Slowly I cocked my arm back, ready to hurl a stone into the side of his head. His concentration was centered on Oar; he wouldn't see it coming. But before I could throw, Oar surged to her feet yelling hoarsely and brandishing the axe. Jelca shied away, and lifted his stunner. I could imagine his finger tightening on the trigger… so I heaved the stone with all my strength, a shot aimed at his body rather than his head, because I couldn't afford to miss. Maybe Oar could withstand another blast and maybe she couldn't.
The stone hit him on the upper arm — not his gun hand, but I prayed it was enough to foul his aim. Without waiting to see, I sprinted forward, grabbing another rock from my arsenal and hurling it in Jelca's direction. He spun toward me, ready to fire… but the incoming stone made him duck and then Oar was screaming, racing at him with the axe. Jelca shot her again, pointblank range, then flinched as my next stone caught him on the shoulder. I had swung out wide, far enough that he would need to turn away from Oar to aim at me; and she was still standing, still holding the axe, even if the last shot had temporarily numbed her.
With a cry, Jelca fled toward the elevator. I held another rock ready in case he turned around, but he didn't. He ran straight to the hidden entrance; a moment later, the door whisked open, then closed. Still wary, I kept my grip on the stone in my hand as I approached Oar.
"Festina," she whispered, "I do not feel good."
She fell into my arms.
Damage Assessment
I dragged her to cover in case Jelca was being tricky; he might be waiting to leap out of the elevator and shoot us both. The safest place I could find was just inside the edge of the woods: far enough to be out of stunner range, but with a clear view of the elevator entrance if Jelca tried to sneak out.
Once we were safe, I examined Oar. She was bad. Fluid dribbled out of her ears, thin fluid with a smell like vinegar. Her breathing crackled each time she inhaled. After her collapse, she had wet herself; I mopped up as best I could with a handful of soft-rotted pine needles.
There were no wounds on the outside of her body — no chance for me to feel useful by applying bandages. I pulled the first aid kit from my belt pouch and looked for anything else that might be useful. Nothing. Antibiotics and disinfectants intended for a human metabolism, not hers.
And the scalpel, of course.
I wished I had brought my Bumbler — at least I could have used it to scan her on various wavelengths. As it was, her body was as clear as ever, internal damage invisible.
Oh well, I thought, this time I won't be tempted to operate.
Camping Out
Unable to help Oar, I turned to the problem of Jelca. With due caution, I approached the outcrop hiding the elevator entrance… and he was gone, back down to the city.
When I pressed my palm against the plate that opened the door, nothing happened. I tried it again. And again.
No luck.
Jelca must have shorted out the controls. He didn't want me chasing after him. More importantly, he didn't want Ullis or a rescue party coming up to find me and the truth.
I wasted several minutes smashing the door with rocks, then trying to pry it open with a stick. Even before I started, I knew the effort would prove futile. The door was thick metal, its frame embedded deep into the mountain itself. Nothing I could do would budge it.
Back in the woods, Oar was still unconscious, still breathing. The shadows under the trees had thickened; only the peaks of nearby mountains caught any sunlight. I would need a fire soon to drive off the chill… and perhaps firelight would be good for Oar too. The IR from the flames might be like giving her intravenous nutrients.
In case Jelca tried to bushwhack us during the night, I built the fire in front of the elevator entrance. If he tried to come out, we'd see him immediately. I had also leaned a pile of stones up against the door. If it started to move, the pile would topple down with enough noise to raise the alarm.
Once I had propped Oar in front of the fire, I warmed myself a bit, then set out for the lark-plane, only half a klick away. If it was still in one piece, I could fly Oar home — back to her own village, where I could lay her out in the Tower of Ancestors and let her absorb a full spectrum of energy. That was the only way I could think to help her; if she drank in enough strength, her body might repair itself. Even better, Oar's mother was there in the tower… dormant yes, but she might stir herself if she saw Oar was seriously injured. For all I knew, Oar's mother might tell me about some miraculous med-tech machine that could fix Oar in seconds.
When I got to the lark, I saw it was not going anywhere. Athelrod's crew had ripped out circuit boards, left wires dangling, even cut away part of one wing. The plane looked like the victim of vandals; and perhaps it was. I was beginning to think that the High Council's greatest crime was not committed against Explorers, but against the people of Melaquin. We were cultural pollutants, contaminating an otherwise pristine environment. Think of Tobit and his homebrew… think of the people who had been forced out of this city by Explorer activities… think of the glass lark in front of me, kept intact for four thousand years, but torn to useless junk as soon as it fell into Explorer hands.
And that was ignoring what Jelca intended to do.
Back at the campfire, I sat beside Oar as night drew in. My belt pouch still contained protein rations — the flavorless kind that supply your nutritional needs but give you constipation if you eat them more than two days in a row. I munched on a cube and wondered if I should try to feed Oar too… dissolve a chunk in river water, then feed it to her like gruel. Not yet; I wasn't sure rations intended for humans would sit well with her digestion. Besides, her voice had been so raspy before she passed out. I didn't want to make her swallow if her throat was filled with broken glass.
Hours trickled by. I kept the fire burning brightly. Once, as I gathered more wood, I came face-to-face with a deer buck displaying a majestic rack of antlers. He went on his regal way without paying me the least attention. Other animals occasionally appeared as beady eyes reflecting the firelight, but none came closer than that.
With nothing else to occupy my thoughts, I replayed my conversations with Jelca. What should I have said? What could I have done to change his mind? I had an immediate answer: I hadn't been able to reach him because I didn't look like myself. I didn't look like an Explorer. If I hadn't covered my birthmark, Jelca would have taken me more seriously. He may have softened, allowed himself to be drawn back to sanity. Instead of destroying the planet in a fit of pique, he might have considered the possibility of a future here… a future with me.
But no. I looked like an empty version of the woman he knew. Sanitized. Made cosmetically acceptable. That only added to his anger… maybe pushed him over the edge.
Listen. I knew I was being ridiculous: putting the blame on my face, as always. Ugly face, beautiful face, it was always in the wrong. Loudly and clearly, I told myself, "You've really got to work on self-esteem, Festina."
I stared into the fire a long time. It felt hot on my cheeks.
A Gray Morning
I slept three or four hours over the night. Nothing happened. Nobody came… not Jelca and not a search party. That bothered me. Ullis must know I was missing. Even if Jelca had sabotaged the elevator, all those non-zoology majors should have been able to repair it by now. Where were they?
Dawn arrived diffidently, easing itself into a chilly gray. Clouds had crept in overnight — a high overcast that misted the top of the tallest mountains. It would rain before the end of the day… either that or snow. I threw more wood on the fire and huddled against Oar for comfort.
Her comfort or mine. Both.
My watch read 10:05 when I first heard the distant whine. I snatched up a handful of throwing stones… but the sound did not come from the elevator. It was somewhere outside. Was the city opening its roof doors? Could the Explorers be launching the whale? I tried to imagine a way Jelca could trick the others into leaving without even looking for me. Nothing came to mind.
As I listened, I realized the sound was not coming from the mountain; it came from the sky.
"Don't I have enough trouble?" I groaned.
I debated moving Oar to safe cover, but she'd already been moved too much for a patient with internal injuries. Anyway, if something happened to me, I wanted her in plain sight where searchers could find her.
Better to leave well enough alone.
I stood. I waited.
A glass eagle set down on the rocks in front of me. It had missiles mounted under its belly.
The cockpit slid open and a man clambered out. "Saw your fire!" he shouted.
"Happy birthday, Phylar," I said.
Yet Another Reunion
He was no longer wearing his tightsuit. In fact, Tobit had stripped to his underwear, giving a more revealing view of his hairy torso than any woman could wish. The only piece he had retained from his uniform was the helmet, carried under his arm: his good arm. His other arm, the prosthetic one, now hung from a cord around his neck, its fingers gripping the rope like a chin-up bar. Oddly enough, the false arm's skin was several shades darker than the rest of Tobit's pale body. I wondered if the prosthetic surgeons had been careless in matching his complexion or if years of drunkenness had leached the color from the rest of his flesh.
"That was a shabby trick, Ramos," he complained. "Running out on me like that." With a look of wounded dignity, he grabbed the free end of his artificial arm and clapped it into the receptor housing that Fleet surgeons had hollowed into his shoulder. A few hearty thumps hammered the connector jacks into place. "You make me feel unloved," he said as he flexed the prosthetic fingers experimentally. "You have something against amputees?"
I signed with relief. He was only irritated, not angry. For all his faults, Tobit was a true Explorer — not like Jelca, overreacting to tiny slights.
"You were busy with your friends," I answered lightly. "It would have been rude to interrupt the party." I glanced at the eagle's cockpit. "You didn't bring anyone with you?"
"There was room for only one Morlock, and I didn't want to pick favorites." He made a dismissive gesture with his hand: his artificial one, which now seemed fully functional. "To tell the truth, they were such pathetic sots I didn't have a favorite. Except you, of course, Ramos." He threw a smacking kiss in my direction. "You're looking good."
"If one more person says that to me, I'll rip the damned skin off."
"Don't rip off your cheek to spite your face." He gestured toward Oar. "What's wrong with your friend?"
"Jelca shot her."
Tobit's eyebrows raised.
"It's a long story," I said, "and I don't have time to tell it. Do those missiles of yours work?"
"Yes. No thanks to you." He looked at me warily. "Are you thinking of blasting Jelca?"
"No. I'm thinking of blasting a door."
The Blast Radius
Neither Tobit nor I could guess how much damage the missile might do. We didn't even know what payload it contained. Chemical? Nuclear? Matter-antimatter disintegration? "Phylar," I said, "before you mount weapons on a plane, shouldn't you find out how much bang they have? It might help to know whether you should keep back a hundred meters from your target or a hundred kilometers."
Tobit scowled. "I never intended to use the bombs, Ramos; I just wanted them there for completeness."
"Completeness," I repeated.
"I liked the look of them; besides, flying an eagle is so damned gauche, I needed something to make me look less precious. As soon as I figured out how to command the AI, I had the missiles reactivated and put back."
"So you armed the plane as a fashion statement?"
"Stop bitching, Ramos. You're the one who wants to blow up a mountain."
Difficult though it was, we loaded Oar into the eagle with us, sitting her up on my lap like a limp heap of laundry. She wouldn't be safe on the ground; there was no way to gauge the blast radius. Anyway, if the missile was nuclear or worse, she'd have to be dozens of klicks away to avoid damage, and we couldn't carry her that far on foot. Better to have her with us, and simply order the plane to remove itself an adequate distance from the explosion.
Before boarding the plane, Tobit got a fistful of dirt and smeared a huge brown X on the outcrop that hid the elevator door. The mark would be easy to see at a distance of at least five kilometers. Hitting the mark was another matter — we had no idea what guidance mechanisms the missiles had. Since the eagle possessed no controls, all we could do was say, "Shoot that," and let the plane do all the aiming.
Oar and I perched in the right-hand seat, strapped down as best I could manage. Tobit climbed in beside us and stuffed his head into his tightsuit helmet. "Why are you wearing that?" I asked.
"So I don't get blinded by the sun," he replied.
I looked dubious. The helmet's visor was clear, evidence that the overcast sky was no danger to anyone's eyes. If there had been any excess brightness, the visor would have automatically tinted itself.
"We don't have any sun today," I told him.
"There might be a break in the clouds. Or," he muttered in a lower voice, "there might be a nuclear fireball of apocalyptic proportions."
"Oh," I said. "I better close my eyes."
"Nah," he answered with an airy wave. "Just hide behind your girlfriend. She'll soak up the rads better than forty meters of lead." Then before I could respond, he told the plane, "Up. Let's get this show on the road."
Boom
The eagle rose straight up on its wing-jets, a smooth vertical liftoff. "Keep track of that X mark," Tobit said to the plane, "that's our target. Fly to a safe range, then blast it."
The plane banked away neatly, then angled into a steep climb on a straight line course away from target. Acceleration squashed me lightly between Oar and the back of my chair, but not painfully so. A small distance short of the cloud ceiling, the eagle leveled off and continued on the same heading, cruising comfortably short of Mach 1.
"Can you still see the X?" Tobit asked.
I turned around. The entrance was now far behind us. In the overcast light, I could make out the rocky area where we'd fought Jelca, but not the X itself. "The plane must see better than we do," I told Tobit. "Telescopic sights or something."
"Bet you also believe admirals are your friends," he muttered.
I opened my mouth for a retort… but at that moment, the plane rolled sideways, wing over 180 degrees, and we were abruptly dangling upside-down in our safety straps, our heads pointing at the ground. A moment later, the eagle's beak pushed itself sharply upward: up and around in a buttonhook maneuver that ended with us right — way up again and now pointing toward the target.
"Cute," Tobit said with a quaver in his voice, "but it should give us warning when it's going to—"
The plane shuddered as a missile launched.
I thought the eagle had been flying at good speed. No — the eagle was virtually standing still compared to the missile. It cracked the sound barrier as it lanced out, riding a plume of smoke that pointed straight toward the target. For a second, all we could see was the smoke, not the missile itself…
"Shield your eyes!" Tobit yelled, and I closed them fast, ducking behind Oar's lolling head in case that really offered some protection.
The flash was still visible through my eyelids.
Into the City
When I opened my eyes, there was a smoking hole in the mountain. Not a crater — a hole straight into the city, with glass buildings visible below. The blast site was circular, a hundred meters in diameter and remarkably well-contained. That pleased me; I preferred not to kill too much wildlife if I could help it.
"Eagle," Tobit said to the plane, "see that nice hole? That's where we're landing."
I stared at him. "You're taking the jet into a glass city?"
"The hole's big enough," he answered. "And I suspect the elevator's not working at the moment."
The elevator was not even visible — the whole mechanism was simply
gone, unless it was part of the surprised cloud of smoke that drifted in shock around the site. The automatic repair systems would clock a lot of overtime in the next few weeks.
"All right," I told Tobit, "into the hole, then head for the center of the city. Just watch out for the killer whale."
"The what!"
"Your ride home," I answered. Then I tried to explain what was happening.
Not Dead Yet
After slipping and weaving around the skyscrapers, we touched down in the main square, not far from the whale itself. The noise of our engines should have brought Explorers flocking around; but only a handful ventured away from the whale to greet us.
One was Ullis. She stared at me for a moment, then smiled wearily. "I never believed you were dead."
"Who said I was dead? Jelca?"
Ullis nodded. "He's gone crazy. He used loudspeakers to send an announcement all over the city. You had attacked without provocation and he'd been forced to kill you." She looked at me stonily for a moment. "Why would he say that when it wasn't true?"
"To stop you sending out a search party," I replied. "I know something he wants to keep secret."
"I still tried to find you," Ullis said, "but I couldn't get outside — Jelca's locked off the elevator."
"Don't worry," Tobit assured her. "The elevator isn't locked any more." Under his breath he added, "It's hard to lock anything that's been reduced to slag…"
"Where's Jelca now?" I asked.
"No one knows," Ullis replied. "And I haven't told you the worst part. He's rigged the whale. It's going to take off within the hour."
Responsibility
I gulped in surprise. "The ship is taking off?"
"It went into its launch cycle last night," Ullis said. "Things have been frantic since then."
"But surely someone can stop it."
"Jelca must have planned this a long time ago," Ullis replied. "He planted secret activation devices in almost every system on the ship. Disconnecting them safely will take more time than we have; and it would be disastrous if some systems fired while others didn't. We can always rip out wires till nothing on the whale works, but it would take so long to repair things afterward…" She shrugged. "Besides, half the Explorers don't want to stop the countdown. They say we're ready to go; they're glad Jelca stopped any further delays."
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