Galactic Milieu - Diamond Mask Part 22

Jack was some kind of horribly powerful operant who had tried many times to farspeak Dee all the way from Earth. He claimed he was just a boy, but she doubted it. No child could farspeak such a long way. Dee had decided that Jack must be a person in league with Gran Masha and the latency therapists, trying to trick her into demonstrating her operancy. When she did, they would force her to go back to Earth. But Dee had been too clever for Jack. She never answered him, never gave a single sign that she even heard him-not even when the angel appeared in her mind and said it would be all right.

Jack finally stopped calling her, and the angel went into a sulk and wouldn't talk to her, either. Dee didn't want to believe that the angel was part of the plot; but he had told her, back in the beginning, that she would have to become operant someday ...

She wouldn't! She was going to be as normal as she could, and keep on hiding the overt powers that had already escaped from their boxes. She used her healing only when it was absolutely necessary (to help Daddy and Ken, and when nice old Domhnall Menzies burned himself so badly in the processing factory during the last earthquake), and she farspoke her brother only when she had some really important secret to tell him.

Once, Dee had believed that farspoken thoughts were private. She knew now, from studying about telepathy after Jack began bothering her, that it took special skill to shield thought-messages from clever operant eavesdroppers.

Dee didn't know whether she had that skill or not, so she was careful not to take chances. No one was going to trick her into betraying herself, as she once had done with the man who called himself Ewen Cameron.

Never again.

The others were already climbing into their flitters, and Dee hurried down the tarmac to her own ship, the last in line. There were eleven brightly colored aerostats: eight harvesters manned by the adults, two larger bin-flitters piloted by Ken and Gavin, and the beat-up yellow machine combining both functions that Dee was going to fly. It was the oldest aerostat on the farm, the first one Ian Macdonald had ever owned and the one he always used for flight training. Because of its color and the wedge shape of its semirigid superstructure, it was nicknamed The Big Cheese.

All summer long Ian Macdonald and Sorcha MacAlpin had patiently taught Dee how to fly the venerable aircraft. Her lessons had taken place at low alt.i.tudes for the most part, and she had practiced catching buoyant drifts of degradable confetti rather than actual airplants, which were protected by law during the off-season. It was going to be much more tricky pursuing weeds that actively tried to get away! She would also have to learn how to cope with the pesky fairy-critters and watch out for sky-wolves and the dangerous torachan. Her father had promised to stay close by until she felt confident doing the work, and he alone would be dumping his acc.u.mulating harvest into her storage cells.

Sorcha gave a farewell wave as Dee ascended the boarding ladder of The Big Cheese. The compressor that operated the propulsion system and slurper of the aircraft was already humming, having been switched on earlier by the ground crew during the servicing period. Dee settled into the c.o.c.kpit, closed the canopy, and looked up at the bulgy, much-patched yellow envelope, held within a rigid superstructure frame that was attached to the fuselage by a stout pylon. She fastened her safety harness. A seat cushion helped her see outside and pedal extensions enabled her to operate the floor controls. She put on the visored hard hat with its self-contained oxygen concentrator and fastened the mask. The breathing equipment was necessary because the luibheannach an adhair--the "weeds of the air"-lived mostly at alt.i.tudes between six and nine kilometers where the atmosphere was thin. The plants were also poisonous if one inhaled their concentrated essence.

But when the wee things were processed and their essence greatly diluted, they were the safest and most effective human aphrodisiac known.

Dee had learned all about human s.e.xuality in satellite school; but it still mystified her that mature adults-apparently even including operants-were willing to pay extraordinarily high prices for weird chemicals like that.

"Glen Tuath Leader requests harvest team systems check and verbal affirm," said Ian Macdonald over the RF com.

Dee went through The Cheese's flight checklist swiftly, then verified her life support. One by one the pilots called out their affirmation and number. Last of all, Dee said in a loud little voice: "GT-11 checked and ready."

"GT Leader says lift-off in sequence via NAVCON. Today all work areas are prea.s.signed and any deviation or hot pursuit of the weeds must repeat must be cleared with Leader. Torachan have been reported in the vicinity of Ben Fizgig, so keep alert." After everybody affirmed, Ian said, "Team enter NAVCON."

Dee put on her gloves and then hit the console pad that would transfer control of her machine to the farm's navigation system. Now she could sit back and relax while The Big Cheese mounted into the sky and flew automatically to the airs.p.a.ce it had been a.s.signed to harvest.

As their ground-locks deactivated one by one, the flitters rose, buoyed by the hydrogen in their envelopes. A series of caged air jets with internal rudders, mounted on both the superstructure and the fuselage of each aerostat, controlled ascent, descent, and maneuvering. All working parts of the fusion-powered fans and compressors, as well as the pump that sucked the crop into expandable storage-cells in the skin of the envelope, were carefully shielded so that the highly flammable gases generated by the fragile, drifting organisms would not be accidentally set on fire-a disaster that might also ignite the hydrogen in the flitter trying to harvest them. This kind of accident was fortunately very rare. Aerostat envelopes were fireproof and had an internal quenching system. If the skin ruptured by accident or as a result of torachan attacks, the pilot could explode bolts in the pylon, separating the fuselage from the gas-bag. A huge parafoil would then pop out and lower the fuselage safely to the ground. Dee had practiced this maneuver on virtual video, feeling rea.s.sured by the knowledge that Glen Tuath Farm had a perfect aerial safety record. Its own machines were meticulously maintained, even those that were old, and Ian Macdonald only hired freelance flitter operators whose standards were as high as his own.

Shortly after arriving at the farm, Dee had asked her father why airplants could not be harvested by ordinary flying eggs. At the time Ian was in no mood to be bothered, so instead of explaining, he told Dee to find out for herself. To Ian's surprise, the little girl found the answer by evening on the same day.

"Eggs have rho-fields all over their outsides," Dee told her father at the supper table. "That's how they counter gravity. A rho-field looks like a net of purple fire you can barely see. It can burn organic matter like airplants to a crisp if they touch it"

"And you, too, Dodo!" Gavin Boyd had said, with a wicked smirk.

But Ian Macdonald had silenced the nonborn boy with a stern gesture and asked Dee if she knew why sigma-shielded rhocraft could not be used for harvesting.

"Because the rho-field has to cover the whole egg, or it won't fly," she said triumphantly, "and the sigma-field has to cover all the rho-field to make the egg safe to touch. But then the person inside the egg can't harvest airplants because you can't usually make holes in a full sigma."

"Very good, Dorrie," Ian had said, without smiling. But Dee knew he was pleased with her.

"Everybody knows that," Gavin muttered. Ken, sitting next to him, gave him a sharp elbow in the ribs.

"Not every five-year-old," Ian said. He asked his daughter: "Did you call a satellite teacher for the answer?"

Dee shook her head. "I looked up the way inertialess aircraft work in the schoolhouse database. Then I figured it out."

"Well, don't that beat all!" said Thrawn Janet archly. "Looks like our little Doro's real cackleberryhead. I s'pose you know all about how flitters work, too."

Dee flinched at the animosity radiating from the minds of the woman and the oldest nonborn. But instead of holding her tongue, she took a deep breath and said to her father, "I'm going to study about flitters. I'd like to learn to fly more than anything else in the whole world. Will you teach me, Daddy?"

"Yes," Ian Macdonald said curtly. "And the rest of you children, too. Just as soon as you're old enough."

"But I'm going to be your harvest foreman when I grow up," Gavin protested. "You promised, Dad!"

Ian surveyed the table with a thunderous scowl. "That was before Dorrie and Ken came to Glen Tuath. Whoever of you becomes the best pilot will be foreman-eventually. But that's years away. Now eat your supper. I don't want to hear another b.l.o.o.d.y word!"

Ian Macdonald kept his promise. First Gavin learned to fly and then Ken-though he didn't enjoy it. The other two children, Hugh and Ellen, disliked flying even more than Ken and quickly washed out. But Dee was a natural and had proved much more adept than either of the older boys. That was why she flew the dual-purpose Cheese this year while Gavin, in spite of bitter protests, was demoted to driving an unexciting aerial cargo-bin.

Dee fingered the controls gently while the autopilot did the actual flying en route to the harvest site. Her aerostat, the last in the procession, lofted higher and higher as the team headed northward, finally leveling off at an alt.i.tude 500 meters below the level of the lowest drift of airplants. The view through her polarized helmet visor was magnificent. On her left, she could even see the clearing in the tartan-forested mountains where the diamond mine was. She had only visited it once, and had been very disappointed to discover that the freshly mined stones looked dull and gla.s.sy, not even as bright as the rhinestones on her pin.

Flying as fast as the lumbering bins could go, the harvest team left the fjord, pa.s.sed above the sharp-nosed cape called Rudha Glas, and moved out over the wave-pounded islets and reefs of the Goblin Archipelago. (Their official name was Eileanan B?can, which no one ever bothered to use. Dee had quickly found out that even though Gaelic was a required subject in school, Caledonians spoke Standard English most of the time, and their p.r.o.nunciation of the ancient tongue was often strange and their usage ungrammatical. No one minded except a few ultraethnic fanatics.) The farm's computerized tracking system had calculated that today the volume of airplants would be most dense in the area just north of the Goblins, where a thin stratum of smoglike volcanic ash from Ben Fizgig had spread out, providing a perfect concentration of nutrients that the weeds craved. One by one, the individual flitters were guided to their hunting grounds. Dee watched their images on her console monitor as they scattered over an area of 800 square kilometers. Finally, her own machine reached its a.s.signed block of airs.p.a.ce and a mechanical voice said: "Glen Tuath NAVCON to GT-11. You have entered Block 4 of prea.s.signed harvest area. Resume manual control of aircraft within two minutes or your aircraft will be inserted into a holding pattern."

"GT-11 on manual," she said, and felt a little shiver of joy as the control stick came alive. Block 4, which she would share with her father, was at the northeasternmost corner of the rectangular search area.

"You keep to the bottom of the box, Dorrie," Ian said inside her helmet. "Go easy at first. There's a nice cloud seven-pip-niner kloms high that should be showing bright and clear on your target display. See it?"

"Affirm, Leader."

"Go for it, la.s.s. Sonas is adh ort!"

"Good luck to you, too, Daddy," she said, and soared off in pursuit of the precious weeds.

By lunchtime, Ian Macdonald p.r.o.nounced his daughter to be "more or less competent," but she knew he was really saying that she was very good indeed.

"I'm going to Block 3 now to help Aonghas," he said. "You eat your lunch and then carry on here. Remember to ascend to an alt.i.tude safely above the weeds before hovering, and be alert for wandering torachan. And don't forget to put your oxygen mask back on between bites of food. We don't want you blacking out."

"Affirm, Leader."

Her father's new black aerostat moved off to the west and was soon lost to sight among the small c.u.mulus clouds that had begun to form. Dee neutralized the thrusters of her flitter and let it seek its alt.i.tude of equilibrium, rising among the swirls and drifts of aerial organisms, gently sucking them in as it ascended.

Individual plant species of Caledonian balloon-flora ranged in size from minute specks like red pepper to rarer things as big as apples that resembled ma.s.ses of greenish soap bubbles. The commonest kinds of airplants had balloons the size of cherries or large peas, mottled bubblegum-pink and iridescent green. Photo-synthetic organs provided most of the energy for their life-processes, and they also took up water vapor and gained essential minerals from airborne dust and debris. All airplants stayed aloft by means of thin-walled pneumatoph.o.r.es, float-chambers containing lighter-than-air gases. The "body" of the plant might hang from its balloon, or be embedded within the float, or spread over the pneumatoph.o.r.e's exterior like a weird growth on the surface of an odd-shaped little pla.s.s bag.

The luibheannach were highly sensitive to abrupt pressure changes in the atmosphere around them that might signal the presence of predators. When airplants perceived danger, special organs generated additional gases that enabled them to zip about under jet propulsion. The largest and most commercially valuable plants were also the speediest and most apt to drift around in a solitary fashion at lower alt.i.tudes. Dee had managed to capture respectable numbers of them this morning in spite of The Cheese's clumsiness.

Now that her flitter had reached the upper section of the harvesting s.p.a.ce, blue and brick-red fairy-critters began sailing into view, feeding on the abundant smaller plants. The aerial grazing animals looked something like elongated little jellyfish with complex bodies and dangling branched tentacles, with which they gathered their food. Dee knew she was supposed to blast every fairy she encountered with her thread-laser, not only because they fed on the valuable airplants, but also because their tough trailing arms could clog the pump mechanism of a harvester, making it necessary for the pilot to clear the intake orifice by hand. This meant climbing out of the c.o.c.kpit, up the pylon, and out onto the exterior framework of the superstructure, secured by a lifeline. Dee had practiced the maneuver often. It was not especially dangerous, only a tedious waste of time.

No fairies had turned up during her first hours of work. Dee had been glad, because the creatures were strangely beautiful and she felt squeamish about killing them. Now, instead of firing the laser, she urged the little animals to get out of her way.

"Shoo! Truis! Mach as m'fhianuis! Get lost!" GO SOMEPLACE ELSE!

As she formulated the final coercive thought, every one of the fragile grazers whisked away, leaving behind tiny puffs of vaporous "exhaust."

Well done! said her angel.

Dee gave a cry of dismay. What had she done? "No," she whispered into her mask. "I didn't!" But she did not dare to look inside her head to see if she had opened another of the dreadful boxes.

You did! the invisible angel crowed. And about time, too! Your coercive metafaculty was ready to break out spontaneously, and that might have been embarra.s.sing, or even dangerous.

"I won't use the power again," she declared obstinately. "You can't make me. I'll hide it like I did the others and go on being normal forever!"

Don't be silly. You'd better tell your brother about this. His own coercion became operant over four years ago. It's not as strong as yours-but he's been using it very effectively to keep Gavin Boyd from ha.s.sling him.

"Oh!" Dee felt oddly betrayed. Why hadn't Kenny stopped the nonborn boy from being mean to her?

The angel said: He did this morning, so that Gavin wouldn't spoil your first day of harvesting. Don't you remember? Before that Ken was afraid to. Don't be hard on him. Not everybody can be brave ... Now go ahead and farspeak him. He's going to need your help in a few minutes.

"Oh, all right! Now go away and let me alone! You're not fooling me at all. I know what you're really up to. You and that Jack."

The angel said nothing.

The ascending Big Cheese finally emerged from the last billow of airplants into a clear region nearly ten kilometers above the Caledonian surface. The cirrus veil was very thin and the sky overhead was nearly blue. Below, little c.u.mulus clouds seemed to float like miniature marshmallows in a crazy mix of vapor that looked like melted pistachio and strawberry ice cream. There was no sign of any of the other aerostats.

Feeling rather glum, she unwrapped her peanut-b.u.t.ter sandwich, unhooked her mask, and took a bite. Oh, yuck! Janet had put bacon in it again, even though Daddy had said it was all right for Dee not to eat meat. Well, perhaps Janet just forgot...

Dee nibbled around the edges and discarded the rest in the c.o.c.kpit's little fairy-incinerator. Then she summoned the position of Ken's aircraft on the console monitor. The labeled blip showed that GT-10 had already departed the harvest area and was heading back southeast over the Goblins at an alt.i.tude of 5.5 kloms.

Kenny?

Uh? Oh it's you is it.

Yes. Did you get a good load?

Jammed to busting ... Don't you think it would be smarter if we switched to RF com?

No. Listen Kenny ... my coercing faculty came online.

Troch ort!

I know you've got it too.

[Hastily squelched obscenity.] Well for chrissake keep a lid on it dumbunny or both our a.s.ses will be Earthbound&down ... not that the idea seems so tumturning to me anymore. This place is the pits. More weird viruses than I can ever learn to redact away. If I lived somewhere with decent medics maybe I wouldn't be such a rotten sickie breochaid. And it's stone boring here in wintertime. I miss AuldReekie something chronic never a dull mo in Edinburgh. Didja ever think that it might be fun bringing our powers up to snuff and having other operant kids for friends?

No! Don't even think about it!

[Envy.] Why not? I'm not *** {Daddy's Little Princess} *** like you.

Kenny please don't be horrid. I can't help it if- AAAACK! Os.h.i.tOJesusOmyG.o.d ... Dee!

[Fear.] Whatwhatwhat? Kennyanswerme! Answer me!

Thingstherearethings pokingholesBIGHOLES G.o.d THINGS inside my storagecells insideALLthe cells tearingthewalls letting the plants out- Dee used all her coercion: Kenny call Daddy now.

Yesyesallright. "Mayday mayday GT Leader GT-10 has torachan!"

"Torachan!" said Sorcha MacAlpin's voice. "Mother of G.o.d!"

An anonymous voice cursed and abruptly cut out.

"Kenny," said Ian Macdonald, "be calm. How many storage-cells have ruptured?"

"The-the readout says twenty-seven. That's all except three!"

"I'm on my way, laddie. Go into hover mode. D'you hear me? Hover!"

"Dad, something's really wrong. The flitter is spinning around all crazy and-and I'm losing H-2 pressure besides venting cargo!"

"Roger, I'm coming," said Ian. "Sit tight."

Dee sat frozen in reaction to her brother's disaster. The torachan were uncommon and insidious floating organisms, resembling medium-sized airplants except for their distinctive grayish color. They had developed a unique defense against the predatory fairy-critters. If they were seized they extruded long augerlike spines that impaled their aerial attackers. Torachan that were accidentally sucked into a harvester might remain dormant; but if the storage compartment was tightly packed with weeds, sooner or later the torachan would be irritated enough to explode into frenzied activity, puncturing and slashing the tough plasticized fabric like little high-speed drill bits going through gauze.

Having even a single tora trapped in a storage-cell meant losing all of its cargo. Large numbers of them were sometimes able to cut through the reinforced inner wall of the gas envelope itself, releasing the hydrogen that provided lift to the aircraft.

Ken's bin-flitter had evidently taken on a cargo contaminated with hundreds of the things. One of the pilots had been criminally careless.

Dee said: Kenny I'm coming to help too Daddy's ship is faster but I'm a lot closer to you than he is!

She put The Big Cheese into a power descent. Once she was below the airplant stratum she went full-bore toward her foundering brother, continuing her telepathic rea.s.surance.

Ken's voice rang out piteously over the intercom. The torachan were cutting all of his cargo-cells to pieces. He was blinded, engulfed in a billowing cloud of escaping airplants. Jets of hydrogen gas venting from holes in one side of the envelope caused his flitter to spin and wallow as it sank.

"What's your alt.i.tude and rate of descent, Ken?" Ian's voice was grim. "All that mess around you is futzing your ponder."

"Four kay high," the boy wailed. "ROD nearly two hundred meters a minute. Daddy-I'll crash into the sea!"

"Blow the pylon bolts. Do you understand? Cut the fuselage free."

"Yes ... all right ... Dad! It doesn't work. I pulled off the cap thing and punched the b.u.t.ton, but nothing happened. And I'm going down faster! Three kay-"

"Sweet Christ," said Ian. "Use the backup. Far right side, under the console. You'll have to pry loose two safety clips to get the switch open."

Dee's mind's eye could see the sinking bin-flitter, its gas-bag nearly collapsed. There was a sudden bright flash, followed a moment later by a stuttering detonation. He'd done it! The fuselage separated and tumbled end over end, falling free of the cloud of weeds while what was left of the envelope drifted off. Ken screamed over the intercom. He was less than 500 meters above the surface of the sea.

Ian Macdonald's black aerostat came into Dee's view, flying in from the west. She herself was now less than half a kilometer away from Ken. She could hear her father's shouts of encouragement. The parafoil would deploy and bring the falling fuselage down safely- Something colored red and white burst out from behind Ken's canopy. Instead of opening into a supporting mattress shape it streamed flat and fouled, its cords hopelessly twisted. The fuselage continued its fatal fall.

Help him, said the angel to Dee. You can. Reach out and take hold of the fuselage with your psychokinesis. Steady it and slow it. Use your enormous creativity to thicken the air.

Time stopped.

Dee saw a shrouded figure and two huge, glowing boxes. One was the golden color of a halide lamp and the other shone like an incandescent emerald. She seemed to be standing in a dark room in her silver flight suit with her hands at her sides, breathing the cool oxygen. There was silence. Nothing moved. Nothing in the world would move until she made her choice: her brother or herself.