"My mother's family was Lithuanian, you know," Macready said. The vapor on his breath told her he'd been drinking long before their toast.
"I thought you looked a little Slavic."
"And my uncle, he dabbled in socialism, back in the day. A 'Wobbly,' they called him. Big on labor unions."
"That's an enlightened family you come from, Captain."
"Please call me Jim."
"Jim."
He leaned forward against the bars, his fingertips almost brushing hers. "Nadezhda—Nadia—I don't want to seem too forward, but I'd like to ask you a question."
"Alright."
"What if I told you I wanted to defect?"
She blinked. That wasn't the question she'd been expecting. "Defect? But you're in the middle of a space mission."
"When I get back to Earth, I mean. I could go through formal channels." His blue eyes became distant. "I'd live in Chelyabinsk, on a farm. Marry a good Russian woman. We'd grow beets at her dacha, and she'd cook them for me. And … I'd have a tractor. A big one."
"You've been thinking a lot about this."
"Nadezhda, I'm not sure I want to raise a family in the States. Watching my kids grow up planted in front a TV set, their teeth rotting from Coca-Cola. I want strong children, in a strong country. One with vision." He reached through the bars to touch her hair. "And with the right woman, of course."
"I think you're being a little presumptuous."
"Well, I'm drunk. And smitten, too. But how about this: if I can get you out of this mess, do you think you might put in a good word for me with old U.S.S.R.? That wouldn't be asking too much, would it?"
"If you can get us out of here, Jim, it would be my pleasure."
Macready's face lit. "I'll do what I can. I haven't contacted Houston Spaceport about you two yet. I guess I've been waffling."
"You must do what your heart tells you is right," she said, her eyes and mouth communicating a warmth she didn't feel.
"You've got me all loopy now." Macready's knees trembled as he rose. "Good night, gorgeous. It'll be the sleep-cycle soon, and we'll talk again in the morning. Over a private breakfast."
"Spokoynoy nochi … Jim."
He grinned and tottered away with his bottle. The guard returned moments later.
"Bah," Lev said, pouting. "You should've told the American the truth. The only thing you love is your ship."
"Stop acting like a boy."
"Did you believe all those lies he spouted? He just wants to get you in bed."
"I believe he'll wake up with a hangover. And most likely, he'll make that transmission to Houston."
"So? What difference does it make?"
"Think, Lev. We haven't been in contact with Luna Control. The Americans can do anything they want with us, and make it look like an accident. Macready might be fond of me, but his government is going to take a much harder stance about our presence here. Given all the secrecy around their project—whatever it is—it'll be simpler just to have us removed."
Lev sat back down on the bunk. "So what do we do, Kapitan?"
"For now we sleep. And hope our romantic friend Macready really is as gullible as he seems."
CHAPTER SIX
But they didn't sleep for long. Nadezhda closed her eyes to drift, and opened them what could've been seconds, minutes, or hours later. Voices came echoing up the hall outside the brig. She saw the guard's face start with recognition.
"Lees?" he said. "Polk? What the hell are you two doing out of quarantine? You look terrible."
An ochre-encrusted figure shuffled up, wearing only a hospital gown. Nadezhda caught the gleam of glassy eyes in the hall's dim light. Too late, the guard went for his automatic. Yellow hands folded over his mouth and throat, while a second figure slipped in and grabbed both wrists. The pistol clattered to the floor. Silenced, the guard could only mmmph ineffectually as a forearm slid around his throat and squeezed. He stopped struggling forty seconds later. The ochre men let him fall to the floor and began searching his uniform.
"What's going on?" Lev said.
"No cause for alarm," came Schmidt's voice. The science officer stalked into the room, wearing the same flimsy gown as the other two. His bandages were gone. Every centimeter of his exposed skin shone a pale yellow.
"How did you get free, Schmidt?" Nadezhda said.
"I was never restrained. Dr. Hubb gave me a sedative, but I only pretended to swallow it. After he left for his sleep cycle, I unzipped the tent over my bed."
"Are you …?"
"Fully recovered. The fungus is benign. My comrades here, Mr. Polk and Mr. Lees, decided to join me. They believe Macready plans to maroon them as an infection risk."
"But aren't they?" Nadezhda said, eyeing Schmidt's exposed skin. "Contagious, I mean."
"The fungus can only be transmitted in spore form, by a puffball."
"And how do you know that? Educated guess?"
"You'll just have to trust me."
She'd never trusted Schmidt, but right now he was the only way out of the cell. Polk handed him a pair of keys.
"I guess we're making a break for it," she said to Lev.
"It's better than waiting."
Schmidt unlocked the cell door. Nadezhda slipped past him, keeping as much distance from his yellowed flesh as possible. She checked the guard's pulse. Unconscious—the Americans wouldn't be able to accuse her of murder, at least. She picked up his primitive sidearm from where it had fallen.
At her direction, Lees dragged the guard into the cell and locked it. "How many more personnel are in the dome?" she asked Schmidt.
"It's near-deserted at night. Apparently, the whole crew sleeps inside the ship."
"We'll make for the airlock. Once outside, we can try to get everyone aboard the Dnieper. It'll be a cramped fit, but I don't see an alternative."
"Agreed," Schmidt said.
"We'll need pressure suits. Do you know where they keep them?"
Polk, the taller of the two Americans, spoke up. "There's a storage area near the airlock."
His response gave her pause. She'd spoken to Schmidt in Russian; Polk had replied in the same tongue, without an accent. What were the odds of that?
But Lev was already squeezing past her. She followed him out into the dim hall, pistol drawn. The trio of infected men crept close behind. Through a doorway, Nadezhda glanced the room with the topographic map Macready had been so secretive about.
"Come back here, Lev," she whispered. "We need to see this."
The map detailed a peninsula of the crescent-shaped southern continent; she recognized the coastline and mudflats where the Sokol had landed. A line of pins cut across the jungle and into an area of hills beyond. "What do these needles signify?" she asked Polk.
"Each one is an atomic bomb."
Lev's eyebrows shot up. "And what are they for?" Nadezhda said.
"We discovered Thorium deposits here," Polk said, pointing at the hilly area. "Very rich. Phase One of Operation Slag City involves detonating a series of bombs, to wipe out all hostile life in the area. With Phase Two we'll set up a large-scale mining colony."
He'd explained it casually enough, but the implications took a moment to set in. "You mean to tell me," Nadezhda said, "that you'd wipe out every living creature around here, just to safeguard a mining operation? What about the fallout?"
Polk shrugged. "Radiation shielding is cheaper than constant security. Besides, the Thorium is radioactive anyway."
"The international community would never stand for it. Loathsome as the creatures on this planet are, the whole idea is genocidal."
"Which explains all the secrecy," Lev said.
Schmidt cleared his throat. "We can discuss lapses of national ethics later. I suggest we stay focused on escape."
"For once," Nadezhda said, "I'm inclined to agree with you."
They returned to the hall and followed it, until the partitions gave way to the bar area, darkened and empty. The stale smell of cigarettes lingere
d. A storage room next to the airlock held pressure suits, as predicted, and a rack of submachine guns. Nadezhda kept her pistol while the others armed. Everyone hustled into suits.
"What's the security like out there?" she asked Polk.
"There should be a perimeter guard on night duty, sometimes two. Also, someone will be manning the cannon for air cover."
"How very thorough." Nadezhda felt her hopes sag. But she crept through the airlock and parted the outer flap to see for herself.
Total blackness lay over the camp, pierced only by small red lamps affixed to the fence posts. Crimson light revealed a guard occupying the anti-aircraft turret, his face hidden behind the bulky contrivance of an infra-red helmet. Another guard armed with a flame rifle paced the interior edge of the fence. Thirty meters distant loomed the stubby silhouette of the Freedom's Burden, snug beneath its radar-absorbing umbrella. The Dnieper's smaller shadow rested nearby.
Schmidt and Lev took turns at the flap. "We've got to take care of the big gun," Lev said. "It'll knock our bird right out of the sky if we just make a run for it."
Nadezhda turned to Polk. "Can you and your friend handle the gunner, like you did the guard?"
He nodded.
"What about the sentry with the flamer?" Lev said.
Nadezhda considered. "We can time it, so they approach when he's walking behind the rocket. They'll have to be quick. The rest of us will stay here. If five armed people come spilling out of the dome at once, it'll look suspicious."
Polk and Lees agreed. Tractable, these Americans.
They waited until the sentry's pacing carried him behind the freighter, tracking his progress by watching the lamps wink out as he passed. Polk and Lees slipped from the dome, making for the turret. The gunner didn't notice them until they were both alongside. Lees pointed at something in the distance, beyond the fence. When the gunner craned his head out to look, Polk reached over and snatched him from the turret. Moments later he had his man in a choke-hold.
Neatly done. But the gunner had more skill at hand-to-hand than they'd reckoned. He bent at the waist and threw Polk over his shoulder. A whirl, a well-placed kick, and Lees went staggering backwards.
"You two stay here," Nadezhda said, bolting from the airlock. She reached the gunner in time to slam her automatic against the base of his neck. He sank to one knee, and Lees jumped in from the flank. After a short tussle he had the gunner pinned.
"Hey!" cracked a voice on a suit-speaker. "What gives over there?"
The sentry had just finished his circuit behind the Burden. Without waiting for a response, he came rushing towards them.
Polk straightened, leveled his submachine gun. "Freeze."
The sentry came to a stumbling halt. Behind him, the Burden's airlock swung open, streaming light, and two silhouettes began climbing down the gangplank. Whether they'd been alerted or were just the relief shift, Nadezhda couldn't tell. Polk angled his gun high and squeezed off a burst. Bullets ricocheted above the airlock. The two crewmen scurried back up the gangplank, into the ship.
But now the sentry had his rifle trained on Polk. "I don't know what the hell's gotten into you, but if you don't throw that down I'll fry—"
Polk walked towards him, arms outstretched. His gun dangled by a strap from his elbow.
Nadezhda instinctively shut her eyes before the flame-gout blinded her. When she opened them again she saw Polk, his suit blackened and burning, reach for the sentry. Hands locked around his neck in a death-embrace. The sentry howled, tried to beat at his crewmate with his rifle-butt. The two went down.
Floodlights at the base of the rocket snapped on, bathing the camp in white glare. Lev and Schmidt came sprinting from the dome.
"Get in the turret," Schmidt shouted at her.
"Why?"
"Just get in. We can slow them down."
The echo of automatic fire from the Burden's airlock made her jump. She leapt past Lees and the pinned gunner, and landed in the turret's control seat. Levers, knobs, pedals—none of it looked familiar. She pulled a lever on her left; the gun swung in that direction, too fast. She depressed a pedal. Instead of braking, the four barrels roared into life, spitting tracer rounds at the top of the dome. Fabric punctured, caught fire.
"The other way," Schmidt said, beside her now, reaching for a lever. The gun swung right and low, until it was pointing at one of the fence posts. "Now."
She hit the pedal. A stream of high-powered shells struck the post with a grating shriek. Violet sparks danced along the fence perimeter, and died just as quickly in curls of smoke. Destroying one post had shorted the entire circuit.
"Out," Schmidt said.
She jumped clear of the turret. Lev was using his submachine gun to hose the Burden's airlock with suppression fire, keeping the men there pinned down. But a teardrop-shaped blister near the rocket's tail was opening, and the ugly muzzle of a heat ray angled out.
"Just a moment," Schmidt said, his jaundiced eyes narrowing with concentration, "just a few more moments …"
The surrounding jungle shook as if hit by a small quake. A wave of creatures plunged from the tree line; salamen, spiders, six-legged snakes and giant eels, all mottled with the ochre fungus. They poured in past the sparking fence posts, meeting no electrical resistance. Nadezhda drew back, ready to dodge, ready to shoot her pistol point-blank, but the creatures ignored them and charged the Burden.
The heat ray lit with carmine radiance. A streamer licked across the anti-aircraft cannon, melting its quad barrels to slag. It licked again among the herd of alien life. Bodies swelled and burst as photons converted blood to superheated steam.
"The Dnieper," Nadezhda said.
Lev shattered a searchlight with a well-aimed burst. Then another. The heat ray's ruby brilliance lashed out, liquefying a group of salamen who'd reached the gangplank. Nadezhda reached down to grab for Lees, still with his hands tight around the gunner's throat. But Lees wouldn't respond; he'd caught a jet of molten metal across his back when the cannon was hit. It had burned through his suit and the flesh beneath.
"Leave him," Schmidt said. "He's finished."
They scrambled for their ship. With the searchlights out and attention drawn elsewhere, no one aboard the Burden seemed to notice. Nadezhda got the cockpit opened and helped Schmidt inside. Lev piled after. A flip of a toggle brought the boat's reactor to life; instrumentation lit, and engines thrummed with restrained power. Nadezhda bit her lip as she worked the controls, expecting the heat ray to strike any moment. The Dnieper's re-entry shielding wouldn't stand up to a focused thermonuclear reaction.
"Let's go," shouted Lev.
She jerked the throttle. The Dnieper shot straight up. Red flickered out from the Burden, trying to touch the little craft as it climbed. But they were above the American ship now, and the radar-absorbing umbrella blocked its arc of fire. Momentarily. The tiles glowed an angry orange, melted. A heat beam stabbed through and almost kissed the Dnieper's nose.
"Get us out of here," Schmidt said.
Nadezhda banked the flight stick and hit rear thrusters. Black jungle slid away. She checked the rear camera for a final view of the Burden; the dome burning, red rays flashing out among the closing waves of Venerian life. She pictured Macready somewhere down there, bawling frantic orders to his crew. Was he still thinking about his summer dacha in Chelyabinsk?
She doubted it.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Dnieper's sleek frame shuddered as it broke the sound barrier. Nadezhda wasn't taking any chances. Jungle, mud flats, coastline; all turned into a sable blur beneath them. She checked her radar scope. At this speed, they'd reach the Sokol in minutes.
"Any signs of pursuit?" Lev said, peering over her shoulder at the scope. His breathing was still ragged.
"None. Macready told me all they had for auxiliary craft was a rover. But he could order his ship after us."
"That crate? It'd take an hour to prep and fly."
"It's still a chance."
&nbs
p; "Do you think we just started a war?"
Nadezhda shook her head. "That's what diplomats call a 'skirmish.' But if Macready comes sniffing around the Sokol, he's going to get a real fight."
She shifted her attention from the controls to check on Schmidt. He sat slumped against the Dnieper's quartz canopy, his eyes open and vacant. "Those creatures that attacked the Burden," she said, "they'd been waiting out there in the jungle, hadn't they?"
Schmidt's voice rang hollow inside his helmet. "I suppose so. I don't see how so many could appear so quickly, otherwise."
"They all had your ochre affliction. Did you notice that?"
"Hmm."
"And they went right past us, focused only on the ship. I got the feeling they were sacrificing themselves."
"I would caution you again, Kapitan, when ascribing motives to alien life. Who can say what their reasons were? Perhaps the ship represented a symbolic threat to their territory."
Polk and Lees weren't 'alien life,' she thought, and they acted damn strangely. "One more thing, Konrad. Have you ever fired an anti-aircraft cannon before? Because you seemed awfully competent back there."
"I had a sense for the mechanism," he said, his old irritability trickling back. "Perhaps you would've preferred it, if I just stayed in my plastic tent …"
"No. Likely, you saved us from a political execution."
"Then please stop grilling me." He touched the top of his helmet. "I have a headache."
The Dnieper's scope lit with a blotchy contact. The Sokol. She reduced speed and altitude, bringing the craft below the sound barrier. Flat black ocean came rushing up on one side; gray beach on the other. Tendrils of fog stretched long white fingers over the sand.
"We should have visual contact in a few moments," she said.
Lev peered through the viewport. "I hope we left some lights on."
They had. A fog bank in the distance glowed white. Nadezhda raised braking-flaps and brought the Dnieper to fifty meters. Beneath the mist, a silver, winged shape began to resolve. Nadezhda reeled as if seeing her ship for the first time. They'd been gone only a Venerian day, but already she felt the sweet ache of reunion.
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