Scatterbrain

by Larry Niven

  “Chief Surveyor, it would be tragic if you went mad during your investigation. If you disappear into the ice, tragic also. We must return our legal dance to the beginning, our destiny delayed by twenty years.”

  “I’ll be careful.” She waited.

  “I will make arrangements. Come for me in two hours.”

  There was no pomp and circumstance this time, and no return to the great viewing port. When she docked, Althared simply climbed into the Eagle’s cabin and signaled for her to head down. Kimber left the communications port open so that Eric could hear them. Knowing Eric was listening felt like spying, but it was comforting as well.

  Althared said, “I had hoped to see a draft of your report on the first half of your work.”

  How should she answer? “My notes are half-digested. I’ll organize them during the trek.”

  “May I help? Our translator program has software to collate such material.”

  She stared. Let the Thray organize her evidence? She asked, “If I don’t follow the regulations, who gets upset?” She intended to suggest danger, but…might he really answer? Who are the Overlords?

  He said, “Your answer is proper. Of course we must obey the code. I had forgotten that this is your first survey. Perhaps you need more time?”

  Kimber doubted he had forgotten. His greatly inflated shape, the unearthly features within his fishbowl helm, seemed more alien, more intimidating…and Kimber suddenly remembered his big, spidery hands on her, turning her in free fall to face a window. Had he meant to intimidate?

  She was long past that! “In ten days I’ll be ready, fourteen at the outside.”

  Blotch raced beneath them: the major continent, its edges blurred by a kilometer’s thickness of ice. Now the terrain flattened over what had been ocean. Here came the western peninsula of Integra, seen through an orange glow of reentry—

  “Althared, when did your people first visit Trine?”

  “Why do you ask?’

  Damn, she thought, how subtle. “I’m trying to determine how long the ice has been in place. The air is so dry it’s hard to imagine any running water, but I found a plant that looks like it was alive recently.” There were plant fossils in her samples. And—“Althared, where did all the carbon dioxide go?” She had to ask that, didn’t she? Earth itself had twice been frozen, and the alien knew that Kimber knew—

  Althared looked directly at her. “We saw that too. We think the ice spread over time; the last of the bare ground was covered a thousand years ago, more or less. There may have been a geologic event to hasten it. Smoke from volcanoes. A major meteoroid impact.

  “That is enough of geology. Please tell me about the plants you found.”

  “I have a dozen new species. Take over?”

  Althared took the flight controls. Kimber popped up a display. She ran through her records with some care: rock formations, traces of plants, threads that had to be a root network, plant genetic material—not DNA, but a related chemical. She avoided showing hollow bones or wall friezes.

  The feeling that she had trusted Althared too much was getting stronger, fluttering in her stomach. She ran through video of her travels, the digs, plants, and her classifications. She let her pride show; she burbled; she wished aloud that Eric had completed his notes and addenda, and let anger leak through.

  The Thray made no comments, had no expression to give back; he watched her and her displays with his left eye, flew with his right. The continent’s midrange passed below, white on white and two red-and-black dots for Trine Base. More white ice, growing close. There! Black and red, a tent, a Skidder, and two pressure-suited Thray.

  The Thray helped her get her gear from Eagle into the Skidder. Althared stared left-eye, right-eye at a pair of broad skis. He didn’t seem familiar with them, but he didn’t ask. The three let her test the Skidder, let her set it moving, before they took off.

  Red-and-black Thembrlish passed overhead every two hours, close enough to show like a baroque moon. Star Surveyor II was, of course, gone.

  She kept the mountains on her left. The ice was rough, sometimes a jumble of boulders, sometimes great splits. Surprise crevasses scared her twice. At night she put up her tent, but she slept the way she’d traveled, in her pressure suit.

  In the morning’s brilliant light that seemed excessive. She changed in the tent, into gear that would have looked familiar on Everest. Three percent carbon dioxide had her puffing, but the air was thick, with enough oxygen at these low altitudes.

  By the fourth day she was inside-out cold and tired of camping without the warmth of the base camp. She’d found nothing but ice. She wondered if she’d gone the wrong way: the continent’s curling tip would make a good bay, if Trine’s Flyers sailed ships.

  The morning of the fifth day the easiest path descended gently for several hours. She spotted a large cave opening and headed the Skidder into it. Its lights illuminated a long tunnel that was mostly rock with very little ice. The tunnel narrowed abruptly and she had to park the Skidder. The edges of the constriction were unnaturally smooth, like sand fused to glass. She resisted taking a glove off to feel the smoothed edges. It was cold enough that she’d leave skin behind.

  Cautiously, she stepped through. There was a short hallway, then a huge cavern. The Skidder’s lights illuminated the back wall faintly. Bright colors showed in the circles of light. She took a few steps forward, added the illumination of her handheld light.

  It was a painted frieze. She ran her flashlight over the shadows around the headlamps. There were the flyers—long feathered wings and thin bodies. They were fantastic images—almost angels but in no way human. She walked backward, entranced, and took a floor light from the Skidder with shaking fingers.

  The additional illumination brought colors and shapes out more clearly. She could see the ceiling now, and carved into it was the unmistakable image of an egg painted in red and white fractals: a Thray ship.

  Kimber turned slowly in the new light and her eyes found a ledge with the bodies of three more flyers, complete and frozen. They were different sizes. Family group? She closed her eyes and struggled to control her breath.

  This didn’t prove that the Thray had frozen the planet or even caused harm to the flyers. But the flyers were sentient, and the Thray had been here when they were.

  She carefully videoed the cave, twice, and checked her disks to be sure they showed the most damaging evidence, then tucked equipment and disks in her backpack.

  The Skidder had to be backed through the cave. By the time she was free of it, she was shaking from the effort. The slopes were smooth ahead; the sun gave at least an illusion of warmth. Kimber ran the Skidder up to fifty and it died.

  Dead as a stone. The DON’T TOUCH mark was on the motor housing. Kimber began to smile. She wasn’t crazy. It was all real. She had to live to tell Eric!

  She’d have to be selective now.

  Tent. Clothes: she’d better leave the pressure suit, rather than depend on the air recycler or temp control. Ski mask and a scarf to breath through. Wear everything. Zippers in the orange parka for temp control.

  Her data: video disks, notes, instrument recordings. The main camera was too heavy: she left it. She kept what she thought were the skull and wing of a child, and a fist-ax drawing tool.

  Food. She rethought that, set up her tent and the stove and spent a few hours eating herself stupid. Going hungry for a few days wouldn’t hurt her if she remembered to drink…thaw and drink a lot of water. She packed what was freeze-dried and left everything that wasn’t.

  Skis.

  She made three hours, perhaps twenty-five klicks, before she quit for the night.

  At full dawn she was on her way again. She grinned up at Thembrlish drifting across the sky. Her parka was neon orange and her ski tracks would show too, but would they look? Next to the ruined/sabotaged Skidder she had left her pressure suit splayed out on its back in savasana pose, faceplate closed.

  She spent the seventh day striving f
or altitude, not distance. She knew too little; she must see more of what might save her or kill her.

  There was nothing wrong with her timing.

  She settled on the local crest, comfortable in full sunlight, her back to a flat boulder, and set up her stove. Presently she used binoc specs to look around. In a glare white world, a red double dot, a colon mark, was wobbling at the jagged eastern horizon.

  It rose slowly.

  Another red colon rose behind it.

  It dawned on her that she was watching heavy lifters move Trine Base.

  She watched her lifeline being pulled into the sky. The Base wouldn’t just disappear, she thought. It would be set somewhere else. The implication: the Chief Surveyor knew where it was and got herself lost anyway.

  What would they expect of her now? Bereft of rescue, robbed of even a goal, Kimber Walker had nothing left. When the cold became overpowering, as it must, she would dig. Whoever found her later would find her hidden from her Thray rescuers and dead of starvation.

  Of course she wouldn’t be where Althared expected her. Skis were moving her faster than that. Still, unless Eric came for her, that was how she’d end up.

  Keep moving. Stay high. There was one more thing the Thray didn’t know.

  Darkness deepened the cold. Kimber pulled a lightweight reflective covering from the backpack. It was torn. She settled it around her, tucking it carefully between her and the frozen rock. At least it would be warmer than stopping on bare ice. The rock had collected some of the sun’s tepid warmth.

  The Thray ship rose above the glaciated eastward peaks. Seeing it brought tears and anger. How could she have let Althared use her so?

  But Eric the cynic would be asking: why the mind games?

  Leaving the pressure suit splayed like a dead woman, that was fun, but it was a message to Althared. Kimber knows. Althared knew she knew. Why not just kill the Chief Surveyor and have done with it?

  Kimber knew people who would have trouble doing that. She might be one herself. But why choose such a one for such a mission? Unless…

  Unless the sons of bitches were just nicer than characters in James Bond movies and The Godfather.

  Every muscle ached. She’d ripped her pants at ankle and knee; cold needled in to rob tiny parts of her of any sensation. She imagined ending up frozen forever behind a water curtain. Not today…but she didn’t have the energy to erect the tent. This was good enough. She slept.

  As light started to spill onto the ice, Kimber pushed up and looked around approvingly. A good last morning, if that’s what it became. There were blue skies above pearl drops of rock on ice. She recalled how soft and simple Trine had looked from the great viewing deck while Althared stood beside her and talked about warming the planet.

  Inhabitable galactic real estate was valuable, but nowhere in her studies or the stories of other surveyors in the bars by the Institute had she heard of anything so proud and horrible as the freezing of a world.

  She climbed. Sweat chilled to an uncomfortable dampness against her skin whenever she rested. It couldn’t matter. It wasn’t like she had enough time left to die of a cold. Such a simple thought. She knew she could think more complex thoughts once. She knew that there was a time when she didn’t expect to die. And another time when she was warm, and didn’t have to gasp for air.

  Halfway up, she let herself rest. The late-morning sun reflected from icy rock faces and turned the light into dappled rainbows. Kimber was grateful for the display, for something, however small, to smile at. The Thray had done this world no favors. She imagined a green world with flying beings, and the anger set her climbing again. Althared had joked with her and had been gentle when he taught her to drive the Skidder and work the maps the Thray had made. How could the Kimber of three months ago have been so stupid? There, that was a more complex thought.

  She balanced on her knees and elbows, pulled herself up the last bit of a sharp slope to find a wide flat spot. It would have to do.

  Get high! Get exposed! It was the last thing any Thray would think of, and Eric had to be able to see her…if he wasn’t still days away, or days dead.

  She pulled a signal flare from the backpack, and lay down holding the flare over her stomach. She had a few more, and locators too, but she wouldn’t use it until she saw him. There was no point in signaling the Thray.

  She dozed. It seemed like hours passed. Her watch said it had been thirty minutes. Next time she might not wake at all.

  “Kimber?”

  She jerked upright. “Eric! What did you find?”

  “Later. I think we’re in a hurry. Can you see me? Straight above you?”

  She fumbled for binoc specs, but already they weren’t needed. Star Surveyor II was straight up, tiny and bright. Wouldn’t his orbit take him around, out of sight? A tinier speck diverged.

  His voice continued. “Kimber, it’s amazing what you can do when you just don’t have to think about running out of fuel. I’ve left the ship on autopilot, hovering at less than half a G, about three thousand miles up. The Thray are still thinking in terms of orbits, so they just went behind the planet. Gives us at least half an hour. Eagle can do two G. See me now?”

  “Yes.” Forget the flare. “Did you find anything?”

  “I said I’d be back when I did. I’m here. For a moment I thought that might be you at the Skidder. What happened?”

  “It died.”

  “Sabotage?”

  “Who knows?”

  The silver speck grew fast. Slowed, hovered. Kimber tried to get up. No go.

  Eagle set down. Eric came out at a run.

  “Thank god I found you,” he said. “I thought you’d be dead.” He dropped to the snow. “We need to get your message off. I would have done it myself, but I can’t. I wrote everything up for the Verification Link, though. It’s ready to go.”

  “I’ve got more pictures.”

  He stood briskly. “We’ve got to go before the Thray know we’re here.” Eric took her wrists and pulled her up, and supported her weight while she gained a semblance of balance. He half dragged her to the Eagle and left her propped up while he returned for her backpack.

  Kimber called, “I think you were right. The Thray want me dead for what I know. Can’t be my personality, right? But they’re not doing anything direct, Eric, and I think it’s because they can’t.”

  Eric guffawed. “Wouldn’t that be nice!”

  He dropped his pack. “I found this.” He pulled out something flat, and skimmed it at her like a big Frisbee.

  She threw up an arm to block, and caught it. It was square, and weightless, amazingly light. She looked at herself…filthy, not fit for human company, but wearing a grin much nastier than she was used to…and then at what she held.

  A flat square mirror half a meter on a side, amazingly brilliant, with edges four or five centimeters wide that tried to shift under her hand. She wiggled the mirror, letting it find its own direction. The flaps relaxed when the mirror faced flat into the sun.

  “I aimed the ship to drift through the L1 point. When I got close I saw a black speck on the sun. I was wrong all along,” Eric said. “You couldn’t put this thing in the L1 point and expect it to stay there. Pressure from the sunlight would push it right out to the stars. But by the time I worked that out, I was on my way. That’s why I’m still alive, maybe. If the Thray thought I was going to the right place, they’d have swatted me.”

  “So…?”

  “They needed hundreds of trillions of these death mirrors. Little mirrors for flaps to steer with, and tiny brains with instructions to stay between the sun and Trine, and turn edgewise and fall back if the sun gets too far away. The Thray engineers would have put them deep inward, just a few million miles from the star, where the star’s gravity balances the light pressure. The Thray chilled the planet, then sent a signal to the death mirrors to disperse…one way or another. There must be a lot of signals that would do what they want done. But if you raise the death mirror’s
maximum distance, it would ride the light right out into the halo of comets and wait. Later they can bring them back and use them for the warming.

  “Out of hundreds of trillions of the things, a few are bound to go wrong. Programming fails. Say a few hundred still stay between Trine and the sun, but they sail outward. They’ll end up in that wastebasket of gravity, the L1 point, and that’s where I found this. Isn’t it beautiful?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  He took it from her, tossed it in the back seat. “What’ve you got?

  “Videotape of a cave ceiling. It’s in the pack. It nails them.”

  There was gravity: Star Surveyor II was still hovering. Kimber began plugging widgets into the Verification Link. Plugs were labeled, a big help. Eric climbed straight to the flight deck.

  She felt the deck tilt hard over, and kept working. Eric was getting them out of here. And now it was all there. She need only send the verdict.

  Gravity disappeared.

  Kimber shrieked and convulsed. It was as if she’d fallen off a cliff. She snatched for a handhold and clung like a monkey, hearing Eric’s yell like an echo of her own.

  “Wait,” said a voice she knew.

  Althared was on her screen, his alien head turned in profile. Pale blue veins pulsed around a circular mouth lined with lots of tiny teeth. Frankenstein be damned, just because he’s ugly doesn’t mean he’s a victim! He doesn’t think he’s ugly.

  “Chief Surveyor, you appear to have misinterpreted. You owe us the ability to respond before you reach a verdict.” he stated.

  Kimber said, “I see no point.” She heard an echo overhead. Eric was in this conversation too.

  “You’re falling,” the alien pointed out.

  “Not fast.” When she was practicing with the Verification Link, Kimber had seen a bar displayed—universal symbols for DON’T TOUCH and AFFIRM and SEND. Now she was trying to get it back.