Night lay heavy upon the North Atlantic, the first light of dawn just
reaching the Azores, as the
Mercator
entered the atmosphere midway between Europe and America. As the shuttle’s wings sliced into the thin air of the ionosphere, its hull trembled, and a reddish orange corona began to form around its bow. Jorge felt himself being pushed back into the copilot’s seat as never before; every breath demanded a conscious effort, and his body seemed to weigh a ton. He didn’t realize that he was groaning, though, until McAlister said something about it.
“I’d appreciate it if you’d cut that out.” The pilot had the yoke gripped tight with both hands, his gaze fixed upon the translucent prism of the heads-up display. “This is”—a sudden jolt—“hard enough as is, and you’re distracting me.”
“Sorry.” Jorge clenched his teeth and tried not to think about the glowing plasma sheath that had wrapped itself around cockpit windows, rendering invisible the darkened limb of the planet. Glancing at the heads-up display, he saw the tiny holographic circle that jiggled within a slightly larger square. Most of the shuttle’s major systems were under comp control at this point, but McAlister had told him that the trick to getting the
Mercator
safely through the atmosphere lay in keeping the circle within the square. It seemed easy, almost like a child’s pad game, but the pilot’s knuckles were white, the tendons of his wrists and hands clearly visible.
The spacecraft shook and rattled for a few minutes longer, then abruptly everything calmed down. Looking up again, Jorge saw that the fiery glow had disappeared, leaving behind a slightly curved horizon only a bit darker than the star-flecked sky above. McAlister let out his breath. “There . . . that’s the worst of it. We’re in the upper stratosphere now.” He reached forward with his right hand, snapped three switches set in a row, then flipped open the safety cover above a fourth switch and snapped it as well. A muted roar from somewhere behind them, and the shuttle trembled slightly before settling down again. “Main engine off,” he added. “We’ll ride the rest of the way in on the jets.”
“Sure . . . okay.” Jorge felt his tension begin to ease. Unfortunately, his weight didn’t do the same, or at least not by much. The sluggish sensation he felt was no longer being caused by engine thrust but by Earth’s own gravity, a little more than one-third higher than Coyote’s.
How can anyone live like this?
he thought.
“Good. Now make yourself useful and pull up the charts. I’d like to get a fix on where we are and where we’re going.” When Jorge hesitated, McAlister impatiently reached over to type a command into the nav comp. Its screen changed, displaying a false-color map of the northern hemisphere; a tiny crosshatch above the Atlantic marked the
Mercator
’s present position. “Use the trackball to zero in on us,” he said, returning both hands to the yoke, “and tell me when we’re on course for Massachusetts.”
Jorge moved the trackball as McAlister indicated. The display expanded, with the crosshatch becoming larger. He peered at the lines of type that appeared beside it. “Umm . . . we’re at 39.5 degrees North, 49 degrees West, altitude 42.8 miles.”
“Very good,” McAlister said. “Now give me the coordinates for Boston. You don’t have to be precise, or at least for now . . . just enough so we don’t end up somewhere in North Carolina.”
Jorge turned the trackball to the left, changing the screen until he located the Massachusetts coast. “Boston is . . . um, 42.3 degrees North, 71 degrees West.”
“Excellent.” Watching the eight ball in the center of his console, McAlister carefully twisted the yoke to the right, making a slow starboard turn. “Thank you. Now keep watching the screen and give me a readout on our position and altitude every few minutes.”
Navigating turned out to be easier than Jorge thought it would be. He reported the shuttle’s coordinates as the
Mercator
continued to shed altitude and airspeed. Glancing through the windows, he saw that the darkness was no longer as intense. Raindrops tapped lightly against the thick glass as the shuttle passed through a cloud layer; looking down, he could make out the ocean a couple of dozen miles below, a black expanse tinted silver here and there by the first light of the rising sun.
The miles peeled away, the shuttle shaking every so often as it penetrated the thicker layers of Earth’s atmosphere, until Jorge saw that they were approaching the American coast. By then, the
Mercator
’s altitude was less than twenty thousand feet, yet he could see nothing through the windows except a vague hump low upon the horizon. The shuttle was moving faster than the coming dawn, he realized.
“It’ll still be night down there by the time we arrive,” Jorge said.
“I can land on instruments only,” McAlister replied. “The only question is where.” He turned his head slightly. “Sergio? You’re on. Come up here and tell me where to go.”
A minute passed, then Vargas entered the cockpit. “Lost?” he asked, his smirk irritatingly fatuous.
“I know perfectly well where we are, thank you,” McAlister growled. “What I want to hear from you is where we should touch down. You told us in the briefing that you know the area. Time to prove it.”
Vargas moved a little farther into the cockpit, bending low so that he could peer through the windows. “Like I said, much of the city is still flooded, so you’ve got only a couple of options. Your best shot is probably Port Logan. Last time I heard, the waters had subsided from the runways. You may be able to put down there.”
“What’s Port Logan?” Jorge asked.
“The old international spaceport on the other side of the harbor.” McAlister looked up at Vargas again. “Anyone still using it? I don’t want to take a chance on colliding with . . .”
“No.” Vargas shook his head. “It’s been abandoned for twenty years, at least.” He smiled. “Of course, if you’d like to get closer, you can always try landing on the Boston Common. I wouldn’t recommend it, though. Not if you’re trying to keep a low profile.”
“No. We’ll do that only if Logan is still underwater.” McAlister paused. “Okay, be straight with us. You said there are still people living in Boston . . .”
“A few, yes. Not many. Squatters, mainly.”
“Uh-huh. So what are the chances of them seeing us?”
“I don’t know.” Vargas was quiet for a moment. “Anyone who’s down there is probably still asleep. And since you’re landing across the harbor, they might not wake up. But it’s been a long time since anyone’s used Logan. A shuttle touching down there . . . yeah, it might attract some attention.”
“Better that than the Common.” McAlister glanced at Jorge. “Way I see it, our only other choice is finding some place to land beyond the city . . . Cambridge, maybe, or even the western suburbs . . . and hiking the rest of the way in. A little less risky, but it would also mean having to travel farther from the ship.”
“No.” Jorge shook his head. “I’m with you. Let’s try for the spaceport. We can cross the harbor from there.”
McAlister nodded, then returned his attention to his controls. Vargas said nothing but continued to watch through the windows. For the first time, Jorge found himself regretting the fact that Inez wasn’t fully telepathic. He would have liked to know what the former Union Astronautica pilot was thinking.
When the shuttle reached the coast, they discovered that it was hidden beneath a thick blanket of clouds. Following McAlister’s instructions, Jorge typed a command into the nav comp that pulled up a map of the Boston area. Once he had the exact coordinates for the spaceport, McAlister activated the lidar; watching the screens closely, he began a slow, spiraling descent, using the shuttle’s VTOLs to make the final approach. But the clouds extended all the way to the ground; even after McAlister switched on the landing floods, the halogen beams barely penetrated the dense fog.
“At least we’ve got dry ground down there,” McAlister murmured, one eye on the lidar display. He reached over to the landing-gear controls and pulled down the bars; there was a hollow thump as the wheels and landing probe lowered from their bays. “All right, we’re going in,” he said, gently pushing the yoke forward. “Give me an altimeter readout, Lieutenant.”
Jorge stopped looking out the windows, concentrated on the digital display. “One hundred and twenty feet . . . one hundred . . . ninety...”
An alarm went off, a shrill
beep-beep-beep
that startled them. “Oh, hell,” McAlister hissed, pulling back on the yoke to stop the descent. “Metal contact. Lidar picked up an obstruction just below us.”
“Might be something on the field.” Vargas craned his neck to peer through one of the side windows. “Can’t see a damn thing.”
“Yes, well . . . I have a solution for that.” McAlister moved the yoke a few degrees to port, maneuvering the shuttle away from its vertical line of descent. The alarm stopped, and he nodded. “Okay, I think we’re going to miss it, whatever it is.”
Again, he pushed the yoke forward, and Jorge continued his recital. “Eighty feet . . . seventy . . . sixty . . . fifty . . .”
“I see ground!” Vargas snapped. “Looks like dry pavement, all right.”
“Good,” McAlister murmured. “Let me know if that changes.”
“Forty . . . thirty . . .” Jorge glanced up from the controls. The fog was still too thick for him to see anything clearly, yet it appeared as if the floodlights were reflecting off a flat surface directly below. He prayed that it wasn’t water. “Twenty . . . ten . . . nine . . . eight . . .”
The roar of the descent thrusters increased in volume, nearly drowning out his voice. McAlister throttled back, easing the shuttle toward the ground.
“Seven . . . six . . . five . . .”
Another alarm went off. “Probe contact,” McAlister said as he continued to pull back on the thruster bars. “Hang on.”
An instant later, there was an abrupt bump as the
Mercator
’s wheels came to rest. McAlister immediately yanked the thrusters down to their lowest position, then reached up to snap a row of switches. “All right, we’re down,” he said, as the engine noise slowly died. “And that was the second-most scary landing I’ve ever made.”
Jorge let out his breath. “I won’t ask what the scariest was.”
“I’ll tell you another time.” The pilot clicked a few more toggles. “It’s okay to thank me. Really. I don’t mind.”
“Thank you.” Jorge settled back in his seat, feeling the tension begin to ease. “I mean that.”
“Couldn’t have done better myself,” Vargas added.
McAlister didn’t reply, but his expression told Jorge that he was neither complimented nor amused. “Right,” he muttered, then began to unclasp his seat and shoulder straps. “Well, then, let’s see what we can see.”
Which wasn’t much, or at least not through the cockpit windows. The floodlights penetrated only a couple of dozen yards in any direction, and all they could make out was a flat expanse of battered concrete. But when Jorge climbed the ladder down to the passenger compartment—moving slowly, his joints creaking with every step he took—he found Inez and Greg staring through the starboard portholes.
“There’s something out there,” Greg said, pointing to the window beside his seat. “Can’t quite make out what it is, but it’s big.”
Jorge bent down, followed Greg’s gaze. Just beyond the range of the floodlights, all but swallowed by the predawn darkness and fog, was an enormous hulk of some sort. “Probably whatever it was that we had to avoid while coming down,” he said quietly.
“Only one way to find out.” Pushing past Jorge, Vargas headed for the aft hatch. Squatting beside it, he grasped its lockwheel with both hands and started to turn it.
“Not so fast,” Jorge said. “We need to get ready first.” Vargas gave him a querulous look, but obediently backed away from the hatch as Jorge moved toward the rear of the compartment. “Inez, Greg . . . help me break out the gear.”
“What about the parkas?” Inez carefully rose from her seat. Like Jorge, her shoulders were slumped as if she were carrying a full pack. Earth gravity was something everyone except Vargas would have to get used to; even McAlister, who’d been away from Earth for two decades, would have to adjust. “Looks cold out there.”
“I wouldn’t doubt it.” McAlister was the last to come down from the cockpit; while the others were gazing out the windows, he’d been activating the atmospheric conversion system that would replenish the
Mercator
’s fuel tanks. “It’s mid-November, by the Gregorian calendar.” The Coyote natives gave him a blank look, not understanding what he meant. “Think of it as early Hanael,” he added. “Late autumn, just before the first snowfall. So, yeah, it may be a bit nippy today.”
“Okay,” Jorge said. “We’ll need parkas, caps, heavy boots, gloves . . .”
“Guns?” Inez asked, her voice low.
Jorge hesitated. Vargas nodded, and Greg did the same, but it was hard to miss the reluctance in Inez’s eyes. Although she’d received firearms training from the Corps, carrying a weapon was something that went against
Sa’Tong
ian principles. “We should take precautions,” he went on, picking his words carefully. “Just in case we need to protect ourselves.”
Inez nodded. Couched in those terms, his decision was nominally acceptable; the Fourth Codicil clearly mandated that one should act to prevent others from being harmed. Nonetheless, Jorge noticed that, when she unpacked the weapons from their case, she chose an airpulse pistol while the others took rifles. A nonlethal weapon was as far as she was willing to compromise.
The parkas were Corps-issue, as were the caps. Their insignia had been removed, though, just in case the expedition encountered any inhabitants who might be hostile toward visitors from Coyote; only their unitards had Corps markings. They left most of their gear behind, though, for the time being; the first order of business was seeing exactly where they were. Once everyone was ready, Jorge gave Vargas permission to open the hatch. He turned the lockwheel counterclockwise; there was a faint hiss as the hatch was undogged, then he pulled it open and reached down to unfold the ladder. Vargas was about to climb down; then he seemed to remember his place in the expedition and instead stood aside to let Jorge be the first to leave the shuttle.