by Emily
"Nothing like a brisk dip," Kellie said through lips that were chattering so badly she could barely get the words out.
An icy wind rippled the surface.
"Polar bear nudie club," said Hutch.
"Water's warmer than out there, though. Once you get used to it."
"I betcha."
In fact it was. The water shocked her system as she waded deeper, feeling the frigid tide rise past thighs and hips to her breasts. But once in its embrace, her body adjusted. She scrunched down to keep out of the cold air.
Kellie covered herself with soap and handed it to Hutch, who quickly rubbed some onto her washcloth and began to remove the accumulated dirt and sweat of several days.
Kellie cleaned herself as best she could, and submerged. She came back up into the cold air gasping and shivering. Hutch, also half frozen, moved close to her and they embraced, sharing what body heat they could. When the joint trembling got down to a reasonable level, so that she could speak again, Hutch asked whether she was okay. "Dandy," Kellie said.
They retreated into shallower water, finished the job, grabbed the towels, and wiped themselves dry. Then, still naked, they put on their links and belts, reactivated the energy fields, and turned up the heat.
It was a luxurious moment. Hutch stood in the bright sunlight and clasped her arms to her breasts in an instinctive effort to absorb the warmth.
"That was really a thrill out there," said Kellie. "We have to do it again."
"Bonded forever," said Hutch.
They gazed at one another, and Hutch wasn't quite sure what had happened.
When feeling returned, they bent to the task of washing their clothes. From time to time Chiang called to ask whether they needed help. Kellie assured him they were doing fine, but Hutch could see the pleasure she was taking in the game.
When they'd finished they handed out their clothes to Chiang, and he passed blankets in to them. The clothes were hung over the fire, the women took up sentry duty in their blankets, and the men went into the pool. An hour later they were all dressed and on their way again.
Chiang was unsure what to do about Kellie. The extreme hazard in which they'd been placed had sharpened his desire for her. He had begun seriously considering making a marriage proposal. That notion would have been absurd a few days ago on Wendy. But now somehow it seemed like a good idea to commit himself to living his life with this extraordinary woman, and to find out whether she'd be receptive. He'd decided he wanted her, and he suspected that the opportunity would never be better.
Tonight he would ask.
It was getting dark when they filed out onto the riverbank. "Did Marcel say wide?" demanded MacAllister. "It's the Mississippi."
It was broad and still and lazy in the fading light. Had it been frozen, Chiang estimated they would have needed ten minutes to walk across.
"Marcel," said Hutch, "does this thing by any chance go in our direction?"
"Negative. Sorry. You don't get to travel by boat."
"How do we get across?" asked MacAllister.
It had a steady current. "We don't swim," said Hutch.
Nightingale nodded. "That's a good decision for several reasons." He pointed, and Chiang saw a pair of eyes rise out of the water and look their way.
"Alligator?" Kellie asked.
"Don't know," said Hutch.
Nightingale repeated Hutch's test and threw a small piece of meat well out into the stream. A fin broke the surface momentarily, and then there was a brief commotion in the water.
Something in the foliage across the river screeched. A loud racket followed, more screeching, flapping of wings. A large vulpine creature with black wings flew off, and the general stillness returned.
Chiang examined the trees. "Anybody good at raft-building?"
"Just tie some logs together, right?" said Kellie.
"This," said MacAllister, "should be a constructive experience for us all."
The pun provided some mock laughter.
"Let's get to it," Hutch said. "We'll cut the trees now, stay here tonight, and put the raft together first thing tomorrow."
"How'd we do today?" asked MacAlIister.
"Pretty well," said Hutch. "Twenty kilometers."
"Twenty?"
"Well, nineteen. But that's not bad."
Chiang spent the evening working up his courage. After the logs were set aside and the vines collected, Kellie sat quietly eating. When she'd finished and buttoned up her e-suit, he saw his chance. Get on her private channel and do the deed.
"Kellie." His voice didn't sound right.
She turned toward him, and her features were limned in the firelight. He watched shadows move across her face, and she seemed more beautiful than any woman he had ever known. "Yes, Chiang?" she said.
He started to move toward her but caught himself and decided it was best to stay where he was. "I—wanted you to know I'm in love with you."
A long silence. The shadows moved some more.
"I've been looking for an opportunity to tell you."
She nodded. "I know," she said.
That threw him off-balance. "You know?" He had never said anything.
"Sure."
He got to his feet, driven to some form of action, but he settled for stirring the fire. "May I ask how you feel about me?" He blurted it out, and immediately knew it sounded clumsy. But there was no way to recall it.
"I like you," she said quietly.
He waited.
She seemed lost in thought. He wondered whether she was searching her feelings, or looking for a way to let him down gently. "I don't know," she said. "The circumstances we're under ... It's hard to see clearly."
"I understand," he said.
"I'm not sure you do, Chiang. Everything's compressed now. I don't trust my feelings. Or yours. Everything's very emotional. Let's wait till we're back on Wendy. When it's not life-and-death anymore. Then if you want to take another plunge at this, I'll be happy to listen."
Nightingale assumed guard duty. He surveyed the campsite, saw right away there were too many places where something could come up on them unseen, and decided to position himself near the river-bank, where the ground was clear. Chiang picked up the water container and went to the river's edge. MacAlIister gathered some branches and started a fire. The women began trying to work out what the raft should look like.
Nightingale studied the water. It was shallow inshore, but muddy and dark. He watched Chiang make a face at it and venture out a few steps. Nightingale asked what he was doing, and Chiang explained he was after clear water. He scooped up some and it must still not have looked very good because he got rid of it and went out a bit farther.
"That's a mistake," said Nightingale. "Forget it. We'll figure out something else."
"It's not a—" Chiang's expression changed, and he cried out. Something yanked his feet from under him. He went down and disappeared into the current.
Nightingale whipped out the cutter, ignited it, and charged after him. He couldn't see why Chiang had fallen, but he caught a glimpse of blue-gray tendrils.
Something caught him, whipped around his ankles, and tried to drag him down. Then it had his arm. Nightingale sliced at the water. Mud-colored fluid spurted from somewhere.
He almost dropped the laser.
MacAlIister arrived, cutter in hand, at the height of the battle. He lashed around like a wild man. The water hissed and tendrils exploded. Nightingale came loose, and then Chiang. By the time the women got there, only seconds after it had begun, it was over.
"It's okay, ladies," said MacAllister, blowing on his cutter as if it were an old-style six-gun. "The shooting's over."
That night they could see Morgan's disk quite clearly. It resembled a tiny half-moon.
They assembled the raft in the morning. They lined up the logs and cut them to specification. Hutch, unsure of her engineering, required crosspieces to hold the craft together. They fashioned paddles and poles, and there was some talk about
a sail, but Hutch dismissed it as time-consuming on the ground that they didn't know what they were doing.
It appeared that they were at a drinking hole. A few animals wandered close from time to time, looked curiously at the newcomers, kept their distance, dipped their snouts in the current when they could, and retreated into the forest.
The sun was overhead by the time the raft was ready. Relieved to be under way again, they climbed aboard and set off across the river.
The day was unseasonably warm. In fact, it was almost warm enough to turn off the suits. MacAllister sat down in front, made himself comfortable, and prepared to enjoy the ride.
They'd scouted out a landing spot earlier. It had a beach and no rocks that they could see and was a half kilometer downstream.
Chiang and Hutch used the poles, Kellie and Nightingale paddled, and MacAllister allowed as how he would direct. They moved easily out into the current.
Nightingale watched the banks pass by. He turned at last to Hutch. "It was criminal of them," he said, "simply to abandon this world."
"The Academy claimed limited resources," she said.
"That was the official story. The reality is that there was a third-floor power struggle going on. The operations decision became part of a tug-of-war. The wrong side won, so we never came back." He gazed up at the treetops. "It never had anything to do with me, but I took the blame."
MacAllister shielded his eyes from the sun. "Dreary wilderness," he said.
"You didn't know that, did you, MacAllister?" said Nightingale.
"Didn't know what?"
"That there were internal politics involved in the decision. That I was a scapegoat."
MacAllister heaved a long sigh. "Randall," he said, "there are always internal politics. I don't think anyone ever really thought you prevented further exploration. You simply made it easy for those who had other priorities." He looked downriver. "Pity we can't get all the way to the lander on this."
Kellie was watching something behind them. Nightingale turned to look and saw a flock of birds hovering slowly in their rear, keeping pace. Not birds, he corrected himself. More like bats.
They were formed up in a V, pointed in their direction.
And they weren't bats, either. He'd been misled by the size, but they actually looked more like big dragonflies.
Dragonflies? The bodies were segmented, and as long as his forearm. They had the wingspread of pelicans. But what especially alarmed him was that they were equipped with proboscises that looked like daggers.
"Heads up," he said.
All eyes turned to the rear.
MacAllister was getting to his feet, getting his cutter out. "Good," he said. "Welcome to Deepsix, where the gnats knock you down first and then bite."
"They do seem to be interested in us," Hutch said.
There might be another problem: They were well toward the middle of the river, and the current was carrying them faster than anyone had anticipated. It was obvious they were going to miss their selected landing place.
The river had become too deep for the poles. Chiang and MacAllister took over the paddles and worked furiously, but they made little headway and could only watch helplessly as they floated past their beach.
The dragonflies stayed with them.
They were operating in sync, riding the wind, their wings only occasionally giving vent to a flurry of movement. "You think they could be meat-eaters?" Hutch asked Nightingale.
"Sure," he said. "But it's more likely they're bloodsuckers."
"Ugly critters," said MacAllister.
Hutch agreed. "If they get within range, we're going to take some of them out."
"Maybe it's not such a bad thing," said Chiang, "that this world is going down the tube."
MacAllister laughed. It was a booming sound, and it echoed off the river. "That's not a very scientific attitude," he said. "But I'm with you, lad."
"Oh, shut up, Mac," said Nightingale. "It's the efficiency of these creatures that makes them interesting. This is the only really old world we know of, the only one that can show us the results of six billion years of evolution. I'd kill to have some serious time here."
"Or be killed." MacAllister shook his head, and his eyes gleamed with good humor. "Your basic mad scientist," he added.
Chiang drew his paddle out of the water and laid it on the deck. "They're getting ready."
Nightingale saw it, too. They'd been flying in that loose V, spread out across maybe forty meters. Now they closed up, almost wingtip to wingtip.
MacAllister watched Nightingale draw his cutter. "I'm not sure," he said, "that's the best weapon at the moment." He put his own back into his pocket and hefted the paddle. "Yeah." He tried a practice swing. "This should do fine."
The dragonflies advanced steadily, approaching to within a few meters. Then they did a remarkable thing: They divided into three separate squadrons, like miniature fighter planes. One stayed aft, the others broke left and right and moved toward the beams.
Hutch held up her hand. Wait
They began to close.
The boat was completely adrift now, headed downriver.
"Wait."
The ones in the rear moved within range. Kellie and Chiang were in back, facing them.
"Not yet," said Hutch. "If they come at us, be careful where you fire. We don't want to take any of our own people out."
Hutch was on the port side, MacAllister to starboard. Nightingale dropped to one knee beside Hutch.
The flanking squadrons moved within range.
"On three," she said. "One ..."
"You know," said Nightingale, "this isn't necessarily aggressive behavior."
"Two..."
"As long as they don't actually attack, there's no way to know. They seem to be intelligent. They might be trying to make contact."
MacAllister shifted his position to face the threat. "Say hello, Randy," he said.
Three,"she said. "Hit 'em."
The ruby beams licked out.
Several of the creatures immediately spasmed and spiraled into the water, wings smoking. One landed in what appeared to be a pair of waiting jaws and was snatched beneath the surface.
The others swept in to attack. The air was filled with the beat of wings and a cacophony of clicks and squeals. One of the creatures buried its proboscis in the meaty part of Hutch's arm. MacAllister threw himself at it, knocked her down and almost into the water, but he grabbed the thing, pulled it out, and rammed it against the side of the boat. Laser beams cut the creatures out of the air. Nightingale took a position at MacAllister's back and killed two of them in a single swipe.
Mac meantime stood over the fallen Hutchins like a Praetorian, swinging his paddle, and bashing the brains out of any and all attackers. Amid all the blood, shouts, screams, and fury, and the electric hiss of the weapons, Nightingale grudgingly realized that the big dummy was emerging as the hero of the hour.
And quite suddenly it was over. The dragonflies drew off. Nightin-gale could count only five survivors. They lined up again, and for a moment he thought there would be a second assault. But they lifted away on the wind, wings barely moving, and turned inshore.
He looked around, assured himself that no one had been seri-ously injured, and listened to Hutch reassure Marcel. She was sitting on the deck of the raft, holding her injured shoulder.
"Hurts," she said.
Marcel listened to it all and never said a word. When it was over he took a seat near one of the wallscreens where he could look down on Maleiva III's surface.
He had never felt so utterly helpless.
XVI
If there is one characteristic that marks all sentient creatures, it is their conviction of their own individual significance. One sees this in their insistence on leaving whatever marks they can of their passing. Thus the only race of starfaring extraterrestrials we know about distributes monuments dedicated to themselves in all sorts of unlikely places. The Noks, with their late-nineteenth-century
technology, put their likeness in every park they have. Earth has its pyramids. And we pay schools and churches to name wings, awards and parking areas after us. Every nitwit who gets promoted to supervisor thinks the rest of creation will eventually happen by and want breathlesssfy to know everything about him that can possibly be gathered.
—Gregory MacAllister, "The Moron in the Saddle," Editor at Large
Hours to breakup: 180
There was no single space on board Wendy that was large enough to accommodate everyone. So Beekman compromised by inviting a half dozen of his senior people to the project director's meeting room. Once they were assembled a technician put them on-line to the rest of the ship.
Beekman started by thanking them for coming. "Ladies and gentlemen," he continued. "You're all aware of the situation on the surface. If we're fortunate, there'll be no need for an alternative course of action. But if we don't have one, and we need it, five people will die.
"We were invited to make this flight because somebody thinks we're creative. This is an opportunity to demonstrate the validity of that proposition. I've been telling the captain all along that, if the plan to retrieve and install the capacitors doesn't work, there is no alternative to saving the lives of our people I'd like you to prove me wrong.
"I don't need to tell you that we're running out of time. And I also don't need to tell you that I personally see no way to do it. That's why we need you. Stretch what's possible. Devise a course of action. Find a solution.
"I won't waste any more of your time here. But I'll be standing by. Let me know when you have something."
They beached the raft, limped ashore, and collapsed. Kellie got the medkit out and Nightingale set to work repairing the wounded. No toxin or biological agent could penetrate the field, so the only problem was loss of blood.
Despite the optimistic report that had gone up to Wendy, Nightingale alone had come away uninjured.
Fortunately, the wounds were superficial, but Kellie and MacAllis-ter had both lost too much blood to continue.
The attackers had gotten Kellie twice in the right leg. Hutch in the shoulder, MacAllister in the neck. That one looked painful, but Mac just grimaced and did the kind of thing he usually did, commenting on the ancestry of the dragonflies. Chiang had taken bite wounds to the stomach and an arm.
