by Chris Walley
Vero looked at him. “We . . .” He paused, looking at the table. “Doctor, we have noticed that animals seem sensitive to the intruders. We think she was afraid. But she was so disciplined that she kept going northward as she was trained to do on the appropriate sound stimulus.”
With a look of guilt on his face, Vero turned to the screen. “Anyway, the new frame rate is now one every second.”
The images still jumped, but the transitions were smoother. Finally they got to the one they had all examined, and Vero paused on it.
“By now the control team was very concerned about her. I gather they were on the point of switching off all commands. They had the images they w-wanted. But then—No, you watch. See the black mark? Let me go back a bit.”
There was a flicker, and as Merral watched, he saw the black object move back to the landing ramp.
“Now forward.”
The thing seemed to bound and jump through the air. Merral decided that, even allowing for the time lapse between the images, it still flew in a very strange manner. Aware of gasps around him, Merral tried to focus on the object, trying to interpret what he was seeing but struggling because it was so totally unfamiliar to him.
His first impressions were of some kind of black sheet that undulated through the air as if it were a rug or a blanket carried by the wind. But the lake was calm, and there was a purposefulness to the thing’s motion that told of it moving under its own power.
After a few more frames, Merral decided that it was an animal, but like nothing he had ever seen. It seemed to change course, and as it turned, it tilted and he glimpsed that its profile was kite shaped. There was even—and suddenly he was sure of it—a long tail.
Merral was aware of Anya beside him, shaking her head in disbelief. “How’s it doing that?”
There was no answer.
Vero let the frame jump forward and froze the image. “Now,” he said in a strained voice, “we get a better view.”
Merral noted new details. Unlike a bird or a bat—and it was surely much larger than either—there was no separation between body and wings; there was just a single smooth unit, thicker at the middle and thinner at the edges. Equally, there was no distinct head.
“A flying wing,” someone said, horror in his voice.
“It’s like a ray; you know, the sea fish.” It was Fred Huang’s voice, and Merral was reminded he was a diver.
“A manta ray,” said someone else.
“Yes, but this thing’s flying, like a sheet,” said another voice, full of incredulity and fear.
Vero pressed a button and more images flickered by. Merral could now see that the creature moved by slow but steady wing beats. There was something unnervingly determined in the way it moved.
It was getting closer, Merral realized, and he was able to see the black shadow of the creature on the water. Then it came to him with a spasm of horror that this thing was speeding toward the horse.
“Yow, it’s big,” said an apprehensive voice.
Suddenly the creature went off the screen, and the scene became an angled one of rocks and scrub with little patches of grass.
Vero paused the images. “Th-the controllers released her here. H-heart rate was far too high. She was panicking. Image quality goes here too. There was s-signal loss; she was moving too rapidly.”
The images shifted again. There was another frame, also at a bizarre angle, of a stream valley and white flowing water. She’s running away, Merral thought. She has seen the creature and she’s fleeing it. And I don’t blame her.
There were disconnected images of sky and distant ranges. Now there was a new image, and a gasp of horror came from someone. Was it from Anya?
Most of the image was sky, with just a patch of ground in a corner. But protruding into the right side of the image and tilted as if it was banking to swing parallel to the horse was the front half of the creature. On the underside of the black sheet, running lengthwise as if below some spine, was a long pale slit with strange appendages hanging down on either side. A mouth, Merral thought. The next frame showed it more clearly. It was a mouth and the appendages either side of the long jaws were now eight or so pairs of tiny clawlike limbs.
Merral, suddenly holding the table edge tight, was aware of a smell of fear in the sweaty and sticky air of the tent.
“Oh, Lord,” someone said quietly in a horrified prayer.
Vero froze the screen. “At th-this point the decision was taken to jettison the equipment,” he said in a voice that was unnaturally calm. For a fraction of a second, Merral tore his eyes off the image to look around the table. Every face bore an expression of utter horror.
The image changed. The shot was now clearly from a lower angle; the creature had gone, and all that could be seen was a pile of rocks.
“Any more?” asked a voice, heavy with distaste.
“Just one that is relevant . . . ,” Vero answered. “A few minutes later.”
The new image screen showed the rocks again but now there was the thing flying above them, tilted again, allowing a glimpse of the underside. But this time the pale slit of the mouth was a different color: the wet bright red of fresh blood.
Merral was aware of voices all around him, of cries of horror, of a chair leg being scraped as someone got to their feet and moved unsteadily to the tent door.
“Switch it off!” someone ordered angrily. Merral realized that it was his own voice, but who he was angry with, he could not say.
The image vanished.
Merral swallowed, his mind awhirl with fears and worries. He was aware that outside the tent, someone was sobbing.
“One question, Vero,” he said.
The sentinel looked guiltily at him, as if bracing himself for a rebuke. “Yes?”
“Can you guarantee, absolutely guarantee, that the equipment—the micronic camera, the transmitter, the biosensors—have not been picked up by the intruders?”
There was silence for a moment. “N-No . . . ,” Vero replied after a pause, the words seemingly dragged out of him. “The camera failed shortly afterward.”
“In other words,” Merral said, aware that everyone was looking at him, “there is the possibility that these . . . that they now know we have found them?”
Vero interlocked his hands and stared blankly at Merral. When he spoke his voice was barely audible. “I-I think . . .Well, there is no evidence for that. But I must say—I suppose—that it is conceivable. . . . A possibility.”
Suddenly Merral realized there was a decision that needed to be made. He closed his eyes, partly trying to focus on the issues, partly praying. The answer came easily and he opened them. He looked around, seeing ashen faces, noting people dabbing their eyes.
They were all watching him. He was strangely conscious that his lips were dry and that there was sweat dripping down his back.
“Everybody,” he said, thinking as he said it that he sounded more confident than he felt, “we must now bear in mind the possibility that we have been discovered. We are at approximately forty hours before contact. Unless, in the next minute, anyone of you can give me an absolutely unassailable reason why we shouldn’t, I want to change that to put us at sixteen hours before contact.”
“Huh?” grunted someone in surprise.
“Yes, I want to bring the mission forward a full twenty-four hours.”
There were gasps from around the table, but Merral continued. “I want us to fly in six hours’ time. Tonight. And I want to make contact at dawn tomorrow.”
There was silence.
“Very well, the decision is made.” Merral glanced at his watch. “So everyone bring forward all times by twenty-four hours. We will shortly be at contact minus sixteen hours.”
In the silence that followed, Merral spoke again, slowly. “And Luke, I want you to make sure that every man and woman among the contact teams has recorded a final message for his or her family. And that we have a copy on file.”
The chaplain closed his eyes and
nodded.
Merral got to his feet and leaned forward, his hands pressed down on the table. Again, he scanned the faces.
“Maybe God will grant us a diplomatic miracle. . . . I think not.” He saw pale, taut faces staring blankly back at him. “On the basis of what we have just seen, I think we will have combat tomorrow. And we must expect casualties.”
38
Five hours later, Merral sat wearily back in his seat in the passenger cabin of the Emilia Kay as they prepared for takeoff. He wanted to relax, but he knew the effort was futile. Since the decision to move the mission forward a day, the afternoon had been a frenzied whirlwind of activity. He had barely had time to record two brief messages: one for his parents, the other—full of apologies—for Isabella. Outside the window, the sun was sinking into the sea and casting an orange glow on Anya as she leaned back in her seat at the very end of the row. She smiled at Merral. “Tired?” she asked sympathetically.
“Yes, but I don’t mind being tired. It’s just not the right sort of tiredness.”
Anya nodded and gazed at him with a soft and caring look. What is going on between us? Does she care for me beyond an ordinary friendship? Or am I simply imagining this because that’s what I would like to believe? On and off through the chaotic afternoon, he had caught her watching him. Or had he been watching her, and had she just caught his glances? He wondered whether she had a special friendship with any other man. He would have known if there had been any commitment, everyone did, but was there, perhaps, something less formal? At the memorable meal at her apartment the night before Vero and he had left for their trip up the Lannar River, she had seemed to be very friendly with Theodore, the extroverted oceanographer. However, he realized that he hadn’t heard anything of him since. As he thought about it, his troubled relationship with Isabella prodded his mind, and he suddenly felt guilty.
Perena’s voice from the loudspeaker overhead announced an imminent takeoff, and Merral put Anya out of his mind.
Here in the passenger cabin, we can at least belt ourselves in. Down in the cramped hold, the men could only brace themselves as best they could, but at least there was so little space that they were unlikely to be thrown about.
He surveyed the others around him. Vero, sitting on his own, was trying to stretch out, but his expression and movements proclaimed an inner agitation. Merral felt sure that it was not just the prospect of more flying. Ever since the images from the doomed Felicity had come in, Vero had been withdrawn and pensive. Merral felt that he must find time to talk with him before the flight was over, but now was not the time. Louis and Erika were also silent, both staring ahead. Among so many uniforms, they seemed strangely incongruous with their smart, pale fawn jackets with the Lamb and Stars emblem neatly affixed to the breast pockets and their matching trousers and polished shoes. Maria Dalphey, with a bag full of communications gear at her feet, was absorbed in studying sheets of paper. “Logistics Lucy,” as Lucy Dmitri had become known, was slumped back in her seat with her eyes closed. Merral felt certain that not only was she not sleeping, but that she would not sleep.
Could anybody?
As the noise of the engines began to build up behind him, Merral reviewed the planned flight path of the Emilia Kay. The first part, keeping low over the sea, would be a wide arc southeastward to clear the rest of the Henelen Archipelago. Then, having swung wide around Cape Menerelm, they would fly out into the Mazurbine Ocean before flying northwestward at as low an altitude as possible, to make landfall on Menaya just east of the Lannar Crater margin. From there, the three teams would be progressively dropped off clockwise around the margins of the crater.
With a frame-rattling engine roar, the Emilia Kay lifted off heavily from the runway. Perena, anxious to stay low, leveled off quickly and then banked gently southeastward. Fortunately, Merral thought, the forecast is for fine weather. With a maximum flying altitude of under two thousand meters, there wasn’t going to be much space for sudden drops in altitude.
As soon as the Emilia Kay had become horizontal, Merral left his seat in the passenger cabin and went down to the cargo module. As he slid open the door, the smell of sweat and anxiety greeted him. He paused in the shadow of the doorway, surveying the scene. Even after having left everyone—and everything—that wasn’t essential behind at Tanaris, the hold was still almost completely filled. There were people everywhere: squeezed together on the floor, sitting in the seats inside the sleds and the hoverer, and standing, braced against the equipment or the walls. All were uniformed in the new green armored jackets with their embossed Lamb and Stars emblems, but only a few were wearing helmets. The hold was too warm for that. Beneath and behind the soldiers, Merral could make out the two camouflaged sleds on their handling trolleys, the hoverer painted an innocent white, and various stacks of equipment.
There was surprisingly little noise for well over a hundred people, but a lot of them were silent, seemingly engrossed in their own thoughts and prayers. The few that were talking were doing so quietly. Merral, trying to understand the unfamiliar atmosphere in the hold, sensed expectancy, uncertainty, and fear.
As he surveyed his men, the Emilia Kay made a small course adjustment, and the rays of the setting sun shone into the packed compartment, throwing a weird, ruddy light on the men and machines. Like blood, Merral thought unhappily.
The soldier nearest the door looked up, saw Merral, and with a tense smile on his face, tried to salute. Philip Matakala, Merral thought, remembering his name.
“Oh, forget it, Philip,” Merral said more strongly than he had intended as he squatted down next to him, feeling a sudden revulsion for the whole business of orders and rank. What do I really know of this man? Philip was the sergeant and sled pilot with Frankie’s team, so Merral had had more contact with him than with many of the other men. But even so, all he really knew was that Philip was an agriculture graduate, a sailor, and a single man from Caranat, one of the smaller coastal settlements. And the thought came to Merral with no pleasure that he was in some way accountable for this amiable but retiring man’s safety.
“You’re ready?” he asked him, trying to say something to cover his feelings.
“I suppose so, sir,” Philip replied, then looked up inquiringly with thoughtful eyes. “Are you?” He paused. “Sorry, am I supposed to ask that?”
Merral, bracing himself against the doorway, thought hard. He realized that he faced Corradon’s dilemma.
“Why not? Am I ready? A good question. I vaguely feel—from the depressing ancient stuff I’ve read—that I should be confident and so fill you with confidence.”
“And you aren’t?” Philip asked, his words tinged with sympathy.
Merral hesitated. “I don’t feel confident. I simply don’t know enough to know whether we are good enough. I think we—especially the teams—have worked wonders to get so far, but how good we really are is something hard to determine. Especially when we don’t know what the opposition is like. I wish we had some old soldiers here.”
“Old soldiers?”
Merral laughed. “I’m getting like Vero. It’s an expression. Veterans. In the Dark Times, wars were so frequent that when an old one ended they seemed to start a new one. So there were generally soldiers in the ranks who had fought in the last one. It gave continuity.”
“Yes. I remember. But it sounds like a crazy way to run a civilization.”
“Well, it was. But we don’t have any veterans. I’m the nearest we’ve got. So we just hope and pray and stay prepared for anything.”
Philip winked reassuringly at him. “We’ll do our best, sir.”
“Yes. I have no doubt about it.”
Merral patted him on the back and rose to his feet. The hold was too full for him to walk around in, and he knew he ought to get back to the passenger cabin. He looked around, catching thumbs-up gestures from the men and noticing Lorrin Venn grinning at him. He forced a smile back in response. I suspect he’s going to see his action. I only hope he likes it.
He saw Chaplain Luke and Dr. Azhadi squeezing their way through the press of men as they did their rounds. They had more defined and easier tasks, and for a brief moment, he felt utterly overwhelmed by what he faced. He was aware of Lucas Ringell’s identity disk around his neck, and he felt that somehow it mocked him. He found himself wondering why he had accepted this whole monstrous task. It’s too late to argue. I’m here, I have been called to be here, and I must do my very best.
Full of thought, Merral returned to the cabin, which seemed surprisingly roomy after the hold. Anya, who seemed to have been watching for his return, gestured him over to a seat next to her.
“Merral,” she said in a soft tone as she leaned over toward him, “I need to talk to you.” Her eyes were wide and bright.
“Go ahead,” he answered, realizing again that the urgency of the hour could not suppress his feelings of a growing attraction for her. In fact, he realized that, in some bizarre way, the impending action seemed to heighten his feelings for her.
Anya put her diary on her knees, bending closer to him so that her words would not carry beyond the two of them. “I suppose I really need to talk to you about that creature. Whatever we call it.” She looked up at him with a strange concentration as if trying to read his mind.
“I have no name for it. A flying sheet? A two-dimensional dragon?” Merral said, tearing his mind away from other, more pleasant things.
“A two-dimensional dragon? A sheet-dragon?” She seemed to weigh the words. She tapped her diary and a still image of the creature came on the screen. She looked at it and seemed to shudder.
“Anya,” Merral suggested, “you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”
She gave him a stern smile. “I was shaken when I saw it. And I don’t want to talk or think about it, but I have to. It’s my job. I’m a biologist, and I am supposed to be your expert. So I’ve looked at the images and cleaned them up.”
“So what is it?”
“I don’t know. This ‘sheet-dragon’ is, I presume, a vertebrate; there’s got to be a skeleton under that. But what sort of a skeleton . . . ? Ah,” she sighed, “I think it’s very lightly built. The feature on the underside is, of course, a mouth—there are teeth visible on the enhanced images—and it has these members around it, feeding palps, claws, limbs, mandibles; whatever you want to call them. Two small eyes inset on what my sister would call the leading edge. It’s like no creature that we know of.”