“If, on the other had, the war has caused significant destruction, space-faring capabilities may be severely affected. Even so, I believe they will come here, for the same reason. With the exception of the planet inhabited by the Lucien, Earth is the closest livable world. And we, the survey team, have already established a base here. In addition, we are a team of scientists in all the major disciplines one would need to help build a civilization. A destructive war will remind everyone of the importance of having colonies elsewhere, and Earth is the natural choice. I can imagine some of the more militant religionist groups already planning a trip here.
“If it’s the first scenario, I would guess a maximum of ten years for rescue to arrive,” the Engineer said. “This would allow time for the space agencies to regroup and get back up to speed. And we should receive further communication as things on Herrod return to normal. If it’s the second scenario, however, it could be quite a while before others arrive here. Maybe as many as a hundred years for society to recover and a mission to be mounted.”
“In essence, then, you’re agreeing with me,” the Captain said. “We need to prepare ourselves. We need ways of living here indefinitely. As several of you point out, there may still be further communication from Herrod. The next few years will show us, one way or another. Is there anyone here who disagrees that we should take precautions against the possibility that we are stranded—at least for the foreseeable future?”
He looked around the table. The faces of the others were motionless. He no longer had their undivided loyalty, but they agreed with him because there was nothing to do but agree.
“Very well, then. It’s late. We’ll adjourn for the evening. In the morning, we’ll begin realistic planning.”
The others nodded, everyone feeling tired now, tired and numb. Nothing was certain any longer.
CHAPTER 17
Present Day
Pruit was strapped to the control chair of the landing pod, studying the screens and dials that lined the circular chamber. She was hurtling through space on a trajectory that had sent her from Jupiter to Earth in a single week. The pod had launched itself off from orbit around Jupiter and achieved full acceleration within an hour. Pruit and Central had devised the vector so the pod would appear as a meteorite thrown off by Jupiter and traveling at a steady speed in the direction of Earth.
The pod was oddly shaped. The bottom, or front, half of the ship was spherical. To this sphere was appended a cylinder on which were mounted the fusion propulsion jets. Pruit’s seat and control panels were inside the sphere. The space was just large enough for her to stand up, though there was nowhere to stand, for the chair took up almost all available space. If she stretched her arms out in either direction, the walls were just beyond her reach. The only light came from the screens, which gave off green and red glows.
The pod had originally been fitted with two chairs that sat back to back. She had modified it, during her six months in orbit, to accommodate a single chair that rotated in a full circle and provided her access to all controls.
She was wearing her red fullsuit, an outfit of thick material designed to monitor her body and repair it if that were necessary. Inside the suit were dozens of bioarms working in symbiotic relationship with her body’s organs. The gloves of the fullsuit hung at the edges of her cuffs and could be flipped up with a touch on the suit’s control flap at her chest. There was a hood behind her neck that could also be flipped into place. The suit was connected to the pod’s biosystem and took care of Pruit’s body waste and nutrition needs during the week-long trip.
Pruit had closed live radio contact with Central when she launched the pod. The increasing time delay of transmissions from the pod to the ship made communication irrelevant, and radio silence helped her avoid detection from Earth stations. She was keeping a voice log for Central, however, in accordance with mission procedure, and this was periodically compressed and sent back to the ship in short, nearly undetectable bursts.
“Central, I am in Earth’s gravitational field,” Pruit reported as she watched the screens.
Her only views of the outside were through the monitors spread out around her. She watched the visual approach screen, where, in schematic, she could see the pod approaching Earth at an angle that would send her skimming across the upper atmosphere and gradually bleeding off speed, just as a meteorite might do.
“Central, approaching point of contact with atmosphere,” she said. She rotated in the chair and checked another monitor. Central had carefully mapped all known pieces of debris in orbit around Earth. This information had been freely broadcast and was not difficult to come by, but Pruit was concerned. The volume of space junk was high, and there could easily be items that were unrecorded. So far, however, the pod had not picked up any unaccounted-for motions.
She watched the approach and checked the monitors that oversaw the exterior skin of the ship. The pod began to vibrate as it pierced the thin layers of the upper atmosphere, and the skin heated up. But the monitors reported that all factors were within expected limits.
“Atmosphere entered. I am beginning my descent.”
She looked again at the map of her approach. The pod would make one long curve through the atmosphere, blazing from friction, then drop straight down the last five miles in a braking maneuver that would land her in the open desert to the west of Cairo.
The pod shook more violently as it began to lose altitude. Far below on Earth, she was passing over Asia, then the Pacific. The shaking lessened, became rhythmic. The ocean was down there, but Pruit could not see it, only a somewhat geometrical representation of it on one of her screens.
She crossed over the coastline of North America, crossed over the border of night and day, and suddenly, there was an alarm. She swiveled in her chair to look at a proximity monitor. There was a low-orbit satellite moving from its projected course. It was being repositioned, perhaps, and it was moving very quickly. Pruit’s careful approach line had skimmed very close to the satellite, and now there was almost no room to maneuver. She pounded her hands into the putty controls, forcing the pod to skip to one side. It was too late. There was a grazing impact, a crash of metal against the hull, and the ship began to spin.
She was knocked sideways in the chair and felt her body strain against the straps. The chair spun to one side, and she tried to right it as the pod heaved. She grabbed the control panel with both hands to steady her position.
“Central, impact with pod!”
She scanned the monitors. The satellite had hit the back thrusters. And what about the fusion pile? She scrambled to get data, clutching the control panel as the pod spun and lurched unpredictably. Then there was a rending screech in the cylinder at the back of the ship. It was followed immediately by an explosion.
Pruit was thrown forward onto the panel, the wind knocked out of her by the straps. She felt blood in her mouth and saw red splashed across the monitor. The pod had begun a crazy spiral motion. It was not keeping course. It jerked and spun, and Pruit lost her grip and was thrown back into the chair, which twisted away.
She caught herself with one leg and forced the chair back into position. She kicked down on a lever and locked it into place. She found the propulsion screen and studied it. The impact had compromised the casing on the fusion pile, weakening it. And then the pile had blown.
She punched at the putty control pad and brought up a schematic. On it she could see that the whole left side of the propulsion system had been knocked loose. The pod was out of control. She would have to disengage that bracket and make do with the two remaining firing systems. Gripping the panel with one hand, she punched the orders to release the propulsion bracket.
Blue warning lights sprang up across the panel indicating that the pod could not comply with her request.
“Disengage, by all that lives!” Pruit yelled in frustration. She hit the sequence again, and still, the pod would not comply.
She was wildly off course. The pod continued to buck a
nd spiral, and now Pruit felt heat seeping into the ship. The pile had melted the outer layer of skin, and the heat was penetrating the pod. She felt the fullsuit kick into action to protect her.
“Disengage!” she yelled again, pounding the sequence. Nothing. The bracket must have fused to the ship. She could imagine the back end of the pod. The skin was scorched and attempting to regrow, but the heat of the exploded pile was too great. The new skin was burned even as it was formed.
She would have to disengage it manually. Pruit detached her fullsuit from the ship, then pressed the release on her harness and was immediately thrown out of the chair. She hit a set of panels and was thrown again. The fullsuit was too bulky for movement within the tiny pod; she could not get purchase to hold herself still.
She ripped open the flaps of the suit and kicked it off, falling sideways as she did so. The bioarms were yanked from her body as the suit slid off. She was thrown again, hitting her head against the ceiling. But her hands found one of the handgrips along the upper part of the chamber. Above her was the cylinder. At the end of the cylinder was the manual lever for the propulsion bracket.
It took a moment for Pruit to realize that her hand was burning. The handgrip was far too hot to touch. The whole cylinder was billowing with heat, and now her fullsuit was off. She pulled her undershirt down over her hands and gripped two handgrips, one on either side of the cylinder opening.
The ship bucked, and she lost grip with one hand. She swung through the air to hit the wall above the main control panel. She kicked out from the wall and grabbed hold again. Her hand was bare now, and the metal scorched her. It no longer mattered. The pod was plummeting off course. In minutes she might be plunging into the ocean. She grabbed tightly onto both handgrips and swung her feet up into the cylinder. She could feel the heat on her skin, burning her.
Her legs landed against the cylinder wall.
“Great life!” she screamed in pain, as the whole side of her left leg was burned. She pushed harder with her arms, forcing more of her body up into the cylinder. She could see the lever, though the air around it was shimmering with heat. Her skin was burning. She kicked at the lever. And missed. She pushed herself up farther with her arms and kicked again. Her foot hit the lever, but it did not budge.
She screamed and kicked it again and again, forcing the lever into motion. It was partially fused, but her foot connected with it over and over, and finally, she could hear it creak.
“Ten lifetimes cursed, you will disengage!”
She kicked it a final time and felt it give. There was a long, low, moaning sound as the bracket, freed of the its hold on the ship, ripped itself away.
Pruit let go of the handgrips and fell six feet back down into the sphere. She landed half on the chair and half on the control panel. Her body was crying with pain, but she could feel that the pod had steadied.
Her hands and legs were blistering as she pulled herself upright. It felt as though her right foot were broken. Probably it was.
She scanned the monitors, feeling her body starting to give out. She thought of her mother and father and Makus back home on Herrod, and the domed cities, and the wasteland that stretched around them. And she thought of the Lucien, efficiently putting their plan of annihilation into action, the years clicking by, heading inexorably toward their attack.
“I will see this through,” she said aloud, and the sound of her own voice gave her strength. “I will see this through.”
She was off course, but the two remaining propulsion systems were still operable. She sank her hand into the putty, ignoring the pain of this action, and quickly computed a new course. She would not make her original target. She requested that the pod computer get her as close as it could.
She turned to check the other systems. The outer skin of the pod was badly damaged. It appeared the whole cylinder was stripped. The navigational capabilities, however, were still functioning. Then she saw another cluster of warning lights. The braking system. She swiveled in the chair, feeling pain shoot up her legs, and looked at another screen.
The brakes were gone.
“No…no!”
She reset the control panel, and two of the lights extinguished, indicating that the brakes were not completely inoperable. There was still some minimum function. If she programmed the pod correctly, there might be enough brakes to land her within the limits of physical tolerance.
She glanced back at the approach monitor and saw that the pod was over the Atlantic Ocean. She was losing altitude quickly. The new approach vector showed her arriving in Africa. It was impossible to compute exactly where.
She set the new braking function. There were only a few minutes left before the pod entered final stage and she plummeted down to land.
The pod began to fill with biofluid. It quickly pooled on the floor and began to rise. The landing would be so rough she would need the fluid to act as a buffer on impact. Pruit hauled herself out of the chair and grabbed at her fullsuit. She would need it to survive this landing. She pulled the suit toward her, feeling the burnt skin on her hands lacerate as she did so.
She lifted a foot and pushed it into the suit. The pain was excruciating, but the bioarms were already growing out to repair her. She lifted her other leg but was thrown from the chair before she could complete the motion.
With a jolt, the pod had switched to final landing phase. She was beginning a freefall to the ground below. The biofluid was up to her knees now. She clutched at the fullsuit and forced her other leg inside. She could feel the bioarms gently penetrating her skin, and there was immediate relief. But the pod had begun to rock. The brakes were uneven, firing out of synch, and the ship bounced erratically. She could not steady herself to pull the suit on.
The biofluid passed her waist level and began to crawl up her chest. Without the suit on she would not be able to breathe. She managed to get her left arm inside the sleeve. Then she was thrown out of the chair and against the wall.
The biofluid was around her neck now. She was floating to the top of the pod. Her right arm flailed, trying to find the other sleeve. The fluid reached the top of the sphere. Pruit was being floated up toward the cylinder where waves of heat were boiling down at her. She could not go up there. She took a deep breath of hot air and dove under the biofluid. She got hold of the loose side of the suit. Above her, the biofluid filled the cylinder. There was no more free air in the pod.
I will not die here! she screamed in her mind. I will not die here! I will find the Eschless Funnel, and I will see my home again!
She felt the final reverse thrust of the brakes. There were only moments left. Her right arm was still loose. Her head was uncovered. She could not breathe.
Impact. The pod hit the ground hard, and Pruit felt the shock wave of the sudden stop pass through the fluid and through her body. But the brakes had worked well enough to save her. She felt a stab of pain in her left leg and realized that it had been slammed hard into the edge of a control panel. It felt like it was broken. She was swimming in biofluid, and her lungs cried for air.
She grabbed at the hatchway below the cylinder. The wheel mechanism would not turn. Her chest was burning. She would have to take a breath. Even if it meant she would die, she would have to take a breath.
I will not die here!
She tugged harder, using the last ounce of strength left in her body, and she felt the wheel give. Slowly, the hatch opened a crack, and she could see the biofluid pouring out. She kicked the hatch with her right knee, the only part of her legs that remained functional, and forced it all the way open.
The biofluid poured out of the pod, carrying her with it. She felt another impact as her body hit the ground outside. Pain rushed over her again, hot and electric. Her lungs gasped for air. It seemed as though she had no control of them. The biofluid poured onto her as it drained from the ship, and she inhaled it along with the air. She crawled forward, out of the deluge, gasping and coughing.
“I’m alive,” she breathed. Her
hands gripped the grass and soil below her. Then her vision clouded and blackness swept over her.
She had arrived on Earth.
CHAPTER 18
The boy was tall, with broad shoulders and dark-brown skin. His face might have been beautiful if it hadn’t been warped into affectation by his current profession. He wore loose pants that reached down to mid-calf and a tank top that showed off his admirable shoulders and arms. A small gold cross hung around his neck. He shaved his head regularly, and there was now black, quarter-inch stubble sticking up from his scalp. His features were classic African, beautiful and a little bit wild. But he had not been born in Africa. He had grown up in poverty in Paris and had come to Cairo three years before, when he was fifteen.
The Mechanic noticed none of these things as he followed the boy up the narrow, curving staircase that led into the depths of a tenement building in a decaying slum section of Cairo. He did not care where the boy was from nor how he had come here. He had chosen him for his strong, young build and nothing more.
“This way,” the boy said as they reached a tiny landing. He led the Mechanic into a low hallway that smelled of urine and had garbage strewn about in the corners. It was nighttime, and there were no lights in the hall, but a streetlamp outside partially illuminated the space through an open window frame. The building was like every other on its street, a five- or six-story pile of brick and mortar and cracking plaster that had never been fully finished, for the government taxed real estate owners only when their buildings were complete. From its upper story raw steel bars poked upward between a forest of makeshift television antennas.
The Mechanic felt nauseated as the smells from inside and outside washed over him. “It doesn’t matter; it doesn’t matter,” he muttered. “This won’t take long.”
“What did you say?” the boy asked, turning his head and looking at the Mechanic flirtatiously.