Stranded on Haven

by William Zellmann

  ********

  Retired General Faba Hunto frowned at the radio in his hand. Both King David and Duke Richard had emphasized the importance of security on this mission, and stressed at great length the necessity for radio silence. The techs had claimed that these special radios could translate normal speech into code as it was spoken, but neither the King, Duke, nor Faba trusted them enough to believe that.

  Yet the damned radio had just announced, "C2 to A1", just as in a normal call. Either the leaders were getting nervous, or they now believed the techs' nonsense. Still, it was a call from Command. "A1" he replied. "Please verify identity. Radio silence active."

  A deep sigh came back. "Ah, yes," said Duke Richard's familiar voice. "Authentication J4-011. Radio silence suspended per C1."

  Faba closed his eyes. Something was obviously up. Probably balls up. The leaders were going to jiggle his elbow. Faba hated radio contact with Command, even though he knew its importance.

  Faba grimaced. "Yes, sire. What's happened?"

  "What's happened, General," the Duke's voice replied in a waspish tone, "is that you missed Target 1. He was in space, and either he or one of those blasted thinking machines spotted you almost immediately." the Duke sighed again. "Oh, it wasn't your fault, General, uh, messer Hunto. But it's all a great mess, now. Carver called all the heads of state on those fancy radios of his, and reported a terrorist attack. You were identified as the terrorist leader.

  "His Majesty tried to explain that you were retired from the Royal Army, and that Chancellor Toray had hired you to be the University Provost, but Runtz and Curran and even Tyree refused to accept his Majesty's personal assurances of our good will and good intentions. Runtz compared his Majesty to Len, and even that savage Howed Kanner dared shout at his Majesty. Disgraceful. The man should be shot.

  "Anyway, it's all a great mess, now. Carver has been watching you the entire time, and says that you will find his own ship gone into deep space. Adventurer has been evacuated, and Carver claims that life support and even the ship's thinking machine are shutting down. So Carver is probably on his way down to Haven. Or perhaps aboard his ship and headed for deep space. He says you will find Adventurer locked and powered down. The International Zone is also without power until we can get the steam boiler fired up, and Carver's 'assistants' must be watched every moment."

  Faba suppressed a sigh. Balls up, all right. "What are your orders, sire?"

  "We must do what we can," the Duke replied. "I suppose the wisest move at the moment is to continue with your mission. Messer Trin can take the landers as they ground, and detain the people aboard. Frankly, I doubt Carver will be aboard one of the landers, but we must be sure.

  "My people here report that Startrader has, in fact, left orbit and headed into deep space. You can't chase her, of course. Carver is probably aboard her, but I can't help remembering that Carver's ship has a very smart thinking machine, and wondering if it could even fly itself.

  "I also can't help but remember that Carver was alone for over two years. I doubt he will willingly go alone into deep space again." His voice firmed. "Yes, it's best you continue your mission. We must know whether Carver is telling the truth. We must also know whether we can gain access to Adventurer. One of our experts here has been reviewing all the information we have on Adventurer. He tells me that there should be manual controls on all the, uh, 'airlocks'."

  Faba frowned. "Uh, your Grace, I was told there is no air in space. Nor gravity, either."

  "I am told the same," Duke Richard replied. "See if there's anything you can do. I'd hate to risk a war and have you go through all this just to return to the Zone. Call me when you have something to report."

  "Yes, your Grace." Faba replied tonelessly. Yes, your Grace. we will go where there is no air to breathe or gravity, and spend a few happy hours flailing around, holding our breath and searching for manual door controls we don't even know exist. Of course, your grace."

  Faba glared at the radio. All right, he decided, I guess we should begin by finding out what we have available. He raised his head. "Lieutenant," he said, "Search this vessel. I want to know what emergency equipment she carries. Specifically, I want to know about those 'space suit' things, and any other breathing apparatus."

  The Lieutenant jumped to his feet. "Uh, sire, shouldn't that be 'messer'?

  Faba grinned sourly. "No," he replied. "I don't think so. It seems nobody was fooled, and we're all more comfortable with the military structure, even in these clown costumes."

  The lieutenant jumped to his feet and saluted smartly, a wide smile splitting his face. He rapped out some names, and set four men to examining the lockers lining the lander's walls. It took only moments for one of the men to discover that there was, indeed, a space suit, as well as a similar suit made of a lighter, transparent material, whose helmet supported two small tanks that Faba assumed held breathing air.

  Finally, the massive form of Adventurer floated only a meter from their lander. But Carver hadn't lied. The massive landing bay doors were closed and sealed. They had circled her incredible bulk over a dozen times now, and failed to find an opening.

  Faba hated what he had to do next. He was going to have to have one of his people, his men, climb into that big, awkward suit and leave the safety of the lander for the airless, gravityless void of space. They searched, but there were no instruction sheets or manuals for the space suit; Faba hoped the suits were as simple as that fact implied.

  There was no shortage of volunteers, and Faba was once again impressed with his men's courage. Finally, he selected Sergeant Van Senner, based mostly on the fact that he seemed to be closest to fitting the suit. The suit itself apparently had a wide range of adjustments to fit nearly anyone; but Faba's people were unfamiliar with it, and tampering unnecessarily was simply inviting disaster.

  Senner was a cheerful young man, with a ruddy complexion and a ready smile. Faba had most of the men crowd backward to give Lieutenant Truse and three helpers room to examine the suit and fit it to Senner by trial and error.

  They finally pronounced themselves satisfied that they had it right, though there seemed to be a slight hissing sound they were unable to locate. Sergeant Senner clumped heavily to the lander's small airlock, turned, and sent Faba a crisp salute before pressing the button that opened the airlock's inner door.

  As the inner door closed, Faba hurried to the small viewport in its surface, watching as Senner hooked his safety line to a ring near the lock's outer door. There was a roaring hiss as the lock mechanism pumped the air out of the tiny lock chamber. Suddenly, Senner began twisting about, and a small white cloud appeared near his left shoulder.

  "Leaking air!" the Sergeant cried, his voice emerging from the lander's control panel, and a moment later a seal evidently failed. The small cloud swelled to nearly fill the airlock, and dissipated almost immediately. "Help!" The sergeant cried. "Stop it! I can't breathe!" His voice grew more and more tinny and faint as there was less and less air to carry the sound. After a few moments the voice was gone, though Faba could see the sergeant's mouth working through his helmet's visor.

  Faba was frantically slamming the lock button, but apparently once activated it simply ran through an entire cycle; either that or there was an emergency override Faba didn't know about.

  Then the outer door swung open, and Senner was swept out of the lock with the last of the air, to bob on the end of his safety line. After a moment the outer door began to swing closed, cutting off Faba's view of sergeant Senner. It closed completely, and the severed end of sergeant Senner's safety line dropped to the floor of the lock as air hissed back into the chamber from the lander's tanks.

  "Finally," Duke Richard's voice said over Faba's hand radio. "It's been hours! Report!"

  "Yes, your grace," Faba replied. "I must report the failure of our mission, and the loss of one man, Sergeant Van Senner. Adventurer is sealed, as Carver claimed. We circled the ship over a dozen times, looking for an entrance, but were unsucce
ssful.

  "We found a space suit aboard, and Sergeant Senner volunteered to attempt to use it to locate the manual controls you mentioned. However, there was a mishap with the suit, and sergeant Senner was lost. I will be recommending him for the Legion of Honor. Requesting instructions, sire."

  "Mishap? You mean the suit was defective?"

  Faba shrugged. "Possibly. Or we may have missed something. It's a very complicated mechanism."

  The Duke's voice softened. "I see. Suggestions?"

  "We don't know enough to be doing this, sire. Keep occupying the Zone, and send a bunch of big brains to learn as much as they can. And others to teach us sharp-end-of-the-stick types the things they should have taught us before sergeant Senner tried to use that suit. I won't lose another man to our ignorance."

  The Duke sighed. "That sounds like a long-term project; I'm not sure we can hold out long enough to complete it." There was a pause, then his voice resumed. "But it appears to be all we can do. If we can get aboard Adventurer, we've won. I guess it's up to his Majesty's government to hold things together until we can do that." Another sigh. "All right, General, you might as well come back down. At least you've verified that Carver was telling the truth. Now we have to figure out how to deal with that truth. And General …"

  "Yes, your grace?"

  "I'm sorry about sergeant Senner. Send in that recommendation. I'll make sure it's expedited."

  "Yes, your grace. And thank you sire."

  Chapter 18

  I breathed a huge sigh of relief as we were finally able to emerge from the water into darkness, and resume flight in air. We were still over ocean, of course, and with no external lights showing, it was unlikely we would be seen; besides, Jane assured us that the area was clear of ships, at least for now. I could head for my "hideout". Well, almost.

  Planning for the hideout had emphatically not included Heidi or Ellie. That planning assumed that I would be the main object of a planet-wide manhunt, and that the women would go safely underground. They each had false identities in each of the nations; I assumed they would be able to easily blend into Haven society. I, on the other hand, stood out like a red flag, with my unfamiliarity with local customs and technology.

  But despite my relief at emerging from the water, things were far from calm aboard the lander. It had started when I simply asked Ellie where I should take her.

  She looked surprised. "Where? Why, with you, of course."

  Now I was surprised. "Don't be ridiculous, Ellie," I began. "I may have to stay hidden for months or even years. Don't worry, I'll drop you anywhere you say. I wouldn't recommend your parents' old place, though; Duke Richard's people will be sure to look there." Good ol' 'Sticks' Carver's Patented Standard Procedure: open mouth, insert foot, close mouth, chew to knee.

  Ellie reddened, and the fight was on. "Ridiculous, am I? Is that what you think of me, messer Carver?"

  "Of course not, Ellie," I replied hurriedly. Yep, that's me: always a day late and a crown short. "But you don't want to spend months or years cooped up in a cave on a deserted island with me."

  Her eyebrows rose. "A cave on a deserted island? Sounds fascinating." She grinned. "Do I get a grass skirt?"

  The argument went on for over half an hour, pitting male reason against female illogic. Which meant I was outclassed, of course. But finally she hit on an argument that actually made sense.

  "And what about your business affairs, messer entrepreneur? Does this deserted island have communications?"

  That was a point of pride with me. Once I finally realized that I'd have to do a lot of business by radio, I'd quickly realized that the only way to preserve any confidentiality at all would be by using code. Codes were common in business communications , since much business on Haven was conducted by radio, a very public medium. So, Lisa and I had come up with a simple, unbreakable code. Well, okay Lisa came up with it.

  It was based on Reflections, a book of philosophy published on Walton fifty years ago. Less than a dozen written copies of it existed on Haven, of course, and they were over a thousand pages long. Each of my business partners had been given a copy with a different title, cover and title page, in print form. Even if King David's spies searched my partner companies' offices, they probably wouldn't realize that all of them had the same book. Even if they did, and managed to steal a copy, we could simply begin using another book as soon as the theft was discovered.

  If I wanted to send a message to, say, Res Vont, I would send it as a list of numbers, each indicating a page, line and word in the book. For instance, 846 14 12 would direct Res to the 12th word in the 14th line of page 846. Res would decode the message using his copy of Reflections, and code his reply the same way. Lisa told me that this was an ancient cipher technique, which might be well known on Haven.

  Even so, without a copy of Reflections, it was unbreakable. And by bouncing the signal off of Adventurer, I could conceal its point of origin. Res thought it was wonderful He'd even tried reading the book."It might be saleable as a sedative," he reported. "I fell asleep after twenty pages."

  So, I replied to Ellie with massive dignity and not a little pride. "Yes, of course. I have ultraradio contact with the heads of state, Ollie, Heidi and you if I need it, and radio contact with all my business associates using unbreakable codes." And, of course, Jane, aboard Adventurer, wasn't really shut down; I'd merely ordered her to ignore all attempts at communication but mine. But I knew I would want access to her sensor data, to keep tabs on happenings on west continent, and she served as a booster station for comms between me and Startrader.

  Ellie shrugged, and I felt stirrings in my crotch. "Then you need a secretary, or personal assistant, or whatever you want to call it. Especially if Duke Richard starts getting close and manages to begin tracing your business interests."

  I frowned. The trouble was that she was right. Over the last year I'd come to depend on Ellie perhaps too much; but I'd been limited by my reluctance to expose anyone else to the risks of working for me.

  "Uh, Ellie, you could still do that, from almost anywhere."

  She shrugged again. I was beginning to think she was doing that on purpose, just to keep me off-balance. It was working, of course. "Yes," she replied, "I probably could. But it would put me at greater risk if Duke Richard began tracing radio messages."

  I finally realized defeat. I shook my head. "You win, Ellie. Of course. But I can't imagine why you'd want to abandon civilization completely.

  She grinned in triumph. "Let's just say I've become accustomed to hot showers, electric lights and autochef cooking."

  I smiled, but my smile was weak. "I can understand that, Ellie. But don't forget, all of our 'safe houses' have those things. There's something else you'd better consider, too. If this drags on very long, I'm not sure I'll be able to keep our relationship on a business basis."

  She sat back with a satisfied expression. "Good."

  I shook my head. "Not really. I expect Duke Richard's people to grab the other lander that was in the Zone when they attacked. The New Homers will learn to fly them, and they'll be combing the planet for me. Duke Richard isn't going to be happy about the fact that there's no body for him to sneer at. He's going to continue operating on the assumption that I might be alive somewhere on Haven, and as time goes on and the other nations increase the pressure on New Home, he's going to become increasingly desperate.

  "My point is that even if our relationship, uh, 'develops', it will be risking our lives to try to get back to civilization to register a marriage. Now, that's not a problem for me, but for you …"

  The satisfied expression didn't fade. "That's a subject for another time, messer Carver, boss, sire," she said primly. "But I think I can handle it." The grin flared again. "I'm vicious at hand-to-hand."

  ********

  "I don't think I believe it," Duke Richard said thoughtfully.

  General Faba Hunto, once again in his proper uniform, raised an eyebrow. "Don't believe what, your grace? And why
not?"

  The Duke turned "I just don't really believe that he's dead. Carver, I mean. And I don't really believe he's on that ship of his, either. I think he's hiding out here on Haven."

  Faba frowned. "Well, there's no way to find out for sure about the ship," he replied, "but we have over twenty witnesses that saw that lander crash into the sea and explode. And the university people our agents have questioned all agree that he wasn't aboard either of the other two landers."

  "I know," the Duke replied. "But two things keep bothering me. First, all our observers report that the lander that crashed was not the one Carver usually used; uh, the 'gig'. This one was much bigger."

  Faba nodded. "Yes, your grace; but maybe he had it stocked with emergency supplies and stuff, just in case he had to run. As he did."

  Duke Richard nodded. "Perhaps. In fact, that's the most likely explanation. But it still bothers me.

  "Then there's the other thing. Those landers represent an amazingly high level of technology, far beyond our own. It just seems a remarkable coincidence that all that technology would fail at just that moment.

  "And those things are built to fly in space and in air. I keep wondering if they could fly through water."

  Faba's eyes widened. "Fly? Through water?"

  The Duke frowned in irritation and waved dismissively. "Maybe 'fly' isn't the word. But maybe that wasn't an uncontrolled crash; maybe it was a dive into the water. He knew we'd be watching, and that we'd question any witnesses. What if he arranged that crash and simply sailed away underwater?"