Eyes on the tactical screen, he did not reply.
She stepped toward him, stopping only when he raised the strifer. “Omari,” she said, her voice loud over the steady hum of the instrumentation panel, “somehow I’ll take you back. Murder, blackmarketing of Institute technology…whatever else you’ve done, will all be paid for. I promise you.”
He met her gaze steadily. “If you try to carry out your promise, I’ll kill you, Saunders, without hesitation.” He paused a moment. “And without regret.”
Seventy-four hours later Blaise opened one bleary, aching eye for a quick glance around the bridge. The captain had died more than a day ago without ever regaining consciousness. No sound had come over in-ship communications from the two crewers aft. Hassid lay huddled on the deck, still in agony and oblivious to the battle of wills between helmsman and navigator. Beside him Saunders lay stretched out, her face hidden but her breathing slow and regular. Blaise smiled slightly. She had tried to outlast him on the need for sleep, which was impossible. She was tough and well trained, but soon the lack of food and water would weaken her. He wasn’t concerned about those needs for himself…yet. Cautiously, with one last glance at Saunders, Blaise closed his eyes again.
An insistent chime snapped him from his groggy state. His head jerked up, and he was on his feet and moving toward his console before his senses fully cleared. Behind him Saunders stirred.
“What is it?” she mumbled.
Blaise bent intently over his instruments, giving her no reply. With swift fingers he cleared memory of their present course heading and laid orbital coordinates for the fourth planet of the system they were entering.
“Prepare for normal space,” he said. After a moment of hesitation he opened a line aft, his hail echoing through the sleeping quarters, the minuscule galley, and the engine room. “If you’re still alive back there, prepare for normal space.” He switched off before any reply could be made and gave the auto-helm its order to execute. A countdown light blinked on.
Although he half expected Saunders to jump him while he was bent over the astrogation computer, she remained standing by Hassid, her face and body tense. A panel near her lit in a rapid sequence of colored lights, but she made no move to receive the data coming in from the sensors. Now awake, Hassid sat up with a groan, his shadowed eyes fixed on the captain’s body where it lay forgotten beneath the viewscreen.
When Saunders kept on staring at Blaise as though she were a carved figure, he reached up for his harness and scowled at her. “Ten seconds to slam, Saunders. Or do you want to hit orbit like the captain?”
That struck through her blankness. Her face did not change, but fury flickered in her eyes as she scooped a groaning Hassid to his feet and buckled him in before moving to her place beside Blaise. He kept his strifer trained on her, knowing the anger she was hiding would explode soon. Saunders was not the sort who accepted defeat.
She buckled her harness and accepted the instructions coming from Blaise’s computer. The ship shuddered lightly as she punched in the sequence for taking manual control. Then she glanced at Blaise, her lips compressed tightly. “What are you going to do here, colonize?”
He smiled without amusement, then indicated the scanners still recording sensory data. “This planet is inhabited.”
She stiffened. “No! Omari, you can’t, not without Institute clearance—”
“Yes!” he snapped back angrily. “I can! I adapt everywhere. And I don’t need your sacred Institute’s permission to infiltrate an unclassified culture.”
“You—”
But the slam of changeover blurred her words of protest. Thankful for it, Blaise squinted against the grayness of vision and fought to keep an eye on his board. A red light suddenly blinked.
“Damn!” she shouted. “We’re…” The disorientation abruptly cleared, leaving her words hanging loud and harsh in the air. “Black star! It’s blanking out the helm. I—”
She slammed one large hand down on the controls, and before Blaise could protest, she had wrenched them back into implosion.
“No!” Desperately Blaise flailed an arm, seeking to grab her and stop her. His harness bobbed and swayed him in the wrong direction as the ship lurched and tilted crazily. Furious, with fear clutching his lungs like an iron band, Blaise tore out of his harness and threw himself between her and her controls, ignoring her screams of rage as he strained against the crushing force of changeover. Readouts swirled before his eyes; he blinked fiercely and managed to keep things in focus long enough to give new instructions to the spinning helm directional. Damn her!
He didn’t dare take time to check with the computer. As soon as the effect of implosion drive started to fade, he slammed them back into normal, wincing as the ship groaned at this tremendous stress on hull and bulkhead. Aft, he could hear the engines screaming; then grayness and an attack of vertigo overwhelmed him.
Coming to moments later, he found himself on the deck beneath Saunders’ feet. Slowly, urgently trying to force his body to respond, he rose to hands and knees, spitting out a mouthful of salty blood, then got shakily to his feet. He clung to the console with both hands and shook his head experimentally, sagging with relief as he realized they were back safely in normal space.
“All right, bright boy,” said Saunders grimly, her eyes locked on the tactical screen. “We’re in atmosphere, and the controls are jamming from X rays off that blasted black star. Do you understand?” she shouted, glaring at him. “We’re going to crash unless you can figure out some way to restore the helm! Omari!”
He nodded to shut her up, in no mood to let her work herself into hysterics. His brain went to work on the problem, ignoring the fear and pain pounding through the rest of him. “What’s working?” he asked.
“Nothing!”
He frowned. “Take grip, Saunders! If we can fire the emergency braking pattern—”
“No,” she snapped. “You can’t land the Forerunner, dammit! She’s not made to enter atmosphere. We don’t have the shielding…” With a catch in her voice Saunders wiped her dripping face with one sleeve. The temperature was already climbing past life support’s capacity to regulate it.
Blaise grimaced and checked out the brakes anyway. Saunders was right; the instruments were fading in and out crazily. If only she’d kept out of his way! He’d had the compensation factors for the black star worked in. It would have gone smoothly, except for her—
Angrily he caught himself short. That was past. What he had to worry about now was getting them to the surface in one piece. Blinking fiercely as sweat ran into his eyes, he calculated the erratic shifts in instrumentation, trying to find a pattern.
“Fire reverse thrust one on my mark,” he said grimly.
Saunders jerked around. For a moment she gaped at him in sheer disbelief, then grunted as the ship listed heavily.
“Fire!” said Blaise, and with an oath she obeyed. A shudder ran through the ship. Briefly he met her eyes, reading in them all the fury and puzzlement and fear at war there. The ship leveled slightly and bucked. “Demos, Saunders! Hang on to the helm!” he shouted. “You’ve got her now—”
“I’ve got nothing!” But with her jaw clenched till it was a ridge of muscle and bone, Saunders stayed with her controls, fighting them as they fought her. “All right, you did it once,” she said more quietly, swallowing. “When do I fire the next brake?”
“On my mark,” he said, concentrating on his panel.
“Seven thousand meters…” said Hassid weakly, startling both Blaise and Saunders. Blaise nodded toward him gratefully, and the engineer continued, “…six-five…five thousand—”
“Fire brake two,” said Blaise.
Saunders obeyed, biting her lip in concentration. Again the ship bucked, more violently this time. Blaise barely kept his balance, concentrating fully upon the data line flashing steadily across the bottom of the tactical screen. In another five hundred meters he would fire brake three. That should enable Saunders to take s
ufficient control over their descent to level the ship out of her wild spiral. And he still had the fourth brake in reserve. He relaxed some of his pent-up fear. They could do it.
“Hassid,” he said, not looking up. “Feed into Saunders’s line. I need scanning data on terrain.”
“My God,” said Saunders beneath her breath. “You really think we can land her.”
Blaise met her eyes steadily. After a moment she blinked and ducked her head. “Get into harness, you fool,” she said.
He had just followed that advice when an explosion wrenched through the ship, which canted in a wild roll, slamming Blaise into Saunders. Desperately Blaise fought to get clear and dragged himself back into position, grabbing at the controls. But even as he gripped them, despair plunged through him. The fuel seams had burst, taking out what little helm management the black star had left them, as well as the remaining stabilizers. They were completely out of control, blowing fuel all over the atmosphere with a brilliant burst of purple and yellow flame that flared across the hull into range of the main viewscreen scanners. Blaise could smell the harsh odors of burning circuits, ozone, and urine. For a moment of sheer panic, he shut his eyes, his mind blanking out as the g-force and intense heat crushed him.
But some deep part of him tightened up and saved him from that cold panic. He opened his eyes, focusing them despite the wild spinning of the ship. As long as there was even one slight chance left, he would not give up.
“Saunders,” he said urgently, shaking her arm. “I can’t reach your secondary controls from this angle. Fire the last brake.”
She turned her head slowly to meet his insistent gaze with eyes that were blank with terror. “What?” she asked numbly.
“Saunders!” shouted Blaise. “Fire it! Number four! Saunders, damn you, fire!”
Groaning, Hassid began mumbling a prayer, his voice quivering so badly that he was unintelligible.
With an exclamation Blaise tugged violently at his harness release. They were at the zero point. If he didn’t reach that brake, in a matter of seconds they would be so much pulp smeared in with the systems lubricant.
Grunting from the strain on his muscles, sweat dripping into his eyes, he held himself upright, then was thrown against the console as the ship rolled again. Somehow he hung on, his knuckles white with strain from the effort of keeping his grip. Saunders’s bulk was in the way, but Blaise squeezed past her, timed himself, and with a gasp hit the final button of the braking sequence. The answering lurch and jolt flung him to the deck, pitching him under the lip of the console with enough force to knock the breath from him. He lay stunned, dimly feeling the ship lift and hang poised for an instant as though bringing herself to heel. Get up! screamed something within him. Get up!
Vaguely he threw out a hand, seeking to lever himself up. But there was no time. He heard the agonized twisting of tortured metal and Saunders’s scream. Instinctively he shut his eyes, tensing as the ship crashed, lengthwise instead of nose first, her metal shrieking in death until at last all lay still and silent and broken.
Chapter 2
For a long while there was nothing but dark and numbness. Then cold crept in, a deep piercing cold that gnawed at his consciousness until it roused him. Blaise opened his eyes and blinked several times before he realized he was awake and alive. Disbelief washed over him. He shut his eyes again. Other sensations spread through him besides the cold. He became aware of the cloying smell of blood and a burst of pain in his chest each time he drew a breath. Frowning, Blaise opened his eyes once more and wriggled in an effort to throw off the weight crushing his torso. Nothing budged, however, and weakly he let his head fall back for a moment of rest.
He could see little in the shadowy darkness. The bridge lay in ruined silence, all instrument panels dead. With a chill Blaise thought of the implosion reactors, wondering whether their protective casings had remained intact. Even a hairline crack would be large enough to poison the area. Freeing a hand, he explored by fingertip the wreckage pinning him and decided it was the remnants of the helm and navigational consoles. His groping hand plunged into a tangle of circuitry, and he froze instinctively before realizing with a grunt of expelled air that he was not going to be electrocuted. Probably he was holding the astrogation computer’s brains. Blaise gritted his teeth and shook his hand clear of the debris, nicking a finger in the process.
He brought up his hand to suck at the cut and realized with a start that he could see more clearly now. He wriggled his fingers before his eyes, then strained to look around at the rest of the bridge. The darkness seemed grayer; yes, he made out an outline of something through the shadows. Dawn must be breaking over the planet. Good!
Then he frowned. The ship must be broken open, or else daylight would make no difference in here. He gazed upward, straining to see the hull overhead, hoping the split was here and not aft with the reactors.
“Saunders! Hassid!” he called, coughing as the words rasped in his throat, which was coated with the stale taste of dried blood. He grimaced and swallowed several times before calling out again. No one responded.
“Damn,” he said softly, fighting down a spurt of panic. It did not matter if he was alone. He would find a way to get out.
The brightness grew quickly until a beam of sunlight spilled into the ship, stabbing downward. Dazzled, Blaise squinted and threw his free hand up to shield his face while the golden radiance streamed in with liquid intensity. Its warmth seeped into his skin, thawing him a degree or two. After a few moments, when his eyes had adjusted to the brilliant light, he lifted his head to look about.
The first thing he saw was a thick, freckled hand dangling several inches above his face. Startled, Blaise narrowed his pale eyes and stared up at Saunders. She hung tangled in her harness in such a way that he could not see her face. Glad he could not, he stared at her for a moment, then frowned and averted his eyes. There was no point in wondering why he, the only one not strapped in suspended safety webbing, had survived. It was a fluke for which he was damn thankful. He grimaced, able to see now the extent of wreckage lying across his body. Some of his self-confidence faded. Alone, he could never pull free of this mess, not unless he found some leverage.
“Hassid!” he called angrily, trying to battle down growing fear. “Damn you! Are you alive?”
His shout reverberated off the crumpled walls, then faded, leaving a deafening silence. And in that silence he heard a sound.
Blaise jerked up his head. Tensely he held his breath and listened, straining. The sound came again, faint and unidentifiable. Something scraped along the hull…outside! He held his breath, his heart thudding faster.
An unintelligible murmur of voices accompanied the scraping. Blaise’s senses sharpened to full alert. The key data on the star chart had marked this planet as inhabited, but he had no knowledge of what kind of creatures lived here, or whether they possessed intelligence, or what their cultures were like…if they had any. And while he had not lied when he told Saunders he could adapt anywhere, he still preferred to meet the unknown on his feet with a weapon close to hand, rather than pinned helplessly on his back. He drew in a deep breath of air scarcely warmed by the strengthening sunlight and kept his eyes on the split in the hull overhead, where the Forerunner lay open to the sky.
The voices ceased for a few minutes. Then, without warning, a shape blocked the opening, formless and dark against the light. The shadow of it fell across Blaise. Sharply honed caution kept him silent and motionless. He suspected curiosity rather than rescue had brought the creature, and he did not want to tempt it into further exploration.
Something was called out, and the creature above Blaise answered. Blaise frowned, striving to catch the speech pattern, but it was too rapid for him. He waited with held breath, willing the creature to lose interest and go away.
Saunders’s hand dangling over him twitched, and she moaned.
“Quiet!” muttered Blaise beneath his breath. His momentary sympathy for her vanished.
>
She did not stir again, but the creature had heard. With alarming swiftness it dropped inside the ship like a swoop of great black shadow, landing soundlessly atop the edge of the sensors console in a feat of balance and agility that awoke Blaise’s seldom-won admiration. For a moment he and the creature stared at each other. It was tall, surely at least seven feet, and a biped. A black knee-length cloak hung from its shoulders, and under the cloak it wore a black tunic, black trousers, and heavy black boots. The cloak possessed a hood, giving it a cowled appearance, and the creature’s face was masked entirely with a hard, dull black substance—possibly metal—that was featureless except for the two eye openings covered by fine wire mesh.
Blaise swallowed hard, disconcerted by the silent appraisal from that masked face. After a moment the black figure stepped down off the console and picked its way over the wreckage with sure, crunching steps. Blaise stiffened, unable to stop himself from gripping the mass of twisted metal that trapped him, and wishing with all his might for his lost strifer. The creature knelt beside him with a swirl of black cloak that brushed Blaise’s shoulder. He flinched and was immediately ashamed at betraying himself.
But he had no intention of letting fear get the best of him. He drew a deep breath of frosty air, winced as the pressure on his chest intensified, and said tersely, “Peace to your way. I am Omari.”
He spoke in one of the standard dialects most used by both Institute-protected worlds and the Commonwealth of Planets, but the overture evoked no verbal response. Instead, the creature extended a gloved finger and prodded his shoulder and neck none too gently, awakening the soreness of dormant bruises and scrapes.
Blaise stared at him coldly. “Do not touch me.”
The gloved hand seized his chin in a powerful grip and twisted Blaise’s head to one side with a force that popped the vertebrae in Blaise’s neck and sent pain plunging down into one shoulder blade. Compressing his lips, he brought up his free hand with a solid punch into the middle of the mask. It was like hitting a wall. Pain burst through his knuckles and shot up his forearm. With a stifled cry Blaise glared fiercely at the creature, which had drawn back. It felt slowly along the edges of its mask as though to make sure nothing had loosened, then stood in one quick motion and turned its attention to Saunders.
The Children of Anthi Page 2