Wasteland of Flint

The Palenque, Inbound

One of the v-panes showing a peapod data-feed suddenly went dark. A warning light flared on Magdalena's control panel and the resolution of the composite image on the main display degraded markedly. Now there was only a flickering, indistinct image of a vast, sprawling storm seen from a great height. Barely better than looking out a window at the distant planet. And who knew what was happening under the mottled ochre clouds?

"Only one eye left. We see no better than a snake," the Hesht snarled helplessly. She wanted to pace or run or just crash through a stand of high grass, long legs blurring across hard-packed, dusty ground. Trapped on a tiny ship without proper exercise facilities, limping along at half-speed, a vast distance from the lost steppes of Heshukan, her options had been reduced to shredding the furniture…and now even the joy of exercising her claws palled. "Parker, engine status?"

A comm pane flickered and shifted as a hand in a work glove adjusted a camera lens. The blunt, broad, plant-eating face of Engineer First Isoroku glared out at her. "There has been no change since your last request for status. Maneuver drive three is still offline."

Magdalena showed her incisors in response, though she knew the challenge was lost on these humans. "Where is Parker-tzin?"

The engineer shifted and pointed with a tilted head. The pilot's work boots were partially visible, wedged inside some kind of maintenance accessway. A sort of muffled song was barely audible, leaking out from the opening. Maggie's ears twitched — Parker's idea of a pleasing tune did not coincide with hers. Where are the yowls and shrieks? "He, too, is still busy."

She could tell — feel, really, from the tense tilt of his head and the flare of his nostrils — that the engineer was getting rightfully upset by her constant badgering. Despite their standing difference of opinion over remaining in the system, the Fleet officer had set himself to work in an admirable way. Even a Hesht of her particular temper could see he was making an honest effort. Though every instinct screamed to rush ahead, to boost output on the remaining two maneuver drives — and emit a radiation signature visible throughout half the system — she forced her mouth closed, politely hiding her teeth.

"Isoroku-tzin," she said, forcing the words out in a strangled-sounding voice. "My apologies for interrupting your activities. Please carry on. When drive three is online, I would appreciate…yrrrr…being informed."

The engineer did not respond immediately. In fact, he squinted rather suspiciously at her. At length, lips pursed, he said, "Apology accepted," and signed off the channel, still frowning.

Magdalena ran half-extended claws through her fur, wondering what passed for thought in the heads of these tree-dwelling fruit-eaters. "Rrrr…what is going on down there?"

The storm-covered surface of the third planet mocked her, the single staring red eye of a monstrous serpent. Still on edge, she began experimenting with the different kinds of sensors mounted on the peapod. None of them proved immediately helpful.

"I think," a gruff human voice said from the entryway, "you've confused Isoroku-tzin."

Maggie turned and gave Gunso Fitzsimmons a level stare. In the daily routine of the ship, the Marines stayed off the bridge — Parker claimed they didn't like the smell, though of course he did — and contented themselves with gambling with the scientists, lending the engineer a hand and obsessively checking their equipment.

"I was rude," she said bluntly. "They are working hard and I am impatient."

Fitzsimmons nodded, drifting over to catch the railing circling the command station. "What does our interception window look like?"

"It shrinks." A claw tapped up a plot echoed from the navigational display. "This Shhrast-damned storm is making a mess of plotting pack-leader's pickup. Parker had hoped to make one pass around the planet…" The v-pane showed the path of the Palenque shearing close to the Ephesian atmospheric envelope, then hooking away in a sharp return path for the outer system. "…and picking up speed like a slingstone out again. But now…" she sighed, ears limp with despair, "now we will have to decelerate into a parking orbit, losing precious velocity."

"Are you sure?" Fitzsimmons frowned, leaning over the console. He smelled strangely familiar — bitter, pungent, smoke and old wood — and Magdalena raised her head, plush nose sniffing the air. Then she grinned properly, ears canted forward.

"You've been avoiding Parker-tzin, haven't you?"

The Marine looked at her quizzically for a moment, then smiled in a very impolite way, showing stumpy yellowed teeth. "Use of tabac," he said in a conspiratorial way, "dulls the human sense of smell."

Magdalena shuddered, her fur twitching from head to tail. "A wretched weed," she hissed. "And this is enjoyed by your entire stunted, corrupt race?"

"Parker is a very religious man," the gunso said in a roundabout way. "But Thai-i Isoroku requested our assistance in keeping his engines — well, the Company's engines — free of tabac ash and other contaminants that might otherwise foul power junctions, mar the efficiency of computational cores and soil the sacred decks of the engineering compartments."

Magdalena hissed in delight. "You ate of his kill, pleading an empty belly," she said in mock horror, "while hiding your own in the river-pool! I saw you smoking his disgusting little sticks when we first came aboard."

"Sure." Fitzsimmons shrugged. The whole situation was water off his furless back. "Share and share alike, right? Though Marines are never caught short of supplies." He held up four pink wormlike fingers. "Air, ammo, booze and tabac. Don't need much else."

"He was generous," she started to say, but had to admit — as she had admitted Isoroku's efforts on their behalf — she did not miss the foul smell clinging to her fur and making her sneeze. "But I see the efficiency of the pack-ship is improved by this…deception."

"The Engineer First," Fitzsimmons said, scratching a jaw black with stubble, "is my superior officer. In the absence of other command authority, his operational requirements are my holy writ. But while it's fun to pick on Parker, we need to talk about getting Gretchen and the judge back."

"Yess…" Magdalena stared at the plot again. "If we still had the satellites we could see pack-leader and eldest-and-wisest take off from the ground, allowing us to adjust course properly. But with only one eye left — and that one losing more altitude each day — we are close to being blind."

"Well," Fitzsimmons said slowly, eyeing the display. "In drop school one of my instructors was always saying 'It's all about angular momentum,' which sort of applies here. There's a Marine assault-ship technique which could solve your problem, something Fleet pilots call the 'Pataya knot'. Parker's not the greatest shuttle pilot in the world, but he might be able to handle it."

Magdalena growled, giving him a suspicious look. She wasn't sure this hunter-from-another-den could be trusted. But, she reminded herself, he was sniffing after the pack-leader, so he might soon be in her den as well. "Show me this knot."

Unaccountably, Fitzsimmons turned a sort of russet color.