Flight of Exiles

13

Dan knew it was a nightmare, yet it still had him terrified.

He was running, or trying to. He seemed to be caught in some thick syrupy liquid that made all his motions languidly slow. Something was roaring behind him, getting louder, catching up to him. When he tried to look over his shoulder, all he could see was a giant pair of hands reaching for him.

He tried to run faster, but couldn’t. The roaring became ear-shattering. Lightning crashed and the hands grabbed at him, caught him, bore him down, pushed him under, beat at him, pummeled him. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t even scream—

He woke up, wide-eyed and drenched with sweat, trembling. Half a meter above his face was the curving ceiling of the underground shelter. In the bunk below him he could hear Cranston snoring lightly. The hum of electrical machinery was the only other sound, beside his own throbbing pulsebeat.

The wind had died!

Dan pushed himself up to a sitting position, and his back muscles screamed agony. For a moment he was dizzy. Forcing both the pain and faintness down, he swung his legs slowly over the edge of the bunk and slid down to the plastic flooring. The jolt when his feet hit the floor sent a fresh spark of pain shooting through him.

He shook Cranston awake.

“Huh … whuzzit…”

“I think the storm’s over,” Dan said. “You try the radio while I get suited up.”

Cranston swung out of the bunk slowly. For a long moment he sat on its edge, head drooping tiredly.

“What… how… what time’s it?”

Dan glanced at his wristwatch. It was set on ship time. “We must’ve slept more than twelve hours. Come on, try the radio.”

“How d’you feel?” Cranston asked as he pulled himself to his feet.

“Black and blue all over. Otherwise okay.”

“It’s this damned gravity.”

Cranston shuffled over to the little desk that bore the communications transceiver, minus viewscreen. As he flicked it on and started talking into the speaker, Dan pulled on the one usable pressure suit they had left.

By the time Dan was checking the seal of his helmet, he could hear Cranston saying, “No use. Can’t get through to them. No answer.”

“Interference from the storm?”

The computerman shook his head. “Not much static. Just silence. I don’t think this set has enough muscle to reach the ship without the main antenna and the amplifier up in the tent.”

Dan said nothing. He clumped to the airlock, stepped through it, and shut the inner hatch. The airlock cycled through, pumping all its air into storage tanks, then flashed the green “all clear” light.

Dan reached up and unsealed the outer hatch. He pushed it upward, and a fine powder of yellowish sand and ash trickled down onto his faceplate.

Stepping up the rungs of the metal ladder set into the airlock’s wall, Dan pushed the outside hatch all the way open and stuck his head up above the opening.

The camp looked as if it had been bombed. The tent was completely gone, not a shred of it left. The desks and consoles and other gear from inside the tent were nowhere in sight, either. Nothing there but the plastisteel foundation, and even that was buried under several centimeters of powdery sand and ash.

The sky overhead was gray now, sullen-looking. The clouds were high, but moving with great speed. Dan turned stiffly with the suit and tried to look in all directions. No break in the clouds anywhere: gray from horizon to horizon.

The refinery was a complete shambles. The big cylinders and spheres were cracked open, blackened and burned. Not much to salvage from it, Dan realized. He knew he should have been glad just to be alive, but somehow he felt terribly dejected, defeated, let down.

The communications mast was gone, of course. So were most of the trees. The grass was still there, though, poking through the sand and ash, its cheerful yellow strangely incongruous in the somber scene of destruction.

Dan stepped down the ladder again, lowering the hatch after him. He sealed it, set the airlock to recycling again; the native sulfurous air was pumped outside, the breathable air that had been stored away hissed out of the tanks and filled the tiny airlock once again. When the light flashed green, Dan opened the inner hatch and stepped back into the main area of the shelter.

He took off his helmet. It felt as if it weighed a ton.

Cranston was still seated in front of the radio. “No response. We can’t reach them.”

“They can’t see us, either,” Dan said grimly. “Cloud deck’s still covering us.”

“Isn’t there any way we can tell them we’re here? Can’t they spot us with radar or infrared or something?”

Dan plopped on the lower bunk and reached for the zips on his suit legs. “Radar won’t tell them if we’re alive or not. But if we could make a big enough hot spot, IR might pick it up—”

“A hot spot. With what?”

Dan shrugged. “I don’t think we’ve got anything bigger than the suit lasers. That won’t do.”

“Uhmm…” Cranston started to look concerned. “How much air and water do we have?”

“We pull our oxygen out of the planet’s air,” Dan answered. “Clean out the sulfur and other gunk so we can breathe it. That’s not problem. Water, though … our water purification gear was all topside. It’s gone—There’s probably not more than a couple days’ worth in here.”

“And how long will the clouds cover us?”

Dan shrugged. “Maybe we ought to try to figure out how to make a big hot spot.”

Larry was pacing back and forth along the bridge, followed by Joe Haller and Guido Estelella. The technicians working the various consoles kept their faces turned very carefully to their work.

“But you can’t let them sit down there without even trying to pick them up!” Haller was shouting.

Larry whirled and pointed to one of the viewscreens. It showed nothing but gray cloud scudding across the planet’s face.

“There’s absolutely no evidence that they’re still alive,” he snapped back, lower-keyed but still with an edge of anger to his voice. “You want me to risk our only qualified pilot and our only landing shuttle on the chance that they might have survived the storm?”

“Hell yes!”

“I’m willing to try it,” Estelella said.

Larry shook his head. “We have no idea of what conditions are like under those clouds. The whole surface could be buried under tons of volcanic ash.”

“We have other landing shuttles,” Haller insisted. “You can order them taken out of the storage depot and reassembled.”

“Can I replace our one qualified astronaut?” Larry demanded.

“But he’s volunteered to go!”

“No.” Larry pushed past Haller and started pacing the bridge again.

Haller followed doggedly. “You’re killing two men!”

“They’re already dead,” Larry said. “We’d have heard from them by now if they were still alive. The storm’s been over nearly two days.”

“Their communications gear might’ve been damaged. They could be hurt, trapped in wreckage…anything.”

Larry countered, “Nothing survived that storm. You saw the electrical signals we were getting from the lightning. Like a continuous sheet of flame. The wind speeds were right off the scale of our meteorological instruments. Those clouds are still moving at fifty kilometers an hour. How do we know what the wind and weather conditions are like under the clouds?”

Haller’s shoulders slumped. “How much longer are the clouds suppose^) to last?”

“Nobody knows,” Larry said. “They’re coming from the chain of volcanoes on the other side of the sea. It might end in a few hours or a few weeks. Nobody knows.”

“So we’re just going to sit here and wait.”

“That’s all we can do.”

Haller looked as if he wanted to say something more, but instead he turned abruptly away from Larry and marched off the bridge. Estelella stood there for a puzzled moment, then, with a shrug, he walked off too.

Larry turned to the viewscreens showing the planet’s surface. Gray clouds covered almost everything. He shook his head. They’re dead, he told himself. They must be dead.

But if they’re not, he knew, you’re killing them.

Abruptly, he went over to one of the technicians and said; “I’m leaving the bridge. Take over for me.”

The girl looked up at him, surprised, “Where will you be?”

“You can reach me on the intercom. Page me, if you need me.”

Larry ducked through the doorway into the corridor that connected to his office. He hesitated for just a moment, then entered the compartment. Without bothering to slide the door shut, he went to the phone and punched it on savagely.

“Get Valery Loring here, right away.”

The computer’s voice said calmly, “Working.”

Valery appeared at his door ten agonized minutes later.

Larry was still fidgeting beside his desk when she arrived.

“You sent for me?”

He wanted to reach out and hold her. Instead, he said flatly, “They think I want to kill Dan.”

“Who does?”

Larry saw his hands flutter angrily. “Haller, Estelella, the whole damned crew on the bridge, for all I know.”

Standing uncertainly by the door, Valery said, “Do you want to kill him?”

“No! Of course not! What kind of a question is that?”

“Then why are you afraid of what they think?”

“You don’t understand,” he said quietly. “None of you understands at all.”

“Understands what, Larry?”

“I’m the Chairman. Can’t you see what that means? I have to decide. Me. My decision. Life or death. I have to decide on sending Estelella down there… maybe getting him killed. Or forcing him to stay aboard the ship while we can’t tell for certain what the surface conditions are. And that’ll probably kill Dan, if he isn’t dead already.”

“There’s still no word from him?”

“Nothing. We’ve been scanning the area with every instrument we’ve got. No indication that they survived. Nothing at all.”

“They could be in the shelter.”

“I know.” He pulled out the desk chair and sank into it.

Valery remained standing by the door.

“I have to decide,” Larry repeated.

“Does Estelella want to try a landing?” she asked.

“Yes. But it’s my decision to make, not his.”

“I know. I wish there was some way I could help you.”

“Nobody can help.”

She took an uncertain step into the tiny office. “Larry … what do you want to do?”

He stared at her. The answer was obvious to him. “I want to send Estelella down there and see if they’re still alive. Do you think I want to kill Dan?”

She said, “I think you want to do what’s right, but you’re letting your responsibilities as Chairman get in the way of your best judgment.”

“But suppose he wrecks the shuttle? Suppose he’s killed trying to land? We don’t know very much about the conditions down there—”

“He volunteered to try,” Val answered. “You want to try it. Even if he’s killed, at least you’ll both have tried. It’s better than sitting around and doing nothing, isn’t it? If you don’t try, we know Dan will die. But if you do try…”

He nodded unhappily. “You’re right… they all know…”

“There’s something that I know,” Valery said.

“What is it?”

“I know that no matter what’s happened … or what’s going to happen … you’d never willingly hurt anyone. Not even Dan.”

“He… he was my best friend. We were all friends, once.”

“A million years ago.” Val’s voice was faint and distant.

Larry took a deep breath. Standing, he said, “All right, we’ll try it. But I’m riding down with Estelella myself.”

Valery didn’t seem surprised. “There’s no need for that. You don’t have to prove anything. Not to me or anyone else.”

“No, I want to do it.”

“But you can’t. You’re the Chairman. And besides, you’d only be wasting valuable mass and space aboard the shuttle.

There’s nothing you can do to help… except to make the right decision.”

Dan was standing out on the surface in the protective suit. His face was haggard, with several days’ worth of dark scrubby beard mottling his chin. His mouth was caked and dry.

He was staring at the sea, only a few hundred meters from the wrecked base, where he stood. The waves were lapping up softly, sliding up onto the sandy beach. He could walk out there and be waist-deep in the water…

Can’t drink it, he was telling himself. It’s gat to be purified. The contaminants in it will kill you.

“Another few hours,” he mumbled, his voice thick and raspy, “and it won’t make any difference what’s in the water. We’ll have to try it.”

Cranston was back in the shelter, in his bunk, paralyzed by the fear of dying. Dan found that he couldn’t stand being in the cramped little shelter with him. It was better up here on the surface, even though he had to stay inside the suit. H is own body smell was getting overpowering, though.

He almost smiled. Larry’s going to get his way, after all. lean just see him. Death-planet, he’ll call it. Too dangerous. Got to move on. The smile faded. He’s going to make sure we die.

A distant crack of thunder and its following rumble made him look up. Another storm? No, the sky looked the same as it had for the past three days: gray, completely overcast, but not stormy. The wind was so light that he couldn’t notice it except as a gentle swaying of the grass.

Dan looked up again. And blinked. There was a white streak etching across the clouded sky. A thin white line. A contrail!

If he could have jumped inside the heavy suit, he would have. He wanted to leap up and down, to dance, to shout.

Instead he stood rooted to the spot, watching as the streak swung around overhead. He could make out the tiny arrowhead form of the shuttle rocket now. It grew, took on solidity. The sweetly beautiful roar of the craft’s auxiliary turbo engines came to him, even through the helmet and earphones. The ship banked smoothly, raced low across the water and came up toward him, landing wheels out. It touched down with a puff of dust, rolled past the ruined base.

Dan stood there motionless as the shuttle craft taxied around, nosed back toward the base and edged slowly “toward him, engines screeching and blowing up a miniature sandstorm of dust and ash behind it.

Then the roar died away. The bubble canopy popped open and a pressure-suited figure stood up.

In sudden realization, Dan reached for the radio switch on his belt.

“…just stand there, will you? Say something, wave, do something! What’s the matter, are you frozen?”

“I’m okay,” Dan croaked, his voice sounding strange and harsh, even to himself. “Just… thirsty.”

“You’re alive!” It was Estelella’s voice, and there was no missing the elation in it. “Don’t move… I’ve got plenty of water with me. Be right there.”

If Dan had still had enough moisture in his body, he would have cried for joy.

They celebrated that night.

Nearly everyone on the ship, all those who weren’t absolutely needed on duty, gathered in the cafeteria and ate and drank and sang together. Dan had to fight off the determined medical insistence of the whole infirmary staff, but he made the scene too. In a wheelchair.

“It’s my party, dammit!” he shouted at them.

For the first time in months, Dan, Valery, and Larry found themselves at the same place, even at the same table. And for a few hours, it was almost like old times. No one mentioned Larry’s reluctance to send a ship down to the surface. Old tensions, old fears were forgotten. For a while.

They laughed together, remembered happier times. They sang far into the early hours of the morning.

But then, as the party was finally winding down and people were tiptoeing or staggering or lurching homeward, somebody said loudly enough for everyone to hear:

“I guess this proves that we can’t stay on the surface. Too dangerous. We were lucky to get you guys back alive.”

Dan’s face went deathly grim. “It proves that we need much better equipment and precautions to work on the surface. But if we lived through that storm, we can live through whatever else the planet throws at us.”

“I don’t know…” Larry began.

Valery said, “We still need more deuterium, don’t we? Someone will have to go back to the surface, with more equipment.”

“That’ll be a long, tough job.”

“But it’s got to be done.”

Dan pushed himself out of the wheelchair and got to his feet. He still looked gaunt, eyes dark and haggard. “We can do what needs to be done. And our children, when they’ve been specially adapted for life on the surface, will make that planet their playground.”

Larry glanced at Val. She was looking up at Dan. And the only thing he felt in his heart was hatred.