Chindi

Chapter 13

NEAR THE END of the third day, the Memphis slipped from the transdimensional mists and coasted back out into sublight space. They were well away from the local sun, which was a small yellow-orange main sequence star.

Hutch duly reported their arrival to Outpost. At about the same time, she was informed that the John R. Sentenasio, a survey yacht, had been dispatched to Point B. They would record everything they could about Safe Harbor, the moonbase, and the satellites. When they had completed their mission, they would be available to follow the Memphis, if there was a reason for them to do so.

She finished with her duties on the bridge and strolled down to mission control, where Pete had been trying once again to explain to George and the others that a planetary system was a big place, and that finding the associated worlds could take time. They’d apparently all agreed that this was so, but they nevertheless seemed to think that Hutch should be able to work miracles. I mean, that’s what all this super technology is for, right? But even planets weren’t easy to locate in those immense reaches. So her passengers became increasingly impatient when the first afternoon wore on into night, and then into a second day, with no results.

They didn’t even know what the system looked like. No one had ever been there before. Bill estimated a biozone between 75 and 160 million kilometers out, and that became their search area. The first object they identified, other than the sun, was a comet, inbound, its tail trailing millions of kilometers behind it.

While they waited, they played chess and bridge and hunted through the Lost Temple for the Crown of Mapuhr. And they grumbled at Bill, who took it all very well. “At this point,” he told George cheerfully, “it’s hit or miss. We just have to be patient.”

George complained about the AI’s good humor and asked whether Hutch couldn’t tune it down a bit. “Damned thing chatters on, drives me crazy,” he said.

Bill, who had to have overheard, did not respond. Later, when Hutch tried to reassure him, he commented that he understood about humans. He did not elaborate, and she did not press him.

“We have a target,” he reported near the end of the second night, meaning he had found a world in the biozone. “It’s on the inner edge, eighty million klicks out.”

They used another day and a half moving into position to intercept. Meanwhile, Bill located a second possibility. But it didn’t matter: As they slipped onto a line between the inner world and Point B, the speakers came alive.

KM 449397-II WAS a small world, not much bigger than Mars, but it had broad blue oceans and the continents were green and the skies were filled with cumulus.

A summer world. Diamond bright in the sunlight. Hutch could hardly bring herself to believe it. Almost every planet she had ever seen was sterile. It might have sunlight, and it might have broad blue seas, but inevitably nothing walked, or crawled, across its surface, or lived in its oceans. The overwhelming majority of worlds were quiet and empty.

Yet here, twice in the same mission, they had come across life. Not that much of it was left at Safe Harbor. Should have named it Hardscrabble.

George was beaming, watching the images on screen, his hands clasped behind his back like Nelson at the Nile.

Bill reported a stealth satellite. “I’ll scan for others,” he said. “I assume there will be two more.”

Mountain chains ranged everywhere. Volcanoes poured out smoke along the shore of an inland sea. Great rivers divided the land. There were storms and ice caps, and a blizzard worked its way down from the north. Two continents were visible, bathed in sunlight.

“It doesn’t look as if anybody lives there, though,” said Herman. “I don’t see any sign of cities.”

“We’re still too far out,” said Pete.

An hour later Hutch eased them into orbit and they approached the terminator and passed onto the night side.

And there they were! Not the rivers of light they’d hoped for, not London or Paris, but lights nonetheless. Scattered haphazardly across the face of the planet. They flickered, they were dim, and they were few in number.

Campfires. Oil lamps, maybe. Torches. But certainly no moving spotlights. No electrically illuminated rooftop restaurants.

Nonetheless, they were lights.

They stayed in mission control, doing nothing other than absorbing their good fortune, enjoying the warmth of success. Hutch was finally able to throw off the dark mood that had descended on her with the loss of the Condor. She walked among them, patting people on the back, trading toasts, exchanging embraces, and thoroughly enjoying herself. At one point she saw Tor looking at her longingly and she thought, Now’s the moment, took the initiative, and kissed him.

The Memphis moved back out into daylight. Over the continents and several chains of islands.

Hutch trained the telescopes on the ground and Bill put the results on-screen. Mostly, it was mountain and forest. Jungle near the equator. Broad plains in the north of both continents. Herds of animals on the flatlands, and lone beasts near the rivers.

“There,” said Alyx.

Structures! It was hard to make out the details. They seemed to coexist with prairies and forests, half-hidden by the landscape, rather than rising over it.

“Full mag, Bill,” Hutch said.

A harbor city appeared on-screen, unlike anything she had seen before. It appeared fragile, a place of light and crystal, a cluster of chess pieces, brilliant in the sunlight. Hutch noticed that no roads connected them. And no ships drifted in the harbor.

There were no aircraft, no sign of ground transportation. This society, whatever it was, did not seem to have access to power. And with that realization, she understood they had done nothing more than arrive at another relay point.

LIKE THE STRUCTURES that rose from them, the forests had a delicate appearance. No counterpart of the great northern oak was going to be found here, or of Nok’s ikalas, or of the iron-hard kormors of Algol III. Rather, these seemed to be the kind of woodlands Japanese artists might have designed, subtle, precise, fragile, suggestive of a spiritual dimension.

Here was a maple green palace straddling a ridge of hills, and there a pair of emery-colored buildings shaped like turtle shells. The imagers picked out a cliff dwelling, a group of balconies and windows carved in the living rock, looking out of the face of a precipice. And a series of gleaming glass mushrooms, lining both banks of a river.

They were curious structures. There seemed to be no means of ingress to the cliff city unless you’d brought your climbing gear. And no bridges crossed the river, connecting the buildings on either side.

They saw a tower rising out of the symmetry of vines and branches.

They weren’t sure at first. It might have been merely an odd grouping of trees or limbs, a natural cage of sorts, but it would have been a very large cage. They studied it. Bill extracted it from its surroundings, tried to strip the forest away. But it was anchored in the vegetation and you could not remove it any more than you could remove a cave from the side of a mountain. Bill turned it about, displayed it from every angle.

Here was a roof, and there a set of supports. It almost seemed to be constructed of branches and vines, wild in themselves, yet part of an overall design.

As Hutch watched, a large bird appeared in an alcove, spread enormous wings, and launched itself like a great swan into the sky.

“Bill,” she said.

The AI knew what she wanted. He magnified the image.

The swan wore clothing! A loose-fitting tunic was draped across near-human shoulders. It had limbs that might have been arms and legs. And it had a face. Its skin was light, and golden hair, or feathers, tumbled down its back. The wings were patterned in white and gold, and as they watched the creature soared to another level of another structure, alighted gracefully, and stepped out of view.

Alyx was first to make the obvious observation. “It looked like an angel,” she said.

A pair of the creatures appeared, and rose from the trees. They swirled gracefully around each other in an aerial dance with a vaguely sexual flavor.

“We’ve come to Paradise,” said Herman.

They were all gawking at the images and somebody said how by God it was the most beautiful place he’d ever seen and who would have believed it.

“How soon can we be ready to go down?” George asked.

Hutch hadn’t expected that such a moment would arrive, and she was caught off guard. She hadn’t considered what might happen if they actually found a set of aliens. It all seemed so preposterous.

“George,” she said, “let’s go up on the bridge for a minute.”

He frowned, and she knew he wanted no cautious advice, but he followed along. The others turned to watch, and Herman said, “Don’t be hard on him, Hutch. He means well.”

They all laughed.

“It’s not a good idea,” she said when they were alone.

“Why not?”

“We don’t know anything about these creatures. You don’t want to go barging in down there.”

“Hutch.” His voice suggested she needed to calm down. “This is why we came. Eleven people died to put us here. And you want me to, what, wave and go home?”

“George,” she said, “for all you know they could be headhunters.”

“Hutch,” he said soothingly, “they’re angels.”

“We don’t know what they are. That’s my point.”

“And we never will know until we go down and say hello.”

“George—”

“Look, Hutch, I hate to put it this way, but you’re one of the more negative people I know. Have a little faith in us.”

“You could get killed,” she said.

“We’re willing to take our chances.” They hadn’t made the bridge. They had in fact come to a stop outside the holotank. But they were alone so it didn’t matter. “Hutch, listen. We’re all doing something we’ve dreamed about for a lifetime. If we sit around up here and look at the pictures, and call somebody else in, it’s going to be like—.”

“—You backed off at the critical moment.”

“That’s right. That’s exactly right.” He pressed his fingers against his temples, massaged them, but never took his eyes from her. “I’m glad you understand.”

“I hope you understand that anyone who goes down there is putting his life on the line.”

He nodded. “Do you know what we’ve been doing all our lives? Making money. And that’s about it. Alyx, she’s been running glorified strip shows. Nick does funerals. Pete, of course, did Universe. Herman’s not that well-off, but it’s what his life is about. Every day he goes to a job he doesn’t like very much. Just to pay the bills. Ask him what he’s most afraid of. You know what he’ll tell you? You know what he told me once?”

Hutch waited.

“That he’d get to the end of his life and discover he hadn’t been anywhere.” His eyes bored into her. “Tor’s the exception. He was born into money. You know why he was at Outpost? Because he wants his work to be something more than wall hangings for rich people.”

Hutch thought she knew why Tor was out on that remote moon, and she didn’t believe it had much to do with wall hangings. But she let it go. “George,” she said, “you’re taking a terrible chance if you go down there. Don’t do it.”

“Captain,” he said, “I own the Memphis. I can order what I want. But I don’t want to do that. I’d like it very much if you tried to understand what this means to us. To all of us. Even if we were to lose somebody.” He shrugged. “Talk to anybody back there, and you’ll hear that this is why we came. And it’s all we really care about.”

She took a long moment, looked down the empty passageway. “The others feel the same way?”

“Yes.”

“Even Pete?”

“Especially Pete.”

She nodded. “What do you want from me?”

“Your permission.”

“You said it yourself. You don’t need it.”

“I want it anyhow.”

She took a long deep breath. “Damn you, George,” she said, “I won’t give it. The landing is too dangerous. Leave it to the professionals.”

He looked at her, disappointed. “I assume you’ll remain here.”

“No,” she said. “You need somebody riding shotgun.”

“Okay,” he said.

“I wish we had a shotgun.”

THERE WAS NO legitimate way she could stop them. If she refused to pilot the lander, they could have Bill take them down. She could direct Bill to refuse instructions from them, but George was the owner, and she really could not legally do that. Hell, maybe they were right. Maybe she was being overprotective. They were, after all, adults. If they wanted to be front and center when history was made, who was she to stand in the way?

She sent off a report, explaining what the ship’s owner proposed to do and recording her reservations. Then she collected her laser cutter (which was the closest thing the Memphis had to a weapon), and went down to the shuttle bay.

They were all there, ready to go. Tor, believe it or not, with his easel; Pete and George in earnest conversation; Nick, wearing a coat and tie, as though the occasion were formal; Herman, in black boots and carrying a connecting bar from—she thought—his bed, presumably in case defense was needed; and Alyx, in a jumpsuit, looking as good as the angels.

There was much of the atmosphere of a Sunday afternoon.

Alyx and Herman appeared a trifle wary. Brighter than the rest, she decided.

She reviewed the e-suits with them. There’d be no air tanks this time. The atmosphere, she explained, was oxygen-rich. “You’ll have a converter.”

“Could we live with the suit off?”

“For a while. But I don’t recommend it.” She passed out the converters, showed them how to clip them to their vests. “They’ll go on when the suit activates,” she explained. “You don’t have to do anything.”

They smiled back at her, a bit nervously, she thought. They’re not sure about this. Even George. But they’d committed themselves so they were stuck and nobody was going to back out. Hutch opened the lander hatch, and they climbed in. After everybody was seated, she closed up and opened a channel to the AI. “Bill,” she said.

“Yes, Hutch.”

“If we’re not back in twenty-four hours, and you haven’t heard anything to the contrary from me, take the ship home.” She felt the mood change around her. That was good. Just what she wanted.

“Yes, Hutch. May I ask how severe the danger is?”

“We’ve no idea.”

“I wish,” said George, who was beside her, “you wouldn’t play these games. We’re nervous enough.”

Yeah. “You have reason to be nervous, George,” she said.

He looked angrily at her, but he let it go.

Bill evacuated the air from the bay, and the launch doors opened. Her board went green, and they eased out of the spacecraft.

“I hadn’t thought this through very well, I guess,” said George. “But do we have a way to speak to them? So that they can hear us?”

“There’s a switch on the harness.” She showed him. “It’ll turn on a speaker for you.”

“Excellent.” He’d brought a pair of portable lamps and fabrics and a couple of electronic devices. “To use as gifts,” he explained.

“Going to trade with the natives,” said Alyx, amused at the prospect.

“Listen,” said George, “nothing to lose.”

“Hutch.”

She put the AI’s voice on the cabin speaker. “Yes, Bill?”

“There is another stealth. One-twenty degrees around the orbit from the first one. It seems to be the same arrangement as Safe Harbor.”

Pete leaned forward and signaled he wanted to talk to the AI.

“Go ahead,” said Hutch.

“Bill, are you looking for the second set?”

“Of satellites? Yes, I am, Pete. I will report when, and if, I find them.”

“It’s beginning to look,” said Tor, “as if what we really have is a group of interstellar busybodies.”

THE TEAM HAD decided on its landing site before leaving the Memphis. Two relatively small clusters of spires and minarets rose out of the middle of a plain, on opposite sides of a river, in the center of a Britain-sized island in the southern hemisphere. The river was wide and sleepy. No boat moved across its surface. There was no jetty, no beach on which swimmers might have gathered, no boat house, no buoy.

Well, thought Hutch, if I had a large pair of wings, I’d probably stay away from deep water myself. She wondered how they showered.

The sun was rising as they descended toward the twin settlements.

“There,” said Hutch, indicating her preference for a landing spot.

“That’s a long way from the populated area,” said Nick.

About six kilometers. She’d have preferred maybe twenty, but she knew George wouldn’t stand for it. Still, it was a decent site. The land was flat, they were well away from the foliage that grew in clusters, so nothing could come up on them without their seeing it.

“It’s good,” said George. “Do it.”

The lander descended through a few wisps of gray cloud into the clear early-morning air. There were no structures in the immediate area, and nothing moved.

They dropped gently to the ground.

Hutch pointed their scopes at the settlements and put the pictures on the displays. No one seemed to have noticed their arrival. The locals drifted undisturbed through the sky. Others lingered on open porches in the towers. An idyllic life, indeed.

Well, what else would you expect from angels?

Uh-oh.

“What, Hutch?”

Someone had apparently seen them come down. The towers had open decks at all levels. On one, across the river, several of the inhabitants had gathered. They looked excited. “And I do believe they’re pointing at us.”

George got out of his seat and started for the airlock. Fearless George. Probably felt he had to go first.

“Don’t forget your suit,” she said.

“Oh.” He grinned sheepishly, hit the controls, and pulled on his vest. She connected the converter for him, and for the others.

A few angels were in the air, approaching.

“Keep in mind,” she said, “the envelope is there to provide breathable air and climate control. It forms a hard shell around the face only. Otherwise it’s flexible. That means it won’t protect you from weapons. Somebody hits you with a rock, you’re going down.” She gazed around the cabin to assure herself everyone understood. “I’m going to match the cabin environment to the outside and just open up. That way, if we have to come back in a hurry, there’ll be no jam-up at the lock.

“I suggest you stay together, and don’t go more than a couple of steps from the lander. George, who’s going to hold the fort?”

George looked puzzled. “What do you mean?”

“Somebody stays inside, out of harm’s way. Just in case.”

He looked around for a volunteer. Looked finally at Alyx, but when she said nothing, Nick said he’d stay. Hutch got out of her seat and Nick eased into it. “Bill,” she said, “take direction from Nick.”

“Acknowledge.”

One of the creatures glided past and hovered momentarily over the lander. It was obviously female. Herman tried to get a better look. But he must have moved too quickly, and the thing soared away. Hutch thought it had seemed frightened. A second one settled to the ground. A male. His large white wings caught the sunlight, then folded smoothly behind him. There was no sign of weapons.

Pete had joined George at the lock, waiting for her to open up. She took the cutter out of her vest, showed it to George, and looked meaningfully at him. Last chance. His eyes slid away from her.

She tried to edge past him, but he squared his shoulders and blocked the way. “I think the men should be the first ones out.”

They were all watching the creature with a mixture of admiration and disquiet. If I can keep them in here a little longer, she thought, they might change their minds and back away.

But George had lost all patience, or maybe he wanted to get it over with. She opened the lock and looked out.

“He’s beautiful,” said Alyx.

He was indeed. Features neither entirely human nor avian, but an exotic blend of both. Golden eyes and tawny feathers and lean muscular limbs. And an enormous wingspread. Hutch was reminded of Petraska’s famous portrait of St. Michael.

His eyes were placed somewhat back, almost along the sides of the skull. He looked at them with curiosity, found her, and fastened his attention on her. She saw curiosity in that gaze, and intelligence. And something wild. Alyx was right: He was beautiful. But in the manner of a leopard.

His skull was slightly narrower than a human’s. He tilted his head in the way that parrots do when they’re trying to catch one’s attention. His lips parted in a half smile, and she thought she caught the glint of fangs. She fought down a chill—Don’t jump to conclusions—but pushed the stud on the cutter and felt power begin flowing through the instrument.

Alyx’s voice came from behind her. “Are we sure we want to do this, George?”

“Yes! My God, child, are you serious?”

A second angel swept in, another male, and the landing brought him half-running toward the lander. But he stopped and held out his hands, the way one might to indicate he is not carrying a weapon. Alyx had moved in directly behind Hutch. “He’s gorgeous,” she said. “They both are.”

She wondered if Alyx had seen the incisors.

Despite the wings they were clearly mammalian. They wore vests that revealed most of the upper body, and leggings that fell to the shins. But their lower limbs ended in claws, not feet.

Not quite so angelic, after all.

Hutch looked past George, who was shifting his weight, getting ready to leave the airlock. The ground was covered with soft, green grass. “I just noticed something,” she said.

“What?” asked Pete, as he joined her. He was holding a necklace in his left hand. A gift.

“There are no birds here anywhere.”

George climbed ponderously down. Pete and Hutch followed, moving out on either side. The gravity was probably only about 80 percent of a standard gee, but after the light one-quarter they’d been living in, it was a burden. George smiled and waved. The female swept past, arced back, and floated down, wings spread wide.

“I don’t think,” said George, “I understand what you’re trying to say.”

“Where are the birds?”

He sighed. “How would I know?” And then, to the angels: “Hello. Greetings from Earth.”

We come in peace.

Michael took a tentative step forward. He was only a few centimeters taller than she, a creature of impossible grace. The wind whispered across his wings. He was studying her again, his eyes connecting with hers, then traveling down her body and coming to rest at last on the cutter.

His lips parted, and she saw the beginning of an accusation in his glance. But then it dissolved into a smile. If the rest of them were like this bunch, she suspected, and if they were really friendly, interspecies relationships couldn’t be far off.

“They don’t seem at all scared of us,” said Tor, over the common channel.

Bill told them to be careful.

George stepped forward, past Hutch, and offered his hand. Michael raised a wing partway and let it settle again.

The second angel had dark blue feathers and dark eyes that one could almost have described as melancholy. His wings displayed a complex red-and-white pattern. Gabriel, possibly.

Pete held out the bracelet. It was cheap, silver-plated. But if you didn’t know better…

“Pete,” Hutch told him, “you’re getting too far from the lander.”

Herman stood in the open hatch, hesitating. Then he stepped down.

Still no birds. Maybe this world didn’t have birds. Was that possible? They’d been everywhere else, in one form or another, wherever large land animals had evolved.

Two more of the creatures landed, one male, one female.

The bracelet sparkled in the sunlight.

Gabriel’s eyes traveled from Pete to the bracelet to Hutch. Back to the bracelet. Hutch thought she detected contempt.

The angels spread out a few paces to either side.

Alyx was preparing to jump down from the lock. Tor, with his easel, was behind her.

“Stay put,” said Hutch, privately.

“Why?”

“Just do it.”

Gabriel took the bracelet. He turned and held it out for one of the females. She came forward, accepted it, frowned at it. What was it for?

Despite everything, despite the nobility of their appearance, despite the complete lack of any threatening gesture, despite the fact that she had begun entertaining lascivious ideas about both Michael and Gabriel, Hutch knew, absolutely knew, something was wrong.

Two more appeared over the river, circled the lander, and started down. They were starting to draw a substantial crowd.

“Give me wings like that,” Alyx said, “and no male would be safe on the streets at night.”

Touchingly modest, thought Hutch. The woman hardly needed wings.

Michael raised his right hand, palm out, and spoke. A few words, delivered in a rich baritone. She could almost understand the words. Thank you. Or Hello. Welcome to Paradise.

One of the females was edging around, trying to get an angle on the open hatch.

“Hutch,” demanded Alyx, “what’s going on?”

“I don’t know yet. Just stay in the lander.”

The female advanced a few paces, covering about half the ground between the lander and Pete, who had taken Gabriel’s hand and was shaking it. Old friends, well met. Pete was considerably bigger than the angel.

Herman must have sensed it too. He moved up and stood beside Hutch.

All of the angels seemed unobtrusively to be closing in. Hutch noticed that Pete was cut off from the airlock. She retreated a step to get her back to the lander. “Heads up, Pete,” she said.

He actually turned and smiled pleasantly at her. Don’t worry. Everything’s under control. These are friends. It was as far as he got.

Gabriel’s smile widened and Hutch saw the incisors again. They sank into Pete’s throat while one of the females jumped him from behind. Michael went for George, who, in the time-honored tradition of amateur adventurers, froze. Herman trundled past her and threw himself into the struggle.

The female that had gotten between Hutch and the airlock showed her a set of claws, smiled, and flew at her. Hutch went down as another one glided past, trying to get at the airlock.

It all happened with blazing speed. The angels had acted simultaneously, as if some signal had passed among them, much the way birds seem to leave a stand of trees at the same moment. Hutch’s cutter blinked on and she drove the beam into her attacker’s midsection as the creature tried to claw her. It screamed and went down in a fury of feathers and shrieks.

Hutch rolled it away, got a quick glimpse of more fangs, jabbed upward and missed. It was Gabriel, and it gasped and swiped at her with long talons. She got lucky: they hit the hard shell that covered her face, and she swung the laser with everything she had. It took off parts of wing and shoulder and bit into its neck. A dark brown liquid spurted out. It screamed and leaped into the air.

Herman yanked Michael off George. It turned on him and raked him. Hutch rammed the cutter into one of its legs as Herman collapsed.

Because she possessed the sole weapon, Hutch quickly became the focal point of the battle. She swung the laser blade with deft precision, discovering to her surprise that she enjoyed slashing the sons of bitches. Every time the weapon struck home, biting through flesh and blood, she knew an exhilaration quite apart from any emotion she’d felt before. The air was filled with shrieks and screams.

George staggered to his feet, covered with blood. Herman was bleeding from a dozen wounds. George saw him and bellowed with rage. The angels were all smaller than he, and lighter, and they went after him as he tried to go to Herman’s aid. He landed a series of furious punches on one. It bit down on his arm and hung on while he hammered it into unconsciousness, then shook it off, let it fall, and turned to go after the others.

But he was dazed. Hutch got to his side and drew him back. “Don’t be an idiot. Get to the airlock.”

She gave him a push and turned to help Herman. He lay still while the creatures clawed him, trying unsuccessfully to get through the Flickinger field. Hutch took a wing off one and the others came for her. Nick’s voice howled in her ear: “They’re killing Pete. My God, Hutch, they’re savages.”

Yes, they are. Pete was trying to fight off two attackers. He screamed as they took turns tearing at him. Inside his e-suit, blood oozed out of a dozen wounds. Briefly, his eyes met hers. It was a ghastly moment, the one she would carry out of the battle and never forget. Then, before she could get to him, he was down.

The sky seemed filled with wings and claws. Hutch was trying to fight her way forward, but something caught her shoulder, raked her, and Alyx’s voice sounded on the link, “Don’t, Hutch.” Almost hysterical: “You can’t help him.”

Dammit, Hockelmann. I told you this would happen. She saw that George had a clear run at the airlock. Then the thing on her back was trying to get at her throat and saliva dripped out of its mouth. My God, it was Michael, who had looked so handsome moments before. She twisted around, hit him with the heel of her left hand, and drove the blade through his shoulder. He screamed and broke free and she went down, rolled over, and whipped the weapon against his thigh. He howled, gave her an outraged look, and fluttered off.

Pete was gone and she got up and charged the spot where he’d been while Alyx cried No, no, don’t do it. One of the things tried to get the cutter out of her hand and there was a brief frantic struggle, claws around her wrist, claws at her back, an arm around her throat. Then Tor was there and she was free again, still wielding the weapon, look out, she almost took out Tor, and they were backing toward the lander.

The things retreated a bit, gave them room. Behind them, Nick and Alyx dragged George inside, out of harm’s way.

One of the males got to Alyx, grabbed her by an arm. Wings beating furiously, it tried to wrestle her out of the airlock. Tor hit it with a wrench. Hit it again. Alyx spilled onto the ground. It was struggling with Tor when Hutch arrived. She jumped onto the ladder, brought the cutter down through a calf, slicing off a claw. More shrieks. And more brown blood fountaining. She slashed it again, and the thing let go and, pumping its wings furiously, rose into the sky, where one of its fellows attacked it.

Alyx was on her feet, climbing back up. Tor seized her wrist, and boosted her into the airlock. Hutch tumbled in behind her. Someone grabbed her arm and pulled her into the cabin. She heard the hatch close.

“No,” she cried, “Herman and Pete are still out there.”

“Doesn’t matter anymore.” Tor’s voice trembled. They could hear the things clawing at the hull, jamming knives into the windscreen, trying to pry it loose. Alyx took the cutter away from her and turned it off. “Bill,” said Nick, “take us up.” Blood ran down his face and arm.

“Acknowledge,” said Bill. The lander trembled as the engines came on. And it began to rise. The commotion outside became even more frenzied.

THEY RETURNED TO the Memphis to repair the wounded. Hutch and George were both clawed and gouged. They submitted to Bill’s patchwork ministrations, then took tranks and went to bed. When they were safely out of the way, Tor and Nick, against Alyx’s protests, took the lander back down, landed after dark, and recovered the bodies. They’d been hacked mercilessly and left by the river. Their Flickinger fields glowed when the lamplight hit them.

They were approaching the Memphis on the return flight when Bill’s voice came over the link. “I did not want to disturb Captain Hutchins,” he said. “But I thought someone should know. I found the other ring.”

Neither Tor nor Nick had any idea what he was talking about. “What’s the other ring, Bill?”

“Three more stealths. There’s another relay. Another outbound signal.”