Asimov's SF, February 2008

by Dell Magazine Authors

  It only took a couple of minutes to reach the ground. As soon as the cage touched down, I untied the crate and, taking hold of its handles, picked it up and carried it off the elevator. Even in the lesser gravity, the crate was just heavy enough to make it hard work; if I hadn't been burdened with it, I might have been able to bunny-hop across the desert floor. As it was, though, I found it was just as easy to put the crate down, then pick up one end by its handle and drag it behind me.

  “What's it like down there?” Rain asked.

  I stopped to look up at her. She was standing in the open hatch, watching me from above. “Like Kansas,” I replied, “only without cornfields. Ever been there?"

  A short laugh. “You kidding? I've never even been to Earth."

  I'd forgotten that. “I'll take you sometime. To Earth, I mean ... believe me, you can skip Kansas.” I started to pick up the case again, then paused. “Hey, if you're not doing anything, patch into the long-range com and see if you can reach the Pride. They might be back in range by now."

  “Wilco.” There was a click as she switched from one band to another. Not waiting for a response, I went back to work.

  The terrain was rough, its coarse sand strewn with rocks the size of baseballs. Every so often I'd have to veer around boulders or haul the crate through small pits formed by micrometeorite impacts. Through my helmet, I could hear the faint moan of the wind; the atmosphere wasn't dense enough to hold up a kite, but I still had to use my free hand to clear silt from my faceplate.

  It took about fifteen minutes to drag the crate nearly a hundred yards from the shuttle; I figured that was far enough to keep the probe from being damaged by Lucy's exhaust flare once we lifted off. I checked the chronometer on my heads-up display; we'd been on Kha-Zann for just over half an hour, so time was getting short. I opened the crate and tossed away the lid, then reached inside. The probe wasn't hard to remove; a couple of hard tugs at its rungs, and it came straight out of its packing material.

  “No word from the Pride yet,” Rain said, “but that's probably because I'm getting a lot of static. How are you doing out there?"

  “Almost done.” I grunted as I carried the sphere a few feet from the crate, then gently placed it on the ground. It rolled a couple of inches, forcing me to roll it back so that its top hexagon was positioned right-side up. Once I was satisfied that it wasn't going anywhere, I pressed the blue button on the control hex.

  The button lit up, but nothing happened. I waited a second, uncertain whether or not the thing was working, then I pushed the red button. This time, the reaction was immediate; the panels surrounding the lower hemisphere sprang open, and small multijointed legs unfolded from within the sphere, their horseshoe-like pads firmly anchoring the probe against the ground.

  I pushed the white button, and had to jump back quickly to avoid the rest of the panels as they peeled apart to reveal a smaller sphere hidden inside. From the probe's core, a narrow cylinder raised itself upon a stalk, then unfurled to become a dish antenna. The hyperlink transmitter, no doubt. As it swiveled around to point toward the sun, two more cylinders rose into view; judging from the lenses at their ends, I figured they were multispectrum cameras. One of them rotated toward me, and I took another step back. Realizing that it looked straight at me, I restrained an impulse to wave at whomever might be watching. Or perhaps give them an obscene gesture.

  A slender wand shot out from the core, then buried itself in the sand; that must be the seismometer. And meanwhile, valves opened and fluttered, wands were elevated, lights began to flash. It was like some weird toy that belonged to an equally weird kid.

  “Jules..."

  “Wow.” I stared at the probe in amazement. “You should see this thing. It's like some kind of..."

  “Jules ... look up."

  Something in Rain's voice gave me a chill. Turning around, I raised my eyes toward the sky, and immediately forgot about the probe.

  While I'd been busy hauling the crate out into the desert and deploying the probe, the sun had begun to set. Aerik had fully risen into view, but that wasn't what got my attention. It was Kasimasta.

  I couldn't see all of the Annihilator, but what I could was enough to freeze my blood. The edge of its accretion belt was coming up over the horizon, with the nimbus of its ergosphere just behind it. The damned thing was four or five times larger than when we'd first seen it, and no longer looked like an eye, but rather the storm front of a hurricane mightier than the wrath of God.

  And it was heading straight toward us.

  “Hell with this.” I forced myself to breathe. “We're outta here.” And then I turned and began to high-tail it back to Lucy.

  * * * *

  VI

  No longer encumbered by the crate, there was nothing to prevent me from bunny-hopping. The gravity and atmospheric pressure were just low enough for me to make broad jumps that covered five or six feet at a time, just as I learned to do in Academy basic training on the Moon. Yet I hadn't covered half the distance between the probe and the shuttle when I went sprawling face-first across the ground.

  Under other circumstances, it might have been funny. Spacer fall down, go boom. And my reflexes were good; I managed to raise my arms and cover my helmet faceplate before it was cracked open by a rock. But nonetheless, I knew at once that this was no mere accident; I hadn't tripped over anything, nor had my last jump been misguided.

  The ground had moved beneath my feet.

  I was picking myself up when I felt it again, a mild tremor that caused the sand beneath my hands and knees to shift ever so slightly. At that instant, Rain's voice came to me through my headset: “Jules, get back here! We're getting...!"

  “Earthquakes. I know.” I struggled erect, continued running toward the shuttle. Fortunately it had remained stable, its landing gear still firmly resting upon the ground. I knew, though, that if the tremors became much more violent, there was a good chance the craft would be rocked so hard that one of its legs might snap ... in which case, we wouldn't be leaving Kha-Zann.

  Rain remained at her post until I reached the elevator; I'd barely climbed aboard when she put the crane in reverse and began to haul me back upstairs. The wind had picked up as well; I had to hold on tight as the cage swung back and forth, and I didn't feel safe until it reached the top and she'd retracted the T-bar into the hold. Yet that safety was little more than temporary; we had to get off Kha-Zann PDQ.

  While Rain stayed below to shut the hatch and lock everything down, I scrambled up to the cockpit and got Lucy ready to fly. I'd just powered up the engine when she joined me on the flight deck. No time for a prelaunch checklist; I did my best to make sure I hadn't neglected anything, but even as we were strapping ourselves in, another tremor passed through the hull, this one violent enough to scare me into thinking that the ship was about to topple over.

  Rain felt it, too. Her eyes were wide on the other side of her faceplate. “Jules..."

  “Hang on, sweetie. We're gone.” And then I fired the engine.

  Launch was more difficult than landing. By then the wind had picked up sufficient speed that, if I had been attempting to lift off from Mars, the ground controller would've probably called a scrub. But I didn't have the luxury of waiting for optimal weather conditions; no choice, in fact, but to root hog or die. So I kept the engine at full throttle all the way up and gripped the yoke with both hands as Lucy clawed her way into the sky, her hull plates creaking ominously with every bump and jolt she took.

  In less than a minute, though, it was all over. The sky darkened, purple turning jet black; the rattle faded away and everything smoothed out. On the screens, the aft cams captured a brief glimpse of Kha-Zann falling away, our landing site no longer visible. Then the moon disappeared somewhere behind us and we were back in space.

  Rain let out her breath. “Nice flying, pilot,” she murmured. “If I wasn't wearing this thing, I'd give you a kiss."

  “Save it for later.” I was still on manual, but since we were t
hrough the rough patch, I throttled down the engines and engaged the autopilot. “See if you can raise the Pride. We should be able to get her by now."

  “Right.” She reached over to the com panel, patched us into the long-range relay. “Loose Lucy to Pride of Cucamonga, do you copy?"

  A moment of static, then Emily's voice came over: “We copy, Lucy. What took you so long?"

  I almost laughed out loud. “Sorry ‘bout that, Pride. Had a bit of a...” I stopped myself. “Never mind. Mission accomplished and we're off the ground. That's all that counts. What's your position?"

  A brief pause, then Ted came online. “We're on course for the rendezvous point, same coordinates as before. ETA in forty-seven minutes. Think you can make it?"

  “Hold on.” I finished reloading the program, then checked the comp display. Everything was copasetic; we'd arrive with just enough time and fuel to spare. “Roger that. We're on the beam and on our way for pickup."

  “Very good. We'll see you there.” Another pause. “Good work, guys. And, by the way ... Mr. Goldstein has asked me to extend his compliments."

  “Oh, how lovely,” Rain muttered. “Be still, my beating heart."

  “Repeat, please? I'm afraid we have some interference."

  “Negatory, Pride. Just some static. Lucy over and out.” I made the kill sign, and grinned at Rain once she'd switched off. “What do you want to bet Morgan gives you the pink slip for that?"

  “Ask me if I...” Her voice trailed off as she gazed toward the starboard side. “Oh, god...."

  I looked past her, and was suddenly grateful for having had the foresight to wear diapers. Kasimasta filled the windows. Its accretion belt resembled a whirlpool of colored dyes, its ergosphere as bright as a star. Now that it had entered Aerik's orbit, the Annihilator's gravity well was beginning to affect the planet itself. Aerik's night side was turned toward the rogue, and even from the distance we could see brilliant flashes of lightning within its darkened skies, like the death throes of a swarm of fireflies, while the blue clouds of its daylight side seemed to writhe and roil in agony.

  But that wasn't all. Aerik was no longer a perfect sphere; its equator was showing a pronounced bulge, as if it were a massive balloon that was being squeezed at its poles. As I watched, a wispy stream of blue-white haze slowly began to move outward from the planet's upper atmosphere. Kasimasta wasn't just a killer; it was a vampire, the vast mouth of its singularity drawing blood from its latest victim in the form of hydrogen and helium. Kha-Zann would be little more than an appetizer for such a voracious appetite.

  It was hard to be sure, but I guessed that Kasimasta was about a half-million miles away. Way too close for comfort. I fought the impulse to throttle up the engine. Our rendezvous window had been calculated with precious little margin for error; if we arrived too early, we would miss Pride just as surely as if we'd been marooned on Kha-Zann. I couldn't afford to take that chance; like it or not, I'd have to place my faith in Ali's calculations.

  The next forty minutes were the longest in my life. There was nothing for us to do except wait for Lucy to intercept the Pride. If I'd brought a deck of cards, I might have broken them out and had a few hands of poker with Rain; as things stood, though, we could only stay on the lookout for our ship.

  I was just beginning to regret not having written my last will and testament—not that I had much to bequeath anyone—when the lidar beeped; something was coming within range. A minute later, a tiny cruciform appeared through the starboard windows, its shape outlined by the red and green flashes of its formation lights. Rain and I were still whooping it up when Emily's voice came over the radio.

  “Pride to Lucy, do you copy?"

  Rain toggled the com, then nodded to me. “Affirmative, Pride,” I said. “Great to see you again.” A quick glance at the nav panel. “On course for rendezvous and docking."

  “Roger that.” Now we heard from Ted. “Ready to match course and velocity."

  “Copy.” I disengaged the autopilot one last time, then put my hands back on the yoke. Next was the tricky part. Although the Pride had cut its thrust, its momentum was still such that Lucy would have to run hard in order to catch up with it. I'd have to expand the last of our fuel in order to do so.

  But if all went well, it wouldn't matter. And if it didn't go so well...

  I pushed that out of my mind. Keeping my eyes fixed on the instrument panels, I kicked up the engine, coaxing the shuttle closer to the rendezvous point. The next few minutes were as harrowing as any in my life, but when I looked up again, it seemed as though the Pride were hanging motionless directly before us, its docking collar a big, fat bull's-eye that a rookie couldn't have missed.

  I was just about to let out a sigh of relief when Doc's voice came over the com. “Jules, is your cabin still depressurized?"

  “Roger that.” I'd been too busy to think about that. “Want us to pressurize?"

  “Affirmative. I'll be waiting for you at the airlock. Over."

  “Copy. Over.” I glanced at Rain. “What do you think that's all about?"

  “Guess he wants to save time by not having us cycle through.” She reached up to the environmental control panel. “I'll handle this. Just keep your eyes on the road."

  She needn't have worried. A few final squirts of the thrusters, and a couple of minutes later there was the welcome jolt of the docking flanges connecting. I shut down the engine and major systems, then reached forward to pat the instrument panel.

  “Thank you, sweetheart,” I whispered. “You're a good girl."

  I didn't know it then, but those were my last words to Lucy. Doc was waiting for us at the airlock, just as he said he'd be. As soon as we were aboard, he slammed the hatch shut behind us.

  “Sorry, Jules,” he said, unable to look me in the eye, “but we're going to have to ditch her."

  “What?” Rain and I had already removed our helmets; I gaped at him, not believing what I'd just heard. “Why do you...?"

  “Skipper's orders. We can't spare the extra mass, so..."

  I was about to argue with him when Ted's voice came over my headset. “Jules! Get up here now! We've got an emergency!"

  * * * *

  EIGHTEEN

  Never piss off a turtle ... faster than dirt ... doomsday ... what's harder than flying a spaceship?

  * * * *

  VII

  I headed straight for the bridge, leaving Rain behind to help Doc jettison Lucy. There wasn't enough time to pay last respects; I'd grieve for the loss of my ride later, if and when we survived. Ted hadn't told me what had happened, and he didn't need to: when the captain says jump, everyone makes like a frog.

  I was halfway up the access shaft before I realized that I was still using the hand rails. If we were in zero-g, that meant the ship was still coasting. Now that Rain and I were safely back aboard, though, the main engine should have been on fire and Pride should have been at full thrust. I was trying to figure this out when the bridge hatch slammed open and Emily came through, her left arm curled around something that, at first glance, looked like a bundle of clothes upon which someone had spilled ketchup.

  “Make a hole!” she yelled. “Coming through!"

  I flattened myself against the shaft as much as possible; hard to do, since I was still wearing my EVA gear. When she got closer, I saw that the object in tow was a person: Ali Youssef, unconscious, with a blood-stained shirt wrapped around his chest as a makeshift bandage.

  “What the hell ...?"

  “Jas attacked him.” Emily squeezed past me, using her free hand to grasp the rails. “No time to explain. Get up top ... Ted needs you to take the helm.” I couldn't get anything more out of her, though, because she continued to haul Ali down to Deck Three, no doubt taking him to the med bay. She glanced back at me, saw that I'd frozen. “Move!"

  That snapped me out of it. Hand over hand, I scrambled the rest of the way up the shaft. The hatch was still open; I sailed headfirst through the manhole, nearly spraining my wri
st as I grabbed a ceiling rail to brake myself. Ted was on the other side of the console, floating next to the helm station. He was bare-chested, and I realized that it was his shirt Ali was wearing as a chest bandage.

  “Come here and take over.” He didn't raise his voice, nor did he need to. “Course is already laid in ... you just need to take the stick."

  I was wondering why he hadn't done so himself when I saw the stun gun in his right hand, and that he was using it to cover Mahamatasja Jas Sa-Fhadda. The Prime Emissary was backed against hisher couch; heshe was still wearing hisher weapon around hisher wrist. Behind himher, Morgan Goldstein cowered against the bulkhead; for once he was speechless, apparently terrified by whatever had just happened.

  “Skipper, what...?"

  “Just do it.” Ted grabbed a ceiling rail and pulled himself toward the engineering station, carefully keeping his distance from Jas. “I'll watch Jas. Just..."

  “I assure you, Captain, I mean you no harm.” The voice that emerged from Jas's environment suit was higher-pitched than I'd heard before. “I was only defending myself. Mr. Youssef..."

  “Shut up.” Ted didn't take his eyes from himher. “Jules..."

  “I'm on it.” Suspended within the holo tank was an image of Kasimasta; one glance told me the Annihilator was way too close to our own position. Pushing myself off the bulkhead, I sailed straight through the miniature black hole, an irony that might have been poetic if I'd been in the mood for such a thing. Just then, though, my main concern was taking control of the helm and getting us away from the annihilator.

  I grabbed hold of Ali's seat and shoved it back as far as I could. Since I was still wearing my suit, there was no way I could sit down, so instead I anchored myself by shoving the toes of my boots within the foot rail below the console. Bending over the console, I quickly studied the comp readouts. They confirmed what Ted had told me; our course was set, and all I needed to do was bring the ship around, point it in the right direction, and fire the main engine.