Starhawk (A Priscilla Hutchins Novel)

by McDevitt, Jack

  “No way they could miss that,” said Priscilla.

  “Whenever you’re ready, Andrea.” The lander’s engines coughed, died, came back. The vehicle began to struggle.

  “Code five,” said Andrea. “Engine failure. Going down.”

  Jake watched it slipping through the darkness. “She’s putting on a good show.”

  “Anybody who can see it,” said Priscilla, “would have to know the thing’s in trouble.”

  The engines sputtered a few more times and died as the lander went into free fall. Jake held his breath. If there was going to be an intervention, it would have to come quickly.

  “Code five,” said Andrea. “Please assist.”

  “I don’t think anything’s going to happen,” said Priscilla.

  Jake had never really accepted the rescue explanation, had not expected to see something snatch the vehicle and carry it safely to ground. Yet what possibility remained?

  The lander was in a death spiral. Moments later Andrea’s voice broke the silence: “Negative results. Restarting engines.” Jake heard the thrusters fire. “We are pulling out. Returning to orbit.” The rate of descent slowed, but the ground was coming up fast. Jake found himself holding his breath. But the vehicle leveled off quickly, skimmed along hilltops and clusters of rocks, and began to gain altitude.

  “Good, Andrea,” said Jake. “Come on home.”

  He sat back and closed his eyes. “Jake,” said Myra, “we have a light.”

  * * *

  IT BURNED STEADILY, a soft sapphire incandescence. Nothing like the original lights. “Can’t tell what it is,” said Jake. “Too much mist in the area.”

  “Myra,” said Priscilla, “will you be able to find it again?” It was already growing dim in their rear.

  “If it’s still there,” she said. “It’s in a different area from the original globes.”

  They’d need an orbit to recover the lander, and another to set up a second launch. “No hurry,” said Jake.

  “We’ll have to go down,” said Priscilla.

  Jake shook his head. “I’ll go down.”

  “Come on, Jake. I’d like to be part of this, too. How about if I go down this time?”

  “Not a good idea.”

  “All right. Why don’t we both go?”

  Oh, hell. Nothing was likely to happen, so it really wasn’t worth another argument. “Okay,” he said.

  The blue light was still there on the next orbit. They brought the lander on board, refueled it, and ran a quick check. Then they waited while the Baumbachner circled the planet again. Priscilla tried to get some sleep, but it was useless.

  And finally, they were climbing into the lander.

  “The light is still there,” said Myra.

  * * *

  JAKE CONCEDED THE lander to her. Priscilla took the pilot’s seat. The light had gotten lost in clouds when they launched, but Andrea guided them down, taking most of her data from the ship. And eventually it reappeared, a softly glowing patch of mist.

  She swung gently to the right and began a circular descent. The mist was rising from the center of a group of low hills interspersed with broad ice sheets. Jake looked her way. The message was obvious enough: Did she want him to make the landing?

  She had no problem taking the lander down. Furthermore, she had nothing to prove. “You want to take over?” she asked.

  “No,” he said. “Just put us on the ground.”

  My kind of guy, she thought. “What’s making the light?” Priscilla asked the AI.

  “I can’t tell,” said Andrea.

  She brought them down on the ice sheet, went into a skid, but hung on until they stopped. The blue mist was only about fifty meters ahead. “Priscilla,” said Jake, “I think the smart way to do this would be for you to stay here. I’ll take a look and see what we have.”

  “Why is that the smart way?”

  “Because it ensures we keep control of the lander. We’ll stay in touch, and if something bad happens—I doubt it will, but just in case—you can get out of here, and the people back home won’t be wondering where we went.” He smiled. “You’re glaring at me again, Priscilla. What happened to this Hutch person I was hearing about?”

  Jake was pulling on a blue-and-silver WSA jacket with a rocket emblem. The manufacturers of the Flickinger system claimed that the force field provided complete protection against extreme temperatures, but he didn’t believe it. People using the equipment inevitably felt more comfortable wearing a coat or jacket.

  “I’m just wondering why the safe thing to do always seems to be to leave me behind,” she said.

  “I’m sorry,” Jake said, “but somebody has to stay. You’re the pilot.”

  “All right.”

  “Thirty years from now, when you’re in charge of everything, you’ll have to tell people the same thing, that they can’t always go where they want.” He activated his Flickinger unit and went into the air lock.

  * * *

  SHE GOT UP and retreated into one of the passenger seats to get a better view. The outer hatch opened, and Jake climbed cautiously down onto the hard-packed ice, his weight gain already impeding him. He trudged off across the frozen ground. “How you doing?” she asked.

  “It’s a trifle windy out here,” he said.

  He was headed between two low hills. She listened as the ground cracked under his feet.

  “Be careful.”

  “I will, Priscilla.”

  He’d left the outer hatch open, as he’d done when he had gone over to the downed lander. She knew why, of course: It would facilitate things if he had to leave in a hurry. She watched through his imager. The sapphire glow got brighter as he rounded the hill. The ground was a combination of ice and rock, then suddenly it changed to water!

  She caught her breath.

  “It’s a lake,” Jake said. “How the hell is that possible?”

  But it was there. Solid ice near the shore leading to open water farther out. And it was the water that was exuding the mist. A beautiful cobalt blue.

  Priscilla checked the outside temperature: 185 below zero, centigrade. “Stay away from it,” she said. “Get out of there.”

  “Relax, Priscilla,” said Jake.

  “No.” Andrea’s voice. “She’s right. It’s radioactive. Come back.”

  That was enough. Jake turned and started to retreat. But he wasn’t happy. “What?” he demanded. “Why do you say that, Andrea?”

  “It’s Cherenkov radiation. It’s what happens if you take a star drive and drop it twenty kilometers. The fuel spills out, melts the ice, and turns blue in the water. You get a blue glow.”

  “Come on, Jake,” said Priscilla. “Move.”

  He was coming. But the Flickinger field protected against radiation. Up to a point.

  * * *

  PRISCILLA’S JOURNAL

  I’d never heard of an interstellar coming apart and depositing its drive unit on a planetary surface. When I asked Andrea to take a look at the history, she discovered it did happen once when the Blackford collided with an orbiting rock and simply broke open. That, I decided, was what had happened here. Except that the rock had been heavy, really heavy, and had pulled the spacecraft apart. The drive hit the ground. And the chair stayed in orbit.

  —February 9, 2196

  Chapter 41

  JAKE CAME BACK through the air lock while Priscilla held her breath, listening for the radiation alarm. But it remained silent.

  “I guess,” Jake said, “it’s time to fold the tent.”

  “I have an idea,” said Priscilla.

  “If,” Andrea said, “you are planning to continue this mission, I suggest we return to the Baumbachner and refuel.”

  “What’s your idea?” asked Jake.

  * * *

  THEY WENT
BACK to the ship, where Priscilla retrieved one of the imagers from the library. Then she sat down in the pilot’s seat and connected the unit to the feed. “Myra, I’d like to take a look at the record from Jake’s descent to the Vincenti lander.”

  The AI put it on-screen, the line of lights, at first no more than distant sparks seen through wispy clouds. Then a gradual brightening as Jake moved closer, the wave effect taking hold, the sparks growing into stars, then into luminous spheres. A perfect line of lights from front to rear. No way that could be anything but a signal.

  Jake watched while she recorded it for the imager. When she’d finished, she ran a test, reproducing the lights on the bridge. Then she sat back and smiled. “Ready to go,” she said.

  * * *

  THE VINCENTI LANDER was shrouded on its hilltop.

  “You know,” Jake said, after he’d turned them around and shut off the engines, “I don’t see any point in going back to the wreckage. We’re in the general area. That should be enough.”

  “Okay,” she said.

  They climbed out of their seats, and activated the Flickinger fields. Priscilla collected her imager. They went through the air lock, and a soft wind pushed at her. “Midnight World,” she said. “Where the sun never rises.” She looked up at the hill on which the Vincenti lander had come to rest.

  “When you’re ready,” said Jake.

  She aimed the imager directly ahead, raised it a bit above ground level, and turned it on. Two soft lights appeared, and the landscape brightened.

  * * *

  THEY WATCHED WITHOUT moving. “Jake, I have a question.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “If there really is someone here, and they did, somehow, bring the lander down, why didn’t they make an effort to save Otto?”

  “Maybe,” said Jake, “they realized they had no way to get to him without killing him.”

  She was looking around, hoping the lights would draw a response. The wind was moving the snow around.

  “Try the entire series,” said Jake. “We might need all seven of the lights.”

  She’d reproduced only two because she’d wanted to maintain the actual dimensions of the display, the size and degree of luminosity and the distance between the lights. In showing all of them, she’d lose that. But—She made the adjustment, and the original seven appeared. She raised the angle, putting them higher overhead.

  “Good,” said Jake. “If that doesn’t do it, I think we’re out of options.” He turned toward her. “Why don’t you let me hold it for a while?”

  The imager wasn’t heavy, but her arm tired quickly in the excess gravity. She handed it over.

  The breeze kept pushing at her. But the landscape remained dark and motionless. “I guess,” she said, “it’s a fool’s errand.”

  “Maybe.”

  She walked clear of the lander, so she could see in all directions. “Anybody out here?” she asked. But it was a radio transmission; only Jake could have heard her. After a minute or two, she raised her hands. “Nope,” she said. “Nada.”

  “Maybe it’s just as well, Priscilla. Wouldn’t want a bunch of bloodthirsty aliens sneaking up on us.”

  “Hey!” she said. “That’s odd.”

  “What is?”

  “Wait a minute.” She had her right hand out, palm open. “I think it’s raining.”

  Jake held out his own hand. Nothing. “Andrea,” he said, “what’s the temperature?”

  “Eleven degrees centigrade,” said the AI.

  “That’s up a little bit,” he said.

  Priscilla wanted to screech. “Up about 170 degrees.”

  Now Jake was looking in all directions, including up. “Priscilla, I’m not sure what’s going on—Hang on a second.” He had both hands out.

  Something splatted into his palm.

  * * *

  PRISCILLA’S JOURNAL

  There have been all kinds of scenarios for first-contact events: aliens show up orbiting Neptune; aliens who are so tiny that when they arrive without preliminary, somebody mistakes their lander for a football; aliens coming in from another dimension, but they’re unable to see us, or we them. Some first contacts actually happened. The ancient monument on Iapetus. Ruins on Quraqua. Whoever it had been that Dave Simmons ran into at Talios. The only local functional aliens were on Nok, and they had turned out to be boring. Who could have believed that? Now we have this one: Aliens say hello by making it rain.

  But Jake thinks the correct pronoun should be it rather than they.

  —February 9, 2196

  Chapter 42

  THEIR REPORT ARRIVED in the solar system eleven hours before they did. When the Baumbachner surfaced, 950,000 kilometers out, they checked in with Ops and, within moments, Frank was on the circuit. “Jake,” he said, “are you sure there were no survivors?”

  “We only found the one body,” he said. “But the Vincenti was torn apart. There’s no way any of them could have gotten through it.”

  “Were you able to recover the body?”

  “No, Frank. It’s in their lander. The gravity’s too much.”

  “Okay. There’ll probably be a follow-up mission. We can get it then.” He sighed. “We’re thinking about what part of this to release. We were hoping— Well, none of that matters. We’ll see you when you get here.”

  * * *

  THEY ARRIVED IN port two days later. One of Frank’s staff people was waiting at the dock to escort them to his office. Patricia was with him when they arrived. “I’ve read the report half a dozen times,” Patricia said. “Tell us again: How did you guys find the lander?”

  “It’s hard to explain,” said Jake. “There were some atmospheric lights. They were directly over the spot where it had gone down.”

  “Atmospheric lights? What actually do you mean?”

  “I don’t know any other way to describe them. They were literally pointing at the lander.”

  Patricia broke in: “Jake, you’re not exaggerating?”

  “No. It’s just the way I described it.”

  The director glanced at Priscilla, who nodded. “That’s correct. We have it all on the record.”

  Patricia frowned. “Were they the only lights in the area?”

  “Yes,” said Jake. “As far as we could tell, they were the only lights on the planet.”

  “That’s going to be hard to explain.”

  “I guess,” said Jake. “But I’ll tell you, without those lights, we’d still be out there looking.”

  “Okay.” Frank’s tone suggested the story made no sense. “We’ll figure it out later. Tell me how the lander got onto the hilltop.”

  Jake took a chip out of one pocket and held it out for him. “This is Simon, the lander AI. Giving his description of what happened.”

  Frank inserted the chip into the projector. They listened while Simon went through it again. When it had finished, Frank and Patricia sat staring at each other. Finally, the director shook her head. “This gets crazier all the time, Frank.”

  “I know.”

  “Well, it’s not really our business at this point.” The director looked frustrated. “You guys complete a report for us. Don’t skimp on the details.”

  “We already have it,” said Jake.

  “Good.” She turned back to Frank. “Let’s bring the Academy people up to date. I assume they’ll want to figure out a way to retrieve the body. They’ll be annoyed at us for not doing it.” Her eyes went back to Jake, but she didn’t pursue the issue. “Let them know we’ll give them whatever help we can.” She shook her head. “A superdense rock. And an invisible parachute. What’s next?” With that closing comment, she got up and started to leave.

  “Wait,” said Jake.

  She stopped. “There’s more?”

  “I want to tell you about the rain.�
�

  * * *

  WHEN THEY’D FINISHED explaining, Frank made no effort to hide his smile. “And you think that was, what, a way for an alien force of some kind to say hello?”

  “It felt that way,” said Priscilla. “Rain in a place that was brutally cold. Or should have been.”

  “Did you experience a change in the temperature?”

  “Yes. It got warmer. A lot warmer.”

  “What’s the temperature usually like out there? A hundred and something below zero?”

  “Usually,” said Jake. “But we’re obviously getting some wild fluctuations.”

  Patricia took a deep breath. “So it, whatever it is, was saying hello. Don’t we usually associate getting rained on as a negative experience?”

  “We’re not suggesting anything,” Jake said. “We agreed before we got home that we wouldn’t try to put an interpretation on this. And I guess we got carried away. We’re just telling you what happened.”

  “Still,” she said, “that’s what you think?”

  “Maybe you had to be there,” Priscilla said. “But yes, that’s what I think.”

  Patricia nodded. “If someone tossed water at me, I’d read it a little differently.” Her eyes seemed focused in a distant place.

  “It might be a good idea,” Frank told them, “if you didn’t repeat this part of the story outside.”

  “Yes, please,” said Patricia. “We don’t want people thinking we’ve completely lost our minds. But I think Samantha should be informed.” She meant Samantha Campbell, the director of the Academy Project. “Any other surprises?” she asked.

  “That’s it,” said Jake.

  “Good.” She headed for the door. “I think I’ll get out of here while I can.”

  When she was gone, Frank leaned forward. “One more thing. The families will be setting up a memorial service in a few days. Just so you know. But I don’t see any need for you to attend. Jake, you’re clear. Thanks for helping. We appreciate it. You too, Priscilla.”

  * * *

  “PRISCILLA,” SAID JAKE when they were alone, “you know we’re going to hear from the Academy about this.”

  “I’d be shocked if we didn’t. I’m surprised Frank and Patricia brushed it off.”