Resurgence (17 page)

Last night's whispered session might have ended in sexual frustration, but it had also produced a positive result. Darya and Hans were more at ease with each other now than at any time since his arrival at Upside Miranda Port. Both of them were keeping a close eye on Lara and Ben.

Not that Ben would be easy to miss. As the
Savior
descended, he hovered at Hans's shoulder. Was he going to shout, "Right. Now it's my turn," the moment that the ship touched down?

Not quite that bad. As soon as the
Savior
made contact, feather-light on the frigid surface (courtesy of the autopilot—Hans had learned his lesson), Ben said, "Exit stations, but hold it there. This is a totally alien world. We look, and then we look again before we leap."

The landing site had been selected with as much care as possible, given an almost total lack of information. The most promising areas were the nodes, regularly spaced in a triangular grid on the surface and connected by narrow lines of what seemed to be the same material. It made sense to land on top of a grid patch, since they were composed of familiar Builder materials. If Darya were correct, the
Savior
could then generate an electromagnetic field inhibitor which would allow an individual, or even the whole ship itself, to sink into the unknown interior of Iceworld. On the other hand, those grid areas were also the places where the probing laser had produced a flash like orange fire. Maybe it made more sense to land on the cold and inert spaces between the grid points.

Hans had made the decision—perhaps the last decision he would be allowed to make until they left Iceworld. They would bring the
Savior
down on the frozen plain, just a couple of kilometers from the edge of a grid patch. They would keep the drive in full stand-by mode. In a few seconds it could propel the ship forward onto the nearby grid point area, or loft it at high acceleration back into space.

Until touchdown, everyone had been in full suits and in Emergency Mode position. At Ben's order to take up exit stations, Lara moved to stand by the airlock. She did not walk so much as float. Hans estimated from the response of his own body that weight on Iceworld was just a few hundredths of the inter-clade standard. Walking would be easy, running impossible. Let's hope they wouldn't need the latter.

The view on all sides did nothing to suggest danger. Iceworld appeared as a black, featureless plain with a horizon so far away that it showed as a ruled straight line below which no stars were visible. The temperature sensors in contact with the surface failed to report any value whatsoever. The surface conductivity was so high that the ship's instruments could not offer a measurement. The whole exterior of Iceworld formed one giant superconductor. That solved one possible problem that had occurred to Hans while they were still in orbit. No matter how slippery the surface might be, a walking person could gain a firm footing through an electromagnetic field in the extremities of the suit.

They watched and waited, expecting nothing and seeing nothing. It was Lara who at last said, "Well?"

There was more than a suggestion of "What are we waiting for?" in her tone. Hans would have ignored her while he watched all the instruments through a second and confirming set of negative readings, but Ben glanced at Hans, shrugged, and said, "We're in no hurry. However, I authorize you to cycle the lock and step outside.
One
step. Then we wait and see how your suit readings run."

Lara was cycling the inner door before Ben finished speaking. The hard vacuum on Iceworld made it in effect an exit into open space. The
Savior
's cameras in the airlock and outside recorded Lara's passage through the inner door, then there was a brief wait while that door closed and the outer one opened with a puff of air condensing to ice crystals. As Lara appeared, Hans at once referred to the monitors that provided all-around surveillance of the surface. He still sat in the pilot's chair, his hands instinctively hovering over the controls, but there was no reason to take action. Everything remained calm and dark.

"One step, and all's well." Lara was equally calm. "Are you receiving the readings from my suit?"

Ben nodded, then apparently realized that Lara had no video feed from inside the ship. "Yes, we're receiving. Everything is nominal."

"I'm testing the surface traction, and it's adequate. Walking should be easy. Should I test my suit's cancellation field?"

"No. Definitely not. For one thing, you are not above a grid point area, so we would expect nothing to happen. On the other hand, if it did, the last thing we want is for you to sink down alone through the surface. When we penetrate the interior, we all do it together."

"Then I request authorization to take trial steps on the surface."

"Very well. You should move directly toward the grid point, which is at thirty degrees to the right of your present suit vector. But wait for word from me before you begin." This time Ben had not looked at Hans before giving his answer. Now he said, "Captain Rebka, I am going onto the surface also." Before Hans could object, Ben added, "This is not a matter for discussion. I will follow Specialist Quistner, but well behind her. You will move the
Savior
to keep up with us, and the ship will at no time be more than ten steps away from me."

Which if you get in trouble might as well be ten lightyears for all the good I can probably do you. Hans said, "Very well. Ten steps away from you until you give other instructions."

As Ben Blesh vanished through the inner door, Darya motioned to Hans to turn off his radio transmitter and moved to place her suit helmet into contact with his.

"Hans, what does he think he's doing?"

"He's afraid that Lara is handling everything, and he won't get his share of the action. Don't worry. Give him a few more years, and he'll be willing to offer his share to anyone who'll take it."

"He could be putting two people in danger instead of one."

"That sounds more like my line than yours. But so far, Iceworld doesn't seem to offer enough danger for even one. I hope you are right about the interior, because I've never seen anything deader than the outside. Here he comes. I have to turn my transmitter back on."

Ben was emerging from the outer lock to stand by Lara Quistner. He waved, knowing that Rebka would be watching on the monitors, and closed the lock door. As Ben turned away, Hans instinctively operated the lock door again and set it to its widest opening. Ben did not seem to notice. He said, "All right, Lara. Go ahead."

Her suited figure, illuminated by one of the
Savior
's outside searchlights, headed away from Ben Blesh and the ship. The plain on which she moved reflected no light, so that she appeared to walk on nothing. Ben waited until she had taken at least fifty steps, then followed. Hans in turn allowed ten paces, then eased the bulk of the
Savior
after Blesh's suited figure. The delicate balance of gravity and thrust would have been difficult for a human, but the autopilot made it child's play. Hans was free to attempt the difficult task of keeping his attention on three things at once: Lara Quistner, moving in a straight line toward the invisible grid patch; Ben Blesh, following; and the view all around the
Savior
provided by the ship's monitors.

Hans wondered if Ben realized that Lara was steadily increasing the distance between them. Probably not. The view from within a suit was never all that good. Hans could tell what was happening, because his vantage point at the
Savior
's controls placed him much higher. If what Darya had told him last night was true, Lara wanted the feeling that she was exploring a new world alone, without Ben's authority to follow and annoy her.

Whatever the reason, it was still a damn fool thing for her to do and Ben needed to know about it. Hans was about to send word on what was happening when a flicker of light caught his peripheral vision.

It was the faintest gleam of blue, a dust devil far off to the right that ran across the plain and was gone before you could be sure you saw it at all. Staring in that direction, nothing was visible but the black-hole light-absorbing surface of Iceworld. Hans had no idea how far away the flicker had been. He looked across at the readings from the ship's scanners. They had not reported any signal at all.

Imagination?

People did not accuse Hans of an excess of imagination—quite the opposite. Was he letting the spooky silence and dark of Iceworld get to him?

"Ben, and Lara. Do you realize that Lara is getting farther ahead?"

"I don't think that's true." Lara sounded confident and a little too cocky. "I think I'm holding a steady distance. This is interesting. When you get close enough and can look at things from close to a grazing angle, you actually
see
the edge of the grid point area. It glows a pale green."

Ben said at once, "Lara, I am in charge of this exploration party. I don't want you to go any closer, no matter how interesting you think something is. Stay right there until I catch up.
That is an order
."

An order from Ben, which Lara surely didn't wish to hear. She said, "Very well," but the signal from her suit gave Hans an accurate range-rate reading. She was moving as fast as ever. The edge of the circular grid patch was no more than a hundred meters in front of her.

Hans didn't want to get into the middle of a two-person power struggle, but he had no choice. If Ben was to serve as chief of the party, he must know what was going on.

"Ben, I'm holding the
Savior
a steady ten paces behind you. But Lara hasn't stopped. The distance between you is still increasing."

Another flash of blue distracted him during his final words. This time it came from the left, brighter than the last one. He could follow its trace, beginning well behind the
Savior
and rippling along a straight line that led toward the grid point boundary. Or to Lara? It was impossible to say.

Hans turned off his radio and leaned across to Darya. "Did you see it?"

"Yes." Darya was in the co-pilot's seat. "What is it?"

"I hoped you could tell me." Hans turned his radio back on and kept his voice calm and dispassionate. "This is Captain Rebka. Professor Lang and I are detecting some kind of unknown activity on the surface. Senior Specialists Blesh and Quistner, I strongly urge both of you to return at once to the
Savior
. I then propose that we lift off and hold a safe altitude until we know what we are dealing with."

"Captain Rebka, what is the nature of the activity?"

Wrong response
. When you think there might be danger, you run first and ask questions later.

Hans said, "It resembles a blue will-o'-the-wisp or dust devil, similar to what we noticed from orbit in the track of our laser."

"I saw it!" Lara had finally halted, maybe fifty paces from the grid patch. "Ben, it ran right past me on an angle and merged into the green around the edge of the grid. Where the blue met the green I saw a kind of rainbow burst of light. Could you see it from where you are?"

"I saw nothing. Lara, back up and return to the
Savior
. At once. That's an order!"

But Ben was not following his own instruction. He was still moving toward Lara. Under Hans's control, the
Savior
crept after him.

Lara laughed. "Ben, you are overreacting. You must be receiving the readings from my suit. You can see for yourself, everything is nominal and there's nothing to worry about."

"That's not your decision to make. Lara, if you don't go back to the ship at once you'll be in big trouble."

"All right, Ben, I'm on my way." Lara's suit faceplate reflected light from the
Savior
as she turned. "But you are making a big deal out of nothing. We are here to explore, not to ignore anything interesting that we see."

She was moving toward the ship, but the range-rate reading told Hans that she was in no hurry. At her speed it would take minutes to reach the
Savior
. Hans's fingers itched to hit the sequence that would boost them to orbit at maximum acceleration.

He resisted the temptation, leaned back, and concentrated on the banks of readings from both Lara's suit and the ship's all-around sensors. As she said, everything in her immediate vicinity registered no change. However, that wasn't true of the edge of the grid point area a hundred meters beyond her. Instead of its previous absurdly low temperature of 1.2 kelvins, one spot now failed to report any temperature reading at all. That was impossible. When energy was delivered to a place—and even the blue dust devils must contain
some
energy—the temperature at that point
had
to rise. It could not possibly go down.

Hans felt his skin crawl. "Ben, Lara. I'm seeing surface changes near the edge of the grid patch. Get back to the ship—
now
."

Even as he spoke he realized his mistake. If anything could keep Ben Blesh outside, it would be a direct order to return from Hans Rebka.

Predictably, Ben said at once, "The responsibility for bringing us in is mine, Rebka, not yours. Lara, if you don't get a move on, I'll come and drag you back."

Hans saw another gleam of light. It was the reflection from Lara's faceplate. Instead of answering, she had turned her head to look behind her. She said, "This is crazy. Captain Rebka, you're seeing things. I'm a lot closer to the grid than anyone else, and I notice no change there at all."

While she was still speaking, one of the displays of the
Savior
lit so brightly that it cast a flickering blue shadow onto the controls at Hans's fingertips. He looked, in time to see another line of fire, bigger and brighter than the first two, racing like a blue fuse across the surface. It rippled well wide of the
Savior
, cleared Ben Blesh and Lara Quistner, and ran on to the edge of the gridded area. Hans saw a flare of light and a semicircular arc of rainbow colors standing up from the dark plain of Iceworld.

This time the flash was so bright that neither Lara nor Ben could miss it. Lara gasped and stood rooted, at the same time as Ben began to move.