Castaway Resolution

by Eric Flint

  But the damage was becoming less with each layer, forming a broad, narrowing cone driven into the manifold, probably from an impact with a seatback. The next two also took four minutes, but the next was three, and then two, and suddenly as she peeled back the next layer she realized there was only a small tear and the one following showed no marks at all on its surface. Heart beating faster, she carefully sutured that one shut, applied the nanospray, and then paged carefully through the other layers, verifying what she thought and applying the antibiotic to the remainder.

  “Damage appears to have been limited to layers one through ten of the manifold. Remainder appears reasonably healthy and intact. Preventive antibiotic has been applied. Now applying lubricant with nanorepair infusion to ensure flexibility is retained.”

  It took a few minutes to carefully fold the manifold back into its enclosing membrane. There wasn’t any hope of manually getting the membrane to adhere to each separate layer, but she did her best; the nanos, guided from the outside, would have to do the job, millimeter by millimeter, before Whips would be able to enter the water again. “Now suturing the fascia.”

  She glanced up at the countdown. Five minutes, thirty seconds left of the estimated hour. But the estimate could easily be off; she checked the blood oxygen indicator; it still showed good levels. “Moment of truth,” she said to Pearce. She couldn’t keep from holding her breath as she slowly opened and then removed the clamps. “Clamps are now removed from the feeder and supply vessels. Nanoreports…nanoreports indicate only minor bleeding which will be addressed by standard medical nanos.”

  “Oh, thank goodness.”

  Finally allowing a real trickle of hope to flow into her own heart, Laura began the final repair on the air-water shunt. That was somewhat tricky—the shunt was a muscle-cartilage affair with three associated anchor-plates—but it wasn’t by itself life-threatening, and Whips’ vitals remained steady throughout.

  Finally the two carefully turned Whips back onto one side—the side that didn’t have any sutures. This time there was no major shift to his vitals from the change. “Are we really done, Laura?”

  “All we can do for now, yes,” she said, feeling exhaustion dragging at her. “If Harratrer wakes up from this…he’s got a good chance at a full recovery.

  “We just have to wait.”

  PART 5

  ESCAPES

  Chapter 38

  Captain Ayrton looked up as she entered and smiled, which took something of the edge off of Sue’s nervousness. The captain could be quite intimidating in appearance through a combination of his height and his sharp-featured face whose fierce gaze and beaky nose put Sue in mind of an eagle.

  “Good to see you, Lieutenant Fisher,” Ayrton said. “Please, sit down. Grab a cup of tea if you want, I’ve got a pot there.” He indicated the table at the side of the room.

  “Thank you, sir.” Sue decided a cup of tea was just what she wanted, and poured herself one, mindful of the slightly slower motion. Orado Scientific Vessel, or OSV, Sherlock’s hab ring, was only rotating fast enough to give effective gravity of about four-fifths Earth’s. She stirred in some lemon flavor and sweetener, then sat down in front of Ayrton’s desk.

  “Now, Lieutenant, are you going to finally enlighten me?”

  The question was still in a friendly tone of voice, so Sue let herself smile. “So you know there’s something more to the expedition already.”

  “Couldn’t help guessing, anyway. Oh, a star that doesn’t show on the charts, that’s certainly worth looking into, but we could’ve taken a few years to build the ship, do more long-range surveys, maybe sent some long-range survey probes in. Instead, they got Sherlock built in months. That tells me that something is urgent about the whole business.” He leaned forward. “What is it? Evidence of an actual alien civilization?”

  That was the obvious guess. It had been exactly that kind of thing that had led to humanity’s great leap into the solar system after years of simple automated probes.

  “Not that exciting—or, maybe I should say, probably not. You’ve seen my file, I would assume, so you know what my job was before I got assigned to Sherlock.”

  “Emergency Watch Officer for Orado Station—five years duty. Hot pilot, too, I saw the records of your jump to Outward Initiative when the wreck came in-system.” His eyebrows came together. “And you were also on-watch when that lifeboat came out of nowhere. There’s a connection?”

  Now she grinned. Ayrton was sharp. There was nothing better than having a commanding officer who could put the pieces together like that. “There is, sir. Until LS-42 came in, we’d assumed that the lifeboats had to be total losses—maybe they seemed to come off in one piece, but were shredded as they entered normal space, or all their systems were ruined beyond repair, or the Trapdoor radiation pulse was lethal to everyone. After all those months went by, we simply gave up on the possibility that anyone could have survived, knowing what was available from their loading manifests.”

  Ayrton rubbed his chin. “And then LS-42 comes in and changes everything.”

  “In two ways, yes, sir. First by the fact that they had made it back at all, so it was possible for enough of the ship systems to have survived, and second by drawing our attention to that unknown star system.”

  “Which has a habitable world in-system, yes. So we’re not just survey and investigation—this is a search-and-rescue operation?”

  “Well, we’re possibly a search and rescue. If there’s anything to rescue.”

  “Right.” Ayrton took a sip of his own tea and pursed his lips in obvious thought before speaking. “But my limited understanding of LS-42’s return makes it sound like it was a pretty unique set of circumstances that let them survive and come home. What makes you think that either of the other two could have survived, and why in the name of Earth would they have gone to this completely unknown world instead of Orado?”

  “A lot of it depends on exactly how the two shuttles were damaged.” Sue projected a diagram of a typical LS unit. “What we learned from the Outward Initiative and then from the survivors of LS-42 was that just how badly the systems were affected, and which systems were affected, was not entirely predictable because too many factors come into play. For instance, depending on the lensing effect of the decaying Trapdoor field, the radiation could end up inducing currents that would cause spot-welding through some of the LS Trapdoor coils…or it might not. LS-42 had a few instances of this, but at least two or three of the shuttles that came back with Outward Initiative didn’t.”

  Quick summaries of the crews of each shuttle appeared. “On paper, I’d give the best odds of survival to LS-88. Sergeant Campbell was an experienced pilot of just about everything, military experience of a couple of decades, and that included a lot of alien world experience and a lot of practical technical knowledge. He’d even been first-on-world at least once, so he knew the procedures cold. On board he had one engineer and a couple of students who’d gotten quite a ways along in their studies, and the cargo they were carrying would help them in a lot of ways.

  “On the other hand, LS-5 had an actual medical doctor on board, Dr. Laura Kimei, which certainly would make sure everyone stayed in the best condition. Her husband was a top biologist, and their oldest daughter was a planetologist. None of them were technical specialists, however, except for the Bemmie passenger who had some engineering training, and the second daughter had come some ways in her pilot training. Their cargo would also have been very useful for survival if they could access it.”

  “Right. But if they’d survived, why not come here?”

  “It would have to be related to distance. If our determination of the breakout point for the shuttles is in any way correct, they were roughly a quarter light-year from this mystery system and about ten from Orado—forty times farther away. Lifeboat Trapdoor systems are limited to about a third of the maximum speed, which means that Orado was almost five months away. There were limited supplies on board the two vessels, w
ith those on LS-5 being the most limited. More importantly, their Bemmie passenger wouldn’t have survived being out of water for that long, assuming they had enough to feed him. Looking at certain starvation for one and maybe several, it’s possible they’d prefer to take a long shot for everyone surviving.”

  “And LS-88?”

  She frowned. “I can’t quite figure that one…unless their coils were damaged. In that case, they might be stuck, starving slowly to death because even their Nebula Drive wouldn’t be able to get them anywhere in time…but they might also manage to wind themselves new coils.”

  “And new coils, not balanced, might drop their speed even more.”

  “Exactly. So they’d be forced into the same bet as the others.”

  Ayrton studied the ships and crews. “Damned long shots, aren’t they?” he said. Then he grinned again. “But worth taking our best shot to find. So why keep it all quiet? I’d have thought it’d be great publicity, and might’ve made it even easier to ram through the funding.”

  “Neither I nor the portmaster wanted to raise any false hopes. If we find someone alive, wonderful, we can report that. But their surviving friends and relatives have already gone through their grief; let’s not rip those wounds back open.”

  Ayrton nodded slowly. “Good call. Still, now that we’re underway, I can tell the crew about our secondary mission, right?”

  “I see no reason why not.”

  “Excellent. It’ll add a different urgency and interest to this mission, and anything that engages my crew more with the work? That’s a great thing.”

  Sue laughed. “I guess it is. And I’m glad you took it well. Some people really hate secrets, no matter what the reason for them.”

  “Oh, believe me, I understand. You saw my file, I’d bet? Well, I did S&R for eight years, and there’s nothing worse than telling people their loved ones couldn’t be found…and nothing better than being able to tell them they’re alive.

  “Except being the one that finds them alive.”

  Chapter 39

  Nothingness gave way to an awareness of darkness, and darkness was a place of sensation, sensation of existence that included heaviness, pain…and surprise.

  Surprise sparked awareness. I’m…alive. I’m awake? Coming awake?

  A faint rippling pain coincided with a low sibilant sound of air. A sensation of tenseness and dull pain below. Aches and hot pangs reported in from his extremities, and a pulsing near-agony inside.

  But it was less than he remembered. With difficulty, he forced his eyes open.

  My eyes…eyes! All three of them are opening!

  The place was dimly lit, the flat-light only bright enough to see by for humans, not bright enough to read with; something was odd about its placement, too. But Whips realized he could see it from all three eyes, though one of them still ached and there was an odd distortion across part of his field of view.

  Pain warned him, again, to try any movements with great caution. Instead of moving yet, he moved his eyes to see what might be visible from here.

  Immediately he realized he was lying on his right side, partially supported by some kind of leather-covered structure. Strapped into it, he revised, realizing that there was a wide, solid something strapped across his belly pad, holding him in place.

  There was also a chair nearby, with a small figure slumped down in it. He pulled in a breath, feeling an ache through his breathing manifold but no problem with it working.

  The breath and the sharp, small clarity of pain across his body focused him enough to trigger his nanos to report.

  Wow. Even his memory of his prior condition hadn’t quite let him admit to himself just how much work would have to be done. There were multiple repairs to skeletal plates, to injured muscles, torn ligaments…and even more in-depth work that touched on his internal organs. I wonder how long Laura had to work on me.

  But the important point was that Laura had finished the work…and he was still alive to notice.

  Whips focused on the chair nearby and felt his skin itch and spark pain as happiness manifested itself, involuntarily, in colorful patterns that were echoed in unwise movements. “S…Sakura…” he whispered.

  The girl sat bolt upright. “Whips? WHIPS!”

  She almost threw herself on him, but restrained herself with visible difficulty; instead she just reached out and squeezed the base of his least-damaged arm. “How do you feel?”

  “Absolutely terrible,” he answered, but flickered another smile. “But lots, lots better than I was before. I…I can think. I can feel my brain clearing up.” He hesitated before asking. “Um…am I going to be okay? I can tell there was a lot wrong.”

  Saki’s eyes were overflowing with tears. “Mom said if you woke up, she thought you would be, and so you woke up, and God, Whips, I’m so happy!”

  She raised her voice. “Mom, Whips is up!”

  “What? Thank goodness. I’ll be right there. No, Mel, Hitomi, Franky, everyone else just stay back for now, we don’t want to crowd him now. I want to take a look first.”

  “You need me?” That was Pearce Haley’s voice, with, Whips thought, a slight trace of fogginess from sleep.

  “I don’t think so, Pearce. Go back to bed if you want.”

  The door of the portable shelter opened and the tall figure of Laura Kimei entered. She knelt down and began checking him over, starting at his belly pad; she did something that tightened the other restraints to let her get a look underneath the flat support. “How do you feel, Whips?”

  “My brain’s getting clear, no more murkiness. Some of the parts hurt more, but it’s…clean pain. Does that make sense?”

  “Yes, it does. Your brain can tell the difference between possibly deadly trauma and the simple pain of cuts and splints and such.” She readjusted the restraints and then began examining his left side. “Exterior looks good. Telemetry agrees. Can you move all three arms—I know they’ll hurt, but can you try, carefully, to move them?”

  If he’d had teeth he’d have gritted them; instead he tightened his mouth orifice in the closest approximation. “I’ll try.”

  The pain was high…but still “clean,” as he’d said. All three arms moved, up to the points where any serious work had been done. Even farther up, he could still feel his branches and fingers; the aches and pains were specific in their locations.

  “Excellent,” Laura said, and there might have been a hint of tears in her voice too. “And your eyes, are they all working?”

  “Mostly. There’s something funny in my lower left eye.”

  “There’ll be distortion there for a bit; the incision and repair is still healing, and the nanos won’t be able to fix it to optical levels until the gross damage is gone.”

  “And…the major damage?”

  “All fixed. Oh, it’s still healing—the Sutter Organ, McCoy’s Plexus, your manifold—but all the indications are good. I’m seeing fine function out of all three and the manifold’s no longer bleeding anywhere.”

  Whips drew in a whistling breath. “Then…I’m going to be all right, really all right?”

  “As far as I can tell, yes, my overgrown son’s going to be just fine.”

  “How long—”

  “Your belly pad incision has to be fully healed before you’re crawling anywhere. On the positive side, you’ve been doing so much on-land exercise that you shouldn’t end up too weakened from it. About two, three weeks, I’d say—the nanos are doing a good job. Your mastication array and associated mouthparts should be almost healed now—you should be back to chewing…well, ripping and grinding normal food day after tomorrow. For now we’ve got some crushed food for you. If you start digesting that well, I can take out the IVs.”

  “But if I’m stuck here and I have to, um…”

  “Your tail’s over a big tub, just go when you have to. We’ll empty it and clean everything off. Don’t worry about it.”

  “Sorry about—”

  “Whips, don’t apologize!
” Sakura said sharply. “You got hurt because you were so busy trying to save everything from an engine to my little sister. You’ve got nothing to be sorry for.”

  “And everyone’s really all right?”

  “Really all right. Soon as Mom lets them I’ll guarantee both Francisco and Hitomi will be in the door.”

  He became aware of a vibration through the floor. “What…something big is moving outside!”

  “Moving?” Laura looked startled, then suddenly she and Sakura laughed. “I keep forgetting how sensitive you are to things like that. That would be the sergeant and Tavana, who are working on building us a new home,” Laura said. “Remember, you had two more of the excavators on board.”

  “Sensitive?”

  “They’re quite a ways inland, so we’re high up, on the back side of the mountain ridge that runs across the continent. The wave couldn’t get past that, and even if one like it came from the other direction it won’t get as high as we’re putting ‘Chateau Lincoln,’ as Tavana’s called it.”

  “Can’t wait to see it. But if it’s that high up it’s going to be hard for me—”

  “We’ve thought of that,” Sakura said with a grin. “It’s next to one of the sources of the biggest river on this side of the continent, and so you’ll be able to follow the stream up and down. The sergeant and Xander say they can make little loops to help you up the steeper parts, or you could just crawl up some walk-ramps.”

  “Wow. You guys have thought of everything.”

  “Everything?” came Campbell’s voice. “Lincoln’s laughing its pretty green head off over that. She’s got a lot more curveballs to throw at us, bet on it. But we’re covering all the bases we can think of for sure. Glad to hear your voice again, son.”

  “Thanks, Sergeant.”

  “All right, everyone,” Laura said, “the rest of you can say hello to Whips, but then he’s got to get some food in him and get back to resting.”

  Harratrer wanted to argue that at first, but soon he realized that despite just waking up a little bit ago, he was already worn out.