Serpent's Gift (18 page)

"We read you!" Howie answered. "We're here in Cavern One. We called the school. An emergency team is on the way."

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"Good," the instructor said tersely. "Khuharkk' is okay, and the Professor is still alive .. . but he is injured--how badly, we do not know yet. When will the rescue shuttle arrive?"

"ETA is ten minutes," Howie reported.

"That fast?" Hing broke in, amazed.

"When we called in, they already knew we had a crisis. Don't ask me how.

Janet had just left."

"Good," Serge said. "When the team arrives, I would like you, Howard, to escort them to the Cavern Two airlock--but do not enter yourself, understand?"

"Roger," the young man said. "I read you."

"Good. Cavern Two, over and out."

Hing regarded Serge and Khuharkk'. "Do you think we ought to wait, since they'll be here so soon?" she asked. The yawning blackness before her seemed deeper and darker than ever, now that she knew help was so close.

"We might hurt the Professor worse by moving him."

Her answer came, not from either of her companions, but from the injured Heeyoon himself. Below them, Professor Greyshine shuddered, then his hands and feet began scrabbling feebly at the ledge, as though he were groggily trying to lever himself up. Rock dust cascaded over the lip of the ledge.

"Greyshine,"
Serge yelled, after hastily snatching off his helmet,
"do not
move! Remain still!"

But the alien continued to twitch restlessly.

Hing wordlessly stuffed the silvery material of their jury-rigged sling into her front suit pocket. "Here," Serge said, picking up the Heeyoon's helmet.

"Fasten this to your belt and put it on him as soon as you reach him."

She nodded, and a moment later signaled that she was ready. As Serge and Khuharkk' held the end of the makeshift line, she swung herself over the edge.

Jerkily, they lowered her, hand over hand. Concentrating on steadying herself with her hands and feet, Hing tuned out the monotonous radiation alert, the comments Serge and Khuharkk' exchanged, everything but the rocky wall before her. She could no longer see the edge ...

At first the descent was easy, and Hing had plenty of time to fend herself off from the jagged walls as she went down. But all too soon the crevasse narrowed, and the sharp-pointed rocks were everywhere.

"I am activating the winch now," Serge said, and she could hear the strain in his voice. "Are you okay?"

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"Fine," she replied. "It's getting pretty dark down here. I'm going to have to turn on my--"

Her left hand halfway to her helmet, Hing broke off as her right hand slipped from its handhold. The force of her grab sent her spinning out, away from the face of the cliff, and suddenly there was only black emptiness beneath her.

She gasped, trying not to panic as she dangled helplessly, then swung back toward the rocky face. She put out a foot, trying to brake herself, missed, and slammed against the wall hard enough to momentarily drive the breath from her lungs.

"Hing!" Serge shouted. "What happened?"

For a moment she scrabbled in mindless terror at the rocks, then the vertigo faded as she found handholds. It was only then that she took in the mechanical tones sounding in her earphones.

"Warning. Suit material has been breached. Warning. Repairs

commencing."

"Damn!" she muttered, afraid to move. While she was here in the pressurized area, all she had to fear from a ripped suit was radonium-2

poisoning--hardly a reassuring idea, but not immediately threatening. But if she moved below the level of the Mizari field, it would be an entirely different story. Explosive decompression was a particularly nasty way to die.

"What happened?" Serge shouted. "Are you hurt?" His voice rasped harshly with fear.

"Ripped my suit," Hing replied tersely. "Hang on a second while I check my diagnostics . .." Moments later she gave a sigh of relief. "The emergency sealant is holding!"

"Perhaps I ought to take over. There is no way to tell how strong that sealant is," he said tightly. "If the tear is too large, the patch might not hold in vacuum."

"Don't be silly," Hing said, trying to sound more confident than she felt as she flicked on the spotlight built into the top of her helmet and stole a cautious glance at her destination. The Professor was still resting on the ledge, though one foot now dangled over nothingness. "I'm three quarters of the way down by now. Just lower me slowly, okay?"

They did so, letting her down only a few handspans at a time, as Hing used her climbing harness to brace against the cliff and search for handholds and footholds.

"You are getting very close," Serge said. "Only another meter or so. Can you land on the ledge?"

She groped, then managed to grasp a jagged rock and draw herself toward the Heeyoon. Greyshine took up almost all of the

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narrow ledge, and Hing's boots barely had room to rest. She dared to push one of his arms aside with her toe so she could step over him, then she squatted down at his head. "I'm down," she declared, feeling a little light-headed with relief. "The chicken has landed."

"I beg your pardon?" Khuharkk' sounded puzzled.

"Tres drole,"
Serge growled, not at all amused. "How is the Professor?"

Hing bent over the alien and shouted, "Professor? Can you hear me?"

Faintly, she heard him groan.

First the helmet,
she reminded herself, lifting the shaggy head and sliding the transparent egg shape over the limp gray ears. It took her several anxious moments to lock the unfamiliar seals into place, but finally she managed. "I've got his helmet on," she reported. "I can't tell how badly he may be hurt.. . but his leg's at a funny angle. It's probably broken. I'm going to tie him into the sling now. Give me some slack."

Coils of the braided cord rippled down beside her, then Khuharkk's voice reached her, speaking in rapid Simiu. "May I suggest something, Honored HingOun?"

"Of course, Honored Khuharkk'."

"Before you move the Professor to place him in the sling, I believe it would be wise to increase the air pressure inside his suit, thus splinting any possible injuries Honored Greyshine may have."

"You mean . . . deliberately overinflate his suit?" Hing had been cautioned against that very thing so many times that it had become second nature never to overpressurize a spacesuit.

"Exactly! That is a recommended first-aid technique I recall from pilot training."

Hing peered down at the Heeyoon's suit, trying to figure out the unfamiliar controls. They were labeled in Heeyoon, obviously, but as CLS regulations decreed, they were also labeled in Mizari script--but in such small letters that she had to strain her eyes to read them in the light of her headlamp. Finally she found the correct control, then carefully activated it. She watched anxiously as the Heeyoon's suit began filling up like a balloon.

The cool rush of air over his limbs must have partially roused the unconscious Heeyoon, for he suddenly thrashed as hard as the rapidly stiffening suit would allow. His arm slammed against Hing's knee, catching her off-balance. She teetered on the narrow ledge, grabbing at air, then with a shrill, breathless scream, she was falling!

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-
The glow
of
the
Mizari field flashed past her helmet as she ¦
fbimmeted

downward. If it hadn't been for the change in the
gravity,
she might have been badly whiplashed when the cable ended and her climbing harness caught her, but the jerk was softened by the one-tenth gee. She hung there, feeling her stomach bouncing in the low gravity, struggling not to throw up.
If
you barf, you'll have to live with it all the way back to the school,
she warned herself, biting her lip until the pain distracted her from the wave of nausea.

It was only then that it occurred to her to wonder whether the sealant would hold. Hing tensed, her queasiness forgotten.
If that emergency patch doesn't
hold,
she thought, her mouth dry with fear,
I've got about thirty seconds to
live.. .

But the sealant held.

Hing drew a deep breath, hearing once again the ubiquitous radiation warning booming through the cavern. Serge was shouting over it, his voice rasping with fear. "Hing! Hing, answer me! Are you okay? What is happening? Hing?
Hing!?! Repondezmoi!"

"I will, if you'll shut up and give me a chance!" Hing snapped, then immediately regretted her lapse. "Sorry," she said stiffly. "I'm sorry, Serge.

Don't worry, I'm okay."

"What happened?"

"The Professor started thrashing around and knocked me off the ledge, but I hadn't unfastened my harness. I'm fine. Pull me back up."

Within moments she was back on the ledge. Feeling sweat coursing down her face, Hing tucked the silvery sheet as far beneath the injured alien as she could, then she alternated tugging at him and tucking it farther until he was lying in the middle of it. She was panting by the time she had finished, and began wrapping the impromptu sling around his torso.

Now don't move, Professor,
she cautioned the alien silently, her heart pounding with fear as she fumbled with the line snapped to her climbing harness.
Don't move, for the love of all that's holy, please don't move!

Trying to keep her back safely against the cliff face, she wound the line around the Heeyoon's body, through the belt on his suit, then wove it through the grommets studding the sides of the improvised sling. The Professor's arms and legs stuck out stiffly, sausagelike. "Just like a big hot dog wrapped in foil," she mumbled, then realizing that the alien's lupine image made that into a very bad pun, Hing struggled against a series of hysterical giggles.

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"Excuse me?" Serge demanded suspiciously. "I didn't catch that. Did you say something?"

"Nothing," she said. "Just checking these knots."
Just keep it together for
another few minutes,
she admonished herself. "Okay," she said briskly.

"He's ready to come up. Haul away!"

Slowly, the Professor's still form ascended as Khuharkk' and Serge pulled together. She heard the two of them panting in her headphones. "He's a lot heavier than I am," she said. "Especially unconscious."

The only reply was a grunt.

There was one heart-stopping moment where it seemed as though the alien's overinflated form wouldn't make it between two jaggedly protruding points of rock, but by skillful use of the winch controls, timing his moment to coincide with the slight swing of the alien's body at the end of the cable, Serge was able to bring Greyshine up the rest of the way. Together, human and Simiu hoisted him over the edge.

"Your turn," Serge called, dropping the cable back down.

Hing had just snapped the line back onto her harness when a voice erupted in their earphones. "Serge! Hing! Are you okay?"

"Janet!" Hing said, recognizing the Chief Engineer's voice.

"Where are you?" Serge demanded.

"We've just reached Cavern One. We'll be there in a few minutes."

Rescue was here--soon they'd all be safe! Reaction made Hing's hands begin to shake, but she resolutely forced herself to pay attention to checking that her line was snapped securely. It would be just her luck to fall down the bottomless pit at the precise moment the cavalry came charging over the hill.

"Okay, Serge, bring me up!" she called, giving a tug on the cord to indicate her readiness.

As she rose toward the edge, Hing found herself wondering how much radiation she'd taken. It couldn't be too bad--her suit hadn't warned her, after all. But did the sealant block radiation? Would she be burned on her leg? Or had the exposure been enough to damage her genes? Marriage and

children seemed a far-off thing, but she'd always thought that someday she
would
marry, would have a baby. What if--

She was jerked out of frightening speculation a moment later as her suit nearly hooked on the same jagged projection that had almost trapped the Professor. Grateful for the interruption, Hing fended herself off from the protrusion. Moments later she was grabbed and hoisted bodily over the edge by Khuharkk' and Serge.

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"The Professor?" she gasped, feeling her legs ready to buckle; she was trembling like an adolescent on a first date. Serge put a steadying arm around her as they moved away from the crevasse. "Where's Janet?"

"Right here!" came the reply, and they both turned to see the airlock door slide open. Janet Rodriguez and three of her engineering staff were crammed in along with a huge first-aid kit and an anti-grav stretcher. The woman stepped forward, taking in the Professor's bloated form, the winch with its jury-rigged cable, and the three rescuers. "Well done, all of you," she said, motioning to her crew to pick up the Professor. "But let's save the congratulations for later. Right now I've got to get you all back to the hospital."

"Hhh .. . hospital?" Hing tried to swallow, but her mouth was too dry.

"Khuharkk' and the Professor are hurt, but Serge and I aren't--"

Janet shook her head, and behind her faceplate, Hing could see her frown.

"You can't mess around with radiation, Hing," she said curtly. "There's no time to spare. We've got to get you to Decontamination."

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Coiled sinuously before Rob Gable's desk, Ssoriszs listened to his friend and felt his fangs unfold--an involuntary response to shock. As his bright dreams crumbled to dust, he tasted the bitterness of his own venom like a physical echo of his emotions. It seemed that Professor Greyshine had discovered the missing piece of the Lost Colony puzzle, the star-shrine, only to have the discovery snatched away and rendered inaccessible. Even now the caverns must be filling with lethal radonium-2 radiation--would that mean that the search for the Lost Colony's relics would have to be abandoned?

"If it hadn't been for Hing, Serge, and Khuharkk', I'm afraid Professor Greyshine would have died," Rob finished. "If those kids hadn't had the nerve to look down that crevasse, fully expecting to see a friend spattered all over the sides of the thing..." The psychologist spread his hands and shrugged eloquently.