by Stuart Clark
The second time the hook caught and Par yanked on it to make sure it was secure before testing his whole weight on the rope, all the while keeping a wary eye on the shuttle in case his added weight would upset its balance and bring the whole thing crashing down to earth. “Okay, we’re in business.”
Slowly. Ever so slowly, Par crept up the rope. Much as he wanted to make less work for himself, he could not climb as rapidly as he would have wished. Any sudden movement might just be enough to bring the shuttle down, and if that happened they might as well forget going home. In his concentration he would sometimes forget to breathe, and on the ground below him, the others were holding their breaths too. Waiting. Hoping.
The climb was agonizingly slow and when Par reached one of the branches on which the shuttle rested, the first thing he did was rub the burning ache out of his biceps. Then he sat there for a moment and surveyed the silver-gray bulk in front of him, contemplating the best way to the shuttle door. Carefully, he picked his way the short distance along the thick branch to the front of the ship. He could see that aside from the bough that he stood on, the shuttle was supported by two other branches, one of a similar thickness, higher, and towards the rear of the ship and another, smaller limb between the two which obviously could not adequately support the massive weight bearing down upon it. The shuttle was upright but tipped slightly away from him because of the upward growth of the branches, and it rested on two skids, nose tipped down towards the ground an unsettling distance below. Par guessed that if the other side of the shuttle had not come to rest against the thick trunk then the craft would have simply slid off the cradling branches and gone crashing to the ground below.
The only way to the door was to side-step along the skid which flanked the ship like a sled runner. Par tentatively stepped onto it and stood there a while to see if he could feel any motion from the shuttle. Apart from small movements of the branches, the shuttle seemed secure. He leaned forwards and put his palms flat against the side of the ship. Slowly, he began to shuffle his way towards the rear of the craft, making a conscious effort not to look down.
He passed the door and located the exterior release latch, a semicircle of metal, flush with the metal paneling, which he lifted to form a handle, twisted, and then pulled. The door panel of the ship popped clear and there was a sigh as the warm air inside the shuttle escaped through the small gap, almost like the ship itself had exhaled. Par backtracked a little and then pushed the door clear, back and away on a sliding rail. He found what he expected, but the sight still shocked him. The crew were all strapped in their seats, motionless. Lifeless.
Carefully, Par clambered into the ship, all the while remaining alert to any sense of motion. When he reached the first man, Par lifted the drooping head and pushed back the visor on the helmet. The man’s pale gray skin confirmed that he was dead, but it was not the fact that he was dead which disturbed Par. It was the look in the glazed eyes which stared right through him. There was a fear there, a frozen stare of terror which suggested something was dreadfully amiss. It was a secret that the man had taken with him to his grave and, Par realized, standing here contemplating what that might be was wasting them time. He let the visor and the man’s head drop.
He straightened and took a quick look around. Hatches were open and the supplies that had spilled out of them had collected in a pile near the cockpit, sliding down across the sloping floor until they had finally come to rest. It was clear, even from the inside, that the hull had been seriously damaged where it had struck the trunk of the tree. They had obviously hit it with a great amount of force. Par frowned. None of this made sense. The maxi-shuttles were vertical take off and landing craft, designed that way so they could land in small clearings. The shuttle, if it had crashed while launching, should have been ascending in a controlled hover. It would not have been traveling at any great speed in a forward or sideways direction—certainly not fast enough to incur that amount of damage. The scorched marks on the earth indicated that the shuttle had fired its solid fuel rockets for a vertical trajectory. It just did not make sense. Par gave the interior of the hull a cursory glance, thinking in his mind what the worse case scenario might be. While there appeared to be no breach of the hull from a visual inspection, that was no guarantee that the hull’s integrity had not been compromised.
He picked his way through the seats, past the other bodies all slumped in a similar fashion to the first, and forced back the automatic door which separated the crew from the pilots. The door was ajar, which suggested an electronics malfunction, but Par could not believe such a thing could be responsible for the crash and the damage he had seen. With a grunt he pushed the last few inches of the door aside and then suddenly felt very queasy as he looked into the cockpit and through the windows to the branches and the ground below. Inside, it had been very easy to forget that he was teetering forty feet up in a tree. Both pilots were also dead. From where he stood, Par could see that the man to his right had a smashed visor; the shattered glass was tinted crimson with dried blood. The co-pilot to his left, despite being hunched over in his chair, his safety harness stopping him from falling any further forward, maintained a viselike grip on the control in front of him.
They had been hit by something, Par guessed. Something that had killed the pilot outright and forced the co-pilot to try and take control of the shuttle. An attempt in which he had failed. They had smashed into the tree and those that had not been killed by the impact had sustained such massive internal injuries that they were unable to help themselves. If they had survived the crash then they had died of their injuries or starved to death in their seats or both. It was an unpleasant scenario but the only one he could think of to explain what he had seen.
He scanned the control panel in front of him. The radio! Maybe the radio was still functional. Even if the ship was not fit for space flight they could still radio for help. His eyes frantically skimmed across the buttons in front of him. It should be on the main panel, he told himself. Yes! There! Grasping the back of one of the pilots’ seats he leaned forward with an outstretched hand to flick the switch and at the same time, from somewhere near the back of the ship came a metallic creak. He was upsetting the balance of the shuttle. He tried again and again the noise came. Panic gripped his mind. If the ship fell now, then there was no way he would get to the door in time to jump clear. What was he to do? If he didn’t try the radio and the ship fell they were all doomed. If he did and the ship then fell then he would almost certainly be killed but at least the others would stand a chance of being rescued. He could just leave it, of course, but who knew what his exploration might have done? Those creaks might have been the start of the end as far as the shuttle was concerned. Did they have the luxury of time? He doubted it. In an instant of blind heroism he leaned that extra bit further, trying to ignore the warning sounds that the shuttle made in protest. He flicked the switch and sparks flew, sending a wisp of blue smoke spiraling into the air and forcing him to retract quickly. He stood there motionless, his mind racing as he tried to comprehend what had happened and at the same time listen for the grating metal sound that would signify impending doom. It never came, and he breathed a sigh of relief. He was alive, for the moment, at least, but the radio was dead.
He turned from the cockpit and literally climbed his way back through the seats in the main cabin, past where he had entered, and to the back of the craft. The last two seats were empty, which puzzled him even more. He had never known a CSETI mission craft to not have a full complement of crew. He reached the storage hatches at the back of the cabin and opened one. In hindsight, a very bad idea. A number of food sachets and cans poured out on him and fell, banging and clattering through the cabin to join the others already on the floor. Quickly, but with difficulty, he managed to close and secure the hatch once more.
Par returned to the shuttle door to report his findings to the expectant faces below.
“Well?” Wyatt asked.
“Well they’re all dead
, if that’s what you mean.”
“And the radio?”
“Dead too. Electrical short by the look of it.”
“Damage?”
“Pretty bad. She crashed with some force so she’s crumpled all down the other side.”
“Mmmm.” Wyatt had thought as much. “That’s not a problem, as long as we can get her into space. We could pretty much fly a bucket in space. It’s just a question of how much that’ll affect her aerodynamics in an atmosphere.”
Par shrugged. “Can’t say…And I couldn’t tell you how that hull’s going to stand up to pressure.”
Wyatt nodded, understanding the implications of what the other man said. After a pause he asked, “Any idea what happened?”
Par looked uncomfortable, considering the question. “Yeah, but…look, why don’t I come down and discuss it with you? I don’t want to be up here longer than I really need to be.” It was a reasonable request, but Wyatt suspected that Par was using it as an excuse, that maybe he did not want to air his conclusions in public.
Ten minutes later, after Par had gingerly lowered himself back down the rope, the two men stood facing each other.
“So what’s the story?”
“That’s hard to say,” Par began. “What I saw up there just doesn’t make any sense.” He stopped and took a look around them at the others’ expectant faces. “Can we discuss this in private?”
“Oh come on!” moaned Chris, “What could you possibly say that’s worse than what we’ve already been through?”
Par looked expectantly at Wyatt, who just shrugged his shoulders. “Okay. I’ll tell you what I think. Judging by the damage I’ve seen up there I’d say that the shuttle was traveling at a reasonable speed when it crashed. When I say that, I mean, it was traveling sideways. Now most of you will know that these things lift off vertically, which makes it look like the shuttle was hit by something. It’s like…it’s like something just swatted it out of the sky.”
“What?” Chris choked. “That’s insane! That’s fifty tons of maxi-shuttle. What are you talking about?”
“Hey!” Par snarled. “You wanted to know what I thought!”
“Okay, okay. Let’s calm down, shall we? We’re all just a bit uptight right now.” Wyatt interjected to diffuse the situation.
“You saw the size of that thing in the lake,” Kate said quietly, her mind wandering back to their encounter three days before. Chris’ face went ashen. Maybe it wasn’t such a ridiculous hypothesis after all, and if it wasn’t ridiculous, it was terrifying that they could seriously be contemplating the possibility that was what had happened.
“Okay, so what do we do now?” It was Byron who had spoken and they turned to face him. There was an unfamiliar tiredness in the voice which was reflected in his craggy features. It seemed he was resigned to the fact that nothing about this already failed mission was going to be easy. Maybe it was his tone of voice that struck a chord with everyone. They could all imagine the thoughts that troubled the veteran, thoughts that he had not given voice to. They were thoughts that they all shared—that here, they had potentially found their ticket home and yet the reality of that was still so far away.
“Well,” said Par, trying to put a hint of optimism in his voice, “We gotta get that thing out of the tree.”
They all cast their eyes back towards the battered shuttle. Nobody said a word.
* * * * *
The black bag tumbled end over end, crashing its way through the branches until it landed with a sickening thud. Wyatt did not see it but heard it fall. He stopped digging and straightened, resting an arm on the handle of his shovel and wiping the sweat from his brow. He looked back towards the tree and heard Par call, “That’s the last of them.” Beside him, Kit continued to dig, removing great scoops of the dry reddish-brown soil and depositing them on an ever growing mound of the same next to him.
It was his turn to go and collect the body. To drag or carry the dead weight to where they now worked and lay it alongside the other nine they had removed from the shuttle. He cast his eye at the improvised cross jammed in the earth next to the hole the pair of them had excavated. It was two pieces of wood, bound together with a vine. Somehow it didn’t seem enough. These nameless individuals all had someone who cared about them somewhere, and, Wyatt realized, after learning what fate had been meant for him and his crew, the friends and relatives of those that they were now laying to rest would probably never learn the full truth of what had happened to them. The crucifix irritated him, partly because he knew that no creature of this world that might happen upon this spot would ever understand the significance of it, and partly because it was highly unlikely that anyone who would understand what it meant would venture this way again. It was a symbol, nothing more, and yet somehow he was expected to take some comfort from the fact that they had erected it. That in doing so he was visibly demonstrating compassion for his fellow humans. He did not feel compassion. Only anger. He was angry for those who had died and those who would never know the truth about what had happened here, and he was angry at those who were responsible. He thrust the shovel into the ground, venting his emotions, but it found no purchase in the dry soil and fell over all the same. Kit looked around at him in surprise but Wyatt was already picking his way out of the grave on the way to collecting his grim burden.
At dusk they performed a service for the men and women they had never known. It was short, as most services were. Few people needed or wanted reminding of mortality or the frailty of the human frame. Despite the discovery of numerous food rations on board the crippled craft they picked at their food and ate mostly in silence. The glow from the fire was the only thing to bring color to their cheeks on this solemn day, and the snaps and cracks of the burning wood punctuated the night.
“So who’s going to fly the shuttle with you?” Kate’s voice cut through the silence. Wyatt looked up from the food he had been idly pushing around his plate.
“No one. I’m going to fly it on my own. Why risk more people than we have to?”
Kate laughed. “We may as well not bother, then. If you try and fly that thing on your own then none of us will be going home.”
“Are you questioning my ability?” Wyatt asked, offended.
“Not as a pilot, no. But anyone who knows anything about shuttlecraft knows that you need two pilots to fly a maxi-shuttle.” The others looked up from their half-finished meals, their minds grateful of something to pay attention to, even a brewing argument.
“They were a victim of their own design,” she continued by way of explanation, “Brilliant, but they incorporated too many systems. It’s just too much for one pilot to handle. Fortunately they built a co-pilot’s seat, which is standard for any spacecraft, but that position became a second pilot’s seat in the case of the maxi-shuttle.”
Wyatt looked around sheepishly at the others and was pleased to see his surprise mirrored in their faces. Byron just gave him a knowing nod. Chris sat staring at Kate, jaw dropped, mouth wide open, as if he had just fallen instantly and profoundly in love with her. Wyatt realized he’d had his bluff called. It was time to turn the tables back on Kate.
“Why? Are you volunteering, then?” he asked.
“Okay. Why not?”
He smiled, sardonically. “Yeah, right.”
“Got any better offers?”
He looked at Byron, who was already shaking his head. “I’m not a shuttle pilot. You forget, us mere trappers don’t get to fly the executive ships. When you became head of the U.L.F. division, that automatically made you one of the IZP executive and that’s when you got trained to fly shuttles. I can’t fly shuttles. Expedition craft, yes, but not shuttles.” Wyatt’s smile faded. Thinking about it he realized what Byron said was true.
“Looks like you’re stuck with me, then. You got a problem with that?” Kate quizzed him again. Her insistence irritated him. What stunt was she trying to pull here? His face showed the frustration.
“Well…” he started
, and then hesitated. “…Yeah,” he finished bluntly. “What makes you think you can fly it and how come you know so much about shuttles anyway?”
“Heard of Triple F?” Wyatt pulled another face and shook his head. “Frere Freight Forwarding,” she informed him. “It’s my father’s company, he started it up a couple of years before I was born. When the CSETI first upgraded their maxi-shuttles he brought five of their old surplus that would have been scrapped and went into business. I guess he saw a niche in the market. He wasn’t really moving freight as such, more like personal artifacts. I guess he figured getting posted to the moon-base or Mars colony posed the same problems as packing for a holiday; you’re bound to forget something. He advertised and sure enough, there were loads of people who wanted stuff shipped up to the moon or Mars or to and from the space stations in between. He used to run the major trade routes between the three planets to begin with but now he ships stuff well outside the solar system.”
“What’s your point?” Wyatt asked. Kate looked wounded by the interruption.
“Well,” she continued, drawing out the word to indicate her indignation. “When I was young, my father would often take me with him on flights and as I grew older he’d sometimes let me take the controls. By the time I got to college I was pretty much capable of flying them and I’d always work for the business during the holidays. If times were lean he’d even get me to co-pilot for somebody sometimes. I can fly these things. I don’t have a formal qualification or license to do it, but I can fly them.”