. One by one, the bears ate the children: first the oldest boy, then two girls, then the youngest boy. Now there was only one boy and one girl left, and the first People had nowhere to hide. The bears circled the fire that night, wanting to eat the last two children. The mother became so angry that she scooped up ashes and coals from the fire and threw them at the bears. She threw them so hard, the bears were knocked into the black night sky where the coals grew and became stars, and the ashes became worlds around the stars. The People went out to hide on those worlds from the bears that still hunt us in the night.”
“Star bears found this world and are taking it,” Amalik said.
ATMOSPHERE COLLAPSE:
43 MINUTES, 10 SECONDS
Data had found a way to save over five hundred more lives. Two mining supply ships carried emergency-escape domes designed to fit over exits from mining shafts on asteroids and protect four people for thirty minutes. Data extended the thirty minutes to two hours with oxygen canisters from another ship. He located portable heaters on four other ships. He had one hundred forty domes, extra oxygen for each, plus eighty heaters, and he had started sending the equipment down to the surface. The shuttle pilots could rescue the people in the domes even after the atmosphere had collapsed.
“Incoming from Captain Picard,” an ensign reported. Picard was returning to the Enterprise with his third load of refugees.
“On screen,” Data said.
After a moment, the grainy image of the captain's face displayed on the main viewer. “The Oceanographic Institute in Thule has one submarine capable of carrying forty people. It's just set out with fifty-one for an undersea volcanic vent in hopes that the sea won't freeze there quickly. Transmitting coordinates of the vent. Use scanners to track them, if you can. We'll try to pull them out after atmosphere collapse.”
Data quickly calculated the thickness of the ice they'd have to blast through. It would be hard, but not impossible. He explained about the mining domes to Picard.
“How many people have been lifted up so far?” Picard asked.
“Forty-five thousand two hundred thirty-one,” Data said.
Worf struggled to the top of a gentle rise—and there before them shone the lights of Anvik, bright against the dark sky. The women crowded up around him; then they all walked briskly for the city.
“When we met the bear,” Worf said, “you did not act like women who want to die.”
“We did not,” Amalik admitted.
“We are not fighting now just to save you and Deanna,” Ilingnorak said.
And they did not seem like women who wanted to die. Worf suddenly realized they never had been. They'd just been giving their places to the young.
ATMOSPHERE COLLAPSE:
15 MINUTES, 12 SECONDS
There was a shuttle from the Enterprise in Anvik. Deanna could sense its presence. Even she was moving quickly now, Worf pulling her along at his side. She did her best to keep up. It was downhill now all the way into Anvik. She wanted to live so badly—and they were so close. Surely they'd make it.
Geordi La Forge stood back while people crowded onto the shuttle. They were trying to take at least one parent of each child who had been sent ahead on earlier flights. There was not enough space for both parents to go. Geordi looked away—the scene was too painful. He stamped his cold feet and scanned the frozen ocean. He looked up at the sky, and it was still there, for now, but not as clear as it had been. Trails of vapor misted high up: freezing carbon dioxide, he realized. He turned and looked out beyond the city—and saw a small group of people about two hundred meters away moving in his direction.
“Shuttle's full,” one of the guards said.
Geordi gazed into the distance—and recognized Worf and Deanna with three Inuit women!
“Hold the doors!” he shouted.
Geordi rushed toward the group to meet them partway. “I thought you were dead!” he said.
They never stopped moving. Geordi took Deanna's other arm and helped Worf trot toward the shuttle with her.
“Why are all these people still here?” one of the women shouted from behind them.
“The only shuttle's full!” Geordi shouted.
The women stopped. And then Worf stopped.
“We have to go!” Geordi shouted.
“I give my place to one of you,” Worf told the women.
“Go!” Ilingnorak shouted at him. “You are young—life itself is reason enough for living!”
The women sat in the snow and held onto each other. Tendrils of frozen carbon dioxide vapor were swirling around the snowdrifts away from the heat of the city.
Geordi explained that another shuttle had brought down some mining domes, and the domes were being given out inside the spaceport terminal. “See if you can get one,” he told the women. “We'll pick you up on our next trip.” He ran for the shuttle, pulling Deanna with him.
&nbs
p; Worf walked back and drew Ilingnorak to her feet. “You rescued a Klingon from freezing to death,” he told her. “I will not leave you to freeze now. Come with me—all of you!” And he ran for the terminal, pulling Ilingnorak after him. Amalik and Nenana ran behind them.
Once more he was giving them hope, Worf thought.
Once more he hoped it wasn't mere cruelty.
“Worf!” Geordi shouted from the shuttle doorway. Deanna was already inside.
“Go!” Worf shouted back. “I am helping these women!”
Geordi turned, and the shuttle doors closed.
Worf let go of Ilingnorak and ran as hard as he could to the terminal doorway. Hundreds of people milled about, most having resigned themselves to their fates. A few were going after the mining domes, reasoning that the scant hope they offered was better than none. Worf shoved his way inside the terminal and took a dome and an oxygen canister.
“We have no heaters left!” the woman behind the counter shouted at him. “You'll freeze inside that dome.”
“I will take my chances,” he said. He rushed back outside to where the Inuit women were waiting for him.
He burned away a small circle of snow in an explosion of steam that dusted them in frost. He shoved the escape dome down onto the rock and set it off. The seal melted against the rock, making an airtight enclosure. Worf opened the hatch, and heat from the sealing process rushed out. Worf pulled aside the caribou skin and breathed in a lungful of the heated air.
“Get inside quickly,” Worf ordered the women.
Nenana started crawling through the hatch. Someone set off a dome near theirs, and it sputtered and steamed on the surface but did not create a seal.
“Find a rock we can heat with my phaser,” Worf told Amalik, and he ran to the dome that had not sealed. “Stand back,” he told the people there. The air was misty with carbon dioxide vapor. He fired his phaser at the seal and melted it against the rock. He walked slowly around the dome, firing carefully to create a seal without puncturing the dome. By the time he finished, he could hardly breathe. But he hurried to another dome having trouble and sealed it for the people there.
The Amazing Stories Page 8
