Deep Space Dead (6 page)

Jak glared at him for a moment before turning his attentions back to the Admiral. “I don’t see why we can’t both go out,” he said, although he was sounding desperate now.

“You know the rules,” said Kalp. “One ranger team only to complete the first sweep. If you both go out and something happens we’ll be stuck and without any line of defence.”

Jak looked round towards the rest of the Council, looking for support but the councillors had their heads down. Some had already left. It was clear they wanted nothing to do with this argument and at that moment Jak knew he had been defeated. Only Arianna opened her mouth to support him but Jak quickly shook his head. He knew exactly how that would look.

“You’re putting everyone at risk, you know that Sol?” Snapped Jak, unable to contain his temper. “We need both sets of rangers to make a good stab at this colonisation and Wal just doesn’t cut it. You know that as well as I do.”

The ranger had followed his rival out of the council chambers and now he rounded on him angrily in the corridor as Arianna looked on.

Sol shrugged. “This was nothing personal,” he said sternly. “Wal has earned his right to this sweep. He’s up for it and he’s ready. What’s more he’s curious and curiosity is what we need if we’re going to make the most of this world.”

“It doesn’t matter what the reasoning was behind it. The point is you argued against Jak because you don’t like him,” snapped Arianna. “Because you can’t take the fact he took all the glory last time and now you just want to deny him anything else he has earned through his own talents. I don’t know why you can’t just be happy with what you’ve got. But then that’s the problem isn’t it?” Her blood was up and she was in a mood to be malicious. “You’ve got nothing on Jak, can’t hold a candle to him and you know it. That’s why you’re using everything in your feeble little armoury to try and prevent him from getting what he deserved. Well good men shine through, you know that Sol? Jak is going to be a part of this new world whether you like it or not and he’s going to be a hero too. Meanwhile you’re going to be stuck here calming down drunks and watching the city go up around you whilst you stand around doing nothing as usual.”

Sol looked straight past Arianna and towards Jak, an ugly sneer on his face. “I should have argued for you to go,” he said with real malice. “At least you would be out of the way so you couldn’t try and win my daughter over as your own.”

Jak threw back his head and laughed out loud. “Oh so this is what it’s all about is it?” He said sarcastically. “Well you carry on like this and I daresay you’ll lose her of your own accord. In case you haven’t noticed this is a time of hope and optimism, Sol, and you with your bitterness and envy at every turn don’t exactly fit the current mood. Let’s hope you wake up before it’s too late.”

“I’m already wide awake,” retorted Sol, coming to stand close to him. “You think you’re such a damned hero, don’t you Jak? Well there hasn’t been any need for heroes for thousands of years now, and for good reason. Heroes fall, Jak, and that’s exactly what’s going to happen to you. Just don’t you ever think you’re going to drag my daughter down with you.”

Jak looked at Sol for a long time and for a moment Arianna thought they were about to come to blows. But at last the ranger turned abruptly on his heel and started to stomp off back down the corridor. “Have a nice evening, Sol,” said the ranger flippantly. “I hope the happy sound of families playing in the fields doesn’t distract you too much from your lonely little dinner for one.”

Jak attended the sending off of the rangers for the sake of appearances so as not to appear churlish. The enthusiasm for Wal’s expedition was just as high as it was for Jak’s jaunt, if not higher. Wal set out with twelve of his rangers in three rover pods. A geologist
named
Fratia Bel would also go out with them, taking the computer with her so she might be able to survey and analyse the landscape.

For a day or so Jak wallowed in his disappointment, but he was not a man to bear grudges and it wasn’t as if there weren’t positives in his life. The day afterwards Arianna moved out of her small apartment and went to live with him. The ranger had been asking her to do so for some time but the growing tensions with Sol was the final straw. Otherwise Arianna was kept busy in the library, gathering and collating information from the miners, meteorologists, engineers and others. She enjoyed her work immensely although she knew the zenith of her usefulness was fast approaching and she would soon be faced with a lot of down time once everybody was fully versed in what they were doing and mastered their respective trades. She began to think seriously about having a baby with Jak. She knew the ranger wanted children and it was Confederation policy to procreate as a means of increasing the population on these newly colonised worlds.

Sol patrolled the fledgling town on foot, keeping an eye on everything and helping out when he could. His duties mostly involved keeping an eye on the children, and especially Ambra who was often running away from the newly set out city limits and going out on to the plains beyond. His police headquarters was a small and slightly cramped building that he shared with his thirty officers. Although he had been offered the chance to continue living in the administrative quarters he soon elected to move into the small one bedroom flat above the headquarters that had been nominally reserved for the janitor. He told Kalp this was because he wanted to be closer to the town but in reality he wanted to be as far away from Jak and Arianna as possible. From now on the three of them rarely spoke. Sol went to pick up Ambra from their apartment with the little girl being practically pushed out of the door which closed quickly behind her. When the police officer came to return her he would knock on the apartment door and had left almost before it had opened. Communication was through grunts and awkward glances only. Ambra noticed the tensions and asked questions but all three of the most important people in her life pushed her concerns aside and with so much to occupy her time Ambra did not push the matter as much as she might have done had they still been travelling aboard the starship.

6

“Ambra! Ambra!”

The grass grew long in the plains as Arianna waded through as best she could, calling her daughter’s name. It had been ten minutes since she’d noticed her daughter had been missing. She had left her playing in the arboretum whilst she popped to return some file cards to the library. When she returned the other children had told her that Ambra had set off in the direction of the wide open grassland beyond the town limits. Arianna was starting to panic now. She had walked to the riverbank the previous day and found it to have shallow inclines but a fast current from where the rainwater flowed down from the streams high up in the mountains. If Ambra had somehow slipped and fallen into the water there would be no chance of her being found.

“Mummy?”

Arianna spun around. Her daughter’s face was cherubic and innocent, a sure sign she knew the trouble she was in.

“Where have you been?” Demanded Arianna angrily, seizing hold of her hand and starting to march her through the long grass back towards home.

“I’ve been making friends,” replied Ambra innocently. “With the Moon Man.”

Arianna frowned and looked closely at her daughter. “What do you mean?” She demanded, curiosity abating her anger somewhat. “Have you been out with somebody? Is there somebody else here?” She looked around, wondering if another child had gotten lost as well. But Ambra was shaking her head. “The Moon Man didn’t come with the ship, mummy,” she said keenly. “He came here to visit. He came to ask questions about what we were doing.”

Arianna smiled with understanding and realised her daughter was now of the age to indulge in imaginary friends. “Well I just hope this Moon Man friend of yours is sensible enough to tell you not to go too close to the river,” she said benevolently. “And I’d appreciate it if the two of you could play a little closer to the town next time. I know you’re excited what with this being a new world and everything but you need to be sensible. You’re not on a ship anymore.”

“The Moon Man doesn’t play,” Ambra told her. “I told you mummy, he wants to know what we’re doing here.”

“I see,” replied Arianna doubtfully. “And what does this Moon Man of yours look like?”

“He’s a tall man,” replied Ambra. “Taller than any man you ever saw, and he can run really fast as well, as fast as the rover which Jak drives. And he’s strong. And his skin is white as a moon which is why I called him the Moon Man.”

“Really?” Arianna raised her eyebrows, perturbed at her daughter’s vivid imagination. “Well this Moon Man of your sounds quite frightening.”

“I was frightened as well,” acknowledged Ambra. “But he said he wouldn’t hurt me, just that he wanted to know what we were doing here. I told him we had come with the spaceship and were going to make a big town with fields and farms. He said he and his friends had tried to do that too once.”

“He said that?” Arianna stopped walking and regarded her daughter closely. As far as she could recall she had not mentioned anything about her investigations into the Suki II. She wondered if Ambra had met somebody from the ship who had led her on before dismissing the thought straight away. Arianna considered she had enough problems without having to worry about the strange fantasies of her daughter’s imagination.

The following day there was a meeting of the Council at which they were all present. Everyone was in a good mood. The city was developing well ahead of schedule and a positive aura had enveloped the entire settlement. The councillors were chatting jovially amongst themselves. The happy atmosphere faded somewhat when Kalp came in accompanied by Bratten Jorg. Of late the Admiral had been chatty and pleasant but now Arianna could see from her worried frown that something was wrong. “I’m not going to sugar coat it,” said Kalp gravely. “We’ve got a problem with the ranger mission. They’ve vanished into thin air.”

The news was digested with consternation. “What did I tell you?” Whispered Jak to Arianna, unable to hide the satisfaction from his voice. “I told you he wasn’t experienced enough, told you he’d mess it up. Probably got himself buried under a landslip or something. I just hope Sol is pleased with himself.”

“Shut up,” ordered Arianna, nudging him hard in the ribs. Losing fourteen people, and rangers too, was a serious matter and she was as worried as the others.

“You mean to say we’ve no idea where they might have gone?” Asked Sol, sounding more worried than anyone.

“Actually we’ve got a pretty good idea,” said Bratten. “Our last contact with them was yesterday, some seventy nine degrees west of our present location, at a distance of three thousand miles.”

“Only yesterday?” Put in Jak. “That isn’t exactly a long time. It just means they’ve missed a single transmission, that’s all.”

“You know as well as I do they’re not supposed to miss a single one,” snapped Kalp. “To do so counts as a severe breach of Confederation protocol and that’s drummed into our heads from the moment you enter the training college.”

“Do we have the transmissions from before?” Asked Arianna. “We should listen to everything leading up to their disappearance.”

“Very true,” acknowledged Kalp.

“Captain Sudd Wal of the Rover mission. First broadcast. It is a great honour to have been chosen to make the maiden reconnaissance of our new home. Conditions are fair and the sky is clear. No rain is forecast. We are currently travelling at a speed of three hundred miles per hour in a westerly direction.”

Sudd Wal was indeed delighted at being chosen to make the first full reconnaissance of Hearthstone and crowed over his perceived triumph against his bitter rival Jak. For several months he had been manoeuvring into position and had openly courted the favour of Sol to push his case on the Council. The policeman had been more than happy to act as the ranger’s agent given the rivalry between himself and Jak and had even secretly lobbied Admiral Kalp for Wal to be given the orbiter job. The geologist Fratia Bel was equally excited, although her pride was without rancour. At just twenty-four she was the youngest of the geologists but was seen as something of a prodigy by her superior, Prima Blak, which is why she had been chosen over more experienced heads.

“Captain Sudd Wal of the Rover mission. Second broadcast at seven PM on the first day of the reconnaissance mission. Conditions continue to treat us fairly. Sunset estimated at around two hours from now, dusk already starting to fall on the horizon. We have this evening sighted fault lines and signs of volcanic activity forty degrees west of the Tula IV. We have also discovered a patchwork of natural caves leading up towards the mountain range. Natural ore deposits are believed to be abundant here.”

“We’re going to be heroes,” declared Wal triumphantly as the computers sounded out to signal the discovery of another rich deposit below ground. “Why this place, it contains more resources than twenty habitable planets combined. We’ve hit the jackpot I tell you!”

“Don’t let it go to your head,” cautioned Fratia Bel as the rover rose up into the clouds and gathered speed, the computer equipment whirring away all around them. “This is a grave responsibility you have here, and your actions will be written into the annals of history. Be sure to present yourself as an inspiration to those who will follow you.”