by Blaze Ward
“Your humor has certainly improved,” Eleanor observed.
“The walking helped, Eleanor,” Dani said. “Thank you. And the green. Everything is so peaceful here, even if it looks so fake.”
“What makes you say that, dear?” Eleanor asked.
“Hmm?” Dani wasn’t paying that close of attention.
“Why did you say fake, Fairchild?” the Governess rephrased herself. “What are you seeing? I’m upside–down and backwards. If I was on heels, I could be Ginger Rogers.”
“Who?”
Dani was confused now. Which was her normal setting. Maybe she was coming back from that place.
“Never mind, dear,” Eleanor said. “What’s wrong with the terrain?”
“Oh,” Dani came back to her thoughts. “I remember a professor, Dr. Ishikuma, I think, saying that the only straight lines in the universe were man–made.”
“And?” Eleanor prompted.
Dani stopped, and held up Eleanor’s case so she could see the path ahead, and then turned around and looked back.
“So originally I thought this was a game trail, or something,” Dani explained. “I mean, you have a pretty clear line, and it runs straight. Other than the Trudywood trees that have kind of bubbled out over it, and the stuff that looks like grass…”
“Trudywood trees?” Eleanor interrupted her suddenly. “What are you talking about, dear?”
Dani laughed again, louder this time. She pointed Eleanor at the closest one, which was also one of the bigger versions, possibly seven meters at the top of the beach ball shape.
“Those,” Dani said. “They remind me of Aunt Trudy, all gnarled and spotted. And covered with nasty thorns just waiting to spike you if you get too close.”
“Yes,” Eleanor agreed. “I do see the resemblance. Remember to tell Milo that. Now, I’m sorry I interrupted. You were talking about your physics professor.”
“So, anyway,” Dani returned to the story in her most put–upon voice. “As I was saying, before you so rudely interrupted, there are no straight lines in nature except mathematics and man.”
“She was right, you know,” Eleanor explained. “Nature prefers a Fibonacci curve.”
“So what’s this?”
Dani held out her right arm straight, pointing at the path in front of her, hand held like it was a sword, pinky blade pointed at the ground and thumb blade pointed at the sky, with Eleanor resting on her upper arm like a gunsight.
For good measure, Dani turned to face back the way she had come and did the same.
“Astounding,” Eleanor whispered breathlessly. “But that’s impossible, dear.”
“That’s my point,” Dani agreed. “So I get to prove her wrong, too.”
“You don’t understand, Fairchild,” Eleanor countered. “Even animals do not burrow or walk in straight lines, to say nothing of natural phenomena. This trail could not exist naturally.”
“Exactly,” Dani smirked.
It would be nice to go back and show that old battle axe that she didn’t know everything, even twelve years later. Assuming the old bitch was still alive. God knows she was probably old enough to remember the beginnings of space flight.
“You misunderstand me, dear,” Eleanor said. Her voice had lost the quiet wonder and gotten hard. Precise.
Lecture–mode–impending.
“I said it could not exist naturally, Fairchild,” Eleanor hammered the point home, the way she did when she was going to win the argument. “I suspect that it is artificial.”
“Impossible,” Dani countered harshly. “We’re the first people to set foot on Escudra VI. Ever. And all the robot probes have been stupid, observer–mode creatures with barely enough brainpower to chew bubble gum and walk at the same time.”
“That is correct,” Eleanor granted. Even she was a stickler on points. “But this Expedition is looking for evidence of the Elder Race. It’s possible you found something.”
“What?”
Dani was pretty sure she had just suffered a stroke or something. Maybe an acid flashback.
It was possible that the crazy bitch had taken over her mind for good this time when Dani wasn’t paying attention, and now she was trapped in some sort of alternate reality loop, like only the very best industrial pharmaceuticals could induce.
But they had never left her this lucid before.
Secondary acid flashback? Was that even a thing?
“Fairchild, straight lines do not exist in nature,” Eleanor explained again. “This is straight. This could not be natural. That does not leave a lot of other options.”
“But why wouldn’t a probe have picked this up?” Dani asked. “How could they have missed this from orbital scans?”
Dani was grasping at the edge of a cliff right now, looking for emotional handholds. Fortunately, it was something she was probably the galaxy’s expert on.
“Fairchild, might I remind you that Escudra VI is approximately one point five times the radius of Earth,” Eleanor’s voice got that cross, hectoring tone when she was going to drive the point home like a nail. “Additionally, the surface of Earth is over seventy percent water, while Escudra VI is less than a third of that. It would be very easy to miss something like this unless you were specifically looking. Especially given the way the Trudywood trees obscure the terrain so effectively.”
Eleanor actually stopped to take an audible breath before continuing, which said something about the Governess’s emotional health since she didn’t have lungs to fill.
Dani waited patiently, hoping for a really good punchline. Or one of those cute, blue beavers that always had a good one–liner observation when he walked in.
“As for a probe, if one were to be dropped in the vicinity,” Eleanor observed, rather tartly. “What do you supposed would have happened to it, were it here yesterday?”
“Cooked but good,” Dani agreed.
Dead soldier, marked down as a loss and itemized on a quarterly report under acceptable equipment failures in a hostile environment. Cost of doing business.
Dani just kind of stood there and considered the implications.
There was no way in hell to hide this sort of thing behind one of the boffins. Especially Dr. Odille, who would scrupulously insist on her sharing credit for a discovery that threatened to overturn entire religions and change the course of human history.
Dani muttered a string of profanities so rank that even she blushed.
Eleanor’s gasp of breath covered her opinion.
Dani started to say something else, but Eleanor overrode her. Which was rare all by itself.
“Fairchild,” she barked suddenly. “Quiet. I’m picking up a radio signal through all the static.”
Dani felt every single drop of blood drain out of her face and pool behind her belly button with a savage, ice cold kick.
“Aliens,” she whispered with utter horror.
“No,” Eleanor corrected her. “Rain Prescott, probably aboard Calypso–2. It’s the standard emergency call signal, repeated on a loop.”
Oh, bloody hell. I’m rescued. And I’m right, proper screwed. I’ll never have time to come up with a convincing set of lies that Eleanor will agree to, even with blackmail.
“Can you reach him?” Dani asked hopefully. Mostly hopefully. Maybe. Sort of.
“I’m trying,” Eleanor sniped back at her. “It’s like trying to get you to hear me in one of your clubs with the bass turned up to bodily–damage levels.”
I’m going to be famous. They won’t give me a choice.
I will never be allowed to just be Fairchild again.
Unless I make them.
But there’s always the Tomya, if they push me too hard.
Tomya.
Oh, crap. Tomya Manufacturing, Ltd. Survival tool.
Dani drew it in a flash and clicked the various dials until she had the setting she wanted.
Emergency micro–flare.
Aim into the air, as close to vertical as you can get it
. Close your eyes. Pull the trigger.
Listen for the little chunk as the first stage rocket ignites, and then the sizzle of bacon grease as the tiny rocket goes for sky.
Keep your eyes closed for three seconds as the rocket reaches altitude. Wait for the pop of the primary signal flare before opening your eyes, because it will be visible at high noon in Isfahan. And you will be blind if you’re looking at it.
Pop. BOOM.
Dani opened her eyes as the first flash of light faded.
She was able to pick up the second stage rocket, gyro–guided to go straight up trailing white fire, regardless of the original trajectory, to provide a marker to anyone who had seen the first boom, which was anybody on this side of the horizon, even in daylight.
The second flash was less spectacular, by design. It was there to provide an exclamation point, nothing more.
“So what are you planning to tell them about the river bed?” Eleanor asked in the sudden, oppressive silence.
Dani was silent for a moment, feeling the walls closing in around her.
“Lies.”
“I’m not sure that will work,” Eleanor observed.
“Watch me.”
Chike
The signal was One and Four as Chike tried to decipher it. Almost total static, in spite of every trick he knew to try to wash it clear.
Escudra VI refused to make this easy.
But there was something there.
He had spent the better part of the day listening without success, while Rain had jumped the burly survey shuttle up into the air and Lacumaces looked for arrows walked into the soil.
Fairchild had covered an awful lot of ground today. It was almost like she was running away from them. What had gotten into that girl?
Twice, Lacumaces had found another arrow where he expected to find a downed pilot, so Rain had finally taken them up high enough that they could try to punch a radio signal through the noise.
Even a day later, that storm was serious business.
“Rain, I think I’ve got something,” Chike yelled over the noise of the hovering engines.
“Talk to me, Dr. O,” the pilot called back.
“Radio just went from nothing to something when we came over that last ridge,” Chike said.
Lacumaces would be listening on the internal comm, but Chike wasn’t about to call Ann–Marta until he was more sure. Better to have silence back at Beta than have to raise up all those hopes and dash them ten minutes later.
“Could be Fairchild,” Chike hoped out loud.
“Affirmative,” Rain called suddenly. “I’ve got her.”
“How?” Chike asked.
Rather than reply, Rain flipped a switch on his console and Chike was seeing the same thing the pilot had picked up: a vertical column of white fire against the darker, afternoon sky as someone fired an emergency flare.
That certainly looked like a sign of Elegua’s favor to him.
The engines changed pitch suddenly as Rain turned the craft on one wing and fell out of the sky.
“Ground Station Beta, this is Chike Odille, aboard Calypso–2,” he finally turned to the main comm and shared his good news. “We have a signal flare in the air. Transmitting coordinates and moving to rendezvous. Will keep you advised.”
“Thank you, Chike,” Ann–Marta came back instantly.
“Lacumaces,” Rain called on the internal comm as Chike listened. “Good news and bad news, mate.”
“Ruin my day first, youngster,” Lacumaces said with a laugh.
“This valley is too narrow, too twisty, and too overgrown for me to even consider landing a survey shuttle in it, in anything short of a total emergency,” Rain replied with a matching laugh.
“Gosh,” Lacumaces exclaimed sarcastically. “Whatever will we do?”
“No choice but to skydive in, old man,” the pilot teased.
“Probably a good thing I’m already wearing a parachute, then, isn’t it?”
“I’m going with you.”
The words were out of Chike’s mouth before his brain could stop them. Quiet. Clinical. Deliberate.
But spoken out loud. Committed. Adamantine.
Both of the other men stopped laughing in an instant.
“Uhm, doc?” Lacumaces began hesitantly. “Have you ever done a smoke jump into hostile terrain before?”
“I have never departed any vessel while it was in the air, Lacumaces,” Chike replied firmly. “Never sky–dived, free–glided, or parachuted. Doesn’t matter. I’m going with you.”
His tone would brook no nonsense, even as his soul quailed.
He was a geologist, not an adventurer. But it must be contagious, hanging around these people.
And this was the only way he could wash away all the guilt.
Be there to rescue her.
“Are you sure this is a good idea, Dr. O?” Rain joined in.
At least they were having this conversation on the internal comm, and not the radio Ann–Marta was monitoring.
She would overrule Chike in an instant. They all knew that.
“Rain, Lacumaces, I’m sure it is a terrible idea,” Chike fired back. “Nonetheless, Fairchild’s down there and I will be with you when you find her.”
Geologists also tended to absorb stubbornness from the bones of the big mountains they studied.
Geology was always a battle of wills with angry planets. Chike did not lose them. He would not lose this one.
A few moments of silence passed.
Chike chose to take it as a hopeful sign, rather than one or the other of the two men contacting Ann–Marta on a private channel.
“Doc, I need you down on the flight deck,” Lacumaces finally broke the silence. “We don’t have much time to get you into a reinforced suit. We’ll be jumping into brush with thorns. You need to be protected as best we can.”
Chike said a silent prayer of thanks to whatever gods looked out for geologists. Vulcan, at the least, but a whole host of others. He unbuckled himself and stood up, in spite of the turbulence Rain was generating as he got the shuttle to a high enough level for them to safely deploy their parachutes without the engines setting them on fire.
Downstairs, he found Lacumaces waiting, a shapeless lump of brown cloth in his hands and several packs on his chest and back, one of which was presumably a chute.
“Put this on,” Lacumaces commanded. “I’ll tighten everything up once we see how it fits.”
Chike found himself climbing into a jumpsuit that latched up the front and was covered in straps and ties.
It was too long in the legs and arms, but managed to mostly fit around his gut without too much pressure.
Lacumaces went over him like a mother sending her daughter to prom, pulling here, loosening there, folding arms and legs up and strapping them in place.
Within a minute, the outfit was comfortable.
Lacumaces put a helmet on him and pushed a button.
The system inflated against his bald scalp, clamped down around his ears, dropped a transparent faceshield down, and then inflated around his neck with a seal. A radio came live with static.
Lacumaces was wearing a similar helmet, but his looked more like the one Fairchild wore when she flew.
Next, the man strapped a pack around his hips and shoulders, resting the weight tightly against his shoulder blades. He pulled a bright red arming flag with a hard tug that nearly staggered Chike.
“This is designed for emergency evacuations, doc,” the man explained. “All you have to do now is throw yourself off the ramp. The system is smart enough to handle the rest. I’ll be right behind you.”
Right. Throw yourself out of a perfectly good Survey Shuttle at a few thousand meters elevation, and let the system gently waft you to ground.
Are you nuts?
Trick question. What the hell are you doing on that shuttle in the first place, old man? Rescuing princesses?
Lacumaces had moved to the rear ramp and pulled the lever that dep
loyed it to a flat stage.
Chike knew the next words out of his mouth would be “Are you ready?” so Chike just got a running start and threw himself into the sky.
Better to not think about it.
Six seconds of free fall and the suit took over, exploding upward and deploying itself like a morning flower greedily looking for dew.
Lacumaces was controlling his descent instead of relying on a computer, so he flew past Chike with a howl of joy audible over the short range radio in his helmet.
Probably the highlight of the man’s trip to Escudra VI, right there.
Chike was content to let the planet walk up at a leisurely rate. This was probably the craziest thing he had done since college.
No, grad school, but we won’t talk about that. The statute of limitations might not have worn off yet. And they were probably still bent out of shape, anyway.
But somewhere, Fairchild was down here.
He could finally say he was sorry.
Fairchild
There. That little black dot, low on the horizon, holding steady against the wind.
Calypso–2. Rain. Her knight in shining armor, come to rescue her.
Too bad he wasn’t primarily into girls. Otherwise she could think of a number of ways to reward him, and way better than just a kiss.
She would have to work hard enough this time.
Dani watched two smaller dots detach themselves from the shuttle’s shadow.
Smoke jumpers.
Probably Lacumaces and Andrea. Maybe Gavin.
At least Rain was smart enough to realize that trying to put Calypso–2 down in this valley was monumentally stupid.
She could do it, but she was crazier than Rain was. And a better pilot.
And it wasn’t necessary.
But at least she would have someone else to talk to now, besides Eleanor.
And she could go home alive.
A day in medlab, being fussed over by docs. Maybe plead the need for something really good to deal with trauma and stress, the sort of something that would have her floating on a cloud for a week while she got her shit together.
And then back to flying.
