“Copy that,” Gail said, but to herself and posterity, watching Bob zoom toward the distant starship, like a hummingbird to a flower garden. Funny, she missed the little thing immediately. The hilltop felt barren and desolate, no sound but the rising wind in the grass.
Then Aaron screamed.
Chapter 93
LIKE old times.
Mind you, Malley reminded himself, the slug corner on the recycling floor didn’t have chairs like this, or any lighting that stayed on consistently, but there was the same comforting sense of being out of authority’s sight, doing something authority wouldn’t want you to do.
The Earthers had their hidden virtues.
“Okay. I’ve got the ’bot’s feed back up.” Stan Temujin tended to cower and whisper a bit too much for a proper coconspirator, but Malley was prepared to be tolerant. The man had the toys.
So he, Aisha, and Temujin huddled over an impressive, if homemade, screen and comm system. The three of them were tucked inside what Aisha referred to as a parts closet and the stationer considered big enough for quarters, even though their knees were usually in the way of his.
Close quarters and comfort. He admitted he needed both, if only to himself. Those weren’t strangers squatting on the dirt-ball below—they might be idiots whose necks he’d cheerfully wring—but they weren’t strangers.
They were friends and family.
The image on the small screen plunged down, then stopped as the ’bot came to rest over the Mississauga’s ramp. Someone in the command sphere modified the settings so the usually inconspicuous Quill leaped into view like a sea of red, lapping at an island of scorched earth, inhabited by a lone ship. Malley didn’t think it was particularly helpful, unless anyone doubted it was a hopeless situation.
“What’s happening?” he growled impatiently. Aisha laid her hand on his knee. Malley turned to glare, only to find her face crumbling as she tried to say something and failed. He managed to get his arm around her shoulders despite the tight space and pull her close. Too many hours of giving strength to everyone else—including him.
“They’re coming out.”
Malley could see that for himself. The oldest led, of course, the ones who’d been born under a sun. Made sense, of a sort. They’d find the conditions easier. Sense be damned, he thought. They wanted it most—dragging their families with them in the crazy belief nightmares could just disappear. Poof.
Damn Rosalind. It was becoming a habit.
“Oh no. Frasier ...” He’d hoped not to recognize the very first to ease her feet over the ramp’s ridges. Bethany Frasier—one of the less cranky old women, the type who could transform rations into sweets as easily as she repaired electrical systems or anything else broken. She used a cane but didn’t have it with her—relying instead on the strong arm of her son, Gregory. Gullible Greggie: brunt of a dozen Malley-special practical jokes, the latest the night before the Earthers had arrived onstation.
Malley refused to close his eyes. Someone who knew them had to watch.
He didn’t close his eyes, but he buried his face against Aisha’s hair when the figures on the ramp started to scream and collapse.
Let it keep the rest away, Malley prayed silently.
“Wait. Malley. Aisha. Look!”
She moved first at Temujin’s urging, so he had to lift his head and stare at the screen.
They were sitting up—all of them—some rubbing hips or elbows, perhaps bumped when they fell—but no one was unconscious or worse. Several, particularly the younger ones, were heaving up their stomachs’ contents at the opposite side of the ramp. Reaction to the Quill Effect, or merely to being under a sky?
It didn’t matter. “No one’s dead!” the stationer roared in amazement, hugging the two Earthers until a faint squeak reminded him others tended to break if squeezed too hard. “Aaron did it!”
“Switch to the Athena’s vid,” Aisha said when she could breathe again. “We can try and see how Aaron’s doing.” Temujin’s hand flew to his makeshift console.
Before he’d succeeded, there was a loud crackle as Gail’s voice blasted into the storeroom. “Grant! Temujin? Malley? Anyone!”
Temujin frantically lowered the volume, muttering something about amateurs and ship comms, while Malley answered quickly, his mouth dry: “We’re here. How’s Aaron?”
“Malley? Aaron’s stung, but okay now.” The words tumbled out, too fast—not, Malley thought, as if out of control, but as if Gail feared being stopped before saying what she wanted to say. “Unharmed—as far as I can tell. But what about the people in the ship? Aaron’s saying something, but it’s confusing—and I can’t see them from here.”
“They seem okay now, Gail,” Aisha said over his shoulder. “Thank Aaron—”
Another crackle, then: “Susan—the Quill—when she knew they were people, she stopped herself. But it was too close, Aisha. The damage to the grass, to the Quill in the grass—I think it hurt her somehow. Aaron told me I have to tell you—you have to tell Grant—there can’t be any more landings. Not for a while. Susan isn’t stable. Do you understand me? She’s doing her best not to defend herself, but if more ships come down before Aaron can help her—she might not be able to stop fast enough. Do you hear me, Malley?”
Why him? The stationer frowned at the woman he couldn’t see. “I hear you—Why?”
“The entire solar system’s hearing you, Gail,” Temujin broke in. “I trust you know that.”
“Good. Anyone hearing me—stay off this planet. You won’t be safe. Just give us time. Please.” The comm was dead a moment, then her voice came back. “Reality confirms the data, Malley,” Gail said cryptically. “Smith out.”
“Gail—?”
“She’s signed off, Aisha.” Temujin said regretfully. “But sounds like she got our stuff.”
Malley tapped one finger on the screen, lightly but firmly. “What stuff? You did notice she was talking to me ...”
The Earthers exchanged looks, then Aisha pulled a disk from the pocket of her lab coat. “Here. Obviously she wants you to have this.”
“And this is?”
“Everything we’ve found out about the Quill so far. We wanted Gail to see it first—before the FDs took it and who knows what might happen to the truth.”
Malley tucked the disk into the same pocket as his favorite knife. “Gotta go,” he said, surging to his feet but careful of their toes.
“Where?”
He looked down at Aisha. “They didn’t listen to her before—they won’t listen now. It’s the message from that ship they’ll care about—Bethany telling her friends, ‘It was a bumpy landing, dears, but we’re fine now. Come on down.’ That’s what’s going on right now—guaranteed.”
Temujin frowned, but he didn’t disagree. “What can you do?”
“Start by talking to Grant. He’d better have a plan for this—before all hell breaks loose out there. Or Tobo. Whoever can stop this.”
Malley left them, feeling his guts still half-jelly from what might have happened.
They’ll never listen. He dreaded what might be to come.
Chapter 94
GAIL shut down the comm, watching her hands shake as though they belonged to someone else, feeling as though her entire body echoed with dread.
They wouldn’t listen.
Nothing could have done more damage than the survival of that one shipload of would-be colonists. She knew it and accepted it with a familiar, cold detachment.
She’d told Malley that Aaron was fine. What else could she say? The stationer couldn’t be here; there was nothing anyone could do to help. Aaron’s screams of pain still rang in her ears. Aaron’s or the Quill’s. It didn’t seem to matter which anymore, Gail told herself wearily. They’d both suffered. They’d both saved those people. Those fools!
Given the cost, she seriously doubted they could do it again.
She walked back outside, paying no attention to the beautiful sky or mountain vista, looking ahead to A
aron. When a Quill slipped up her leg and body, then down her arm to wrap around her wrist, Gail hardly noticed, until she felt the soothing calm pushing back the worst of her fears and anxieties. The relief brought tears to her eyes. “Thank you, Susan,” she said, unsure if Aaron could hear.
There were subtle changes taking place around him. The stalks the Quill had originally used had turned brown and dry. The Quill kept insinuating fresh green ones between the old, as if it was important to keep living material next to his skin—or next to themselves. As a result, the mass around him was thickening, until from a certain angle he might have been a statue of Neptune, rising on a wave of shimmering green and brown.
From any other, he looked like a man buried up to his shoulders in straw, the flesh on his face melting away by the hour as if something was taking place under the straw neither of them could bear to know about.
“I talked to Malley, Aaron,” Gail said, making herself see only the fine, brave eyes of the man she loved and nothing else. “He knows—everyone’s fine on the ship. No one was hurt. They asked how you were.” She lightened her voice. “Mind you—the big oaf was his usual self. You’re going to have to talk to him when we get back.”
A by now familiar whirl of stalks and Quill took shape in front of Aaron, settling into what Gail was astonished to recognize as a chair. The mass was oddly proportioned and the back didn’t go all the way along, but there was no mistaking its function.
“Thank you,” she said faintly, and sat. The grass was remarkably dense and the result quite comfortable.
“Susan’s—grateful,” Aaron said suddenly, as if he’d lost, then found, his voice. “She’s aware you’re trying to prevent more landings.”
“Trying, being the word,” Gail said despondently, rubbing her fingers over the Quill on her wrist, finding comfort from the alien. How incredibly far they’d come since—was it only yesterday? “Aaron ...”
“Yes, dear?”
She glanced up, feeling herself smile in spite of everything. He had that power over her, even like this. His eyes and smile alone melted her resolve until she couldn’t help it: “Aaron. Will Susan let you go? Can she?”
Aaron pressed his lips together, as if preventing an impulsive answer. They were healing, but still swollen. Gail knew there was salve on the pod that might help, but the remote arms weren’t that fine. She caught herself wishing passionately for Rosalind’s hands, not her useless ones.
“I’m sorry, Aaron,” she said before he could form an answer. “Forget I asked. I know what you’ve told me—that this connection between you is outside her conscious control. I just can’t help but . . . hope.”
“We aren’t alone, Gail,” he said earnestly. “Remember that. And here’s the proof. Hi, Bob!”
Gail’s lips twitched as she imagined one of Grant’s dignified deployment specialists having to endure the name. No doubt Tobo and his crew would make the best of it—even through this.
The ’bot’s return included Grant’s voice. He must be living on the bridge. “Dr. Smith. Aaron. Our sincere thanks to you—and Susan.”
“The best thanks will be preventing another potential disaster before it enters the atmosphere, Commander,” Gail said bitingly, knowing his superiors were listening. Always.
“We’re doing our best. But there’s been another development you should know about.”
Gail and Aaron exchanged worried looks. “And why do I doubt it’s good news, Commander?” she asked wryly.
“Because it isn’t. We’ve more guests on the way. While some of those are reinforcements from Sol System—I’m afraid the early arrivals will be from Hamble and Osari.”
Gail hadn’t dreamed Aaron could look worse. They stared at one another—and all she could do was imagine holding him tightly.
Grant misinterpreted their silence. “You do know those are the—”
“—the two nearer stations to Thromberg?” Gail finished. “Yes, Commander. We’re well aware. Same intentions—same first-class transport?”
“As far as we know. And the ships from Thromberg are claiming they’ve passed their return fuel reserves. Between us, I doubt they brought enough fuel to go back in the first place.”
Aaron spoke up bitterly: “Why would they, Commander? These are first rounders—they’ve waited most of their lives to die out here. Why should they make any plan to return?”
“They’d assume we’d never abandon them,” Gail countered. “And we won’t. What’s the condition of the ships, besides crowded?”
“They range from barely-holding-orbit to ready-to-crash—into each other if not the planet,” Grant said grimly. “Desperate people, Dr. Smith. We’re running out of time here.”
“The Seeker can take some—what about the other Earth ships? Surely they’d be willing—”
“Of course, but we don’t have sufficient space for those already here, let alone the numbers coming from Hamble and Osari. Besides, we can’t transfer them against their will—”
“Even if they wanted to, they couldn’t transfer to your ships,” Aaron reminded them, his eyes lifted to the sky as if to see for himself. “No suits—and I’d bet half don’t have functioning ship-to-ship air locks.”
Gail began considering options. There was gear in the fabrications storeroom; perhaps they could rig up some kind of airtight tubing. “Grant, I want you to—”
“Wait.”
The silence beat against her ears. Gail found herself digging her fingers into the Quill-chair and fought the inane urge to apologize. If this was how she felt with the Quill on her wrist, she’d likely be having a tantrum without it.
A furious string of swear words rent the air. Gail stared up at Bob in shock. “What’s going on up there?” she cried, rising to her feet. “Grant? Tobo! Someone!”
“Dr. Smith. This is Tau. The commander is on the other comm, attempting to handle a—situation. If you would wait—”
“I will not.” Gail looked at Aaron. “What situation—tell us!”
Grant’s voice—sudden and hasty: “Gail—some of the ships are making a run for the planet. Warn Aaron and Susan! The Payette is moving to intercept . . . she’s got orders to protect the Quill entity.”
“What does that mean?” Aaron asked in a hoarse voice.
“The Payette is preparing to fire.”
Chapter 95
PREPARING to fire!
Pardell heard the words, part of him trying to translate the folly of humanity for the Susan-Quill, part of him reeling helplessly into images and battles past . . . imagining too well what could be happening . . .
... ships scattering to run from the cruiser like fish startled from a school . . . klaxons screaming—those still functional—Danger! Damage! Thieves! Each ship has one choice to be made in haste: one possible trajectory in the time given.
Some will choose wrong.
A fuel-heavy cruiser or nimble patrol dart can pick a prey. They can run it down, then perform a stop and turn with their perfectly functioning grav units—a maneuver that would kill everyone belowdecks on any other ship—in order to chase another. Theirs the luxury of cheating physics.
Some prey choose to pull closer to perceived neutrality, getting warn offs from the nervous Captain of the research ship, but risking collision to hide from threat. Proximity alarms sound in unison, the Seeker’s perhaps louder: Danger! Damage! Thieves!
Others hear a familiar, horrifying song. The line of Earth ships is one they’ve seen before and barely escaped. They turn and run, leap into translight too close to one another and the planet. Skill and the luck of fools prevents collisions. Nothing prevents the failure of overworked engines. Three ships go adrift, life support on emergency, their inhabitants helpless to do more than cling together and try not to breathe too often.
Seven run for the planet. Why that choice? The odds are better—they outnumber the blockade. Perhaps their captains are too young to have seen this before—perhaps they believe no human ship would fire on them to
protect a lie.
Do their ships appreciate irony?
Incoming transmission: Turn back. Pardell’s World is under quarantine to protect the Quill Entity from human interference. No one will be permitted to land until this ban is lifted.
Turn back or be destroyed.
Do ships know fear and uncertainty? Humans do. Three ships slow and obey, pick up a patrol dart as escort, limp back into higher orbit.
Four press their luck.
The Payette waits at the upper edge of atmosphere, huge, dark, unable to imagine a challenge from a garbage barge, two antique freighters, and one rental tow ship. She arms weapons. Intimidation.
They won’t stop, not with a verdant, living world so close. They can’t.
The Payette is struck by a garbage barge unable to make a final course correction to avoid her. As she shakes off the blow, the barge tumbles and burns its way into the atmosphere, only melted droplets reaching the soil.
Perceiving attack, the Payette’s autodefenses fire, obliterating the rental tow ship and one of the freighters.
The last ship survives, triumphantly riding its flame to the surface, passengers suddenly left to hope they were right and this flight would be to safety and a new life . . . and not death.
They were wrong.
... Pardell groped his way free from thoughts of ships, vacuum, and disaster. He fought to sort reality from his daydream, realizing he’d been processing information as it was being relayed from Seeker.
Realizing it was real. There was a ship on its way to the surface. Aaron fought to calm the Susan-Quill, fighting back fear and revulsion . . .
Countering with his grief . . .
Chapter 96
GAIL had retreated to the Athena again. She had full comm capability there.
And it distanced her from Aaron’s pain.
Not that she didn’t want to comfort him—had that been remotely possible. Not that she didn’t think he might need help communicating with Susan through the morass of emotions everywhere, including hers.
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