Ryk E. Spoor's Blog, page 9

Castaway Resolution: Chapter 21

Sue had just gotten a really odd clue...

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Chapter 21.

"No offense," a sleepy-eyed Portmaster Ventrella said, cradling his coffee in his hands like a precious jewel, "but this had better be very good, Sue."

"You know I wouldn't kick you out of bed for anything that wasn't," Sue said. Then her conscience poked her, and she said reluctantly, "Well, it's not life-or-death. . . not directly now, I think, but. . ."

The Portmaster sighed and gave a weary grin. "Ehh. You've got me up, let's talk about it. I'll decide whether I'm docking your pay or something later. Has to do with our most recent survivors of shipwreck, eh?"

"Indirectly. It started with Jennifer Buckley mentioning something that sounded very odd, and so I went to check it out. She said that their onboard astronomer was concerned about an 'extra star'."

"What did she mean by that?" Ventrella took a sip of coffee, looking slightly more awake and certainly intrigued.

"Literally that—a star in the sky they could see that wasn't on the charts."

He frowned. "Well. . . we're fifty light-years from Earth, and the charts are almost entirely put together based on Earth data. Surely there must be some stars in our skies that aren't visible from Earth."

Sue shook her head. "Not. . . really. Modern telescopes, especially the wide-baseline scopes that turn large chunks of a solar system into a telescope with an effective mirror diameter of millions upon millions of kilometers, can spot even brown dwarfs at ridiculous distances. Oh, there's stars we humans see in the sky that we wouldn't be able to see with our naked eyes from Earth, but there's pretty much nothing in our sky that some Earth-system telescope didn't spot decades back."

Portmaster Ventrella scratched his beard and then nodded. "And this star. . .?"

". . . would be a problem even from the naked eye point of view. They said it was the brightest thing in the sky, and that Alia estimated it was a fraction of a light-year away from them. A G-type star like the Sun, or Orado's own star."

"Oh. Oh, my. We can spot the Sun—not easily, but with good viewing—with the naked eye from here. And you say this mystery star is, what, about ten light-years from here?" He obviously remembered the distance that Outward Initiative had been when disaster struck. "So it should be easily visible to us, then."

"Once I looked, yes. It's about a magnitude 2.26, but mostly visible from the non-settled hemisphere of Orado. Nothing extraordinary about it—there's plenty brighter—so it didn't really call attention to itself. I'm still surprised it didn't get flagged by any astronomers, but that's a mystery for later."

"But that means that Earth should have seen it easily. It should have been in the naked-eye catalogs. Yes?"

"It should. But it wasn't. And I've checked actual images of that area of the sky from Earth. This star does not show up."

There was no trace of sleepiness in Michael Ventrella's eyes now. "But we can see it."

"Yes."

He regarded her for a moment. "All right, give me the rest."

Sue laughed with an embarrassed edge. "You do know me, I guess."

"You wouldn't have come here with just that, strange though it is. So. . .?"

"So I slightly abused my authority and hijacked a few minutes from the Orado Wide Baseline to take a quick survey of that star and surroundings." She triggered her omni to dump the key images to a display.

The Portmaster stood slowly, gaze riveted on the brilliant green-white-brown marble in front of him. "My. . . God. Is that. . ."

"A planet. In the Goldilocks Zone. Spectroscopy says positive for free oxygen in an oxy-nitro atmosphere, water, and chlorophyll."

"My God," he said again. "So this sometimes-invisible star has a habitable world around it?" He gave a grin that was filled with a tense disbelief. "Isn't this the kind of thing that should have ominous background music as an accompaniment?"

Sue Fisher shrugged. "It is creepy, yes."

The sharp eyes appraised her. "You've got more."

"Well, more what I don't have. I don't know what's hidden it from Earth, or whether it's still hidden—though it probably is, the latest data from Earth I have is only about seven years old and it still doesn't show this star. But we also are still missing two lifeboats."

Ventrella stared at her. "You cannot be serious. Why in the name of all that's holy would any of them have headed for some unknown star when Orado was only ten lightyears off? Isn't it much more likely that, for whatever reason, they just didn't make it here? After all, LS-42 barely did."

"I know, Portmaster. I have no idea why they might go towards a different, unknown star. Well, one, perhaps, in the case of LS-5; they had limited consumables and one of their passengers was a Bemmie who simply wouldn't survive a long trip without appropriate water treatments that they couldn't give inside the craft, and that family had a particular connection with that Bemmie. That would still seem crazy to me, but then, I know all sorts of things the passengers of those two shuttles might not have.

"And yes, of course it's much more likely that they simply didn't make it—died minutes or hours or maybe weeks after most of their systems went down and they just couldn't make enough of it work to get home on." She drew in a breath. "But maybe. . . just maybe. . . they didn't."

"I can't authorize a faster-than-light jaunt on 'just maybe', and for something like that, you'll want something like. . ." his eyes narrowed, then a grin flashed out. "Oh, clever."

"I thought you'd like it."

"You want to send a survey team there, ostensibly to examine this impossible new system and see if they can find out anything unique that might explain why it's been apparently invisible for centuries, but also because a survey team's going to have the best chance of finding any trace of castaways."

She nodded.

"Well. . . that is a thought. And I suppose you want to go with the survey group."

"Technically it could still be a search-and-rescue. Though I'd be the only person who officially knows that."

"Hmph." He couldn't hide the smile that remained behind the neatly-trimmed beard and mustache. "I will. . . consider it. You've got a decent case. I'll see if there's the right personnel for this wild-lifeboat hunt, and the resources to support it."

"It might be possible to –"

"Officer Fisher, don't say any more. Let me look at the possibilities and figure things out on this end on my own."

"Yes, sir."

Ventrella gave her another smile, though a small one. "I'm on your side, Sue, but even if you're right, this isn't a trivial expedition you're talking about. I'm not sure we've got an appropriate Trapdoor-capable vessel around right now, and outfitting a new one would take months. We might have to wait that long before it's practical."

"All right, Portmaster," she said, and forced herself to relax. "There's no rush; If they made it to a livable planet and they're still alive now, I can't imagine a few days or even weeks make much difference."

 

 

 

The post Castaway Resolution: Chapter 21 appeared first on Ryk E. Spoor, Author, Gamer, Geek God.

Castaway Resolution: Chapter 20

Sue had a real mystery on her hands....

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Chapter 20.

"Jennifer?" Sue said softly.

The young woman's eyes opened and looked around; for at least the third time, Sue watched the tension in Jen Buckley's face ease into relief as she took in the clean brightness of Orado Port's main medical facility. "I still keep thinking I'm going to wake up on LS-42."

"I can't blame you. You spent a bit over a year on that ship. But you're safe now."

"How are the others?"

"All five of you are making a good recovery, Doctor Ghasia assures me. The four who. . . didn't make it have been preserved for whatever their next-of-kin want done."

Jen's brown eyes closed, a flash of pain. "Jo. . ."

"I'm sorry." Sue reached out and touched the too-skinny shoulder. At least now there was starting to be a feel of some muscle underneath, a living tension in the skin instead of the horrific half-deadness of the people they'd found on the shuttle. "The doctor says you're well enough to talk for a while, and as the Emergency Watch Officer responsible for addressing this situation, I need to start getting to the bottom of what happened. We can't just drag people's private data out of their omnis without permission, so that means we need personal consent, at the least."

"Oh." Jen Buckley got a distant expression on her face, then laughed. "God, where do I start? None of us ever had any idea we'd be. . ." She trailed off.

"I know. Let me give you a starting point. We know what happened to Outward Initiative—and why. We know –"

"You know why?"

"Yes." She outlined the solution she and Numbers had come up with in those days following Outward Initiative's arrival.

A hollow chuckle from Jen. "Well, I guess we can't sue them for negligence. They were so careful that they almost killed us all. Without knowing it."

"Basically, yes. I don't know it if helps, but because the crew did get Outward Initiative back to us reasonably intact, we were able to make this discovery and by now most of humanity's faster-than-light fleets know about it. With luck, this won't ever happen to anyone again."

"I hope to God not," Jennifer said. "Sorry I interrupted you."

"No, its fine; you've got far more to bother you than I have. Are you ready to talk?"

"I. . . guess. Yeah, I suppose. The others aren't ready?"

"Your father and mother are still in serious recovery; that level of starvation causes biochemical changes that nanos aren't programmed well for, so getting them back in functional shape is taking time. Barbara Caffrey should be well enough soon, although she was also in pretty bad shape. William Fields seems okay, but he, well, clams up and seems nervous about saying anything to us about what happened."

"Bill? Not talking?" For a moment, Jen looked puzzled. Then a look of comprehension spread across her face. "Oooohhh, I get it. He's afraid that he might be held responsible."

"What? Why?"

"Umm. . . Okay, so if you know about the disaster, I guess you know that when we got cut away from Outward Initiative, just about everything shut down hard?"

"Yes. Primarily caused by the Trapdoor radiation pulse."

"So, yeah. Everything shut down and we were all freaking out and I was screaming and I think my sis. . . Jo was too."

"Were you the pilot?" Neither of the Buckley sisters seemed old enough, but she had ended up in that chair.

She shook her head. The dead-dry hair had been cut off; the new fuzz starting to replace it was a glossy brown, the best sign of returning health Sue had yet seen. "No, I. . . well, I sort of was later but that was because our real pilot, Mr. Costigan. . ."

"He didn't die en route?" The detailed examination of the bodies had taken a back seat to the care of the living, and the forensic specialists from Orado itself had just arrived.

"No. He seemed okay for the first few days, then he got really sick." Her quick description of the symptoms confirmed Sue's immediate guess.

"Was he out of his chair when the accident happened?"

"How did you know? Yes, he was in the airlock, trying to check on a warning light, when it happened."

Sue nodded. None of the actual acceleration berths were in line with the airlock, which meant they were all more-or-less shielded from the radiation pulse that would have come straight down the access tube. "That makes sense. Trapdoor radiation pulse. The rest of you didn't get enough of a dose." She brought up visuals of parts of LS-42 in her omni, linked it to Jen's. "What I'm interested in, really, is how you got here. For instance, do you know why the reactor was in forced low-power mode? What about these indications that the Trapdoor coils here and here," she pointed to one point towards the front end of the shuttle, and another underneath, about halfway back, "were accessed? The coils obviously worked to get you here."

"Well, they weren't at first," Jen said. "Bill said they'd, um, microwelded themselves together at points around the windings. So we had to take them out and make new ones."

Sue blinked. "How did you know how?"

"Well, Barb—Barbara Caffrey? She's a research information specialist. She was bringing a whole technical library with her, and once Bill figured out how to trick the rear door seal to open, she was able to get it activated."

"Mr. Fields did that? He's listed here as a minimum-technology mechanical specialist—the kind of person who does things like simple plumbing, non-autoassisted electrical wiring, and so on."

Jen grinned; that still looked unfortunately skull-like in her current condition. "Well, yeah, but he tinkers, you know? He did a lot of stuff in his spare time—he talked a lot about it while he was showing us what to do. He'd ask Barb about something and she'd look it up, like the manual for the reactor, and then he'd dig into the diagrams and logic and figure out something. The low-power mode was because we couldn't operate the reactor on full power any more."

"Why?"

"Because we needed to take out some of the coils for the wire, to replace the wire on the old Trapdoor coils."

Sue blinked at that. "Wait. You mean Mr. Fields disassembled some of the harvesting coils in the reactor and then started it up again? And it worked?"

Jen nodded. "Is that hard to do?"

Sue bit her lip. "In theory. . . well, you'd have to remove just the right coils. In just the right positions. Or you'd end up with an imbalance in the fields keeping the fusion reaction stable and the whole thing would shut down." No wonder they were kept on low power mode. "And your research specialist Caffrey and Mr. Fields did the other repairs?"

"With the rest of us helping." She took a deep breath, and the reason for her nervousness was suddenly obvious with her next words. "Um. . . I did a lot of the coding for them."

"You coded the suspension app?"

"Well, with help from the database. Yeah."

"So you're an application oversight specialist? That wasn't on your file."

"I just did it as a hobby. I didn't mess it up, did I?" she asked, and swallowed. "I mean. . . people died."

Sue considered the answer carefully. Technically. . . yes, of course Jen had messed up parts of that design. Even with the best database to help, suspending the function of the supremely complex machine that was the human body—and especially the brain—was one of the most delicate and difficult tasks known to humankind.

But that wasn't the right answer. "You did an astounding job, Jen. It took you. . . months, I guess, to do the repairs, and by then, even with rationing, you knew there wasn't enough food. All of you would have died—all of you, Jen, without question—if you hadn't done what you did. The fact that more than half of you got here alive tells me that you may not have done something perfect, but you did something more than good enough."

Jen's eyes were haunted. "But. . . I lost Jo. And Zahir and Alia."

"Even professional doctors don't save everyone, Jen. And there are trained doctors that wouldn't have tried making suspension code like that—and they'd have lost everyone." Sue made sure Jen's eyes focused on her. "Be proud of what you accomplished. You're not going to be in trouble over this, and neither is Bill Fields."

"You can't know that."

Sue grinned herself at that. "Oh, yes I can. Because it is my job to decide where the blame goes, and I'm not dropping any on people who managed to pull off a miracle. How did you navigate home?"

"Oh," Jen said, "that was the easiest part. Once we made sure we were going towards the right star, it was just sleep a long time, wake up and check that Orado's star was still pretty much in the centerline of our course, and sleep again." She looked sad for a moment. "The only person worried about it was Alia."

Alia Manji had been an astronomer, one of the few pure science types headed for Tantalus (although she had a number of more practical skills that made her a good candidate). "Why was she worried?"

"Because of the extra star. Said it shouldn't be there. But that wasn't a problem, if you just ignored it you could tell that all the other stars were just where the databases said they should be."

"Wait," Sue said. "What do you mean, extra star?"

 

 

The post Castaway Resolution: Chapter 20 appeared first on Ryk E. Spoor, Author, Gamer, Geek God.

Castaway Resolution: Chapters 18 and 19

Friday became unreasonably busy for me, so here's my catch-up post! And yes, let's just leave that cliff hanging while we go to a completely different point of view!

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Part 3: POSSIBILITIES

Chapter 18.

Sue Fisher leaned back in the bath, luxuriating in the hot, soapy water and the fact that after tomorrow she'd have seven glorious days off. Orado Station had gone back to the old routine in the months since Outward Initiative had staggered its way into the system, and she happily embraced routine after that disaster.

Seven days would be more than enough to go planetside, visit Mom and Dad and maybe her brother if he wasn't somewhere on the other side of the world by then, and hit the beaches before going inland. She'd already talked with her friend Kate about doing some mountain-climbing in the middle of the week. And some night-life afterwards sounded real fun.

She chuckled to herself. "Boy, sounds like I've planned a lot of work for my vacation," she admitted, and stretched a bit in the water—that stayed in place courtesy of the carefully-controlled spin of the station providing a good ersatz version of gravity.

There were, of course, fun things to be had in her job, besides the long slack periods that let her catch up on all the reading and viewing she might want—fun things like the letter she was reading through her retinal display. One of the fast couriers had brought back the latest edition of The Journal of Interstellar Spaceflight, which featured the final version of Analysis of an in-flight malfunction of a Trapdoor drive system: implications for the structure of Trapdoor space and the potential for self-reinforcing resonant field disturbances, which was the long-winded title of the article she had authored with Numbers.

The letter was from Dr. Helen Glendale, current Director of the Board for the Interstellar Flight Foundation, which published the JISF. Dr. Glendale—a sidewise descendant of the Dr. Glendale who had been instrumental in the initial colonization of Earth system way back when—expressed her reaction to the paper:

". . . a startling set of claims bolstered by some solid theoretical and practical research. The Kryndomerr Resonance is an invaluable discovery in the purely scientific sense; all the reviewers agree that this discovery is almost certain to provide us with insights into the actual nature of Trapdoor space and, perhaps, higher-order spaces beyond it.

"In a more practical vein, of course, this discovery will undoubtedly save countless lives. On the basis of this paper a detailed Industry Safety Bulletin was prepared and immediately dispatched to all colonies and relevant organizations. We already –"

ERRRT! ERRRT! ERRRT! ERRRT!

Sue froze; reminiscing about the prior disaster and involved as she was with the letter, she thought for a moment she was flashing back to the earlier alarm.

Then it penetrated. Another emergency alert?

She lunged to a stand in the tub, comfort forgotten as she hit the drain and dry control. Hot air blasted from the side vents, scouring the water from her body and her hair; she ran her fingers through the shoulder-length brown waves and they dried swiftly, even as she triggered the connection to Orado Port's AI control.

A shiver of déjà-vu sent goosebumps chasing themselves across her body even in the hot-air blast, hearing the received transmission.

"Mayday, Mayday, Mayday," it began—and like that other time, the words were not those of a controlled automated system or the self-assured confidence of the command crew of a vessel, but the exhausted, frightened, but somehow victorious sounds of an living human at the end of their endurance but not of their hope. "Orado Port, this is LS-42, lifeboat off of Outward Initiative, out of Earth. If anyone can hear this. . . please send help. We are out of food. Multiple systems failed. Mayday, Mayday, Mayday. . ."

LS-42? One of the lifeboats arriving now? It should have arrived months ago, if it was going to come at all! "Orado Port, what resources do we have in that area?"

"The nearest vessel to LS-42 is a manned construction and mining vessel, the Bill Williams. The nearest official Orado vessel is the OIS Zenigata."

"Do either of them have a good intercept vector for LS-42, and if so, how long until they can reach the lifeboat? Or would I be better off taking Raijin?"

Orado Port could calculate all the variables involved faster, really, than Sue could possibly have spoken the question; it was more programmed courtesy than anything else that made the system wait for her to finish the query before answering it. "If you pilot Raijin with your customary skill, you would arrive with emergency supplies approximately thirty-one hours before Zenigata could intercept and forty-seven hours before a best-case maneuver by the Bill Williams could bring them in range."

So much for the vacation, she thought with a touch of ruefulness—but only a touch. This was what she was employed for, and no one would kick about her having to reschedule in this situation. "Transmit to LS-42: Mayday received, LS-42. Help is on the way. Emergency Watch Officer Susan Fisher, Orado Port. Repeat message until you get an acknowledgement or I have arrived at LS-42, whichever comes first. Who's the medical officer on watch?"

"Doctor Haven, but he is not cleared for emergency flights at this time. Doctor Ghasia has been alerted."

She nodded. Buriji Ghasia. . . he's good enough. And almost as small as Carolyn Pearce, so that would help in the transport area. "I'm getting ready. Can you make sure Raijin is loaded with food, clean water, and medical supplies, as well as basic repair materials?"

"Already underway," Orado Port replied. "Do you intend to undertake a tow?"

"Advice? You can run the numbers a billion times faster than I can."

"Bill Williams will bring them in faster than you could manage the tow. Raijin could be used to transport critically ill patients if it was necessary to do so faster than the tow could manage, but the OIS vessel has a good infirmary on board so this may not be necessary."

She grimaced, looking at a secondary display of data she hadn't read in months. "But it might be, at that. Given the passenger and crew complement and the known supplies on that ship, they should all have starved to death at least two months ago." She stared at the faint moving dot in another display. "I don't know how any of those people could be alive now."

 

 

Chapter 19.

The stench was the first thing that struck Sue as the airlock door finally opened, a smell that combined the worst features of sweat, bad breath, mildew, and rot. She coughed, almost gagged before her nanos cut in and damped the reaction, and hesitated for a moment at the threshold. Modern ships and space stations had highly advanced filtration and atmosphere reclamation systems which were designed to remove even the worst odors from the air and leave it with only the faint background scents that had been determined to make air smell "fresh". Even Outward Initiative, cut to pieces by its own Trapdoor field, multiple systems failing, had mostly cleansed the stench of smoldering insulation and other damage by the time it had arrived in Orado.

What that implied about the conditions in LS-42 was horrific.

"Hello?" she said.

The interior lights of LS-42 came on, low, and Sue sucked in her breath, even in that miasma.

In some ways, it wasn't as bad as she had feared. Despite the smell, the cabin wasn't strewn with rotting litter. But what was there was still heart-wrenchingly, nauseatingly bad.

The majority of the acceleration seats were occupied, by what looked like half-mummified corpses. Dressed mostly in the simple two-piece ship undergarments, ribs and hips and shoulder bones jutted out under skin somehow both slack and taut. Most of them had their eyes closed, but though they seemed either unconscious or dead, there was no sign of relaxation; the faces were lined, even with the skin tighter against the bones, with fear and exhaustion.

The normally bright surfaces of the shuttle were dimmed, scummed over with thin but definite traces of mold or some other growth. The air in here feels humid; that must have promoted the growth. Water reclamation falling behind? Sue's analytical, professional brain was assessing the situation, even while the remainder of her was screaming in sympathetic revulsion.

Doctor Ghasia stepped in behind her; his low voice murmured something she thought sounded like "Besime’ābi!", almost certainly a prayer or expression of shock.

At the pilot's position, one figure turned its head. Long hair straggled, brittle and dull, around the woman's skull-like face.

But then the eyes widened and the faintest smile appeared on the cracked lips. "Oh, thank God. You're here. You're real, aren't you?"

"Yes, we're real." The faces she could see were vastly distorted from those on file, but she thought she could make out key features. "Josephine Buckley?"

"That's. . . my sister." It was clear even this much conversation was exhausting. "Jo. . . Jo died last week."

One week too late. And that would make her... "I'm sorry. Jennifer Buckley, then. How many. . .?"

"My omni. . . says five of the nine of us are still alive."

I wouldn't have bet on one. "All right. Just. . . relax, as much as you can. This is Doctor Buriji Ghasia. He's a fully qualified surgeon, general practitioner, and nanomedical technician. He's going to take care of you all."

Sue keyed up the system overrides they'd established in the rescue of Outward Initiative and managed to link up with the badly-damaged shuttle, as well as the local nano-net, and hook that into her own and that of the doctor.

"Well, now. . . astonishing. This is some kind of nanosuspension. But. . . it appears to be a sort of ad hoc design," Dr. Ghasia said after a moment, frown lines appearing on his ebony brow. "Nothing standard at all."

"No one. . . had any suspension applications available," Jennifer said."

"No need to talk," Ghasia said quickly. "There's nothing wrong here, though obviously it's not an ideal solution in many ways. But. . . I think we have a good chance of saving the rest of you."

"I could get back to Orado Port in a few hours," Sue said. "Should I take one or two of these people with me?"

"Give me a few minutes to do an actual evaluation?" the doctor said, a testy edge to his accented voice. "It is possible that will be necessary, yes, but for now begin bringing in the supplies. The most important thing to do now is to get proper nutrition started, and to improve the conditions in this cabin."

"Got you." Sue sprang back easily through the airlock back to Raijin—whose air-recycling systems were already noting the offensive material from LS-42 and responding with nanoelectronic speed—and grabbed the nutritional nanomedical packs in one hand and her engineering troubleshooting kit in the other. Another quick bound brought her into LS-42's cabin, where she locked the case of nanomedical packs to the chair nearest Dr. Ghasia, and turned to the main control panel.

As they'd deduced would be the case, the board had switched over to almost entirely manual systems, and was showing vastly more red and yellow than functional green. Her access codes allowed her to query the systems that remained at all operational.

Jesus. Reactor's working, but only on low-power mode. . . why would that be? It seemed obvious that the passengers had no reason to throttle the power down, so some aspect of the disaster must have caused it. That partly explained the condition of LS-42 right there; virtually all of the reactor's low-power mode would have gone to recharging the Trapdoor drive for the allowable periodic jumps. In fact. . . Sue nodded, feeling her lips tight with empathic understanding. The low power mode wasn't even quite enough to maintain the jumps. They'd have had to stretch out the recharge interval. No wonder it had taken so long; not only had these people had to—somehow—get the landing shuttle working after the Trapdoor pulse shut down multiple shipboard systems, but also they'd had to make the Trapdoor drive take far longer to get them anywhere.

She shook her head slowly as the data from the shuttle and her own engineering diagnostics built up the whole picture. No, it wasn't surprising it had taken this long. What was surprising was that they'd gotten here at all. Multiple system failures, several of which could have—should have—proven fatal, and none of the crew on record as having any of the relevant skills needed to diagnose and repair those failures.

But the fact that this shuttle, with apparently no trained engineers or medical people aboard, had somehow ended up here did add a new mystery, a mystery she'd thought of as solved by default months ago:

Where are LS-5 and LS-88?

 

 

The post Castaway Resolution: Chapters 18 and 19 appeared first on Ryk E. Spoor, Author, Gamer, Geek God.

Castaway Resolution: Chapter 17

Things look like they're getting better... which only this far through a novel is a big red flag...

 

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Chapter 17.

"That's good, Francisco, Hitomi, keep doing exactly that. We're making great progress," Whips said.

Hitomi flashed one of her bright smiles and Francisco nodded seriously. "Si, it is going well."

Now that he was finally recovered, Franky had really wanted to show he wasn't lazing around any more; that, along with the real need to move emergency provisions and stow them inside Emerald Maui, provided a perfect opportunity to let him and Hitomi work together. Whips was supervising them while he worked on carefully removing the damaged propulsion unit from the former lifeboat.

Whips watched as the two youngest colonists continued to carry in rations and stow them away in their assigned crates. Franky's artistic eye for detail and Hitomi's obsession with precision were actually very useful here; together they would make sure every package was stowed exactly the way it was supposed to, they wouldn't forget to secure the layers as instructed, and they wouldn't move to the next storage crate until the one they were using was full and properly secured. Whips would, of course, help them whenever something really large needed to be moved or carried.

He turned his attention to the crumpled drive jet. "All right, Sergeant Campbell, Dr. Kimei, this is the last chance. I am about to cut one of the main supports. Once I do that, this thing is never going back on Emerald Maui."

"Just to verify," Laura's voice responded, "nothing you are doing will reduce Emerald Maui's seaworthiness. Correct?"

"That's right, Mom. . . Laura," Whips said. "Had Xander and Tav check me on the cutting plans three times. It might actually make things better; this engine's basically dead weight and the outrigger morph has to work around it right now. It can probably morph faster and be a more unified outrigger support once the jet's gone."

"Then I say go ahead. Sergeant?"

"I concur. Honestly, even your best models didn't convince me ol' Maui was ever gonna fly again. Take the parts we need for the distress probe."

"All right! Proceeding."

The last permission acquired, Whips turned his focus to the engine's supports and fastenings. Have to be really careful with this, he reminded himself for what was probably the fifteenth time. This is the heart of the distress probe.

More accurately, it was one of the key pieces of the distress probe, but probably the one with the most uncertainty to it. It had been agreed upon fairly early that they could afford to remove the ejection charges from Emerald Maui, and the maintenance manuals had shown that those were surprisingly easy to access (for heavy manual labor and a lot of cursing values of "easy"). Testing on a couple of them had verified both the power and reliability of the self-contained rockets. A triad of the bare-bones omnis that Emerald Maui had contained a case of made up a sufficiently powerful and self-monitoring control and sensing "brain", and a careful repackaging of the power coil stack from one of the three excavators (which would henceforth serve as a spare parts source for the other two) had provided the energy storage for the probe; it was currently hooked up to the main reactor output, to verify the maximum capacity storage and internal discharge rates.

My job's still easier than making the Trapdoor coils. Whips had one eye check on the kids' progress—still going well—and then returned to focus on the support. The precision laser cutter glowed its readiness, and Whips' omni projected the exact cut path for minimal structural impact and maximum usability. He gripped the customized handholds and began the cut.

The cutter proceeded smoothly through the extremely tough carbonan and titanium matrix. "Tav, how're the coils coming?"

"Now that the doctor is helping? Very well!"

"Did you thank Melody for the suggestion?"

"Oui, many times. She is watching now, even."

"Glad it looks like it works," Melody said, with an audible attempt not to sound too proud of herself. "I just thought of it when you said that usually coils are laid down and customized with nanomanufacturing approaches."

That was true enough, Whips thought. But making the jump from "nanomanufacturing" to "my mom the doctor could program nanomanufacturing devices" was a little different.

She'd been right, though. The rather stupid nanodust available from the Nebula Drive, combined with some of the internal nanorepair installed on the heavy machinery, provided the potential foundation for assembling high-precision coils with nanomanufacturing. What Mel had seen that no one else had quite put together was that a modern medical professional had the tools and knowledge to specify nanooperation on a detailed and very tiny scale—a scale more than sufficient to produce the coils in question. With Tavana, Xander, and even Whips to help, it had turned out that Dr. Kimei's expertise could transfer to that domain very well.

The main support gave forth a musical chime as the last portion of it was severed. Whips stopped and evaluated the situation. One more cut on the other side, and then I can unfasten the rest with less destructive approaches.

"Whips, can you move the next box closer?" Hitomi asked. "We just emptied the last one."

"Down in a second," he answered. He inactivated the laser cutter and put it down safely on the upper wing before he let himself slide down to the ground, using his two long side-arms to grip and slowly ease him over the edge; when you massed as much as he did, even short falls were to be avoided.

He did his usual grab-slide-grab walk to the loading area, and tossed the empty box aside. A quick movement wrapped his arms securely around the next crate, and he was able to use his rear gripper-pushers to help drag it up the ramp. "This one's heavier than the last," he muttered. His griptalons hooked into the top and pulled it off, and he lifted his body to get a glimpse of the inside. "Oh. Dried and smoked capy. No wonder. That's a lot of meat."

"Thanks, Whips!" Francisco said. "These go in the red-marked storage areas, right?"

"You got it, Francisco," Whips agreed. He snagged one of the broadfrond-wrapped packages before he headed back down the ramp; as an omnivore with a marked preference for meat, this kind of thing was his favorite snack.

Feeding the woodsmoke-flavored meat to his grinders a little at a time, Whips clambered back onto the damaged wing of Emerald Maui and resumed cutting.

It took about an hour to finish. He felt the universal tool in its wrench configuration suddenly exhibit more resistance, and knew he'd reached the last few turns; the stress was torqueing the bolt in its threads. "Hitomi, Francisco, you both still inside Emerald Maui?" he called.

"Yes," Franky answered. "We are resting right now, on one of the cases."

"Okay, stay there. I'm almost about to finish this, and when I do the jet engine will fall straight down. I don't want anyone getting hurt."

"Okay, Whips, we'll stay here. Can we watch through the port?"

"Of course you can. Let me know when you're there, then I'll do the last few turns."

"Wait. . . okay, we're both at the port!"

Whips gripped the wrench tightly in both arms and pulled. The bolt turned grudgingly, a faint screech and vibration warning Whips that they were deforming and stripping the threads. He winced, his engineer's instincts jabbing at him, even as he reminded himself that it didn't matter, they weren't going to be using that hole for anything again.

Without warning, the wrench swung around, there was a sharp snap! sound, and the heavy engine assembly plummeted with a thud into the mound of soft dirt that had been placed to catch it. "Done!"

"Our engine?"

"It's out. We'll have to get one of the excavators to haul it to our work area, but I think it's all intact."

"What, you can't carry it home yourself?" Sakura's voice asked over the link.

He gave a hooting chuckle. "I might drag it a little ways, but no, it's way more than I could really carry. If Maddox wants to –"

White, harsh light suddenly flared behind him, so bright that the daylight looked dim and he had dark, dark shadows standing out before him; the protective ports of Emerald Maui had gone black in automatic response.

Slewing around, Whips shuttered his eyes to slits to see a massive, brilliant streak of light brighter than the sun curve down and across the sky; there was another flare visible over the rim of the horizon, and then the sky was clear, with a whitish trail marring the blue above.

"What the hell was that?" Campbell's voice demanded. "Whole forest lit up!"

"Meteor—biggest I've ever seen," Whips said. He triggered a query to the SC-178 satellite in best position to observe the area. "Wonder if it hit anything."

The satellite responded immediately, giving a clear image of the area.

Whips blinked. It looked like a bulls-eye, with rings around it.

Rings that were expanding.

"Oh-oh," he heard himself say, then commanded the software to perform some quick estimations.

He looked at the results. "Screaming Vents," he whispered. "Everyone," he began quietly, then triggered a full emergency alert. "Everyone, listen! That meteor must have been huge. We have incoming waves that are. . . ten meters, maybe higher."

There was an explosion of color from the forest; dozens, hundreds of the quadbirds were taking flight, heading away from the impact point.

"Mother of God," Campbell said. "Get back here now."

"No time," Whips said, feeling a sense of terrifying unreality washing over him as he realized the full situation. "We'd never get to either of the Columns in time. There's. . . five minutes, maybe less, before it gets here!"

"The kids –"

Whips looked around. "The only chance is for us to ride it out in Emerald Maui."

"You'll have to throw off the mooring ropes," Xander said. "Don't make Emerald Maui have to fight against the water, it'll lose."

"Right," Whips said.

"Whips, what was that? What's happening?" Hitomi was standing at the base of the ramp, looking in the direction of the impact, where the white trail was slowly twisting. Was there a wrinkle on the horizon already?

"Hitomi, Francisco, get back inside the shuttle now," Whips said. "Choose one of the acceleration couches and strap in. Strap in right, like we were taking off."

"¿Qué?" Francisco asked, a touch of fear in his voice. "What is happening?"

"A big, big wave is coming and it's probably going to wash us out to sea," Whips said, as he slid quickly off the wing again. "It'll be fine if you're strapped in, so hurry!"

"Do what Whips says, Francisco," Sergeant Campbell's voice said over the omnis. "You too, Hitomi. He's in charge there. Do exactly what he says."

The two swallowed visibly, but ran back up the ramp.

Whips turned and got all three arms around the jet engine. Digging his grippers into the soil, he heaved, yanking it a meter towards him. Stretch and pull, another meter, though his support segments were complaining.

"Whips, what do you think you're doing?" Laura said after a moment.

"Trying to save our chance to send a distress call," he answered.

"Don't be stupid!" Sakura snapped.

"I'm watching. If the waves look like they're getting too close –"

"—Then it might be too late," Laura interrupted. "Get inside that shuttle, now."

"Only a few more meters to go," he said, stubbornly hauling on the heavy engine.

"Whips, you will need time to secure that damned thing," Campbell said emphatically. "You can't have it banging around inside the shuttle when those waves hit!"

He felt his hide ripple in chagrin. He hadn't thought of that, and Campbell was right.

But still, there might be enough time. He knew where the holdfasts were, and there were securing lines right there, and. . .

"Whips, your responsibility is for Hitomi and Francisco," Laura said, and her voice was hard and cold. "You will not take a chance on leaving them alone in Emerald Maui!"

Sky and Vents, she's right, and I can't argue it. With a hooting groan of frustration, Whips let go and whirled around, squirming toward the fore end of Emerald Maui. He hit the quick-release hooks on the mooring lines, all five of them in sequence, then headed towards the ramp as fast as he could go. Vents, I almost forgot. He sent another command to the shuttle, and saw the outrigger-wing and the tail-vanes reconfiguring, folding up, melding as closely as they could to the hull.

In the distance, there was a vague hissing sound, and he glanced over with one eye, to see water streaming away from them, towards the horizon—a horizon that didn't look quite right any more. "Oh, crap."

The water level was actually dropping; he remembered that this happened sometimes on Earth, but he'd thought that a floating continent wouldn't show that kind of effect. As he reached the loading ramp it dawned on him; this was, compared to the floating continent, a local event.

Water could recede. And it could come back.

Or, a part of him thought in calm horror, the part of the continent that's now above water might just snap off in time to be hit by the wave and dragged across the rest of it.

"Are you both strapped in?" he shouted up the ramp. Even as the two called back "Yes!", he was triggering the ramp to raise and seal. Was the front airlock. . . no it was still open! He sent another command out, saw that one closing too.

Have to strap myself in fast. The external monitors now showed the approaching wave, something that might well subside to invisibility, a ripple, in a hundred kilometers or so, but not now, not yet, and with the massive skirt of the pseudo-continent to guide and raise and focus it. . .

He gave another Europan curse as he realized that Emerald Maui had never had any of its hold-downs configured for Bemmies, unlike LS-5. He began feverishly dragging out the straps, rehooking and distributing them for his very inhuman body shape.

There was a rumbling whisper in the air now, and the water was rising back to the shore. Rising over the original shoreline, foaming around Emerald Maui's keel. "Get ready, Francisco, Hitomi!"

He had one line fastened across himself, but there were two more to go. The water rose swiftly, streaming around the aft part of the ship, making a rippling fountain where it struck the mostly-circular casing of the removed jet engine.

Whips ground his interior masticatory array in frustration as the engine began to slowly move under the pressure of the water. So close. Just five more meters and it'd be inside.

But there hadn't been time, and while Whips yanked the next securement line tight he admitted that to himself. He'd have been maybe to the base of the ramp before the water started to hit, and then. . .

The light dimmed, and his gaze snapped towards the porthole. Francisco looked too, and screamed.

A massive green-and-white-and brown cliff of water towered above Emerald Maui, blocking out the brightness of sun and sky.

Whips twined all three of his arms around the third securement line and gripped hard. "Hold on!"

And then the world spun and whirled and heaved as the tsunami smashed down on Emerald Maui.

 

 

The post Castaway Resolution: Chapter 17 appeared first on Ryk E. Spoor, Author, Gamer, Geek God.

Castaway Resolution: Chapters 14, 15, and 16!

Holiday stuff plays merry heck with my other schedules. Here's a three-for-one for everyone, as we get back to the Castaway action!

-----

 

 

Chapter 14.

"You're sure this is a good choice?" Campbell directed the question to Sakura, even as he stared up at the column.

Having Campbell ask her sent a maybe-unreasonable thrill of pride through her. "We're pretty sure, Sergeant. Dad's been doing as much studying of the ecology here as he could, and it seems that some of these columns aren't used as much. We already chose one that is, but this one's actually got a floor on it. For some reason the continent's sealed it off."

"Really?" Campbell rubbed his chin, still studying the concrete-like tower in front of him. "Why d'you suppose that is, Akira? I mean, sounds ideal for us, and your own tower's working out well, but I'd hate to buy into something that turned out to have problems that even the continent rejected it for. Not like there's a building code around here."

"I don't think it's for anything to do with structural integrity; you know that I borrowed Xander and Maddox and went over this one in detail with some of your equipment last week. My best guess is that as the continent grows, the needed number and placement of vents changes, and ones not needed are simply walled off."

"Hmm. And yours is active, but this one isn't. Could it be un-walled off later?"

Sakura nodded. "We saw how the structure of your island responded to thinking you were a threat; probably the same kind of thing happens, more slowly, as the island adapts to change. So it could probably re-open this one."

She saw Campbell's gaze run up the column into the canopy and look around. He nodded, thoughtfully. "Well, Saki, could you and Tavana start checking out the configuration on the 450? Looks like we're gonna start cutting soon."

"Me?" Sakura said with surprise. "But Xander and Maddox know a lot more than –"

"Exactly why you and Tav should do it," Xander said, somewhat abruptly. He was also looking up, studying the column and the canopy. "Maddox, you can help out. We've got plenty of time, so this can be a lot of learning as well as working. Right, Sergeant, Dr. Kimei?"

Her mother had frowned when Xander interrupted, but her face cleared some when Xander directed the question to her. He may be their Captain, but my mom is boss. "I suppose so. Yes, go on, Sakura. It can't hurt for all of us to understand how to run all of our equipment."

Sakura didn't mind, to tell the truth. The JD-CAT 450 Universal Excavator, to give the machine its full name, was a really impressive and massive vehicle, with a fully-shapable "blade" that could be anything from a bulldozer to a bucket loader and more.

As she and Tav, along with the smaller Bird brother Maddox, headed towards the big yellow-painted machine, she heard the sergeant say, "and Whips, maybe you could work with Mel to figure out how we could put in a floor at the bottom level that'll support itself, just in case the island decides to pull the rug out on us?"

"Sure thing, sir!" Whips said cheerfully, and Mel followed him over to a large exposed rock which the Bemmie liked to sit on; it was smooth and comfortable for his belly-pad.

Sakura was glad they didn't have to watch the younger kids; Caroline had stayed behind in Sherwood Tower with both Hitomi and Francisco.

She felt a faint, welcome tingle go up her arm as Tavana took her hand while they stood for a moment, looking at the 450. Maddox glanced at that and just grinned at them; Sakura smiled back. "So what do we have to do, here?"

"Okay, well, we need to cut holes in that column, right? So that means the 450 needs a cutting array."

"Oui, that is clear enough," Tavana said. "But can it do that? Bulldozer blades and excavators, that is what we have used it for. The cutting, I did not know it could do this."

"I'll bet it can. JD-Cats are used for road work, and you have to cut up roadways sometimes, right?"

"You sure do," Sakura said. She remembered seeing such a machine with what looked like a huge rotary sawblade slowly grinding its way through the pavement, back on Earth. "So is that just another mode we have to switch on?"

"It is not an option in the menu," Tavana said after a moment of staring at the interface; Sakura brought up the same connection; there were a lot of configurations but not that one.

Tavana grinned. "But then, I do remember having a tool that lied about what menu options it could give me. Maddox, is this another handholding limit?"

Maddox laughed. "You don't get fooled twice, huh? I'll bet it is. Let's start digging into this interface!"

Sakura tried to watch what Maddox was doing, along with Tav, but she wasn't really an engineer or an interface jockey, so some of it was out of her league.

She glanced over at the others. Mel was waving her arms animatedly as Whips projected something in front of her; Pearce Haley was using what Sakura thought was an acoustic echo probe on the column, probably gauging its thickness at the bottom, while Mom and Dad looked up at the column itself, talking. Xander was staring up into space, maybe looking at an omni projection, while Sergeant Campbell had stepped back about ten meters, taking a different perspective of the column.

That was why she was looking straight at him when, without warning, a tree kraken plummeted from the branches, heading straight for the Sergeant.

Before she—or anyone else—could cry out or even break their shocked paralysis, Sergeant Campbell whipped around, the automatic rifle that had been slung over his back suddenly in his hands, and a chattering snarl ripped through the sunlit green air of the little clearing.

The details of armaments had changed over the centuries, but chemical propellants shoving carefully-designed pieces of metal down barrels was still one of the most devastatingly effective ways of stopping anything hostile. Sergeant Campbell fired in three-shot bursts, one set after another, and alien blood and flesh and bone spattered from the impacts.

The creature stumbled and crashed to a halt, giving a whining screech of pain, fury, and dawning fear. Even as it turned to flee, Campbell raised the rifle, aimed, and fired a final burst that took the thing through its tiny head, dropping the tree kraken like a load of cement.

No one moved as the echoes of the shots dwindled away into the distance; the forest of Lincoln were unnaturally silent, still, shocked into quiet by the violence of that unknown sound.

Akira Kimei was the first to speak, as the Sergeant slowly lowered the weapon. "My God. Are you all right, Samuel?"

Campbell grinned as he re-slung the rifle. "Never got close. Been watching it stalking me for the last ten minutes, as you know."

Sakura was relieved and puzzled. "But Sergeant, then why didn't you tell us? We could have tried to discourage it, maybe run it off."

"He did tell us," her mother said. "Over the private circuits, which is why the rest of you were moved well away from the column. I would like an explanation for why you didn't scare it off earlier, though, rather than letting it try to attack you. That scared the daylights out of me, even though I knew it was coming."

"Scared me more than that," Tavana said, with a frown. "My heart, I thought it would stop."

"Same here," said Pearce. "What about you, Xander?"

Xander's cheeks were touched with pink. "Well, it did scare me, even though Sergeant Campbell had warned me too. As his Captain, silly though that still sounds."

"The explanation, Samuel?" Akira said, in the deceptively gentle tone that told Sakura that her father was near the boiling point. "I hope it is a good one. We just scared almost all of us, and killed an animal that we could have, in all likelihood, chased off without injury."

"And we'd have had to do that again and again and again," Campbell said bluntly. He was examining the corpse carefully. "You've probably studied colonial operations, Akira, Laura, but—no offense—you've never done the initial colony setup, and sure as hell none of you were in on the first landings and clear-cuts.

"One of the first things you have to do is scare the living hell out of the predators that have a chance of learning to stay away from you. You have to establish that your people are the biggest, baddest living things on the planet, and you do that by killing the ones that come too close or—especially—the ones that try to attack any of you. Sometimes you have to wipe out the entire population in range of your people."

He looked at Sakura's expression, saw it mirrored on a lot of the others, even the people from his own crew, and shook his head. For an instant, Sakura saw his age on his face as it went both stony and somehow sad. "Yeah. I know. Back on Earth we just about wiped out not just the predators but thousands of other species, but you have to understand this: we could start trying to save them, to conserve and protect them, because we ended up dominating that planet. We became the danger, to pretty much anything else. That was a long time after we had to spend our waking hours wondering if we were gonna be someone else's meal."

Akira bit his lip, then gave the most reluctant nod Sakura had ever seen. "I. . . I believe I understand, Samuel. And . . . much as it pains me. . . I am afraid I have to agree with you."

"Akira!" Sakura felt a pang near her heart; she'd never heard her mother sound so shocked. "Are you serious? We have ways of setting up safe perimeters, we could have chased even this one off with –"

"It's establishment of territory," Akira said bluntly. "Predators rarely attack each other unless they have no other choice; the potential cost of attacking something that is as well armed as you is far too great. But we are new creatures; we are not clearly recognized as what we—honestly speaking—are, the greatest apex predators in the Galaxy. Samuel is right. We have to treat any incursion into the territory we intend to live in as any predator would—driving off or killing any intruders that might threaten us and our children, until they learn to fear and respect us as a group."

Tavana stared at the still shuddering corpse and nodded, muttering something in French. The running translation from her omni showed that it was mostly curses.

Pearce Haley drew in a deep breath. "Well, that was sure a good first lesson. You'd killed one before, right?"

"Yes," Sakura said, overriding her embarrassment at the memory. "Twice, actually. But the first was more a matter of running into the middle of something without thinking, and the second we'd started it by bashing the column they were in. We've just kept away from the krakens as much as we could."

"Well, given the weapons you had to hand, that was probably the right approach," Campbell said. "But now there's more of us, better weapons, and we're going to need more space. And since we know from our prior island and Akira's studies that we'd be really ill-advised to go around doing a clear cut and burn to make a perimeter, that means we gotta establish ourselves as the most badass things on this continent so we don't have to do this more often."

Thinking about it, Sakura realized he was probably right. "I guess. But I still don't like the idea of just killing things, even the krakens."

Campbell's smile was more natural and sympathetic. "Saki, I hope to god you never like the idea. I don't particularly like it either. But I don't know any good alternative, and I think we all agree that we'd rather shoot a few hundred of these things than let one of them get the drop on Hitomi or Franky."

Sakura had no disagreement with that.

"All right then," Akira said briskly. "Let's get back to work, shall we?"

 

 

Chapter 15.

Whips pulled himself up as high as he could, then dropped back to the floor in a flopping landing that stung his belly pad. The thud transmitted itself loudly, echoing up through the column. "How's that?"

"Looks great!" Maddox said, squinting at the readout in his omni. "Mel?"

Melody Kimei— ten centimeters taller but just as thin as she'd been when they landed—nodded. "Well within strain parameters, and Whips outweighs any two or three of us. That floor will hold just fine."

"How far below it is the column floor?" the Sergeant asked, sticking his head in the newly-cut doorway.

"About half a meter," Mel answered. "Makes sure we weren't relying on it even indirectly for support."

"Still nice to know it's there. Will we be able to check on that if we have to?"

"Oh, easy. We had to make a hole in it anway," Whips answered, gesturing with a flick of tendrils at a large tube already in place at one point of the floor. "Some of the Nebula Drive dust was perfect for monitoring stuff like this."

"What'd we need a hole for. . . oh."

"Unless you want to have a lot clumsier waste disposal, this is the best we've got," Whips confirmed, flickering his own colorful grin at the Sergeant. "Dumps everything into that hundreds of meters deep volume inside the island. We've been doing that all along in Sherwood Column."

"And with the screens and monitor dust we can make sure nothing comes up in either column," Maddox said proudly. "Added some of that to Sherwood Column's disposal, too."

"Good work. How long you figure before we'll be ready to move in?"

Whips checked the display in his omni, ran some work calculations, and blinked, then checked it again. A rippling laugh emerged. "Wow. You have no idea how long it took us to build the first one, but with the tools that Emerald Maui brought, and the extra manpower, and all. . . I think if we all pitch in and follow the plan, we could get everything else set up in a week and a half, two weeks tops. Then put together stuff like additional furniture, stuff like that, over the next week."

"Then we stow away the shelter, huh?" Maddox asked.

Campbell rubbed his chin, then shook his head. "You know, I don't think so. Not yet."

"Why not?"

"Well, once we have our own tower, then each of us has our own home, but even small towns, it's nice to have gathering places that ain't home. I figure we'll build us a town hall or market or church or whatever, but until then, a full-size shelter'll do just fine. Enough room to have a few different setups—little gaming room, a theater, something like that. Okay, so our choices of social partners might be a little limited, but the more stuff we can do, the more it'll feel like we're living somewhere civilized."

Whips had to agree, though a part of him felt more left out than ever. The arrival of the survivors from Emerald Maui had been a godsend—that much he couldn't argue. But none of them were Bemmius. A lot of socializing of his people took place in the water, and even the best of the humans—Sakura and, to his surprise, Francisco—couldn't even begin to keep up with him in the ocean. He'd spent more time on land, dragging himself from point to point, in the last year than he had in. . . well, probably the whole rest of his life.

True, that did mean his arms were stronger than ever, and his belly pad was so tough it was practically armor plate by now, but it just wasn't the same, and what was really annoying was that Sakura wasn't around nearly as much, hanging around almost all the time with Tavana, which was. . .

He froze, unaware for a few moments of what everyone around him was saying, as what he was feeling finally broke through his thoughts. Vents Below and Sky Above, am I. . . am I feeling jealous of Sakura?

He hated that thought, but as soon as he allowed himself to recognize it, the truth was there, staring him down with the human's metaphorical bright green eyes. Sakura had been his best friend since they were both so much younger. He remembered her even as a toddler, walking in a confident but stiff-legged thumping gait ahead of him as he tried to drag himself after her, his second-growth griptalons not even in yet, and then her turning back, draping his arms over her shoulders and pulling, dragging him along so they could both get where they were going.

And they'd always been that close. They played together, and worked together, and . . .

It occurred to Whips that even back home, he'd spent more time with Sakura than he had with anyone outside of his own family. He'd hardly ever gone for even a casual swim with some other of the people. He'd never thought. . . never thought of a time where she wouldn't be there.

Depths, I'm going to have to think this out.

He became aware that something had called Campbell back out. Mel and Maddox were checking the floor mountings one last time and arguing about the details of the next steps, even though the basic plan was already set. Whips undulated over to the exit and saw Campbell talking with Akira.

"What's up?" he asked. "You look serious, Akira."

"Well, yes," Akira said. "In the last week or so I've noticed a marked downturn on traffic along our accustomed gametrails. I think I've noticed some others, but they're farther from where we currently are, which means a longer walk to get there and back."

"Well, a lot of animals ain't dumb; if you're killin' them at the same general place, they'll tend to stop going there," Campbell pointed out.

"But we've been doing this for, oh, six months at least, and I've been careful to avoid making it obvious. Give me some credit, Sergeant; I may not be a hunter by training, but behavior of alien species is my speciality."

"Oh, sure. No offense. So you think something else is up?"

"I'm fairly sure of it. The problem of course is that we haven't been here nearly long enough to understand the long-term behavior of species. We've been here slightly longer than one Lincoln year now, but that's hardly a guarantee that we've seen anything close to all their typical behaviors. Various species on Earth and other planets go through cycles that are multi-year in span."

"You know," Whips said slowly, "things . . . smelled a little different this week. When I was in the water, I mean."

"Day before yesterday? When you dragged in that golden-sided fish thing?" Campbell asked. "You did mention you hadn't seen one of those before."

"I hadn't. And Finny and his friends seemed a little more energetic. Though it's hard to tell with them."

"Finny" was the name Campbell had given to a streamlined predator which seemed to include a large streak of curiosity in its makeup; Finny and some others of his species had followed Campbell's crew all the way from their doomed island to the Kimei's floating continent, and now stayed in and around the semicircular bay that Emerald Maui had arrived at. Whips didn't think the "Finnies" were actually intelligent, any more than the capys probably were, but he wasn't sure. They were smart for animals, that much was for sure.

Campbell laughed. "Yeah, 'energetic' is pretty much their default. But when you say it smelled different, you mean the water wasn't the same?"

"Yes." He thought back. "Might have been a little different in temperature, maybe warmer?"

Campbell rubbed his chin again, then suddenly looked at Akira. "Oh."

"Easily checked," Akira said at almost the same moment.

Whips looked between the two, and suddenly got it. He sent a query up to the satellites, and displayed the data on his omni.

What he saw made him draw in a breath with a faint hoot. "Oh," he said, unconsciously echoing Campbell.

The outline of the floating continent they were on had moved. For most of the prior time it had been monitored—several months now, since the Maui crew had dispersed its cargo of satellites into space—it had wobbled back and forth but stayed, generally, in the same general latitude, straddling the equator.

But now it had drifted noticeably, heading northward at a slow, but definite, pace. Already the northern edges of the island were edging towards the borders of the tropical zone. Enhancing the image in different spectra confirmed what Whips was now suspecting.

"We've moved into some kind of current," he said finally. "It's taking us north—not very fast, the currents here are going to be pretty slow given the depth of the ocean and other factors—but definitely north."

"Ahhh," Akira said. "And we know most animals on the islands are adapted to be able to evacuate the islands, move from one to another. It would be unsurprising to find that there are entire populations that move as landmasses enter other climatic areas. That is, our familiar flora and fauna may shift as we move."

"Or it may just leave," Campbell said, "meaning we'll be most of what's left here."

"I would tend to doubt that. As is said, nature abhors a vacuum, so a big empty landmass is a huge vacuum begging for new animals to fill it up. But either way we have to be ready for changes."

"Big ones, maybe. Wonder what would happen if we end up going far north? Think these trees will survive?"

"Hard to say," Akira admitted. "They have thus far seemed to be tropical in their type and behavior, but if they cannot move and such movements of islands are common, they must have some form of adaptation to such extremes."

"Either way, we should prepare for significant changes," Whips said, thinking about what he knew about different biomes and the challenges of survival in territory you didn't know. In this case, the island might suddenly become territory they didn't know.

"Damn," Campbell said with a slanted grin on his face. "This world's quirks keep throwing funny curveballs at us. Akira, how about the island continent itself? Is it going to be okay if things get colder?"

Akira didn't answer at once, and Whips recognized his expression: he was considering a whole host of possibilities at once and trying to get an answer out of them.

Campbell apparently recognized that expression too, because he didn't prod; just let Akira Kimei think.

At last, Akira nodded. "I think it should be fine. We have evidence that these islands persist for extremely long time-scales when left unmolested, and given the nature of wind, currents, tides and such, I cannot believe that these islands do not commonly wander across the globe. While the population of the island's top surface may well change, I suspect the core animals, including key symbionts, are well able to adapt to wide changes in temperature, some in salinity, and so on. They may reinforce areas prior to entering colder waters and then go dormant, but the drift patterns likely take them out of very inhospitable waters in reasonable time."

"What's 'reasonable time', though?"

"Hard to say. Caroline and I will have to work on that, see if we can get a model going now that we have more data on the whole planet. It's not out of the question, though, that we could spend a year or three in high latitudes before exiting them. I doubt we'd spend decades there, though."

"Why's that? Not that I want to spend decades up north, but why do you think we won't spend lots of time there?"

"I can answer that," Whips said, and the omni displayed the whole globe, rotating. "Take a look; most of our floating landmasses range from the equator through the subtropics; you don't see too many of them far north or far south."

"Huh. Currents?"

"It would have to be, I should think. Wind naturally will play a part, but the vast majority of these islands' mass and area is underwater." Akira tapped the side of his omni absently. "The physical topology underwater would ultimately guide a lot of the currents and their courses, but as that is tens of kilometers down we have no way of knowing what that topology is and modeling it, thus we're going to be discovering its effects, well, this way."

Sergeant Campbell studied the display for another moment, then nodded sharply. "Right. I'm with you two, we do need to prepare. Stockpile, in case some of our food sources dry up. Figure out heating options for our columns—we can stock up on firewood but since wood's the minority population in this forest, we don't want to overharvest. Have to watch that."

"Find a good way to ensure water sources, too," mused Akira. "We have no certainty that we'll have regular rainfall if we're in different latitudes. Weather patterns will undoubtedly be disrupted by something this large entering different climatological boundaries."

Whips was playing worst-case scenarios in his mind. "Can I make a suggestion?"

"Of course, Whips," Akira said.

"Well. . . I don't think there's any immediate danger of anything, but it occurs to me that if the worst does happen—I mean, maybe the island separates into chunks when it gets too cold, or island-eaters get it, or something—we should be ready to move. We'd all fit on board Emerald Maui, right?"

Sergeant Campbell looked at him with a bemused expression, then grinned. "Son, you are thinking with Murphy in mind, aren't you? I like it. Sure, those shuttles were meant to carry up to fifteen plus a pilot. Plenty of room for emergency evacuation and moving."

"And if we keep some of the equipment on the island, and some onboard, we'll have space onboard for survival supplies," Akira said. "Excellent thinking, Whips. I think you should take point on that project."

"Me?"

"Sure thing, son," Campbell said, still grinning. "The reward for thinking of more things that need to be done? That's you, getting more work!"

 

 

Chapter 16.

"I don't see anything," Xander whispered.

"To the right of that big white rock," Caroline said quietly.

Xander concentrated on the indicated area and his omni activated his retinal displays, causing the metamaterial lenses to realign and provide an effective ten times zoom. At the same time, it shifted the viewing spectrum slightly to take advantage of the dim light of Lincoln's night—mostly provided by one of the huge comets that currently stretched across a quarter of the sky.

Shadows lightened and Xander suddenly saw motion. "I think I see! One. . . two. . . um, about five?"

"I see six," Caroline said. "But the sixth is off to the side."

"Got him." The lone capy, a bit larger than the others, stood on a small rock, his forequarters raised up rather like those of a rat, sniffing the air. "Sentry, I bet."

Caroline nodded, then looked at him expectantly.

Xander called up the map overlay. "Yeah. . . they're almost to the edge of that rocky area that borders the swamp. If they keep going they'll have to trek right through the bogs, and from what you told me that's not safe."

"Not if the hillmouths are still there. And I think they are."

Xander remembered the briefing on the various dangers of the Kimei's continent; the hillmouths were semi-crocodilian ambush predators, massive things that could disguise themselves as small hillocks of marsh vegetation. A capy would barely make a decent meal for a small one.

On the other hand, the tree krakens apparently stayed in forested areas when they could, so it might be a case of trading one predatory threat for another. "But this is part of the same group?"

"Sure. Here, call up the reference patterns. See?"

"Hard to make out in this light. Um. . . oh, okay, yeah. Pattern matches on these three, that's for sure. So they're part of the herd you usually saw near your column area?"

"Yes. And now they're almost out of our walking range, and moving at night as well as day."

Xander grimaced. "Slow, but even if they only do a short distance every day they'll still be moving a long way in a few months. Guess your dad was right, they're migrating."

"Looks like it."

"Are we taking any more of them before they leave?"

Caroline pursed her lips and pushed her brown hair back as she studied the group. "We could use more supplies, but it's a long way back home from here. We'd have to clean the carcass quick then make the hike back, and there's nocturnal predators around we don't want to meet up with if we can avoid it."

And if we're carrying a lot of meat, a predator's going to smell it. "So no?"

"So I think we need to think hard about it. Dad hasn't seen any replacement species show up yet, but that's probably more a matter of months. There's still plenty of fish and other sea creatures around, but capy meat's one of the most nutritious things we've found on Lincoln, and it's pretty tasty too."

"No argument there!" Xander actually thought capy steak might be one of his favorite foods.

But his stomach wasn't the most rational decisionmaker; the real question was whether it made more sense to kill one and take the time and effort to dress the carcass and haul it home than to forego the opportunity but be able to return more quickly and safely.

"I'll leave it to you," Xander said finally. "You guys have lived here the longest."

"Thanks, drop it all on me," Caroline said, but the visible flash of white teeth showed she was smiling as she did so. After a few moments of silence, she sighed. "There's only six of them in that group, and I have no way of knowing how many of their herd's around. I think we'll have to let these guys go."

"Okay." He stared after the little herd, which was moving off into the shadows. "Just as well. I dunno about you, but I'm not sure I'd be able to make the shot from here, at night, even with my omni helping."

"Oh, I'm sure we could. I could do it with a bow if I had to."

"You've gotta be kidding me. They must be close to sixty, seventy meters off."

"I didn't say I'd want to do it," Caroline admitted, "but with a good bow like we have now, I'd try anything up to a hundred meters if I had to. Rather be a lot closer, though. If we were going to do it, we'd stalk the herd until we got closer—ideally about thirty meters or less."

"You think we could do that?"

She scanned the terrain and seemed to sniff the air. "Probably. I'd head down the hill, that way," she indicated where the ridge they were on curled slightly south-east, "which would keep us out of sight, and once we were at the bottom we'd be downwind, so we could work our way up to the next ridge and a better vantage. Maybe get into one of the trees."

She definitely knew what she was doing. No surprise—they'd told him that Caroline was one of their best hunters. Xander could tell he had a lot to learn. "You'll have to show me someday. But since we're not doing it tonight, maybe we should head back?"

A few quick flashes of light—meteors—illuminated her as she nodded. "Sure. We've found out what we wanted to know."

 

They made their way back through the darkened jungle carefully; Xander remembered Sakura recounting her terrifying run through this forest after her mother was hurt, and her heart-stopping encounter with a creature like a cross between a hunting cat and some kind of predatory beetle. It wasn't likely such a thing would come after them, though; there were two of them, adults, and armed.

That did trigger a thought. "Caroline, there's something that's been bothering me about this island."

"Yes?"

"Well. . . it definitely has a lot of life on it, of all different types, but somehow it seems to me—especially after all the scary stories you guys have told us—that there's, well, too many predators around. Are there really enough prey animals around to sustain all the things you've talked about—these tree krakens, hillmouths, that panther-insect thing that Sakura ran into, the," he gave a shudder, "raylamps?"

Caroline laughed softly. "You'd think not, wouldn't you?" she said. "Dad thought the same way, but it's not that simple, it turns out. The raylamps were actually the clue. There weren't that many of them, and then they just kept coming. They're opportunistic predators, but they're also scavengers, something like pretty dumb sharks. They were coming in to attack us from a long way around, probably out into the ocean nearby. We started keeping track of individual predators when we could, and you'd see a pattern of them coming in, and then leaving."

Light dawned. "Oh. You mean, their hunting grounds aren't all that limited. Because they're aquatic—well, amphibious."

"Right. They get to use the ocean to move around the continent better than they could on land, they can hunt (at least some of them can) in the water as well as on land, and they can even go to other nearby islands or other faraway parts of this floating continent, way far away from us."

"So you're saying that some weeks or months there's probably hardly any big predators around, and others there are way too many."

"Something like that. At least, it makes sense of what is, as you say, hard to explain."

They walked a bit farther in silence. "So. . ." he finally said, "how do you feel about staying here? I mean, if we're really marooned here for good?"

An indrawn breath and a pause answered him. He could see her profile, silvered by comet-light in the night, turn to him and then away. "Well, if we're really marooned for good, what does it matter what I feel about it?"

He grinned. "I suppose it doesn't make a difference to the world, but it still matters to how we think about it. Right?"

"Hmm. Yes." She was quiet a few moments. "I don't think I'd mind it too much, as long as things keep going pretty much as they are."

"How do you mean that?"

"I mean. . . well, recovering as much civilization as we can, building more of a sort of community than just surviving." Another flash of her smile in the dark. "I mean, we were proud as hell of discovering iron ore and making our own metal on this floating coral-continent, but having you guys come in with all your equipment and extra know-how? Boy, does that make a difference."

Xander hadn't gone through all that with them, but he could remember everyone's relief at knowing there was a real doctor available. "Yeah. Like. . . your family proved you could survive without anyone's help, if you had to. But you don't want to go back to having to."

"Right! That wouldn't be fun." Her voice was serious now. "It. . . almost broke us, once. I remember that. We hit a low point that really did feel like we were shattering into pieces. As Sakura said to me later, from outside it might have been almost silly; after all, human beings on Earth lived for generations without even as much as we were shipwrecked with."

Xander nodded. "But they hadn't lived their lives the way we do, so it's a lot harder on us to go back; we expect so much more as, um, just normal life."

"Something like that." She paused, glancing around.

"What is it?"

"Something was following us. But when I stopped and looked at it, it gave ground."

"Should we run it off, or what?" Xander squinted in the indicated direction; the omni's enhanced vision showed a faint infrared glow, but he couldn't really tell much about how big or what shape the creature was.

"Let's see if it follows us any farther," Caroline said. "It did back off when I looked at it; maybe letting it know we're aware will be enough to make it go elsewhere."

Continuing to walk with the knowledge that something might be following them gave Xander an itchily creepy feeling between his shoulderblades, but if Caroline could walk on as though nothing bothered her, so could he. "Is it still following?"

"A little longer." They went on for a few more seconds, then she nodded. "It's gone."

"You've got really good ears or something. My omni wasn't showing me much of anything."

"Good hearing and more practice. I'm still the best hunter here, and if you don't get good at listening and hearing in this jungle you'll end up dead."

"I'll have to practice more, then. We can't afford to lose any of us, that's for sure."

She was quiet for a while. He noticed her looking up often.

"What are you looking at?"

"The place where the Sun should be," she said.

For an instant he wondered what she was talking about—it was the beginning of Lincoln's extra-long night, so the sun wouldn't be up for a long time. "Oh. That's right, Sergeant Campbell said that Lincoln's star wasn't visible from Earth."

"Which seems really odd to me. Maybe a small nebula, at just the right distance, could be blocking the light without heating up and giving away the fact that there was a star behind it. . . but that seems really unlikely to me."

Xander thought about that. "Maybe unlikely, but what other explanation is there? Aliens like the Bemmies hid it somehow? Why? And if you were going to do that, wouldn't you try to hide it from all directions?"

"I . . . don't know. It just seems awfully unlikely to have happened by accident."

"True," Xander conceded, "and we do have proof there were ancient alien civilizations, but even so. . . everything in life's pretty unlikely, right? You and me having this conversation, for instance; means that all the factors in the universe came together to have me—and not all my parents' other possible kids—be born, the same thing happen for you, both of us to end up on the same colony ship on the same trip, both of us to be on separate shuttles that somehow survived and made it here. . . right?"

Her laugh had a faint embarrassed air to it. "Yes. And the fact that our Earth has a moon that's just the right size and distance from it to provide a perfect eclipse is pretty unlikely too. Your point; the fact that something's unlikely isn't a great argument. But I would like to know what it is that's blocking that light. I'd really like to know."

"If we're ever rescued, I'll bet we'll have a chance to find out," he said. "But we didn't bring any astronomy gear with us, so I guess we're stuck not knowing as long as we're here."

"Unless," she said slowly, "it does have something to do with Lincoln itself."

He looked at her; in the dimness he almost missed the slight turning-up of her lips. "Stop that! You're trying to creep me out."

"Maybe just a little," she said, and laughed.

A distant spark of light caught his eye, a momentary flicker as it became visible then hidden behind the trees. "There's Sherwood Column," he said.

"Oh, good, we're almost home!" He saw her touch her omni. "Hi, Mom? Yes, we're not too far out now. What? Oh, goody. See you!"

He found himself walking faster, trying to keep up with her. "Hey, what's the rush?"

"Mom says there's dinner waiting for us—plus some hedral-and-vineberry pie!"

That sounded delicious. He started jogging. "First one there gets the bigger slice!"

"What are you, six?" she demanded, but she was laughing. And then she was sprinting ahead of him, her omni's vision letting her avoid obstacles as though it were daylight.

"Hey!" Xander took off after her, laughing himself.

 

 

The post Castaway Resolution: Chapters 14, 15, and 16! appeared first on Ryk E. Spoor, Author, Gamer, Geek God.

Castaway Resolution: Chapters 12 and 13!

My computer died last week, so I had to go some days without it -- and you people without an update! So here's two chapters in one to catch us up on Christmas Eve!

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Chapter 12.

"Huh," Tavana said, a questioning air about him, as he lowered himself heavily onto a stump at the side of the path.

Sakura glanced at him; she had a momentary flash of annoyance that he'd stopped, but she suppressed it. Tav was still not fully recovered, and was just starting to get back to regular activity. "What's 'huh'?"

"The sun, I could swear that just the prior dawn, it was rising between those two trees, but now it is on the far side of the one," Tavana answered.

"Well, yeah," she said, after a moment. "Think about it, Tav."

The broad Polynesian face wrinkled for a moment, then Tavana smacked his head. "Stupid. The floating continent, it also spins. There is no really stable orientation here."

"You got it. I guess Caroline's having a ball gathering data on the planet with your satellite network. We didn't know hardly anything about Lincoln before we landed, and, well, until you guys got here we still didn't know much. 'Cept about the specific things here, anyways."

"Well, those were the things that mattered, yes? Aside from anything needed for survival, planetography would have not just taken the backseat, it would have been in a trailer behind you."

She heard her own laughter echo through the trees. "Yeah, exactly." She saw him glance up into the sky again, his brow furrow, then relax. "What is it this time?"

"Oh, that." He pointed into the sky a fair arc away from the sun.

Sakura could see a point of light, dimmed by the sky's brightness but easily visible. Concentrating, she could make out a faint mist trailing out to one side. "Oh, yeah, a comet. There's a lot of them here. I think there's only been a few weeks since we've been here that there wasn't a pretty bright one visible."

"Oui, I remember we saw two very large comets when we entered the system. Meteors are common too."

"Oh, you bet." She grinned, remembering. "When we were out building that dock for you, we hit a meteor shower that Caroline said outdid anything she'd ever heard of on Earth; it was like fireworks. And if you stay out at night and look up at any reasonable patch of sky you'll see a meteor pretty quick."

"Any actually fall around here?"

"We haven't found any meteorites, but there's bound to be some. But Caroline said that finding them would be tough; on Earth they used to go to places like Antarctica where there was nothing but flat ice and figure that if they came across an isolated rock, it pretty much had to be a meteorite, but here in a jungle? Not working so well."

"I guess so." Tav stood up. "Sorry to keep you waiting."

"It's okay," she said, even more annoyed at herself for her prior impatience. "You guys nearly died, I can't get mad at you for taking it slow sometimes. But this trip was your idea."

"Well, yes. I want to see how you do things here, and even if I am not up to helping much, it will be good to know how for when I am better."

Sakura couldn't argue that. "We're almost there, so if you can keep moving for about five minutes you'll be able to sit down and rest while I get to work."

They walked in silence for a few minutes; Sakura found herself very aware of Tavana being close, even though he wasn't really much closer than he was in a lot of other situations. Does he feel the same way? I mean. . . What do I mean? Do I, well, like him?

Tavana spoke suddenly, and his voice sounded unusually. . . tense? Nervous? It had a slightly higher, faintly strained pitch to it. "Um, Sakura, I was wondering, why here? That is, why is this the good place for your driftseed?"

The question relaxed her—to a startling degree. Boy, I am nervous! "Oh, well, that? It'll be easier to explain when we get there."

In a few moments they emerged into a semi-clearing along a narrow streambed. Across the stream, Sakura could see a strip of brilliant white, as though someone had taken a two-meter-wide paintbrush and drawn it across the jungle in front of them.

"What is that?"

Sakura studied the clearing and trees and stream for a moment to make sure everything was safe, then moved forward. "That," she said as she hopped across the stream, "is what we're here for."

As they got closer, the white streak resolved itself into what looked like a massive snowbank, a literal drift of white fluff. There were small animals, something like green-brown guinea pigs, moving in and around the fluff, but they scattered at the humans' approach.

Tavana surveyed the mound, eyebrows high. "Impressed, yes, I am impressed. So we use these rake-things to compress and scoop the driftseed into our bags, then carry it back?"

"Right. You can do as much as you feel up to, but don't push yourself."

She saw Tavana squint down the stream, then hold up his hand in the air for a moment. "Ah! I believe I understand."

"Thought you would!" Tav was smart, which was one of the things she really liked about him—that, and him being kind of quiet a lot of the time. "Prevailing winds get funneled up here from farther down, where it spreads out, so a lot of driftseed comes in here, and then it runs straight into this area where there's heavy growth because of the way the sunlight gets into the clearing."

"Vraiment, yes, but what about the turning of the island? We just mentioned that, yes? Will that not change the winds?"

"Some, yes, but so far it looks like our island continent doesn't just spin around like a top; it sort of wobbles back and forth but stays pointing in the same general direction."

Tavana scratched his head, then took the scoop-rake off his back and started trying to gather driftseed. "How is that? I mean, why does it not spin completely around?"

"We don't know," she answered candidly, dragging her scoop in what had become a practiced motion. "Might be the way the island's shaped that makes it stay in one general orientation, especially since it must dip way down to keep us all above water, or maybe there's some kind of active orientation guidance from one of its symbiote species."

Tavana was having difficulty getting the driftseed into the bag. "No, look, Tav, you have to scoop more first. Until it compresses enough it'll just puff right back up and fall apart. You have to tell by the resistance and the look. Here, let me." She took his arm and guided it through the scooping motion. He resisted at first, trying to anticipate her movements and failing, but by the second time through he had relaxed and just let her guide. "See?" she said finally. "Four, five good long scoops and it's squished itself down and if you turn it like this," she gave the scoop a sort of shaking half-turn, "It loosens in the grooves just enough. Now try putting it in the bag."

Most of the driftseed slid into the bag, with just a little of it fluffing and flying away at the edges. "Oh! Oui, c'est facile," Tav said; his voice had that same strange, tense edge. She was suddenly aware of the warmth of Tav's arm, the hard-soft feel of muscle under skin.

She stepped back, letting go maybe a little faster than she'd originally planned. "So, um, you think you can do that yourself?"

"Yes, it is easy, yes? I said that." He laughed suddenly. "So, Saki, can I ask you another question?"

Another question would be good, she thought. "Sure!"

He hesitated, and she suddenly wondered if she did want another question. Or if she really did want another question. "So," he said again, and licked his lips nervously, then managed a smile. "The neighborhood, I did not see an immertainment complex or a performance hall or even restaurant around. So I was wondering, um, where would you go if you were dating?"

She couldn't help herself; the release of tension sent her into a gale of laughter. Seeing his wince-and-cringe helped get it back under control. "No, it's okay, Tav, jeez, I was trying to decide how I might ask you, and that was a pretty cute approach you tried, so the answer's yes but I don't know where!"

"Yes? Vraiment? Really?" He grinned, teeth flashing as bright as the driftseed. "Well, then we will think about the 'where' later!" The relief was as clear on his face as it had been in her gut, and then he went on, "Maybe the practice range? It is not so classically part of romance, but I had fun with our little contest before."

"Ha! That's not a terrible idea at all, but maybe we can come up with a better one. I'll have to talk to Mom and Dad, of course."

"Oui, and I with the Sergeant. At least we have already met each others' family here."

She heard a giggle escape her. "Yeah, I guess we have. So, anyway, think you can help finish gathering the driftseed?"

"Now?" Tavana grinned again. "Now I could finish this whole clearing."

 

 

Chapter 13.

Campbell stretched, testing his body's sensations. Mostly back to my old self, but still a little off. That damn disease really took it out of us.

Still, he'd gotten off pretty light. He looked at Francisco, who was sitting in bed, trying to paint a picture of the view out of the window, and shook his head. The little boy still had to pause every ten minutes or so to rest; Maddox was a little better than that, but even now after three and a half weeks he was only up to a little light labor.

"Is he going to recover all the way, Doctor Kimei?" he asked, voice low.

Laura bit her lip. "I. . . hope so. This was a complex disease. It actually started adapting to some of the nanotreatments, and I don't remember ever seeing anything like that in the literature before. If we had a full-scale hospital setup I'd be sure, but. . ."

He could see the dark doubts on her face. He put a hand on her shoulder. "What you're really telling me, ma'am, is that if we hadn't had the incredible fortune that you landed here, and that we were able to reach you, that little boy and the rest of us would be dead now. You reversed most of the systemic damage, including the neurological, and whatever happens, Franky's going to still be himself, and that's okay."

Laura shook herself and then smiled at him. "Playing therapist now, Sergeant?"

"Hell, that's the job of a noncom, isn't it? Half of your job's running out the recruits who really shouldn't have signed on in the first place, and the other half's helping build up the ones who belong there. And the way you looked? Ma'am, I've seen that expression before, more times than I care to remember. In my line of work, you see a hell of lot of medics and doctors losing patients, haunted by what-ifs and I should haves." He frowned, remembering. "Sometimes the patient's only one of the victims that needs treatment."

Laura nodded. "They teach you that lesson in medical school," she said with a rueful grin, "but it's hard to keep in mind." She looked back at Francisco. "But. . . yes, I think he will. The nanos are working on the repairs and I don't think there's anything irreparable. It was very close, though."

"Too damn close. Your upgraded medical suite should keep that from happening again, right?"

"It should. I'm confident that it will. I had to do a complete wipe-and-reprogram on your nanos to enforce full compatibility and consistency, but that's done, so I think our little colony has full coverage on medical safety now."

She gestured upward. "And since you were saying how grateful you were for our presence, let me just add how grateful we are for yours. Those satellites are a godsend. Now we can talk to each other anywhere on the planet, and if there's a medical or any other kind of emergency we'll know about it right away, with all our omnis linked to the network."

"Well, now, I guess it's just that we're both groups lucky. Together I think we can really make a go of it here, even if we're never found."

She was quiet for a moment, and the two of them moved out of the doorway of the shelter to let Hitomi through; the little girl ran over to Francisco and dropped a flower chain on his lap. Campbell grinned at that.

"So, Sergeant. . . do you think that's where we are? That we'll never be found?"

He shrugged, and started walking slowly away from the shelter, looking up at the immense trees surrounding them. "Well, I'll tell you, ma'am; I was givin' about one-in-ten odds a rescue ship would show up in the first six months—which time was actually spent while we were still tryin' to make our way here.

"Now? I wouldn't give you one in a thousand. The only reason anyone would have to come here is if they either suspect there's castaways on Lincoln, or if they notice something funny about this planet. The star someone might notice, but then they're not gonna be so concerned about the planets here, but on what it was that managed to hide a whole star this close to Earth. So they'll go looking in space along that line-of-sight. Only likely thing to draw anyone to Lincoln otherwise is if someone maps it with wide-baseline telescopes, and then notices the map ain't always consistent. But that's a matter of years at that distance."

Laura Kimei nodded; her thoughts clearly ran along the same channels. "So we're here for good."

"Unless one of those contraptions the kids are working on is built, and manages to make it to Orado. If that happens you can bet there'll be a big mission here straightaway."

A pair of arms slipped around his waist from behind and hugged. "And what do you think the chances are of that?" Pearce Haley asked, letting go and stepping up to join them. "Hi, Laura."

"Hi, Pearce!" Laura gave Pearce a quick hug. "That’s a good question. I know Whips, Tavana, and Xander are spending a lot of time on those alternatives. What do you think?"

Campbell stole a quick kiss from Pearce before answering. "Well, first off, there's no problem with them trying to figure these things out. Chances. . . really hard to say. Engineers are usually either complete optimists or total pessimists about how something they designed will work."

"I like the idea of going home under our own power," Laura said after a moment.

"So do I. You can't beat ending a shipwreck story that way, with everyone hammering out a solution and beating the odds to get home on their own. Look at how many times they've dramatized the wreck of the Nebula Storm over the century and a half since it crashed on Europa." He swatted at a buzzbug that was flying too close. "But they'll have to do a hell of a job of convincing me that they can get that hulk skyworthy again before I green-light that. Doing the separate probe might permanently ground Emerald Maui, but it won't risk any of us, and honestly I like that a lot better."

"I agree," Pearce said. "But we'll decide that when the designs are all done; have a family conference about it."

"Sure thing."

He took Pearce's hand in his as they walked around the clearing, and noticed Laura's expression. "What are you grinnin' about, ma'am?"

"Oh, seeing the two of you and then remembering Hitomi running in with that flower chain."

"Ha! Though I think the ones you need to keep an eye on are Tav and Sakura."

"Oh, I am," she said, "but Tavana seems like a very nice young man, and it's not like Saki can't take care of herself. Mostly the problem is keeping them from distracting each other now. Tavana especially."

"I hear you on that," he said with a chuckle. "Especially Tav; when he came to us to ask about what a guy might arrange to have a date, he was practically incoherent. But what about Xander and Caroline?"

"Honestly? I don't know if there's anything there or not. They're clearly friendly, but I haven’t got a sense as to whether they're interested in each other."

"I hate to say it," Pearce said, "but right now it's Maddox who's interested in Caroline."

"What? He's only, what, fourteen?"

Campbell heard his own laugh echo across the clearing. "And she's eighteen, which is only four years apart. Looks like a big separation now, of course, but it doesn't mean much to a young guy. Or gal, for that matter; can't tell you the number of young ladies I know who got crushes on older teachers. Yeah, I've seen Maddox sneaking looks at Caroline myself. Tries to hide it. Kinda like Xander and Pearce."

Pearce boggled at him. "What?"

He laughed again, reflecting on how good it was to laugh now, after all the prior months where good laughs were in short supply. "What, you never noticed him staring at you back on the ship? Or sometimes givin' me the narrow side-eye when he thought I didn't notice? Think he's pretty over it now, but he had it pretty bad for a bit."

As Pearce chewed on that minor revelation, Campbell looked to Laura. "Anyways, one question I gotta ask, have you got the critical issues on this covered? The emotional ones they'll have to work out on their own, but. . ."

"Oh, I absolutely have that covered. None of us—not me, not Pearce, and not any of my girls—will be having children unless and until it is decided they will. Obviously, if it comes to that, Pearce, it's completely your decision; you're my patient but not my responsibility."

The redhead gave a grin up to Campbell that jolted him and sent his heart racing as though he was a teenager again. "Oh, maybe it will come to that. But not just yet."

"Uh, yeah," Campbell said, noticing that his own conversation wasn't as sparkling as it ought to be. "Hm. Not yet, that's for sure. We'll need to finish getting established and comfortable before we worry about that."

There were, of course, other problems with the long-term viability of their colony, but for now the real problems were simple: make long-term homes, secure long-term food sources, keep improving their resources and capabilities. . . and be ready for anything Lincoln threw at them.

Because even now, with all of them together, Samuel Morgan Campbell could still feel it. Lincoln had more surprises in store for them.

And some of them could be lethal.

 

The post Castaway Resolution: Chapters 12 and 13! appeared first on Ryk E. Spoor, Author, Gamer, Geek God.

Sorry about the interruption…

... my computer crapped out last week and I'm just catching up to things now. I'll post all the accumulated chapters of Castaway Resolution tonight sometime.

The post Sorry about the interruption… appeared first on Ryk E. Spoor, Author, Gamer, Geek God.

Castaway Resolution: Chapter 11

Work doesn't stop because people are sick, of course...

-----

 

 

Chapter 11.

"You're sure you don't want another column?" Whips asked, studying the various designs he had been contemplating in his omni view.

Campbell rubbed his chin, and leaned back in his bed. On his right, Tavana was propped up and trying to pay attention, but it was obvious to Whips that he probably wasn't going to stay the distance. Xander was more alert.

Tavana yawned prodigiously but focused on the projections. "Living in one of the columns, I like the idea, Sergeant. We have seen how very strong the islands are. Trees, even the biggest here—and they are amazing!—they have a history of rotting, burning, or falling in winds."

"Can't argue that," the Sergeant conceded, "but after our little experience with getting our own island to half commit suicide because we were such bad tenants, I really don't want to do anything to mess things up here. The Kimeis already built a lot into one column, I figure the more of those we start plugging up, the more chance there is of drawin' the wrong kind of attention. Xander? What's your take, Captain?"

Whips felt the shimmering ripple of a laugh play along his flanks, though he doubted any of them could recognize it, which was good. It might seem funny, but even in the few weeks the newcomers had been here, it had become clear that Campbell meant it when he called Xander Bird "Captain". And from their story, Whips guessed that Xander had earned it.

Xander plucked absently at the extra monitoring node Laura had installed on one arm. "Well. . . I'd say it's not just our call. Dr. Kimei. . . I mean, our bio doctor, Akira Kimei—he's probably the one best able to tell us whether it's much of a risk. He recognized what was happening to our island, after all." Xander's gaze mostly avoided Whips, which wasn't a surprise, but he was getting used to it. Fixing that phobia wasn't happening overnight. "I can't argue Tav's points, he's right. These columns," Xander gestured at the shelter's window, through which Sherwood Column was just visible, "they're basically fortress towers that just need floors and amenities put in."

This time he did look directly at Whips, and met the gaze of Whips' top two eyes. "And holy crap, but I'm impressed by what all of you did there. I mean, even with the tools we've brought, setting up a column for living space won't exactly be an afternoon job, and you guys managed to pull it off with not much more than sticks and stones. And they tell me a lot of that was your work."

The prickly pattern of embarrassment stitched a clashing pattern across his skin, and he gave a shrug of all arms. "Oh, not a lot of it. I mean, it was really all of us together. Even Hitomi helped some."

"Jeez, Whips, take some credit once in a while!" Sakura's voice came from behind him. "Yes, it was mostly his design work. Sure, we all did the work, but he did most of the figuring out how to do the work."

Xander's face was slightly pale, but he managed a lopsided, amazed grin. "And you're, what, fourteen? Fifteen? I wouldn't have wanted to trust my teenage calculations anywhere near that far. Heck, I'm not sure I'd want to do it now." His gaze shifted back to the diagram of the interior of Sherwood.

A low chuckle from the Sergeant. "Son, just goes to show how much desperation and necessity are mothers of invention. Or just mothers."

Whips gave a faint whistling oof! as Sakura plopped down on top of him. "Warn me before you do that!"

"I remember when you didn't even notice."

"You've gotten a lot bigger in the last couple years," Whips grumbled, but he didn't really mind; he'd been a sort of mobile couch as well as friend for Saki for a long time, and it was the closest to Bemmie communal contact that he was likely to get here. He cocked one eye in the direction of Tavana, expecting him to try to get his friend's attention, but saw that the French Polynesian boy's head had fallen back on his pillow. A faint snore emanated from the area.

"I guess," Sakura said. "So, maybe stupid question—why not just build something right here, in the clearing? A house or something?"

"Might could," Campbell said, "but leaving aside the tree-kraken, most of the dangerous wildlife—predator and the more irritable herbivores—hang out down on the forest floor. I don't see any percentage in putting my doors and windows where they can reach if I've got other options."

"Well, Dad'll be back in a couple hours, you can get his opinion then."

"Meanwhile," Whips said, "it's not like it's a waste of time to work on both sets of designs. Maybe one day other settlers will come and they'll have to find places to live too. And by the Vents does it make it easier to do design when I know all the tools you've got for me to play with!"

"What, don't want to try boring more holes in those things with fire and grinding?"

"I would rather cut off my top arm," Whips said earnestly.

The shelter door opened again and Pearce Haley came in. "Hey, everyone!"

"Well, good afternoon, Lieutenant," Campbell said, with a not-terribly-professional grin. "Back from the hunting trip so soon?"

"Give credit to Caroline," she said, hooking her thumb at the oldest Kimei daughter who was following her in. "She's a goddamn Robin Hood. I shot one capy, she got two with that darn bow."

"Well, they were in a group," Caroline pointed out.

"That wasn't from our –" Sakura began.

"No, not from our local herds. Trying not to spook those. There was a new herd coming in and encroaching on the territory."

"Local herds?" asked Campbell. "Trying to keep a good supply of game nearby?"

"That's part of it. Hi, Whips," Caroline said, stopping to give him a quick base-clasp of greeting. "Mostly though, we're hoping to get a couple herds used to us so that we can actually start domesticating them. Machines are great but they don't self-reproduce, at least not here."

"True enough. You think you can pull that off?" Campbell looked genuinely interested.

"Dad thinks it's possible," Sakura answered. "Says they show a lot of favorable characteristics for it. So for the most part we want to make sure they don't think of us as predators, or at worst as predators who focus well outside their herd."

"So we hunt well away from them, and make sure we clean up any blood or mess before we go anywhere near them," Caroline finished. She noticed the omni displays, since they were public-local. "Oooh, figuring out where you're going to live?"

"Deciding between the alternatives, yes," Xander answered. He'd straightened up and was now looking straight at Caroline, Whips noticed, and that triggered a Bemmie grin. Sakura noticed the shift in pattern, followed the gaze of his lower side eye, and grinned herself.

"Well, I hope it's not too far away," Caroline said, apparently oblivious to Xander's focused regard. "Don't want to have to hike through a kilometer of jungle just to visit."

"Doubt we'll have to worry about that," Campbell said, and Whips thought he saw a hint of a smile on his face that was aimed at Xander and Caroline. "Whether we choose a column or tree, there's plenty not far away."

Laura stuck her head into the shelter doorway. "All right, people, you've kept my patients up enough. Time for everyone to let them rest."

"Mom, I just got back," Caroline protested.

Laura gave a mock frown, then smiled. "Five minutes for you, then. The rest of you, out."

Whips looked up at Laura as they exited. "They are definitely getting better."

"Oh, absolutely," Laura agreed. "But they're not going to be nearly a hundred percent for a while, and they're still nowhere near there after two weeks. Seems to have hit the younger people harder, so I expect poor Francisco isn't going to make a full recovery until another month or so."

"Good thing they had the medical nanoprogramming unit."

"God, yes." She gave a shudder. "I might have lost Francisco if we hadn't, and they'd be looking at much longer recovery times."

"None of us will catch this, right?"

She gave him a reassuring squeeze at the base of his top arm. "Not a chance. I don't think that exact agent lives on this island, and in any case I've made sure we're all immunized to it and its relations now."

"And they'll all make a hundred percent recovery?" Sakura asked.

Laura smiled. "A doctor doesn't like to make absolute statements, Saki, and you know that. But. . . yes, I expect everyone will be back to full capabilities eventually."

"Then I'd better keep working on these designs," Whips said. "Because it won't be long until we're building one!"

 

 

The post Castaway Resolution: Chapter 11 appeared first on Ryk E. Spoor, Author, Gamer, Geek God.

Castaway Resolution: Chapter 10

Something bad had just happened to the second crew of castaways...

------

 

Chapter 10.

"What's wrong with them?" Pearce Haley asked, a tiny tremor audible in the normally-controlled voice. "And why hasn't it hit me?"

Laura shook her head, trying to banish any personal concern. That wasn't easy; anything that could take down the boys from Emerald Maui could presumably get her children, too. "I don't know yet," she said, following the projections and analyses in her omni. "Akira, how are you coming on the programming station?"

"It's operating, love, but the initial calibration and test runs will take a few hours unless we cut them short." Akira's low, grim tone held the unspoken question as to whether they could afford the few hours.

Maybe not. But even less could she afford to do any shortcuts here. There weren't any people or machines to catch her mistakes if she cut the wrong corner. "No," she said. "We have to be absolutely sure it's working at one hundred percent."

Ah. There's something. "A toxin. Complex protein structure. Catalytic inhibitor action on several nerve groups."

Pearce connected in; she could tell that the Lieutenant had some medical training just by the way she was examining the data. "How do you mean that?"

"Many poisons—perhaps most—kill or injure by a direct chemical action; the poison reacts with some part of the body and damages it through that reaction, and the poison is generally consumed by that reaction." Laura had her medical library start comparing the structure of the new toxin with others. "But others are more efficient about their damage; they contact a particular type of nerve receptor, for instance, and cause some kind of shift in its response. . . and then move on, to the next receptor. They catalyze a damaging change, but they aren't themselves consumed in doing so, so that one molecule of the toxin can damage many nerves. Those require the active defenses of the body, or a direct antitoxin, to neutralize."

"That. . . sounds pretty scary."

"It is. Generally such toxins can be lethal at much lower doses than others. And this one seems to have something in common with the top-end bacterial toxins like tetanospasmin or botulinum."

"So it's a bacterial infection?"

"That's my guess. Something like that, anyway. Something that can be triggered by very small numbers of organisms, so the ordinary nanos didn't catch it right away. I found something like this in the early months when we were here, but it's obviously not identical or my quick patches to your nanos would have caught it." She shook her head. "But this incubation period. . . amazingly slow. Usually you see this in some forms of viral or even prion-based infection. Bacterial infections usually have a much shorter incubation period."

Pearce considered that. "Oh. And the reason it hasn't hit me is that I was in suspension for most of the time."

Laura nodded. "You may not even have been exposed; it might be something native to the island Emerald Maui landed on, and only those who went outside on that island would have run into it."

"But now that we know what's going on, they'll be okay." Pearce's green eyes looked at her sharply. "Right?"

Laura made sure the channel was sealed again; she didn't want this discussion available to the kids. "There's a good chance now. But it's not certain. I've got to design an antitoxin, and that's not trivial work. Oh, it's not too hard to make some kind of molecule that will break apart or inert the toxin, but you have to also make sure that that molecule isn't poisonous by itself.

"Killing off the bacteria—if that's what our source is—is something I'll also have to do, but make sure that it's done safely. In some cases—like shuddering fever on Vandemeer—the infectious agents release large bursts of toxin when they die, so the last thing I want to do is risk dumping more of this into their systems until I'm sure we can safely negate it all."

Lieutenant Haley's jaw set as she stared at the shelter where the rest of Emerald Maui's crew were. "So we could lose them?"

"We could," Laura said bluntly. "But I don't think we will," she added, putting a hand on Pearce's shoulder. "One huge advantage we do have is that the nanos can be used, at least for a while, to substitute for the absolutely vital nerve functions, so even with Franky—who's the worst off—he's not going to stop breathing or anything like that, at least not as long as I can keep the rest of the body reasonably functional."

"Why did it happen so fast?"

"It wasn't quite as fast as it looked," Akira's voice answered. "Undoubtedly there were small symptoms previously, but when you combine the significant reserves of healthy people with multiple changes of environment and unusual stresses, the incremental change of a slow-developing crisis can be overlooked until the situation reaches a critical point. Especially with nanos trying to compensate for small shifts; a slow, incremental change over weeks or months is easy for the systems to miss without constant baseline comparison."

"In a way, I'm relieved," Laura said absently.

"Relieved?"

"On human-compatible worlds, the single most common disasters are medical, usually diseases. Four or five major pathogens per world that present real problems is the rule of thumb. So if this is one of the big ones for Lincoln, I'm that much closer to getting us past the worst danger for our little colony."

Pearce stared at her a moment, then managed a smile. "I suppose I get that. But aren't there like, hundreds of terrible diseases on Earth? Why wouldn't there be at least as many on other planets?"

"Well, first, we evolved on Earth, so human-specific pathogens are only going to be found there, at least to start with. But more importantly, it's more a matter of how much better we are today at medical science. There are hundreds of dangerous pathogens on every world. But only a very few are sufficiently complex, subtle, or both that they manage to evade our modern medical prevention methods and require a doctor to actively figure out how to neutralize them." Laura leaned forward and found herself smiling again. "And there you are."

A dusting of faint blue shaded an outline of two lobes in a human figure. "Respiratory. Probably inhaled while working outside. If I had to guess, most likely during the excavation work, since that would have turned up almost everything in the dirt and thrown some of it into the air."

"And would fit with me not having any."

"Exactly." She studied it. "Hmm. Might be more fungal-related, if I insist on using Earth-standard nomenclature. Inhaled fungal-type infections are very nasty and often difficult to diagnose at first."

A faint chuckle was heard. "Serves us right," muttered Campbell.

"Sam! How are you doing?" Pearce said, brightening visibly at the sound of his voice. "And what do you mean, 'serves us right'?"

"How am I doin'? Rotten, right now. Feel like utter crap. Better off than the kids, probably because of the military enhancements, plus I've been around enough worlds and had enough updates that my nanos are probably just that much better at the job." He gave a weary grin, visible in the omni's feed. "As for what serves us right? Well, it's not like we haven't had to learn the lesson about wearing dust masks over the last few centuries, is it? So we went around with our bare faces hangin' out as we threw alien dirt into the air, and got about what you'd expect."

 

"Those kind of procedures always take a backseat in emergencies, and on new colonies," Laura said. "Maybe they shouldn't, but human beings haven't changed. And us colonial types are more risk-prone."

"Can't argue that; staying at home's so much easier and more comfortable, only us lunatics really want to come out here," Campbell said.

"I prefer to think of myself as curious," Akira said. "I can't do cutting-edge research on an alien world unless I'm actually there."

"Hah! That's what field expeditions are for. Leastwise that's one of the things my old commanders used to say; we were there to take the risks so you smart boys could get your samples without getting killed. And I'll bet you've got about eleventy-hundred other guys in your field that do stay home most of the time."

Akira laughed. "All right, I yield the point. Even after crash-landing on this most peculiar world, I still enjoy the thrill of walking through alien woods and never quite being sure something isn't around the next tree waiting for me."

"Lunatics all, then," agreed Campbell. He gave a big sigh. "Aaand I'm already runnin' out of steam."

"Neurotoxic infections will do that to you," Laura said. "But while I'm not talking about the details to the kids yet, I think we're going to be all right. I've been watching your nanoresponse and it's already giving me some useful data on antitoxin design."

"Then," Campbell said, "Let's just hope nothing gets worse in the next few hours, 'cause then you should have your full medical nanoprogramming suite ready. Right?"

"Right," said Laura.

And I'm virtually certain I can keep everyone alive for days even without treatment. Now that I know the cause, I can stop this. She tried not to let the worry show on her face, but she couldn't relax yet. The real question isn't whether they'll still be alive.

     It's whether I can fix all the damage. . . and how long it will take.

 

The post Castaway Resolution: Chapter 10 appeared first on Ryk E. Spoor, Author, Gamer, Geek God.

Castaway Resolution: Chapter 9

There was also some more advanced work to look at... and Xander has a certain issue to work on...

------

 

Chapter 9.

Xander forced his eyes to focus on the designs being projected in front of him by his omni. His mouth was dry and he could hear his breath coming more quickly.

"Do I need to move away?" a breathy, buzzing voice said, only a few meters distant.

Yes! "No," he said. "No, we need to work together, me, you, Tav, everyone. Not letting this beat me." His heart vibrated in his chest with unreasoning fear—a fear that made him furious. Whips is not a monster. He doesn't even look that much like the. . . he shuddered, the raylamps.

His conscious mind agreed and could even specifically and in detail point out all the many differences, even in the feeding apparatus, between the native Lincoln scavenger-predators and Bemmius novus sapiens. His subconscious, however, was having none of it. Any sight of the front end of Whips triggered the fear and flashbacks to that horrific few minutes underwater when a horde of the raylamps had nearly dragged him down into the endless ocean.

"Then," Whips said reasonably, "show me you are going to beat it. Look at the designs and tell me if you've got any thoughts."

Xander nodded and clenched his jaw as he stared at the designs.

The one for the proposed probe was fairly straightforward. A long body, with a shape that oddly combined aspects of a cylinder and a rectangular tube, ending with a wedgelike nose, stretched to about three and a half meters in length according to the visible scale. It had an odd multi-flanged tail assembly and an underslung scoop, and there were obvious separable boosters on each side of the device.

"Show cutaway," Xander murmured, and the view shifted to show a section cut down the longitudinal axis of the craft. He studied it a moment. "Jeez. It looks like most of it is battery."

"Superconducting storage batteries, ultra-high power density exceeding that of any chemical fuel, yes," Whips said. "We'd be using a large portion of our larger powerpacks for this."

Now that he was really thinking about the design, he felt a little less shaky; his hands were still a bit unsteady, but he wasn't having to do any hand work right now, so that was okay. "Yeah, I get that. It's a heated-air hyperjet, right?"

"A non-combusting scramjet, yes. We'd be cannibalizing the one damaged thruster in the wing of Emerald Maui for that. Tavana?"

Tav moved up and pointed; since all their omnis were linked, they were all seeing the design as though it was physically in front of them, so Tav was actually apparently touching the part of the probe design that showed the engine. "It is fortunate, the damage to the engine? It did not affect the key parts for this function. I can salvage the high-efficiency heat transfer manifold and make it into the heart of the jet. I think."

Xander raised an eyebrow at that. "You think?"

"Xander, it is not like there is a manual for this, no? Whips, you, me, and even the Sergeant have been combing through available data for the last week to put this together." He gave a quick grin. "And that is very, very fast; imagine if we actually had to do the design like in the old days, actually, you know, drawing it out ourselves, with every detail, instead of telling even the rather stupid automation we have to do most of the work!"

"Yeah, okay, you're right, sorry. The base design. . . looks old."

"Partly based on one of the oldest hypersonics we know of, the X-51 Waverider. One of my reference books, it had a whole lot on that one for some reason."

Xander tapped the projecting boosters. "What about these guys? They don't look like jets. I didn't work on this part."

"Those," Whips said, "are rockets."

Xander glanced at him, repressed the shudder, made his eyes meet those of the Bemmie. "And just where are we getting rockets? Unshipping some of the attitude reaction jets on Emerald Maui?"

"Screaming Vents, no. That'd be a crazy job and might end up damaging the hull. Well, this is also a crazy job but it's interior work. We'll cannibalize the ejection charges."

"The ejection—what? Are you telling me that Emerald Maui –"

"—has an ejection system? For the main control cabin and crash couch setup, yes, it does," Tavana said. "Required for craft of this class, though as Whips and I agree, it seems not likely to be useful in too many cases."

Xander scratched his head, looking up as he thought, and shivered slightly; the breeze seemed unusually cool in the clearing today. Ejection charges. A standard ejection charge, from what he knew, was basically a rocket tube with a method for igniting it in precise sequence with all the others. But they were strictly on/off things. "Are there enough? I'm guessing you want them to get the probe off the ground and going fast enough that the scramjet can take over."

"More than enough. The probe is three and a half meters long and will mass less than five hundred kilograms fully loaded; the ejection rockets were meant to eject something far heavier and get it clear of a disaster. If we can get the rockets out, and if our design can be assembled, and if everything holds together, the rocket boosters should be able to get it up to sufficient speed."

"Even a hypersonic jet isn't going to get this thing into orbit."

"Doesn't have to," Tavana said positively. "Once it's in space—enough so that the mass-fraction of air is below the critical value—the Trapdoor drive goes on for a few seconds. Then the auto-nav system—which is a pretty dumb autopilot we can cobble together—will lock onto Orado and then it starts doing jumps until it gets close enough to Orado. Then it starts transmitting distress signals until it runs out of power."

"That part of the Trapdoor feels like cheating."

Whips gave a rippling shudder that Xander knew was equivalent to a shrug. "From the naïve physics point of view? It went beyond cheating and into direct offenses against nature." A brighter flicker and pattern that was more a grin. "The physicists figured out how to reconcile it, but if you read the arguments I think there were some conferences where the attendees almost came to blows." He pointed at the projected design. "Questions? Comments?"

Xander studied the design again. I still feel dizzy. I mean, even more than I did. "Umm. . . the coils. Tav, we did some for Emerald Maui when it was LS-88, but they gave us problems. How about –"

"It was my first try! Give me a break!" Tavana sat down with an uncharacteristic heaviness. "Sorry; feel kind of off today. I think we can do much better in winding coils for a hull we design ourselves. It will take months, but we are not pressed for time, yes?"

"No, I guess not. But if we're cannibalizing stuff like this, does that mean that building this probe probably means we're giving up the chance to somehow get Emerald Maui airborne?"

Tavana grimaced. "Well. . . oui, yes, it is that kind of tradeoff. If I am to attempt to salvage enough of the materials and components of Emerald Maui to make this probe, some of them will be parts I would have used in any attempt to repair Emerald Maui."

"Damn. Well, that kind of decision is for later anyway. You're working on those designs too, right? The ones to let us all get off the planet ourselves?"

"Oh, we are," Whips said. "And we'll keep both options open until we have to make a decision. We –"

"Help!" Hitomi was running towards them from near Sherwood Tower. "Something's wrong with Frankie!"

"Wrong? What happened?" Xander felt a quick, cold stab of adrenalin. What could have happened to him?

"He said he was feeling tired and dizzy, and then he just wanted to sit still, and now he's saying he feels sick. I'm worried!"

Tired and dizzy? He looked sharply over at Tav, even as he noted that his own thoughts seemed slower. "Tav, are you --?"

The big Polynesian tilted his head as he stood, and it seemed he, too, felt unbalanced. "Merde. The Sergeant?"

"Yeah. No, wait—the doc. Doctor Kimei! Laura Kimei!"

"What is it, Xander?" Laura's voice was tense; she had clearly heard and understood the dread in his voice.

"I think something's wrong with Frankie, Tav, and me—maybe all of us from Emerald Maui!" He noticed with even more trepidation that his footsteps felt unsteady, the level ground not so level any more.

Frankie came into sight, behind one of the many scattered patches of bushes. He was lying on his side now, shivering, and even though his skin was normally the color of coffee with cream, he looked pale, with hectic patches of red touching the cheeks. "Oh, crap."

"I'm on my way," Laura said. "It will take me a few minutes to get there, but I'm checking telemetry. . ."

The pause went on far too long. "Doctor?" he asked, realizing that his own heartbeat was still too fast, too hard, and his stomach was doing a slow, squirming roll.

"Sergeant Campbell, get your people to your shelter immediately!" Laura Kimei's voice was sharp, commanding, and utterly final as it cracked out over the radio waves.

Xander managed to lift Francisco up, and began to stagger towards the shelter. I . . . don't know if I can make it, he realized.

A forest of twining, bifurcated tendrils caught him as he stumbled, prevented either he or Francisco from hitting the ground. "I will carry him," Whips said.

The dizziness intensified, overriding the panic that tried to ambush him at Whips' nearness. "Thanks," he managed, and forced himself to his feet. Holy crap, this is getting worse literally by the minute!

By the time they reached the shelter, even Tavana was leaning on the doorframe. Half-supporting each other, Tavana and Xander made it inside and collapsed on their beds.

The pillow felt as though it were coated in ice—a strangely comforting ice—as his cheek rested upon it. "Doc," he managed, "are we. . . dying?"

Laura Kimei did not answer at once. Then she said, in a quiet, certain tone, "Not if I have anything to say about it."

Xander closed his eyes. That wasn't completely an answer, he thought. But he was astounded to find he had no more energy to even worry; uneasy darkness descended upon him.

 

 

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