Castaway Planet (6 page)

LS-5
now tore through the sky at Mach speeds, fast but far, far slower than it had been. “Atmospheric reentry complete—guys, we’re a plane now!”

A rippling, pained sigh from Whips. “Thank the Sky Above. That
hurt
.”

She shot a glance at her mother. “Is he—”

“Just some strains, Sakura. No injuries. Just focus on flying.”

Below her, green and brown with occasional splotches of brighter color streamed by. “We’re over the target continent. Expect to see our landing site any minute. Transitioning to subsonic flight.”

The third configuration deployed larger wings, gave her more control. She tested this new setup. It responded just like in the sims. Maybe she could do this after all.

A bank of clouds was moving in over the target region, but that shouldn’t be a major concern, Sakura thought. She had infrared and radar to penetrate the clouds, and it didn’t look like a big storm. The long-range radar located the tip of the continent, built up an outline picture of a gently sloping section of land coming down from the small mountains she was approaching, a section of land narrowing to a narrow tip with a nearly circular lagoon—like a gigantic arrowhead with a huge hole punched through the tip. Beyond the lagoon was a narrow, triangular section of the continent and then the sea. To either side were two smaller islands.

Her guide program recognized the three points she’d designated—the triangular tip and the other two islands—but, oddly, showed yellow for the correspondence. Sakura didn’t understand that. She could see clearly it was the same group she’d chosen. She redesignated, the display went back to green, and the guide path solidified.

There were no flat landing fields here. She’d have to go to VTOL configuration at the end, which made her a little nervous. That was the hardest mode to control and she maybe hadn’t practiced that one as much as she should. Still, she only needed to hold it together for a few seconds, enough to get them down.

She was grateful—so very grateful—that everyone else was staying calm and quiet. They didn’t need to see her worry. And she couldn’t do this with Hitomi screaming or worrying in her ear.

Gingerly she tested the controls as she began the final approach. They were exceedingly responsive—almost too much so. She nearly spun
LS-5
out before getting a feel for the ship’s performance. Fortunately, Hitomi took it as a fun stunt rather than thinking something was wrong.

Then the two island key points went yellow again. “What the—?”

“What is it, Sakura?” asked Caroline.

“Lost lock on two of the guide points! That makes no sense. It’s just a geometric relationship.” She swallowed, forcing the acidic bile that was trying to rise from her stomach back where it belonged. “No . . . no problem. We’re close now, I can tie the display to the radar and focus on where we’re going.” A glide path calculated to the nominal surface appeared, guiding her like a pathway. It was a lot better than nothing, telling her the right ratio and where she needed to think about changing modes to land.

Suddenly the ship bobbled, jolted; there was a rattle from the forward viewport.
Storm . . . entering the fringes. That was sleet or something.
Radar showed it shouldn’t be too bad, though it was larger than she’d thought; it would be raining for a while.

In visible light, it was dark gray outside, and at this altitude mostly fog and rain; hints of terrain, maybe trees or something, began to appear as they descended. If she’d been relying on eyesight she would have panicked. But
LS-5
wasn’t limited to visible light; in infrared and radar, the clouds and rain were practically gone. Wind might still push on the craft, try to distract her, but it couldn’t blind her, and that was the important thing.

LS-5
bucked slightly, but she was getting a real feel for the controls, and she saw that she was staying pretty close to the middle of the glide path. Radar showed they were approaching the target area, clearing the higher ground in their path, dropping—

Just about there. She could see the lagoon up ahead. Final mode change time, to VTOL. Changeover initiated . . .

Suddenly a gust of wind struck
LS-5
, sent the shuttle swaying sideways through the air, just as the mode conversion began. The jolt made her pull a little harder than she intended, but the shuttle’s dynamics had already changed. Desperately, Sakura shoved the stick back and sideways, trying to compensate, even as she heard the sergeant bellowing
not fast, not fast, don’t overcompensate!

But it was too late now, too late by far. Still moving at well over two hundred kilometers per hour,
LS-5
heeled over, slammed diagonally on its tail into the alien soil of Lincoln, performed a spectacular somersault (had anyone been outside to see it), smashed back down and skidded uncontrollably, the cabin inside now filled with horrified screams and curses and cries of pain. Careening onward through the storm,
LS-5
carved a trail of destruction straight down to the shore of a storm-lashed lagoon, where it dropped over a sharp incline into the water, flipped, and came to rest, tail-first, with a thunderous
crash
.

Movement ceased, and the storm roared its triumph.

Chapter 8

Despite the sledgehammer impacts, the cabin of
LS-5
remained cheerfully, invariably lit as the world spun, and now, as the ship quivered to stillness, they stayed on, as though nothing had happened.

Laura could see that Sakura, at least, was unharmed; her seat had locked properly and the girl’s one arm was visible, white-knuckled with tension. Hitomi’s sobs of terror, though heartrending to hear, were paradoxically comforting; those were cries of a frightened little girl, not one badly injured.

The local net was readjusting, and Laura could access the biosignals. “Is everyone all right?”

“I seem uninjured, love,” answered Akira.

“I’m fine, Mom.” That was Caroline, the shakiness in her voice belying the casual words.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I screwed it up, I—”

“Sakura!” Her daughter’s name came out much more sharply than she intended, and Laura took a deep breath, let it out. She had to stay calm
.
“Sakura, honey, don’t apologize. Are you all right?”

“I . . . I think so.”

“Good.” She turned her seat to face the others. That felt very odd, because with the way
LS-5
was sitting, she was now looking
down
, held in her seat by the restraints.

“You were right, Mom,” Melody said. “I
did
need those straps that tight.” The ten-year-old’s face was white as a sheet, and tears were starting from her eyes, even though she was rigidly controlling her expression.

Laura chuckled a little at that, and Melody gave a tearful but sheepish smile. “There’s a reason for what we tell you. I’m glad you listened.” She looked over to the next seat. “Hitomi, come on, little girl, just tell Mommy if you’re all right.”

The sobs slowed, and Hitomi lowered Skyfang from her face; the hazel eyes were wide and frightened, but her head nodded, and a mumbled “Okay,” managed to make it through the winged wolf’s fur.

“I’m . . . a little battered, Dr. Kimei,” Whips volunteered, “But I think everything’s okay.”

“Good. Now everyone just stay still for a few minutes; I’ll check your vitals to make sure that we really are all okay.”

It was almost quiet inside the crashed shuttle except for the howling fury of the wind outside, which managed to penetrate faintly even through the soundproofing.
LS-5
occasionally quivered under what Laura guessed were either waves or extremely strong gusts of wind. She carefully examined all of the readings and, finally, relaxed.

“All right, everyone. We’ve landed, and we’re all fine. Sakura—”

“I’m sorry!”

“Young lady,” Akira said mildly, “your mother told you not to apologize. I think what she—what we both—wanted to say is ‘well done,’ actually.” Her husband turned so the others could see him. “You already knew there were no automatics. But when we were on final approach, we went into a small storm . . . and even so, Sakura kept us up and flying until the very end, all by herself. I think there are plenty of professional pilots who might have had trouble when the wind hit
during
the conversion.”

Melody grinned—a very shaky grin, but with much of her spirit and returning, and Laura felt herself relax again. “That old saying you told me, right, Sakura?”

Sakura sniffed, obviously trying not to cry, but there was a tiny chuckle there too. “Any landing you walk away from . . . is a good landing.”

“Exactly!” Whips said. “By the Beyond, Sakura, you kept us flying right to the end, and I think if that wind gust hadn’t hit at just the wrong time, you’d have brought us down perfect.”

Hitomi sat straighter and clapped. “Hurray for Saki!”

Laura laughed and suddenly they were all clapping. Sakura turned her chair around and they could see she was blushing, but smiling, tears finally drying. “Okay, I did
awesome
then. And we’re really all okay, Mom?”

“Really. Sitting like this is going to be a little uncomfortable, but that storm won’t last forever, and once it’s over I hope we can get out. What’s the condition of
LS-5
?”

“Checking.”

“I have to pee,” Hitomi said suddenly.

Laura shook her head. “All right, hold on.” A thought struck her. “Um . . . will the toilet work in this position?”

“I think so, Dr. Kimei,” Whips said after a moment. “It works in microgravity and when we were attached to
Outward Initiative
, and in the position we’re sitting . . . yes, if we keep it in the microgravity mode I think it will.”

“Good. Then since you’re farthest back
and
the biggest can you help—”

“Of course.”

As the big Bemmie assisted Hitomi to get out of her harness and move to the rear of the cabin, Sakura spoke up. “Well, the bad news is that we’re not flying
LS-5
again, not any time soon anyway. We skidded along on most of her exterior and ruined most of the thrust nozzles, ripped off her wings, crushed her tail. Took off most of our exterior sensors, too, so right now I can’t get much from outside.

“But that’s most of the bad news. All that stuff getting ripped off and crunched . . . well, it took a lot of the crash energy, let our harnesses do their work, which is why we’re all in good shape. Internal systems all seem pretty good, and the starboard lock shows all green so we shouldn’t have any trouble getting out. Cargo looks like it all stayed secure.” She looked troubled. “Getting the cargo out, though . . . we’ll have to move
LS-5
until we can open the rear loading doors. Right now we’re
sitting
on them. And this thing weighs tons.
Lots of tons, actually.”

“Worry about that later. Are we close enough to land to be able to get
out
?” Laura was particularly concerned about Hitomi, who still needed help swimming.

“I’m pretty sure we’re in that little lagoon that’s a few hundred meters short of the end of the continent; that was my target, I wanted to set us down near the edge. If we’d come down farther along we’d have been in trouble, but we’re not bobbing up and down, just twitching a little, so we’re sitting on something solid. And the recordings of our path tell me that we were running on solid ground right up to the end when we fell.”

“We can’t get
any
information from outside?”

Sakura shook her head. “The cameras all got wrecked in our cartwheeling across the ground. Radar’s out, too. There’s one working external microphone, but that’s just hearing a lot of wind and rain, and a little thunder once in a while.”

“Well, that’s all right,” Akira said. “I’m sure we will be able to get
LS-5
out of the lagoon with a little work and some of the smaller equipment on board, and once we get into the cargo we should be much better off. I believe we have everything, really, that we could want for this emergency on board, right?”

As was often true, Melody answered. “We have a Dust-Storm Tech Nanofacturer VII 3D manufacturing system in the cargo, Dad; that was meant for the whole colony. With raw materials and power that’ll make anything we can spec out well enough. Whips can probably run it, and
LS-5
’s reactor has enough power according to the datasheet.”

A full manufacturing system! Laura found herself grinning. “We’ll be able to make our own little colony easily, then.”

“Especially since we’ve got you and Dad’s stuff, too,” Sakura said, excitedly. “You’ve got the full medical equipment list, and Dad’s bio research stuff is
perfect
for this—I mean, really, he was supposed to be doing research on Tantalus, but we’ll have to do the same kind of research here, right?”

Akira laughed. “You’re exactly right, Sakura. Same kind of research—what’s safe, what isn’t, how all the species interact, that kind of thing.”

Laura noticed that Melody, oddly, seemed somewhat let down. “What is it, Mel?”

The black-haired little girl flushed. “Oh . . . Just being stupid. Never mind.”

She caught a flash of data from Melody’s omni and realized that the girl had been reviewing old books like
Robinson Crusoe
and some of the outdoor survival shows that had been popular a century or so back, and couldn’t
quite
keep from smiling. The laziest of her children was still hoping for a big adventure. Thank goodness she wouldn’t get it.

“So . . . we’re really going to be okay?” Hitomi said, as Whips lifted her back to her seat.

“Really,” Laura assured her. “Oh, it’ll be a rough few days or even weeks getting everything ready,” she saw Melody make a face, “but we’ll be just fine.” She smiled around at the others. “So let’s sit back, relax, and let this storm blow itself out.”

Chapter 9

“Okay, Sakura, now cycle the lock again, exhausting to the outside.”

Whips wasn’t taking any chances. Before letting
anyone
step out of the shuttle, he wanted Dr. Kimei and her husband to check the air readings. So they’d put Laura Kimei’s omni, which had a lot of built-in sensors for medical purposes, into the starboard airlock, let it open to the outer air, and left it there for an hour to gather data. The omni hadn’t been able to communicate well through the lock, so they had to bring it back in to check the results. Everyone was accordingly in environment suits.

It had better be okay, Whips thought. Because they couldn’t stay in environment suits the whole time.

Laura reached into the lock as it opened and brought out her omni—a Scanwise Gold Five that looked like an Egyptian bracelet. “Well, it looks all right.” She tapped into the local net and checked the data.

A few minutes later he saw her pull off her helmet and knew the answer. “All clear, everyone. Oh, there’s some pollen and other such things in the air, but nothing immediately toxic.”

“Did it see anything through the open lock?”

“Not terribly much. Mostly a lovely blue sky and a few distant flying somethings.”

Dr. Kimei tied back her hair tightly. “All right, I’m going to take a look.”

No one argued. Whips knew that Laura Kimei was not only the tallest and strongest of the humans, but much more agile than he was out of the water. If he remembered right, she was also the daughter of a policeman and trained in some hand-to-hand weapons, overall making her the best choice for first person outside. In her hand she held the only ranged weapon that had been available outside the cargo storage: a SurvivalShot 12mm, designed for use on worlds with no ammunition manufacturing in place.

Not that she was going far. They saw her go to the lock, look out cautiously, then lean out farther, looking down, around, and up, then back down and out for several minutes.

She turned back to them, smiling broadly and holstering the pistol. “Well, Sakura, we can see exactly where we came down; there’s a big trench cut through the landscape pointing right back to the heart of this continent.

“Better news is that I can see a shallow ridge below us. I think the water there is no more than a meter deep, so we can wade to shore, though someone has to carry Hitomi.”

“Very good!” Akira said. “What’s our plan, then?”

“First we need to scout out some temporary headquarters. It has to be near to the water, for Whips’ comfort, but high enough that we’re not going to get caught by waves and tides. It also needs to be sheltered, so that wind and such won’t get in too much. Everyone take some of the rations with you. We’ll probably be camping outside the
LS-5
until we get her out of this lagoon and lying flat instead of mostly on her tail.”

Akira nodded. “Whips, since you’re the strongest, if you don’t mind I’d like you to carry the winch?”

“And the carbon-composite cable and block-and-tackle, yes, sir.” The compact high-powered winch was a standard piece of equipment in the shuttles, available to install on the nose or the rear loading ramp or into the standardized sockets on the colony work vehicles. And, with enough mechanical advantage—like the block and tackle—it might just be strong enough to pull
LS-5
out of its current inconvenient position and up onto the land. The carbon-composite cable, of course, was more than strong enough for the job. From his engineering work he knew that he could probably suspend three or four shuttles from that single cable.

“Good.” He smiled down at Whips. “I’m very glad you’re with us, Harratrer.”

“So am I,” he said quietly. Inside, he wondered if any of the rest of his family, his pod, had escaped. The thought that all of his family—little brother Pageturner with his eyes always in a book, so much like Melody that at times he’d wondered if they could somehow be related despite all the obvious biological impossibilities; his father Kryndomerr, called Numbers by everyone for his mathematical genius; Windharvest, his mother, whose real name was Rillitrill but who was proud of the nickname that told of her success in making more efficient and easily manufactured wind turbines; and his big brother Dragline, hunter and athlete—the thought that they all might be gone was enough to dim his light even inside, make an ache spread from within to the very tips of his hands.

Am I unstable? Is that my stress limit?

He forced himself not to think of it. That would just make it worse.
And perhaps they weren’t gone. The rest of
Outward Initiative
might have survived. And here he also had a pod, with the twin sister of his heart Sakura (who he liked to think of as “Jumpsfirst” in the way of his people), and her family who had welcomed him without hesitation. He forced the light back into his skin, mind, and heart. Yes, it would get worse later. He could feel it. But he knew they would be very, very happy to know he was alive and with the Kimei family.

He waited for the others to go out; make sure everyone else was clear before trying to get down himself. Crawling to the lock, he stuck his forearms out and grabbed the climbing rungs, pulling himself forward enough to get a good look out.

For a moment he just stopped there, admiring the view.

Below, shadowed slightly by the sharply inclined
LS-5
, the waters of the lagoon sparkled and shimmered in blue-green, a lighter line of pale green showing the shallower ridge that began right at the hull of the shuttle and ran to the shore. From this height he could see that the seafloor dropped sharply to either side of the ridge, down to at least five meters depth; there were hints of movement in those depths which told him there would be prey aplenty—if he could eat it.

The shore, which the Kimeis had just reached, was a three-meter-high cliff which had a big bite taken out of it, right where
LS-5
had finished its crash. Along that line he could see the trench the armored shuttle had dug from its impact almost a kilometer distant. The brilliant blue sky contrasted with the fluffy white of clouds, and with the deep, pure green of the forested hills or even low mountains in the distance; he guessed that some of those rolling ridges reached several hundred meters in height. Trees—or something very like them—grew at no great distance from the shore, broad and feathery-looking crowns casting deep shadows beneath.

He looked down again. This might be a little tricky. The climbing rungs were of course there for climbing down the shuttle when it was set down properly, which was to say sitting on its belly, rather than standing almost vertically on its tail. The rungs now provided only a stabilizing handhold, with the winged shuttle’s side dropping away below. The humans had gone down a rope, but that was something he really didn’t want to try.

On the positive side, though, the tremendous damage on the outside of
LS-5
had taken great scrapes, dings, and divots out of the hardened exterior. He was pretty sure he could use those—especially since, unlike the humans, he had three arms with a very wide reach. If he stretched them out, he could reach almost four meters from tip to tip, and that meant he could hook fingers into a couple dozen places at once.

Stretching that far stung, as well as ached. Despite everything Dr. Kimei had been able to do, his skin was drier by far than it should be, little sore cracks opening as he pulled on normally flexible hide. But they were down, and near an ocean. He could take this, and the aches from the deorbit and crash. They were down and they were safe.

Feeling more confident with that thought, Whips carefully slid his lower first arm out as far as he could, locking fingers and extending his graspclaws to catch anything they could. His lower second arm followed. His top arm anchored itself to the doorframe and twined around the rope. Not without some trepidation, he slowly spun his body and let it slide over the edge.

“Whips,” Laura called to him, “Make sure you close the inner hatch, okay? I don’t expect any problems, but no reason to let the local wildlife have easy access.”

“Right, Dr. Kimei.” He stretched out part of one arm and touched the control, closing and sealing the inner door. Since he was using the doorframe as an armhold, he couldn’t close the outer door, but that shouldn’t be an issue anyway.

As he let the whole weight of his body finish the slide to the vertical, a couple of fingers lost their grip, but more than enough stayed firm. With exquisite caution he carefully released the grip of his top arm and moved it lower, gripping at other scars on the shuttle and the rope. Then, one by one, the fingers of his first arm let go, dropped, and found others.

He could, of course, have just dropped into the deeper water . . . but a quick splashdown like that would surround him with bubbles and be momentarily disorienting. That was a perfectly good entrance to use—if you were confident nothing was waiting to eat you. It wasn’t likely there was something waiting in those depths to ambush him, but it wasn’t at all impossible, and why take chances?

A few minutes later and he was down on the shallow ridge. He inhaled the water. So fresh! He’d forgotten what real, honest seawater of any world tasted and smelled like. Lincoln’s seas smelled exciting, a tingle of salts just slightly more concentrated than Europa’s, not quite as concentrated as Earth’s seas, but different, with other smells and vibrations and tastes that promised something dangerous yet thrilling. Sharp pain sparked momentarily at the places where his hide had started to crack, but the overall sensation on his skin was wonderful. He paused for a moment, just letting his skin
soak
in the water of a natural ocean.

There was definitely movement in the water not far away. He wanted to see what it was, but restrained his curiosity; he did
,
however, take advantage of the fact that a meter of water was more than enough for him to jet his way to the shore in one quick spurt of motion, running right up onto white-green sparkling sands next to Sakura.

The whole family clapped. “That was great, Whips!” Laura said appreciatively. “You’re quite an acrobat for someone who’s normally slow on land.”

“I’d be a lot slower climbing
up
, Dr. Kimei,” he said modestly, though he was very proud of how well he’d managed the descent.

“Most people are.”

They gazed up into the interior, shouldering their packs—even little Hitomi making sure the backpack her mother had given her was settled properly. “You know, Laura,” Akira said after a moment, “I think our best bet might be to just go up this trail to near its beginning. Everything’s been cleared out of this region, so there isn’t much chance for surprises, and even larger things were probably scared off by that crash, and it makes a perfect path to the ocean. We’ll haul
LS-5
up the trench as soon as we get a few things settled, or at least see if we can get started.”

“Makes sense to me. Let’s take a look.”

So, my crash gives us a good shelter! Clever of me to arrange that!
Sakura sent.

But if you
hadn’t
crashed, we could still be using
LS-5
as our main shelter,
he pointed out.

She sent an image of her sticking her tongue out at him. He smiled (though the smile was mostly a matter of particular light and color patterns rather than the human equivalent, which wasn’t something he could actually do) and was pleased by the fact that Sakura was cheering up and able to take a joke or two.

Glassy-winged
somethings
zipped quickly by the newcomers, but dodged aside before approaching too closely. They probably smelled very strange to anything native. That’d keep most things away, at least for a while.

He crawled along higher on the edge of the trench than the humans, to give himself the same vantage point. Once he thought he heard something larger approaching from the high side, and extended his top hand.
Let’s try my favorite trick.

Bemmie articulation was very different than human. The linkages of the arms, in particular, could both stiffen selectively in various ways, or be relaxed to the point that the appendage was as flexible as a hose . . . or, in this case, as a whip. There was, of course, always some risk in this trick; even though the arms and fingers were quite tough, it was possible to dislocate, break, or—in rare instances—rip off the tips of fingers with the particular trick he was going to try.

But it was what he was famous for. With practiced, focused ease, he bobbed and pulled the arm, causing a ripple to travel all along the extended arm and finger tendrils. At the far end, this hastened as he yanked the arm back, and the fingers at the very tip suddenly snapped around, multiple whipcracks of sound echoing loudly across the trench. His fingertips tingled, but didn’t hurt.
Ha! Got away with it again!

Whatever it was, the thing didn’t like that sound at all; he heard a sudden and speedy movement away.

“What was
that?
” The Kimeis had all spun to face him, and Laura had the pistol out.

“I don’t know, Dr. Kimei, but it sounded bigger than most of us, so I scared it off.”

“Darn near scared
me
off,” she said, with a half-smile. “I still can’t imagine how you do that without breaking your fingers.”

“I know other Bemmies who can do it. Not as good as me, though,” he admitted, proudly. “After all, that’s where I got my name.”

“Seems to already be coming in useful. The more we can chase things off and the less we have to confront them, the better we’ll be.” Laura looked up. “Oh, that’s promising.”

LS-5
had struck hard on first impact, gouging out a considerable trench with one of the tailfins in the underlying corallike rock, a trench that actually had considerable overhang on one side. Caroline, not only the closest they had to a geologist but one who had previously gone caving, mountaineering, and freeclimbing, moved cautiously under the overhang and started checking it. After a few minutes, she nodded. “At least this section along here looks stable—no deep cracks or flaws I can see. We could use this as a windbreak and partial weather shield and let the shelter set itself up right here.”