Viking (30 page)

“True. Routinely, if you have a dozen vikings, you quit looking after you find a
dozen signals. But I didn’t quit.”

“What did you find?”

“Well, let’s just say the stampede took one of our vikings off someone else’s
payroll.”

Eccles blinked while his mind adjusted to this new idea. It explained certain
things, though some of Bezovnik’s logic seemed a bit cockeyed.

“Now he’s back.”

“Who?”

“Orosco.”

“Oh.”

“And I want to make sure he doesn’t get a second stream through to the satellite.
Especially not now, when we’re sitting on the story of the century.”

“Naturally.”

“Can we do that?”

Eccles ran a finger through his hair. “Those planetside signal processors are
designed to pick up everything automatically, so when crewmembers get lost and found
again, we don’t have to do anything. Exactly our situation here. I can reprogram the
unit, but it’ll take me a couple hours.”

“You don’t have that long. Heward will probably be flying home in forty-five
minutes.”

Eccles blanched. His time was mostly spent on the enormously sophisticated
electronics that recorded, decoded, and displayed the viking broadcasts once they
reached Earth. The signal processors were supposed to be maintenance-free; he rarely
did anything except test the comlink when they powered up. It would take him an hour
just to find the relevant section of the manual.

“I’ll try,” he said, leaping to his feet with worry flooding his face.

“You’re not paid to try,” Bezovnik growled. “I expect a call in half an hour, with
this all wrapped up.”

Rafa looked out from his bunk as a crackle sounded in his ear. Across the room, Chen
had been napping; now she sat up as well. Abbott opened his eyes, but otherwise did not
stir. He was battling some sort of infection—from the crabbies, no doubt—and had been
feeling feverish and nauseated for several hours now.

Erisa Explorer, this is Dr. Edvardsen. The emergency beacon tells us you’re
there and alive, but it isn’t set up to relay your implants. So I’m afraid this will be
a one-sided conversation.

First of all, heartfelt apologies and congratulations on your trek through the
wilderness. We had some technical difficulties during the stampede, and ended up losing
the whole crew’s signals for a while. By the time comlinks were back up, you’d been
given up for lost. The trampling was unbelievable. Several acres crushed completely
dead. From the air it looked impossible that you could have survived.

I’m glad we were proven wrong.

We’ve dispatched Mr. Heward to pick you up in the small skimmer. He should
arrive shortly with food and water and medical supplies.

As you obviously guessed, the team had to move rather suddenly. I imagine that
was a nasty shock. We’ll let Heward fill you in on the details, but rest assured that
the crew is generally intact and glad to have you back.

My day’s mostly over, so I’ll be offline by the time you get back to camp. But
I’ll be sitting in on your debriefing tomorrow morning, before the shift
starts.

Until then.

The vikings’ eyes met. Chen was mostly radiating relief. They hadn’t known for sure
that the rest of the crew was alive—or even on the planet’s surface any more, for that
matter. Abbott also looked somewhat brighter, though there was a weakness, a weariness
to his eyes that stopped his expression well short of cheer.

Rafa felt a certain resurgence of hope as well, but for him, the emotion was
swallowed up by anger. “Technical difficulties” was about as lame an explanation as he
could imagine. The fact was, the crew had given the stampede grounds no more than a
casual glance before flitting off to greener pastures. Undoubtedly they had gone with
MEEGO’s impatient approval.

That the trio had survived a harrowing hike back to base earned them no more than a
pompous pat on the back—plus the promise of an early interview tomorrow to further
abbreviate their rest.

For once he wished Whemper were available to supply a salty epithet. He couldn’t
think of anything sufficiently emphatic.

* * *

Heward showed up a few minutes later, as the sun was going down. The skimmer landed
with a rattling chop on a relatively flat stretch of ground near the module.

By then they’d begun fidgeting restlessly; long periods of silence were punctuated
with short, clipped phrases of joking tension-relief and even briefer rejoinder. They
were too emotionally spent to let the words flow freely.

Abbott sat up, claiming his fever had slacked off.

At the first muted sounds of approach Chen darted down the slanting corridor in a
flash. Rafa watched her go but made no move to follow. Abbott pulled himself somewhat
unsteadily onto an overturned plastic carton.

In a couple minutes she was back, dogging Heward’s heels.

“Hi,” Rafa said flatly. He looked away.

“So you made it.”

“Barely,” said Abbott, after Rafa did not respond.

Heward studied the inadequately bandaged cuts all over the Jamaican’s face and arms.
“You don’t look all that great, man. What did you do, pick a fight in a razor
factory?”

“Something like that.”

Chen began searching a carryall that had been looped over her shoulder. “We’ve got
more antibiotics in here.”

“I see you found some food we left behind,” said Heward, kicking disdainfully at the
wrappers around the ration box.

“You bring any more?” asked Rafa.

“Naw. Figured you’d be back soon enough.”

Rafa wasn’t about to dignify that observation with a response. Instead he closed his
eyes and asked, “What are you guys living in, anyway?”

“Tents.”

“You’re joking.”

“No. Nice spot of beach to the southwest. Surfing’s great.”

“What kind of a stupid headquarters is that?”

“The kind you’re stuck with, Orosco.”

“Why?” asked Chen.

“Why what?”

“Why the move? Edvardsen said you’d explain it all.”

“Well, she lied. You’re just going to have to come and see for yourself. Let’s get
going.”

Rafa shook his head. “Let Chen get Abbott fixed up a bit. We haven’t had any
medicine since the crabbies.”

Heward didn’t bother to ask what “crabbies” were. He turned on his heel and stalked
out. “I’ve got a couple more things to load. You’re with me, Orosco. Chen, you’ve got
ten minutes, and then I’m leaving.”

* * *

By the time they lifted off, full night had fallen. Heward was in a foul mood, but
he had nobody but himself to blame for the delay. He’d insisted on strapping some
damaged robots on the deck of the skimmer, despite Chen’s protests that they were
unsalvageable. The bulk had taken quite a while to strap down securely—longer than it
took Abbott to emerge, pale and dotted with new bandages, and shuffle over to the
craft.

They flew out without speaking, each lost in their own thoughts. The prospect of
other human company—even company as hostile and divisive as the viking crew—was
cheering. It was an enormous relief to know they would be part of the group again.

Heward drove. Abbott and Chen took the remaining seats in the forward section of the
cockpit. Rafa had to content himself with an awkward position on the bare metal of the
deck, his back braced against the smashed equipment. He was too tired to complain about
the discomfort, so he slumped forward with his head between his knees in a futile
attempt to ignore the cool gale that flowed past.

It was a clear night. Erisa Alpha glinted low to the east, a topaz jewel that easily
outshined its neighbors. Overhead, the rings hung sharp and gleaming. Snow on
the distant mountains assumed a bluish luster that glowed faintly in the starlight. In
the distance, a faint cough of thunder rumbled from an unknown corner of the sky and
subsided into stillness again.

They ascended in a smooth arc that took them beyond the high grasslands and over
dense forest. The ride was oddly turbulent against the smooth carpet of greenery below
them. Ahead, the sandy beaches of the coast glittered palely in the distance.

They’d been in the air for about ten minutes when, without warning, the deck yawed
sharply to the right. Chen called out in alarm. Rafa, caught completely unawares,
catapulted painfully across the unyielding structures affixed to the deck and skidded
toward the railing and the blackness below. He scrabbled with his good arm
for a hold on one of the straps, his face stinging from a tremendous scraping slap to
the ear and jaw. Tears from the blow clouded his vision.

“Hold on!” Heward shouted tensely. “Stabilizer went out!”

The flight of the skimmer quickly became even more bumpy and erratic, and the
sideways heeling worsened. They weaved drunkenly, sank, and then rose again, seemingly
at random. Rafa’s feet were dangling over the railing into emptiness. He managed to jam
his cast into a gap between the crates, which brought momentary stability but put
tremendous strain on the broken arm. Bolts of pain shot through his hand and shoulder.
With his other hand he continued to claw desperately for a grip on anything solid. He
found nothing. He could feel the fingernails breaking, the knuckles bruising and
bleeding. He slid a few centimeters and sensed the fiberglass in his cast beginning to
buckle.

“Put us down!” Abbott screamed. He was craning his neck against the tight seatbelt,
looking back at Rafa. “Get us down right now or he’s going to fall!”

“There’s no place to land!” Heward shouted back. “The trees would tear us to shreds.
We’ve got to make it to the beach!”

Chen retched, and a fine mist of sour, half-digested vomit splattered in Rafa’s
face. He blinked it away, spat it out of his open mouth, cursed the sudden added
slipperiness on the deck. His mind was whirling. It was hard to tell how high they
were. Twenty meters above the trees. Maybe less. The shadowy relief of the canopy
flashed past in a blur.

No telling how far from the beach. He couldn’t hold on much longer. The cast was
definitely giving now, and every bump made it worse. A few feet forward there was a
place where the gear wasn’t flush with the railing—a small gap that might be big enough
for his boot. He stretched, felt a sudden scraping as his cast popped loose, and
shifted all his weight desperately forward.

The craft pitched downward with a nauseating suddenness and rolled until the deck
was nearly vertical. Rafa slid completely off the deck and felt a sickening pop as his
ankle caught in the gap, ligaments stretched and tore, and bones wrenched free. The
boot twisted and stuck in the gap, dangling him head-down toward the forest like a
lifeless rabbit from a hunter’s belt.

It happened with such swiftness that his dazed nervous system didn’t register the
agony in his leg for several seconds. When it did, he shrieked a wordless scream that
was torn away by the wind. A dark haze of unconsciousness began to crowd in, dulling
his mind. The throbbing pressure of blood in his temples pounded. His eyes bulged.

Dimly he was aware of Abbott’s shouts, the rapid flight of the crazily-tilted craft,
the rending chaos in his ankle with every motion of the skimmer. But it had a
dreamlike, detached quality to it that was fading into oblivion.

Then the skimmer bobbed and plunged again, and Rafa’s boot twisted loose. His mind
snapped from hazy retreat to a terrifying hyperconsciousness, recording his fall in
clear, detailed slow motion. He saw Heward fighting with the controls of the skimmer,
the taut nausea in Chen’s posture, the horror in Abbott’s wide eyes, the grotesque skew
of his ankle flashing across the underbelly of the skimmer as he cartwheeled down into
the blackness.

In the instant of complete detachment before he hit the trees, a hundred thoughts
burned in his brain. His body crushed and broken and lost in a nameless jungle. A
search party scanning for signals from the implants and finding the carrion-eaters that
would devour his remains. Julie smiling on their wedding day. Julie weeping at the
trial. And some lines he’d once memorized to please a favorite English teacher.
To
die, to sleep. And by a sleep to say we end the heart-ache and the thousand natural
shocks that flesh is heir to.
The promise of death seemed at once welcome and
bitter.
Death is a nurse mother with big arms: ‘Twon’t hurt you at all; it’s your
time now; you just need a long sleep, child; what have you had anyhow better than
sleep?

Then the slashing fingers of the forest whipped over his neck and face and swallowed
him into obscurity.

Julie aborted her call with a sigh. She’d been trying to contact Geire all day, with
no success. His secretary claimed she was mystified as to the boss’s whereabouts.

She’d left a couple messages, explaining that she now had proof that Rafa was alive.
She’d even attached one of the decoded clips in the hopes that it would help the agency
take her seriously. But it was maddening to talk to an impersonal machine. She wanted
to see his face and get some kind of personal assurance that help would be dispatched
to Rafa before it was too late.

Plus she wanted a little protection herself.

She was jumpy and worried. Maybe some of Satler’s paranoia was beginning to rub off.
He didn’t want her to leave the hotel, or eat alone, or even call home.

The house arrest was marginally tolerable—at least until she talked to Geire—but
Julie drew the line at a call. Electronic transactions, such as the debit to her
account to cover the cost of the call, were supposed to be untraceable except under the
legal duress of a subpoena—especially if you routed through an anonomizer. Besides, her
mom and dad had expected her back yesterday, and they were watching the twins. They
deserved to know something about what was going on.

Her mother had said she was crazy to come to Houston in the first place; as
expected, Julie’s news provoked a tight-lipped lecture about chasing rainbows and how
she should go straight to the police.