Anywhere but here

by Jerry Oltion

  He gave himself a fresh shot of air, did the same for Donna, who was still breathing evenly, then climbed up to the top of the cab and repacked the good parachute into its pod. The shredded one he just unbuckled and tossed its lines to the ground, then wadded it up and threw it in the camper. Donna was coming around when he climbed back into the cab.

  "How you feelin'?" he asked.

  She tried to put her hand to her forehead, but bumped into the bubble helmet instead. "My head hurts." Her voice was muffled by her suit.

  "Mine too. It's something in the air here. We can't breathe it."

  "Where are we?" she asked.

  "The ass end of nowhere with practically no air left," he said. "We've got to move fast."

  "Where are we going?"

  "Another planet." He looked at the power gauge, turning his head to see past the condensation on the inside of his helmet. "We've got enough juice for half a dozen more jumps, and air enough to fill the cab one more time. Plus what's in our suit tanks. If we go now, maybe it'll be enough to get us somewhere that's got air we can breathe."

  "With no refreshes?" She shook her head. "That's not enough air."

  "I'd rather die trying something than just sit here and suffocate," Trent said.

  "Yeah." She didn't sound quite sure of that.

  He noticed his hat lying on the floor between them, picked it up and automatically went to stick it on his head, but it wouldn't fit over the bubble helmet so he laid it on the back of the seat instead. His brain still wasn't up to full charge.

  "Can you run the computer?" he asked.

  She looked at the screen, then out the windshield. "I think so. It's starting to come back."

  "Good. We're going to need to find us another planet in just a couple of jumps."

  "I don't know if I can do that," she said.

  "Let's at least try."

  "Okay." She took the computer off the dashboard and set it in her lap. "We'll have to try another star. This was the only planet in this system that was even close to habitable." She started tapping at the keyboard, bringing up previous screens from when they were jumping around looking for good stars.

  "There's only one other Sun-like star in this whole region that we haven't already been to."

  "We've only got one shot anyway," Trent said, thinking that they didn't actually have even that. They needed enough air to let them find a planet, match velocities, and land on it, which would take at least half an hour, and probably longer. It was ridiculous to even try, except that there was no alternative. There was no room for any more mistakes, either. He went over the steps in his mind: jump into space, let out the bad air, refill with good air . . .

  Let out the bad air. The valve was stuck. They could just crack the door seals again, like they had done before, but it was harder to keep the pickup from going into a spin when they did it that way, and if it did, they would have to waste more air through the maneuvering jets to bring it to a stop. It would be safer if he could fix the release valve in his door first.

  That was easier said than done. The nozzle stuck out only half an inch, but that was far enough for the weight of the truck to bend it sideways when it had tipped over. He would need a pair of Vise-Grips to bend that back into shape, and if dirt had gotten inside before it was bent, it would probably stay blocked even if he straightened it.

  It could take ten or fifteen minutes to fix, way more time than they could gain by not using the maneuvering jets. Okay, forget that. Just go. But if they ever got out of this, he vowed to put a rubber hose on there for a nozzle instead of a chrome pipe. Hell, a valve stem off a tire would work perfect.

  "Ready to go?" Donna asked.

  "Yeah . . . no! Wait a minute." He was missing something. Something obvious.

  "What's the matter?"

  Valve stems. The truck had four valve stems, five if you counted the spare. It would take way too long to yank one off a tire and replace the nozzle on his door with it, but he had just gotten a sudden image of what would happen if he tried it. Twenty-five pounds of air pressure would come roaring out of the tire. At least a cabful at one atmosphere, maybe more.

  "We've got five extra air tanks!" he shouted.

  "What? Where?"

  "The tires!"

  He leaped out of the cab, slipped on the grass, picked himself up off his butt, and rushed around to the camper, where he grabbed the lug wrench out of the tool box and began spinning the nuts off the wheels, leaving only one attached—but loosely—to each hub. That way he wouldn't have to bust them loose in space with nothing to push against. The truck wobbled when he leaned into the wrench to loosen the last nut, but the single bolt on each wheel held well enough to keep it from going anywhere. He had to refresh the air in his suit twice more while he worked, and he was panting again when he was done. He could see pretty well through the helmet now because the condensation had collected into droplets and was running down the plastic bubble, dripping onto his neck and running down his chest under his shirt.

  Donna slid down to the ground and went into the camper, emerging with the rope, which she tied to the roll bar as high up as she could reach on her side. After she'd secured one end, she laid the coil alongside the roll bar and used the loose end to tie the coil down so it wouldn't go anywhere, but she used a slip knot on that end so it would be easy to release, leaving one end tied tight to the roll bar and the rest of the coil free.

  "What's that for?" Trent asked. He had shifted over to the spare, and was removing it completely from its bracket on the side of the camper. He would start with that one, even though it was a smaller tire. With any luck, that would be all they needed.

  Donna said, "You're not going to have time to remount those in space, but we're probably going to need 'em again. You can tie them to the rope, and we can remount them after we land." She was absolutely right. "That's thinking ahead. Good." He picked up the lug nuts and threw them into the camper, almost threw the lug wrench in after them, then thought better of it and took that with him into the cab. He might need that in space if he couldn't get the last lug nuts off with just his fingers. They had just about used up the air in their suits. Donna helped him roll the spare tire up onto the seat, then the two of them squeezed into the cab with it and slammed their doors. The spare fit lengthwise between the back of the seat and the dashboard, so there was actually still a fair amount of room.

  "Okay!" Trent said. He latched his door tight and made sure his window was sealed. "Let's do it." Donna latched her door and checked her window, then picked up the computer and set it on her lap again. Trent peered around the front of the tire to see what she was doing. She was just calling up the launch window when he noticed something moving out her window, and he looked past her to see an alien creature about seven or eight feet tall walking toward them, leaning on a long stick that it held in two of its four hands.

  "Wait!" he said.

  Donna paused with her finger over the button. "What now?"

  "Behind you. We've got company."

  She turned to look, and they both watched the alien take a few more cautious steps toward them. It stood upright on two legs, but it looked more insectile than human with its narrow waist, four arms, and a long, oval head on a slender stalk of a neck. It was more than just a big bug, though: it was wearing a red-and-white striped blanket draped over one shoulder and wrapped between its two sets of arms, then tied around its waist. Its stick was sharpened on the top, pretty obviously a spear. It stopped maybe twenty feet away and bobbed its head up and down.

  "Somebody lives here," Donna said. "Do you think they'd be able to help us?"

  "I don't know," Trent said. He wanted it to be so, because the odds of their finding another planet with air they could breathe in the short time they had left was pretty minuscule, but they would have to communicate the concept of oxygen to the natives, and actually get some from them, in the same amount of time. All from a guy carrying a spear that didn't even have a metal point. "It doesn't look good,"
he said. "I don't think this guy is techie enough to even understand what we need, much less provide us with it."

  "What if he's a sheepherder or something, and there's a regular city just over the hill?"

  "We'd have to get there, and I've already unbolted the wheels."

  "We can't just leave!" Donna protested. "Not without at least trying to talk to him."

  "I don't think we have a choice," Trent said. "We've got one chance to find another planet, but only if we go now."

  "But—"

  "Look out!"

  The native had cocked back its spear. It took three running steps toward them and threw it straight at Donna.

  "Shit!" she yelled, and she jabbed at the keyboard.

  18

  The hyperdrive tossed them into space. The front couple feet of the spear clattered against Donna's window, adding another set of cracks to the ones already there, then tumbled away to join the dirt and rocks and grass that came boiling up from below. The spare tire between them tried to tumble, too, but Trent held it steady with his right hand.

  "Good reflexes," he said.

  She looked over at him with wide eyes. "He tried to kill us!"

  "Yeah, he did. And now he's probably at the bottom of a crater, tryin' to claw his way out while the edges collapse in on him. Maybe it'll make him think a little next time."

  "Why am I not convinced?" She took a deep breath. "Damn it, that's twice in one day. I'm starting to get a little paranoid."

  "Me too," Trent admitted. "But they haven't got us yet, and they aren't going to if I have anything to say about it." He reached up to the upper latch on his door. "Okay," he said. "Open yours the same time I do mine, and we'll let all the air out. As soon as it's gone, latch your door tight again and I'll refill the cab with air from the tire."

  "Got it."

  "Go."

  He popped the latch open, and air whooshed out. When he'd used the door seal to let air out before, he had just cracked it open a little so he could control it, but this time he opened the latch all the way and let everything roar out as fast as it could. Donna did the same with hers, so the pickup didn't pick up much spin, but it did start to tumble forward a little. They would have to use the jets to correct for that when they were done, but it couldn't be helped.

  Trent watched the fog blow out into space, dissipating into nothing a few dozen feet away. The stream of air grew fainter as the air in the cab got thinner and thinner, and at the same time his pressure suit grew stiffer. The little valve in the back of his helmet popped like a bag of microwave popcorn as it tried to keep the same pressure differential between inside and outside. At last Trent could see no more fog rushing away from the pickup, and the gauge on the dashboard read zero.

  "Okay," he said. "Button 'er up again."

  He looked around the tire at Donna. She was saying something—he could see her lips moving—but without any air in the cab, he couldn't hear her at all. He watched her secure her door again, and he made sure his own was latched down tight, then he unscrewed the valve cap from the spare tire and realized his mistake. With his Ziptite suit on, he couldn't get a fingernail into the valve to let any air out.

  "Shit!" he muttered. He needed something pointy. A pen, or a knife point, or—or the wire he was using earlier to try to unplug the air release valve in his door.

  He reached around the tire for the seat pocket where Donna had stowed it, fighting the inflated suit's tendency to push his arms straight out, but she had seen his problem and was already ahead of him. She popped open the glove box and grabbed the can opener, handing it over with the round side toward him so he wouldn't stab his suit.

  That would do. He poked the tip into the end of the valve stem and sighed in relief when a cloud of fog billowed up into the cab. It took a few seconds for the air pressure to register on the dashboard gauge, but it slowly started to rise, and his Ziptite suit started to loosen up. Trent kept the valve button down until the gauge read ten pounds, then let off. He tucked the church key into the seat pocket on his side, then reached up and unsealed his Ziptite helmet.

  The air stank like rubber, but his vision stayed steady after half a dozen breaths. There was oxygen in it.

  "I think it's safe," he said.

  Donna unsealed her suit and wrinkled her nose, then scratched furiously at her head. "Damn, these things itch." Trent was so used to hearing her voice muffled from inside her suit, it sounded like she was shouting.

  He couldn't help laughing. "It saved your life, and you're complaining because it itches?"

  "I'm not complaining. I'm just making an observation."

  The tire kept trying to get away. There wasn't anyplace for it to go, but in free fall it wouldn't stay in the seat, and it kept banging into Trent or Donna or the dashboard or the roof. Finally Trent shoved the center seatbelt through the slotted wheel and had Donna latch it down on her side. It still tilted from side to side when either of them bumped it, but at least it wasn't flying loose anymore. Trent's ears popped, adapting to the lower pressure in the cab. He worked his jaws until they settled down, then used the bumper jets to stop the pickup's slow tumble. The jets were more sluggish now than when they had a full tank of air behind them, but that actually made them easier to use. Maybe he should put a pressure regulator on that line when they got home.

  Donna put the computer into its spot on the dashboard and let it get a good look at the stars, and when it locked on, she picked the last Sunlike star from the list of nearby candidates. They had to drop the nose a little to get it onscreen, but not by much. "Here we go," she said when the computer got a lock on it, and she hit the "enter" key.

  It was a good jump. They could see their target as a much brighter-than-average star off to the left. Donna let the computer get a look at the stars from this vantage, then jumped closer, allowing it to triangulate the position of any planets it could see.

  There were three; two bright ones that looked to be gas giants in close to the star, and a smaller one in the habitable zone. "So far, so good," Donna said. "I'm taking us in for a closer look."

  "All right." Trent's ears popped, but he kept his eyes on the power gauge. It was already nudging the top of the "E," but it dropped a needle's width more when they jumped. The planet was much closer, though. It was about as big as the Moon from Earth, and although it was mostly in shadow, they could see big swirls of cloud and blue ocean in the quarter that was lit by the star.

  "Looks promising," Trent said. "How fast is it moving?"

  "Let's see." Donna called up the landing program and let it crunch on the image for a minute, but it didn't return a value.

  "We have to get closer," she said, reaching for the computer again.

  "Hold up there," Trent said. "At this point we've got more air than power. Let's think this through so we can do it in as few jumps as we can get away with." He leaned forward to look at her around the front of the tire, and his ears popped again. He glanced at the air gauge, then took a cold, hard look at it. Seven pounds of pressure, and dropping.

  "Forget I said that. We've got a leak somewhere."

  He listened for the telltale hiss of air into vacuum, looked for fog drifting away outside, but he couldn't hear or see anything.

  "Check your door latches," he said, doing just that on his own side, but they were tight. So was the window. He didn't have a seatbelt caught in the door, either.

  "I'm tight over here," Donna reported.

  "It's going somewhere." He bent down as far as he could to listen close to the floor, but he couldn't hear anything there, either. Apparently it was a slow enough leak that it didn't make much noise. If they stayed at seven pounds for long, they would be courting the bends. Trent didn't like it much, but he got the can opener out of the seat pocket and let more air out of the tire until the gauge read ten pounds again. When he shoved his thumb into the tire's side, the rubber bent quite a bit; there wasn't much air left in it.

  "Okay," he said, "we still need to make as few jumps as
we can, but it looks like we've got to be quick about it after all. How few can we get away with?"

  Donna looked out at the planet. He followed her gaze; it looked no different now than before.

  "It's not moving very fast," she said. "We shouldn't have to make more than one jump to correct our speed for landing. So one jump to get close, and if we can pick our landing site without jumping again, then one jump to match velocity, one more to put us back over the landing site, and two or three more to drop us to the top of the atmosphere. That's, what, four or five jumps."

  "That may be more than we've got juice for," Trent said. "I'd only bet on three for sure, especially close to a planet."

  She pulled the computer into her lap again. "Let me see what I can set in the preferences." She tapped at the keyboard for a minute or so while Trent watched the air pressure drop a pound. With the tire between them, he couldn't even see what she was doing, but by the sounds she was making he got the idea that there wasn't just a "minimum jumps" option she could set. At last she said, "I can tell it to take us straight to the top of the atmosphere over our landing site after the tangential vector translation and not to give us any upward velocity when we get there. That should cut the number of jumps we need down to three, but if we guess wrong about where the top of the atmosphere is, we could fall a long ways before we get there, and burn up our parachute when we do."

  Trent said, "And if we try to jump too deep, we use up the last of the charge on our batteries without goin' anywhere."

  "Right."

  He thought about that for a few seconds. "And it'll only work if we can find a good landing site on our very next jump, right? So this one's got to be just as accurate as the others."

  "Right," Donna said. "We've got to make sure we wind up over the sunlit side of the planet, close enough to pick out a landing site."