America 2040 - Golden World Part 6

Jackie, a mature personality, a good officer, had never openly talked of marriage, but the a.s.sumption had always been there during their brief intimacy. She was well within her rights to expect permanency, and doubly so in view of the situation.

Jackie was, when one looked at it logically, more beautiful than Mandy Miller. She was younger, more lushly formed, and available. He and Jackie were the obvious match. She had let him know in no uncertain terms that she liked him. She was emotionally stable. She was service through and through.

She'd always be a strong woman, and together they'd probably make beautiful children.

Each applicant for the ship's complement had been tested for childbearing potential, and it was understood that each woman aboard would have several children. This, for some who had been exposed to decades of zero-population-growth propaganda, was a welcome departure; to be able to have as many children as one wanted, without guilt, was one of the new freedoms of living on the huge planet.

It all counted in Jackie's favor, but it had been two years since he'd visited her in her quarters.

Her expression didn't change at his lame excuse of being too busy to socialize, although she felt a stab of pain and anger. Once again she'd opened herself to him in friendliness, and once again her overture had been rebuffed. She tried to tell herself that he really was so busy, that there was still plenty of time for them to get back together, but she wasn't listening, and as she stood to make a fresh pot of coffee, a tiny bud of resentment that had been with her for a long, long time began to grow.

Rodrick began to roll various reports onto the screen. Things were moving so swiftly that it was difficult to keep up. And it was difficult to adjust one's mind to the scale of Omega. The smaller continent to the east of Columbia had a land ma.s.s twice the size of North and South America combined. Everything was big on Omega. For example, the meteorologists' surveying scout ships had measured hundred-foot waves in the area of tropical storms.

The astronomers were hard at work measuring Omega's rotation, orbit, and relationship to her neighbors in the B system, and already the ship's machine shop was making new mechanisms and faces for all nondigital clocks to conform to the seventy-minute hours of Omega and the thirty-five day months.

It was going to be an interesting adjustment. Did one celebrate his birthday by Earth time and Earth's calendar, or by Omega's time and calendar? He made a note to tell the techs to keep one chronometer on the bridge of theSpirit of America on Earth time, just as a reminder of their mission.

The preliminary reports on the oil-exploration team were very encouraging. They'd located likely oil-bearing deposits on the first day, and the automated drill rig had been operating since that discovery.

The geologists had determined that Omega was a living planet with a molten core, but aside from that, she didn't seem to obey any of the rules. Omega's core was smaller in proportion to her size thanEarth's. Metals, the scientists predicted, were going to be very, very scarce. The planet's crust, however, was thicker in proportion to her size than Earth's and formed of rocks of lesser density. But the most vital speculations, in Rodrick's mind, had to do with the nature of Omega's molten core: There were no logical reasons why a planet four times the size of Earth had two-tenths of one percent less gravity. One had to a.s.sume that there were virtually no heavy metals in the molten core, that the core was made up mainly of molten silica. Consequently, there would be little or no heavy metals in the crust.

Thus it was that Omega's livable gravity was a mixed blessing, allowing them to move about normally-even just a little bit more spritely-but making it quite uncertain whether there would be the metals needed to begin to build the manufacturing plants necessary to civilization as they knew it, and to refuel the ship with rhenium for the trip home.

One thing was in their favor, Rodrick knew. The accidental discovery, during the trip out, that the ship could take lightstep with much less rhenium than first theorized, would allow them to make the trip back to Earth with an amount of fuel tons less than originally believed needed, and the trip would be cut to next to no time through the ability to lightstep from planetary orbit.

Rodrick would be following Stoner McRae's expedition with great interest, because the trained geologist would be able to gather much information about the possibility of minable ores by a survey of the exposed igneous rock of the barren inland highlands.

After checking the last report on the screen, he said good-bye to Jackie and headed for the scout ships.

He wanted to investigate the scene of Lynn Robert's death. Rodrick glanced guiltily at the coffeepot, still percolating, before he left the bridge.

The warning had been broadcast that there was something very mean and nasty on Omega, after all, and was acknowledged by all field teams except one-Stoner McRae's. There was a possibility that McRae had heard the warning on his communicator. However, when the check-in call from Stoner was thirty-five minutes overdue, Jackie began to be concerned. She asked the scout communicator to put his ships on alert to try to spot the McRae vehicle, but the scout ships were scattered all around the globe, none of them near the rocky highlands. She started trying to reach Duncan Rodrick after forty-five minutes.

Rodrick had just arrived at the scene of Lynn Rob-erts's death and was on hand when, suddenly, the dry earth in the concavity into which Lynn had been pulled stirred and ejected, with some force, her disjointed skeleton. Paul Warden fired a laser into the concave pit with no apparent results.

Death, especially such a bizarre death as Lynn's, seemed so out of place in this pleasant, friendly land.

Rodrick looked at the clean-picked bones and berated himself for having been so lax. He had let Eden lull him into being off guard. That danger had come from a totally unexpected direction was no excuse.

He went to the scout he'd flown to the scene.

"Captain," Jackie said, "Stoner McRae's party is an hour past their last report time."

"Put as many scouts as possible over the area," Rodrick said.

"Yes, sir. That's being done. There'll be a scout in the general area within a half hour."

Rodrick was nearer than a half hour to the badlands. He told Jackie he was going airborne, destinationthe highlands, and contacted her again when the scout was shooting at top speed toward the east. "Recall all exploration parties except the oil-drilling crew," he ordered. "Send the admiral and Mopro to Paul Warden's location on the first available air transport. I a.s.sume that everyone except McRae's party has been warned?"

"That's affirmative," Jackie said.

Rodrick closed circuit with Jackie, called Paul Warden's crawler, and got an immediate answer. "Paul, I want that thing," Rodrick said. "What's your opinion of the chances of taking it alive for study purposes?"

"Cap'n, we saw about five feet of head and neck, sort of bullet shaped. It looked d.a.m.ned powerful."

"Okay. Then alive only if it can be done without danger. Mopro and the admiral are on their way to you.

Mopro's heavy armament should be a match for that thing, whatever it is."

"Cap'n," Warden said, "Dr. Kwait wants to speak with you."

"Yes, Amando?"

"Captain, " Amando said into the communicator, "the light-colored areas of gra.s.s seem to be in definite patterns in this area-one roughly every half acre. I've noticed that the silver-horns very carefully avoid the areas. We've seen a whole herd skirt around the edge of light-colored areas, giving it a wide berth of at least five yards. We have some lengths of high-tensile cable in the crawler. I think that we can fashion a trap, a noose, and then use a silver-horn for bait."

"Sounds good," Rodrick said. "Just be very careful."

"Don't worry," Amando answered. "I saw what that thing did to Lynn Roberts."

Rodrick turned his attention to the badlands below him and flipped on all the scout's sensors. It was getting late, and he was beginning to feel a gnawing of worry when, suddenly, the scout's radios picked up the coded beat of a beacon. He was twelve miles from the crawler at that point.

Jumper was so eager to chase the silver-horns not more than a hundred feet away that he was quivering and looking up pleadingly at Clay, who had to tell him repeatedly to heel. Jumper's heeling consisted of a taut, quivering pose a few feet out in front of Clay. The dog was no more than five feet from the edge of the light area of gra.s.s when Rodrick's scout, moving at top speed, flashed across the valley. Clay and Cindy, eyes on the silver-horns, didn't see the ship or know it had pa.s.sed until they heard the sonic boom. The great, dull explosion of sound stopped them in their tracks, but the scout was already out of sight.

Jumper, thoroughly frightened by the boom, scampered back to cower at Clay's feet. The little herd of silver-horns was shocked into a stance of heads-up motionlessness as their limpid eyes searched for danger.

Rodrick had had just enough time to see the human figures against the blurred color of gra.s.s. He felt the tug of g-forces as he turned, stressing the capability of the scout, and felt his pressure suit fill and squeeze to keep the blood from being forced from his brain. Then he did a bit of very tricky flying. As his scoutcleared the western rim of the valley he could see two people within ten feet of the light-colored gra.s.s.

He flipped on the scout's wailer, and the burst of sound alerted Clay and Cindy to stand still. Rodrick, still flying very fast, braced himself, kicked in retro-rockets usually used only in s.p.a.ce, and slammed the scout to a halt. Rodrick performed a trick very few pilots could have brought off, using the retro-rockets to kill a speed of over six hundred miles per hour and bringing the craft to hover with the hydrogen-powered jets all in a matter of scant seconds. He flipped oft the wailer and clicked on the hailer and said, "Clay, Cindy, don't move. Stand exactly where you are."

The amplified human voice convinced the silver-horns that something was going on, and the herd bull threw his head high with a snort and led a panicky flight. That was too much for Jumper. The movement sent him streaking directly across the danger spot.

It all happened quickly: The earth erupted, and a great, dead-whitething whipped a coned snout that missed Jumper by inches. It whipped back and turned to point a pair of recessed, gleaming red eyes at Clay and Cindy. Then, with startling speed, it jerked back into the now-disturbed sandy earth.

Rodrick had seen the thing, and it was recorded on the scout's cameras. "Clay, I want you and Cindy to stay exactly where you are."

Clay was not about to move, unless it was away from that thing that had erupted from the ground. He whistled to Jumper, who had been outdistanced quickly by the silver-horns, and the dog came trotting back. The scout landed nearby, and they boarded, making it just a bit crowded.

Rodrick's first impulse was to chew Stoner out for not returning to base immediately after his radio had failed. He had not had time to notice the city, which was now in the dark shadows of the western cliffs.

"What the h.e.l.l is going on?" Stoner asked, as Cindy leaped down from the scout, followed by Clay, Jumper, and the captain. He saw Rodrick's grim face and advanced to meet them. The sonic boom, the wailer, and Rodrick's highly amplified voice on the hailer had startled Betsy and him, but neither had been in a position to see Jumper's narrow escape.

"Stoner, you know the rules about staying in contact," Rodrick began, still tense from almost having lost Clay or Cindy Or both.

"Wow, Stoner," Clay said, too excited to keep quiet, "did you see that thing?"

"Just a minute, Clay." Rodrick said.

"But, Captain, you don't understand," Clay said. He pointed and added, "Before you chew us out, take a look over there."

Even in dark shadow Rodrick recognized the city for what it was. He experienced the same shock and asked himself the same questions that had occurred to Stoner earlier in the day, then walked quickly to the scout and activated the radio.

Rocky Miller had taken over the duty on the bridge. "Commander," Rodrick said. "I want a red alert issued now." He waited until he heard the hooting of the ship's alert system. "I want all parties still in the field to drop what they're doing and return to base, and I want all citizens aboard ship."

Well, Rocky was thinking,he's finally panicked, and all because some underground animal killed one person . He did not, however, voice that opinion. "My orders are, Mr. Miller, that all personnel will spend the night aboard ship, under red alert. Mopro and the admiral will patrol outside the ship. Confirm."

Rocky repeated the orders, thinking how uncomfortable it was going to be for the colonists. Their quarters had been set up on the surface. They'd have to bed down as best they could in the open s.p.a.ces and lounges.

"I have located the McRae party, and all are safe," Rodrick continued. "I will take a quick look around, then fly cover for their return trip. In the meantime, all exploration flights are canceled for tomorrow."

"Question, Captain," Rocky said.

"Go ahead."

"Is the oil-drilling team to come in, too? They're down to oil-bearing shale now, expecting a strike at any time."

"Allparties, Commander," Rodrick said.

He had had all the surprises he wanted from Omega. He'd learned, at the cost of a life, that there was more to peaceful Eden than met the eye. And the presence of that dead city raised questions that would have to be answered before he'd send any more field parties out. He could tell by the looks of those odd buildings in the shadows, by the smell of it, by the feel of it, that this big, beautiful planet was not going to be as easily tamed as it had first appeared. That city over there in the shadows was old, very old.

Intelligent beings capable of building that city centuries in the past could now be capable of almost anything.

The alert came just as George Evans was pulling a very reluctant silver-horn yearling toward the dusty concavity from which Lynn Roberts's bones had been ejected. Thin cables of high tensile strength had been rigged into a noose, which lay around the hole. One end of the cable was attached to a st.u.r.dy umbrella tree, the other end to the winch at the front of the crawler. The crawler's engine was running, and Amando Kwait was standing ready to jerk the vehicle backward, to close the noose quickly. Paul Warden was standing by with explosive rounds in the chamber of a high-powered projectile rifle.

Amando relayed the red alert. Evans stopped pulling on the rope tied to the silver-horns neck. Warden yelled, "It'll only take a couple of minutes." He wanted that thing. He didn't want it alive. He wanted it dead. He'd heard the bones crunch, seen the blood squeezed out of Lynn's body.

Evans nodded and pulled the little animal toward the hole. As the silver-horn's front feet were pulled into soft dirt, the animal began to bleat pitifully. It struggled and fell and lay in the cavity. Nothing happened. It scrambled to its feet and ran in the direction of Evans, leaping from the hole to stand, breathing hard. Its bleat was so sad that Kwait killed the crawler's engine and went over to turn it loose. The antelope scampered off.

"I guess it wasn't hungry," Paul Warden said, looking moodily down into the disturbed area.

"We can come back and dig the thing out," George Evans suggested. He still could not accept what had happened. He had seen a member of Mandy Miller's medical staff put Lynn's bones into a body bag, buthe still couldn't accept it. He'd loved Lynn. He had chosen her, and she'd promised to give him her decision that very night. He'd been sure that it was to be a reciprocal choice. Now she was dead, her flesh eaten by a nightmare thing from below the ground.

Duncan allowed himself one good look at the ancient city. He walked along sand-clogged streets, seeing the somewhat crude but expressive carvings in stone, admiring the excellent stone jointing. He agreed with Stoner that the winged figure carved in the wall was probably some mythical figure and that the carved sticklike figures were more representative of the former inhabitants of the city.

"They must not have had much to eat," Cindy commented.

"Funny how that one piece of statuary out by the wall is so realistic, as are the animals in the carvings,"

Betsy said.

"While the carvings of the people seem almost childlike," Rodrick said. "Stick figures."

"There's a bit of flesh on the limbs of that winged one," Stoner reminded them.

"A G.o.d," Betsy said. "A flying G.o.d."

"Then they weren't made in the image of their G.o.d," Stoner remarked. "They must have suffered from low self-image."

"My parlor psychologist," Betsy said.

In each of the sanctuaries, as they began to call the upper, middle rooms, carved scenes showed stick people kneeling in worship as that horror from the depths of the earth accepted a sacrifice.

"Why would they worship that thing?" Cindy asked.

"Because it is powerful, deadly, and mysterious," Stoner said.

"Some early people on Earth worshiped volcanoes," Betsy added, "because they were an elemental force beyond people s control and understanding."

"I'm glad my G.o.d doesn't look like that," Clay commented, remembering the dead-flesh look of the thing, its burning, tiny eyes.

Betsy looked thoughtful. "I think we'll find the answers to these early people and what was important to them when the archaeologists, anthropologists, and paleontologists begin their research. There are fossils on Earth; there are probably fossils and other clues here. We can learn something about these people in that way."

"Maybe," Rodrick said. To date the archaeologists, anthropologists, and paleontologists had turned up nothing, but they'd explored only a limited area in the two days of work on the planet. He knew that sooner or later Omega would reveal more of her secrets. His main job was to see to it that she didn't demand a price in human blood.

Juke, the entertainment robot, rolled into one of the big bays emptied by the removal of the quarters. It was now crowded with people who had been called back to theSpirit when the captain issued the red alert. Juke rolled around bedrolls and sleeping bags, family groups and pairs. A large viewscreen had been installed on one bulkhead, and a science-fiction thriller was being screened. The colonists hooted when an insectlike alien threatened the hero and heroine, cheered when the thing was zapped by the heroine.

"Down in front, Juke," someone yelled. Juke found a spot against a bulkhead and watched the hero zap thousands of evil insect beings and win his reward, a quick kiss from the heroine and a fast ride into the sunset aboard his own rocketship.

A squad of volunteers entered the bay bearing large quant.i.ties of liquid fresh from the ship's stills and were cheered roundly. Mandy Miller, in her office, seeing the scene on her own viewscreen through Juke's sensors, turned to Duncan Rodrick and said, "They're taking it very well."

Back in the bay Juke rolled up to a family of four and said, "You know, I was built in a small town in the West."

"How small a town was it, Juke?" asked the boy of the family, with a sly wink at his sister to show that he knew he was playing straight man.

"It was so small," Juke said, "that our one heavy industry was a four-hundred-pound Amway distributor."

In Mandy s office Rodrick grinned and shook his head.

"I don't know where he gets them," Mandy said.

"Wherever it was, he should have left them there," Rodrick said. He'd stopped in Mandy's office to get the results of the ships coroner's examination of the remains of Lynn Roberts. Mandy had told him that they weren't quite ready and offered him a drink. He had accepted, and now his gla.s.s was empty. The coroner had called to say that the report was being printed and would be delivered in five minutes.

"I haven't even spent a night on the surface yet," Mandy said, as they waited.

"We'll be back out there soon," Rodrick answered. "I just don't want to take any chances. I need to know what happened to the people who built that city."

"That concerns you more than that thing that lives underground, doesn't it?" she asked.

"The big worm doesn't show signs of great intelligence," Rodrick said. "True, it builds a nice trap, but the native wildlife seems to be wise to it. My concern there is just how many of those traps exist. I've got a team studying low-level aerial photos, and there's an astounding number of discolored areas. It's amazing that someone wasn't killed before poor Lynn. The spots are all around Hamilton and wherever there's gra.s.s for the silver-horns to graze."

"I talked briefly with Dr. Kwait earlier this evening," Mandy said. "He thinks one of the things can be trapped."