by John Vassar
He was a sitting duck.
The Skimmer’s vector was now upwards, out towards open space. Weapons and cam circuits were available but Mitchell had no time to locate his enemy and return fire. Meantime, his unseen enemy appeared reluctant to press home his advantage. Mercy? Cruelty? Inspiration struck him and his attacker’s motives became irrelevant. He manually snapped off the cam circuits, then on and off twice more before leaving his ship visible. At the same time, he cut the engines and repulsors, letting the craft arc over as lunar gravity took hold. It was now down to luck. To appear fatally damaged, the Skimmer had to remain ballistic until it had ‘crashed’.
Still the kill shot didn’t come. Mitchell gritted his teeth and willed it not to. He focused on the forward scanners, plotting the Skimmer’s trajectory as it curved downwards towards the surface, picking up speed with every second. This was going to be very close. Mitchell freed himself from the crash harness, raced from the cockpit and yanked the remaining cam-suit and air pack from the locker. Moments later, an invisible pilot was back at the controls and secure again. He set the suit for lunar operation and engaged maximum impact protection. The survival overrides kicked in and every possible Joule of energy was diverted to the cam-suit’s energy shield. Invisibility was now surplus to requirements and Mitchell reappeared.
The scanners gave him a glimmer of hope. His course was taking him south over the equator towards Wyld, a rugged crater on the edge of the Mare Smythii. Somehow, he needed clear the mountainous northern rim. Without engines or repulsors, that was not going to be easy. He had less than two minutes to correct his course. He realised the Skimmer was spinning on its longitudinal axis as it fell... timed correctly, he could jettison something to deflect the ship. All he needed was a controllable lump of matter and Newtonian physics to keep up its end of the bargain. The outer hatch looked like his best bet. It could be blown remotely, but would it have enough mass? One way to find out. Mitchell armed the explosive bolts and waited precious seconds until the Skimmer was at the correct angle, hatchway pointing towards the surface. The command was punched in and the hatch door flew noiselessly into the virtual vacuum. He checked the nav systems. The reaction had pushed the Skimmer part way towards the right course but not enough.
Then it struck him. He could vent the air inside the cabin. He didn’t need it as he was in a cam-suit. With the outer hatch blown, the internal airlock was the only thing holding in the cabin pressure, but controlling the air flow would be impossible. It was all or nothing. Mitchell flicked up the emergency override guard and punched the control. No response from the airlock. He tried again with the same result. He swivelled in the command seat, deployed the micro rifle and blasted the internal hatch at maximum yield. Somehow, it held. He waited precious seconds for the Skimmer to circle again to the correct angle. The second volley met less resistance. The internal hatch shot away, the cabin atmosphere vented and everything that wasn’t bolted down made a hasty exit.
Shit. Mitchell had missed a trick. He grabbed one of the cam-suit decoy beacons, instructed it to ‘play dead’ and tossed it towards the airlock. There was just enough air left to drag it out of the Skimmer.
The ruse was done. Outwardly, his ship was powerless and hurtling towards destruction, the hatches blown and with a ‘dead’ pilot falling to the surface. All tracked and monitored by his attacker. An attacker who had still not administered the coup de grace. To make sure he didn’t change his mind, one more element of deception was needed. Mitchell checked the forward scanners and set the L-cannons to max with zero yield suppression. The Skimmer was now on course to clear the top of Wyld crater’s craggy rim, but had acquired a frightening forward speed. Mitchell aimed and locked the cannons in a tight spread to the rear. His hand hovered over the weapons controls. As the ship careered over the rim, he fired a full volley. A hundred tons of rock disintegrated behind him as the Skimmer pitched forward, gaining more momentum as it was hit by the debris. Mitchell flicked on the cam circuits. He breathed again as the instruments showed his ship disappearing in the explosion. A split second later, he engaged the forward repulsors and regained control. Confident he had bluffed his way clear of danger, Mitchell fired up the main engines to gain height.
But Fate was not in the mood to be cheated.
With no atmosphere left inside the vessel, he didn’t hear the explosion that ripped through the rear of the ship as the starboard fuel cell ruptured. There was no fireball or shockwave, but this was a small mercy. All repulsors were now offline and there was no way of slowing the Skimmer. The inertial force of the blast had thrown him off course again and Mitchell fought to bring the bucking craft back into line and attempt a landing. He was falling fast again and would overshoot Wyld’s main crater by some distance. He lowered the landing gear, but his approach speed was far too great.
The Skimmer just cleared the next crater ridge. The front skid touched the ground seconds later and dug into the scree. The nose pitched forward and Mitchell’s stricken ship tumbled and bounced across the surface for a full two kilometres. Smashing into a rocky outcrop, the hull split open and somersaulted another hundred meters before ploughing into the lunar dust. The cam circuits gave out and what was left of the Skimmer sputtered back into view. Severed conduits sparked against bare metal as the last traces of energy drained away. The dust trail that stretched back to the northern rim ballooned outwards in the low gravity. All around, tiny rocks and fragments fell like slow-motion rain, creating their own miniature craters as they landed. The crumpled figure of a man in a DS cam-suit lay half-buried in the rubble. It twitched a little, then became still.
As Lee Mitchell embraced death, he cried out to the SenANNs through the wall of pain that engulfed him.
They tried to answer now, but he was beyond their reach.
26
Mitchell floated silently in the calm sea. He was having difficulty recalling the events that had led up to his eventual death, but heaven itself was just as he had imagined; warm, silent and spiritually comforting. He did have one complaint. Everything still hurt.
His legs ached as though they had been wrenched from their sockets, his ribs stung like hell and his neck felt like his head must be facing the wrong way. But he knew the pain was just a memory. His soul, he was convinced, was now far from the remains of his body. He had a vague notion that the sea itself had something to do with how he had died, and after a while something condensed into an authentic memory.
Cytec. The explosion at the research facility in Euro-2.
That was it. He’d tried to escape by swimming away before the core breach. It was clear he had failed in the attempt, but from the way his body ached he must have made a damn good try. Rewarding his efforts, the soothing waters wrapped around him and the pain eased further. The hereafter looked promising if this was a sample of what he could expect – although the continued silence worried him. Why was no-one here to greet him? A friendly angel to reassure him that he had gone up, not down? A kindly old steward to give him the rules of the club?
Still he heard nothing.
Mitchell’s thoughts drifted into a disturbing backwater.
What if he was floating, belly-up, in the Atlantic with his soul trapped inside his bloated, decaying body? Mitchell had once recovered a body after it had been in the water for more than a week. A young man his own age; he remembered the grey pallor, the swollen, misshapen features, the flesh torn away by scavengers – and the smell. How long before his own body was discovered? He still felt pain. He would feel the stab of the boathook as an unfortunate coastguard dragged his corpse aboard a patrol vessel. Then the autopsy... the laser scalpel cutting into his flesh, removing his vital organs for examination while his mind screamed in agony and his voice remained dumb.
There was nothing he could do.
Alone in an endless sea, he tried to swim to safety. But he seemed to have forgotten how… his arms thrashed in the warm brine, but he was fixed in space and could go nowhere. Then the voices came, di
stant and muffled. A man’s voice, answered by a woman.
‘...appear to be any serious internal damage, but our facilities are limited. The epidermal lacerations are consistent with the accident.’
‘I don’t get it. What was he doing up here? FedStat didn’t warn us of any kind of military activity...’
This is it, thought Mitchell. I’m already in the autopsy lab. Again he tried to swim away and again he failed, although this time he swore he hit some physical barrier. He heard the woman’s voice again, this time more agitated.
‘He’s coming round. Get him out of that fish tank before he kills himself... Here! Get him over here...’
Now he was moving, he was sure of it – and there was light. In front of him, a light, getting brighter by the second. The light that compels you to follow, the light that shows the way… Mitchell tried to move his arms again, but they were being restrained. He tried to call out, but no sound came from his lips. Despair washed over him again.
He wanted to leave this place. All he wanted now was peace.
Let me die, damn you, let me die...
His eyes opened.
A woman was leaning over him and when she spoke, it was one of the voices he had heard in the sea.
‘Hey... so there is someone in there, after all. Don’t try to move yet, let’s get the Doc here to look you over again, just to be safe.’ Her voice was soothing and kind, and for a moment she was the welcoming angel he’d been waiting for. She moved away and a middle-aged man appeared above him. He waved something across Mitchell’s face and down the rest of his body. Mitchell tried to speak, but a noise like gargling came out instead.
‘He looks alright.’ The man spoke in a monotone, as if his mind was elsewhere. ‘But like I said, up here we just don’t have the facilities.’
Mitchell raised his head. He was lying on a medicom table, naked and dripping wet, his body cut and bruised. A repulsor disc sat on his stomach. He turned to face the woman, who answered his questioning eyes with a smile.
‘You’ve been in the wars, I’m afraid. But I think you’re over the worst of it.’ She removed the disc, covered him with a large, white towelling sheet and began to pat him dry. Mitchell was seeing double and blinked hard. He tried to focus on her face. She was in her late twenties with fair, shoulder-length hair and he could just make out that her eyes were blue. There was something about her easy manner, her confidence, that made him feel safe. She reminded him of someone that he cared for a great deal, but he couldn’t remember who it was.
He tried to speak again. ‘Where-’ he gargled again and spat something horrid onto the floor. ‘Where the hell am I?’
The woman smiled. ‘You, my friend, are in the back of beyond and then some. Welcome to Hirayama-Y Survey Base.’
‘Hirayama? Where’s that, Asia-3?’
She laughed and pulled the sheet up under his chin. ‘You have had a nasty bump. Hirayama-Y is four-point-five degrees south, ninety-three point two degrees east. Which might well be somewhere in the Asia’s if we were on Earth. Wrong planet, I’m afraid.’
Mitchell raised himself up on an elbow and rubbed his face. ‘Lunar-side. Yes, it would be. I remember now...’
He lay back again and stared at the ceiling. He had not lied. He now remembered exactly why he was here. He shook his head. With deliberate vagueness, he said, ‘I remember losing an engine… trying to land. Looks like I didn’t make a very good job of it.’
‘Good enough. You’re alive and in one piece, unless you count a cracked rib. Count yourself lucky that fancy pressure suit of yours held out.’
‘How did you find me? I didn’t notice any kind of facility once I’d passed Lomonosov.’
‘Are you kidding? That explosion could have woken the dead. Half my instruments need recalibrating. On the subject of which, FedStat ought to damn well tell us if they’re on exercise up here, they could have set the whole project back months.’
Mitchell shook his head. ‘Not FedStat’s fault. I had to jettison the fuel core before I belly-flopped. You saw what happened when it hit rock, I didn’t have any choice.’
‘Sure. No doubt we’ll get an apology when you file your report. I take it you do belong to our friendly, neighbourhood FedStat?’
‘No point in denying it.’ Mitchell wasn’t being flippant. The cam-suit, whatever they had done with it after rescuing him, was a dead giveaway.
The woman’s face became serious. ‘Sorry to say your report’s going to be delayed for a while. We’ve had a coms glitch up here for the last few hours. We can’t reach Earth until we find the problem, so your folks may get a little edgy, what with you being out all night.’
‘No problem. I’m a big boy now, they know not to worry.’ A flash of inspiration hit Mitchell in the face. ‘The coms interference is why I’m here. When FedStat lost contact with Lomonosov, all hell broke loose. I’m part of the team scanning the area to find out what’s causing it. Or rather, I was...’
The woman turned to her colleague and clasped her hands together. ‘My knight in shining armour has arrived at last!’
The reply from the doctor was deadpan. ‘Some knight. Can’t even stay on his horse.’
The woman ignored it and held out her hand to Mitchell. ‘Gem Telson, Senior Geologist.’
‘Lee Mitchell.’
‘Not even rank and serial number?’
‘Don’t make me laugh, Gem, it hurts too much.’ In truth, the pain was all but gone. What had they treated him with that could act so fast on a fracture?
Gem Telson continued her introductions. ‘Lee Mitchell, meet Doctor Samuel Westlake – Med Officer, philosopher and professional cynic. Say hello to Mr Mitchell, Sam, he won’t bite...’
Samuel Westlake turned and nodded. Mitchell looked him over now that his vision had cleared. A perfect medtec, average in every respect – medium height, medium build with receding grey-brown hair. He had the sort of face that would have cracked in half if he ever attempted a real smile.
‘The good doctor’s sore at you, Lee, for messing up his clean floor.’
Mitchell looked down at the fluorescent puddles next to the regen tank that he had mistaken for the Firmament. ‘Sorry, Sam. I’ll make it up to you when I’m on my feet again. Thanks for fixing me up, though.’
Gem put her arms around the doctor’s shoulders. ‘Can you fix our guest a shot so we can get him someplace more comfortable?’
‘Sure.’ Westlake looked flushed as he crossed to one of the dispensary cabs. He filled a hypo with an evil-looking brown liquid. ‘This may make you feel a little drowsy. After you’ve had some sleep, I’ll use healers to fix the rib.’ Again, he stared at Mitchell’s ribcage. ‘If we still need to.’
His hand twitched as he administered the shot.
‘Sorry.’ Westlake moved away and dropped the hypo into a disposal chute, his eyes never once making contact with his patient. Mitchell rubbed his arm, wondering if the slip had been deliberate. He turned his attention back to Gem Telson. ‘My Skimmer – is it out of action?’
‘Can’t say for sure,’ Gem replied. ‘I’ll get Jake to drop by and fill you in later – he was the one who found you, by the way. From what he told me, though, I wouldn’t be too optimistic. The dust still hasn’t settled and there’s a skid mark half the length of our baby crater. They won’t take it out of your pay, I hope?’
Mitchell showed her his crossed fingers and swung his legs over the edge of the medicom table. The shot was beginning to have an effect similar to Harry’s whisky, although it hurt a lot less. Gem opened a locker and handed him a surgical robe. ‘This will have to do until I can raid the stores.’ She removed the towel and helped him into the robe, squeezing his shoulders as she adjusted the collar. ‘There. Can you stand?’
Mitchell got to his feet and leant on Hirayama Y’s Senior Geologist for support. She directed him past Westlake and out into a brightly-lit corridor.
‘Just a few yards to go, Sir Galahad. I’m afraid your accommodation may
not be what you’re used to, but we’ve got all the basics. We weren’t expecting visitors until the summer season.’
She opened a portal and led him into a stark but clean room fitted out with a permanent sleeper. It reminded Mitchell of his old dorm at the academy. Gem made sure he was settled, then left him to rest, giving him strict instructions to comlink if he needed anything. Mitchell thanked her and said that he would.
He eased himself onto the sleeper and lay back, fighting the effects of Westlake’s tranquiliser. He had to contact... somebody. He couldn’t remember who. His mind drifted away and he didn’t have the strength to fight it. As he slipped into unconsciousness, his final thought was of the story he would be giving the good people of Hirayama-Y once they began to ask the serious questions.
The SenANNs.
Mitchell awoke with a jolt, enough to bring the walls of his dorm room back to full brightness. Why hadn’t they contacted him?
And where the hell were they when he was under attack?
He sat up. It looked like Gem Telson had paid a visit while he was asleep – some smart, blue overalls were sitting on the multichair opposite, along with his battered cam-suit. He picked it up and checked it over. It appeared intact, but he’d check later that it contained a full complement of equipment. For now, he needed some answers.
He closed his eyes.
“Are you there?”
‘We are here, Lee Mitchell.’
He got straight to the point. “Why the hell didn’t you help me in the attack? I could have been killed!”
‘Because you did not ask Us to, Lee Mitchell. We were monitoring your situation and We were ready to assist. At no stage did you request Us to intervene.’
“For pity’s sake, I would have thought it was obvious.”
‘It was not Our choice to make. During the attack, your thoughts were focused on your own actions. Your natural instinct was to rely on your own skills and experience to ensure your survival.’