He thought some more. She would reach some sort of a terminal velocity very quickly, probably somewhere just short of the speed of sound at that height, and with that strength of atmosphere. Falling lower would actually slow her down, perhaps to even a third of that value. So, if he were going to do something it didn’t really matter where he did it, so long as it gave him time to slow her fall with a deceleration her weak body could stand. In fact, the lower the better, because the faster she fell through the sub-zero section, the less likely she was to die.
His calculations positioned him under Lightning Corner fairly comfortably; he was in orbit some 60 miles above that spot, and he could easily cover that distance in the time his informants told him he still had. No, the problem was that his ship would not be able to maintain a thrust of the magnitude necessary to slow such a fall for very long, and that he would be unable to return to space afterwards. His ship had never been designed for planetary landings; he was meant only to maintain fairly energy-saving orbits.
The visitor hesitated for a few moments, wondering just what to do. If he asked permission from the Dessites it would be refused. They would see no sense in saving the life of a member of a 3b species, it would be beyond their comprehension. No, they would forbid him to participate in such an undertaking. It would be the end of his space mission, and it might well be the end of him, if they decided to terminate his contract prematurely. He had already been sentenced to termination once his mission was over, but that date could well be brought forward for such disobedience as this. On the other hand, he had promised the orthogel entity to watch over his 3b friends, and a promise to a 2b entity was of the utmost importance. Then, too, he found the Grace 3b quite an entertaining animal. She was a kind creature, who had worried over his own comfort more than once. It would be a hard thing to sit by and watch her destroyed.
So the decision, he found, had made itself. His thought processes had put the little ship into action as he was still thinking about it, and already it was angling down into the atmosphere. He would have to allow time for the fuselage to cool, he realized, or he would fry his intended patient instead of rescuing her. That would be another reason to leave the proposed rescue as late as he could.
The little craft was already a trail of light from the mesosphere and into the stratosphere of Xiantha. If the occupants of the cages had looked up at that moment they would have seen something like a shooting star dropping towards them. It hurtled headlong into the ever more populated wisps of air, until the whole of the outer plating shone.
The visitor timed his descent carefully. He needed enough time at the eight mile height to make sure the metal hull cooled sufficiently, but he could not afford to use up all the fuel he had available on hovering there for very long. He made the mental calculations quickly, efficiently. Now he was committed to the rescue operation he was able to calculate the odds coldly. He had cut off all contact with Dessia deliberately; it would not do to have them interfering at this stage. There would be time enough to hear their reactions when he was forced to reopen communication; no traveler could cut himself permanently off from the Dessites.
SO WHEN GRACE was pushed off the Lightning Corner platform, she was not completely alone at the twenty mile height. She couldn’t have seen the visitor if she had tried, but he was hovering not a hundred metres away.
Unfortunately he was unable to see her either, and the instruments he had on board were nowhere near good enough to pick up one life sign amidst all the electromagnetic chaos reigning in Lightning Alley. The visitor, not prone to emotions, felt suddenly flat. He had made some life-changing decisions himself to get this far, and it was annoying to find he had overlooked a crucial detail.
He broadcast an irate blast of frustration without knowing, and found – to his surprise – that the canths were listening. They plunged and tossed their heads, he could feel, and then there was a moment’s stillness in them, and they paused, allowing one clear ‘voice’ to come through. The visitor was able to identify Grace’s canth, which was somehow in tune with her, and able to pinpoint her position for him. The visitor latched eagerly onto this signal, and the other canths amplified it for him as soon as they felt his need. He knew, then, where Grace was.
He angled the spaceship down again, heading for the mental vector he had for her, calculating at the same time, both the point of intersection and her terminal velocity at that point so that he could power down the small ship to match her speed. At the same time he had to concentrate on the signal from the canths, and try to superimpose that mental position with a real position which his instruments could give him. It was a nightmare, and the visitor really began to doubt his sanity. The possibilities of pulling off something like this were tiny, a probability of less than 0.02, he calculated. This was not a logical operation for a 2a species. He wondered, with the microscopic part of his brain not already involved in lengthy calculations, why he had undertaken such an improbable mission.
As he got closer to Grace’s position he had to be even more careful. Two metres too high and he would himself cut her to bits. With infinite care, the spaceship edged underneath her position, matching the vector with hers, until the point-like mental image of her was directly above the ship.
The visitor applied a smidgeon more thrust, slowing his own vehicle slightly, and waited, still keeping his mind’s eye on the exact position of the girl. It was like trying to catch an egg with a magmite net, he thought. Any miscalculation on his part and the girl would be triturated on his fuselage. He intensified even more the connexion with the canths, anxious not to fail at this stage. He hoped her own canth knew exactly where the girl was – there was only a margin of error of centimetres.
He had a long few seconds’ wait and then, at last, he felt – with his mind, not with the controls – that the girl had landed reasonably gently on the ship. She was approximately positioned in the middle, but he hoped that she would soon wake up and so be able to keep herself centred on the curved plating. She had been falling now for nearly four minutes, and ought to recover consciousness shortly, if she hadn’t already. The air down here would be much more acceptable to her lung necessity, he thought.
The visitor now began to apply a slow but steady upward thrust to slow them both down. He had very little time, but as the tiny ship obeyed him, that time began to expand. Finally, at about a hundred metres above the ground, he was down to a reasonably sedate velocity.
Even so, it was a dangerous landing. He had no room for manoeuvre, any lateral movement at all could shake loose his precarious passenger. He couldn’t risk moving into the night side of the Xianthe, where he himself would be more protected. Yet he was coming down directly onto the waiting canths. He flashed a mental warning to the herd, which instantly dispersed, and then he brought the tiny spacecraft to a soft, belly-flop landing designed to bring Grace to the ground without a jar. Even so, his passenger was jerked off the smooth metal plating, and tumbled down to the ground, where she lay like a broken doll. The canths gathered around her in a circle, regarding the crumpled figure stolidly, and now calm once again.
WHEN THE CAGE they were traveling in came around into Lightning Alley its occupants were silent once again. Ledin, who had his face in his hands, saw nothing of the impressive lightning bolts as they rained down on the safely insulated cage. For a moment he thought he had received a faint wisp of a message, and felt a tendril of some sort of hope that fizzled away soon after. He looked up for a moment, to see if any of the others had noticed anything. The Xianthan met his gaze, and Cimma had her eyes open too. But they said nothing to each other. What was there to say?
At last the cage came slowly into the Lightning Corner platform. And they found themselves looking at the grim results of opening a protected metal cage in full electric storm. There was a collective gasp of horror.
The doors opened slowly, unaware of the drama, and exposed them all to an oxygen-thin atmosphere. Six leapt for the failsafe switch, and jabbed at it frantically
several times.
“The protection is broken,” he muttered. “We must get our own gate closed, or we could be struck by lightning too!”
The metal gates were closing much too slowly for their comfort, and nobody was able to breathe until they finally shut with a clang, and the rexelene doors had swished to a close too. Then they let out their breath, and began to speak, all at the same time.
“Is that …?”
“Neither of those can be Grace, can it?”
“Do you think…?”
“A nasty way to die.”
Ledin had moved to the front edge of the cage, and with the exceptional sight which had made him into such an excellent pilot, was examining the charred remains.
“The bodies are those of Xenon and Atheron,” he determined finally. “I can see the remnants of the shoes they were wearing. There … there is no sign of G-Grace. They must have been struck by lightning when they pushed her out. Serves them right! I hope they suffered greatly!”
“Unlikely,” opined the Xianthan. “Lightning as strong as you get around here kills very quickly.”
“Pity,” said Six, regarding the corpses indifferently now he knew that neither of them was Grace. “They deserved a long and painful death, that’s for sure.”
Cimma was crying softly, and Diva had moved over to huddle near her, to try to comfort her. Six and Ledin looked at each other, and they both swallowed, and then looked away. It was clear that there had been no escape for Grace.
The only person who had not succumbed to despair was the canth keeper. The Xianthan shrugged his ample shoulders, and looked at Ledin and at Cimma. “We do not yet know what has occurred to the young lady,” he said. “Sometimes things occur with no colour, such as this …” he indicated the hanging bodies of the two Sellites, “… and sometimes things occur with much colour. We do not yet know if such a thing has occurred to Grace. We must wait, and not jump to erroneous conclusions.”
“Speeches aren’t going to bring her back to life,” jeered Six, feeling a hopeless rage spread right through his body, and totally unable to contain it.
“Wait!” repeated the canth keeper, and then lapsed again into silence.
The stop at the Lightning Corner platform, with the macabre sight in front of them was eternal, and all were more than relieved when, at last, the cage began its run down to the cloud base, down towards the base of the Xianthe.
AT THE BASE, the ticket collector had hurried over to the mingling canths, and was horrified to find the body of a girl splayed out in their midst. He did his best to ignore what appeared to be an alien spaceship which had arrived out of nowhere, and ran back to his office as fast as his fat little legs could take him. He was one of the few non-panchrome Xianthans in charge of a tridiscreen – deemed a necessary artifact for him to have in case of breakdowns. Hurriedly, he pushed the predis button, and contacted the Donor Headquarters, the nearest place with hospital facilities and a panchrome to take decisions. The long wait until he was put through to somebody with authority was agonizing for him.
“It is the man who sells tickets here, nonachrome, at your service, sir. One of the foreigners … I think … I think she is dead! Please come quickly!” he gasped to the functionary who answered his call.
“We will send a magsled immediately,” the cool voice answered, “with a medical team. Please cover the person with the emergency wrap pack, and stay with her.”
“But the Xianthe! I have groups in four of the cages! At least—” he frowned, remembering the girl’s face, “—At least, there ought to be, but this girl looks very like the one who went up in a cage with two Sellites. That cage should be coming into base camp very soon now. Yes! Here it is!” There was a long pause on the tridiscreen as the ticket collector went to look into the cage. Then his footsteps could be heard again, thudding hurriedly into the office.
“—There is nobody there! They have all disappeared! This is looking very bad! Please send two teams immediately. I don’t know what to do. Should I stop the Xianthe?”
The functionary at the Donor Headquarters thought for a moment. “There are other visitors up there, you say?”
“Yes. A school group from the south just got into the last three cages. They will be at the first three platforms now!”
“Then leave the ride running. We can’t have schoolchildren stuck up there for any length of time. Let nobody else on the ride, though. We must close the whole Xianthe!”
“Yes sir! Of course sir! Please send people quickly! May you be showered with colour! Thank you sir! Cutting the connexion!” With relief, the ticket collector switched off the screen and turned back to the girl lying on the ground, stopping only to snatch the emergency wrap pack. He rushed over to her and covered her up to her chin, tucking the wrap underneath her but with great care not to move any bones. He tutted between his teeth. Nothing ever happened here. The Xianthes were completely safe. Everybody knew that!
The visitor monitored all the actions of the ticket collector through the video camera, blended still so as not to be seen. Somebody was at least doing something to help Grace, he saw. And she was still alive. The little sphere had given him a long look at her limp body, and he had been able to see that she was breathing fairly naturally. She was white, though, and he wasn’t certain that the last fall had not broken any of those fragile bones which this species boasted. The other thing he didn’t like was the blue colour of some of her extremities. Several of her fingers were damaged, and her nose had also suffered some sort of severe attack by the cold. But she was alive! The visitor found that he was able to feel, after all. He felt pleasure.
SIX’S CAGE TOOK an eternity to finally come into the base station, and the orthogel in the box still showed no sign of reanimation. It was a very tense group that poured out of the cage.
The ticket collector looked up at all the noise, amazed to see this group of visitors appear from what should have been an empty cage. He had been squatting beside the girl, but he got to his feet with some difficulty and made his way over to them.
“Now I don’t know how you got into that cage,” he pronounced, “and I don’t think as how I want to know. At least, not very much. But you are all going to have to stay here under my jurisdiction until the emergency teams arrive from Eletheia, and the injured girl is taken care of. Nobody is to move until your implication in these events has been ascertained. There will have to be an investigation. I hope I make myself clear?”
Unfortunately he never knew if he had or not, because he was pushed rudely to one side as the occupants of the cage flooded out en masse to look at the injured girl. He thought he saw tears on the faces of more than one of the visitors.
The ticket collector heard a scraping sound, and his attention was drawn back to the cage. There his eyes were met by the inexplicable sight of one of the most important men on Xiantha dragging a heavy wooden case out of the cage.
“Well, come on, man!” this apparition said testily. “Help me to get this out, or it will go all over the Xianthe again!”
“But …”
“We only have ten minutes, you know!”
“But …!”
“Oh very well, I will just have to do it myself!” And the ticket collector was treated to the sight of the man who kept canths tugging and pushing at the heavy box. Recollecting his station in life belatedly, the ticket collector hurried forward and laid his not inconsiderable back against the box, which at last cleared the doors of the cage.
“Well done! That has been of great help!” The man who kept canths smiled down at him and then moved without hurry to the site of the girl. The man who sold tickets looked from him to the box, and then scurried after him. It was his job to watch the girl until the emergency team arrived, after all.
THEY CLUSTERED AROUND Grace and gazed down at her. Cimma knelt beside her daughter to take her pulse, and then nodded back euphorically at the others, with an enormous smile.
“She’s alive!”
Ledin
sank down beside Grace, and stroked her hair back from her face. He looked worried when he saw the damage to her nose, but even more so when he tried to take her hand.
“She has frostbite very badly,” he told the others. “I think she may lose some of these fingers.” Then, despite the injuries she had suffered, he found himself smiling up around at the group. She was alive!
Diva pushed Six to one side. “Get out of my way, nomus!” She stared down at her friend. “Wake up, Grace!” she told her. “Wake up, won’t you!”
“Yeah! Like she is going to wake up just because you say so!” muttered Six, feigning disgust, but unable to hide the happiness which had overtaken him when he saw that Grace was still alive. He looked around. “What I would like to know is how—” He stopped as he realized what the object lying to one side of Grace was. “—Ah! Now I understand. Are you all right, Visitor?” He turned his head from one side to another, trying to pick out the sphere, but still jumped when it replied to him, from about half a metre to his left.
“I am fine, thank you Six!” it said.
Six gave a nod. “Bit of a hero, mate,” he said. “Well done!”
“I thank you. It was necessary to help because of my promise to the orthogel entity. When I received the mental signals from the canths I felt I had to act.”
“You mean all that mental telepathy bit worked?” Six shook his head. “Well I would never have thought it!” Then something occurred to him. “Wait a minute, though! If you got a mental message from the canths – who got a mental message from some of us, then that means we can use quantum non-locality too!”
The machine gave a chatter of static. “It does, certainly.”
Ammonite Planets (Omnibus): Ammonite Galaxy #1-3 Page 79