“I think it might just be possible to fit—without your skiff,” Jon said thoughtfully. “As you pointed out last night at dinner, the skiff has no defense capability, but the gig does. We might need that when we investigate the other two planets. There seems to be sufficient fuel on board the Fiver to make both journeys feasible and still get back here.”
“We can store the skiff in the cave,” Casper said. “Plenty of space there. Does it have repellers?”
“Yes, but why would it need them in the cave?” Nimisha asked, puzzled. They had been living in the cave, hadn’t they?
“Well,” Casper replied, scratching his head and grinning wryly, “as long as we make noise, nothing comes to investigate us, but I wouldn’t want to leave the gig silent and unprotected.”
“Oh,” Nimisha said softly, still puzzled.
Syrona caught her eye and grinned. “It’s mostly the mess they leave behind,” she explained. “The acid residue could damage even petralloy. Shame to mess a new skiff exterior if it can be protected.”
“I’m agreeable,” Nimisha said. “Are you sure it will fit?”
“Casper and I did a bit of measuring, and it will,” Jon said, “but this is your ship, Nimisha.”
“And one that I hoped to sell to Fleet for long-distance exploration. So let’s test all its capabilities.”
Jon’s eyes echoed his smile. Were they gray or blue? Nimisha still wasn’t sure. They were large and well set in his head and, now that he was definitely relaxing, filled more often with a droll sense of humor.
“Do you have anything else you want to bring on board?” she asked. The two men had gone out in the last light of the spring evening and she’d watched them climb up the ladder. They’d taken two loads from the cave, which they’d stored in the shuttle before returning to the Fiver. Casper had brought in some handcarved toys and a stuffed creature that was obviously Timmy’s comforter. It was made of animal fur, stuffed with some sort of plant fiber, and wore a small Fleet uniform, complete with ensign bars. Timmy had greeted it with a loud cry of delight, and immediately sat down to tell it all about the new ship it was on.
“No,” Jon said, shaking his head, then grinned in apology for his bluntness. “We stored whatever could be useful in the shuttle last evening.”
“All right, then, Helm, let’s open the hatch and see about switching my skiff with the gig,” Nimisha said. “I’ll take it up to the cave. I’m curious to see where you’ve . . . survived.”
“It has served its purpose,” Jon said.
“And may again,” Nimisha remarked.
Jon beckoned to Casper. “Let’s do it, then.”
She followed them back and watched for a moment as they used the anti-grav handles to move crates and make the necessary room for the skiff.
“Don’t worry. We won’t scrape the shining new walls,” Jon said, noticing her dubious expression.
“If it’ll fly, Jon’ll fly it,” Casper said. “Been with him when he squeaked through some very tight asteroid belts.”
Jon shook his head. “But not the wormhole.”
“Even Helm, and he can respond in femtoseconds, had trouble keeping the Fiver from careening into the walls,” Nimisha reassured him. “Anyway, that bedamned hole didn’t even have a constant diameter.”
“Hmmm,” was Jon’s rejoinder.
She had to admit, when they had adjusted the supplies in the garage area, that the skiff might indeed fit, though tightly. She got into it and, after making sure the men had stepped back, eased the little craft out and then up to the cave.
The entrance was partially obscured by drooping vines from which a flutter of tiny insectoids departed as the top of the skiff brushed them loose. Rather like colored snowflakes and not much larger. Surely they weren’t the acid-droppers. Then she turned on the skiff’s lights for a good look at the cavesite.
They certainly had done their best to make it a home. Hewn wooden partitions closed off spaces for privacy on either side of the wide entrance. She could see that they had also built a rock wall across the rear of the cave. The amenities included roughly built couches, chairs, tables, a fireplace, and a cooking area. Shelves had been built and there were lighting fixtures on the walls, powered by the solar panels she had seen outside. There was even a rug, woven of rags all space-blue and gray. A bookcase, now empty, had obviously held reading materials.
When she heard the gig engine thrum softly, she slid down the lift rope to the ground and ran to see Jonagren Svangel’s performance. He lined up the gig with the open hatch and, with a precise exhibition of his skill as a pilot, backed the vehicle inside the Fiver. He left just enough space on one side to permit him to disembark, but there wasn’t more than finger’s width between the gig and the wall of the cargo hatch on the other.
“Well done,” Nimisha said, applauding when he emerged. He was grinning in almost boyish delight at his success.
He jumped down to the ground beside her, an I-told-you-so look in his eyes.
“Indeed you did,” Nimisha said. “You’re good enough that I’ll even let you take the Fiver to our first destination.”
Jon laughed, cupping her elbow and walking her to the main entrance. “Considering Helm would automatically correct any errors I might make, I accept the offer.”
They entered the spacecraft laughing.
“Helm, Captain Svangel is herewith authorized to fly the Fiver, and you are to insert that order in today’s log.”
“Log so reads, ma’am,” Helm replied. “If you will respond for a voice record, Captain?”
“This is Captain Jonagren Svangel, Helm, accepting the authorization of Lady Nimisha Boynton-Rondymense to act as additional pilot of the Fiver. Will that suffice, Helm?”
“Yes, Captain.”
Nimisha winked at the now-authorized pilot.
“Set us a course, Helm, to the nearest of the two anomalies you discovered on this—” Jon turned to Nimisha. “We never bothered to give this planet a name.”
“I’ve called it Erehwon,” Nimisha said.
“Nowhere?” Jon said after a blink of surprise and a bark of laughter. Casper and Syrona joined in the laughter.
“Well, it is the back of nowhere, isn’t it?” Nimisha said.
“All too true,” Jon said ironically. “Helm, set us a course to the nearest of the two anomalies on Erehwon.”
“Casper, Syrie, Timmy, join us,” Nimisha said.
There was a manner of intense satisfaction about Jonagren Svangel as he took the pilot’s chair and waited while it adjusted to his longer frame. “More comforts than at home,” he said.
“Course laid in, sir,” Helm said. “Maximum fuel conservation.”
“Accepted. Let’s go,” Jon said, leaning to one side on the armrest.
As the Fiver lifted away from the meadow and the place they had lived for so long, Nimisha noticed that only Syrona glanced down. Timmy seemed to be fascinated by the altitude and the speed with which the ground dropped away as the Fiver angled her nose skyward. Once she had reached the programmed altitude, the engines throttled back and were almost silent, minute use of the thrusters keeping her on course.
“It’s not a bad-looking planet,” Nimisha remarked.
“In the safety of high altitude,” Jon replied. “Lovely ship. Smooth as a baby’s . . . ah, cheek.”
Nimisha grinned at the quick substitution, obviously made in deference to her social standing. She caught the turn of head from both Syrie and Casper but she ignored them. They maintained this altitude for nearly an hour before the Fiver smoothly tilted forward and began her descent. They were passing over one of the oceans between the continental masses.
“What about life-forms, Helm?” Jon asked.
“Those are being observed and cataloged, sir.” One of the auxiliary screens lit up.
Timmy drew back, wide-eyed at the size of the aquatic leviathans pictured on the screen.
“Well, I did see little butterfly things in the foliage at
the cave,” Nimisha remarked, “so not everything on the planet is oversized.”
“Chichim—he was our geologist—thought this planet was possibly in a late Pleistocene epoch. He was hoping to find fossils before . . .” Casper’s voice trailed off. “I mean, the size and variety of life-forms does compare to that period in Earth’s history. And there is evidence of at least one ice age. We got”—he turned to Nimisha—“too busy surviving to do much real exploration.”
“We managed botanical research and what biological specimens didn’t want to eat us,” Syrona added, somewhat defensively.
“We did an in-depth survey of our immediate area, which was relatively free from the largest carnivores and grazers,” Jon said firmly, “as well as a complete sampling of riverine life-forms.”
“A lot were very poisonous,” Syrona put in.
“Good thing I didn’t get a bath in that lake,” Nimisha said.
“Ooh, you’re right about that,” Syrona said feelingly. “Jon got Peri out before something with tentacles tried to drag her under the surface and we hadn’t even known it was there.”
“Not quite a cetapod,” Jon said, “but similar, from what we saw. Very strong. Peri had marks on her leg for weeks.”
“The surface feeders were small enough to be fished, and there were nine types that we could safely eat,” Casper added. “Two are very tasty grilled.”
“I like burgers better,” Timmy said, turning on his mother’s lap to look up appealingly at her face. “Can—may I have a burger for lunch, Syrie?”
“I believe that can be arranged,” Syrona said with a straight face, but her eyes danced. A second long rest had given more sparkle to her, and she had managed to trim her hair with sharper scissors. It curled like a cap about her head. Though her face looked smoother, there hadn’t been time to fill out the hollows in her cheeks or completely eradicate the dark circles under her eyes.
The Fiver was over land again, the topographical features discerned even at their present height.
“Much the same geologically,” Casper remarked. “Though that’s some desert area with not so much as a shrub or ground cover to show the presence of water.”
They were angling across the desert when they encountered deep canyons and, in their depths, the sparkle of water a long way down. Gradually that terrain gave way to more of the grasslands, and they could see the black clusters of the grazers moving steadily across it.
“Well, maybe over that mountain range we’ll find something new,” Casper said, ever the optimist.
“Our objective is seven kilometers directly forward,” Helm said. He brought that image up and magnified it.
“That’s new,” Jon observed drily. “Not one of ours.”
“Not by a long shot,” Nimisha agreed. The metallic mass was strangely formed, with rounded semicircles on its uppermost surface and what looked like atmospheric fins buried in the dirt. “It seems to have had a sharp prow.”
“Until it met the hard rock,” Jon added. “Broke its nose.”
“It does look sort of like a bird, doesn’t it, with the fins legs and those blobs on the top a series of eyes,” Syrona said. “Is it a green metal or is that paint?”
“It’s badly scraped, whatever,” Casper remarked. “If it came through the wormhole, it took more damage than we did.”
“Alien. It looks very alien to me,” Nimisha said.
“Helm, land the Fiver half a klick from the vehicle,” Jon said. “We’ll take a closer but safer look from the gig.” He caught Nimisha’s eyes, looking slightly apologetic for assuming command so automatically until she gave him a wave of approval. “Force of habit.”
“I enjoy being a passenger . . . now and then,” she replied evenly. And she did when she was certain, as she was with Jonagren Svangel, that the pilot was at least as competent as she knew she was.
She rose to go change into her protective suit, then turned back to Syrona. “Come along in the gig.”
“Thank you but I’d just as soon stay here and have . . . a burger,” Syrona said in an equable tone. “Timmy, did you still want one, too?”
“Sure do” was the enthusiastic reply, and the boy danced ahead of his mother into the main cabin.
Nimisha had changed and found two spare suits for the men when she felt the slight bump as the keel of the Fiver settled to the ground.
“Here, you’ll need these,” she said, encountering the men on their way from the bridge. The smell of burger was tempting.
“Thanks. Our gear’s long gone,” Casper said, but, after taking the suit from Nimisha, he edged toward the dispenser. “But I wouldn’t mind a burger for the trip.”
“Come on then,” Nimisha said, giving Jon his suit.
“I’ll meet you at the gig,” he said, pulling his protective gear on over what he was already wearing. “Order me one, too, Casper. Medium rare and no ketchup.”
They were both finishing the last bites of their burgers as they joined her in the gig. Casper licked his fingers clean.
Jon sat in the pilot’s seat that Nimisha had tactfully left for him.
“Letting me do all the work today, huh?” he said, snapping on the harness and switching on the engines.
“You got her in, you get her out,” Nimisha said blandly.
“Aye, aye, sir.”
“I’m a ma’am—I’m civilian.”
“Yes, sir,” was Jon’s bantering reply.
Any lightheartedness vanished at the sight of the wrecked ship’s obviously alien design. Circling the wreck showed the deep scores in its hull. One whole side of the aftersection had been pulled open. What looked like a small gig had been jammed against the largest hole. That may have been more luck than planning, but the obstacle would have kept smaller objects, like bodies, from being sucked into space.
“Hope they got their crew out,” Casper said, shaking his head at the damage.
“I’d guess that that was cargo space and they lost whatever they were carrying,” Jon said. “If that is the stern of this vehicle.”
“I’d hazard the guess that they didn’t back into their current position,” Nimisha said with a droll grin at Jon.
“You’re right about that. How could such a crazy shape be spaceworthy?” he remarked, shaking his head.
“Maybe it was never meant to land. Only they had to, with that great rent in their stern,” she said.
Jon kept the gig hovering above the wreck so they could estimate the size of the alien vehicle. It was bigger than the Poolbeg and nearly as large as the ancient Diaspora wreck. The prow of the ship had been knocked sideways by the force of its landing, so the pointed shape resembled a bird looking over its shoulder.
“It’s been here a while,” Casper said, pointing to the vegetation growing from dirt on the top of it. “Hold it, Jon, there’s some sort of design or glyphs on the side.”
“I’ve been taping, Cas,” the captain said. “Might be oxygen breathers, or why would they pick the M-type?”
“No choice,” Nimisha suggested, having looked for some evidence of escape from the vessel. “And no tracks leading from it.”
“It’s been down a long time,” Jon said. “Shall we have a look inside?”
“Why not?”
Nimisha was glad that was decided so effortlessly. There was no way she was going to relinquish the chance to see the inside of an alien spaceship.
They got in through one of the gaps in the hull toward the stern of the ship, which was again birdlike, resembling a fantail, bulging slightly on the end to accommodate a solid parabola of odd tubes.
“Funny sort of propulsion units,” Jon said.
“No radiation readings, or Helm would have mentioned it,” Nimisha said, switching on her wrist light and swinging the beam around the aperture.
Athletically, Jon Svangel hiked himself into the opening, then reached down to give Nimisha a helping hand. Casper was beside them in another moment.
“I’d say the aliens are smaller than
we are,” Jon remarked, crouching as he made his way forward. They all had to bend to clear the passageway.
“Much smaller,” Casper said, banging his head on a mass of piping. A piece detached itself and dropped with a thud to the deck. A whiff of something acrid floated in the air for a moment before dissipating in the light breeze blowing through the wreck.
They were glad to enter an area where they could stand upright: the central round ball of the ship, which was obviously a command area.
“I feel like a giant,” Nimisha remarked, looking at the small, almost child-size seats and consoles. The worktops were filled with boards of rocker switches, dial knobs, and toggles, surrounding what had to be display screens, and there were large screens on one wall: shattered or crazed, but their original function was still obvious. She twiddled and switched and pulled and nothing happened. “I didn’t expect any reactions,” she murmured.
Jon and Casper were prowling about, looking at broken equipment on the perimeter of the chamber, peering into cabinets that had cracked doors or facades. They could not access the sharp prow where the bridge must have been situated; the passage to it was crushed against the stones of the hillside.
Nimisha noticed the pole and the hole in the deck and called their attention to it. As the size of the opening would not accommodate any of their adult bodies, they could only shine light down it.
“Access to crew quarters, I’d say,” was Casper’s comment. “If we could rig enough lights so he wouldn’t be scared, Timmy would fit,” Jon said.
Casper was shaking his head.
“Not when I’ve mobiles we can send,” Nimisha said. “Helm can control them. There’s no need to ask a six-year-old to go down a hole in the floor.”
Jon regarded her for a moment, then nodded. “Agreed. I have to reframe my thinking to include available resources I haven’t had access to for years.” Then he added, “Do your mobiles have additional lighting?”
Nimisha shook her head. “Self-contained units.”
“What other surprises has the Fiver?” he asked in a wry tone.
“I like to keep something back from you Fleet types,” she said.
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