Law's End

by Glenn Douglass

They'd found them and with seemingly surprising ease. Unless there had been a malfunction in one of the triply redundant systems of the escape pods they should have all landed in the same area. After that the pictogram survival instructions in the pods would have had them tending to wounded, organizing supplies, and arranging the escape pod shells to serve as shelters.

  Shocked at the sudden propinquity of their goal all Greene could manage to say was, "We found them."

  "In another week all this will just be a bad memory." Kassad replied reassuringly, as he allowed himself to briefly imagine what this payday would mean for him before returning to the work at hand. "Strap yourself in tightly. The atmosphere is thin so I'm going to enter at a very shallow angle to bleed off our remaining speed. As a result there will be some associated and vigorous buffeting."

  At this announcement Canis rolled into a more practical and well braced position yipping the report of his readiness.

  At first it was a very detached and surreal experience. The wireframe model turned and bobbed as they lined up to the decent. Gradually the wireframe model rose to fill their view so completely it disappeared out beyond their line of sight.

  With a smashing jolt that made her joints ache Greene was certain that they had hit something. It was then that the buffeting began. For Greene the term 'buffeting' was inadequate. It was an erratic slamming through layers of atmosphere that shoved the Sabha significantly in random directions with great violence. The experience quickly erased Greene's doubts that things seemed to be going too well.

  Just as Greene was becoming seriously concerned the flight leveled out and the jolting was replaced by a sensation like drifting in a stream. Ahead in the wireframe display the glide path to their destination showed them to be exactly where they needed to be. To one side their flight speed relative to the ground showed them to have slowed below the local speed of sound.

  Deftly angling the thrust of Sabha's engines Kassad slowed them even further until they were in a hover. Incrementally reducing thrust brought the wireframe swimming ever closer with new details constantly popping into existence. Finally with the pull of a lever Kassad extended the landing gear and with a soft thudding they were down. A whine that Greene hadn't been aware of began to fade.

  "Let's suit up and bring them back so we can get out of here." Kassad announced, tapping the wrist device built into his suit which extended the helmet around his face and activated its life support systems. His electronically enhanced voice explained. "Just move carefully until you get used to the gravity. No sense in taking any more chances."

  Retrieving her own hard-shell helmet from her stateroom Greene joined Kassad in Saba's airlock where he was checking the charge on his pistol. "This is a rescue mission."

  Faceless behind the opaque surface of his helmet Kassad warningly said, "We don't know what prolonged exposure to Lawless space will do to a person." Then directing himself to Canis added, "Canis guard the ship."

  Canis' barking was enthusiastic in response.

  "It's only been a month." Greene objected after the cacophony of barking subsided. "You're not shooting anyone."

  "I certainly hope not." Kassad agreed, "I carry the weapon so that I don't have to use it. Just be alert and don't make any assumptions."

  Sabha's ramp lowered into place revealing the world immediately surrounding them in muted charcoals. They knew from the original survey report that this would be a world in pinks and beige, however their eyes refused to report more than greyscale. More than a few meters away the world was obscured by a terrain of large well rounded granite boulders and thin mist. In part the mist was due to the world's high atmospheric water content and in part it was residue from the Sabha's energetic landing.

  As they disembarked Kassad immediately set to work inspecting the undercarriage of Sabha and Greene inquired, "Which direction are the survivors?"

  From Sabha's aft, where the ground was still bubbling from the roasting Sabha's engines had given it, Kassad called out, "The site is a hundred and fifty meters straight back from the ramp, but don't wander off too far. Let me check we're okay to lift off in case we have to go quick."

  Rolling her eyes at the excess of caution she'd already put up with Greene began picking her way across the boulder strewn sandy plain. Certainly the survivors would have seen or heard the Sabha's arrival. With any luck she'd find them packing up and ready to go before even reaching the escape pods.

  A pair of strong hands grabbed Greene and pushed her up against a boulder. "You!" A loud voice accused as the strong hands Greene found herself in the grip of spun her to face their owner. "You're not one of them are you?"

  Wide eyes bulged in an unkempt unfamiliar face. At least two weeks of beard growth and a shock of grey blonde hair that hadn't seen a comb in as long. A rebreather mask hung limply about the man's grime encrusted neck. Heavily stained lab coat over multiple layers of equally stained clothing made Greene grateful to have an independent air supply.

  "Did they send you?" The figure demanded, his eyes were focused elsewhere and his hands pawed at the air just as blindly until they came to Greene's helmet. "Which ones? Was it the law or the Lawless that sent you?" The wild man's face suddenly became strained and rigid.

  Overcoming the shock of the encounter Greene pried the man's hands off of her. Executing a simple wrestling take down landed the man on his face with arms pinned behind. She hadn't put him down with enough force to knock the wind out of him, but once on the ground his resistance stopped and the figure went limp as a noodle.

  "Oh, good you found one." Kassad said having rushed to the scene as soon as he'd heard the commotion.

  "And here I thought your first words would be 'I told you so'." Greene replied.

  "No, but my second words," Kassad explained as he knelt down beside the two producing a bundle of small cargo straps from his belt, "are directions to haul this one back to the cargo bay." With little trouble Kassad secured the man's wrists. "And secure him in one of the automated medical units while I finish inspecting the Sabha." He concluded handing Greene another strap.

  There was little difficulty for Greene moving the man under the low gravity conditions. While occasionally jerking or twisting against her handling his actions didn't seem directed towards the goal of escape so much as they were random. Climbing the ramp to the Sabha seemed to settle him somewhat.

  As Greene entered the airlock to cycle them in she was met by the slightly absurd sight of Canis in a gleaming white and dark patterned dog shaped pressure suit. If his ordinary coloration made him look like he was wearing a uniform this was unmistakable. Canis gave Greene and her cargo an inquisitive head titling look from within the pressure suit, and as if in response to this once again the man began ranting.

  It was a monotone ranting in quick but almost conversational tones. "Change. They'll know. They couldn't stop it. They'll all know. We can't hide it. We couldn't stop it. You can't hide it. Everyone will know. I tried. No one understands."

  In response to this Canis nuzzled the man's face sympathetically. The dog's helmet came away with a smudge of grime in reward for the effort to be quickly whisked away by the self cleaning materials. A friendly bark of encouragement, muffled by the dog's helmet, fell upon deaf ears.

  "You're going to be fine." Greene said trying to calm the man as the airlock cycled. "We're taking you home. I'm going to place you in an auto-medic for sedation. Do you understand?"

  The man's face showed no signs of acknowledgement or understanding. Even as the medical unit encased him, beginning the process of sedating and cutting the soiled clothing from his body, he showed no awareness of the world around him. When the sedatives took hold his face became peaceful and relaxed. He looked nothing like the wild-man who had accosted her, and looking more like the thoughtful scientist he, in all likelihood, truly was.

  After only a few seconds a symbol lighted up on the automated medical unit's console and a soft voice, likely specifically pitched to avoid inducing panic, stated
, "Patient diagnosis complete, treatment unknown, stasis initiated, recommend immediate transport to primary care facility."

  Immediate transport would have to wait. If this man wandering around alone had survived then there would be more survivors. They'd have to find them all before leaving.

  Back outside the Sabha Greene found Kassad waiting for her and as she passed by she asked, "Where did you find a pressure suit for a dog?"

  Whatever reaction Kassad might have had to the question was concealed behind his pressure mask, but he did explain as he turned to walk and Greene fell in beside him. "Finding a pressure suit for a non-technological species isn't difficult. Finding one that they can put on and take off easily by themselves is a challenge. It's important for anyone crewing a spaceship to have their own suit for emergencies."

  With distance from the encounter Greene found herself becoming more concerned about the state of mind of the survivors. "Should one of us stay? What happens if one of them tries to take the ship while we're gone?"

  "Controls keyed to my mobile," Kassad waved his wrist with the device mounted on it, "however from what I saw it looked like he was blind, and Canis knows how to work the airlock."

  Ignoring the fact that this meant she was trapped on the surface with everyone else should anything happen to Kassad Greene forced a positive attitude on herself, and after a few more steps a thought occurred to her. "So, does this mean you had a spacesuit for a monkey and a parrot as well?"

  "That surprises you?" Kassad wondered aloud. "We've been a space faring species for thousands of years now. You well-dwellers may not put much thought into such things but over that much time you can be assured that someone has at one point or another."

  "I suppose I haven't ever given such things much thought." Greene admitted, and privately wondered about those who did.

  It was odd to think about how people transported animals across space. Greene supposed fish would be fairly easy since even keeping such creatures in a zoo aquarium required some life support equipment. The why was a much easier question as why was answered by a combination of utility and ornamentation.

  Misreading Greene's silence Kassad tried to reassure her as they weaved amid the boulders. "Don't worry. I'm sure they'll be fine once we get them back to normal space."

  Slightly annoyed by Kassad bringing up what she just put aside Greene insisted, "I'm not worried."

  "They probably won't even remember most of this." Kassad continued.

  Greene restated emphatically, "I said I'm not worried."

  Clambering over a particularly large but gently sloped boulder Kassad cautioned, "You should be. This is going to be harder on us than them." Determined to take on the abandoned role of worrier Kassad continued, "If they're all blind and out of their minds then this could be a problem."

  Again openly annoyed by Kassad Green said, "These people are scientists. They're trained to think things through and not personalize events. If anyone could have gotten through this it would be them." She began forging ahead to put some distance between them.

  After Greene had opened a distance of not more than a few meters Kassad called out, "Wait up, we're drifting off course."

  Impatiently Greene turned to see Kassad checking their position on his mobile device. She guessed it to be an inertial navigation application of some sort tracking their movements against a predefined position. It was the sort of frontier software that was always useful on worlds with weak magnetic fields.

  As she waited for Kassad to reorient them Greene took in the surrounding terrain rapidly forgetting her annoyance as the threat of becoming lost loomed very real. Boulders in the foreground obscured most of what was immediately around them. Through the few stony gaps that permitted further viewing a thin mist rendered distant landmarks invisible and navigation difficult.

  "There's not much of a field of view." Greene said.

  After working his software against the map constructed from a single orbital pass of the area Kassad announced, "Sixty degrees right of our present course and about thirty meters on."

  "Are you sure that was as close as you could land us?" Greene inquired wondering if moving closer could still be an option. "It's going to be difficult to get them back through all of this."

  "That's the problem with escape pod landing routines." Kassad complained. "They always pick the clearest bit of ground leaving rescue missions to work with whatever is left."

  In spite of the man's infuriating attitude Greene had to concede that Kassad seemed to have thought everything through. "So you do have a plan, don't you?"

  With an exuberant optimism Kassad said, "We'll focus on just one problem at a time, and we can deal with everything as we come to it." It was the sort of flippant attitude Greene had come to expect, but she decided to let it pass unanswered.

  Over another massive boulder sunk deep in the ground and protruding into a gradual slope they saw the camp. It was nestled on a small sandy plain in front of a mass of vegetation that went as far as the eye could see in either direction and beyond to the horizon it obscured. In the grayscale their vision had been reduced to it all looked very unnatural and surreal, as if constructed by workmen who would be returning soon to add a coat of paint.

  As they'd seen from above the escape pods, twenty four of them and many presumably packed with supplies instead of people, had been moved to form a rough circle. Outside the circle local flora had been cut and crudely woven together as a windbreak in a semicircle outside the windward side escape pods. Every pod entrance was hung with the thin emergency blankets that came in the supply kits, some were pinned neatly and others just hung haphazardly from one corner.

  At the center of the camp was a blackened fire pit with just a hint of smoke rising from its embers. Adjacent to the former fire was a stack of what presumably were the supplies they'd brought with them from the survey platform. Around the stack of supplies and fire pit torn and empty boxes lay strew amid tattered reflective foil wrappers that waved in the thin breeze and glinted in the dim sunlight.

  Seeing it all in grey instead of day-glow rescue colors made everything seem filthier and more forlorn than should have been possible. "It looks like they followed the survival protocols for as long as their minds held together." Kassad observed.

  Doing her best to hold herself together Greene gasped, "Hank is in… that." It felt like ages since she had spoken his name aloud and now the sound of it was almost as startling as the scene before her.

  To Greene's eyes the scene looked very much like those archaic depictions from ancient history. What might have been figures huddled under blankets or hid inside the shell of their escape pods in squalid apathy. It was like something from the dark ages when the Terran people were small, bitterly jealous of each other, and their nations made war on one another.

  From somewhere in Greene's mind came the words to describe the scene before her; refugee camp. Yet these were not the pitiable anonymous faces from ancient history, these were modern people, some of the best and brightest of the hundred thousand galaxies. Her husband was down there, in that.

  "Time to take them home." Kassad said, and with that he began working his way off the boulder and towards the edge of the camp.

  Not sure if she wanted to see what her husband had been reduced to Greene hesitated before following Kassad down the gentle slope of the boulder. Nothing in the camp reacted to their presence as they approached. It was quiet and still. Even as they broke the circle of the escape pods nothing reacted.

  A figure squatted under an emergency blanket near the fire pit. A long stick blackened at both ends extended from the blanket to stir the few remaining embers. Somewhere nearby a voice muttered profanity repetitively like a mantra.

  "Who's there?" A muffled voice demanded from the far end of the camp.

  A figure emerged swathed in emergency blankets from behind one of the escape pod curtains. Its face was obscured by a rebreather mask. A bottle of pills was clutched desperately in one filthy hand. />
  "Who's there?" It demanded more loudly, blankets dropped away as it staggered forward.

  The noise seemed to stir some of the camp's denizens as another poked out their head from an escape pod shell and inquired sharply, "Is someone there?"

  Chapter 8: "Kookoos"

  "In order to maximize odds of survival and rescue all escape pods should be grouped together to maximize surface area and pool resources."

  -Excerpt from standard prerecorded survival instructions.

  "We're the rescue party." Greene declared. "We've come to take you home."

  "Is that you Michael?" The second figure asked.

  The first figure shouted, "No, it's not Michael." then with an effort composed itself, eyes wandering without ever coming to focus on anything. "I was beginning to lose hope. It's been so long."

  Stepping forward to take charge of the conversation Kassad announced, "I'm Kassad, this is Greene, we're here to rescue you."

  Worriedly the figure inquired, "Did the University send you?"

  Greene opened her mouth to answer and then closed it again. She wasn't sure how to answer that question, or what the answer might in fact be. The questions of what and how that she had turned a blind eye to in her desperation to reach these people now began to hang heavily on her.

  Kassad was quick to step into the void left by Greene's hesitation saying, "Let's just focus on getting you and your people out of here."