A Mind For Trade Part 16

He couldn't move. "Get out. the ship is about to launch."

Ship? He was a child, having sneaked out to watch the great Trader ships launch out toward unknown worlds- No, it was the Solar Queen, his home- North Star was now his home.

The images splintered and spun away, leaving darkness- and the roar, and awareness of cold, and pain.

Dane opened his eyes, saw the faint glow of his helmet controls. Reflected in them, in running green and red and yellow streaks, was streaming water. What had happened? He'd been unconscious, and was grateful he'd kept his faceplate closed. He tried to read the time, but the only result was a lightning stab of pain as his eyes tried and failed to focus that close.

Now to a.s.sess the rest of the damage. He keyed the helmet light, which flared obediently, then died down to a faint glow. He reached for his auxiliary power pack, then gasped as pain wracked his body. He fell back, fighting for breath. Head- moved side to side. Ached, and his neck ached. Concussion? Had to have hit his head pretty hard on a rock for it to hurt through the helmet. Hands-right, left. Arms. Shoulders. Back-though there was a twinge from- Right leg. The left moved fine. Right foot intact, but again there was a warning winge from his knee. Dane realized he'd fallen, twisted his leg, and hit his head. He was hurt, but alive.

So now to report, and let them know where he was.

He tabbed the comlink on the general broadcast frequency. "Jasper?"

He waited. The light glowed orange, but there was no response.

He clicked over to Jasper's personal line, and when that did not work, he tried Johan, and then Ali.

No response.

His head ached, making clear thought hard. The power measure showed that the helmet was midway in emergency-power mode, which meant it ought to be strong enough for the comsignal.

Nevertheless he/levered himself up carefully, making certain not to move his leg, and detached the aux power pack from his utility belt. Some quick fumbling and he had it hooked up to the helmet.

Now he could tab on the helmet light. He scanned the area, found that he had fallen in the lee of a huge outthrust of rock-which also had probably saved his life. He became aware of the roaring again, a combination of wind and rain. A glance out and he saw the rain falling in sheets, blown almost vertical. He was on a slight rise, so the water coming round either side of his rock ran down and out of sight.

He wedged himself with his back to the rock and, centimeter by centimeter, straightened his leg. The effort left him shaking and bathed in sweat. When that was done he tried once again to alert Jasper on the boat.

Again, no answer. It was then that he thought to check the time. For a moment he stared blankly at the readout, wondering if the low power had cut out the time, then he realized he had only an hour until dawn.

An hour until dawn. He knew what had happened: the others had been forced to return to the camp. He'd been left for dead.

And in an hour, when the sun came up, and the fog drifted over the island, he would be dead.

He sat back and closed his eyes.

"I'm going back."

Ali's voice was soft, uninflected, but Rip took one look at those glittering, angry dark eyes and realized with a nasty roiling in his guts that he was about to face yet another unbearable decision.

There's no winner here, he thought in despair.

Out loud, "You can't."

Ali flung up a hand, his tendons rigid. "I'm not asking for orders. Or permission. I'm telling you where I'm going."

Rip waited, one full breath in, one out. When he spoke, his voice was even, not at all angry. "You can throw your life away. This is not the military-your life belongs to you. But you can't throw away that flitter."

He saw the impact of his words in the suddenly narrowed dark eyes, and then a flush of rage ridged Ali's cheekbones.

"You don't think I can bring the flitter back safely?" he asked, his mouth curving derisively. "Watch me. I can fly any atmospheric craft made, and if it takes damage, make it better than it was originally designed."

"I know your credentials," Rip said. "You don't need to list what you can fly and where you've flown it. That's not the point; the storm is subsiding, and any of us could fly there. But we don't know that those d.a.m.n creatures out there can't kill you through the flitter. If you're fried inside it, you can hardly fix it when it crashes, right?"

"I'll avoid 'em-"

Now was the crux of the matter. Rip struck fast, before Ali could think. "And rescue a dead man? You'll be in a flitter. Dane's on foot."

"Thorson is not dead," Ali shot back. Then his lips parted, and he laughed, a ragged, unwilling sound. "He's not dead. Can't you feel it? I've known it ever since that d.a.m.n drug wore off five hours ago. He's not dead, but he's hurt."

"Yes," Rip said softly. "I can feel it."

Ali turned, stepped, slammed his fist against the bulkhead of Rip's cabin. "h.e.l.lfire! It's my fault. I hate this cursed thing that's twisting my brain, hate it so bad I." He shook his head violently and turned around to face Rip, his mouth pressed into a white line. "I could have found him. Jasper apparently doesn't get location. Tau even warned me to take a minimal dose, but I ignored him. Of course. I could have found Thorson-" He stopped again. "I want to go now."

"Dane's alive, but there's a good chance he won't be by the time you can get there," Rip said. "Dane himself would not want to risk lives and equipment-you know he wouldn't."

"But he's alive," Ali said. "And while there's a chance, I have to take it-or have his death on my conscience for the rest of my life."

Rip sighed, feeling pressure building behind his eyes.

"I can find him," Ali repeated. "I suspect I'll also know if he suddenly isn't alive."

Rip knew that was true as well. He rubbed his eye sockets, then looked up. "All right. Go. But don't tell any of the others. Jasper in particular. He'll want to share the danger, and we can't afford to lose more people. I'll control the cargo bay from here."

Ali whirled around and disappeared through the hatchway.

Rip dropped down at his desk and activated his computer. The control-deck main controls had been slaved to his computer, complete with alarms should anything happen while he was asleep.

Now he called up the lock controls and put the external viewscreen on. Dawn had arrived, and already the storm was lessening. There was no sign of fog-but that could change with frightening speed. Tau was certain that the Floaters didn't actually generate the vapor, but they manipulated it somehow.

"I'm up and running." Ali's voice came, private signal, from the flitter.

"Fuel?" Rip asked.

"More than enough to make it there and back."

Rip didn't answer; he could feel Ali's mood, volatile as magma below the surface. Better to let him take action. As if I could have stopped him.

He tapped the lock control, wondering bleakly how Jellico would have managed to stop him-and how he was going to report this to the Old Man when the time came.

Then the flitter zapped out, banking in a flashy roll and disappearing in a tight curve round the trees.

Rip closed the lock, shut down his console, and got up tiredly to head for the galley, and hot coffee. Hot, strong, and lots.

When he got there, he found Jasper waiting silently. One glance at the pale little man's face, and he knew that Jasper had figured it all out, or enough. Jasper silently held out a steaming mug, twin to the one he held in his right hand.

Then, still in silence, they climbed up to the control deck, where Rip activated all the com signals with one quick, angry chop of his hand. Then he sat down, and Jasper dropped into the com pod.

It was going to be a long watch.

The storm subsided rapidly, and a little after dawn the clouds broke and disappeared in a sudden, dramatic line. For a brief time Dane stared with mild pleasure at the beauty of the shafts of sunlight illuminating the moisture in the air, like pillars of white-gold that ethereal creatures could climb.

The rock around him was black and rusty red and various shades of brown. Here and there craggy outcroppings thrust upward like hands reaching for the distant sky. Marbling stri-ations marked each, striking in their alien beauty. The ground was uneven all around, barren of any growth except some low, scrubby plants with spiny leaves. Pools of water glistened in the bright sunlight; as Dane watched, steam rose gently from them, making the air shimmer.

He took a small sip of the emergency water on his belt, then leaned back. As the sun mounted higher, the temperature rose. Soon he was roasting in his haz gear.

Wishing he was in a temp-controlled s.p.a.ce suit, he began the long, painful trip round to the other side of his rock. What he'd do at noon, when there was no shadow- Maybe the Floaters would be there by then.

No, don't think. Just move. Hands, then foot. Hands, foot.

He crab-walked backward, dragging his damaged leg.

It took a long time, but he had nothing but time to spend. At last he was well into the shadow, and with the last of his fading strength he took off his coat and draped it over a couple of jagged pieces of rock to make a kind of tent. The air on his neck made him feel vulnerable, but he knew that the presence or absence of a coat would not hinder the Floaters, if they came.

He smoothed out the wrinkles in his tunic, resettled his utility belt, and leaned back, closing his eyes. Slowly the throbbing in his leg subsided, enough that-almost imperceptibly-he became aware of another sensation: cool air.

He opened his eyes, felt a zing of shock when he saw the tendrils of fog snaking with dreamy laziness round the distant cliffs. Behind them, white and puffy, a white cloud glistened softly in the sun.

Dane's heart thumped against his ribs.

Instinctively he tightened his helmet over his head- knowing it wasn't going to do any good. Maybe it would hurt slightly less, he thought, amused at his own cowardice. As if anyone would ever know.

Leaning forward slightly, he scanned the landscape once again, this time for possible hiding places. None. So he leaned his head back and tried to make himself as comfortable as he could. Death was inevitable, he told himself. It was one true prediction made for each human being at birth. Now, after all his adventures, his time had come. He tried to relax, to think over his past. His mind darted from memory to memory, moments of beauty, of insight, of surprise, terror. Of anger, of justice, of humor. He tasted every strong emotion again, savoring them like the fine wines of Deneb-Gloriath. Only his heart, tapping rapidly under its steady infusion of adrenals, moved. Dane himself was still, contemplating how much of the automatic fear washing through him was question. Great question. The greatest question.

Now the fog lifted over the far rocks; in a few moments it would block the sun. Trails and curls of vapor wreathed the cliffs, like necklaces of warm-lit cotton.

Where? A sudden flash, and he sensed Rip and Jasper far away, like distant stars, their focus bright and steady. Ali was a comet, arcing across the sky.

It was just a moment's vision, then it was gone.

And so was the bright, beating sun. The white cloud drifted overhead, and Dane lifted his face to stare up into the mesmerizing whorls of silver, gray, white.

And then there it was, directly overhead, a great white bowl, gleaming with muted rainbow colors. Delicate ripples ran round its fabric, making the colors shift and glimmer. It grew; Dane realized it was coming closer. Now he could see a subtle tracery of reddish green all over the upper surface of the creature.

His heart thrummed, but he did not move. A weird calm seized his mind, shutting out his pain, fear, worries. He was alone in the universe with a being of awe, of beauty. He would die seeing beauty; he would not mar the moment by cowering against the inevitable.

The great bowl lowered. Now he could see interstices like lacework in it, patterns of veins, all faintly glowing with rich color. Just beyond the great bowl was another, and higher still, another. A colony of them, gathering.

The great bowl rippled like a tent under the drumming of the wind, and with visionary slowness white-gold tendrils, lit softly from within, rolled down and dangled just overhead. Then, soft, gentle, they caressed his face.

A moment of cool touch, then fire exploded through his brain. He was still looking up, in question, in wonder, as the fire lit his neural pathways.

The fire was cold and hot, pain and not pain, a terrific load that his brain could not process, and he felt consciousness slipping even as his body seized. Still, thought persisted right over the edge into darkness. Thought, memory, awareness of that question-which had not come from him.

A sudden flash of white-hot pain blinded Ali. His hands flexed convulsively on the flitter controls; far away, to the northeast, he felt an echoing flash fronvRip and Jasper. Then it was gone.

Cursing softly, steadily, he smacked his hand down on the speed control, and the flitter obediently surged forward. Ali thought fiercely, wishing that he could control the accursed psi link. He didn't sense that Dane was dead, but was afraid that was just his own guilt-laced fear refusing to acknowledge the truth.

He glanced at his navscreen, saw that the island was near. Shifting his eyes to the viewscreen, he saw a b.u.mp on the horizon. He guided the ship lower, and sped up even more, until the engines screamed. The deep azure of the water below rippled and boiled beneath the powerful fans as he jetted toward the island.

Now it was larger, and he saw the glow of white. He bared his teeth, hoping the fog was still there, so he could rip the flitter with savage deliberation right through it, killing as many of the d.a.m.n Floater things as possible.

But the fog was drifting high and eastward, a thin blan-ket, and his sense of Dane's presence was growing stronger.

Ali slowed, skimming over the rocky sh.o.r.e and the splashing waves, up across the great red rocks. The ground blurred beneath him; then the sight of a single figure lying p.r.o.ne against a rock arrested his gaze.

Ali threw the flitter into a sharply banked dive. The engines whined in protest, sending vibrations through the craft. He dropped it down twenty meters away, sparing Dane the spray of gravel from the fans. Almost before it was fully settled he'd slammed the hatch open and vaulted out, taking only a quick glance upward to see if the fog things were coming after him.

Five, six strides. There was Thorson, his helmet lying beside him, his yellow hair ruffling in the breeze, his face contorted and his limbs lying at angles as if he'd been picked up and shaken by a giant hand. Seizure; Ali knew the signs.

He bent down, then paused, staring, at the tunic stretched across Dane's chest.

The man was still breathing.

Dane rose slowly out of a well of red-hot pain.

Unwillingly. Dizzy. Thirst, heat, cold.

He opened his eyes, to stare into a pair of dark eyes. Familiar eyes. He knew those eyes. He tried to point this out, and to observe that he seemed to be alive, but his tongue seemed to be frozen.

The eyes crinkled. "It seemed a crime against the universe," a familiar voice drawled, "to let die a man who would fight a duel using a bagpipe."

Dane tried to laugh, and fainted instead.

Chapter Seventeen.

"He's going to recover."

Rip leaned back against a bulkhead in the pa.s.sage outside of sickbay. He hadn't permitted himself to hope, not even when Ali brought the flitter in, its fuel nearly gone and its engines steaming, and they brought out Dane's breathing body. Breathing, but deeply unconscious. Thoughts of coma, brain damage, neurological disasters had chased through Rip's mind as he helped Mura carry Dane up to the sick bay.

Ali had followed right behind, still dirty from the disastrous mining expedition the night before, his face set, his eyes daring anyone-anyone at all-to speak to him. Jasper had trailed them, walking with his accustomed silent tread, speaking to no one, but Rip suspected that the emotions that he hid were much the same as his own. Right behind Jasper walked Tooe, her posture drooping, her crest grayish and limp.

The entire crew gathered outside the sick bay, spilling into the hydro for lack of room, as they waited for Tau's verdict.

He'd just emerged, and he smiled and repeated his statement: "He's going to recover."

Then Johan Stotz said, "Why?"

Ali's quick brows rose, and Frank Mura gave a short nod. "We're glad of that. Of course. But I thought these creatures killed on contact. Was he hit by one, or wasn't he? And if not, what happened?"

Craig Tau paused, then said, "I may be able to answer those questions, and others, after I run some more tests. We're all overdue for rest-I suggest you all get busy on that. When you wake up, I'll have a full report for you."

Stotz looked from Tau to Ali, then grunted. "I'll wait. And I certainly need the sleep. Though it's going to be a while before any of us goes anywhere, sleep or not."