Farlost: Arrival Page 13

  "And we're falling," Rose Okoro whispered.

  Beacham's eyes stayed on Lou. "Right now, we're losing momentum. Falling comes next."

  "What can we do about it?" Lou asked.

  "About the falling?" Beacham ran the knuckle on his thumb over his nose. "We don't have the thrust to do anything about it. We've got a few hours before we start falling. I'll have to figure--" he looked up and met Lou's eyes. "We'll have to figure something else out."

  Lou faced her monitor, and the image of the Betty McKenna.

  "We need to know a lot more, Beacham. We need to find out if there are survivors on that ship, and if they can help us."

  "We make the field selectively porous," Stan said in a measured tone, speaking for Beacham's benefit. "Let in the spectra we have equipment to measure, and maybe get out a call for help?"

  Beacham nodded.

  "Our best chance is getting help from them," Lou said, tapping the image and gesturing to send it to everyone else's screens. "I want radio, visual, electromagnetic," Lou called out.

  Beacham's face became guarded, almost sneering again. He opened his mouth and she cut him off.

  "You don't know what's safe to let in, I understand. You can think of a million hypothetical dangers the rest of us can't, I can see it on your face. If we want to survive, we need that data."

  Did Lou imagine it, or did Beacham's nod to her carry a new measure of respect. "Yeah. We'll be down in that soup for sure, if we don't do something now." His eyes flicked away from her, working something through. He nodded again. "Glad someone around here has balls," he muttered to no one in particular.

  Lou was stunned. Was that a compliment?

  His hands rattled across both his screens. "Stan, check my math."

  The two men barked numbers and terms back and forth. Lou and the others waited silently.

  "Ready here," Beacham said, and stared at his assistant.

  After a moment, Stan whistled. "Numbers are good. You can swiss-cheese that field of yours quite a bit and it will still hold."

  Lou waited, until she realized everyone's eyes were on her.

  Everything was her call, now.

  "Do it, Beacham."

  The lights dimmed, and the world outside jumped, like God had skipping the movie forward.

  Motion alarms screamed as the ship's tumbling was recognized. She tapped them off, studied the chain of red boxes filling her screen.

  No new damage reports, just wonky sensor readings as HHL-6 realized it was in a new neighborhood.

  LIDAR results pinged onto her screen. Something hit the hull -no, not the hull, but a shudder passed through it. Still no damage reports, and Lou realized the ship was still protected from physical damage by Beacham's light show.

  "Just sound waves," Stan called out. "Well. I say 'just' but the force field is actually dissipating some seriously explosive force, we should be dead!"

  Despite the lack of gravity, Lou suddenly fought down her stomach.

  She focused on her goal.

  The Betty McKenna was almost a hundred miles away, now. She dragged her fingers over her to capture a frame and explode it. The ship still had power and lights.

  "I'm picking up radio!" Rose shouted, her jaw set, fingers working. "Not the normal frequencies. Splash from a tight beam." She smiled at Lou. "In english."

  Lou shook her head, incredulous. Then caught herself and put her surprise away. "Let's hear it. No transmission yet, but set us up for it."

  Rose funneled the signal through the PA system. "So we break free," they all heard a strange voice say. "With just a few hours of breathable air, battery power and chem thrusters."

  The voice was a little deeper than it should be. Not computer generated, but strange. There were little clicks that went along with the words, accentuating them. Lou felt a chill slide up and down her spine. The voice wasn't human.

  "Holy fuckin' shit!" Beacham breathed. Lou shushed him.

  Another voice. "Look on the bright side, that Arrival will bring the Guard..." This voice was like a kid sucking wind from a helium balloon at a birthday party. There was no joking in the words, they were heartfelt, and sad.

  Lou stared at Rose and Stan and Beacham, all of them suddenly struck speechless, realizing the same thing with the same shock.

  Alien voices.

  They were alien voices.

  29

  "We're alive. Stop talkin' like that's a temporary thing!"

  Sam grimaced. "Great, help me figure out how to do that, then!"

  Ben's face screwed up, looking for just a moment more like an infant holding his breath in a temper tantrum than a hundred and sixty year old. Then he huffed the breath out, and the interior surface of the plastic ball in front of Sam's face fogged up. "I got nothin'."

  Sam poked the large plastic bubble that was keeping his best friend and ship's engineer alive. Ben's eyebrows raised, and he bleated nervously. "Hey, stop doin' that!" he growled, even though they both knew the plastic was tough enough to handle just about anything but a serrated edge. "Or at least trim your nails first!"

  The elevator dinged in the thin air the Betty had managed to refill after the explosive decompression it had suffered, and the doors into the first level corridor along the bottom of the ship opened.

  Captain Sam Travis and Engineer Ben Gruber fixed each other with angry glares for a second longer, then both men broke into laughter.

  "Wait here," Sam squeaked as he stepped out of the elevator, gasping to get the words out.

  Gods, how he'd needed this laugh.

  "Whattaya mean, 'wait here'!" Ben managed around his own heaving breaths.

  Sam pointed at the rough coral on the wall. Oxygenating barnacles that grew on the walls in much of this level of the ship. Far more efficient at maintaining a healthy atmosphere than anything earth corporations had bought from the lowest bidder.

  But they came with rough, chipped -- yeah, almost serrated edges. "D'you really want to risk it, bubble boy?"

  Gruber threw his hands up in the air in surrender, the last of the nervous laughter ebbing away. "Fine, leave me here!"

  Sam stopped, thinking about that. "No use taking chances." He stepped back into the elevator and tugged on one of the extruded handles of the emergency survival ball enclosing his friend.

  He rolled said friend forward, until the ball wedged in the door. That would prevent the elevator being recalled to the upper levels of engineering, Travis thought as he stepped back, dramatically dusting off the palms of his space suit.

  Plus, Ben hated it.

  Barking indignant cuss words, the old man pointed at Sam. Then he pointed past Sam. "Be quick about it. Got work to do, us two."

  That sobered Sam. He nodded, and turned to stalk down the corridor. The aft equipment airlock was just ahead, opening into two smaller antechambers and then into The Betty's two massive cargo sections. Additional suits for all The Betty's crews were stored there.

  "What's changed, Whish," Sam called out.

  "We've blown free of most of the debris, at least," the Manta said, finishing with a whistle pop of relief. "So we get to live until that magic eight ball behind us gets fresh, I guess. Or we get pulled back down."

  Sam tapped open the outer door to the equipment airlock and stepped inside. "Daisy, how long until we start descending again?"

  Daisy's mechanized voice never expressed emotion. Sam wondered if that was by choice or just a side effect of being mated with human systems designed for so-called AI. In the seconds before Daisy responded, he wondered briefly how many body parts the scientists who had built the Daisy McKenna's computers would have gleefully traded to learn about the plant that controlled the ship's functions now.

  "Three hours."

  Sam froze. Their window was getting smaller. "Why so quickly, Daisy? What's changed?"

  "Localized gravity has increased."

  Sam swore. The thorns did that sometimes. "Any reason for that?" Perhaps the new Arrival was especially tasty. />
  "I have been a little busy restoring the Betty's systems and communicating with Salix and the others, Captain."

  The old AI's may have been clunky compared to Daisy, but they never pulled attitude, even if the voice was not emotional, those words were. Those AI's also didn't really care about their crews, Sam reminded himself.

  Daisy more than cared about the crew. And Salix, well...Salix was...

  Sam held out a hand, palm up toward the ceiling. "I know. I'm sorry, buddy. How are they doing out there?"

  Whish interrupted Daisy. "The tram's still going to clear the gravity well, even with the extra stickiness the Thorn's laying on. Newark's wigging out, but everyone over there is okay."

  Sam cycled the inner airlock door open as soon as the pressure was equalized. He looked at the readings on the control panel by the door: full pressure inside.

  "Patch me through."

  Whish whistle-popped an affirmative .

  Sam trotted into the large room, making a beeline for the suit lockers on the far side of the room from the outer airlock. He pulled open Gruber's and tugged out the front-most suit.

  "Doug? Sam's on."

  There was a green tag on the shining metal collar seal: the suit had been prepped and tested, good to go in vacuum.

  "Captain, I hear our ship's in a state," Doug's deep voice called through static.

  He grabbed the suit, their boots and gloves and double-timed it back to the airlock.

  "Yeah, and my first officer and most of my crew are taking their time gettin' back to stations," Sam called out. He was aiming for mock annoyance. His voice didn't break, but it told everyone more than he'd have liked.

  "Sorry Cap," came the computer-voice from Salix's throat box. "We took the car, and we're out of gas."

  Sam closed the airlock, overriding the fans sucking air from the small room and popping the door back into the corrider filled with coral. He tumbled out, but kept his footing regardless of the rough push of the escaping gas.

  In between Salix's words, he heard Newark's mewling. "You're in big trouble when you get home, Sal!" He double-timed down the hall to the elevator. "Daisy says you've got enough air and heat to last until we get to you. We will, people. We'll get to you."

  Back at the elevator, he gently pushed Ben's plastic survival sphere inside.

  "Count on it, kids," Ben added hoarsely, as he pushed on the far side of his ball to help make room for Sam inside the square space.

  "Ben says so, too," Sam added inside his helmet.

  There was a long silence on the other end, except for the choked-off mewling. "We're all grown critters, Cap," Doug said, remarkably softly for a gigantic insectoid alien. "Either way this turns out, you gave us a lot of good years. Free years."

  "Shut up with that," Sam grunted. The door cycled shut, and Sam slammed open the manual air release valves. He stared at the screen, willing the air pressure to hurry up and climb and ignoring how his eyes were blurring the numbers.

  His crew needed him.

  "Close enough!" Ben said.

  Sam turned, a warning on his lips-too late. The ball made a disgruntled sound like a whoopy cusion as Ben pulled redundant seals open and the ball began to soften, closing in on its occupant. "Gimme that suit!"

  "We can blow the main drives," Whish said. "That'll shoot us out!"

  "Ha!" Ben spat through chattering teeth.. "Not even close. Christ it's cold!" Sam helped him into his suit. "There's not enough reactive material in the drives, it was all in the reactors and they're 'Ghandi'!"

  Ben's lips were blue and his teeth chattering. "That don't m-mean we won't come....come get you. Sh-sh-shit!" Sam passed Ben his gloves and helped him quickly don the boots.

  "Just sit tight," Sam commanded his men.

  "Captain Travis is correct in his recommendation," Daisy droned. "The Betty is stable. We have initiated all required repairs and are now calculating rescue options--"

  "That big black egg saved our asses," Whish squeaked. "Deflected a crap-ton of debris. We'll find a way to get it done, guys."

  Travis cursed himself and his blurry eyes and turned back to slap the elevator open.

  The line was getting more staticky all the time. They were getting further away every second. He broke into a jog past the oxy barnacles, sensing Gruber tight on his heels.

  "The---from here. Can't let you---all the fu---" A soft chime signalled that the connection to the tram had been lost.

  Ice poured down the back of Sam's space-suit.

  "We just lost comms, they're still out there!" the Engineer growled. "That old tub of steel's artificial grav even held," the engineer muttered. "They weren't turned into paste when the shockwave hit. They'll make it out to float free of the Thorn."

  Sam didn't interrupt. Gruber was saying things they both knew but he was saying them in the pissed-off tone of an engineer seeking a solution to a problem.

  What do I do? Sam asked himself, knowing all he could do was run faster toward the next airlock, and the next, making his way to the bridge.

  What do I do?

  Daisy interrupted. "Captain. There is an incoming communication."

  Gruber swore. "The Goddamn Guard? Already?"

  "No, it's not!" Whish squeaked. "It's coming from below us. Tight-beam radio transmission. It's... it's coming from the black thing!"

  Sam picked up the pace. "Play it!" he shouted.

  "Ahoy, The Betty McKenna! This is Commander Lou Montagne aboard Haskam Heliocentric Lab 6, calling the Betty McKenna. Come in, The Betty McKenna!"

  Sam stumbled to a stop and stared at Ben, who leaned panting against a bulkhead. Both of them had been struck speechless, realizing the same thing with the same shock.

  Human voices.

  They were Human voices!

  MORE HUMANS

  30

  “Ahoy, uh, Haskam Lab. This is Captain Sam Travis aboard the Betty. We're alive, but the Betty's listing. No power to the engines, repeat: main power is offline. Can you provide assistance?”

  Dina couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Even Raj was silent on their team channel. She looked out the dome-shaped canopy that topped the Toad and saw his mech, standing still over top the bridge of metal plating they were building to protect the exposed patch-job on the main power lines.

  It all looked so normal. Well, as normal as could be for a crew that had just survived near death, FTL transit and was now lost in space.

  Lost in space.

  The words, an old spacer joke now, from an older classic vid, didn’t come anywhere close to being funny.

  She swivelled around and saw Murray’s mech, a bright spot of light from one laser welder mounted on one of his mech arms still securing the metal shield around the patched cabling they’d laid.

  Just minutes ago, not exploding after surviving a freak meteor storm was the story they were going to be telling their grandkids.

  “What?!” Beacham’s voice came on the public circuit, somewhere between shock and anger. "He wants us to help him?” he shrieked.

  The line went dead with a click. Dina could well imagine the ship's commander having choice words with their pain in the ass physicist.

  Sudden motion from Raj’s mech suit dragged Dina’s eyes back. “Good honest work,” Raj said, sounding too calm for Raj. “Boss, don’t stop yelling at me now. Good honest work is the only thing that might keep me from checking out completely.”

  “I’m right there with you, Patel,” Dina confessed. “Space-ships, and aliens.”

  “Sure as hell sounded like aliens, right?” Raj said, faster and louder. Dina checked his bio-telemetry. His heart rate was slightly elevated, but his depends undergarments were still dry.

  “Or it could be time travel,” Murray mused, his voice calm as always, and halfway between joking and philosophical. “Maybe we're in the future.”

  “Murray? Come on, man! Don’t make me cut you with Occam’s razor.” Raj took the bait, just like Dina could tell Murray had wanted him to.


  Getting into an absurdly geeky discussion about the likelihood of discovering aliens or being thrown into the future would distract Raj from his own fears. At least long enough, Dina thought, for them to finish the job, swoop down and grab her team and get them back inside to…

  To what, she wondered? Safety?

  Not that, she admitted to herself. But Murray was still Murray, taking care of Raj. Some things hadn’t changed, she thought, forcing herself not to think about her good Doctor, running around with the others from Cellar One, patching leaks and support systems just meters below the skin of Haskam Heliocentric Lab 6.

  Forrest will be fine. We got through more than we had any right to, Dina told herself. The universe has got to be too interested in seeing how we do now, to snuff us out. Got to be!

  Dina focused on the radio call, feeling useless otherwise, flying high above watching Raj and Murray fix things.

  “Commander Montagne,” Captain Travis called again. “Daisy—my ship’s, er…one of my crew… has scanned your power systems. You’ve got stable reactor power aboard your uh… space station?”

  “We’re a powered heliocentric lab facility, Captain Travis,” Commander Montagne replied. “It’s good to hear a voice I can recognize. Can you tell me where we are?”

  Dina wished hard for Travis’s answer in the silence that followed. She called up a cam and had the Toad’s computer find the Betty, hundreds of kilometers away.

  “Enough gabbin’,” came a rougher voice from The Betty. “Are you runnin’ tri-rated ADSS cables and couplings, or not!”

  Dina squirted a positioning thruster to keep the Toad above the ridge of new metal shielding her team was assembling. Keeping trim and checking her team’s progress helped her somehow cut through the impossible and chock-full-of nuts nature of the radio call she was listening in on.

  “This is Daisy,” came a voice she’d heard before. A not-quite-right voice, but with far more inflection than any AI she’d ever heard.