Ell Donsaii 12: Impact! (17 page)

“My mom works out at D5R. I’ll bet she can find me some ports that are resistant to stomach acid. All I need are some micro arrays, and for you to run them for me when they’re done.”

“I’ll ask Dr. Turner,” Vanessa said resignedly, already feeling worn out from talking to this kid.

“Thanks!” He said brightly, “Now let me ask you about a few other things…”

***

Dex was with several of the dalins who normally prepared and preserved meat in the smoking cave . There was far more meat in the cave than there had ever been in anyone’s recollection. Nonetheless, another group had been led out to the meadow by the meteorite to break up and bring back some of the bigger zornits they had left behind on their first trip.

Before they got a lot more meat from the big zornits however, they would need to clear the smoking cave of all the meat that was already in it. The smoking cave was a particularly good branch of the cave system for smoking because near the top of it, it had a small narrow vent to the outside that acted as a chimney. Not a good enough chimney to keep the room from being smoky, but good enough to keep smoke from billowing out of it into the rest of the cave.

To try to finish the meat quickly they had to come in and turn the meat over frequently, moving it to different places in the cave and trying to balance out how much smoke got to each strip. The meteorite had led them outside on several trips to cut small sticks so they could build frames to suspend the meat over. Nonetheless, it was almost impossible to expose the meat evenly. Some meat was closer to the fire, some closer to the damp walls of the cave, some higher in the smoke, some too close to the floor. The meat needed to be rotated around to different locations and taken out before it became so dry or smoky that it was unpleasant to eat.

Working in the smoky cave was normally an extremely undesirable task. Your eyes watered and your lungs choked in the smoke. It had been delightful to realize that the see-rocks not only kept dust from getting into your eyes but also prevented smoke from irritating them. The dalins were still having spasms of blowing to clear their lungs, but at least their eyes weren’t watery and itchy.

Then something else wonderful happened. Four more meteorites had arrived the day before and they had had one of them with them in the smoking cave to provide light while they were rotating the meat. The light from the low smoky fires was quite poor. The meteorite had only been in the room with them a short period of time before it said, “The smoke seems to be making you blow air through your lungs, I assume to try to clear the smoke out of them?”

Dex dipped hies head for a yes, thinking that it was obvious, but perhaps not to a meteorite.

The air intake cloths don’t work for the smoke like they do for the dust?”

Dex waved hies head in negation.

“You could put one of the ‘fog baskets’ in the opening of the smoking cave while you are working in here. It would blow air through the cave and clear away much of the smoke.”

“But the fog baskets would get the meat wet. The meat must not only be exposed to the smoke but must be dry or it will spoil.”

“Oh, we can turn off the water so that the fog basket will only blow air, not make fog.”

Startled by the idea, Dex sent one of the young dalins to get one of the fog baskets they weren’t currently using. Sure enough, once they set it up in the doorway, it began to blow air without any mist in it. It didn’t completely clear the smoke out of the cave, but it made it enough better that working in there wasn’t difficult.

Dex heard some shouting and moved the fog basket so hie could step past it into the main cave system. “What’s happening?” the meteorite asked.

“It’s raining!” Dex shouted back over hies shoulder as hie began to run towards the entrance.

It soon seemed like everyone in the Yetany tribe was out on the ledge, staring ecstatically up at the falling water. Because it rained almost every day in normal times, rain had never seemed like a miracle before. Now dalins were hooting in delight and leaping up and down.

Many of them beat their way into the air a little ways, though none went very far. Even though the rain seemed to be clearing the air, you couldn’t really see very far yet. No one wanted to be hurt like Qes.

Dex heard Syrdian’s voice behind himr. “Is it going to clear the air? Will the plants get their sunshine and live after all?”

His voice juddery with emotion, Dex said, “I don’t know. I hope so.” Hie paused and looked around, “If it doesn’t, I don’t know if we’ll survive.”

As if Dex had spoken some kind of curse, the rain stopped falling…

***

Ed Zabrisk stared at his feet, pondering the vicissitudes of life. Just a few days ago, life had been about as good as it could get. He was up for promotion to general, his daughter, in addition to holding down a great job, was pregnant with his first grandchild, and his son was one of the first six astronauts on Mars.

Now, he was sitting in an ICU waiting room, waiting for his son to be brought out of a coma. Ed’s brother and Phil’s sister were still on their way to North Carolina. If Phil woke from this coma with some kind of mental impairment, as it seemed had happened to the animals sent through ports, then in a single stroke, all the good things in his life would be as ash.

Distantly, he recognized that a pair of women’s shoes had stopped right in front of him. Whoever it was appeared to be waiting for him to look up, probably to ask some inane question. Ed didn’t want to be disturbed, so he kept looking at his shoes.

His wife’s hand stole over to grab his as the woman spoke, “Colonel and Mrs. Zabrisk, I wonder if I might sit with you while we’re waiting?”

Ed’s temperature started to boil. The gall of these people. Just because Phil was a well-known astronaut, it seemed like they all felt like they had the right to push their way into his family’s life. He took a breath to say, “Go away!” but then Brenda jerked at his hand to get his attention. “Ed! It’s Ell Donsaii! You remember, she and Phil used to be friends at the Academy.”

Ed’s eyes snapped up. It was indeed Ell Donsaii, and she looked just as haggard as Ed felt. Brenda said, “Yes Dr. Donsaii, we’d be delighted if you sat with us. Do you have a relative in the hospital here as well?”

“No ma’am,” the young woman tilted her head a moment as if considering. “Just Phil, but then, he and I have been through so much together it’s kind of like he’s the big brother I never had. So I guess I do
feel
like I have a relative here.”

Ed had risen to his feet. He found himself somewhat choked up. He remembered the young woman from when she had come to Phil’s graduation at the Air Force Academy. He’d been proud enough to meet her then, simply because of her medal of honor and the fact that she’d saved his son’s life. Her Olympic gold medals were icing on the cake. But at that time, he’d had no idea of the role she had played in stopping the Chinese invasion of Taiwan. Shortly thereafter though, he had developed the “need to know” when he had taken a role in determining how to use her PGR chips in linking the Air Force together. Then she’d taken Phil on his first flight into space, saved the planet from a comet and turned everyone’s lives upside down with her port technology. To say that he respected her above all others would be the understatement of the century. Eyes welling, he made a slight bow and said, “We would be
honored
to have you sit with us Dr. Donsaii.”

Before they could sit back down though, a nurse stepped up beside them and said brightly, “Okay, Phil’s awake, I can take you in to see him two at a time. Who’d like to go first?”

Ed assumed that he and Brenda would go in first, but Brenda got a stricken look on her face, clasped a hand to her chest, and said, “You two go ahead. I’ve got to steel my nerves for a minute or two. I’ll be able to take it better Ed, if you’ll tell me how it turned out before I have to face him.”

Thus Ed found himself walking into the ICU with the nurse and Ell Donsaii. He felt his heart thumping harder than it had when he’d been in combat as a young man.
Why didn’t I ask this nurse how he was doing? Then I wouldn’t have to go into this completely unprepared!

The nurse stepped over to the bed first and said, “Phil, your father and Ms. Donsaii are here to see you.”

Ed stepped up to the bed next to the nurse as Dr. Donsaii stepped around to the other side. He looked down at his son and saw Phil, a vacuous expression on his face, unsteady gaze wavering about the room, mouth open with drool dribbling out of the corner of it, apparently unable to recognize his own father.

Ed’s heart plummeted.

The nurse said uncertainly, “Phil?”

Phil’s hand lifted off the bed covers and quested unsteadily towards his father. “Daddy?” he slurred.

The nurse said, “Phil!”

Phil slurped the drool back up out of the corner of his mouth, and, suddenly alert, looked back and forth from Ed to Donsaii. He grinned, “Sheeit! You should’ve
seen
the expressions on you guys’ faces!”

Ell snorted, “Once again I find myself wondering just
why
I think of you as a friend?!”

Knees suddenly weak, Ed reached out and grabbed onto Phil’s bed rail. After a moment his strength recovered and he glared at his son. “Only the fact that it might injure your broken hip is keeping me from shaking you!” he growled.

Phil put his hands up in mock surrender, “Let me have my surgery, and give me a few weeks to recover. Then you can shake me as much as you want. I could go for a gentle hug right now though?”

Ed glowered a moment longer, then leaned down and gave his son a little hug. He stood and wiped at an eye, “When are they planning your surgery? Do you know yet?”

Phil looked up at the nurse. She responded, “What I heard was that they have you on the schedule for tomorrow, as long as everything checks out now that you’re out of anesthesia.”

Phil reached his hands up towards Ell, “Do I get a hug from my old ‘almost’ girlfriend?”

Ell wiped at an eye, “You shouldn’t, in view of the crap you just tried to pull!” She paused a moment to glare at him herself, then relented “But in view of our old friendship…” She leaned down and gave him a fierce hug, trying not to shake his body enough to wiggle his hip. She stood back up and stared at him pensively for a moment, “So, I’ve been worrying about your brain ever since we agreed to do this. How do you feel mentally? Any stupider than you were before?”

Phil grinned at her, “Well, when you’re dumb as a post to begin with, it’s kinda hard to tell if you’re now dumber than a post.” He shrugged, “I hear they’re going to come by and do a battery of tests on me this afternoon. Maybe they’ll be able to tell?”

Joining the banter, Ed turned to the nurse and said, “Do you think their IQ tests go down low enough?”

She grinned, “I don’t know, I’ve heard they think they might have to have him run some mazes like they do rats.”

***

Dex looked around the large room of the cave where most of the dalins were living. It had been days now since that brief rain, with no further rain. Normally, if the weather had been abnormally dry, the dalins would have been outside on the ledge speculating to one another about the appearance of the clouds and their portents. However, there was still so much dust in the air that they couldn’t even see a body length, much less up to the clouds.

Even when Dex’s meteorite said it was high noon, the dalins could only see a faint glow in the dust above their heads. The dust remained so thick that even in the meteorites’ bright lights they could see no more than about two body lengths. When the meteorites used only infrared light they could see a little bit farther, but not far enough to fly safely. Not far enough to hunt, even if any animals were out there. A few parties had gone out and set snares, but they remained empty. Groups which had gone looking for tubers had found a few, but stumbling around in the dust trying to recognize the plants that grew tubers when you could barely see their dust covered leaves proved to be terribly difficult.

There had been a few areas where many tubers grew, but they were far enough away that walking to them in this desolate landscape was nearly impossible. In the first place, dalins seldom hiked anywhere, so even if they
could
see and the world had remained green, it would have been difficult for them to find their accustomed tuber digging grounds on foot. In addition, no matter which direction a group set out, they soon encountered a swath of downed trees. If they did try to climb through the devastated forest, by the time they exited the other side, any sense they might have had of where they were going had usually been completely lost.

More and more, the dalins of the Yetany tribe stayed in the caves, necks drooping, attitudes flat, despair in their eyes. Syrdian’s parent Tanif led a small group out every day to search for vegetables, but hie was one of the few actively working on survival. Most of the Yetany simply lived, complaining about eating smoked zornit for every meal and waiting for the world outside the cave to repair itself.

Or for someone else to come up with something better to do.

Or to die.