The Last Hour of Gann (25 page)

As for the rest of the equipment
Scott had set aside, they had another solar generator, but nothing that really needed running except the water purifier, which was useless because they didn’t have any intake hoses. They also had six crates of irrigation pipes so they could run purified water all through the camp, but none of the joints or valves. They had everything they needed for the pump, except, of course, the motor and belts. They had a power mixer without a battery and enough bags of concrete to pour the floor for the pump house, currently being stored in all those one-man tents so the rain couldn’t turn them into sixty-pound bricks. The rest of their provisions were comprised of 1500 other-flavored ration bars packed together with emergency blankets, flashlights and fire-strikers in about thirty duffel bags in assorted neon colors with the Manifest Destiny logo on the side. And one medikit.

The medikit belonged to Mr. Yao and during the next morning’s debriefing, which Amber was not invited to but attended anyway, he opened it up and read out its contents: Six rolls of sterile gauze, one box of medium grade self-sticking bandages, a tube of burn relief gel, a tube of antibacterial ointment, a bottle of low-dose aspirin, a bottle of ext
ra-strength aspirin, and a dermispray pen with twelve doses of nalfentypine.

“What’s that?”
Scott wanted to know.

“A synthetic opiate used for pain management.”

“That’s part of the kit?” Eric asked, not quite smiling.

“Of course not,” said Mr. Yao. “It came with the surgical suppl
ies you brought, but they were lost on the ridge. This was with my personal effects.”

“And how did that happen?”

Mr. Yao looked at him without emotion. “In my medical opinion, I required sedation.”

Eric
held up his hands in surrender.

“I require sedation,” Crandall said hopefully.

Mr. Yao ignored him and looked instead at Scott. “I want you to know that I have this, and I want you all to know where to find it and how to use it, because this is now the only source of anything like anesthetic we possess. But I think it would be best not to let everyone know of its existence, because it would also make an extremely effective form of suicide.”

“So does that lake,” said Amber, the first remark she’d made at that meeting.

“Miss Bierce, if you’re going to eavesdrop, at least do it quietly. We’re trying to have a debriefing.”

Mr. Yao ignored
Scott and turned to her. “Drowning oneself, like hanging oneself with one’s shirtsleeve or cutting one’s wrists with broken glass or any number of options presently available to us, requires a great deal more courage and determination than putting a dermisprayer against one’s arm and pressing a button. I would rather save it for our first broken leg than make it available to those seeking a quick, painless way out of our present circumstance.”

“Good point.” And because he was glaring at her, Amber looked at
Scott and said, “I guess it should stay here, huh?”

They were all in
Scott’s tent at the time, the command unit, the only place they could all squeeze together out of the drumming rain and wind. Scott blinked around all the same, as if he expected a bank vault to open up behind him. “Why here?” he asked.

“Shouldn’t the really important stuff be with the guy in charge?”

Mr. Yao waited, holding the medikit on his lap.

“Well, I…guess I have more room,” said
Scott cautiously.

Mr. Yao passed it over.

“So…So I guess I’m in charge of the food and stuff too?”

That was a lot more unsettling than letting the man babysit the first aid supplies.

“Someone ought to be,” Amber said, hoping her hesitation hadn’t been too obvious. “And the rations do need to be kept dry.”

“And away from hoarders,” said
Eric. “Because there will be hoarders.”

Amber started to nod her agreement, then noticed they were all looking at her. “You know, every now and then, I manage to go two, sometimes three whole minutes without eating,” she snapped, and they all looked away again. “I know the food is finite. I also think we need to start thinking now about what we’re going to eat when it’s gone.”

Scott frowned at her, but the severity of this effort only made him look younger and more uncertain. “You mean…” He eyed the other men in the tent and lowered his voice a little. “…people?”

Amber rocked back. “What?”

“We don’t have to talk about this until someone actually dies,” said Eric.

“Oh my God,” Amber said, star
ing at both of them. “No, I meant looking for fish or rabbits or whatever freak moose thing was shouting up the place last night! People? You thought I wanted to eat
people
?!”

“We’ll get to the native flora and fauna as soon as we’re able to arrange teams for reconnaissance and study,”
Scott told her, blushing. “And we were already looking into that, so please be quiet, Miss Bierce. I know you think you’re contributing, but you’re a civilian here and you’re distracting us from the real problems under discussion.”

She could have pressed the matter. None of the Fleetmen seemed eager to jump in, and other than making sure the public was kept under control,
Scott himself seemed to have run out of steam. So she could have easily forced them all to face the food issue head-on. Instead, she sat back and let the whole thing drop.

Scott
opened the medikit and studied the contents, then closed it again and looked around at them. “Then I guess the only other thing we need to talk about is the
Pioneer’s
salvage prospects. Do I have a volunteer to head that team?”

“Salvage?” Amber checked the others, but they seemed as
stunned as she. “Are you serious?”

“The escape bays were designed to survive cat
astrophic failure of the ship. The beacons may still be recoverable.”

Amber stared at him, utterly unable to make those words make any kind of sense, given the situation. “Mr.
Scott,” she said at last, making a real effort to speak softly, reasonably. “How far are we from the ship?”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“Mr. Lassiter, then? Mr. Crandall? What are we, about five miles?”

“Three, maybe,” said
Eric, and Crandall shrugged and nodded.

“Okay. Three miles.” Amber pointed through the tent wall in the direction of the ridge, which was at that time just lighting up with the grey promise of another day through one hell of a roaring rainstorm. “We were three miles away from the explosion last night, Mr.
Scott, and you said our solar generator melted.”

His jaw tightened. “The escape bays are heat-proof up to, I don’t know, thousands of degrees. The beacons are our only hope of rescue, Miss Bierce, and they could be all right.”

“Okay,” she said, although she personally thought this was horseshit. “Say the escape bays are intact. It could happen. But they’re going to be intact at the center of the melted pile of slag that used to be the rest of the ship. How are we going to get to them?”

The other men looked at
Scott. He flushed and glared back at her.

“Jonah…Lieutenant La
marc said that even if the beacons could be launched, they’d need the guidance system on the
Pioneer
to find Earth,” said Amber. “And we don’t have that anymore. Mr. Scott, I’m sorry, but I think we can cross rescue completely off the list.”

“I’m not prepared to do that, Miss Bierce,”
Scott said stiffly.

“And then there’s the little matter of all this rain.”

“That you want to go hiking in,” Scott interrupted.

“Yes, I do. Before it floods the lake we’re camping next to.” Amber hesitated, unsure whether she really wanted to bring out the big guns yet, but in the end, she just couldn’t not say it. “And before all the toxic seepage from the
Pioneer
washes into the water we’re drinking. And before you ask, no, I don’t know for a fact there’s anything seeping out of it, but it seems like a pretty goddamn good bet this morning, doesn’t it?”

“I don’t need to hear the swearing,” said
Scott.

“It could be happening, though.”
Eric unfolded himself and stood up as straight as the tent allowed. “Okay, Bierce. If there’s a vote involved here, you just got mine. But we can’t just pack up and go, we’ve got to have a plan.” He paused, then glanced at Scott and said, “Right?” in the same careful way that Amber told him he could keep the food.

Scott
scowled. “Sure, as far as that goes, which is why we need to prioritize our efforts. Organize teams. Investigate our options.”

Amber pressed a hand over her eyes and tried very hard not to either sigh out loud or shake her head. “We don’t have time for that
.”

“I’d rather take a little extra time than charge stupidly out into the wilderness without any kind of plan.”

“And thanks to you,” Eric inserted gently, “we have at least the beginnings of that plan.”

Scott
’s frown went crooked, distracted. “What? We do?”

“When we scouted this place out yesterday, we found several watersheds that emptied into the lake here,”
Eric explained, gesturing vaguely over his shoulder at the tent wall. “I suggest we follow the biggest of them upstream and get to high ground.”

“I am not willing to abandon the ship,” said
Scott, also standing up.

“It’s not going anywhere,”
Eric argued. “But for the moment, it’s probably still burning on the inside and still very much a threat to us. I think we’d all feel better if we got some distance and got out of the imminent flood zone, but I agree that it’s important that we don’t go so far that we lose our water source, because I was looking yesterday, and the water we’re camping next to was the only water I could see.”

He turned to Amber, directing his next words only to her. “I know it must make you nervous to be here. I know you must be thinking of pretty much everything that might happen. I know. But if we get too far away from the water, we’re going to die. Not might. Will. We have a purifier—
”

“But we don’t have water,” said Amber, thinking of Jonah, who had said the same thing. She nodded, sighed, and then shook her head, her shoulders slumping. “So just
sit around and talk, is that all we’re going to do?”

“And this is why I didn’t want you in here,”
Scott remarked.

“Just be patient,” said
Eric. “Let us figure a few things out. I know you want to do something, but the day after we’ve all seen our ship blow up is the wrong time to expect everyone out there to pull it together and start marching in line.”

“I get it. I don’t like it, but I get it.”

“You don’t have to like it,” said Scott. “And I’ll tell you right now that I’d better not hear you running off your mouth out there about toxic seepage and floods, trying to scare people into doing what you want them to do.”

“Running my mouth?
” Amber shook her head and then just had to laugh before she got pissed. “You’re in charge, for Christ’s sake! Want me to go out there and build a rooftop so I can shout it?”

The soldiers all looked at each other. Crandall snickered.

“I’ll let you know when I’ve made my decision,” said Scott, moving to unzip the tent for them. “This meeting is over and Miss Bierce?”

“I know, Everly,” she sighed, heaving herself up. “Don’t let the flap hit me in the ass on my way out. Let me tell you something
.”

“Bierce,” said
Eric warningly, but Crandall, grinning, said, “Let her talk, man.”

“
Sooner or later, you are going to have to say something that people won’t want to hear,” Amber said. “And if you can’t handle that, you shouldn’t be in charge.”

Scott
tried to stare her down, but she refused to look away. Eric watched them for a while and then heaved a loud sigh and said, “Don’t we have enough real problems here? Come on, you two, lighten up.” He pushed his way between them and walked out. The other Fleetmen followed. Soon, Amber and Scott were alone and for just a few seconds, she had the chance to either apologize and try to put things right between them or run after Eric and try to form some kind of future that didn’t include ‘Commander’ Everly Scott.

She did neither. She left. So if there was blame, and she knew there was, she shared it.

2

I
t rained for days. Amber lost track of how many. They had no computers anymore, no digireaders, no handhelds, not even wristwatches. They talked about hours or minutes, but in truth there was no time on this world—just one endless day cycling between grey and black, filled with wind and rain.

The lake started rising, and on the day the water first climbed over the mudbank and reached the grass,
Scott did two things. He gave the order to pack up the camp and move upstream, and he cut Amber’s rations from two bars to one. This, when she knew that everyone else was getting three.