Penumbra

by Eric Brown

  He was wondering how much more he could take when the G-force abated. He opened his eyes and managed to fill his bruised lungs. Little by little the pain diminished, and he knew that the brief trauma had been worth the reward of escape.

  Klien sat up and smiled at the thought of what Commissioner Singh might make of his disappearance, so soon after his questioning over the crucifix killings. The mystery would cause quite a stir among his former colleagues. He considered everything he was leaving behind on Earth, which was not, all things considered, that much: a house, a few possessions, his paintings and music collection. He considered the sacrifice with little regret. He had made no friends during his time in Calcutta, deliberately avoiding intimacy of any kind. He was leaving behind his old way of life, his old identity, after fifteen long and difficult years, and he had no regrets at all. At last, against all expectations, he had succeeded.

  Minutes later the ship phased into the void and the roar of the engines was replaced with a strange and silent calm. He heard Bennett escort the girl from the flight-deck and explain the process of suspension. ‘I’ll be waking up halfway through the journey to run a few checks,’ Bennett told her. ‘See you in four months.’

  Klien heard a suspension unit sigh open, and then close as the girl gave herself to the long sleep. Minutes later another unit opened and Bennett climbed in and laid himself out. He heard Bennett exhale as he lost consciousness, and then the hum of machinery go to work on the pilot.

  Klien waited a further ten minutes, and then let himself out of the engine compartment. He moved to the suspension chamber, chastising himself for being so furtive. He had the ship to himself, and there was no way that Bennett or the girl might detect his presence.

  He stood between the suspension units and stared through the clear covers at the sleepers. The corner of the folded softscreen projected from the pouch of Bennett’s flight-suit. The girl lay frozen, as still and perfect in her beauty as some fairytale princess. Klien smiled to himself. They seemed so content, little realising that their mission would end in failure.

  He considered killing Bennett and the girl while they slept, but decided against that course of action. He had examined the complex control systems of the ship. If he killed Bennett now he would effectively be signing his own death warrant, as there was no way he could pilot the Cobra safely through the turbulent atmosphere of Homefall. He would call a temporary stay of execution for the pilot and the girl. He would kill them later, when they had delivered him safely to the planet of his birth.

  He made himself at home in the berth opposite the suspension chamber. During the following weeks he ate well and kept himself fit with regular exercise. He even found to his delight that the ship possessed an excellent library of classical music discs.

  For long hours he sat in the pilot’s seat as stirring symphonies swelled round him, staring out at the star-streaked void and contemplating his triumphal return to Homefall.

  * * * *

  22

  Bennett rocked in his command couch as the Cobra phased out of the void. Tenebrae filled the viewscreen, awesome in its breadth, and Bennett had to search its face for Penumbra. He found the planet at last, a minuscule violet coin silhouetted against a central streamer of pastel green gas. As the Cobra accelerated towards Penumbra, he checked the flight program one last time and unstrapped himself from the couch.

  He moved to the suspension chamber. Rana Rao’s unit was open, and she was blinking up at him. ‘We’re here?’

  ‘Estimated time of arrival, one hour. Clean up and join me on the flight-deck. The view’s spectacular.’

  She struggled upright. ‘It doesn’t seem two minutes since I climbed into this thing.’

  ‘No dreams?’

  She frowned. ‘No - yes.’ She smiled at him. ‘I dreamed of my father, when I was young. We were playing on the lawn. It’s a recurring image. I’m—’

  ‘Apprehensive about meeting him after so long?’

  She jogged her head in that quaint Indian gesture that seemed to Bennett to signify a qualified affirmative. ‘A little. So many things have happened, and the circumstances of our meeting will be so strange.’

  He smiled. ‘I’ll be on the flight-deck. See you soon.’

  As he strapped himself into the command couch, he looked ahead to the landing and reunion, the handing over of the softscreen to Mackendrick and the rebels. He wondered at Mack’s reaction to being reunited, after so long, with the daughter he had lost.

  Rana joined him fifteen minutes later, climbing into the co-pilot’s seat and staring in wonder through the viewscreen.

  Bennett told her about his involvement with Mackendrick and his mission, the landing on Penumbra and subsequent escapades. Then he asked Rana why she had run away from home, all those years ago. Reluctantly at first, Rana told him about her unhappy childhood, how running away from parents who seemed not to care about her had seemed the right thing to do at the time. She told him about her years on the street, and her rise to the rank of police lieutenant. Her manner of speech was quick and precise, her delicate articulate hands turning with a million gestures. He was mesmerised by her impossibly large eyes, which seemed to contain at once the dark shadows of experience and the light of hope for the future. He thought that there was something immensely strong about the woman, but that also within her was the vulnerable child who had run away from home so long ago.

  She stared through the viewscreen at Penumbra turning slowly before them, and behind it the immense backdrop of the gas giant. ‘It’s hard to imagine that my father is down there.’

  As they watched, Penumbra grew from the size of a coin held at arm’s length, expanding like a ball thrown towards them in slow motion. Soon it filled the view-screen, a rolling sphere wrapped in bands of cloud.

  ‘Strap yourself in, Rana,’ Bennett said. ‘The ride down might be bumpy.’

  They entered the cloud cover. For long minutes they experienced nothing but a glowing opalescence beyond the viewscreen, and vision-impairing vibration as atmospheric turbulence rattled the ship. Then they fell from the clouds, the sudden appearance of purple-clad plains and mountains startling to the eye. Rana gasped and leaned forward against her harness, staring down at the folded hills far below and the upthrust mountain ranges. They were travelling at a little over twenty-five thousand kilometres an hour, and the land below seemed only to be crawling by.

  To their left, Tenebrae was rising slowly over the line of mountains. Another day was dawning on Penumbra.

  Bennett had programmed the Cobra to approach the plain where they had originally landed, and then relinquish control to him. From there he would fly the Cobra up the valley and into the mountains where the rebels had their hide-out. He had copied their co-ordinates into his com-board; it would be a matter of seat-of-the-pants flying through the mountain peaks until they reached the valley. He smiled as he imagined the reaction when Mack, Ten Lee and the rebels heard the sonic booms announcing their arrival.

  The Cobra screamed down the long valley plain at an altitude of five hundred metres. This low, with the mountains slipping by to either side, the sensation of speed was breathtaking. Rana gripped the arms of the couch like a child on a funfair ride.

  ‘Down there to the right,’ Bennett pointed out, ‘you can just see the ruins we found the day after we landed.’

  They appeared briefly, reduced to the size of a child’s model, and then were gone.

  Minutes before they came to the colonists’ original timber settlement and the crash-landed spaceship, Bennett took control of the Cobra, decelerated and veered right, ascending over the foothills towards the western mountains. He glanced at the screen of his com-board, reading the distance they had to travel to the rebel valley. Two hundred kilometres and falling . . . estimated time of arrival, four minutes.

  Bennett eased the Cobra between great mountain peaks, covered with blinding white snow at this altitude and whipped by raging winds. He slowed, banked around a clenched fist of
rock, and planed down into the broad saddle of purple grassland.

  ‘I can see buildings down there,’ Rana reported. ‘And people, Josh. They’re leaving their houses and waving.’

  Bennett felt a sudden tightness in his chest, an emotion he had not expected. He glanced down and saw a wide area of grassland beyond the last A-frame. Rana was right. Rebels, dozens of men and women, were streaming from the buildings and across the plain. He applied the vertical thrusters and brought the Cobra down slowly for the gentlest contact with the ground.

  When they hit land he cut the engines, exhaled and lay back in the sudden and profound silence. Through the viewscreen he could see the A-frame and domes, and people running towards the ship. He hit the command to lower the ramp, then unbuckled himself from the couch and climbed unsteadily to his feet.

  Hans Hupcka was the first aboard. He appeared at the top of the ramp and then burst into the flight-deck, more wild-looking and bearded than Bennett remembered. Others appeared behind him: Miriam James, and other rebel faces he recognised.

  Hupcka halted before him, staring like a madman. ‘You have the softscreen, Josh?’

  Bennett tapped the folded screen in the pouch of his flight-suit and Hupcka enveloped him in a fierce bear hug.

  ‘Incredible! We never expected . . . We thought you’d take a year at least, not just eight months.’

  Eight months ... To Bennett it seemed just like yesterday that he had left Penumbra.

  ‘How’s Mack?’ he asked. ‘Ten Lee?’

  ‘Ten Lee’s fine,’ Hupcka said. ‘Her leg’s healed. She spends much of her time meditating. Mack . . .’ He shrugged his huge shoulders. ‘Mack’s ill, but he’s stable.’ Hupcka’s gaze slipped past Bennett to Rana, standing beside her couch. ‘You have a co-pilot this time?’

  He smiled. ‘It’s a long story.’ He passed Hupcka the softscreen. ‘I’d like to see Mack.’

  Hupcka nodded. ‘I’ll take you straight to him. We’ll study the screen and plot the position of the entrance to the underground caverns. Also, Mack isn’t up to a trek. Can we make the journey in the ship?’

  ‘If there’s somewhere reasonably level to land, I can’t see any problem.’

  Hupcka nodded. ‘I’ll take you to Mack.’

  Bennett turned and reached out for Rana. She took his hand and they hurried from the ship, past smiling faces, across the purple plain.

  Hupcka indicated an A-frame. ‘Mack is in there. Ten Lee is nursing him. See you in a while.’

  Bennett and Rana climbed the steps to the veranda of the A-frame. He turned to her. ‘Perhaps it’d be best if I saw Mack first, explain what happened. It’s likely to be one hell of a shock.’

  Rana nodded, her expression worried and apprehensive. ‘Ah-cha,’ she said. ‘Okay. I’ll wait out here.’

  Bennett opened the door and ducked into the room. Ten Lee, tiny in her scarlet flight-suit, her skull cleanshaven, rose with fluid grace from a cross-legged position and hurried across to him. Her face showed no hint of emotion, but her embrace was greeting enough. He pressed her head to his chest, looking past her to the bed where Mackendrick lay, struggling to sit upright.

  Ten Lee pulled herself away and looked up at him. ‘You have the softscreen, Joshua?’

  ‘It’s with Hupcka. He’s studying it now.’

  ‘I want to find the subterranean chamber,’ she said, staring at him but seeing much more. ‘I want to find out if the Ancients are still in existence.’

  He moved past Ten Lee and crossed to the bed, sat down and forced Mackendrick back into the stacked pillows. He seemed much older now, as if in the eight months he had aged a decade. The skin of his face was drawn tight and wax-like over prominent bones. In Bennett’s arms he seemed light, reduced physically if not in spirit.

  ‘Well done, Josh,’ he said. ‘You don’t know how damned proud I am.’

  ‘It must’ve been a hell of a wait, Mack.’

  He laughed. ‘Hell no! I assumed you’d be gone for ages. Times were when we even reconciled ourselves to the possibility that you’d never find the damned thing!’ His voice, at least, was as strong as ever. ‘But I want to know all about it! Everything!’

  Ten Lee came and sat on the bed across from Bennett. ‘How did you find the softscreen, Joshua?’ she asked.

  Bennett looked at Mack. ‘I... to be honest I don’t know where to begin. Mack . . . there’s someone I want you to meet. I think she’ll be able to explain about the screen better than I could.’

  Mackendrick gave him a puzzled look. ‘What the hell are you talking about, Josh?’

  Bennett glanced at Ten Lee. ‘Is he up to a surprise, Ten?’

  She nodded and touched the old man’s hand. ‘He’s as strong as an ox.’

  ‘Josh?’ Mackendrick growled.

  ‘One minute.’

  Bennett stood and moved to the door. He slipped out, expecting to find Rana on the veranda, but there was no sign of her. Then he saw her, about ten metres away, standing alone on the purple plain, staring up at the lofty mountain peaks, at Tenebrae majestic overhead. He stepped from the veranda and crossed the grass, pausing beside her. He touched her arm.

  ‘Rana . . .’

  When she turned to him he saw that her eyes were glazed with tears. ‘It is all so sudden,’ she said. ‘There are so many years, so many incidents that have made us both different people. We’ll be strangers to each other.’

  ‘He’s your father,’ Bennett said gently. ‘Now’s the time to get to know each other again.’

  ‘We’ve so little time left, Josh.’

  ‘All the more reason to meet him and say what you have to say.’

  She smiled up at him. ‘I know. You’re right. It’s just so ... so very difficult. Ah-cha.’ She took a breath and nodded. ‘Okay, I’m coming.’

  He walked with her back to the A-frame, up the steps and into the lounge. Rana was holding herself tensely, her small fists clenched. She paused across the room from the bed that contained her father. Mackendrick raised his head from the pillow, mystification in his eyes.

  Rana stepped forward and approached the bed. She sat down on a chair and pulled it closer. Ten Lee stood and moved to Bennett, sensing their need to be alone.

  Mackendrick was staring at the Indian woman. He glanced at Bennett, as if for confirmation. ‘Josh?’

  Rana reached out and took her father’s hand. She lifted it and kissed the bony fingers. ‘Father, I have so much to say, and I don’t know how to say it.’

  Sita?’ For once, Mackendrick seemed at a loss for words. In barely a whisper he said, ‘Sita, is it really you?’

  Rana held her father’s hand in hers and touched it to her forehead. ‘It is me,’ she said. ‘Sita.’

  Bennett looked at Ten Lee and they moved quietly from the A-frame and sat down on the steps of the veranda.

  From the beginning, the time he left the valley with Hupcka and the rebels, Bennett told Ten everything that had happened.

  The gas giant rolled overhead, filling the valley with its vast creamy underbelly and effulgent glow. Someone brought them cups of the excellent coffee substitute, and plates of bread and cheese, then quietly left them talking. Ten Lee listened without expression, this strange distant woman he had come to respect over the period they had been together, even if he could not honestly claim to know her.

  At last, after a long silence, Ten Lee said, ‘There is a sense of perfection and closure to Sita Mackendrick’s reunion with her father, as if it were destined.’

  Bennett smiled. ‘And you? Are you okay?’

  She blinked at him. He had that feeling again, of wondering if she thought him crass with his need for superficial talk. ‘I am at one with the essence,’ she replied, making him smile. ‘I, too, was destined to come here.’

  Across the plain, Bennett saw Hans Hupcka, Miriam James and others hurrying towards them.

  ‘We think we’ve located the entrance!’ Hupcka called. He was waving a map, which he spread on the deck of t
he veranda. The contour map of the western mountains was marked with a thick red line. ‘We’re here,’ Hupcka said, indicating a valley. ‘The marked line is the route which Quineau and the others took. It twists and turns for over three hundred kilometres from a point ten kays north of here. This’ - he brought a thick forefinger down on a point at the very western extreme of the map - ‘is where the entrance is located, at the very top of this valley, below an overhang.’

  ‘Will I be able to land the Cobra?’

  Hupcka stabbed the map. ‘A matter of a hundred metres away, in the valley. We can land there and move on foot to the entrance. I’ve arranged supplies of food and water.’

  ‘When do you want to set off?’ Bennett asked.

  ‘We’ve been ready for months,’ Hupcka said. ‘It really depends on how you’re feeling. Are you up to an immediate start?’