Starhawk

by Jack McDevitt

  “They really were odd, weren’t they?”

  “The only thing I could think of was that whoever had been in the lander set something up to get our attention.”

  “Well, Otto was dead. And Simon says he didn’t know anything about it.”

  “Simon’s the AI?”

  “Yes.”

  “So what was going on?”

  “You tell me, Priscilla.”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Okay. Here’s something else: Simon says the lander was damaged during the launch. It lost its wings.”

  “How do you mean ‘lost’?”

  “Torn off.”

  “Impossible. I mean, the lander was more or less intact on the ground, right?”

  “Yes. Except for the wings. One was down on the slope; the other was missing.”

  “So how’d they get down?”

  “That’s the question, isn’t it?”

  “There’s somebody down there.”

  Jake nodded. “I don’t see any other explanation.”

  “And they’re friendly.”

  “Maybe.”

  “So do we go back to find out who it is?”

  “What do you suggest?”

  She thought about it. “The smart thing to do would be to quit while we’re ahead.”

  Jake adjusted his harness. “Makes sense to me.”

  “But we’ll spend the rest of our lives wondering—”

  “I know,” said Jake. “That sounds like one of those comments that get engraved on tombstones.” He pushed back in his seat. “So, I take it you vote for going back?”

  * * *

  PRISCILLA’S JOURNAL

  Orfano is the saddest, most dismal place I’ve ever seen. We talk about people needing sunlight and we use sunny as a synonym for optimism and so on. Nevertheless, I don’t think I ever realized how critical sunlight can be to setting a mood. Remove it, and darkness becomes a palpable force. In Orfano’s skies, there are, of course, stars, but they are only glimmers in an overwhelming night. There isn’t even a moon. Not that it would matter if there were because a moon needs sunlight, too.

  —February 8, 2196

  Chapter 40

  THE ODDS OF encountering the object seemed remote, but to play it safe, Jake placed them well outside the orbit in which they’d found the exhaust tube and the chair. “I hope you’re right,” Priscilla said, “about all this. If the Vincenti was brought down by some sort of hi-tech weapon, we wouldn’t have much chance.” She looked genuinely concerned.

  “It shouldn’t be a problem,” said Jake. “If there was a system to take out any strangers who went into orbit, we’d know about it by now.” He looked down at the ice-covered world. “It’s just hard to believe there’d be anything there. Myra, I know we have no idea how long ago Orfano was expelled from its planetary system. But what’s the minimum? What’s the least amount of time it’s been without a sun?”

  “Indications,” said Myra, “are it could not have orbited any known star during the last three hundred million years. The consensus, however, is that it has probably been adrift more than one and a half billion years.”

  “Well,” said Priscilla, “if you’re right about all this, the Baumbachner will go down in history.”

  “Let’s hope it doesn’t just go down.”

  “We should inform Union of our intentions.”

  “Do it. They’ll respond by directing us to use caution.” Priscilla looked uncomfortable. “What’s wrong?” said Jake.

  “Aside from wondering what we’re getting into? If it turns out we’re going to make history, I’d like my name associated with something that sounds a little flashier than the Baumbachner.”

  “You on that again?”

  “It doesn’t seem like too much to ask.”

  “Nothing wrong with going back to Starhawk, I guess. But I don’t think it’s going to fool anybody.”

  “Valkyrie would be nice. Or maybe Defiant. Even Reliable. In fact, Reliable’s good.”

  Jake couldn’t help smiling. “How about Reluctant?”

  “You’ll be sorry when we become historic figures, and everybody’s laughing at us.”

  * * *

  THERE WERE NO lights anywhere. But the sculpted landscape had taken on a new significance. Jake had been inclined to dismiss it when they’d first arrived as simply natural formations mixed with an overactive imagination. He thought that the various symmetries would be explainable without resorting to aliens. Now it was hard to believe there wasn’t an alien force at work.

  But after thirty hours in various orbits, they had nothing. No lights. No responses to radio transmissions. No sign of any activity whatever.

  Although, in fact, they did come up with something. “I believe we’ve found our superdense object,” said Myra.

  “Where?” they both asked.

  “It is at a substantial distance.” The display lit up, and they were looking at a swirl of dust. “Actually, I noted it before, but since it had nothing to do with our objective, I paid no attention. Error on my part.”

  “Is it in orbit?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay. Get it on the record so we can make sure we stay away from it.”

  * * *

  “IF SOMEONE’S ACTUALLY down there,” said Priscilla, “they don’t seem to be interested in setting up a conversation.”

  “Maybe they can’t,” said Jake.

  “How do you mean?”

  “They might not have the right technology.”

  “So how do you think they got the Vincenti’s lander down safely?”

  “I don’t know, Priscilla. Why don’t we give them a chance to do another rescue?”

  They went down to the cargo bay, where Jake equipped the lander with extra sensors. Priscilla rigged some pillows in the pilot’s seat, wrapped them in blankets, and put her cap on the resultant figure, creating the impression of a pilot. “Good,” said Jake. “That should work. Now let’s go set up the launch.”

  Priscilla nodded. “We should get near the downed lander.”

  They returned to the bridge and depressurized the cargo area. “I just can’t imagine,” Priscilla said, “anything being alive on that world. Maybe there’s some sort of automated mechanism at work.”

  “What would be the point?” asked Jake.

  She shook her head. “It could be something left over from another time.”

  “We’re talking hundreds of millions of years, Priscilla. That would be a pretty substantial mechanism.”

  “Four minutes,” said Myra.

  Priscilla was back in the pilot’s seat. “Open the doors,” she said.

  Jake opened a channel to the lander AI. “Andrea, after we launch, I want the lander to look as if it’s lost partial power. As if you’re struggling to keep it from going down. Do that for three minutes. Then shut off the engines, and do a free fall as long as you can without damaging the vehicle. If anything unusual happens, record all circumstances. If nothing intervenes to prevent the fall, restore power and return to the ship. We’ll pick you up on the next orbit. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, Jake. It sounds simple enough. I wish you luck in this experiment.”

  * * *

  “LAUNCH IN ONE minute,” said Myra.

  Jake turned toward Priscilla. “Wish us luck, kid.”

  She gave him a thumbs-up. “What do we do if someone walks out of a cloud, grabs it, and takes it down?”

  “I think,” he said, “we say thank you very much and skedaddle.”

  Priscilla sat quietly. Jake watched the timer click off the seconds.

  Priscilla leaned over her mike as the time ran out. “Launch the lander,” she said.

  “Vehicle launched,” said Myra.

  “Okay, Andrea,” Jake said, “you’ve got it.”

  “Roger that,” said Andrea. She turned on the lander’s navigation lights. And one of the interior lamps, whose glow did give the impression someone was in the pilot’s seat. />
  “No way they could miss that,” said Priscilla.

  “Whenever you’re ready, Andrea.” The lander’s engines coughed, died, came back. The vehicle began to struggle.

  “Code five,” said Andrea. “Engine failure. Going down.”

  Jake watched it slipping through the darkness. “She’s putting on a good show.”

  “Anybody who can see it,” said Priscilla, “would have to know the thing’s in trouble.”

  The engines sputtered a few more times and died as the lander went into free fall. Jake held his breath. If there was going to be an intervention, it would have to come quickly.

  “Code five,” said Andrea. “Please assist.”

  “I don’t think anything’s going to happen,” said Priscilla.

  Jake had never really accepted the rescue explanation, had not expected to see something snatch the vehicle and carry it safely to ground. Yet what possibility remained?

  The lander was in a death spiral. Moments later Andrea’s voice broke the silence: “Negative results. Restarting engines.” Jake heard the thrusters fire. “We are pulling out. Returning to orbit.” The rate of descent slowed, but the ground was coming up fast. Jake found himself holding his breath. But the vehicle leveled off quickly, skimmed along hilltops and clusters of rocks, and began to gain altitude.

  “Good, Andrea,” said Jake. “Come on home.”

  He sat back and closed his eyes. “Jake,” said Myra, “we have a light.”

  * * *

  IT BURNED STEADILY, a soft sapphire incandescence. Nothing like the original lights. “Can’t tell what it is,” said Jake. “Too much mist in the area.”

  “Myra,” said Priscilla, “will you be able to find it again?” It was already growing dim in their rear.

  “If it’s still there,” she said. “It’s in a different area from the original globes.”

  They’d need an orbit to recover the lander, and another to set up a second launch. “No hurry,” said Jake.

  “We’ll have to go down,” said Priscilla.

  Jake shook his head. “I’ll go down.”

  “Come on, Jake. I’d like to be part of this, too. How about if I go down this time?”

  “Not a good idea.”

  “All right. Why don’t we both go?”

  Oh, hell. Nothing was likely to happen, so it really wasn’t worth another argument. “Okay,” he said.

  The blue light was still there on the next orbit. They brought the lander on board, refueled it, and ran a quick check. Then they waited while the Baumbachner circled the planet again. Priscilla tried to get some sleep, but it was useless.

  And finally, they were climbing into the lander.

  “The light is still there,” said Myra.

  * * *

  JAKE CONCEDED THE lander to her. Priscilla took the pilot’s seat. The light had gotten lost in clouds when they launched, but Andrea guided them down, taking most of her data from the ship. And eventually it reappeared, a softly glowing patch of mist.

  She swung gently to the right and began a circular descent. The mist was rising from the center of a group of low hills interspersed with broad ice sheets. Jake looked her way. The message was obvious enough: Did she want him to make the landing?

  She had no problem taking the lander down. Furthermore, she had nothing to prove. “You want to take over?” she asked.

  “No,” he said. “Just put us on the ground.”

  My kind of guy, she thought. “What’s making the light?” Priscilla asked the AI.

  “I can’t tell,” said Andrea.

  She brought them down on the ice sheet, went into a skid, but hung on until they stopped. The blue mist was only about fifty meters ahead. “Priscilla,” said Jake, “I think the smart way to do this would be for you to stay here. I’ll take a look and see what we have.”

  “Why is that the smart way?”

  “Because it ensures we keep control of the lander. We’ll stay in touch, and if something bad happens—I doubt it will, but just in case—you can get out of here, and the people back home won’t be wondering where we went.” He smiled. “You’re glaring at me again, Priscilla. What happened to this Hutch person I was hearing about?”

  Jake was pulling on a blue-and-silver WSA jacket with a rocket emblem. The manufacturers of the Flickinger system claimed that the force field provided complete protection against extreme temperatures, but he didn’t believe it. People using the equipment inevitably felt more comfortable wearing a coat or jacket.

  “I’m just wondering why the safe thing to do always seems to be to leave me behind,” she said.

  “I’m sorry,” Jake said, “but somebody has to stay. You’re the pilot.”

  “All right.”

  “Thirty years from now, when you’re in charge of everything, you’ll have to tell people the same thing, that they can’t always go where they want.” He activated his Flickinger unit and went into the air lock.

  * * *

  SHE GOT UP and retreated into one of the passenger seats to get a better view. The outer hatch opened, and Jake climbed cautiously down onto the hard-packed ice, his weight gain already impeding him. He trudged off across the frozen ground. “How you doing?” she asked.

  “It’s a trifle windy out here,” he said.

  He was headed between two low hills. She listened as the ground cracked under his feet.

  “Be careful.”

  “I will, Priscilla.”

  He’d left the outer hatch open, as he’d done when he had gone over to the downed lander. She knew why, of course: It would facilitate things if he had to leave in a hurry. She watched through his imager. The sapphire glow got brighter as he rounded the hill. The ground was a combination of ice and rock, then suddenly it changed to water!

  She caught her breath.

  “It’s a lake,” Jake said. “How the hell is that possible?”

  But it was there. Solid ice near the shore leading to open water farther out. And it was the water that was exuding the mist. A beautiful cobalt blue.

  Priscilla checked the outside temperature: 185 below zero, centigrade. “Stay away from it,” she said. “Get out of there.”

  “Relax, Priscilla,” said Jake.

  “No.” Andrea’s voice. “She’s right. It’s radioactive. Come back.”

  That was enough. Jake turned and started to retreat. But he wasn’t happy. “What?” he demanded. “Why do you say that, Andrea?”

  “It’s Cherenkov radiation. It’s what happens if you take a star drive and drop it twenty kilometers. The fuel spills out, melts the ice, and turns blue in the water. You get a blue glow.”

  “Come on, Jake,” said Priscilla. “Move.”

  He was coming. But the Flickinger field protected against radiation. Up to a point.

  * * *

  PRISCILLA’S JOURNAL

  I’d never heard of an interstellar coming apart and depositing its drive unit on a planetary surface. When I asked Andrea to take a look at the history, she discovered it did happen once when the Blackford collided with an orbiting rock and simply broke open. That, I decided, was what had happened here. Except that the rock had been heavy, really heavy, and had pulled the spacecraft apart. The drive hit the ground. And the chair stayed in orbit.

  —February 9, 2196

  Chapter 41

  JAKE CAME BACK through the air lock while Priscilla held her breath, listening for the radiation alarm. But it remained silent.

  “I guess,” Jake said, “it’s time to fold the tent.”

  “I have an idea,” said Priscilla.

  “If,” Andrea said, “you are planning to continue this mission, I suggest we return to the Baumbachner and refuel.”

  “What’s your idea?” asked Jake.

  * * *

  THEY WENT BACK to the ship, where Priscilla retrieved one of the imagers from the library. Then she sat down in the pilot’s seat and connected the unit to the feed. “Myra, I’d like to take a look at the record
from Jake’s descent to the Vincenti lander.”

  The AI put it on-screen, the line of lights, at first no more than distant sparks seen through wispy clouds. Then a gradual brightening as Jake moved closer, the wave effect taking hold, the sparks growing into stars, then into luminous spheres. A perfect line of lights from front to rear. No way that could be anything but a signal.

  Jake watched while she recorded it for the imager. When she’d finished, she ran a test, reproducing the lights on the bridge. Then she sat back and smiled. “Ready to go,” she said.

  * * *

  THE VINCENTI LANDER was shrouded on its hilltop.

  “You know,” Jake said, after he’d turned them around and shut off the engines, “I don’t see any point in going back to the wreckage. We’re in the general area. That should be enough.”

  “Okay,” she said.

  They climbed out of their seats, and activated the Flickinger fields. Priscilla collected her imager. They went through the air lock, and a soft wind pushed at her. “Midnight World,” she said. “Where the sun never rises.” She looked up at the hill on which the Vincenti lander had come to rest.

  “When you’re ready,” said Jake.

  She aimed the imager directly ahead, raised it a bit above ground level, and turned it on. Two soft lights appeared, and the landscape brightened.

  * * *

  THEY WATCHED WITHOUT moving. “Jake, I have a question.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “If there really is someone here, and they did, somehow, bring the lander down, why didn’t they make an effort to save Otto?”

  “Maybe,” said Jake, “they realized they had no way to get to him without killing him.”

  She was looking around, hoping the lights would draw a response. The wind was moving the snow around.

  “Try the entire series,” said Jake. “We might need all seven of the lights.”

  She’d reproduced only two because she’d wanted to maintain the actual dimensions of the display, the size and degree of luminosity and the distance between the lights. In showing all of them, she’d lose that. But—She made the adjustment, and the original seven appeared. She raised the angle, putting them higher overhead.

  “Good,” said Jake. “If that doesn’t do it, I think we’re out of options.” He turned toward her. “Why don’t you let me hold it for a while?”