Alien debt, p.11
Alien Debt, page 11
part #5 of The Long View Series
Her eyes widened; Ivan wondered what she saw. "Near asleep, when I heard the muttering. Not far oflF, but I couldn't hear words. Pointing the bone, though, they had to be. Their way of setting a curse; if they still have a claim on your mind, it kills you."
"But you'd rejected them. Is that it?"
"Thought I had. But I could still feel it on me. Lay there, and fought the death pushing at me. If they'd seen me and come, I couldn't have moved. But they didn't; a long time they chanted, and then went away. Gone in the morning-but their curse wasn't. All I could do to walk, early that day, but by noon I was mostly free. Then, only two days' walk without food, and the last with no water."
Her eyes came into focus; incredibly, she laughed. "And the Hulzein people taught me English and numbering, and about clothes and such, and there I was with the great luck to be in the right time at the right place, later, to come into space training."
His brows raised; she spoke quickly. "The point is, that what those aliens did to us-well, it felt of a muchness to what the old men did, when I lay under the sand. And if I fought it then-?"
Ivan looked up; the screen was still clear. "Then maybe you can resist the Tsa, better than most. All right; when there's time, you start learning how to fly this ship, and gunnery, too, I think."
Ellalee shook her head. "But I have no such training. I-"
"You're the one person aboard that the Tsa can't put out of control." The statement, Ivan realized, might be prematurely optimistic. All he really knew was that the Tsa hadn't done it yet.
Scout Two didn't answer-and the aircar hadn't returned. On sidescreen Ivan scanned toward the gully, and saw no wreckage. Impatient, starting to jitter, he wanted a drink or drugstick. Not now, though...
Then at the edge of the forest, two dots moved. "Anders!" Kobolak looked, also. "Ornaway and Limrner?"
"Let's hope so. They're a long way off, though."
Nothing to do but wait. Dacia came to report: one man had died of the Tsa attack, and two others were still too weak to function. Everyone else, she said, was recovering. "More or less. A few are still disoriented, but improving fast." Suddenly, she sobbed once. The second sound might have been a hiccough.
Giving her a quick, one-armed hug, Ivan turned to her brother. "Anders, have the dead man put in freeze. Not all the hookup; just for preservation. No time now for the courtesies; they'll have to wait. Not forever, though." As Anders relayed the order, Ivan looked back to the screen. Too far to recognize the approaching men, but the sizes were right. The Ornaway-sized one cradled one arm in the other. Well, until they reached the ship, no way to know what had happened.
"Look!" Anders pointed at the topside screen. One blip flashed across, while another drifted to a halt. "What-?"
Squinting, Ivan punched computer keys and had an answer. "Synchronous orbit, or close to it. Directly on top of us-or
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rather, on our meridian bat at the equator." His laugh, he knew, sounded more like a snarl. "They've set us a watchdog."
"And what else?"
"We'll have to wait and see."
What they saw, eventually, was Tsa ships going over at regular intervals, with less time between passes than the Deux would need to reach the watchdog ship. Ivan was still considering the situation when Oraaway and Limmer entered Control.
He said, "Welcome back. Glad you made it." Young Limmer had a bruised face and bloody nose, but he moved well enough. Ornaway, though, still cradled one arm in his other hand, and his pale face held taut with pain. Ivan went to him. "Sit down. What happened?"
Ornaway sat. "If it was the Tsa thing, then you know how it hit us. All I've got here is a busted collarbone. Arlen was awake more than I was; let him tell it."
Arlen Limmer swallowed once. "Lucky, compared to what could have been. Haskell sat the scout down with barely a mark on the trees. I landed beside, and he got into the aircar and I lifted. Then-" His face convulsed into lines of pain.
"Then," said Ivan, "the Tsa ships came, and something clawed in your head so you couldn't hold onto a spoon if you were starving to death! That about right?" Limmer nodded. "Don't fret; we all got it, and at least you lived. One man, here, didn't. All right, Arlen; then what?"
Again the young man made a gulping sound. "I'd lifted out of the gully fast, the way you said to, and was slanting over the ridge, when it hit." If ever a face showed incomprehension, Limmer's did. "I don't know. Everything hurt and I couldn't see right. Tried to gun the car topside where at least we wouldn't hit anything, but my hands went numb; I couldn't feel what I was doing." For a moment he put his face into those hands, then looked up again. "The car spun out on me and we crashed. Upside down, I think, but we could have rolled, afterward, to get that way. Hask was thrown out ,of his seat; harness failed, maybe." The boy shook his head. "I don't think I was ever knocked out all the way. But for a long time I couldn't break past the pain and move. When I could, I climbed down to Hask. He was awake by then, but I was shaking too bad to try to set the fracture; all the way here, walking, he just had to hold it." The voice was plaintive. "We did the best we could."
Ivan nodded. "No blame; you did well, both of you." He
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looked to where Jeremy Crowfoot was tending Ornaway's shoulder. "Congratulations, in fact."
"But the aircar's a total loss." Sullen, the boy sounded.
Shrugging off irritation, Ivan said, "Aircars we can spare; people, we can't. You had some luck and I'm glad you did. Now, are your guts unchurned enough, you can eat something? I expect you need to. So why don't you hit the galley?"
He nudged Dacia; she moved to escort the two men. Nursing, Ivan Marchant reflected, wasn't his best skill. Or even close.
With no word from Tregare, mid-afternoon came and passed. Ivan assigned Jeremy Crowfoot as ad-hoc watch officer and called an executive session. "Captain's quarters; my place is too small." He watched everyone's reactions. Anders didn't protest, and no one else seemed concerned. All right.
As soon as the group assembled, Ivan began. "We don't know what's happened with Tregare. If he ever got Scout One high enough for line-of-sight, I expect he'd have called. Or answered-we've had a call-tape on his frequencies, and no response. So it looks as if we're on our own."
Half standing, Alina Rostadt raised a hand. "Ivan-you're not writing Tregare off yet, are you? And Rissa?"
Because he liked the woman, he didn't shout. "Course not. But unless we hear from them, we have to be ready to act, all by ourselves. I hope there's no need for that." His gaze scanned the room. "Now does anybody have a really good idea, here?"
Silence; then Dacia said, "There aren't any. Except to wait."
No one contradicted her. Ivan smacked one fist into his other palm. "Then let's do the waiting up in Control. I've been too long away from there." Going upship, his pace ran him short of breath.
In Control the screens showed him nothing new. The watchdog still sat in synchronous orbit; another Tsa ship crossed below it. He turned to Crowfoot. "The pattern still holding?"
The man nodded. "No change. I'd have called you."
"Right. And thanks." Crowfoot moved over; Ivan took the primary control seat. Again he checked the scout's frequencies; a coded tape was sending, and no response came. He bit his lip, and told himself once more that worry wasn't going to help anything.
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Dacia's cry brought his attention back to the screen. "The synchronous ship. It's moving!"
Squinting, Ivan tried to evaluate the blip's drift. Outside, day neared to dusk, but the screen was not affected. Checking his chronometer, Ivan estimated the next pass of the Tsa orbital patrol. Soon. And coming down, maybe? It came into view, and he was right. "Dacia! Get everybody in the cocoons, for acceleration. Anders, first bring out my gee-suit; if I have to fly this kite out through the roof, it might be kind of nice to survive." Babbling. Ivan shook his head. He checked the screen; as yet, the ships' approach was slow.
Dacia said, "I have Alina and Ellalee propping the cocoons."
"Good." But what if-? Ivan changed his mind. "Make it full plug-ins, all around."
"For freeze?"
"Just in case, Dacia. All the options." He saw her shrug and turn away, and wished his hunch were solid enough to explain.
After she helped him with the gee-suit, she went below. Still tasting her kiss, Ivan strapped solidly into the main control seat and watched the Tsa ships descend. He waited.
No place to go but up; the only questions were how and when. In the control room Ivan sat alone; everyone else was below, being tucked into an acceleration/freeze cocoon or else doing the tucking. Eventually Dacia called. "All secured but me; give me three minutes." He acknowledged, and waited that time out, and a little more.
More comfortable than he had expected, still the gee-suit hampered movement and vision; he really didn't like it much, though he was grateful for Dacia's help in adjusting it. At the moment, though, he felt more lonely than grateful. Once more he tried to call Tregare, and again got no response.
On screen the Tsa ships still came. Ivan gave a ragged sigh. He could do it or he couldn't, and either way, the time was now. His voice said, "I got Ozzie Newhausen, didn't I?" But the saying gave no comfort; that crisis was long past and not the same. "Rissa?" he murmured. "This time we can't say goodbye."
Left hand on his centralized gunnery hookup, Ivan used his right to put the Deux into liftoff. Not at the normal red-line limit. Not this time. At full-out max, the Deux went up.
Even in the gee-suit, pressure had him close to blackout. He couldn't risk it; his too-heavy hand cut the power back a notch,
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then another. For if he had to turn ship, he'd need some margin.
More awake now, he noticed something eise-Inconnu Deux, the whole mass of it, was rasping with vibration. Should he cut power further? No; he shook his head. Or tried to; his neck didn't seem to care for the idea. But plowing air under this kind of accel, he decided, would make any ship shake your teeth loose.
Above, coming nearly on a head-to-head course, the Tsa watchdog ship was closing. From the side, slanting, faster but not yet so near, came the other one. Ivan's jaw clenched; for the first ship his projector range would be right, within seconds now. Turning the Deux directly toward it, he fired a missile-and wasn't surprised when the Tsa projectors picked it off at a safe distance. Then, all seven turrets aimed line-of-flight, he set heterodyne for peak heat, and fired.
Two seconds, three, he held the switch down-and in the suddenly black sky the Tsa ship bloomed like fireworks. Out of atmosphere now! Switch off, he swung ship to miss the wreckage. One down...
Then the pain licked at him, ebbed and came again-worse than back on groundside! One last, pre-planned order his muscles executed; the last thing he felt, that was not pain, was the power lever moving to its final notch.
When he could next see and move, Ivan eased the power back. Three notches-but even out of atmosphere, the Deux still shook. He checked the chronometer; this time he'd blacked out for less than two minutes. Extra accel got him out of range fast? Must be. His rear screen showed the other ship following, but losing ground. The planet looked larger than he would have expected by now, but as he watched, it shrank visibly in perspective.
He wasn't home free. The Tsa had three other ships-and sure enough, here came two of them. One from either side, higher than on their patrol beats and with better speed, too.
Automatically he shook his head again. His neck allowed it, this time, but he paid in stabbing ache. No time to coddle himself-the trick was, don't let both those ships near him at once, if he could help it. Gauging distance, he upped power a notch and turned Inconnu Deux toward the nearest Tsa, to pass behind it. But as he expected, it slowed and began to turn, also. "All right, you brainburners! Let's see you figure this move."
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He adjusted his projectors' heterodyne; the three seconds of firing would have drifted it some. On the controls he separated the six peripheral turrets from the central one, and set them for coordinated traverse within their mutual limits.
Still outside effective range, Ivan put his central turret on continuous fire, fishtailing the Deux to flick the beam toward the Tsa ship and then away again, so he could menace it while still holding course to clear it safely. Meanwhile he tried another missile. He didn't expect a hit and didn't get one, but a little confusion couldn't hurt.
He was wasting heterodyne but he didn't care; the Tsa wouldn't know his beam had lost peak heat capacity, and they'd think-well, with luck, rnaybe what he hoped they'd think.
Range closing-so before their weapon could reach him, make the move. Grinning, snarling, at the first touch of pain Ivan screamed like a banshee-not from hurt, but a war cry. Holding course to pass the Tsa ship at one side, he cut the central projector, fired the other six and traversed them to meet that ship.
Twice it bloomed fire-first the air of it and then, a greater burst, the ship's drive. Concentrating now, to get the Deux safely past the molten debris, Ivan lost track of his other foe. When the pain struck, it broke his barriers totally. He needed full-max accel but couldn't see the switch, or feel what his hands did. He willed to do it right, and now he screamed because he couldn't stop. Finally he didn't hear it any more.
Ivan woke to agony and darkness. For a time he lay back, first merely trying to stay conscious, then working through the exercises of breathing and nervous system, that he had learned at Erika Hulzein's. And when he could stop groaning, then he could think.
The lights out? Even the emergency backups, and the control panel indicators? But with no power at all, the air wouldn't circulate. And certainly the vessel wouldn't be vibrating to the high acceleration that held him flat.
With great effort he reached to feel over the control panel, seeking by touch to get some clues to the ship's condition. With care, identifying each switch before he moved it, he began a slow, halting checkout procedure. At first he didn't learn much.
He hadn't managed full-max accel; that lever still sat three notches back. No need, now, to spend fuel at such a rate; gently
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he notched back until he heard the "sping" of the red-line clip, then backed off two more, just for luck.
He touched a switch and, for a moment, couldn't recall its function. Then the memory came; it was an added frill that was seldom used, though it had seemed like a good idea in theory. But right now he could use it-he pressed, and a voice-tape from the ship's chronometer announced the current date-time group.
Nearly three days, I was out! Two thoughts came, then. One, it was a flaming miracle he hadn't fouled himself with excrement; that one set him to clawing free of the gee-suit and then feeling his way to the nearest latrine. His relief was considerable. While he sat, the protoplasmic computer in his mind considered the other idea, taking time and acceleration, and rendering them to him in terms of velocity and distance. When he had the figures, he whistled. In the small booth, the sound rang.
"At that accel we passed light in hours, not days." In the darkness, speaking aloud made him feel less lonely. "We must be-" He shook his head; the movement sent dim green glows across the black of his vision. For seconds he thought the backup lights had flickered, then realized the phenomenon was internal.
He went, slowly and sometimes bumping into things, back to his control seat. Now he ignored switches that gave only visual response. Memory clearing faster now, he found the detector indicators; as expected, the sub-light instruments gave no bleeps. He tried the gravities, and the gentle sounds told him there were stars out there, all right-and none dangerously close. So the Deux was well above C. How far above? Since there was no way to get audible confirmation of his own guess, he'd have to stand on it, as is.
Tregare's plan-to go a week maybe, before cutting Hoyfarul Drive and starting turnaround-should he stay with it, now? Ivan scratched his head. Maybe, for this, he needed to talk with someone.
He fumbled at the controls for the acceleration cocoons; when he found them, he paused. This one? Something was wrong-or was it? He thought again, and was certain. He knew that under Tsa attack he'd failed to get accel up to full-max. And what his hand had done, instead-that switch had put the whole snip's force into freeze!
He was halfway downship-and still without lights-before he wondered what he was going to dp, anyway. He knew
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resuscitation procedures, of course; all officers did. But in the dark? He stopped, holding the railing for balance, and thought, "Three days. A little less, really. Just turning the thing off, waiting for the signal and opening the cocoon, should do it." If I'm lucky.
Inside the compartment, feeling his way among the cocoon positions, he had to face the next question. Who? Since he knew the assigned location of only one person, he had two choices. Someone at random-or Dacia. How bad is the risk? I wish I knew.
