by Unknown
Now they were just where he wanted them.
Don began to feed more commands to the probe ship's CPU.
"What are you doing?" Robinson asked, as if he had followed every step easily, until now.
"Never leave an enemy stronghold intact," Don said. "One of your father's first rules of engagement." He hit a button. On the displays that showed him the Proteus's operating systems, something began to flash: FUSION DRIVE OVERLOAD. He didn't bother to explain it.
"Major, stop — " Robinson said, his voice turning angry-Don ignored him, went on locking in the commands. Jeb going down under that swarming mass of monsters, to be ripped to pieces… Jaws, gaping above him… The images echoed like a scream in his brain.
The spiders had to die. He had to kill them. Even' single one of them. It was his responsibility to make sure they never did to another innocent being what they'd done to Jeb. What they'd almost done to him. It was his right—
"That's a direct order!" Robinson's hand closed like a vise on his arm; he shrugged it off. "We might need to salvage—"
Don hit a button. OVERLOAD shone on his displays like a star. "I hate spiders," he said.
The Jupiter's thrusters kicked in, punching them out of their orbital duet with the Proteus as the probe ship's engines began to glow with an unhealthy light. He threw everything the Jupiter's drive had into putting space—a lot of space—between her and the Proteus. He watched the probe ship diminish on his screens; watched the pulsing glow spread along its entire length as the nuclear core went critical.
The ship began to vent plasma like a diseased sun; superheated gases spiraled out into the darkness. He kept his eyes riveted on the screens, aware of nothing else now, not even the expression on his face.
The Proteus exploded spectacularly, going up like a nova in silent splendor, and in his mind he pictured countless spiders vaporized inside the inferno of raging plasma…
Don sat blinking as if he'd forgotten how to see; his vision cleared and he found himself back on the Jupiter's bridge. The Proteus was gone. He looked up at the monitors, expecting to see nothing but starry night.
Instead he saw a glowing shell of superheated plasma expanding outward from the explosion, roaring toward them at a fraction of the speed of light. He looked at the displays. "That's coming really fast, isn't it… ?" he said.
Robinson stared at him as if he'd gone insane; turned away furiously, shouting, "Gravity harnesses! Now!"
Don input the emergency command sequence. The console split open, giving him access to the manual helm controls. Smith bolted for a seat at an empty work station, as localized fields of artificial gravity pulled the crew down into their chairs and held them fast.
The shock wave hit the Jupiter Two like a fly swatter taking out a gnat, and sent them hurtling out of control toward the nameless planet lying below.
Don never remembered how long it took him to throw off the brain-bruising vertigo of the impact and stabilize their plummeting dive toward the surface. The Jupiter fought gallantly to answer his commands, but he knew they'd run out of luck the instant the shock wave had hurled them into the gravity well. The Jupiter Two had never been meant to enter an atmosphere; there was nothing aerodynamic about her design. She flew like a stone.
This ship would never taste vacuum again, he thought. This camping trip would be over when they hit the ground; the only thing still up to him was whether they all ended it in one piece.
The Jupiter plunged through the cloud layer, and a driving blizzard whited out the viewport.
"Pull up. Pull up!" John Robinson shouted in his ear. Don remembered abruptly that he was not alone.
"Really? No kidding? Thanks." He glared at Robinson. Genius. Right.
He looked back out the viewport, and gasped a curse as the clouds parted: The range of mountains dead ahead looked like a glittering sawblade, and its peaks were a hell of a lot closer to heaven than they were right now.
He banked the Jupiter hard, feeling the ship respond with agonizing reluctance. They seemed to perform the maneuver in slow motion, yawing ninety degrees to port just in time to split the air between two fangs of stone, cutting through a glacier-eaten pass as they followed their headlong trajectory toward the planet's surface.
"I'm reading a clearing ahead," he said hoarsely. "Hang on! It's gonna be a bumpy landing—"
The Jupiter Two blew over a carpet of what looked like snow-laden trees. Its underside kissed the canopy; treetops burst into flames with the blistering friction of its passage. He felt more than heard the Jupiter lose pieces of its skin as the branches flayed its hull.
They cleared the trees, barely fifty meters above the ground, and he saw the clearing the sensors had indicated. It was an enormous impact crater, filled with water.
Not the kind of landing field he'd been praying for. But all the landing field he was going to get. He'd have to make do… He set the controls and braced against the panel, felt a cry of defiance and sheer exhilaration rise in his throat as the surface rushed up to meet him.
The Jupiter Two hit the water and skimmed its surface like a stone—skipping once, twice, three times across the alien sea, barely slowing down. "Hang on!" Don shouted, and took his own advice. The ship plowed into the far shore, smashing through snow-covered boulders and vegetation, finally grinding to a halt among the rocks below the crater wall.
Everything was dark and still when John opened his eyes. In the dim glow of the emergency lights he could see automatic fire systems hissing on and off, releasing controlled bursts of chemical foam. At least they were working this time.
This time… He raised his hands to his head. Crisis overlaid disaster in his memory until time had no meaning. Everything about this mission… about their very lives… had been hurled completely off the map. They had seen, and survived, so many impossible things in less than a day that he could barely believe he was still alive— let alone that not even twenty-four hours had passed.
He pushed himself up; his eyes searched the room. If anything had happened to his family… My God, he thought, overwhelmed by a sickening wave of despair. What hasn't happened?
But he couldn't let himself drown. He was responsible for everything that had happened. He had to be strong, he had to get past any weakness and fear. His family was depending on him.
And not just his family. The success of this mission, the survival of the human race.
He had to stay in control. His father would.
Don West sat up, rubbing his face; the others were beginning to stir. John released his harness. "Everybody, by the numbers," he called; steadying himself and, he hoped, them with the emergency drill they had practiced together for so long.
Maureen straightened up in her seat, rubbing her neck. "Life Science, still breathing."
"Mission medical," Judy said. "I'm alive."
"Me too," Will chimed. "Robotics, I mean."
"Video Mechanics, okay," Penny reported, still clutching the small alien in her arms.
"I'm alive," Smith said, though John hadn't asked, and didn't care. "Major West's poor excuse for piloting skills notwithstanding."
"Let's take a look—" West said, stubbornly ignoring them both as he turned his seat toward the com.
John imagined how his father would have dealt with someone as defiantly insubordinate as West; his jaw tightened until it ached.
West hit some button on the control panel, de-icing the ship's viewport to give them their first real look at the new world.
"Ah, Dorothy…" Smith said acidly, "back in Kansas at last."
Before them lay the crater's snow-covered floor, and the sea that it encompassed. The gentle arc of the crater's thirty-meter-high rim led their eyes toward a distant horizon reddened by the light of two setting suns.
A new world. But not the one they'd wanted.
John looked away, unable to see any beauty in the view, feel any awe at being here to witness it. He looked back at West.
West stared unblinkingly into t
he sunset. John wondered what the man could possibly be feeling; whether he had even the slightest idea how much his actions had cost them all.
If he didn't know now, he was going to find out, soon enough.
Chapter Sixteen
"Vnu violated a direct order—"
Don pushed off from the cold outcrop of rock where he had been sitting alone and walked away, shutting Robinson's words, and their meaning, out of his mind. Above him the moonless sky was filled with an utterly alien starfield; the snowy ground of an alien world crunched beneath his boots with ever)' step. Ahead of him, through the fog of his breath, the Jupiter Two lay like a beached whale below the wall of the crater.
From this distance the Jupiter's enormous sheltering form looked oddly small, vulnerable. The exterior floodlights fought a lonely, losing battle against the universal darkness. Don shoved his numb hands deeper into the pockets of his parka, and headed back toward the ship.
He ducked in through the open entry hatch, took the corridor that led to Engineering. Robinson's brisk footsteps closed with his; he knew he was just postponing the inevitable.
His own footsteps echoed suddenly as he entered the cavernous space of the engine room. He slowed as he reached the shielded wall of the thruster core. The fuel cylinder lay exposed; its register was flashing HALF POWER.
Robinson reached his side and stopped. They stood together but apart, staring at the displays. He knew the sight must be putting all the same thoughts into Robinson's head that already filled his own. None of them were good.
"About half the core material is burned out," Don said finally. He kept his voice completely neutral; not acknowledging anything but Robinson's physical proximity. "We'll never generate enough power to break orbit."
"I ordered you not to blow that ship's reactors," Robinson said, stepping into his personal space, refusing to be ignored.
Don drifted on across the room, ignoring him anyway. "Atmospheric controls are marginal." He pointed to a display on the Engineering console. "It's gonna get cold in here tonight." He shifted position again, gesturing. "Also, the Pod and the Chariot are pretty much scrap metal." He shrugged, not making eye contact as he started back toward the entrance again.
Robinson caught up with him, jerking him back and around. "Don't walk away from me when I'm talking to you." Suddenly there was someone else behind Robinson's eyes: someone who had never let anyone give him static, ever; who had never cut an inch of slack, for anyone's sake.
Who the hell do you think you are, my father? Don pulled free of Robinson's grip. He backed away, shaking himself out. "Give it a rest, Professor," he said, giving the older man a shovelful of attitude. Two could play this game; and he'd been an ace by the time he was fifteen. "I was technically still in command."
"Don't hand me that!" Robinson shot back. "I'm commander of this mission."
Don smirked. "Look, no offense… but you're an egghead with an honorary rank. No one ever intended you to handle combat situations."
Robinson's face reddened, and he knew he'd scored a hit. "Oh, you handled it brilliantly, sending us crashing down here—"
"Those monsters posed a continuing threat!" His voice slipped, as he saw Jeb's face, not Robinson's: ]eh's face, years older; Jeb's face, gouged and bleeding… Jeb had come after him, and Jeb had died. Jeb was the closest thing to a brother he'd ever had. And he'd just wanted to pay them back—
"I made a judgment call," he said, his voice stone cold again and his eyes burning, "and if I have to, I'll make it again. Hell, you of all people should understand that!" You, with the war hero father; you, with the family you love… "If your father were here—"
"My father is dead," Robinson said flatly. "Killed, in one of his combat missions you admire so much. My family is on this ship," he went on, before Don could close his mouth. "And you're going to follow my orders, whether you agree with them or not. Is that clear, Major?"
"Save the speeches," Don said. "I like you—" surprised in some part of his mind to realize that he did; he liked them all. "But I'm going to do whatever I think it takes to ensure the success of this mission. With or without your help. Is that clear, Professor?" He took a step forward.
Robinson's face hardened over. Don's hands tightened into fists.
From the doorway Maureen Robinson said, "Am I interrupting something?"
Men… Maureen shook her head, as the two of them turned like one person to stare at her. They could have been one person, they were standing so close to each other now; close enough to kiss—although somehow she didn't see that happening. She had listened unnoticed through half their escalating "discussion." If she'd waited another second to speak, she could have turned a fire hose on them and they wouldn't have noticed.
"No. Really." She smiled, although she was not in the least amused. "I think you two should go ahead and slug it out." She made little urging motions with her hands. "I mean, here we are, stranded on an alien world, and you boys want to get into a pissing contest. So please, go for it—" She leaned against the door frame, watching their naked faces grope for a suitable fig leaf of expression.
And then, not smiling at all, she said, "I'll have Judy down here in a heartbeat to declare you both unfit, and I'll take over this mission." She looked at them. "Now I don't want to hear another word from you two. Is that clear?"
"Maureen — " John started.
"Listen — " Don protested.
"Nof… another… word." She put her hands on her hips.
Silence fell.
"Better." She nodded. "Now, if you've finished hosing down the decks with testosterone, I suggest you come with me. I may have found a way to get us off this planet."
She turned and started back down the corridor, leaving the two men behind to stare at each other, dumbstruck. But not leaving them behind so quickly that she missed hearing Don West breathe, "Wow," and her husband answer, "Tell me about it…"
Two sets of footsteps were already following her.
Will sat at the console in the robot bay, smiling in satisfaction as a holographic baseball materialized in the air. Gently, he guided the spinning image onto the main monitor, where it was assimilated into the computer. He glanced at the Robot's personality task bar, illuminated on the screen, and saw its percentage increase again fractionally toward his goal of 100 percent.
Static crackled in his ears.
"Can you hear me?" he asked excitedly. "Robot?" He tuned the deck, trying new frequencies, getting more static, until —
"Systems error," the Robot's synthesized voice said suddenly. "Robot unable to locate motor controls. Unable— "
"Calm down," Will said, trying to stay calm himself. "Your body was destroyed by the space spiders, remember?"
After a moment the Robot answered, "Affirmative."
"But I saved your neural net," Will explained.
"Warning!" the Robot blared. "Penny, give it back! My circuits are UNBALANCED. Mom!"
Will input commands frantically as the Robot's voice took on a panic-stricken note. "I didn't have enough time to finish the download—" he called, trying to make it understand.
"I want more desert.'" the Robot said plaintively. "Will Robinson, what is happening to me?"
"—so I had to finish you off with another personality! I put my mind inside of yours."
"Ah," the Robot said, mollified. "That explains this warm, fuzzy feeling when I think about baseball. STEE-RIKE!" it bellowed enthusiastically. "He's OUT!"
Will grinned. "You think that's good, hang on to your diodes…" He conjured an ice cream cone out of thin air and studied its appearance critically. "Sprinkles," he said. Its pale green dome was instantly decorated with chocolate jimmies. "No," he said, shaking his head. "Rainbow sprinkles." The sprinkles obediently changed color. He smiled with anticipation as he fed the cone to the Robot's waiting program.
"Woah!" the Robot said in sudden surprise. "Pistachio! Excellent!" Will nodded, his grin widening. Ever since he could remember, he'd been the only
kid he knew who liked pistachio. Now at last he'd have a friend who liked it as much as he did.
"Bur…" The Robot broke off.
"What?" Will asked anxiously.
"Robot tried to destroy the Robinson family," it said, its synthesized voice filling with confusion and distress.
"Why did Will Robinson save Robot's personality?"
Will stared at the console in surprise. At last he said, "I guess sometimes friendship means listening to your heart, not your head." He rose from his seat, and picked up the defunct bubble diode that Penny had helped him replace. He'd thought then that this would make a really awesome head… "I'm going to build you a new body." His grin came back. "Mom always said I should try to make new friends." And I'll make one who even gets my jokes.
Maureen stood at the Life Sciences console with John and Don West flanking her, both men listening obediently as she began to explain her idea.
They had followed her up here without speaking a word; taken seats like two recalcitrant schoolboys, when she informed them she wasn't explaining anything until they explained themselves to her, and to each other…
She barely knew Don West, and she was no psychologist. But she was old enough to be his mother, and she'd raised three children. She'd been married to a man of few words for even longer than that. She knew by now when somebody was hurting, and afraid to admit it.
And she didn't believe Mission Control would assign them a pilot who could perform a near miracle to save them from certain death, and then nearly kill them all by his sheer recklessness.
A little gentle coaxing and her genuine concern were all it had taken to get him talking, haltingly, at last. He had looked at her the whole time, never once at John, while he told her about seeing the holograph of his best friend… his only real friend… who had captained the probe ship that had come to their rescue. Five years from now.
He told her about the spiders: what he'd seen them do, attacking their own wounded, eating them alive — what they must have done to the Proteus's crew, and had almost done to him.