Project U.L.F.

by Stuart Clark

15

  “Hey guys! Bobby’s awake!”

  Bobby didn’t hear the voice, even though Chris knelt right over her. She lay there breathing heavily and staring at Par’s face next to her, her eyes blinking in confusion.

  Her scream had woken everyone in the shuttle with the exception of Par, who still slept soundly, too exhausted to be roused by it.

  “How do you feel?” Chris asked. Bobby did not reply, just lay there staring at Par, her eyes wide and afraid. “Bobby?” Chris nudged her gently.

  “What?!” she jumped, noticing him for the first time.

  “How do you feel?”

  She frowned, her eyes searching for the answer. “I don’t know. Confused…Where am I?”

  “In the shuttle. We found it.” Chris reported with a smile.

  Bobby’s frown never left her face. “How can that be? How long…?”

  Just then Wyatt came up behind Chris and the pair of them exchanged a glance. “It’s a long story,” the youngster said and then took his cue to leave, letting Wyatt crouch down next to Bobby in his place.

  “Hi,” he said with a faint smile, his voice almost a whisper. Tender.

  “Hi,” she said back, her frown being replaced with a look of relief.

  “How do you feel?”

  “Odd.” She frowned again. “I had the strangest dream.”

  Wyatt knew all about strange dreams. He looked at Bobby with empathy, but apart from that he seemed to pay little attention to the comment. He cupped Bobby’s face in one hand and she brought a hand up over his, pressing it to her. It was such a loving touch that Kate, who watched it all, could have easily believed that at some point in their past these two had been more than just friends.

  “It’s good to have you back,” he said. Bobby sensed that there was more to be conveyed in that touch than simple reassurance. She looked at him seriously, and grasped his hand tighter.

  “What is it, Wyatt? What’s wrong?”

  A look of sadness mixed with anguish crossed Wyatt’s face. “We’ll talk sometime,” was all he could manage. “You need your rest.” He pulled his hand out of her gentle grip, then turned and left.

  As soon as Wyatt was gone, Kate moved in to replace him, crouching down next to the woman she considered mentor and friend. “Hi!” she said excitedly, her face beaming, eyes sparkling. “How do you feel?”

  Bobby was already tired of the question. It was starting to feel a bit like a family reunion—having to justify your life over the period of mutual absence to countless relatives—and in a way it was. She made as if to speak the words over again, words which once had meaning but now were just empty rhetoric. Her answer caught in her throat. As her eyes fell on the young woman they widened visibly in astonishment.

  Kate looked behind her. There was nothing. “What?” she asked, suddenly very paranoid.

  “Oh…nothing,” Bobby stammered, lying. “I just thought…I just thought you were someone else.” She had spoken the words as they had come into her head. Out loud they made little or no sense and Kate frowned, suddenly very concerned again for her friend. To Bobby, however, they made a lot of sense.

  Kate had changed so much that Bobby could hardly believe it. She had not meant someone who looked like Kate but who went under another name; she meant someone completely different, so drastic were the changes before her eyes.

  She looked up from her makeshift bed at the young girl’s face and realized that it no longer looked young. Her hair, which had been so shiny and flaxen was now dull and ruffled, but it still set off her beautiful dirtied face perfectly like an old and weathered picture frame would compliment an old and weathered picture. The smile was the same but the dimples were no longer so pronounced. The twinkle in the eye was still there but now it seemed there was finiteness to its shine. The dark brown eyes were like curtains of thick velvet—soft but impenetrable to the psyche that lay beyond them, and Bobby knew that they had seen more than most would or were ever meant to.

  Experience and pain had weathered this face like the storms that lashed the face of this planet. Relentless, unforgiving and leaving a permanent mark of their passing.

  “How are you?” Bobby asked, even though it was not her place to.

  Kate heard the concern masked in Bobby’s voice and looked her straight in the eye. “I’m okay,” she said quietly, nodding slowly to herself to convince herself of some truth in the words. Bobby took her hand and Kate squeezed it tight. There was more said in that one touch than a thousand words could ever have expressed.

  Furball jumped onto Bobby’s bed, a timely interruption for Kate who was struggling with the emotions that were creeping up on her. She smiled. “Furball says hi too.”

  Kate sat with Bobby for a long time, recounting the course of events which had brought them here. As time went by Bobby began to find the truth stranger than the fiction she had dreamt. At first she could not believe that she had been unconscious for four days—that had been her first question. It was only when Kate had begun to account for each and every day that she realized that she must have been, but still she did not want to believe it. The fact that she had been useless to them all and a burden troubled her. Harder still was trying to reconcile what she believed to be true with the different truth she was being told. She had no recollection of the last four days; the last thing she remembered was the crash in the Santa Maria and swimming to the shore of the great lake. She had never seen the monster that had nearly snatched Wyatt from the shore.

  They sat talking for a long time, or rather Kate talked and a bemused Bobby sat, for the most part, in stunned silence, interrupting only when she misunderstood or wanted something reiterated. After some time she interrupted Kate again. “He’s gone, hasn’t he?”

  “Who?”

  “Byron. He’s gone, hasn’t he?”

  Kate didn’t know what to say. She could feign ignorance but she knew that Bobby would see straight through her as if through sheet glass. In the end she said nothing, just laid her hand on Bobby’s arm and shook her head.

  To her surprise there was no outpouring of grief on Bobby’s part and she could only guess that her elder, while listening, had already concluded that Byron was dead due to his notable absence and dealt with the grief that her conclusions had found for her.

  “He’s not taken it very well, has he?” she asked.

  “No.” Kate knew exactly whom she meant.

  * * * * *

  Wyatt lay in a fetal position on the floor of the cryosleep deck above the main cabin where the others now talked excitedly. After his brief exchange with Bobby, he had skulked away like a wounded animal gone to lick its wounds. He had retreated to the back of the cabin and ascended the narrow steel-runged ladder that led to the cryosleep deck above. There was not enough room to sit up here, but that suited Wyatt fine. He didn’t want to sit. He didn’t want to do much of anything.

  The twelve cryosleep chambers were arranged in a row like giant cigar tubes. These were end-entry cylinders, different from the front loading tubes they had used on the Santa Maria. Wyatt lay at the foot of them on the narrow strip of floor that granted access to the tubes.

  He was happy that Bobby was back among them but unable to share in that happiness. He needed to be alone with his thoughts and away from the others and their well-meaning but useless words of comfort. The tears came easily now and he blinked them away.

  His best friend had gone, and it had been him who had sent him away to his death. He could hardly believe it. It was all so final and he hadn’t even had the chance to say goodbye. Denied the opportunity to speak the words. He lay there in the darkness, a broken and shattered man.

  His thoughts wandered. Who would tell Byron’s daughters? Two beautiful girls, now young women. One of twenty-five, the other barely more than twenty. Wyatt had met them almost ten years ago and watched them grow up. It had been when he had first started at the IZP that he had met Byron. The old veteran had taken him under his wing and taught him the tricks and pitf
alls of their profession. Over time the two men had grown to respect each other.

  When Wyatt had served his time at the IZP he had quit at Tanya’s request. Saying goodbye to Byron had been the hardest thing that he had ever done. The two of them knew that they would see each other still but that their relationship would never be quite the same. It had been Byron and the chance to rekindle that friendship that had finally convinced Wyatt to take the job as head of the U.L.F. division. It had come as no surprise to Wyatt to learn that his old friend was top of the U.L.F. staff list. Later he was to discover that Byron had specifically requested the transfer.

  Over the subsequent years they had pulled each other out of so many tight spots that neither of them was counting any more. Theirs was a friendship built on trust and complemented with innumerable immeasurable and unidentifiable nuances that made it unique and hence, something special.

  It was during these many years that they had spent together that Byron had confided to Wyatt what had brought him to the IZP.

  The girls' mother, Byron’s wife, had died when the children were very young, hardly more than babes, and Byron had found himself a single parent with two young children to feed. He had coped as best he could but as time had gone by he found himself getting further and further into debt. It was then that he had been forced to crime. Armed robbery, in fact.

  Not being of criminal tendencies, Byron’s heist had been foiled. He had been tried and incarcerated. Thus, in trying to provide more for his kids he had deprived them of their father.

  The two girls had been passed around many different relatives, all of whom had tried to raise them with varying degrees of success. Over time the pair had learned that they were better off relying on each other. Life had been hard on them, and as a consequence they had grown up quickly, but they had turned out to be good kids. Wyatt wondered if any kids of Byron’s could possibly turn out differently.

  When they had been younger they had resented their father for the predicament he had left them in, but as they grew older they had understood why he had done what he’d done, and they had forgiven him. Byron, however, never realized this. When the IZP job had been offered to him as a means of shortening his jail term he had seized the opportunity with both hands, seeing it as a chance to spend more time with his girls. Sadly, this was not the case.

  With the length of assignments, Byron was still spending more time away from home than at home, and so the girls’ situation hardly changed. Still, if they ever doubted that their father loved them, they were reassured during his brief stays at home when he showered them with gifts and affection.

  Byron was a good, kindly man who had been forced, rather than led, astray by life’s circumstances. The IZP had been his lifeline; his chance to resume a relatively normal life again and he had been determined to make a go of it. With two daughters to clothe and feed Byron had never even entertained the thought of quitting when his five year service period had been served. He had been determined to show his friends and family that he could make a go of it and do something right. Thus he worked tirelessly to repay a debt that existed only in his own mind.

  Yes, the IZP had given him his life back, but now it had cruelly snatched that life away from him. Wyatt wondered what Mannheim’s agenda had been to send someone like Byron, someone with only a few months to retirement, to his doom.

  Mannheim.

  On a larger scale Mannheim was the source of all their problems. If it weren’t for him, then none of them would be here in the first place, and they would not be searching for a way back home. That’s what Byron had been doing when he had died—looking for a way back home. Yes, Wyatt may have sent him on that ill-fated search, but it was Mannheim, he realized now, who was ultimately responsible for Byron’s death.

  Collecting himself, Wyatt resolved what he must do. He must find a way back to Earth. Not just for them, but for Byron’s girls so they might hear the news of their father. He would avenge Byron’s death, he told himself. He would squeeze the very life out of Mannheim with his bare hands if he must. It would be worth going back inside for that satisfaction alone.

  In the darkness his mouth set in a thin, hard line.

  * * * * *

  Par awoke shortly after noon, which was fortunate for him, since Wyatt’s patience was waning rapidly. Another hour and his superior would have forcibly dragged him from his bed.

  “I want to speak with you.” The others turned, only now noting Wyatt’s absence because of his sudden reappearance. “It concerns Byron and what happened out there. Think of it more as a debriefing.”

  “Okay, sounds sensible,” Par said between shovels of food.

  “Now.” Wyatt’s voice was flat and firm. “Alone.”

  Par looked longingly at the next forkful of food, now only inches from his face. A glance at Wyatt saw him put it back down again. The issue was not negotiable. Chris made as if to protest but he, too, was silenced by Wyatt’s expression.

  Wyatt jumped out of the shuttle door, his booted feet landing heavily on the sun-baked mud and kicking up a small circle of dust. He turned and helped Par down, sticking his head under one arm to bolster the other man’s weight, then they slowly made their way over to a small mound, home to a few isolated trees.

  On sight of Par leaving the shuttle, Gon-Thok emerged from the trees. It watched the two humans carefully.

  “It has waited for you,” Wyatt nodded in its direction. “Sometimes it disappears for hours but Kit has consistently reported seeing it just beyond the tree line.”

  The creature, seeing where they were headed, moved to intercept them.

  When they reached the mound, Wyatt carefully lowered Par to the ground, resting his back against one of the slender trunks. Gon-Thok stopped about ten yards away from them, watching them intently and getting an occasional wary and suspicious stare from Wyatt in return.

  “So, tell me what happened out there.” he said when he was satisfied the alien posed no threat. “Leave nothing out.” Par sighed heavily and began.

  He talked for over an hour, during which time Wyatt paced unceasingly around him, hand to chin, forefinger pressed to lips, and brow furrowed in concentration. When he was finished, the two men stayed silent for a moment.

  “It should have been me,” Par said quietly as an afterthought.

  “We all think like that,” Wyatt reassured him, “And we’d all trade places if we could. Don’t blame yourself. It wasn’t your fault.”

  “But Byron had everything to live for.”

  “And you don’t?”

  “No. Not now.”

  Wyatt frowned and turned to face him. “What do you mean?”

  “You may as well know, seeing as how it makes no difference any more.” Par sighed heavily once again before continuing. “I was sent on this mission with you to make sure you failed.” He paused, looking for the reaction such news would bring. There was none. Wyatt was stunned. “Your suspicions were correct, Wyatt; you were dumped here by Mannheim, but you were never supposed to find out. At least not so soon, anyway. If you had gone through with the mission as planned, without suspecting anything was wrong, then you would have found out when you powered up to leave. By then, it would be too late. Your supplies would be exhausted, the end would be relatively quick.”

  Wyatt laughed, a shallow laugh of disbelief.

  “It’s true, Wyatt. You know inside that what I say is the truth. You’ve questioned my presence on this crew right from the start. I’ve sensed that from you.”

  “But that’s ludicrous! You’re telling me you came away on a suicide mission?”

  “Ah, not quite. You see, I had a way home. Two days after the sub-space jump we performed in the Santa Maria, a skimmer was scheduled to come and pick me up at a predetermined rendezvous about six clicks from the landing site. I would have just…disappeared.” He looked up into the sky dreamily, then shrugged. “Trappers go missing all the time, Wyatt, lost in jungle or desert never to be seen again. Maybe you’d have c
ome looking for me. Maybe you wouldn’t have given it a second thought. Who knows? Who cares? I know I wouldn’t have.”

  Suddenly it all began to fall into place. Par was right. Wyatt had never been able to justify his assignation to this mission; at least, he hadn’t found a reason that sat comfortably with him. “That was why you didn’t agree to the sub-space flight?”

  “Of course. What was I supposed to do, wave you guys off and say ‘I’ll be seeing you!?’ All I could do was abstain from the vote and hope that I fell in the majority. If I’d done anything else you’d have suspected something straight away. In fact I’m surprised you didn’t suspect something then.”

  Wyatt laughed again, and continued laughing.

  Par frowned. “Don’t you understand what I’m saying to you? I’m not bullshitting you!”

  “So by coming with us you gave up your chance of going home.”

  Par could see the irony of it now. “I had no choice,” he said with resentment. “You and I both know I wouldn’t have lasted two days on my own out here. Besides, I figured if Mannheim was prepared to do this to you then I was kidding myself if I ever thought he’d come good on his promise to me. Hell, I don’t even know if the skimmer came for me, do I?”

  “What was the promise?”

  “Huh?”

  “The payoff? What did he offer you?”

  Par swallowed nervously. “Your job.”

  “My job!” Wyatt could hardly believe it. “My job! Shit! If I’d have known you’d have gone to these lengths to get it you could have just asked. I’d have given it to you.”

  Par looked at him questioningly, thinking for a second that there might be some truth in those words, but then he realized that Wyatt’s emotions were making him flippant.

  “Sheesh! My job!” Wyatt said again quietly, running a hand through his hair.

  “It’s not what you think.”

  “Oh, really?” Wyatt was really interested now.

  “I would never have challenged you, you should know that. The position was offered to me.”