Genellan: Planetfall

by Скотт Г. Джир

  "Shannon, get that.. raft back on the lake!" she ordered. "Commander Quinn is out there! I'm not leaving until…we find…." She fainted.

  "Wrap her in blankets and take her to the cave!" Lee snapped as she pounded on Rhodes's chest, swearing through gritted teeth.

  With Buccari unconscious and wrapped in blankets, Jones and several others headed off at a trot. Shannon and Tatum pushed the raft back out on the lake. They were moving from shore when Fenstermacher's howl brought everyone to a halt. Fenstermacher pointed into the darkness of the rain-beaten lake, where something was surfacing. All flashlights swung to bear on the dripping shape, the streaming rain attenuating the light beams. Chest deep in water, it was man-shaped but larger; two massive arms moved weakly at its sides. It stumbled, unable to support its own weight. It fell and then tried to stand, its arms beckoning.

  "It's Commander Quinn! He's in an EVA suit!" Hudson shouted. Rescuers ran splashing to the commander's wallowing form. Water streamed from the spacesuit as it was hauled up the rocky beach. Shannon shouldered his way into the crowd as the commander's suit seal let go with an audible hiss. Quinn's tired face peered out into the flashlights, ghostly pale and soaking from his own perspiration.

  "You okay, Commander?" Shannon asked, stepping into the jerky ring of beams.

  "Felt better, Sergeant," Quinn gasped. "What. Buccari and Rhodes?"

  "Lieutenant Buccari's all right, Commander," Shannon replied. "She's been taken back to the cave. Lee is working on Mr. Rhodes down the shore."

  "Doesn't look good for Virgil, Commander," Chief Wilson said, his voice catching. "He got tangled in his shroud lines."

  "Lee says he had a stroke, Commander. He bought it," Hudson added somberly.

  Quinn sat there and nodded his head, slowly.

  "Check and mate," he said softly, a eulogy.

  SECTION TWO — SOCIETIES

  Chapter 12. Second Planet from the Star—Kon

  "Can you be sure?" thundered the blue-robed giant as he reared onto elephantine hinds, straining against the iron chains of gravity. Jook the First, Emperor-General of the Northern Hegemony, was famous for his prodigious strength, infamous for his intolerance, and notorious for his ruthless disregard for life.

  "Begging forgiveness, Supreme Leader, I cannot," Scientist Director Moth whimpered. The astronomer's anxiety glands burped yet again, audibly this time. Moth could smell his own fear-scent rising in clouds. He stared at the floor, his broad-nosed, pebbly-skinned image reflected in polished onyx, his muddy brown eyes wide with terror under painfully rigid brow tuffs. Why had he been so rash?

  "Could it have been but a clever ruse?" Jook asked, dropping back into his hydrostasis throne. The ruler's ponderous form moved leadenly, searching for comfort on the midnight-blue pneumopillows. "Their communication signals could have been made deceptively simple for the very purpose of making us curious."

  "Yes, Exalted One," Moth replied, trying desperately to anticipate correct answers. Surely his career, if not his life, was in the balance. "Communication signals were of remedial simplicity. I tendered the hypothesis of peaceful contact because of the nature of the intercepts. Simple patterns and numerics, music, geometrical formulae would all be typical of such an attempt, Exalted One." Moth displayed his most obsequious posture and awaited his fate, a trembling mountain of misery alone on the center of the imperial court.

  "General Gorruk, your opinion," the Supreme Leader barked at a stern visage sitting on a lower level of the black marble throne. Gorruk, commander of the imperial armies, clad in belted khaki with red trim, lifted his gigantic body erect. Gorruk, easily three times the mass of a human being, was even larger than the Supreme Leader. On his epaulets sparkled the silver starbursts of the Planetary Defense Command. Moth was amazed at the time the barrel-chested, slab-faced general took to formulate his response. Such blatant hubris.

  "I think," General Gorruk rumbled, luxuriant black brow tufts stiffening and vibrating with concentration, "that this is a waste of the emperor's time. It is transparent. The invaders were closing on our planet to attack, as they did during the reign of Ollant. Trickery."

  Gorruk stood over Moth; the prone scientist sensed the general's pulsating body heat and smelled his irritation. Moth clinched shut his eyes and pressed his forehead to the floor.

  "Why?" Gorruk queried. "Why does this worthless heap of intellectual offal pretend to your precious attention? The Supreme Leader has greater concerns. Our race is saved from another invasion, the enemy routed, chased from our system—again! Planetary Defense Command, with overwhelming assistance from the Northern Hegemony's strategic rockets, vanquished the intruders. What more news can this worm provide? You, Supreme Leader, taking advice from a petty bureaucrat, a so-called scientist. A sniveling coward. Smell him! Why is he even here?"

  "Because I directed him to appear, General!" Jook growled darkly.

  "Yes," Gorruk sneered. "Only remember your solemn vows to—"

  "General Gorruk!" Jook roared, bolting upright. "Remind me not of the Vows of Protection! We shall never be surprised again!" "You! Scientist!" Gorruk shouted, adroitly changing the point of attack. Gorruk, a behemoth among behemoths, always attacked. "Yes, great general," Moth said tremulously.

  "How?" Gorruk asked, hot poison in his voice. "How is it that our enemies fly to our solar system at will, and we are unable to leave? They have come again, penetrated our planetary system, from somewhere, somewhere out in the deep universe. They bridge the distances. Why is that? What physics do they have that we do not?"

  Moth remained silent, too frightened to speak.

  "Speak you, worm!" General Gorruk screamed at the prostrate figure.

  Moth raised his face. "I beg mercy, General. I am but an astronomer. It is not for me to speak about things I know not."

  "General Gorruk!" Jook commanded. "Return to your court station. You are aggravatingly correct. We will never again permit alien battle forces to attack first. But that is not the issue." The ruler glared down at his general officer. Gorruk stood tall, immobile, resolute.

  "Kneel, Gorruk!" Jook bellowed, veins bulging across temples and thick neck, brow tufts fanning apart. "These are my chambers. Down, Gorruk. Now!" A harbinger of doom, the sour odor of imperial anger wafted across the court. The palace guard shifted nervously. Hulking forms, blasters ready, moved inward from shadowed alcoves.

  Gorruk, in slow motion, momentarily leaned his bulk onto callused hands and padded forearms in subservience, his own anger-scent commingling dangerously with that of the emperor. Rising from the bow, and remaining naturally on all fours, he marched back to his position.

  Air circulators hummed into high-volume mode.

  "With utmost respect, Great Leader," interjected another court official, a slighter figure robed in brilliant, black-trimmed white. It was the delicate, golden-skinned noblekone, Et Kalass, Minister of Internal Affairs, standing easily to his hinds. "I must agree with our courageous commanding general," he said, his voice soothing and calm. "The aliens, regardless of intent, have been repulsed. Let us focus on the all too familiar problems of government."

  The minister signaled with a languid wave. Moth felt a slight tug on his cloak and then a sharper one. The scientist turned to see an attendant of the chamber motioning for him to follow, which he gladly did, crawling on all fours, as even the exalted general had finally done. Clear of the chambers, the blue-liveried attendant turned and addressed Moth with condescension. "Minister Et Kalass is interested. You will be contacted on the morrow."

  Moth watched the attendant lumber away, his gravity-distended belly dusting the floor. The scientist was awestruck to be in the imperial palace, but he was even more anxious to return to his normal milieu. A crawling lackey provided escort down the crystal hall and through the low-domed, thickly columned rotunda,where a pantheon of prior emperor-generals, many removed from power in small pieces, stared down with malevolent glares from gilded frames. A bronze of Jook I stood atop a pedestal in the center
of the sunburst emblazoned chamber floor.

  They passed security positions, weaving through magnetic field detectors, chemical sniffers, and ultra-sonic inspection cages, where heavily armed guards monitored information consoles. Once through the rotunda his escort departed, and Moth continued on all fours through the heavily buttressed entryway and down the parade ramp. He crossed Imperial Square, circumventing the gardens, and trundled out the intensely guarded front gate, joining the murmuring crowds of crawling kones moving thickly along the cracked sidewalks of the wide avenue. Work shifts were changing, and the faces of the milling workers and laborers—trods—ranged from sullen to stoic. Moth was relieved to be out of the tense environment, even if it meant having to mingle with mobs of tight-jawed proles.

  It was an unusual day, cloudless, the air clearer than usual. Even the smooth hills rimming the capital to the south and west were visible—if just barely—adding vertical dimension to the squat skyline of the capital. An adobe-colored ocean to the northeast disappeared into thick smog, revealing no horizons. Overhead a haze ring encircled the low mid-day sun, the sky a peaceful cream color with tints of yellow and rust. Victory Tower, five times higher than any other municipal structure, jutted dimly into the sky, a vague stiletto pointing at the bright bull's-eye of the sun.

  Very pretty, thought Moth, ambling along at an uneasy canter, jostled frequently by the passing multitudes. He made a direct path to the transit tube and stood in line at the identification gates. It took only fifteen minutes to get onto the boarding platforms—over half the gates were working. It took twice that long to catch a car; the first two trains to pass were appropriated by the Public Safety Militia and did not stop, their long cars whisking through the station, helmets and weapons discernible in the blurring movement.

  An hour later he debarked at an outpost where the station master recognized him and called for transportation. Minutes later Director Moth trotted through the main entrance of the Imperial Astronomical Institute and was once again an important kone.

  "I hope it went well, Director," said Scientist Dowornobb, his prodigious and brilliant young assistant, an astrophysicist as well as an accomplished astronomer. Together they crawled toward the administrative offices, passing the commodious operations center. Director Moth noted with satisfaction the programmers gawking as he went by. Some of the females were so brazen as to lift their eyes. He would have to crack down on such behavior, but for now he enjoyed the rare fame associated with being called before the Supreme Leader—and living to tell about it.

  "Quite well," Moth replied arrogantly. "Have you finished the trajectory mapping? I am told we may have to provide additional information as soon as tomorrow." The director crawled into his suite of offices, going to the terminal to read his mail. Dowornobb followed, making silly faces.

  "The mapping is finished, Director, but the results are indeterminate," Dowornobb answered, recoiling in mock anticipation of his master's anger.

  "Indeterminate? Indeterminate!" Moth shouted, glaring at the clowning assistant. "Why indeterminate? Pay attention. Say something!"

  "Yes, Director," Dowornobb raised downcast eyes and irreverently looked skyward. "The largest alien ships just, eh…disappeared. Gone. Magic. Indeterminate. Poof! There is no evidence that any were destroyed or even damaged, though our interceptors engaged within lethal range. They just vanished—the large contacts, that is." Dowornobb moved to a terminal. Dowornobb was a genius. His lack of manners and insensitivity to decorum were usually overlooked.

  "We were able to track one small contact after the disappearance of the primary units." Absorbed in his data, Dowornobb dropped all deference to Director Moth. "The aliens apparently left one functioning ship behind. This corresponds to the military debriefs." He stared at a report, all but ignoring the director.

  "And…?" Moth asked impatiently. "And?"

  "Huh… oh," Dowornobb looked up. "All engagements have outcomes, but one."

  "And…?" Moth struggled to contain himself. His theories, such as they were, came from Dowornobb's analysis. Moth was dependent upon his assistant, particularly now that the emperor was interested.

  "Some of our ships never came back…" Dowornobb started.

  "I know that! Many were never intended to return. They were ordered to intercept quickly, beyond operational ranges at peak intercept speeds. We knew some would run out of fuel. They blew themselves up rather than be captured." Moth was not supposed to reveal that.

  "Oh!" Dowornobb said, in quiet shock. "That explains much…."

  "Yes, kone! On with it!" Moth insisted.

  "Well," the assistant continued. "Our ships all sent back successful reports, claiming to have eliminated the enemy. But trajectory analysis does not bear that out. One alien ship, I am certain, was still moving after our interceptors were recalled or destroyed. Er, perhaps destroyed is not the correct term."

  "What? Are you sure? Where did it go?" Moth blurted in a most undignified manner. "It has been days. They will ask why it has taken so long for us to report this."

  Dowornobb smiled his irritating little smile. "Well, there really is no good excuse, of course, but you could explain it by telling our illustrious leaders the ancient data processors they make us use are just too slow. Our telemetry links are serialized and the trajectory data file is quite large. Now, if we had the hardware those Public Safety vultures have to keep track of the dissidents, we could—"

  "Stop, Scientist Dowornobb!" Moth exclaimed, panic in his voice; he looked about with darting glances. "I will not tolerate seditious talk. You have demonstrated your technical competence, but please do not test my loyalty."

  "Genellan," Dowornobb said matter-of-factly.

  "What? Genellan?" Moth asked.

  "It went into orbit around Genellan," Dowornobb soberly replied. "A very low orbit, barely resolvable. It has disappeared since."

  Chapter 13. The Test

  Brappa paddled languorously underwater, fishing patiently. The food chain was well served in the warm waters near the spring, where the cliff dweller stalked a cluster of fat fish swimming near the sandy bottom. Expelling air, the hunter struck with blurring speed. Teeth-lined jaws seized an unsuspecting member of the school.

  As the hunter smoothly surfaced, fish in his teeth, he simultaneously glimpsed the raft and heard Craag's warning whistle. The raft of the long-legs was between him and the island. Brappa slipped silently beneath the surface, the fish preventing him from taking a deep breath. Submerged, he kicked frantically for the rocky mainland and the protection of its boulders. He waded ashore and peeked across the lake in time to see the raft slide onto the beach.

  Inconvenient, but at least it was a change. The weather had kept the long-legs in their cave. With the cessation of rain and the arrival of morning skies swept clear by strong north winds, the morning had been busy. Descending from their camp in noisy groups, the long-legs had washed themselves at the shore, splashing and paddling. They were raucous and incautious beasts. And now they were out on the lake in raft.

  Brappa moved bravely up on shore among the rocks to eat the fish; the hunter's fear had lost its edge. His appetite on the other hand was quite sharp.

  * * *

  "The water's much warmer!" Goldberg exclaimed, cupping her hand in the lake. "The hot spring must be coming from the island."

  Tatum pulled easily as Goldberg dragged her fingers in the lake.

  "Sandy, row us over to the island," Dawson directed.

  Tatum complied with strong, full strokes. Goldberg sat in the stern and flirted with the lanky Marine, watching his powerful shoulders and arms move the unwieldy craft. Tatum smiled at her and winked. Goldberg turned her head. When the raft lurched onto the sandy beach, Dawson jumped into the water. She grunted and huffed, hauling on the steel ring in the raft's nose.

  "Wait a second, Nance," Tatum said. "You ain't hauling this boat with me sitting in it."

  "The water's so warm," Dawson shouted. "Pepper, you have to feel it!"
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  Goldberg moved from the stern, leaning against Tatum as she slid slowly around him. She jumped to the beach, splashing water with a conspiratorial squeal while Tatum hauled the raft up on the beach. The women removed their boots and thermal leggings, rolled up their jumpsuits, and waded into the water. Both were soon falling and splashing, their jumpsuits drenched. Tatum briefly watched their antics but then started looking around.

  "Sandy! Come on," Goldberg called out. "You need a bath. You stink!"

  Tatum walked to the shore, hands on narrow hips.

  "My clothes are finally dry. I ain't getting them wet, and you ain't prepared to see me without," he lectured. "Sarge said I wasn't to let you ladies get scared."

  They hooted, and Dawson splashed water. Tatum moved out of range.

  "Hold it down. I'm going to look this island over." He disappeared into the bushes.

  * * *

  Brappa watched and listened to the activity. The long-legs with the sand-colored clothing were playing in the water. They did not look dangerous. The tall, wide-shouldered one with the green covering looked powerful—a giant. His strides were large and quick, and he was alert. Brappa became concerned for Craag, but the giant eventually reappeared, looking over his shoulder.

  Brappa heard a rumbling sound. Deep within the ground, a fault slipped and a clutch of tremors jolted the ground. The rigid plateau jiggled; shock waves rippled the granite as a quake rolled across the land, moving rock laterally and displacing lake water. The disturbed, pulsing fluid bunched at the margin of the lake, gathered energy, and rebounded from the southern shore, accelerating and amplifying as it approached the channels between the islands at the northern end. The lake erupted with tall, choppy waves that swept across islands and northern beaches, propelling the long-legs' raft onto the island, over the tops of small thickets, striking the base of the granite hillock.