The Man-Kzin Wars 01 (14 page)

“
E
lastic?" Yoshii wondered.
“
O
r viscous, or what?
”

“
N
ever mind, we'll investigate later, right now we're down safe," Carita. replied. She wiped her brow.
“
H
oo, but I need a stiff drink and a hot shower!
”

Yoshii let-red at her.
“
I
n the opposite order, please." She cuffed him lightly. The horseplay turned into mutual unharnessing and a hug.
“
H
ey-y," she purred, "you really do want to celebrate, don't you? Later, we'll share that shower.
”

His arms dropped. She released him in her turn and he made a stumbling backward step.
“
, I'm sorry, I didn't intend-Well, we should take a good look outside, shouldn't we?
”

The jinxian was briefly silent before she smiled wryly and shrugged.
“
O
kay. I'll forgive you this time if you'll fix dinner. Your yakitori tacos are always consoling. You're right, anyway.
”

They turned off the fluoros and peered forth. As their eyes adapted, they saw well enough through airlessness, by the thronging stars and the cold rush of the Milky Way. Bowl-shaped, the dell in which they were parked curved some 50 meters wide to heights twice as far above the bottom. Fido sat close to one side; direct sunlight would only touch her for a small part of the day, weeks hence. Every edge and lump was rounded off by the covering of the planet. In this illumination it appeared pale gray.

“
W
hat is the stuff?" Carita muttered
.

“
I
've hit on an idea," Yoshii said. I do not warrant that it is right. It may not even make sense.
”

Her teeth flashed white in the darkness.
“
T
he universe is not under obligation to make sense. Speak your piece." She switched cabin illumination back on. Radiance made the ports blank
.

“
I
think it must be organic
–
carbon-based," Yoshii said.
“
I
t doesn't remotely match any mineral I've ever seen or heard of or imagined, whereas it does resemble any number of plastics.
”

“
H
in, yeah, I had the same thought, but discarded it. Where would the chemistry come from? Life can't have started in the short time Prima hung onto its atmosphere, can it? Whatever carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen are left must be locked up in
solid-state
materials. At most we might find hydrates or something. "

“
T
his could have come from space.
”

“
W
hat?" She gaped at him.
“
I
f that's a joke, it's too deep for me."
“
T
here is matter in space, in the nebulae and even in the emptiest stretches between. It includes organic compounds, some of them fairly complex."

“
N
ot quite concentrated enough for soup.
”

“
S
ure, the densest nebula is still a pretty hard vacuum by Terrestrial standards. However, this system has had time to pass through many. Between them, too-yes, between galaxies-gravity has found atoms and molecules to draw in. During any single year, hardly a measurable amount. But it's been fifteen billion years, Carita.
”

“
U
m'h," she uttered, almost as if punched in the stomach
.

“
T
he sun doesn't give off any ultraviolet to speak Of," Yoshii pursued.
“
I
ts wind is puny. Carbon-based molecules land intact. The sun does maintain a day
time temperature at which they can react with each other. I daresay cosmic radiation energizes the chemistry, too. Fine grains of sand and dust
–
crumbled off rocks, together with meteoroid powder-provide colloidal surfaces where the stuff can cluster till there's a fairly high concentration and complicated exchanges become possible. Unsaturated bonds grab the free atoms of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, anything included in the
down drift
except noble gases, and incorporate them. Maybe, here and there, some such growing patch 'learns' how to take stuff from
surface
rocks. It's a slow, slow process
–
or set of processes
–
but it's had time. Eventually patches meet as they expand. What happens then depends on just what their compositions happen to be. I'd expect some weird interactions while they join. Those could be going on yet. That would explain why we saw
differently
colored areas. But it's only the terminal reactions."

Yoshii's words had come faster and faster. He was developing his idea as he described it. Excitement turned into awe and he whispered,
“
A
polymer. A single multiplex molecule, the size of this planet.
”

Carita was mute for a whole minute before she murmured,
“
W
hewl But why isn't the same stuff on every airless body?
...
No wait. Stupid of me to ask. This is the only one where conditions have been right." Yoshii nodded.
“
I
suspect that what yellows the rest is a carbon compound, too, but something formed in space. You get some fairly complicated ones there, you know. If that particular one can't react with the organics I was talking about
–
too cold-then they are a minor part of the
down drift
compared to it. We haven't noticed the same thing in other planetary systems because they are all too young, and maybe
because none of them have made repeated passages through nebulae."

“
Y
ou missed your calling," Carita said tenderly.
“
S
hould've been a scientist. Is it too late? W
e can go out, take samples, put
'em through our analyzers. When we get home, you can write a paper that'll have scholarships piled around you up to your bellybutton. Though I hope you'll keep on with the poetry. I like what you-
”

A quiver went through the boat.
“
W
hat the Finagle!" she exclaimed.

“
A
quake?" Yoshii asked
.

“
T
he prof's told us these planets are as far beyond quakes as a mummy is beyond hopscotch," Carita snapped
.

Another tremor made slight noises throughout the hull. Yoshii reached for the searchlight switch. Carita caught his arm.
“
H
old that," she said.
“
T
he kzinti
n
o, unless they beef up that already wild boost they are under, they won't arrive for a couple more hours." Nevertheless he refrained
.

The pair studied their instrument panel.
“
W
e've been tilted a bit," Yoshii pointed out.
“
S
hould we reset the landing jacks?
”

“
L
et's wait and see," Carita said.
“
I
'd guess the rock beneath has settled under our weight, or one layer has slid over another, or something like that. if it's reached a new equilibrium, we don't want to upset it by shifting mass around. No sense in moving yet, when we can't tell what the ground is like anywhere else.
”
,
“
R
ight. I'm afraid, though, we can't relax as we had hoped."
“
H
ow much relaxing could we do anyway, with kzinti sniffing after us?"

“
A
nd Laurinda-" Yoshii whispered. Harshly:
“
D
o
you want to take the controls, stand by to jump out of here, in case? I'll snug things down and, yes, throw a meal together."

Lightfoot under the low gravity, he descended aft to the engine compartment. Delicate work needed doing. The idling fusion generator must be shut down entirely, lest its neutrino smoke betray the boat-not that the kzinti could home in on it, but they would know with certainty the humans were on Prima, and in which quadrant. Batteries, isotopic and crystalline as well as chemical, held energy for weeks of life support and ordinary operations. Yet it had to be possible to restart the generator instantly, full power within a second, should there be a sudden need to scramble. That meant disconnecting the safety interlocks. Yoshii fetched tools and got busy. The task was demanding, but not too much for his spirit to wing elsewhere in space,
else when
in time-the Belt, Plateau, We Made It, Rover's folk on triumphal progress after their return
... .

Carita's voice came over the intercom.
“
T
his is dull duty. I think I will turn on the searchlight while it's still safe to do so. Might get a clue to what caused those jolts.
”

“
G
ood idea," lie agreed absent-mindedly, and continued his task. The metal around him throbbed. Small objects rattled on the deck.
“
J
uan!" Carita shouted.
“
T
he, the material-it's rippling, crawling-" The hull rocked.
“
I
'm getting us out of here!
”

“
Y
es, do," he called back, and grabbed for the nearest handhold. Within its radiation shield, the generator hummed. Needles sprang across dials, displays onto screens. Yoshii felt the upward thrust of the deck against his
feet. It was light. Carita was a careful pilot, applying
barely sufficient boost to rise off the ground before
she committed to a leap.

The boat screamed. Things tilted. Yoshii clung. Loose things hailed around him. A couple of them drew blood. The boat canted over, toppled, struck lengthwise, tolled so that he was half deafened
.

Stillness crashed down, except for a shrill whistle that he knew too well. Air was escaping from one or more rents nearby. He hauled himself erect and out of his daze. The emergency valve had already shut, sealing off this section. He had to get through the lock built into it before the pressure differential made operation fatally slow
.

Somehow lie passed forth, and on along the companionway that was now a corridor, toward the control cabin. Lights were still shining, ventilators still whirring, and few articles lay strewn around. This was a good, sturdy craft, kept shipshape. How had she failed?
Carita met: him in the entrance.
“
H
ey, you sure got battered, didn't you? I was secured. Here, let me help you." She practically carried him to his chair, which she had adjusted for the new orientation. Meanwhile she talked on:
“
T
he trouble's with the landing gear, I think. Is that damn stuff a glue? No, how could it be? Take over. I'm going to suit up and go out for a look.
”

“
D
on't," he protested.
“
Y
ou might get stuck there, too.
”
“
I
'll be careful. Keep watch. If I don't make it back-" She stooped, brushed lips across his, and hurried aft
.

His ears rang and pained him, his head ached, he was becoming conscious of bruises, but his eyes worked. The searchlight made clear the motion in the mantle. It was slight in amplitude, as thin as the layer was, and slow, but intricate, like wave patterns spreading from countless centers to form an
ever changing
moiré
. Those nodes were darker than the ripple-shadows and seemed to pass the
darkness’s
on from one to the next, so that a shifting stipple went outward from the boat, across the dell floor and, as he watched, up the side. The hull rocked a little, off and on, in irregular wise.

“
D
o you read me?" he heard after a while.
“
I
'm in the Number Two lock, outer valve open, looking over the lip.
”

“
I
read you," he answered unevenly. At least the radio system remained intact.
“
W
hat do you see?
”

“
T
he same turbulence in the
...
stuff. Nothing clear aft, where the main damage is. The search
beam doesn't diffuse, and-I'm off to inspect."
“
B
etter not. If you lost your footing and fell down int
o
–
:' She barked scorn.
“
I
f you think I could, then I'm for sure the right person for this job." He clenched his fists but must needs admit that induction boots gave plenty of grip on the metal for a rockjack-a
-
rockjill, she often called herself.
“
I
'm crawling out.
...
Standing.
...
On my way." The hull pitched.
“
H
ey! That damn near threw me." Starkly:
“
I
think Fido just settled more at the after end."