THE BURNING HEART OF NIGHT

by Ivan Cat

  Jenette scrutinized the water-filled lifter. "It looks as though we'll be lucky to still be floating by night fall."

  "It is not as bad as it looks," Karr said, becoming a bit more animated. "I could get it flying with a few critical parts." He pointed at the cockpit. "The controls are shot."

  "What kind of controls do you need?" Jenette asked nonchalantly.

  "Just about anything. All colony equipment is standardized." Karr went to the pile of junk in the center of the deck and rummaged through it. He pulled out a device with a strange array of servo arms on one end. They scissored crab-like when he twisted the main shaft. "The right tools wouldn't hurt, either. This is all that's left of the emergency repair kit," he said disgustedly.

  Arrou trotted over and sniffed the tool. "Not good."

  "You're telling me," said Karr, still nervous around the large alien. He waved an arm where the cockpit canopy used to be. "It's designed to adjust a nav system that fell off at ten thousand feet."

  Jenette had an idea. Her mind traced pathways of cause and effect and then, with an internal decision made, she innocently said, "We have tools and parts back at our crawler."

  Arrou shot her a wary look. "No nine-sixteenths grippy," he rambled suspiciously.

  "We can make do with an adjustable grippy," Karr said. He did not pick up on the sudden tension between Jenette and the alien.

  "Great," she said lightly. "Why don't we take a cruise around to the other side of this island?"

  Before Arrou could object, Karr leaned into the cockpit. The two rear engines thrummed to life and the lifter arched around in search of spare parts.

  "Rrrrr," Arrou growled from the deck of the lifter. "Not hurt crawler."

  The six-wheeled vehicle was moored alongside the heavy lifter. Both vehicles floated within fifty yards of the Feral island. Karr lay in the crawler cab, where he had begun unfastening parts from its dash. At the menacing rumble from Arrou, he looked at Jenette, who was on the crawler with him.

  "Don't worry about him," she reassured. "He'll get over it."

  Karr was not convinced and kept one eye on the alien as he resumed disassembling the dash. He grabbed hold of a module, working his fingers under the edges. It was stuck.

  "Pull."

  Jenette grasped a braid of microfiber relays.

  Arrou twitched, distressed. "Fibers break."

  The fibers were stronger than Arrou thought. Jenette yanked and, with a screech of wedged plastic, the module came free, still connected to the relays. But it was too much for Arrou. He sprang onto the crawler, grabbed the module from Jenette, and held it protectively. He barred his teeth at Karr. "Not hurt crawler!"

  Feeling angry alien breath for the third time that day, Karr squirmed back against the control levers.

  "Arrou!" Jenette scolded.

  "Pilot hurts crawler!" Arrou accused.

  "He's not going to hurt it," Jenette reasoned, "just borrow a few parts. I'm sure he can put them back later."

  Arrou looked at the tangle of microfibers, considered, then leaned over Karr, looking very menacing. "Put back now."

  Jenette was mortified. "Arrou! That's not very nice! You apologize."

  "No."

  "Arrou!"

  "Not hurt crawler."

  Jenette apologized to Karr. "I'm sorry. He's not usually like this. Arrou, get back on the heavy lifter this instant."

  Arrou would not budge. He stood between the two humans, clutching the module to his breast and ready to stop Karr from further pillage. Karr felt intimidated, but to his surprise, he also sympathized with the alien; after all, protective feelings for a vessel were something he could understand. Karr sat up.

  "Grrrrrr."

  Karr moved his hands away from any crawler components. "Arrou," he said to the alien, "you like the crawler a lot; I can tell."

  "Like a lot," Arrou confirmed.

  "Why?"

  "Crawler fast."

  "I see. How fast?"

  Arrou responded proudly. "Twenty-five knots."

  "Twenty-five knots?" Karr reflected. "And what sort of propulsion system does it have?"

  "AstroFlow electric. Six hundred horsepower. Twenty-six thousand pounds tow."

  Karr looked at Jenette. "Is that correct?"

  "If he says so." Jenette shrugged. "He knows more about that stuff than me."

  Karr returned his attention to Arrou. "See those big thrusters?" he said, pointing to the corners of the heavy lifter. "They can boost sixty million pounds to high orbit. And you want to talk about fast? An undamaged heavy lifter can do five hundred knots in atmospheric flight, and this one can probably still do one hundred."

  "Five hundred knots," Arrou repeated, taken off guard. "That fast."

  "Exactly," said Karr. "And we can go that fast, but to do it we need to use parts from the crawler."

  Arrou was not ready to give up yet, however. "Want to drive crawler," he emphasized.

  "Arrou," Jenette interjected. "You know that's impossible."

  "Forbidden," Arrou said stubbornly, "not impossible."

  Jenette threw her hands in the air. "I don't make the rules. This crawler is Enclave property and Enclave rules say domestics don't drive crawlers."

  It looked like another impasse, but Karr had a simple solution. "Arrou, I'm in command of the heavy lifter. I make the rules. What if I teach you how to drive it?"

  "Fly it?" Arrou corrected.

  "Yes, fly," Karr confirmed.

  "Really?"

  "Really. And we can take the crawler too. There's plenty of room on deck. Good plan?"

  "Urrrkurrrkurrrk," the alien rumbled, looking between the two vehicles. "Promise?"

  "Cross my heart and hope to die."

  Jenette flinched—nobody said that on New Ascension—but she was impressed with how Karr handled Arrou, like an equal and not an underling. "Well Arrou, what do you say?"

  Arrou's gaze settled on the lifter, his answer coming in the form of a dreamy, glazed expression and hushed words. "Five hundred knots...!"

  XII

  "Failure shapes us: no one ever learned by trial-and-success. Every tear shed and every drop of blood spilled hammers us on the anvil of our flaws. But do not be misled! Do not idolize failure. Mere failure does not ensure wisdom, just as mere survival does not ensure strength. Many fail and are found wanting, pervaded by weakness. We must drive out the weakness in our minds and turn our failures into weapons. Only then will we attain the Body Pure."

  —from the speeches of Olin Tesla

  The remainder of that afternoon was deceptively uneventful. Slow-motion streams of bubble-seeds floated downwind over the water. Frequently the rainbow-on-glass balloons popped over the heavy lifter, raining moist spore strands down on everyone's heads. It was all very beautiful, and quite lost on Pilot Lindal Karr, consumed as he was with the sense of time slipping away and the desire to locate the remains of his ship.

  Karr made steady progress getting the lifter back in flyable condition. To show Arrou his good faith, they first winched the crawler on deck, where Karr strapped it down, and then finished stripping components. For his part, Arrou watched Karr like a hawk, flinching or groaning as each piece came out, but not interfering, for which Karr was thankful, if uneasy. Even once the stripping was accomplished, the large alien insisted on following Karr around and breathing down his neck, but somehow Karr began the task of reconstructing the heavy lifter's controls. It was a challenge. The heavy lifter had been refitted at Sheldon's World, which meant that its technology was twenty-seven standard years old. The crawler was from New Ascension's original seed-colony equipment, which, based on its manufacture date, made it nearly one hundred years old. So, while the basic design of all colony equipment was standardized, it was still a challenge to make the two sets of components work together. Karr quickly realized that it would never be possible to get the lifter cockpit back to its original condition. The best he could hope for was a workable jury-rig system that would allow him to fly at lo
w altitudes and speeds, and that's what he set out to make.

  After an uneasy period of alien shadowing human, Karr and Arrou arrived at an unspoken truce. Karr was careful to show the Khafra exactly what he was doing with the crawler parts and Arrou assisted—which was mostly helpful—by holding the units and replacement lengths of microfiber in position as Karr swapped good modules for bad. Karr even drew on the alien's knowledge of the crawler when confronted by components he did not recognize. The new control system began to take shape, all in accordance with a blueprint in Karr's head. And, as a small bonus, the activity kept Karr from thinking about his ship.

  Jenette did her best to bail water out of the leaky craft. It was tedious, but she attacked the problem with single-minded fury, as if every drip of water in the hull was a personal affront. She tried several stratagems, including scooping with her hands and bailing with small receptacles.

  "That's not necessary," Karr said at one point.

  "Those are my crawler parts going into your lifter," Jenette replied. "I've got an investment in keeping this thing afloat."

  Karr shrugged. At least it gave her something to do with her abundant energy. Already Karr saw that Jenette had the determination of humans twice her size. She eventually settled on using a wide chunk of fiberplast to set up sloshing patterns and sweep waves of fluid over the lifter's shallow sidewalls.

  By the time a setting sun pressed onto the horizon, the lifter had not yet sunk and its control systems had been completely reworked.

  "Making progress?" Jenette asked.

  Karr nodded, double-checking his circuitry.

  Enthusiastic paisley patterns course down Arrou's limbs. "Arrou fly now?"

  "First we test," Karr cautioned. "Then you fly."

  Arrou's spirits dampened, but not by much. "What wait for?"

  Satisfied that they had done the best job possible under the circumstances, Karr climbed into the cockpit and sat on a pile of cases that Arrou had put there to replace the missing ejector couch. The dash was a jumble of dead instruments and bolted-on crawler components. Karr flipped them on, tensing as they glowed to life. Each thruster purred in turn. One, two, three, four.

  "Excellent," Karr said to Arrou. "We did it."

  Yellow stars sparkled on the alien's head, a pattern Karr hoped indicated happy agreement. He looked at Jenette. There was no place to strap her in. "Hold on to the back of the cockpit," he advised. "I'll take it slow."

  Feeling fluttery in her stomach—this would be the first flight of a New Ascension native in two decades, and her first flight ever— Jenette knelt and grasped an exposed strut. Arrou crouched beside her, claws gripping metal and ceramite.

  Karr took hold of the new collective-throttle lever, which had been the crawler's power range selector, and pulled. It was much easier than trying to move four broken-off sliders at the same time. The engines ramped up smoothly. Silver water frothed under the cowlings.

  "Three, two, one, liftoff!"

  Water vaporized and strands of bladder weed sprayed out as the reborn lifter rose into the air. Karr hovered at ten feet, letting cataracts of water drain from a thousand tiny fissures. The hull creaked, but did not break apart. Karr eased the lifter upward. Soon they were floating higher than the tallest trees, with a stunning view of the emerald ring-island below. The ocean stretched in all directions, its silvery waves burnished copper near the setting sun. Shadows stretched long from islands scattered around the horizon.

  "Howoooo!" cheered Arrou.

  Jenette's knuckles tightened on the cockpit strut.

  "Now we'll attempt forward flight," Karr said.

  Arrou's head bobbed in agreement. "Five hundred knots!"

  Karr pushed the yoke forward. The heavy lifter nosed down as invisible thrust vectored aft and he pulled up on the collective throttle to keep from losing altitude. The lifter transitioned to forward flight.

  "Five hundred knots, five hundred knots!" Arrou chanted.

  Karr kept the airspeed well below that, but the wind still whipped at them with exhilarating force.

  "Free, freeee!" crowed the alien.

  Karr looked back at Jenette. "How are you doing?"

  "I'm fine," she said, feeling the heady rush like Arrou, but also keenly aware of how exposed they were on the flying slab.

  "High good," Arrou observed. "See lots."

  Jenette looked below. Arrou was correct. The view was superb. They were over open ocean and heading away from Feral Island 716—which distracted her from her misgivings about altitude and speed. "How about a closer look at that island?" she asked Karr.

  Karr obligingly turned the yoke toward it. The lifter banked around. Soon they were humming above golden cotton-ball tree-tops. The landscape reminded Karr of whimsical children's book illustrations.

  Jenette caught a glimmer of light in a clearing and tapped Karr's shoulder. "Over there," she pointed. Seconds later, the lifter buzzed over a group of very surprised creatures.

  "Ferals!" Jenette exclaimed.

  It was a settlement of some sort, with several dozen startled inhabitants looking up at the flying machine. Jenette was overjoyed. Gone was the chaos of rampant jungle. Fast-growing plants had been tended into leafy, humpbacked shelters and there were stockpiles of dried sharkworms and tubers. Stands of meat-fruit trees grew in rows with hedge barricades to keep out wild animals. It was exactly what Jenette was looking for. Settlement meant social structure, social structure meant organized leadership, and organized leadership meant an authority that she could approach.

  The Ferals quickly recovered their wits, kicking on their camouflage and blending into dusky shadows.

  "Veering off," Karr announced.

  "No, go back," said Jenette. "Circle around."

  "I don't like it," said Karr, with a nervous glance at Arrou. "Those things are smart. Who knows what kind of projectile weaponry they've developed."

  "None as far as I know," Jenette argued. "Besides, we're a hundred feet up!"

  "Another reason to be cautious," said Karr. "We should set down and give all systems a once over."

  "Please," Jenette pleaded. "I need to get a fix on that location. It's important."

  "Very well," Karr said reluctantly.

  Of course Jenette didn't tell Karr that she intended to contact those Ferals as soon as they set down. "Arrou, remember that spot."

  "Okay," Arrou said as they swung around.

  The clearing was empty on the second pass, but Jenette was pleased to see Arrou look for landmarks and choose a distinct square pattern of sailtrees, which poked above the jungle canopy nearby.

  Karr was not so pleased. Aside from his distrust of Ferals, the lifter was not responding to his liking. Karr tapped the left rubber pedal, which should have activated a thrust correction and brought the tail around, but instead there was a strange vibration.

  "Aborting," Karr declared, using the control yoke to bank for the ocean. No more than two seconds had elapsed when there was a loud crack and a shower of blue-white sparks erupted from the left front thruster.

  The lifter pitched down at that corner.

  Jenette yelped and lost her grip. She tumbled through the sparks and slammed into the thruster cowling along with an avalanche of Karr's salvage. The crawler shifted in its restraining cables, further unbalancing the load. The deck pitched steeper. Arrou's claws skittered on the hull and he fell onto Jenette.

  "Get off!" Jenette yelled, unable to move.

  "Trying!" Arrou clawed for grip on the slippery ceramite.

  The heavy lifter was losing altitude, a trail of sparks blowing out behind it. Karr worked furiously, shutting down the malfunctioning thruster, which put the flying craft in a tight, downward spiral.

  "Brace yourselves!" Karr warned. "We're going down!" Karr did his best to clear the island. Tree pompoms whipped at the lifter, snagging on its leading edge and exploding into blinding sprays of leaf matter. The flying slab shot out over open ocean, losing altitude and splashing down. The hul
l slid thirty yards, water spraying up in the sideways light of sunset, before coming to a stop. Karr, and the boxes under his butt, hammered forward into the dash. Arrou fell into the water.

  Bruised and aching, Karr staggered out of the cockpit and threw a line overboard. Arrou was already stroking back, a flurry of sharkworm splashes honing in on him. He closed both forepaws on the cable and heaved himself over the sidewall.

  "Not hurt," the alien sputtered.

  Karr then helped Jenette free of the wreckage. "That was exciting," she said, brushing herself off.

  "Too exciting," Karr agreed distractedly. He broke off and followed a trail of soot across the deck, then pulled up a strand of charred microfiber.

  "Braid shorted out," Arrou panted.

  Karr's voice was full of self-reproach. "I must have spliced it badly. This was my fault."

  "Don't beat yourself up," Jenette said, already thinking about the Feral encampment. "You couldn't know this would happen and we all agreed to go up."

  "It's not about agreeing," Karr spat. "It's about choosing and consequences. I'm a Pilot. If my choices lead to personal injury and the inability to locate my ship, that's gross dereliction of Duty. I cannot allow that to happen."

  "Point taken," Jenette allowed; not wanting to get into an argument over it. "Don't let it happen again," she added, which seemed to mollify Karr.

  "Flying fun," said Arrou.

  "Hush," said Jenette.

  The sun, swollen into a wide orange ember on the horizon, disappeared before they could speak again and an unwanted howl called attention to the fact that they had come to rest scant yards from Feral Island 716.

  Howrrraaaaaaaoooooouuuuu!

  The single cry ululated from the depths of darkening green jungle. Another voice took up the call, and then another and another. Arrou went stiff, sniffing and listening.

  "Ferals?" asked Karr.

  "Many Ferals," replied Arrou.

  Karr frowned. "They must have followed us down."

  "Are they close?" asked Jenette.

  "Wind funny. Not know." Arrou abruptly leaped the five yards between lifter and shore. "Back soon."

  "Arrou, get back here," Jenette demanded.