“I think I can save you a lot of time.” Mallory leaned back against the pillows. “At least, I hope so.”
“Just a minute.” Chimbu broke his silence. “I’m not sure that’s such a good idea. If you go back to where you were found, there’s no telling how you’ll react. The experience could cause you to flash back and relive the trauma you originally suffered. You could lapse back into coma.”
“I’m sorry, Doctor,” Rothenburg began, “but the overriding importance of this dictates that your authority is…”
Mallory cut him off. “Take it easy, Major. I’m coming.” He shifted his attention to the troubled Chimbu. “I don’t have any choice. I owe it to six hundred thousand dead neighbors.”
“If you experience a serious relapse,” the chief medical officer warned him stiffly, “this time you might not come out of it in as little as a month’s time. You might not come out of it at all.” He looked sharply at Rothenburg. “Then you’ll have neither proof nor witness.”
“A witness without proof is worthless,” the officer shot back. Remembering the man in the bed, he added less stridently, “Nothing personal, Mallory.”
“Up yours,” the patient responded without hesitation. “I’m going.”
“Good. I’ll initiate the necessary arrangements.” Rothenburg eyed the doctor. “You’ll certify that he’s well enough to travel.”
“Since that wasn’t phrased as a question,” a diffident Chimbu replied, “I don’t suppose it matters what I say.”
“You’ll come along,” the officer continued inexorably, “to supervise his medical care.” His gaze shifted to the side of the bed. “As will you, Nurse Tse.”
“I have no problem with that.” She continued to hold Mallory’s hand in hers.
“A one-centimeter diameter composite mollysphere.” Exhaling slowly, Nadurovina rubbed tiredly at her forehead. “I hope his mind will be clear enough to remember its location.”
“Screw his mind,” Rothenburg snapped. “His sense of direction is all I’m concerned about.” Remembering the figure in the bed he added, “No offense.”
“For a repeatedly offensive person, at least you’re appropriately apologetic,” a serene Mallory informed him.
16
The long journey to the Argus system was accomplished via military transport. Mallory was given a commanding officer’s suite with two adjoining orderly’s quarters. Tse was ensconced in one and Chimbu in the other. Though he objected strenuously to the profusion of monitoring instrumentation that had been placed in the suite, his protests were courteously ignored. Until the greater matter at hand was resolved, Alwyn Mallory would not be allowed to go to the bathroom unsupervised. He was too important—so important that the KK-drive dreadnought conveying him back to Treetrunk traveled englobed in a cruiser-and-destroyer convoy.
It was an incredibly costly escort for one man. But Rothenburg could have asked for half a fleet and had the request granted. Out of concern for secrecy, he did not. The movement of a small task force would not be overly remarked upon. Military vessels made the run to Argus periodically. Mallory’s escort was certainly of unusual size, but not aberrantly so.
As one by one the ships executed the drop from space-plus back into space-normal, there was outwardly nothing wrong with the convoy’s first passenger. How much he was holding inside only he knew. Nadurovina worried herself sick about him. To a lesser extent so did Chimbu and Rothenburg and the few others who knew what a full-strength task force was doing visiting the devastated Argus system. Of those close to medical science’s most important patient, only Tse was relaxed and confident.
“He’s stronger than you think,” she told Nadurovina one morning over real coffee and calorie-free beignets.
“Taxonomically speaking, I realize that Alwyn Mallory is one tough son of a bitch.” The psychiatrist sponged coffee with a beignet. “I also know that he puts up a strong defensive front that conceals what he is really feeling. He would not be human if it were otherwise. We are both aware that despite his jaunty demeanor and tough exterior he is never very far from the edge. He proved that when he became violent and wrecked his original hospital room.” Her voice fell slightly. “What happened before can happen again. As the physician nominally in charge of overseeing his state of mind, I am far from prepared to piss off that possibility.”
“I didn’t mean to make light of it.” Tse had lost weight during the past weeks, Nadurovina noticed, while Mallory had put it back on. Diet, concern, or fear? “I know Alwyn’s sanity has survived a terrible shock.” She smiled hesitantly over the rim of her cup. “He likes to say that the hinges of his mind are intact, but rusty.”
“Has he said anything more about the location of this recording he claims to have made?”
Around them, crew shuffled back and forth from the food wall to tables, chattering in small groups or eating in solitude. The crew of the dreadnought knew only that they were making a visit to Treetrunk. Rumor had it that the stop was intended as a grisly object lesson, to emphasize that those who staffed the giant military KK-drive starships must never stray from alertness. This erroneous scuttlebutt was encouraged.
Not ‘claims to,’” Tse countered primly. “Made. It’s real. All we have to do is find it.”
Nadurovina sipped at her coffee. She had taken quite a liking to the younger woman, motherly concern she kept well hidden. Nothing could be allowed to affect their professional relationship.
“I wish I had your confidence. This is a very expensive little excursion. We have no choice, of course, but to follow up on the only clue that has bequeathed itself to us. The world council realizes that. Even so, they were reluctant to authorize the escort force that Rothenburg insisted on. For his part, he refused to take your Mr. Mallory off-world without it.”
“Major Rothenburg is afraid that the Pitar might try something, isn’t he?”
“He just wants to be prepared. That’s his nature. A consummate alpha personality.”
“I want Alwyn to find the mollysphere, of course,” Tse murmured, “but more to prove that he’s been telling the truth all along than for any other reason.”
Nadurovina was slightly taken aback. “What about bringing the butchers of the six hundred thousand to justice?”
Tse hesitated momentarily. “If Alwyn’s right and the Pitar were responsible, if they did all the terrible things he says they did and he can bring forth proof of it, it will mean war, won’t it?”
The psychiatrist nodded slowly. “One does not need an advanced degree in human psychology to envision the explosion of rage that would result. Personally, I cannot see anything less than all-out hostilities satisfying the atavistic revenge response that would ensue. The limits of such a conflict would remain to be defined, of course.”
Tse looked unhappy. “There are interstellar wars with limits?”
“We have no experience in such matters, but if the thranx are to be believed, they have been engaged in just such a contest with the AAnn for more than two hundred and fifty years. I do not see anything that time-consuming happening in this case.” She looked thoughtful. “We do not have the patience or the forbearance of the thranx. Or so the relevant literature insists. Myself, I have never met one of the bugs. Someday I think I would like to do so.”
“Not me.” Tse spoke with conviction. “I don’t care how intelligent they are. Every time I see one I’m reminded of the time I snuck into my mother’s pantry looking for candy and a bunch of cockroaches fell out on me. I was washing my hair for days afterwards.”
“They do not look like cockroaches. Haven’t you seen the tridees? More like mantids.”
“I don’t like them either.” Tse pushed back from the table. “I don’t like anything that eats with multiple mouthparts, or has honeycombed eyes, or walks on more than four legs.”
“You are phobic. I am surprised. A woman with scientific training like yourself.”
“I’m not perfect,” Tse contended. “Everybody’s afraid of something. Major R
othenburg is afraid of not having everything sufficiently organized. Dr. Chimbu is afraid of losing a patient. You are afraid of Alwyn losing his mind again.”
“And Alwyn Mallory is afraid of the Pitar,” the psychiatrist concluded.
“No. You’re wrong there.” There wasn’t a hint of doubt in the nurse’s voice. “Alwyn isn’t afraid of the Pitar. He hates them. What he’s afraid of is himself.”
Consistent, disciplined activity was the norm on the bridge behind him as Rothenburg gazed out the port. Mallory was right, he reflected. Treetrunk One was not much of a moon. Easily overlooked, it was hardly worthy of the astronomical designation. Looking at it put him more in mind of a captured asteroid than a moon. But it was more than large enough to hide a small ship behind. Something as small as a lifeboat would be swallowed entirely.
He had seen the tridees of the tiny vessel Mallory had used to escape the holocaust that had swept over Treetrunk. The interior had immediately struck him as uninhabitable. The outside was worse. Somehow the irascible engineer had not only coerced it into lifting off without exploding on ignition, but had managed to coax it to the point of achieving escape velocity. Without its outmoded navigation equipment to automatically hone in on a destination, Rothenburg knew it would have gone sailing silently off into the starfield, never to be seen or heard from again.
Instead a quirk of luck had led to its being found by ingenuous aliens and its pilot being returned to his people. Subsequent events had precipitated a sequence of scarcely credible concurrences culminating in the arrival proximate to the minor satellite of Treetrunk of the most powerful expeditionary force this sector of starfield had ever seen. It was hardly to be believed.
Rothenburg believed it, just as he believed that in a very short while that same pilot was going to embark on a return visit to the scene of his recent madness. All the medical technology human science and experience could muster was going to be brought to bear on that singular individual to ensure that a recurrence of his dementia did not take place. Even so, Rothenburg knew that nothing was certain. The best minds and the most skilled techniques could not warrant that upon setting foot on Treetrunk One Alwyn Mallory would not go stark raving mad or lapse into coma or otherwise react in a fashion guaranteed to drive Rothenburg, Nadurovina, and everyone else connected with the current enterprise a little crazed themselves.
They could only hope and do their best and put more trust than they wanted to in the ministrations of an ordinary duty nurse with a less-than-extensive professional history.
As so often happens at such times, events progressed in ways unforeseen by even the most adept prognosticators. Mallory allowed himself to be suited up without complaint or hesitation, joking at the ongoing process and lending a hand when and where he was able. Meantime, while everyone was focusing on the indispensable patient, they neglected to consider the condition of his personal attendant. Having never worn an environment suit before, much less been outside a ship in space, Irene Tse was rapidly working herself into a state of near hysteria.
The consequences of this were as salutary as they were unforeseen. Instead of being left to worry about himself, Mallory spent the last moments before disembarking working to soothe and reassure the nurse. Only when he was convinced of her well-being did he condescend to board the military repair vehicle that would carry them from the vast cocoon of the dreadnought to the surface of the tiny moon below. This time it was he who gripped her hand reassuringly.
They were not alone. A small flotilla of armed lifeboats, repair craft, and other vessels awaited, hovering like so many incandescent bees around a darkened, mottled hive. Their operators had been primed to respond instantly to any requests from Mallory—once these had been quietly cleared by Major Rothenburg or one of the two extensively briefed lieutenants who were assisting him.
The major’s declaration that if circumstances demanded it they would tear the moon apart to find the mollysphere was held in abeyance. Stir up the satellite’s surface and they might bury the inestimably precious recording permanently. Or worse, the abysmally low gravity might allow it to drift off into space. In respect of everything that could go wrong, each ship kept its preassigned distance. Only one descended, with infinite deliberation and care, to the surface of the moon itself.
It did not quite achieve touchdown. Hovering just above the battered, eroded surface, it adjusted its position until the best records available insisted it was occupying the exact same coordinates as the patient’s lifeboat had previously. Even the north-south axis of the repair craft was oriented identically. Stepping outside, Mallory theoretically should be able to recognize his surroundings, theoretically ought to be capable of retracing his steps to the spot where he had buried the recording.
Theoretically.
He entered the lock effortlessly and without apparent trepidation. Two techs preceded him while a third accompanied a visibly agitated Tse. She was controlling herself with an effort, insistent upon being included in the excursion, knowing that if Mallory suffered a relapse she wanted to be with him. She needed to be with him, and not just for his sake. Their relationship had progressed beyond that. Nadurovina followed her into the lock while a fourth tech signaled to those on the other side of the barrier that all was well and the landing party was ready to proceed.
All was not well, but Tse knew how to utilize various mind-and breath-control techniques to stabilize her system. Such skills were part of her training. It was the first time she had used them on herself, however, and not on a patient. Controlling her emotions was another matter entirely. Somehow she managed that as well.
The outer door opened, and the dusky light of Treetrunk’s star poured in. The first pair of techs exited efficiently, one after the other floating gently down to the rocky surface. In defiance of proper procedure, Mallory insisted on taking Tse’s hand and egressing with her. To everyone’s unspoken relief, the tandem descent was accomplished without incident.
Once the entire landing party had left the repair craft, Mallory moved clear of the group and sought to establish his bearings. If the larger vessel was positioned exactly the same as his lifeboat had been when he had been marooned here, then there ought to be a hill resembling a broken tooth approximately forty degrees to his right. Turning in that direction, he was gratified to see that the landmark was exactly where and how he remembered it. Approximately fifty meters from where he was standing there would be a small, shallow crater. As he paced off the span, the others followed at a respectful distance. No one watched his movements with more intensity than Irene Tse.
The crater was a little farther than he remembered it, but it was unarguably the same depression. To make certain, he walked off the diameter. Seven meters, more or less. Remembrances were lining up like winning numbers on a gambling machine, with a jackpot payoff at the end no bigger than a fingernail. Looking back at the hovering repair craft to properly orient himself, he drew a mental line in the rock between the ship and the snaggle-topped hill. Walking to the half-meter-high rim of the crater, he looked down at its edge, searching for the large, flat rock he had placed there. It had a distinctive triangular shape, which was why he had chosen it.
The rock was not there.
Frowning behind the faceplate of his suit, he followed the crater’s rim to the right. Still no sign of the marker he had carefully left behind. When he had walked perhaps a fifth of the way around the crater he retraced his steps and began searching in the other direction. Tse advanced to join him. The consequent intimacy was only physical. Anything they said to one another could be overheard clearly by everyone else in the group, as well as by the crew of the repair craft and, via relay, everyone listening back on board the dreadnought.
“It’s here.” Mallory paused long enough to look over at Tse, their faceplates nearly touching. “I know it’s here.”
“Of course it is,” she told him reassuringly. “It’s only natural for you to be a little disoriented. It’s been a long time, and you had other th
ings on your mind when you hid it.”
“I’m not disoriented!” Seeing her flinch behind the faceplate he hastened to apologize. “Really, I know exactly where I am. Sometimes my words still get all mixed up, but not my actions. Everything is just as I remembered it.” Turning, he indicated the location and position of the repair craft, the jagged hilltop looming in the distance, the shallow circular crater. “This is all correct. Everything is where it should be. Except for that damn rock.”
“Which damn rock?” she inquired quietly. “I’ll help you look for it.” Turning her head, she glanced back in the direction of the assembled group. “We’ll all help.”
Mallory hesitated. It was his rock, his potential vindication, and he wanted to find the damn thing. But it wasn’t where it was supposed to be. Maybe he was forgetting something. Or maybe he was imagining it after the fact. Maybe…maybe the Pitar who had visited him in the hospital room had been right all along and his brain was inventing elaborate cover-ups for his debased memory. Panic threatened to rise in his throat like vomit.
“Okay, sure. Why not? Everyone can have a look. The important thing is not who finds the rock but finding it, right?” Smiling tenderly behind her faceplate, Tse nodded encouragement. The others gathered around.
“We’re looking for a flat stone about this big.” Mallory used his hands to trace size and shape in the vacuum. “About eight centimeters thick. No other distinguishing features.”
“What color is it?” asked one of the techs from the ship.
Mallory had to laugh. “Look around. You’ve got a choice of two: dark gray and darker gray. It’s the shape that’s significant.”
The party split, half searching to the left, the other half marching methodically in the opposite direction. When they met unsuccessfully on the other side of the crater they passed each other and kept going. By the time they met again, back at the original starting point, discouragement and the first flickerings of serious mistrust were beginning to make their psychological presence felt among several of the searchers.
Dirge Page 24
