Chindi

by Jack McDevitt

  His image froze. Mogambo was not one to waste words.

  She talked briefly to George, explained that she could not simply refuse to cooperate. George grumbled and gave his blessing.

  She provided Mogambo with pictures of both the Retreat and the chindi. But she decided not to go into detail about what they’d found inside the giant ship. “Lots of corridors and chambers. Mostly empty. Some automated gear running around. And it looks as if there are a few artifacts on display.”

  It was of course possible to make a rational conversation under such conditions exceedingly tedious if one side was interested in doing it. Mogambo would be unhappy that she had left him to ask the obvious question, rather than providing the details.

  She went for a sandwich while she waited for the annoyed reply that would be coming.

  “ARTIFACTS? WHAT KIND of artifacts? What have you found in the Retreat? And why in God’s name did you go on board the ship? You know better.”

  She told him, in general terms.

  “We’ll be there in a couple of days,” he said. “I’m going to insert landing parties at both sites. I’ll let you know as soon as we arrive insystem, and I’ll want your assistance.” He went into detail. He requested a map of the Retreat, would need course and position of the alien vessel, and informed Hutch she was to withdraw the Memphis group immediately. “Before they damage something.”

  “I haven’t the authority to do that, sir.”

  “Is that all you’re going to say?” asked Nick, who chuckled at using forty minutes to send a single line. “Doesn’t he already know that, anyhow?”

  “Doesn’t hurt to remind him, Nick.”

  When Mogambo appeared again, stretching a conversation that had begun just before lunch into the late afternoon, he looked utterly exasperated. “Please assume authority. There’s a stipulation for precisely this sort of situation in the Exoarcheological Protection Act.” He glanced off to his side. “Section 437a. Use it. Get the amateurs out of there. Please.”

  Hutch considered her options. “Tell him to take a hike,” said Nick.

  “Easy for you to say.” If she simply violated the ordinance, it could cost her retirement pay. “Bill,” she said, “let’s have a look at the Act.”

  “I think I already have what you need,” said the AI, showing her Section 11, paragraph 6.

  Hutch punched the SEND key. “Doctor, there’s a distinct possibility the artifact may leave the premises before you get here. Section 11 allows for—,” and there she made a display of consulting her screen, “—‘inspection by untrained parties in the event destruction or loss of the artifact may be imminent, for example, by rising floodwaters, if professional personnel are not in the immediate area.’ We don’t have rising floodwaters, but the intent is clear.” She hesitated, and tried to look thoughtful and encouraging. “I can give you my assurance that George Hockelmann and his people are being careful. I have, by the way, recommended from the beginning that they stay off the chindi, because I can’t guarantee that, if it starts making preparations to leave, I will be able to recover them before it does. Or for that matter, after it does. I make the same recommendation to you. Going onboard is, in my opinion, not only dangerous but foolhardy.”

  Nick was nodding, egging her on. “That’s telling him, Hutch,” he said when she’d finished.

  She looked at him with quiet amusement. “How’s your leg?”

  “It’s good.”

  “Any pain?”

  “Not as long as I take my pills. You’re a pretty decent doctor.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Hutch, you know when he gets here he’s going directly to the chindi.”

  “Well,” she said, “maybe we’ll get lucky, and the thing will take him to the Pleiades.”

  GEORGE’S PARTY MOVED its base deeper into the ship, and the relays were no longer adequate to carry their transmissions. Consequently, instead of being able to listen to the conversation coming in on the link, Hutch and Nick repeated Alyx’s experience, sitting through long periods of silence, waiting for the landing party to return to the dome for food or air tanks or simply to sleep, to reassure themselves everything was okay. They were in the middle of a long silence when Bill broke in. “The last few have been launched,” he said.

  “What’s that about?” asked Nick.

  Hutch had a fruit plate in front of her. And some dark wine. She took a sip. “When the chindi blew out all the nanopackages a few days ago, we counted them. There were 147. The last of them made their bottles and came back—”

  “—And have just been launched.”

  “Yes.”

  “Which means what? You think it’s getting ready to leave?”

  “Don’t know. I just thought it would be a worthwhile piece of information to have.”

  When they reestablished communication with George a couple of hours later, she passed it on.

  “Okay,” he said. “We’re warned.”

  “You sound tired.” Actually, he sounded dismayed. Scared.

  “We just watched a bloodbath at a temple,” he said. “Looked like somebody’s equivalent of human sacrifice.”

  HUTCH STARED MOODILY out at the sky. Fourteen hours had passed since the last of the bottles had been launched. Both Twins were visible. The Slurpy had spread around the terminator and formed a blurry white ring of its own. The Memphis was running above and slightly to the rear of the chindi. The main body of the storm was a couple of hours ahead.

  Nick was unusually quiet, and she could not shake the feeling that bad things were about to happen. Her instincts weren’t dependable because she inevitably expected trouble. It was one of the characteristics that made her a good pilot, but it did render her judgment suspect.

  “Hutch.” Bill’s voice added to her sense of gloom. “Take a look at this.” He put the funnel on-screen, the Slurpy’s long tail reaching far down into the atmosphere. “It’s coming up.”

  Uh-oh. “You sure?”

  “Positive. I don’t think you can see it by just looking at it. But it is happening. It’s withdrawing into itself somehow.”

  “How long before the process is complete?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Guess, Bill.”

  “Two hours, maybe a little longer.”

  “Just about the time the chindi gets there.”

  “Yes. It appears that way.”

  Hutch opened up the circuit again. “George.”

  She got a break: They were within range. But when he came on, she got the end of raised voices. It sounded as if they’d been arguing. “Yes?” he snapped.

  “George, they’re getting ready to pull out.”

  “When? How do you know?”

  “The funnel’s coming up. They’re going to take it on board on this pass.”

  “Okay, Hutch. Thanks. How much time do we have?”

  “An hour and a half. Tops. We want to get you out before it goes into the Slurpy.”

  “All right. We’re on our way.”

  GEORGE SUSPECTED THEY were about four kilometers from the exit. A fairly long walk, especially for him. But he was sure he could manage it.

  They’d been debating expanding their search, getting away from the methodical room-by-room examination of the first few days, and sallying instead well to the front of the ship, to see whether the general layout was the same everywhere, and possibly to find the vessel’s control deck. They’d even thought about climbing down to lower levels. He was grateful they hadn’t done that.

  So they moved at best speed down the passageways. George was slow, and the others could have made far better time without him, but they stayed together. No need to panic. They’d be at the exit hatch in plenty of time.

  “In any case,” George said, “the chindi isn’t likely to leave orbit as soon as it clears the Slurpy anyway.” Then, as if they were in one of those comedies in which optimistic comments bring down the wrath of the gods, all three were thrown violently off-balance. George ba
nged his head on the wall and tumbled into a heap.

  “They’re braking.” It was Hutch’s voice. Coming out of nowhere.

  Alyx got off the floor, only to be knocked down again. She looked over at him. “George, you okay?”

  “Yes.” Fine. A little bruised, but otherwise all right. Is it safe to get up? Tor climbed cautiously to his feet, helped Alyx to hers, then offered a hand to George. “We better keep moving,” he said.

  “Why are they slowing down?” asked George.

  “They’re probably going to pick up the funnel,” said Hutch.

  “Won’t they fall out of orbit?”

  “If it went on long enough,” said Bill. “But not in this case. All they’ll do is lose a little altitude.”

  He was on his feet again. Damn. The thing had been so stable for so long they’d taken it for granted. Another jolt knocked him forward. “How long’s this going to go on?” he asked.

  “I’d say for the next couple of hours. Until you get to the Slurpy. Is everybody okay over there?”

  “We’re fine.” He was standing up, leaning forward somewhat. “If it stays like this, though, it’s going to be a long walk to the hatch.”

  He listened for a response. “Hutch?”

  “Hutch,” said Tor. “Can you hear us?”

  Silence.

  “I CAN SEE the problem, Hutch,” said Bill. “They’ve restored the exit hatch again. And that cut off the signal to the relay.”

  Hutch was sitting in the lander, ready to launch. “Well, I’m glad that’s all it is.”

  Nick, back on the bridge, was making worried noises.

  The projected rescue, which had seemed routine as long as they got sufficient warning, was beginning to look problematical. Presumably, the chindi would be braking until it entered the Slurpy. Which meant Hutch couldn’t land on it. Once in the storm, they could expect it to match the funnel’s speed through the atmosphere, which was about 1400 kph. At that point, the braking maneuver should stop, and it would become possible to get aboard. But she’d be working in the middle of a blizzard. And even though the chindi would have slowed somewhat, she’d still have to deal with high winds.

  After it took the funnel equipment on board, it would begin to accelerate again, to regain orbital velocity. After that, it was anybody’s guess what would happen.

  “Bill,” she said, “what’s the range of winds in the Slurpy, for an object moving at the same velocity as the funnel?”

  “Hutch, there are some areas in which it would be only a few kilometers per hour. But there is a wide variance, although no worse than hurricane force.”

  Well, that was consoling.

  “You can’t go over there in that,” said Nick.

  Bill agreed. “Wait until they come out. Then pick them up.”

  Hutch stared out at the cargo hold. What had she told George? We want to get you out before it goes into the Slurpy. But that was before the braking process started. If they tried to come out onto the hull now, somebody would get killed.

  Lamps came on signaling that decompression was complete. The doors were opening. “They’re ready to leave,” she told Nick. “I’d rather take my chances with the Slurpy than have the damned thing take off while we’re all out on the hull.” She took a deep breath. “Bill, plot me a course for the chindi.”

  THE CHINDI GLIDED through the night, framed by the vast arc of Autumn’s rings. The lander dropped down and took up station above and to the rear of the giant ship.

  “The chindi continues to brake, Hutch. At present rate, it will be over the funnel in one hour sixteen minutes.”

  The major risk was that George, Tor, and Alyx would make it to the exit hatch, cut through, and try to leave. Anyone sticking his head out onto the hull while the chindi was braking would get banged around pretty severely.

  She wasn’t sure what she could do in the event, but at least she’d keep close. So she could pick up the body.

  Damn. Hutch promised herself again that this absolutely would be her last flight. When this was over, she was going to find a quiet office somewhere, or maybe just head for a front porch.

  Even though the funnel was probably no longer contributing to the Slurpy, the vast storm showed no sign of abating. She watched the chindi, firing occasional bursts from its forward thrusters, slowing its velocity to match that of the funnel. She imagined the landing party inside, trying to negotiate the long corridors and getting thrown off their feet periodically. Unfortunately, there seemed to be no rhythm to the braking, no pattern that would serve to warn them when another jolt was coming.

  Bill kept a picture of the funnel on her screen. It was continuing to rise through the troposphere, withdrawing into itself like a long, flexible telescope. It had become steadier now, and no longer seemed to be getting blown about.

  “Winds near the top of the funnel,” said Bill, “are registering close to one-fifty.”

  She stayed with the chindi, keeping where she could watch the exit hatch.

  Stay put, she told George mentally. Don’t try to leave. Not yet.

  Ahead, the Slurpy grew, expanding steadily, a mass of howling white winds, snow, sleet, and ice. It grew until the arc of Autumn’s ring disappeared behind it, until it sprawled across the sky, a vast gray front, a North Dakota blizzard coming in from Hudson Bay.

  The chindi fired its thrusters again and she swept out over it, passing close above its granite plains, before her own braking rockets took hold.

  Bill, on-screen, seemed to be watching a display. He looked worried. “One hour four minutes to the Slurpy,” he said.

  THE PASSAGEWAYS PROVIDED no handrails, nothing to grab on to, and George was hurting from getting knocked down every few minutes. He wondered why the chindi didn’t manage a nice gradual braking maneuver instead of firing its thrusters every few minutes.

  Hutch thought they were protected from the worst of the braking maneuvers by a damping effect. He didn’t like thinking how severe it would have been without it.

  “I wonder,” said Tor, “whether we shouldn’t stop and pick up the dome.”

  “No. Leave it.” It wouldn’t have been that far out of the way. But they didn’t want to be hauling equipment now. “I’ll get you a new one when we get home,” he said.

  George had been frightened since the moment he’d set foot on the chindi. The prospect of being hauled off somewhere on this cavernous ship, taken perhaps beyond the reach of rescue, had unsettled him far more than he’d allowed anyone to see. Or for that matter allowed himself to think about.

  Hutch was right. Safety should have been his prime consideration. Stay alive. Unless one stays alive, everything else is irrelevant.

  But the truth was, before this, George had never been forced to accept his own mortality. He’d never been ill, had never been in an accident, had never voluntarily risked his life. He wasn’t one of those idiots who thought attaching themselves to slings and jumping off skyways was fun. Consequently, the possibility of dying had always seemed remote. Death was something that happened to other people.

  But the corridors of the chindi ran on forever. They trooped along. George and Tor consulted the map periodically. Yes, this was the chamber with the treetop home, and that was the museum. Absolutely. I’m sure this is Denmark Street. (Denmark-16 held, they believed, a site in which an excavation had collapsed and killed a group of archeologists. It was a kind of display within a display, archeologists themselves being dug up and placed under glass.) They hurried past an armory and a group of machines that manufactured leather goods.

  Occasionally one of them walked into a wall, or stumbled, or needed a moment to reorient. Alyx’s wristlamp failed, and they worried briefly that the power in her e-suit would also shut down. That had been known to happen. So they’d stopped and waited and held their breath, wondering what they could do if her warning lamps began blinking. But it didn’t happen, and they moved on.

  Once, twice, they got lost. Left, right, or straight on? They disagre
ed, debated, consulted George’s map, which hadn’t been seen to properly. But they managed and pressed ahead.

  George kept track of the time, watched it dwindle to an hour, then to forty minutes.

  They got knocked off their feet again with just over a half hour left, and he went down hard and banged his jaw on the floor. Bit his tongue in the process and had to be helped to his feet.

  “You okay?” asked Alyx, looking at him solicitously.

  He loved Alyx. The whole world loved Alyx, of course, but that was make-believe. He was one of the relatively few who really knew her.

  He patted her on the head, a gesture which brought a frown.

  There were no robots abroad. Another indication that the chindi was getting ready to leave orbit.

  They passed the Ditch.

  “I wonder,” she said, “if my handkerchief is still bobbing around in there?”

  And they were thrown down once more. This was different, though. It wasn’t simply a burst, but rather a sustained firing. It was much harder to get up this time, even with help, and he found he had to lean forward to keep his balance. It was like walking up a steep hill.

  Conditions hadn’t changed when they arrived finally at the exit hatch. George sank against the ladder, grateful for something to hold on to. Alyx also grabbed hold and breathed a sigh of relief.

  Ten minutes from the Slurpy. He looked up at the hatch, squirreled away in its airlock. The metal gleamed in the torchlight, showing no sign that it had been cut through twice, and twice repaired. “There’s what happened to the link,” he said. “Tor, maybe we should get out now and not wait?”

  Alyx was nodding yes. Let’s waste no time.

  Tor hesitated, then reached inside his vest and produced the cutter.

  LEFT TO HIS own devices, Tor would have known not to remove a hatch during a maneuver. But he’d stopped thinking and instead developed a conviction that they had to get outside before they went into the Slurpy. Simple enough. It couldn’t be too bad out there. And anyhow, he knew Hutch would be nearby with the lander, and he had to give her a chance to pick them up.