The Long Way Home

by Darrell Bain

  "Don't ... I mean, save the disc if you can, sir."

  "Why, COB?"

  Shinzyki shrugged. “An idea to hinder the Monkeys, maybe, if we uh, run into them again. I need to think about it."

  Curious, Brackett looked at him and said, “I think we should keep it intact, too."

  That settled the discussion so far as the disc went, but other minor issues needed to be covered. Finally Brackett brought the discussion to a halt.

  "If there are no compelling reasons to stay here, then I believe we need to set up our next transit.” He examined the faces and saw no dissent. “Very well, the meeting is adjourned. COB, please remain. Lieutenant Wong, take the watch and send the XO to my cabin."

  After the others had left, Brackett eyed Shinzyki. “Come with me to my cabin. I think it's time to make you aware of a certain idea Lisa and I have been discussing."

  The commander, XO and COB stayed together for an hour, undisturbed.

  * * * *

  "It seems a shame to have to leave so quickly,” Jeremy said to Franica. They were eating their evening ration together in one of the quieter dayrooms, the one without active gaming and with hush hoods for use when watching holovids, or more often, studying.

  "Yeah, but I want to get home one day. Don't you?"

  "Sure, Fran, it's just that ... well, besides humans there are only two other self-aware species known, and we've discovered both of them. I'd like to learn more about the Bearkillers. We've hardly begun exploring the cities, and the ones that didn't get killed in the bombardment are avoiding us. I really wish we could stay longer.” It was a puzzle why the inhabitants hadn't come back to the parts of the cities which hadn't been destroyed, and also why so many died without wounds. One day, one day. When we've gotten back home, whipped the Monkeys and started exploring again, he thought wryly.

  "Bearkillers. What a silly name for an intelligent species.” She grinned to show she wasn't blaming him for it.

  He laughed out loud. “Yeah, but ever since the GW drive was invented, we've been giving silly names to new life-supporting planets. Why stop now?"

  "No reason, I guess. You really think there were some alive? We never saw any signs of any, but those shots from space and they were pretty blurred."

  He munched the last of his ration before answering. “It's a big planet, and we were there for less than two weeks. And we looked at only one city and one little area beside a lake."

  "Point. Guess we'll never know for sure, now."

  "Something else, we didn't discover any kind of writing. Wasn't that weird?” He enjoyed theorizing about the Bearkillers, just as did everyone else. For all the good it does, he thought.

  "Telepaths, maybe?"

  "Maybe they'd gone beyond writing."

  "How so?"

  "Shucks, I don't know, but it didn't look to me like those mouths were shaped for making language noises. Of course, the soft parts have all decayed, so I guess that doesn't mean much. They communicated somehow, though. Just look at that stuff.” He pointed to a corner of the little dayroom where some of the smaller Bearkiller machinery was being stored. “They couldn't have made things like that without passing ideas back and forth."

  "What are they, though?” Franica asked, gesturing toward the alien artifacts.

  He shrugged. “Beats me. It's not my field. We made tons of recordings, though. I bet someone figures out what all the stuff we gathered was used for, eventually. Back on earth, probably.” He was still irritated that he hadn't been allowed inside the city. None of the astrogators had. While the Coyotes were out in the ruins, he was either practicing at simulated transits or with the guards around the ship.

  "You think we'll make it?"

  "Huh? Sure, we'll get back home. It's just going to take a long time.” He was surprised at her for asking such a question.

  Franica raised a cynical brow. “Jere, I've been doing this a lot longer than you have. Some of us may get home if that damned Monkeyclaw ship following us doesn't decide to blow us up beforehand, but it will be damned few. You'll probably be one of them, but not me. Astrogators are protected."

  "It's not my goddamned fault,” he said, feeling guilty and irritated at the same time. “And how do you know the Monkeys are following us?"

  "Just a suspicion. And hush about not getting out much. No one is blaming you. Hell, you ought to be grateful."

  "Well, I'm not."

  "You'd rather die? Because that's what the odds say is going to happen to most of us."

  "Why do you say that?” He felt uncomfortable discussing the matter in these terms. As much as he liked astrogation and the feeling of being in on things, he hated the restrictions it imposed. He didn't like feeling inferior to the other explorers, or more accurately, like a special person being protected from danger. He knew a few of the explorers resented his status but...

  Franica interrupted his thoughts. “You ought to know. How many jumps is it going to take to get home?"

  "Uh ... lots, I guess.” That was one of the forbidden subjects of discussion, but he couldn't have answered it other than in very rough figures anyhow, any more than Joyce Chambers could have. They were going the long way home at present, but he supposed that could change if they could lose the alien starship.

  "Yeah. Lots. I'm no astronomer, but I know how far we are from home and how far longboats can jump."

  He thought. “Fran ... it wouldn't be a good idea to spread those ideas around."

  "I said I'd been around a while. So have others. It's no big secret."

  "Maybe not, but you still shouldn't talk about how few of us will make it. I'm not sure I believe you anyway, no matter what the odds say.” In an idle moment he had calculated the rough number of jumps left against the casualties so far and projected the figures into the future. He had come up with a minus figure for the explorers who would be left alive at the end of their journey.

  "I'm no fool, either,” Franica said. “Maybe just a pessimist. Good night."

  She got up abruptly and left without looking back. He wondered again what was going through her mind, especially whether she had heard anything about a Monkeyclaw ship following them. She seemed willing enough to talk and even flirt a little, but that was as far as it had gone. She must have really been tight with Nguyen. Or maybe he didn't appeal to her the way Nguyen had.

  * * * *

  Hurricane Jack made transits for several more months without casualties and only a few non life-threatening injuries. Jeremy stayed busy, as did all the crew. Recent deaths had left holes that had to be filled, and by the time Sam Johnston was lost they were already short-handed from previous inimical worlds. They were coming up on another transit, and this time Jeremy had been required to do all the calculations, monitor the computer and plug new figures in as necessary.

  It didn't help that Lieutenant Whistler stood over him frowning sourly and commenting every time a number varied from optimum the slightest bit. He felt sweat form on his forehead as he kept his attention firmly fixed on his work. He tried to ignore Whistler's nitpicking. Couldn't the man see he needed every bit of his attention concentrated on the task? He had never expected to be left on his own the whole way through a transit, and it was very close to terrifying him into immobility. Only the thought of Joyce Chambers’ reaction if he froze and the certainty that Commander Brackett would remove him from the control room if he faltered kept him going.

  "Thirty seconds to transit,” he said and looked up as the computer voice began counting down.

  "What? I didn't hear you,” Whistler said, his voice overriding the com speaker. It was the same hostility he always displayed when dealing either with him or Jana.

  "Twenty Five seconds to transit,” he said, raising his voice even though he was certain he'd spoken loudly enough before.

  Whistler didn't respond and he continued listening to the countdown. Anything he said had nothing to do with what would happen now. It was all up to the computer. It would kick them into hyper at t
he exact moment when conditions were optimum for a jump if his procedures had been entered correctly. Suddenly he was certain they had. He braced himself.

  A moment later, the creepy-crawly sensation accompanying transition took over his body. It seemed to last longer than usual, even though his watch didn't agree with his thoughts. Less than a half minute later, the dizzying feeling abated, and he found himself looking at a new, simulated sky that changed as he watched. New sightings were being taken in the microseconds in which they were out of hyper and back in normal space. He always wondered how it could happen like that. It was such a meticulous procedure to get into hyper and to go in the right direction, but once the ship was in, the computer took care of slipping in and out with gravity pulses. Almost all the time was spent in hyper, except for the microseconds between gravity pulses that allowed sights to be taken of normal space.

  "Very good, Jeremy,” Chambers said, smiling at him.

  "Thank you, ma'am,” he replied. He felt a load of tension he hadn't been aware of leave his body. He looked around, wondering if Lieutenant Whistler would have anything good to say. But he was already gone. He'd had no necessity formally to report to Commander Brackett, since he had only been invited by Chambers to watch Jeremy perform. He could have said something nice, damn it! Jeremy silently groused.

  "Yes, you did well, Costa. We're right where we are supposed to be,” Brackett said.

  "Thank you, sir,” he replied and was glad to find his voice was steady—that no trembling occurred.

  "You've been here long enough, now. I believe Lieutenant Commander Chambers can handle the boat for a while."

  "Yes, sir."

  He could hardly wait to get back and tell someone that he had made the transit by himself.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Chapter Sixteen

  "Any idea how long the power will last, Lieutenant?” COB Shinzyki asked while looking at Terrell Wong. It was a week later, and they were out of hyper and in another system. The engineer had finally been brought into the discussion of a possible method with which to foil the trailing Monkeyclaw ship.

  "I have no idea.” Wong idly lifted and set back down one edge of the disc taken from the Bearkiller city. The disc reposed on the deck. Judging by its solidity, he thought it should have made some kind of sound when meeting the resistance after he let it fall, but it didn't. It was as soundless as it was when moving.

  "Well, are the controller and the disc separate systems, or is one dependent on the other?"

  Wong shrugged and grinned wryly. “Not a clue. All I can tell you without taking both of them apart is that both of them are working now."

  "Well, shit. All right, it was only an idea, but if we can't depend on it..."

  "We'll use it anyway,” Brackett decided. “It won't hurt and might help. How about this star system, Joyce?” She, too, had been brought into the discussion, making five of them now. He didn't want to let anyone else know at the moment. The crew was too tense. Tales were circulating that the Monkeys were following them, that they were all going to die soon—that they would never make it back, and the best bet was to settle on an earth-like planet. Knowing that they faced something such as he planned might kick them over the edge.

  "It's not the kind of system we want for a confrontation, but otherwise it does have what looks like an admirable planet in the life zone. And it does have life on it, although we're not getting a chlorophyll spectrum. Whatever mechanism converts sunlight may be something new."

  "Not volcanic, is it?"

  "No, sir. No more than, say, Earth is. We'll figure it out if you like, but I presume you're just interested in water and organics?"

  "That's the ticket. Long way to go, yet.” He tapped his fingers on the table at which the four of them sat. It was a rhythm, but dull and repetitive. “How about the weapon? Can we make more than one of them?"

  Wong took a long time to answer, and then shook his head. “We might, sir, but I wouldn't like to try it with our fabricator. As it is, we're using our only megaton range warhead for the disc and betting a lot on it. With the disc, we have some hope of getting it in range, if the controls for speed are geometric past the third setting as we're surmising ... and if it looks as much like a rock in space to them as it does to us.” He had convinced Brackett to experiment in space in order to gain enough positive data to feel some confidence in their plans for the disc and its attached bomb.

  "All right, belay that thought. We'll go with the disc and its single bomb and whatever else the boat can do. Joyce, it's going to be pretty much up to you to let me know quickly, so we can get the ball rolling immediately after you spot the right arrangement. And Terrell, I guess you had better get that disc and the warhead rigged up and ready to go, but keep it under lock and key after that. I sure as hell don't want any accidents with it inside the boat! Have it ready to roll. I guess you should be the one to handle that. Choose one of the dependable spacers as a helper, but make sure word doesn't get out. Morale is bad enough as is."

  Wong hunched his shoulders defensively. He didn't even like to think about what he planned to rig. He had always been afraid of dying from explosive decompression, much less explosions. The bomb that would be attached to the disc was much more powerful than anything the longboat normally carried in its warheads. In fact, it had been fabricated to be even more potent than the warheads the Sam Johnston had carried on its missiles. He just wished he had one of their backups!

  "I'll call it as quick as I can, Skipper,” Chambers said. “But what if I'm not on duty at the time?” And why isn't Whistler in on this? I'm pretty sure I know but better not to ask.

  "How about one of your young people? Could we trust, um, Costa, for instance?"

  "You can trust him, Skipper,” Shinzyki said, answering while Chambers was still debating with herself.

  "You sure, Rufus?"

  "As sure as I can be about anyone. Chief Dugan agrees with me. Regardless, we need to have everything covered, and that's a loose end. Unless you want to bring Lieutenant Whistler in on it?"

  "No. No, I don't think so, not at this time. Better to let Joyce handle it. I think she's the more experienced astrogator."

  "But that bastard Monkey ship...” Wong said. “It's still hanging on our tail like a damn barnacle."

  "More like a Dredger,” Joyce said.

  Everyone grinned with her. It was hard to picture the roly-poly, goat-sized scavenger that followed carnivores on Backwater as dangerous, unless you'd seen dredgers in action. Provoked, they became more ill-tempered than rabid wolverines and hung on to prey until they killed it or were killed themselves.

  "Lisa, you and Joyce talk to Costa. Tell him what we're planning and swear him to absolute silence. Be sure and give him all the details of what we want done in case ... just in case. I guess that's all for now."

  The others pushed their chairs back and filed out. He remained in place, thinking. It was a poor pass when you trusted a trainee astrogator from another specialty more than the one assigned to your boat. But the universe didn't care what you thought about it. The universe was implacably neutral. You couldn't just wish for what wasn't, any more than you could wish the voyage to be over and make it so. He sighed. It was a lonely job without the officers of Sam Johnston to mingle with. The only person in the boat he felt completely at ease with was COB Shinzyki, and there were some things he couldn't discuss even with him.

  * * * *

  "It's a jungle out there!” Johnny Lann growled wearily as he and other Coyotes trudged into the dayroom after cleanup and weapons stowage. “This must be what the old rain forests on Earth were like. Creepy crawlers and carnivores and tangles of vines and every other kind of shit you can think of. I'm exhausted."

  "Is everyone safe?” Jeremy asked him. Since their unofficial fight in the gym they had come to a rapprochement that, if not exactly friendly, at least had them acting that way. Lann also treated him as an equal since Jeremy had gotten promoted.

  "Ye
ah, we all got back, but it's a wonder. Something grabbed Tiny—just dropped down on him out of the canopy and had about forty tentacles wrapped around him before we knew what was happening. If he wasn't so damn big we might've lost him."

  "How did you get him away from it, Johnny?"

  Lann grinned. “It squeezed so hard that Tiny's cammies inflated, and made him hard to drag. I got to it then with my moly knife and started cutting. Then some tentacles grabbed my arm and I had to be cut loose. Before it was over, it took four of us to kill the bastard-born fucking thing."

  Jeremy could imagine just about anything living in the tangled growth from the feeds he'd watched. The jungle came very nearly to the beach of the small brackish ocean near which the boat had landed. As far as that went, he could imagine denizens living in the sea. It was suffused with so much life that simply cleaning the filters after taking on water gained them a good bit of valued organics. It was so bad outside that he and Jana both had been forbidden to leave the boat. He couldn't help thinking it was small of Commander Brackett, especially since no one had been killed or even hurt very badly during their stay, despite the ever-present dangers. So far.

  "Are you going to get to go out?” Ivana Prosky asked him.

  "I don't know,” he said despondently. “Coyotes should have one more day of duty outside. Maybe I'll get to go then."

  "You can take my place,” Tiny said without a hint of a smile.

  He looked at the big man. “What did you think when that thing fell on you?"

  "Hmm. First I thought the top of one of those ... well, you say it can't be called a tree, so the top of whatever those things are had fallen on me. Then it's so wet in that jungle I decided it must be kin to those squiddy things we see in the ocean. And right about then is when I felt my lungs being squeezed and my cammies hardened. Shit, I just hoped there wasn't more than one of the fuckers."

  "We're all glad of that,” Franica said. She slid down to the floor and crossed her legs. She leaned back against a bulkhead as if glad to be inside and reasonably clean. “Hey, Jere, what does it take to get into astrogation?"