Lights in the Deep (29 page)

“Good,” I said. “The sooner she’s out of that thing, the sooner we can get moving. No doubt your own carriage has been sending out coded mantis distress signals, ever since we landed.”

“You guess correctly,” the Professor said.

“Then it’s a race against time—the further we are from humans, the safer we’ll be. We’ll have to hope that your people have started dispatching rescue missions of their own.”

“But where will we go?” the Professor asked.

“Anywhere but here,” I said, raising my arms out and indicating the walls of the lifeboat with my open palms.

“Very well,” said the Professor. “But you and the female must wait outside. The extraction from the carriage will be even more humiliating for the Queen Mother than remaining bound to it. This is not a thing for human eyes to see. Gather your human survival equipment and supplies and be gone. We will come out in time.”

The captain and I quietly collected what we could, slung the frames of the emergency packs on our backs, and climbed out of the lifeboat and walked up to the top of the bluff, pebbles and sand swamping over the tops of our boots with each step.

“You realize I could order us all to stay put,” she said, her short-cropped hair ruffling slightly in the cool, dry breeze. The sun—a star smaller and yet brighter than that which Purgatory circled—was still high up in the sky, but sinking almost imperceptibly towards the horizon.

“Ma’am,” I said, “if you meant it when you told me you didn’t want a war, then there’s no way you can turn these two over to Fleet in their present circumstances. We might as well stuff apples in their mouths and shove them into the oven. They’ll be picked apart like frogs in a biology class. First their minds, then their bodies.”

“Are you forgetting that you have a duty, Chief?” she said sternly, turning to face me fully, with hands clutching the straps of her pack, elbows thrust just slightly out.

Our uniforms were barely keeping the cold at bay, and I suspected we’d have to use the emergency jackets in our packs if we didn’t start hiking soon.

“What good’s that duty going to do if we still lose? C’mon, Captain, you know the odds. The mantes own thousands of planets, and even with the years of the armistice taken into consideration, I can’t believe humanity has caught up much. Have those colonies crucified in the first war even fully recovered yet? What about Earth? No, ma’am, if the mantes want us dead, it will happen eventually. The only difference now is we can actually put up a fight, whereas last time they cut us down like lambs.”

My superior officer didn’t appear convinced.

“Look,” I said, figuring it was time to put all my cards on the table, “I’ve never been a great one for protocol and going along with orders at all costs. In some ways, the absence of Fleet rules and regulations from Purgatory life was the best thing that ever happened to me, because it made me realize what kind of man I am. I’m not a very good soldier. I don’t like being told what to do. And if I’d had a choice in the matter I’d have thrown my non-standard commission back in Fleet’s face.

“The Chaplain gave me a job once, and I did all I could to carry it out. For his sake. Now I have a new job, and until that job’s been done—the resumption of peace between the mantes race and our own—I won’t rest.”

The captain considered at great length, her eyes evaluating my expression while her mind evaluated the wisdom of my plea. It hadn’t been a very persuasive one, but it was the only one I had to make. Either she went with it, or I’d be forced to mutiny. Definitely not something I’d prefer doing. But I’d do it just the same. And I think she knew it too.

Adanaho drew in a long, gradual breath through her nostrils, then let it out just as gradually, tilting her head to one side.

“You’re right,” she said. “You’re not a very good soldier. You’ve been two steps from dereliction ever since I met you. But you’ve got guts, padre. And I respect that. Okay, just so things are official, I am
ordering
us to escort the Professor and the Queen mother until we can make contact with mantis forces, at which time we will parlay for a cease-fire, and pray that things get rolling positively from there.”

“And if the Fleet finds us before the mantes do?”

“Then let me do the talking, while you do the praying.”

There was a noise behind us. We turned to see the Professor slowly levitating upward, out of the lifeboat’s hatch. He had the Queen Mother balanced on the front of his disc—his forelimbs wrapped under her insect-like shoulder joints while the rest of her body rested on the front of the disc proper. Her lower thorax was pale and shone with dampness, its chitin looking soft, and mantis blood trailing from several holes.

Adanaho and I rushed over to them.

“Does she need first aid?” I asked.

“What can be done, I have done,” said the Professor, who seemed visibly shaken by what had just transpired inside. “She will heal. In time. The Queen Mother is severed from her carriage, and I do not know if she can ever be mated to another—such things being almost unheard of among adults of her great age. Her pain is terrible, but she is conscious, and she bade me tell you that we are in your care now. I have no weapons—as you well know—and would not use them to coerce you, even if I did. The Queen Mother rides with me, and I will follow wherever you choose to go. I can signal for mantis help with my own carriage—for several of your months, depending on how long my carriage’s fuel cells last.”

“May fortune favor the foolish,” I said.

The Professor’s antennae made a questioning expression.

“Old Earth literature,” the captain said, in reply. “Come on, let’s go. Padre? Since this is your idea, you’re on point.”

“Roger that, ma’am,” I said, tugging down on the straps of my pack to tighten them into my shoulders.

Chapter 6

We walked.

On rock, when we could find it. The sand and pebbles proving to be a lot of work despite our best efforts. I envied the Professor with his disc—floating effortlessly above the ground. Occasionally I dropped back to talk to him as he kept the Queen Mother securely held.

“Will you be able to sense it?” I asked. “If we get near any other mantis troops or equipment?”

“Yes,” said the Professor. “Though I must warn you that my connection to my people has been non-existent since our landing. I am beginning not to trust my own machinery. Perhaps there has been damage I cannot ascertain? Or perhaps your military has devised some way of blanketing or cloaking mantis com-munications—such a thing would prove very useful against us, in a pitched battle. Our coordination is our greatest strength. Forced to fight singly, we might not be nearly as effective.”

“If we did have such a weapon,” the Captain said, overhearing, “I am sure I’d have known about it.”

“I think we’ll have to trust that your readings are accurate,” I said to the Professor. “Meanwhile, we will go south, and hope that both terrain and climate are favorable.”

It seemed like a vain hope. All I could see on the horizon were rocks, more stony, broken bluffs, and sand dunes. Not a tree nor a bush in any direction. Nothing running, flying, squirming, or jumping. It occurred to me that when we’d entered orbit, the seas of the planet had appeared small, and tinted green. Local evolution might not have gotten much beyond the microscopic level, and then only in the shallow oceans.

Enough photosynthesis to turn the sky a pale blue.

Which was both good, and bad.

Stranded for too long without rescue, we’d starve. Or die of thirst.

We plodded, and I stretched out the distance between myself and our little group. I scanned relentlessly for gullies or creek beds—any sign of fresh water. Adanaho and I only had enough for a few days, even with rationing.

A wind began to whip.

The captain jogged to catch up with me.

“I do not like this,” she said. “I feel a sandstorm is coming.”

“How do you know?” I asked.

“I grew up part of the time in North Africa,” she said. “I can tell.”

“Look!” said the Professor, his speaker grill yelling the word.

We stopped and turned. An ominous, dark wall of billowing dust was moving rapidly upon us from the rear. It seemed to stretch into the sky for a kilometer or more. I swallowed hard, then began to frantically search for shelter. The captain pointed, and we ran for a nearby hill with a small overhang. When we got there we discovered a water-worn hollow at the hill’s base. We pushed ourselves into it, huddling together, emergency jackets pulled tightly over our heads. The Professor landed his disc and used both the disc and his body to shield the Queen Mother.

If it was possible for a mantis to look more pathetic, I wasn’t sure how. Her limbs were curled tightly against her body and dried blood dribbled away from the fresh scabs where her lower thorax had formerly interfaced with her disc. Her lower limbs were small and feeble looking, compared to the impressive forelimbs, and I wondered just how long it had been since
any
mantis had walked under its own power?

Without her carriage, the Queen Mother had been made small.

I experienced a moment of unexpected pity.

Then the rushing cloud of detritus swept over us. I closed my jacket across my face as tightly as I could make it, listening to the muffled howling of the wind as it broke across the top of the hill.

Chapter 7

Something nudged me awake.

I slowly pulled the jacket off of my head. There was a sensation of fine grit in every pore and crevice of my skin. My lips were dry and my throat parched.

It was dusk, or getting on towards it. The storm had passed, and the air was clear. So clear in fact I could see the stars. Sharp and precise in the purpling sky.

I saw the captain’s pack in front of me, but no Adanaho.

The Professor hovered nearby.

“Is everyone okay?” I asked, my tongue rubbery. Saliva flowed into my mouth, and I spit several times to get the dust out—though I still felt it on my teeth. My eyes were crusted and I wiped at them with hands that felt caked in powder.

“Yes,” said the professor.

I slowly stood up, yawning, and stretching my back. There were wind storms on Purgatory too, but in the valley where my chapel was built, things had been more or less protected.

Not so, here. Though the hill had done us good. I couldn’t begin to guess what might have happened if we’d been caught out in the open with nowhere to run and nothing to hide behind. There weren’t any mountains on this world, from what I could see. No recent or ongoing geologic activity. Everything had been slowly worn flat by wind and occasional water. It was probable we’d see several more sandstorms before our journey was over.

My bowels suddenly told me it was time to do God’s work.

“Excuse me,” I said. And began walking away from our hill, looking for something farther and smaller—just big enough to crouch behind, and relieve myself.

When I was done I made my way back. The far horizon still glowed with the setting sun. I stopped short, seeing two silhouettes at the top of our hill: one human, distinctly female, and the other mantis. I observed them for a time. They were both facing into the setting sun, their heads erect and their eyes forward. I thought I could just barely hear the sound of Adanaho’s voice.

Coming back to the makeshift camp in the hollow at the base of the hill, I quietly spoke to the Professor.

“What are they doing?” I asked.

“When the storm lifted, your Captain was the first to rouse. She checked the status of myself and the Queen Mother, then she shed her equipment and went to the top of the hill to survey the surround. When we heard her voice coming softly down to us, the Queen Mother asked me what your Captain was saying. I told the Queen Mother that it sounded like prayer.”

Prayer.

I was surprised, though I don’t know why. I’d not known the captain long enough to inquire as to her upbringing or spiritual affiliation. If any. Was she Muslim? She had mentioned North Africa.

“So how did the Queen Mother get up there?”

“I carried her,” said the Professor. “She was curious. She’d never seen a human engaged in religious rite. Of any sort. Your Captain did not seem to mind. The Queen Mother asked that she be left alone with your Captain, and I have done this. I suggest you do it too.”

“It sounds to me like Adanaho is still talking,” I said. “She has to know that the Queen Mother isn’t able to understand.”

“Perhaps her words are not for the Queen Mother?” the Professor said.

Yes, perhaps.

I sat down in the hollow and retrieved some water and a concentrated food bar from my pack, drinking and eating in slow, deliberate portions. The Professor softly landed his disc next to me, and I felt his alien eyes studying me as I stared at the gravel in front of my toes.

“You are a curiosity,” he said.

“Oh?”

“Yes, assistant-to-the-chaplain. In all the time we have known each other—through all of the work that you have performed in my presence, as a religious human—I have never known you to be overt about your feelings in the way other humans are overt.”

I felt my face get warm.

He was treading in uncomfortable territory.

“I don’t believe it’s my place to be showy,” I said. “It might make some of the chapel’s attendees think I was playing favorites. In terms of which ‘flavor’ I subscribe to.”

“But we are not in your chapel,” said the Professor. “And there are no other humans around us to see you, save your Captain. Who is now occupied. Our circumstances are dire. I know from studying the human history of belief that this is the ideal time for supplication. Harry, why do you not pray?”

The warm feeling in my face grew more intense.

“I don’t know,” I said. He was asking me questions I didn’t dare ask
myself.

“You built a holy house with your own hands, and you maintain this house for use by any human who comes through your door. You do this out of loyalty to your deceased Chaplain. Yet, you do not perform services in your chapel. Never have you offered a sermon. You do not pray, nor have I ever known you to habitually carry out any religious ritual of any sort—save for demonstration purposes, for the educational benefit of myself and my students.”