Wasteland of Flint

by Thomas Harlan

  "Get in the tent," she said, giving him a concerned look "You're losing too much body heat out here."

  For a moment, Anderssen thought he would refuse and some sharp words about pigheaded men were on the tip of her tongue, but he nodded and climbed stiffly down. He's had a big day, she thought, watching him disappear in the direction of the tent. Almost crashed twice. Very lucky, these judges, very lucky.

  The broken section of line came free in her hands and she put the part aside. A little can of compressed air blew out the usual gunk fouling the valves. "Huh. Should talk to Delores and Parker about maintenance on this bird ... needs a tune-up."

  Squinting, her goggles dialed up into a moderately high magnification, Gretchen eased the new line into the first valve. Her fingers were stiff from the cold, making fine work difficult.

  After the third failed attempt to line them up, she eased herself back and took a moment to warm her hands on the heater. Her eyes, back and shoulders were hurting from tension and cold and weariness. Got to loosen up, Gretchen thought, flexing her gloved fingers. Maybe I should empty my mind and count, she smiled a little at the memory of Hummingbird's pedantic, measured voice. Her brow furrowed, considering the situation. Maybe I should... maybe I should try this with my eyes closed.

  The tube felt cold and round beneath her fingers, only a few centimeters long, ending in two delicate valve stems and a counter-rotating jacket to fix the connection tight. Gretchen let her shoulders and arms settle. She let herself count until the busy noise in her thoughts settled down and then faded away.

  The warmth of the heater was almost hot on her left shoulder, but she shifted the tube gently until a familiar prickling heat suffused her fingertips. Trying not to lick her chapped lips nervously, Gretchen leaned forward slightly, letting the tube slide into proximity with the sleeve. Eyes still closed, working in complete, chill darkness, she slid the tube into the stem and finger-tightened the jacket, first on one side, then on the other. A moment later—it seemed like only seconds—she opened her eyes and smiled slightly to see the tube in place. That was easy.

  The Midge tool kit had a specialized microdriver, which torqued down the two connections to the proper, factory-approved tightness. Gretchen sighed in relief when she was done and closed up the compartment with trembling fingers. A wave of complete exhaustion had crept up upon her and now dragged at every muscle in her body.

  "Dawn soon," she muttered, climbing very stiffly down from the wing. The tools and the portable heater were slung over her shoulder, making what felt like an enormous, bone-crushing weight. "At least the tent will be nice and warm."

  But the tent was too hot and the ground too hard. Hummingbird was snoring again, and she couldn't take the heep-snort-heep sound of his breathing. After laying in the sleepbag for an hour, too tired to remove her breather mask or even brush her teeth, Gretchen crawled out of the tent and into the mind-numbing cold again.

  She climbed back up to the ultralights and made a desultory circuit, checking their tie-downs and anchors. The old Méxica had done a fine job, each cable taut and balanced. Irritated. Gretchen walked to the edge of the mesa, stepping carefully among weathered, wind-blasted slabs and boulders.

  The canyon below was entirely, impenetrably dark. Anderssen considered pitching a glowbean over the edge, just to see what might be revealed in the flickering blue-green light. The stars gleamed on her goggles, very bright and steady. The air had chilled to a supernal level of stillness, much as it did during the polar winter on Old Mars. Good place for a telescope, she thought, beginning to walk along the rim of the mesa, her back to the eastern sky. But is there anything to see out here?

  Ephesus sat at the edge of one of the abyssal gulfs running through the spiral arm. There were few nearby suns, only clouds of dust, dark matter and interstellar gas. A lonely outpost on the verge of nothingness, hundreds of light years from another habitable world. Gretchen wondered, as she climbed a rough, rectangular outcropping, if the long-dead inhabitants had ever managed to pierce the envelope of air around their home world. Had satellites or orbital stations seen the valkar burst from the nothingness of hyperspace? Had anyone tried to escape? Or were the Ephesians still grubbing in the mud, trying to trap their dinner in woven nets or pit traps when the sky darkened with the killing cloud? A million years... Earth was still a raw, primitive world. Only megafauna and protohominids fighting to survive in Pliocene swamps. Did we escape a similar fate by some quirk of chance?

  The thought made her feel despondent. Her heart did not easily agree with the prospect of a universe where man only lived and thrived by the fall of some random cosmic die. Gretchen realized Hummingbird's vision of a universe of frightful powers—of gods—offered a strange kind of comfort. He believes men can alter the course of fate. He believes he can divert the engines of chance. Huh.

  Beyond the outcropping, a deep crevice split in the face of the mesa. I should head back... she started to remind herself, but then ... what's that? A light?

  Anderssen stopped and knelt down, peering over the edge into the darkness. There was a light. There were many lights, spreading in a delicate cobweb across the rock, making the ravine gleam and glitter like the stars above, a hidden galaxy of jeweled-colors and shining motes.

  Like moss, a firemoss, she thought, lips quirking in a smile. Life blooming from nothing. Even here, at the edge of annihilation. Gretchen concentrated on the nearest filaments and was rewarded by a vision of delicate tendrils radiating out from a cone-shaped core. The surface seemed to glisten, though she doubted there was any kind of moisture in this system. A superconducting energy trap, maybe? I wish Sinclair and Tukhachevsky were here.... They would love this. Ha! They'll be jealous when I tell them about all the things I've seen. God, I even miss that tub vodka of theirs.

  A sound interrupted her delight. Gretchen looked up, surprised. A cloaked figure knelt a few meters away, silhouetted by a wash of stars, djellaba and kaffiyeh wrapped expertly around narrow shoulders. An instant of surprise was replaced by a certain sense of recognition.

  "What are you?" Gretchen stood up slowly, hoping to leave the firemoss undisturbed. Flakes of rock spilled away from her gloves, falling among the thready clusters. "You're not Russovsky, are you?"

  "I am," answered the dark outline. The voice was hoarse, rusty, as if long unused. The shape stood as well, wiry blond hair hanging loose around her shoulders. "What are you?"

  "A human being," Gretchen said, then stopped, horrified. Hummingbird wouldn't want her to give anything away. "A visitor."

  "Am I a human being?" Russovsky came close and Gretchen could see her pale, lean face glowing with an inner light. Stunned, Gretchen realized she was seeing the pattern of a vibrant crystalline lattice seeping through the woman's skin. "My memories are strange. I was flying, high above the world. I was walking under the sea, among the bones of the dead."

  "Yes, yes, you were. But you are not a human being now. You are an Ephesian, like the moss."

  Russovsky looked down at the colony, her bare, unprotected face perfectly still. "No. I am not. The hathol are an incurious people, content with their long slow lives. I am restless. I need something I do not have."

  "Everyone is restless," Gretchen laughed softly, breath puffing white around her breather mask. "Perhaps you are human."

  "Are you content?" Russovsky moved closer and the light within her skin grew brighter. Her eyes shone like stars themselves. "Show me!"

  Gretchen began to back away, feeling her way along the edge of the ravine. Something in the shape began to change and she felt the prickling of alarm. The voice continued to echo in her suit comm, but she realized there was no way Russovsky could make such a sound in the thin atmosphere, not without a comm link. She scrambled up and over the crest of the rocks. The figure stopped and was staring up at her. Without waiting for the shape to do something, Gretchen scrambled away as fast as she dared, heading for the tent and Hummingbird.

  THE CORNUELLE

  Mitsu
haru was sitting cross-legged on the edge of his sleeping mat, a fall of snarled dark hair spread over his shoulders and chest when the comm lit up with an incoming message. An officious two-tone chime sounded, indicating a priority connection from the bridge.

  "Hadeishi here," he said, putting down an ivory-handled brush. Guiltily pleased by the interruption—he did not enjoy the tedium of brushing—the chu-sa began plaiting his traditionally long hair up in a thick braid. "On screen."

  Comm stabilized to reveal Sho-sa Koshō sitting on the bridge. To unfamiliar eyes the exec's stiff, controlled demeanor would have revealed very little beyond an impression of cool consideration. Mitsuharu saw a certain eager excitement in the tilt of the woman's eyes and the set of her mouth. There was also a brief, nearly undetectable, reaction of embarrassment to finding him almost naked, clad only in an undershirt, belt, trousers, boots, comm unit and medband.

  "The g-sensor array has yielded up a match for the refinery ship," Koshō reported in a more-than-usually terse voice. "Distance is forty thousand k, by my estimate. Bearing two-six-three, elevation plus thirty-two."

  "Right on top of us." Hadeishi allowed himself a quick, pleased smile. He botched the smaller over-and-under at the end of the plait and gave up, letting the shining dark hair, a little streaked with gray, lie loose against his back. "Deeper into the belt?"

  Koshō shook her head, looking sideways at a hidden display. "Near the outsystem fringe. The bulk of the local drift is between us, so I've not been able to get a secondary detect with passive sensors."

  "Clever." Hadeishi unfolded himself from the bed and found his uniform shirt. "Keeping close to the area they want to work, neh? And behind a shield of debris. What is their gravitational situation? Could they make gradient to hyperspace from their current location?"

  The exec shook her head, an eager gleam of flickering in her eyes. "The local field is not smooth enough," she said. "They will have to bolt from cover if they wish to transit."

  "A location fraught with compromise." Hadeishi sealed the shirt in a smooth motion with his thumb. "Their holds must be only half-full, but the takings are likely rich, enough to warrant the risk of remaining in-system. Have you laid in an intercept course?"

  "Hai, Chu-sa." Koshō stiffened fractionally. "Would you like to review the plot?"

  "Not now." Hadeishi's thoughts were already leaping ahead to the next task. In any case, he had full confidence in Koshō's ability to maneuver the ship through this debris field. "I want to be in Outrider camera range as quickly as possible—while remaining hidden!" His tone turned serious. "If they bolt, we will lave to catch them and we cannot risk a weapons exchange in open space."

  Koshō frowned. Mitsu made a "go-ahead" motion with his hand.

  "Hadeishi-san," she said, rather tentatively, "why not just spook them into making gradient? Then they'll be gone and the debris field will probably mask their departure from any... one who might be watching from Three."

  'True." Hadeishi scratched at his beard in irritation. "I have considered this. Unfortunately, we know at least one shuttle from this refinery ship was operating in the atmosphere of Three—and what if they picked up someone or something? Though our tlamatinime is not currently aboard, I know he would be ... ah ... apoplectic if we allowed a gang of landless miners to make off with a First Sun artifact. Even a small one."

  "I see." Koshō nodded. "I will arrange to approach under cover and in full stealth."

  "Good." Mitsu cleared the comm channel and punched up Thai-i Huémac's quarters on the barracks deck. There was a brief delay and the v-pane cleared, revealing the bronzed face of the Marine commander.

  "Hai, Chu-sa?" Half of the Zapotec's face was glistening with shaving gel.

  "We have found our quarry," Hadeishi said, shrugging into his uniform jacket. "Are Heicho Felix and her squad ready to go?"

  Huémac tensed, lips compressing into a tight line to admit anything less than perfect readiness to his commander. "Almost. They need some more time in the simulators—if we have time to spare, kyo."

  Hadeishi nodded to himself and checked the navigational plot Koshō had seconded to his comp display. "Two, perhaps three ship-days, Thai-i. And then we will need to move quickly." He looked back to the Marine. "Is there a problem with the personnel assigned? Should Heicho Felix be replaced as team leader?"

  Huémac shook his head slowly, though Mitsu thought he could see a tinge of concern behind the impassive, southern-highlands face. A near-open struggle flickered behind the flint-dark eyes. "No. Felix and her men have done very well, it's just..."

  "What is it?" Hadeishi kept his voice conversational and polite. For the Marine to say anything less than "Can do kyo. Done, kyo." indicated a serious problem. Not for the first time, Hadeishi wished his subordinates would not drink quite so deeply of Fleet tradition and doctrine.

  "The simulations, kyo." Huémac actually glanced over his shoulder, though there was no one in his tiny cabin, before meeting Hadeishi's quizzical look. "They're monstrous—vicious—almost unbeatable. The assault team's been vaporized, holed, shot, incinerated, decompressed, blasted, and cut to bits every day. It's hard on the men to keep their heads up when they lose so often."

  "And Felix?" Hadeishi cocked his head a little to the side. "How is she holding up?"

  "She's still game," Huémac allowed, his expression brightening. "She gets knocked down, she gets back up ... but she must be near worn out, too. The sho-sa has just been after her with a flint club, kyo. Relentless."

  "I understand." In fact, Mitsu felt genuinely touched by Susan's efforts on his behalf. "Tell Felix to stand her men down for a day—all members of the assault team on shipside leave, no duties—and get some sleep. Tomorrow have them run through a full prep equipment check. They'll be on round-the-clock call starting in two days, so make sure they remember to eat. If anyone has trouble sleeping, override their medbands."

  "Hai!" Huémac signed off, vastly relieved by the commander's temperate reaction. Hadeishi made a desultory effort at combing his beard and washing his face, but his thoughts were far away. His attendant fussed around, straightening up the cabin and brushing lint from his jacket. Mitsu let the old man go about his business, thinking of the future.

  Now, I'll be the one having trouble sleeping, he thought as a tubecar whisked him toward the bridge. And Susan will be nagging me. The prospect of facing the massive cutting beam on a Tyr-class in a shooting fight did not calm his stomach. There would be little room to maneuver among the asteroids, which took away the Cornuelle's advantages of speed and agility. As the car slowed, Hadeishi felt an air of melancholy dropping away like leaves from the great oak in his father's courtyard, replaced by a surety of purpose he hadn't even realized was missing.

  ―—―

  The Cornuelle held station in the radar shadow of a mountain-sized chunk of nickel-iron, skin mesh at full absorption, engines cold, every ship's system dialed down to minimal levels. On the bridge, where even normal lighting seemed unaccountably dimmed by standing to battle stations, Hadeishi leaned back into the embrace of his shockchair, entirely calm, and watched a v-feed from Outrider One.

  Hayes was driving the drone from his Weapons station, broad shoulders hunched over the controls. Both Koshō and Smith were hanging on every flicker of data from their passive sensors and the point-defense network. On the v-pane. Hadeishi saw acres of jagged rock slide past as the Outrider inched its way around the nearer asteroid. The drone had been stripped down—more work for the engineers, he thought in amusement—to little more than a brace of cameras and a compressed air jet for maneuvering. Yoyontzin had claimed the modified skin-mesh on the Outrider would let it avoid detection on radar if the miniature ship did not betray itself with an exhaust signature.

  So a machinist's crew—Hadeishi presumed that meant Master's Mate Helsdon and his wrench monkeys, who seemed to get all the tricky jobs—had dismounted the reactor core and plasma thrust drive and jimmied in a hand-built propulsion unit straight o
ut of the "Firetower" era of space exploration on Anáhuac.

  "Saw this on a 3v about the race to the moon," Helsdon confided to Smith, while Hadeishi happened to be in hearing. "Simple. Reliable. Not too fast—which is good. Don't want a missilelike velocity signature to pop up on someone's passive-scan."

  The Outrider crossed a range of spikelike peaks and emerged from shadow. The cameras adjusted to the faint sunlight, though Hayes did not make any course corrections. He was flying almost blind, letting the stream of telemetry returning from the drone via a laser-whisker guide him along a plot derived from the g-array scan data. Somewhere ahead, still out of sight, the refinery was lurking, hidden between the screening mass of two mammoth asteroids.

  "Three minutes," Koshō announced, eyeing her navigation display. "You should have visual by now."

  Hadeishi steepled his fingers and continued to watch quietly. Young Smith-tzin was sweating hard, eyes flickering back and forth between the confusing array of scan data. A problem with the software running the "consolidated" display had left him to reconcile the regular passive scan and the g-array by hand. The wildcatters did not seem to have deployed their own sentry drones, but...

  The camera view changed again. The Outrider had passed into the shadow of the two asteroids. Now—dead ahead—there was a half-familiar outline floating in the ebon void. Points of light gleamed against a greater darkness, and they were not stars.

  "Contact," Hayes announced in a whisper. "Stabilizing platform."

  The Outrider slowed to a halt, hanging in the abyss, both cameras cycling through a variety of wave- and focal lengths. Shipside comp gobbled up the data and began building an enhanced image on the main display. Hadeishi sat up in his chair.

  The keglike shapes of ore carrels became visible, the lights now revealed as EVA lamps strung along supports surrounding the massive containers. A cluster of circular exhausts came into view, the flaring nacelles blackened by plasma flux. A scale indicator appeared beside the screen. One of the Cornuelle's shuttles would fit into the maw of a single thruster. The cruiser itself would fill only three of the dozens of ore carrels now visible.