Mindship v1 0, p.12
Mindship (v1.0), page 12
He turned back to help the other members of the team unpack the survey craft they’d need to explore this section of the planet. It was part of the Company’s charter with the Federation Colonial Office that occasional explorations of new planets be made by the psi traders—this was one of those occasions. Kilgarin welcomed the break from the ship routine.
Marka finished opening a plastisteel crating box and limped over to stand near him. “Are you sure you don’t mind if I come with you?” she asked him. “Cook said it could be dangerous for the two of us, if you don’t—”
“Cook likes to worry,” Kilgarin said. “It makes him feel involved.”
“But…will it be dangerous, Killy?”
“Teaming up is standard practice, Marka. All of the other Sensitives coming along will have a Physical with them. Ryork’s bringing that hydroponics’ man, Kerwin, on top of her own pet. Ty’ger’s with Luanne. You’re with me. It’s best, that way. And don’t be afraid I won’t be able to keep you in contact—what happened on Rylon is over.”
“But Cook says if there’s any doubt, we—”
“There isn’t any doubt, Marka.”
She broke off what she’d begun to say and looked at him, oddly. Kilgarin glanced away. After a moment she went back to unpacking the crate.
Kilgarin wondered if the Cook was right, if he wasn’t using this teaming as a test of his trust in Marka, and her trust in him. Something had changed in their relationship since Rylon, despite what reassurances he’d made to her; he was less certain of her, knowing that she was falling into a dependence on him, and perhaps, he thought, this was his way of testing her will. He hoped not, because if the Cook was right, and he didn’t commit to the contact—the results would be disastrous.
A new voice brought him back to awareness. It was the Captain. The older man was directing most of the landing party back to the ship under the orders of the Cook. Kilgarin smiled at the thought that the small gray man had become the First Mate of the ship, effectively—contrary to Company regulations, which forbade any Sensitive to act in the administration of a mindship. Kilgarin found it amusing—and puzzling. It reminded him that the Captain’s motives were still a mystery to him, more now than before, as he learned about the man. Perhaps on this survey, Kilgarin thought, he’d leam just a little bit more…“Fellow Kilgarin, are you going to accompany us?” Kilgarin faced about. “Whenever you’re ready, Captain.”
“Good. I want you to ride in the first car with Wells and me. Ryork and Ty’ger will follow in the second car, with their respective partners.” The Captain raised his eyes to the sun. which was bulging over the mountain range to the east, large and sweltering red in the emerald sky.
“This ionics like a fairly unextraordinary world.” he said. “We shouldn’t have any difficulty carrying out a reasonable survey over the next two days. We’ll head north, then cut across the tundra to the western sea.”
He held up a clipboard and keyed the miniature screen. Aerial photographs flickered across the face of the board, showing a jagged coastline, the white glare of snow, a dark patch Kilgarin guessed was forest. “The computer indicates a probability of heavy metal isotopes here”—the picture shifted, showed a glacier and a hillside of barren stone—“and here. Our survey will concentrate on the more likely of the two spots, in this forest some two hundred miles to the northwest.”
Ryork asked a question about the weather, which the Captain answered in detail. Kilgarin wandered away, found Marka pulling on an overjacket that she’d taken from her pack, open on the ground before her. The other crew members were moving past, back up the ramp and into the mindship.
“You ever go on a survey before?” Kilgarin asked her.
“I had a Contract for five years,” she answered.
“That doesn’t mean anything.”
“I’ve been down once,” she said, angrily, turning to snap at him. “One time, and that’s when I shattered this.” She gestured at her booted foot. “Does that satisfy you?”
“Let’s get ourselves settled in the skimmer,” Kilgarin said.
He couldn’t read the Captain. The man’s mind was as closed to him as ever.
It was as though a wall had been erected between them, so carefully mortared no sound could penetrate, so thick no vibration could move from one side to the other. Kilgarin pried at that wall for several hours during the journey north; the palms of his hands became wet with sweat and he began trembling under the pressures working within him—not so badly that Marka, sitting next to him, would notice, but badly enough that if the trembling had grown worse, she would have.
Other thoughts came to him clearly as he worked at the Captain’s mind: he could hear the deep mental echo of Wells’s ruminations, the smoldering whisper of Marka’s brooding—but from the Captain, nothing. He broke off finally and slumped against the neck and shoulder brace of the rear seat in the four-man skimmer; he almost passed Out once the pressure he’d been inflicting on himself was released. He lay there, eyes closed, breathing deeply, and when they came, his dreams were troubled.
“Something’s moving down there. Captain.” Wells pointed through the windscreen that curved down to meet the floor of the skimmer. “See it?”
The Captain grunted something in reply. The skimmer tilted and arced toward the stretch of white-and-gray hillside Wells had indicated.
“There, Captain.” Marka said. Her hand went past Wells’s shoulder. “It just ducked behind those boulders.”
“I see it,” the Captain said. “Wells, contact Ryork. Tell her we’re heading down, and tell her where we are. I think we’ve just spotted our dinner.”
Kilgarin leaned forward to peer past the Engineer’s bulky shoulder. Below, the snow-covered plain drifted into the foothills of a ridge of glacial mountains, sparkling in the noon sunlight. The skimmer was moving in a slow circle over a grouping of crystalline rocks midway up the hillside, dropping lower with each pass. Kilgarin tried to find the object of everyone’s interest, but could see nothing in the glare of the snow. “What is it?”
“An animal,” Marka said. “Weren’t you watching?”
“I was asleep,” Kilgarin said.
“There it is again.” Wells shouted. Kilgarin jerked his head around and followed the Engineer’s jabbing finger. Against the white, something black darted. It had no definite shape—none that Kilgarin could make out—but it moved like something alive. As be watched, Kilgarin saw it jump behind a crag, appear on the other side, make a short hop to another rock, and vanish once more.
“You think we should try to capture that thing, Captain?”
“Not capture, Kilgarin. We’re going to kill it.”
“But why? We don’t know if it’s edible—it might turn out to be poison—”
“That’s what our survey lab is for, Kilgarin.”
“Yes, Captain,” said Kilgarin. He braced himself as the skimmer tilted into a shallow dive. There was a moment of vertigo, a sense of weightlessness, and then the floor moved up against his buttocks, the brace against his neck, the skimmer skidded, jerked, and stopped. They were down.
“Fellow Oberon,” the Captain said to Marka, “will you pass forward the weapons?”
She complied, and the Captain distributed the hand weapons to Wells and Kilgarin. He gave the light rifle to Marka, first flipping the safety into the off position. “Just aim that weapon in the general direction of what you’re shooting, press that stub—there, by your thumb—and the rifle’s finder will do the rest. You know how to work your handgun, Kilgarin?”
“Yes, Captain.”
“Good. It’s a bit cold out, so I suggest we activate our climate suits before leaving the skimmer. Ready? Wells, will you lead?”
The Engineer pushed the windscreen up and back over the roof of the skimmer and dropped through the opening to the ground a meter below. The others followed, the pink crust of snow crunching under their feet as they moved away from the skimmer, toward the cluster of rocks farther upslope. The Captain passed Wells and struck out at an angle to the others, circling around the crystal boulder they’d seen the creature duck behind. He moved lithely, his thin frame graceful even under the heavy material of the climate suit. Kilgarin studied him with a grudging admiration; the Captain seemed completely at ease, totally in control of himself and the situation. It was a trait Kilgarin recognized was sometimes lacking in himself. There was no doubt about it: the Captain was an extremely competent man.
A shadow shifted on the far side of the boulder, above the Captain’s cowled head. Kilgarin saw it, brought his handgun up—
Before he could fire, the creature leaped.
Wells spun around at the same instant and the Captain realized the animal was attacking him. The two men moved in uncanny coordination, the Captain dropping flat against the hillside as Wells fired in a swinging arc that swept the beam of his weapon through the space occupied by the attacking creature an instant before. The beam intersected the creature’s flight, struck the animal squarely in the center of its pitch-black form.
Nothing happened.
The creature landed, rolled, came back to its feet (feet? Kilgarin realized he’d been thinking in human terms; the creature had no feet—not as such), and sprang.
Wells staggered at the weight of the beast as it slammed into the Captain. Kilgarin recognized the symptoms. “Get out of his mind,” he called to the Engineer. “You can’t help him like that—get out of the Captain’s mind!”
His mind. Abruptly Kilgarin stopped in his forward motion. Wells had entered the Captain’s brain, had managed a symbiosis, a mindlink with—at least—the Captain’s consciousness. It was impossible—and yet obviously it had happened. But how? And how deeply had Wells gone? Kilgarin pulled himself out of his sudden reverie. It didn’t matter at the moment; if the Captain died, Kilgarin would never, know the full answer to that, or any other question. He ran forward again, Marka at his side, moving around the boulder to get into position to use his hand gun.
And be staggered, caught in a mental web.
Beside him, Marka stopped also. The two of them stood paralyzed, staring at the struggling forms in the snowbank above them.
Marka…
Marka, l can’t.…
Marka, I can’t move—
“What’s happening?” she asked, frightened. “What’s wrong with me?”
’ You’re holding me back.
Your mind is holding me back, Marka.
Marka, let me free.
“Killy, my arms won’t work—Killy, “I’m afraid. I can’t—”
Above them the Captain braced his legs against the chest of the beast and shoved. Snow sprayed as the creature heaved backward, skidding downslope. Kilgarin saw that the animal was covered entirely with black fur, save for a gray patch on its “underside” that quivered as the creature tried to regain its balance. The Captain straightened and dove for his handgun in a single motion, hitting the hillside with his shoulder, grabbing np the handgun and turning, all in one continuous action. A beam of stark brilliance shot out of the weapon, poked hard into the belly of the creature, into the center of its wiggling gray area. There was a wet hiss, a curl of dark smoke, and a stench of burning flesh.
’ The animal stopped moving almost at once, though the Captain held the beam on it for half a minute, cooking the tender gray area until it was charred as black as the rest of the beast. The stench worsened.
“Well, Fellows,” the Captain said finally, dropping his gun to his side, “I hope you like well-cooked meat.”
Wells laughed. Kilgarin, finding himself free of the mind-web that had held him motionless, turned to Marka and said, “Cook was right. It doesn’t work for the two of us. I don’t think it ever will.”
He walked away from them, leaving the Captain and Wells bent over the smoking, animal, discussing what to do with its remains. He returned to the skimmer. He was tired and slightly ashamed. But more importantly…he wanted very much to think.
A sign on the wall of the prefab shed proclaimed that the colony. Tysos’s Bluff, had a population of 24,058 and a Gross Planetary Income of some 34 million Company Credits. Below, in finer print, the sign gave the details of the planetary economy: percentage of unpaid Company loans, and so on. Kilgarin read it all, and when he was finished, he read it all again. The wall clock beside the sign gave the time as 1632; the temperature outside the shed, according to the information screen under the clock, was a mild 12.6 degrees centigrade; and the wind, from the southwest, at 2 kph. Kilgarin glanced around the shed. He returned his attention to the sign. He read it once more. He looked around. He could hear voices coming from behind one of the closed doors. The door opened; Raymond stepped out. Kilgarin walked over to meet him. The wall clock now read 1651.
“Trouble?” Kilgarin asked the Physical. Raymond shook bis head.
“They’re touchy, but I finally convinced them I’m not a Company spy. Ty’ger’s in there now. They’re giving him a really hard time. They don’t like Sensitives in the Out-worlds, do they?”
“Not much,” Kilgarin admitted. He studied Raymond thoughtfully. “Do you mind if Ty’ger comes with us?”
“He’s your friend. Killy. It’s up to you.”
“Give him a chance, Ray. He’s touchy too, you know. It isn’t easy being a Sensitive in the first place, and when you—”
“I know. You told me. That still doesn’t excuse what he tried to do to J’kar.” He eyed Kilgarin. “Or why you’re so friendly with him. J’kar’s your friend too, you know.”
“I know what I’m doing, Raymond. I need both of you.”
“Just be sure he doesn’t come too near me. Pm not as sophisticated as he is; he can tear me apart with a word. But if he tries to touch me, just once—I’ll hurt him. I’ll really try to hurt him.”
“Take it easy.” Kilgarin surveyed the younger man; some of the fat had been worn away in the past weeks, but Raymond was still too heavy. He wasn’t as much of a threat as he wanted to be—but he was enough of one. “We only have a few hours while the ship’s unloading the material from that world we visited. I want to take care of our business here as quickly as possible—and with as little trouble as we can manage.”
“Don’t worry. I won’t start anything. I owe you that much, at least—for getting me back on a ship, for making me feel like—well. I owe you.”
“You don’t owe me anything, Raymond,” Kilgarin said. He looked past the young man’s shoulder, smiled. “Here’s Ty’ger now.”
During the week it must have served as a general products store, but on the weekend and in the evenings, stools were placed along the outside of the counter and a few tables were set in the middle of the dusty floor. There were perhaps thirty men in the makeshift bar when Kilgarin and the others entered; most of them were drinking a thick black beer popular in the Outworlds because of its availability and price. The few drinkers who favored wine or absinthe were obviously city employees. The rest were farmers, proud in the battered clothes and ill-kept beards.
Kilgarin and Ty’ger were conspicuous in their Sensitive blues, made more obvious by Raymond’s sober Physical grays. The three men found a spot at the counter, aware of the eyes of the colonists on them as they ordered beer with absinthe from a sour-faced bartender. As he handed them their beers and accepted their credit chits, the bartender asked in a low, urgent voice, “What are you Fellows doing here? Trying to get yourselves mashed? If you’re looking for a run, you’ve found it, you know.”
Kilgarin shook his head. “We just want a beer, friend. That’s all.”
The bartender shrugged and turned away. “Trouble?” Raymond asked.
“You wouldn’t want to know, boy,” Ty’ger told him.
“You feel something?” Kilgarin asked the Centaurian; the other man nodded, his jaws taut with tension. Raymond glanced from one to the other, his features registering concern.
“Maybe we’d better get out of here,” he said. Kilgarin sipped at his beer, shaking his head.
“I don’t think it’s directed at us,” the Cork said calmly. “I scanned this place before we came in. There’s tension, all right, but we aren’t part of it. Not directly.”
“We could have gotten drunk on board the Charter,
Kigarin, if that’s what you brought us here for,” Ty’ger said.
Kilgarin sighed. He pushed his empty mug across the counter to the bartender, who refilled it, expressionlessly. “You’ve known the Captain for quite a while, haven’t you, Ty’ger?”
“I know what you’re thinking, Kilgarin, and yes, he’s had that mindblock for as long as I’ve known him. It never seemed important to me—not an aggressive thing, you know. Something passive.”
Kilgarin digested this, turned to Raymond. “What’s your opinion of the Captain?”
“He’s the Captain. What else should I think about him?”
“He doesn’t seem odd to you?”
“I haven’t known many ship’s officers, Kilgarin. How is he supposed to be odd?”
The Cork shook his head. He drank a bit of his beer. “I can’t explain it if you haven’t noticed it,” he said.
“Is this why you asked us out here, to talk about the Captain?”
“That’s right, Raymond. I was afraid he’d hear us if we’d talked aboard the ship.”
“You don’t mean that, do you, Killy?” Raymond stared at him, a half-smile playing at his lips.
“I’m not joking,” Kilgarin said. “I don’t pretend he’s listening to us in our cabins, nothing like that. But he has spies. Or at least someone in the crew who’s close to him, and who’s helped him erect that mindblock.”
Ty’ger’s forehead creased. “You’re serious, aren’t you? You think Wells is responsible for the Captain’s block.”
Kilgarin nodded, and Raymond almost choked on his beer. “The Engineer? Buy why? I don’t understand, Kilgarin—why would the Engineer do something like that to the Captain?”
