“They were visitors,”
Alex said.
“I think you’re right. They established a base, stayed awhile, put a satellite in orbit, and went home.”
“Echo III,”
said Alex.
He opened a channel to Gabe, the lander AI.
“Have we found any more polygons anywhere? Any kind of structures at all?”
“Negative,”
he said.
“Nothing?”
“Nothing unusual, Alex. Although scanning a planet takes time. I assume there’s more here somewhere.”
We took pictures. Lots of pictures. We were in back, debating whether we wanted to try fashioning some spades to see if we could dig our way down one floor, when Gabe called back:
“Alex, you have visitors.”
My hair stood up.
Gabe flashed us a picture.
Of the lander cabin.
An apelike creature with white fur was approaching the pilot’s seat. It was small, would have come to about my belt. It was also loud. It let out a wail and pulled on the back of the chair.
“How’d it get in?” I asked.
“It just walked into the airlock and must have pushed the pad.”
That would have closed the outer hatch, the air would have drained and been replaced by the ship’s air supply. Then the inner hatch would have opened.
I was surprised it had survived the decompression.
Alex was already moving back toward the window we had come through. I followed.
“Gabe,” I said. “Open the airlock. Both hatches.”
“Chase, you know the system’s not designed for that.”
“Override it. Do what you have to.”
“There may be toxic organisms.”
“We can flush it later. Just do it, Gabe.”
We hurried along the passageway, entered the main room, and made for the exit.
“Chase.”
“Yes, Gabe?”
“It’s not working. I can’t open the hatches.”
“Why not?”
“I’m not getting a response from the activator. The animal probably broke something on the way in. You’ll have to open it manually to get him out.”
“Okay. We’ll be there in a minute.”
“Stop where you are.”
“Why?”
“There’s another one outside. A big one.”
It was indeed.
“My God,”
Alex said.
It was a knuckle-dragging monster. Fangs, enormous shoulders, long, muscular arms, and an expression that looked distinctly unhappy. Like the small one, the thing was covered with white fur. A ridge ran across the center of its skull, front to back. The creature was standing near the hatch, which was now closed. It snarled and screeched and pounded on the hull. It stomped around in circles, glaring at the lander. It yanked down a tree branch and rammed it against the hatch.
“The one inside,” I said. “It must be a cub.”
Alex unholstered his scrambler.
“We’re going to have to shoot the thing.”
“I guess.”
Alex set it for disable. And aimed.
TWENTY-NINE
Confront an eagle, challenge a dragon if you will. Even, perhaps, take your chances with a killer whale. Just be careful, when you do, that you’re facing a male, and not an outraged mother.
—Stellar Kamarides,
Marching Orders
He pulled the trigger. The thing screeched, raised two claws, and pounded the earth. It looked around, picked up a rock, and hurled it against the hull. It did everything
except
freeze.
Alex reluctantly reset. For
lethal
.
“You can do that,” I said, “but if it works, we’ll have to kill the cub, too.”
He looked at me.
“You have a better suggestion?”
“Not really.”
The cub’s face appeared in one of the viewports. Mom saw it and got even louder.
“All right,”
said Alex.
“Maybe we can manage something.”
“Good. I knew you’d come up with an idea.”
“But set for lethal. Anything goes wrong, we take the thing out.”
“If we can.”
“Yes. Well, let’s hope we don’t have to find out.”
“So what do we do?”
“First we have to take out some of the wall. The hole has to be big enough for the creature to get through. And save the questions for later. Let’s just do it. But keep out of sight.”
Fortunately, the cutters are almost silent. There was an electronic murmur, and the beast looked our way a couple of times. But it was too busy to be bothered or distracted.
So we widened the hole. When we were satisfied it was big enough that the animal could get through, Alex called Gabe.
“Yes, Alex?”
he said.
“Cover the viewports.”
“Why do that?” I asked.
“We have to make her forget where the cub is.”
“I don’t think—”
“Just stay with me a minute.”
Filters dropped over the ports, and the cub’s face was gone.
“Okay, Alex,”
said Gabe.
“It’s done.”
“All right, Chase. Now we have to distract it.”
“Distract it? You mean where we wave at it and it comes over here and has you for dinner while I go to the lander and shoo the cub?”
“That’s close. I don’t think the dinner part’s a good idea, though.”
“Chase.”
Gabe’s voice had gone up a notch.
“It’s gotten upset. The cub.”
In the background, I could hear squeals and shrieks.
That wasn’t hard to figure out. It couldn’t see its mother anymore.
“It might also be getting too much oxygen,”
said Alex.
“Gabe, can you alter the mix? Give us the same atmosphere in the cabin as there is outside?”
“It’ll take a few minutes.”
“Do it.”
“Complying.”
“Also, record the noise.”
“Say again, please.”
“Record the racket. If you can, get me two or three minutes’ worth of the pup screeching.”
“Will do.”
The mother was back hammering on the hatch, this time with a large rock.
“Gabe,” I said, “other than screeching, what’s it doing?”
“It’s beating on the airlock and trying to yank your chair out of its clamps. It also found the cookies and is now going through the storage cabinets.”
“Okay,”
said Alex,
“let me know as soon as you have the recording.”
“Will do,”
said Gabe.
“One other thing: The cub may break something and strand us on the ground.”
“What do you recommend?” I asked.
“I am sorry to say this, but the logical course would be to kill it.”
“How would we do that?”
asked Alex.
“Decompress the cabin,” I said.
“Suffocate it.”
“Yes. Of course that’ll upset the mother still more.”
“I guess so. Chase, how much air does the lander have? In a worst-case scenario.”
“I’m not sure that’s the worst case. But we could go on breathing for about two days.”
He looked at the cub’s image. A lot of fur and large round eyes. It bore a strong resemblance to a terrestrial panda.
Alex took a long, deep breath. The cub was back in the cockpit. It sat down in the right-hand seat and was staring directly out of the screen at us.
“I almost think it knows we’re here.”
“Alex, we don’t have a lot of time.”
“Alex,”
said Gabe,
“do you want me to decompress?”
“We won’t kill it unless we have to.”
“Gabe, can you imitate the mother?”
“I think so.”
“Do it. Make noises at the rear. Try to get her back near storage again.”
“Okay. But be aware—”
“I know. It could get out of hand at any time.” Alex started removing his helmet. “What are you doing?” I demanded.
“In a minute.”
He got the helmet off and now was climbing out of his suit.
“Alex—”
He held up both hands. Be patient. I watched him take an exploratory breath, inhaling slowly, smiling, signaling that it would be okay.
“Alex, I don’t want to have to carry you back to the lander.”
His link was attached to a silver chain that he customarily wore around his neck. He removed it. “I’ll need yours, too, Chase
.
”
“My
what
?”
“Your link.” He laid the chain on the ground and started climbing back into the suit.
Mine was embedded in a bracelet. I sighed, took off my helmet, and tried the air. It was thin. Like standing on top of a mountain. And it had an odd scent. But I got out of the suit, removed the bracelet and handed it to him. Then I wasted no time getting the suit back on.
He fiddled with it. Set it so he could control his own link with it.
“Okay.”
He was speaking through the link in the helmet again.
“I think we’re in business.”
“Glad to hear it.”
The creature was standing looking helplessly up at the hatch. Something flew past, screeched, and settled into the trees.
Alex returned the bracelet.
“Hang on to it,”
he said.
“We’re going to need it.”
“What are we doing?”
“In a minute.”
“Alex,”
said Gabe,
“I have three minutes of the cub’s noise.”
“Start transmitting.”
“Complying.”
Alex turned the volume down on the silver chain so the whimpers and sniffles and shrieks couldn’t be heard outside.
“That’s good,”
he said.
“Perfect. Put it on a loop and keep it coming until I tell you to stop.”
“Okay.”
“Chase,”
he said,
“keep out of sight.”
He carried the link to the back of the room and disappeared into the corridor.
“It may have gotten bored,”
said Gabe.
“Hey, pup. Get away from that!”
I didn’t want to ask what was happening. Most of the gear would not have been especially vulnerable, as long as the thing didn’t have a branch to swing. Except maybe the yoke. But even if the yoke got broken, I thought I could manage. At least enough to get us into orbit.
“Stop!”
Now it was Gabe who was screeching.
“What’s going on, Gabe?”
“It found me. It’s pulling at me.”
“Give Belle access to the controls. Just in case.”
“Will do. She’s just coming into range now.”
“Okay.”
“This thing must like black boxes.”
Abruptly, something behind me whined and sniffled. It sounded like the pup, but it came from the direction Alex had taken. It was barely audible.
It was, of course, the link. I didn’t see
him
, but wherever he was, he’d turned up the volume. Then the noise stopped.
I looked out at the creature. It hadn’t reacted. Hadn’t heard.
Alex came back. He had the chain, but the link wasn’t in it.
“I think we’re all set, Chase.”
“Where’d you put the link?” I asked.
“Out back. In one of the rooms at the rear.”
We stationed ourselves near the hole in the wall, where we could see the mother.
“You ready?”
I pulled the scrambler out of my tool belt and set for lethal. “Okay,” I said.
He asked for my bracelet. Set it to pick up the signal from the lander.
“It’s a lovely piece of jewelry.”
“Just do it, Alex. Hurry.”
He pointed at a mound of snow on the far side of the room.
“We get behind that.”