Starhawk (6 page)

JAKE CAME THROUGH
the air lock into the
Gremlin
passenger cabin to the sound of raised voices. One of the girls was in tears. Another was pointing angrily at Josh.
“Limaza satutrukuna huna?”

Shahlah interpreted for the captain: “She wants to know why you and I are staying behind.”

“Tell them it's all right, Shahlah. Nobody's staying behind. We just have some reports and things to take care of.” Then Joshua smiled at Jake. “Hi, partner.”

The girls looked at Jake. “It's okay,” he said, trying to keep it light. “We're all going to cross over. Look, I'll be here with them.” Then, with a laugh: “Believe me, I wouldn't do it if it weren't safe.”

Shahlah translated, but the girls' suspicions did not subside.

“Jake,” said Joshua, “did you enjoy the trip over?” He grinned at the girls. “Captain Loomis likes to spacewalk.”

“It's exciting,” said Jake. He looked toward the young lady who'd asked the question and seemed to be at the center of the growing concern. She was the tallest in the group, almost as big as he was. Her name was Nadia. “It might seem a little scary at first, but you'll enjoy it.”

“Alkull sayakunu bikhair,”
said Shahlah.
“Laisa hunaka ma yad'u lilqalaq.”
Then she looked at the two captains. “I told them everybody will be okay. That there's nothing to worry about.”

One of the girls was wearing a crescent necklace. She was watching Jake with no sign of approval.
“Min fadlika fassir lana limatha lan ta'tu ma'ana.”

“Karida wants to know,” said Shahlah, “if the
Gremlin
is going to crash.”

“Yes,” Joshua said. “It is. We won't be able to save the ship.”

Karida stayed with it. “How long have you known?”

“We've known for a while.”

“Why didn't you tell us?”

“We didn't want to say anything until the
Copperhead
got here.”

The students looked at one another. Priscilla, watching via the imager, thought they lost a degree of trust in their captain. And possibly in Shahlah.

Another of the girls was shaking her head.
“'Ana 'ash'oro bil'asaf li'annani 'atait.”

“Layla says she's sorry she came.”

Joshua tried to take Layla's hand in his. But she backed away. “I understand,” he said. “This isn't the kind of flight we'd planned. And I'm sorry. But everything will be okay.”

No translation of his comment was needed; the meaning was clear enough. There were some tentative smiles. Shahlah picked up one of the Flickinger belts and held it out for the nearest girl. “Let me help you, Ashira,” she said, alerting Priscilla that Ishraq had not been the only student who spoke English.

 * * * 

PRISCILLA DECIDED THAT,
since everyone else now knew the fate of the
Gremlin
, she should share the information with her three passengers. “I don't think they wanted to go into specifics while you were on board because they were concerned that it would be a bit scary.”

“We're adults,” said Lana. “They could have told us.”

“Look at it from their point of view, Lana,” said Priscilla. “They were trying to make it as easy on you as they could.”

When Jake and three more girls came through the air lock, the reception was subdued. “To be honest,” one of the newcomers said, “I'm glad I didn't know. I was afraid something like that was happening.”

The new passengers wasted no time removing the Flickinger units and returning them to Jake. “I see you told them,” he said. “Everything okay?”

She nodded. “They're fine.”

“Good.” He collected the belts and air tanks. “I'll be back in a few minutes.”

“Okay.”

“If there's anything of yours in the lander, Priscilla, you might get it out now.” He went back out through the air lock.

 * * * 

THE CLOUD-WRAPPED PLANET
below him seemed closer than it had been. He stared down at it as he drifted between the ships.
Next time somebody takes a bunch of kids on a trip, they should pick a world with a breathable atmosphere.

He found himself thinking about his life back home. His father, who'd been so proud of him when he qualified. And his mother, who'd left them when Jake was only six. Ran off with a banker.

Jake had never married. He'd been swept off his feet a couple of times and proposed once. To Jeri Lockett. The woman he always thought about the moment after the lights went out. They'd been sitting in the Cosmopolitan in Atlanta, and he'd been about to leave on a two-month flight. So he'd taken the plunge. But she had declined. He never saw her again after that night.

He regretted that he'd never had a family. It hadn't been by design. He'd just been too busy. Or maybe because the right woman had never shown up. Or because, when she had, he hadn't been able to hang on to her. Now, somehow, it seemed as if those details didn't really matter very much.

And why, just now, was he entertaining thoughts like these?

 * * * 

“HOW'D IT GO?”
Joshua asked when he reentered the
Gremlin
.

“Good. Everything's under control.” He glanced at the four remaining students. “We can only take three on this next run.”

One of them would have to wait. The blonde Priscilla had seen in the photo stepped forward. “I'll stay,” she said. Her name was Kareema. There was a brief debate while the others also volunteered to wait. But in the end, Kareema got the nod. The others strapped on the belts and pulled the air tanks onto their shoulders.

 * * * 

FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER,
Jake returned to pick up the last of the students. He asked Joshua if he wanted to escort his last student.

“It's okay,” he said. “You're doing fine, Jake.”

Jake shrugged. “I thought you might want to say something to them. Just in case.”

“Not a good idea,” he said. “It would scare the devil out of them. Don't worry. We're not going down with this thing.”

When it was time to go, Kareema hugged Shahlah. “Good luck,” the student said. Then she turned to Jake. “Don't let them stay too long.”

“Thank you, Kareema,” said Josh. “We'll be fine.”

“We'll join you in a couple of hours,” said Shahlah.

Finally, they activated the force fields, went into the air lock, and crossed to the
Copperhead
.

 * * * 

WHEN HE'D RETURNED
to the
Gremlin
, Shahlah informed him that Joshua had gone below to get pictures of the damage. “He's been transmitting everything back to Union.”

“Well,” he said, “I hope they got the idiot who did this.”

“Let's also hope we all get home okay.”

“Amen to that.”

“I've got a question for you, Jake.”

“Fire away, kid.”

“What exactly are our chances of surviving this?”

“I think we'll be all right.”

“That sounds fairly tentative.” She took a deep breath. “Josh's been evasive about it. He says the right things, but his eyes are telling me something else. Be straight with me.”

“We should get through it okay,” he said. “We can't be sure about anything until we see when and where the
Thompson
shows up.”

“All right.” She read his eyes. “Thanks. Joshua kept saying there was nothing to worry about. I knew that wasn't true.”

“What did the girls think of the monument?” Jake asked. “I don't guess they got a chance to enjoy it.”

“Not really. I'll tell you what they
did
get excited about, though. The animals down there.” She pointed at the deck, meaning, of course, the surface of Barton's World.

“You really think so?”

“Are you serious? They've got big furry creatures. The size of mastodons. And whole herds of animals that look like pandas. And giant snaky things that make your skin crawl.” She led the way onto the bridge, looking for something. “He set a countdown running here somewhere. How long we had before we could expect to go down.”

Shahlah touched a pad, and the AI responded: “It would be prudent to stay no longer than forty-five minutes.”

 * * * 

GREMLIN
LOG

Finally, the girls are safe. Now we have to see whether our own luck holds. Let the record show that a quicker response, however that might have been arranged, would have been seriously helpful.

This will probably be our last entry. The log will be recorded on a chip, and the chip will be delivered to the
Copperhead
and made available to those inquiring into a more effective methodology for responding to emergencies.

—Joshua Miller, November 17, 2195

THEY TALKED ABOUT
their favorite assignments, about the ineptitude of the people who ran Union, about politics, about the silliness that reigned on holovision. About the lunacy of people who planted bombs on interstellars. “They go on about the sanctity of life, then they kill innocent people.”

They did
not
mention the occasional bumps and nudges as they descended closer to the atmosphere.

Shahlah described her feelings when she was assigned to deliver the good news to the winners of the Jamal Touma Science Award. Joshua recalled a run-in he'd had with police after taking umbrage with his sister's husband, who had attacked her. “I wound up in jail,” he said. “For doing what someone needed to do.”

“You hit him?” asked Shahlah.

“Of course.
He's
the one who should have been arrested.”

“Why wasn't he?” asked Jake.

“My sister wouldn't press charges.”

And they talked about the
Thompson
. Where was it?

They interweaved bouts of silence with comments about what they'd do when they got home. (Nobody said “if.”) Shahlah announced that it would be a long time before she tried something like this again. “I thought these things were safe. Otherwise, we'd never have allowed the girls to come on this flight. My father wanted it to be something special. He'll be heartbroken when he hears what happened.”

“Nevertheless,” said Josh, “I think everyone will appreciate his generosity.”

“Oh, yes.” She paused. “Jake, speaking of appreciation, I'm glad you were in the area. Don't know what we'd have done—”

“Well.” He wasn't sure how to respond. If the
Copperhead
hadn't been available, maybe they'd have sent a ship with appropriate capacity. “I'm glad we've been able to help,” he said.

She approached him, looked into his eyes, and pressed her lips against his cheek. “Thank you,” she whispered.

 * * * 

“YOU GUYS ARE
waiting too long,” Priscilla said. “We're starting to hit some atmosphere.” But Jake told her to be patient.

And, finally, the AI warned them that the situation was deteriorating and it was time to go. They were crossing one of the oceans, which was bright and gleaming in the sunlight. Jake let Priscilla know they were coming. Then they got into their gear. Jake and Joshua both wore jet packs. When they were ready, the
Gremlin
captain took a last look around. “I've been here almost two years,” he said. “This has been my home.” He sighed, took Shahlah's hand, and led her into the air lock. “Don't worry about anything,” he told her. “Just stay with me when we get outside.”

“I'll be fine,” she said.

The last thing Jake saw before they closed the inner hatch was an image on the navigation monitor. One of the telescopes was pointed down, high mag, at the ocean. Something with a long neck seemed to be looking back at him.

The lock went through the decompression cycle and opened. The
Copperhead
was about a hundred meters away.

 * * * 

“IT'S NOT AS
frightening as I'd expected,” Shahlah said.

“That's because there's no
down
,” said Josh. “No way you can fall.”

She and Joshua pushed off together. Jake followed close behind. “I've never felt anything like this,” she said, sounding almost giddy.

They floated across, talking about how they'd hoped to hear from the
Thompson
before they left, and how impressed everybody was that the kids had done this without any problems, and how breathless a world was from this angle. Joshua spotted the monument, then lost it as he closed on the
Copperhead
. The air-lock door was open, and they floated smoothly inside. When they stepped into the passenger cabin, the girls clapped their hands, everybody said hello and how good it was to be together again, and Jake couldn't help enjoying the moment. Now, if the
Thompson
would just show up.

The air had already gotten thick. “Listen, everybody,” said Priscilla from the bridge, “please belt down or hold on. We need to do a little acceleration. Just for a few minutes.”

Jake was pleased. She continued to show good sense. He grabbed hold of one of the safety grips that lined the bulkheads.

 * * * 

WHEN THEY RESET
for cruise, he led Shahlah and Joshua below to the cargo deck. They climbed into the lander, closed the hatches, and settled into the seats. It felt good to get back to decent ventilation. But they looked at one another while everybody came to the same realization. Jake shook his head. Shahlah and Joshua both nodded. Do it.

He touched the commlink. “We need to rethink this, Priscilla.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, the air's better in here than it is in the ship. Bring three of the girls down, and we'll change places.”

“Okay, Jake. Be there in a minute.”

Shahlah glanced around the interior of the lander. “Why are the windows blocked?” she asked.

“Because,” said Josh, “it gets used sometimes in areas of heavy radiation.”

She shook her head. “This is depressing.”

“I'm sorry,” said Jake. He explained about the flare star.

“I'd like to see that,” she said. “But
live
. Through a window. Not on a display.”

“Sorry,” said Jake. “Windows won't work.”

“Nice interior, though,” she said. The seats were imitation leather, the lighting was soft, and the controls were padded. The vehicle was designed to accommodate five, plus the pilot.

“But we need to conserve the air,” said Josh. “No idle chitchat.” So they sat quietly, waiting for Priscilla. Shahlah found a book,
FutureTalk
, in which experts predicted what the next century was likely to bring. Joshua simply closed his eyes. Jake stared at the back of his hand, thinking how nice it would be to be on a mountaintop somewhere, with unlimited fresh air.

Priscilla arrived with Nadia, Layla, and Sakeena. “We're going to rotate the girls through every four hours,” she said.

They took over the lander, and Joshua showed them how to access the library. “Same rules here as elsewhere. Breathe normally. Don't talk, okay? And keep the hatch shut except when you're going in or out. Washroom is down at the far end of the bay.” Shahlah translated.

They closed the hatch and started back topside. It was 1311 Greenwich time. They had until about noon tomorrow to get some people on board the
Thompson
.

“By the way,” said Priscilla, “you timed your exit from the
Gremlin
pretty closely.”

“It's going down?” said Joshua.

“A few minutes ago.”

 * * * 

JOHARA WAS ASLEEP
in the passenger cabin. The others were reading. “I've never seen that happen before,” said Joshua. “Usually, they spend their time playing games.”

Ishraq looked up from her screen. “Priscilla asked us not to.”

“Of course,” he said. “Game-playing gets people excited, and you use more air.”

“I guess,” she said.

Jake and Joshua took seats while Priscilla and Shahlah went onto the bridge. “How about some music?” said Shahlah.

“You think we'd be disturbing anybody?”

“I think they'd love to hear some noise.”

“Okay. What do you suggest?” She put the library on-screen.

“Oh,” Shahlah said. “You have the Cairo Five.” She looked at Priscilla, who nodded.

Shahlah made the selection in English.

 * * * 

THE MUSIC BOUNCED
and banged along in a gallop until Priscilla turned the volume down. Don't want anybody getting excited. But the Cairo Five rolled in perfect harmony. The rhythms could have been directly out of Manhattan. A few of the instruments were unfamiliar, more strings than would have been used in a Western rendition, and of a different timbre. But Shahlah smiled and Priscilla was on board from the start. And even Jake, who appeared at the hatch.

The Desert Express, oh, the Desert Express,

She rides each night on the Desert Express,

She waves hello then she waves good-bye

Every night on the Desert Express.

 * * * 

JAKE NEEDED SOMETHING
to keep his spirits up, so he fell back on a collection of commentaries by a young journalist named MacAllister. The guy attacked everybody, college professors, women, clerics, Boy Scouts. Nobody was safe.
I can imagine no worse condition than being married to a perfect spouse,
he wrote. What the hell was
that
supposed to mean? MacAllister thought he lived in a world populated by blockheads. He recommended voting to reelect President Norman even though he was an idiot.
Not good,
he admitted,
but a step up from Governor McGruder.

The reality was Jake could not keep his mind off the clock. And the
Thompson
. Joshua sat across the cabin. His display was off, and his eyes were closed though he was not asleep.

Eventually, the
Gremlin
captain brought up the library, inserted an earpod, and started the
Blake Ocala Show
. Ocala bored Jake. He was enormously popular back in the U.S., but the guy was smarmy at best. His routines consisted mostly of leering at his female guests, poking fun at politicians, and falling down. “You really like that guy?” he asked.

“No,” said Josh. “He's pretty dumb. But right now, he's a diversion.”

 * * * 

EVENTUALLY, JAKE WENT
back onto the bridge. Priscilla was doing a crossword puzzle while Shahlah was reading. “What is it?” he asked.

“A biography of Toraggio,” she said.

“The historian?”

“Well, he was more than a historian. He was a futurist.”

“I think I saw him once,” said Jake. “At Union. Wasn't he the guy who thought we had to set up off-world colonies if we wanted to survive?”

“Yes,” she said. “He's largely the reason we're having the battle over terraforming now.”

“Wonderful.”

“He was also worried about ideologies. He thinks we need to get rid of them.”

“Bear with me, but isn't that an ideology?”

She dimmed the screen. “I guess. Did you get a chance to talk to him?”

“Not really. Somebody pointed him out to me. He was checking into the Starlight. He's dead, isn't he?”

“Two years ago,” she said.

Jake nodded. And pressed his index finger against his lips. They shouldn't be talking.

Priscilla's clock chimed. Seventeen hundred hours. She got up and went into the passenger cabin. “We're going down to the lander again, ladies. Who wants to come? I can take three.”

The kids had already decided. She took Adara, Lana, and Ishraq down and returned a few minutes later with Nadia, Layla, and Sakeena.

“How was it?” asked Josh.

Sakeena wrinkled her nose. “It's great down there. But you can hardly breathe in here.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I guess it's a bit stuffy.” He glanced at Jake but said nothing further.

 * * * 

PRISCILLA'S JOURNAL

The things we take for granted: like being able to breathe. It's almost impossible to sleep when getting enough air becomes a struggle.

—November 18, 2195