West Of The Sun, Edgar Pangborn [world of reading txt] 📗

A glare—a cruel second of the light of the star that was now the sun and a flicker of red-green, not real. The roaring paused. Stopped.

The earphones screamed: "Release! Drive off!"

"Releasing." The amused voice was Paul's own. "Good luck, Ed."

No answer. There was still such a thing as time. Now, look: the Federation was a grand thing, potentially, if only, as Doc insists, it weren't for the damned cultural lag of the humanistic sciences, but there is unfortunately no TIME to turn around and see if that little brown cowlick is over her forehead the way it——Meantime he said aloud, "Doc, Dorothy, get ready for a big one." And his[17] hand pulled for release—nicely, as you might steer a road car for a turn. The pressure torment....

Finished. He looked at a friendly green eye. So the retractile wings were as good as eleven years ago—you hoped. Atmosphere—thin, said the gauge. Never mind, thicker soon. And down you go——

Too steep. Level off, if there's stuff to bite on. There is.... Thank you, Machine Age Man, for a sweet boat. That thing gibbering in the autonomic and voluntary nervous systems—merely fear. Overlook it....

The ship was alien, far away. Turning, bright and deliberate, like a mirror dropped in a well. The other lifeboat? But Ed would have to reach it, close lock, strap in, open shield, while the ship went....

"Down"—lately an artificiality, now the plainest word in the language. A gleaming disturbance in the air "down" yonder—something streaking away from the dot that was a dying ship? "Ed, can you hear me? Over."

"Yes," said the voice in the earphones.

Paul noticed himself weeping. "They made it! They made it!"

The voice said coldly, "Quiet. Your altitude? Over."

"Forty-six thousand. All under control. Over, jerk."

"I'm going to head for——Ah! Can you see the ship?"

It was possible to find the silver dot of Argo above an S-shaped expanse of blue. The blue, Paul understood, was not becoming larger, simply nearer. The dot changed to a white flower, which swelled and hung tranquilly over the blue, a brief memorial. The radio carried a groan, and then: "Better maybe. The lake may be shallow enough for salvage. If it'd hit ground there'd be nothing at all. Get nearer, Paul. Keep me in sight—not too damn' near."

Time.... Delicately Paul asked the boat for a steeper glide. The response was even. Was it? Some peevish sound. He flattened the glide a thousand feet above Ed's boat. The red-green below—anything real about it? Yes, if time was real, but one had to think that over....

Mild hills of dark red-green, in the—west? Yes, because now there was a birth of sunset beyond them. Lighter green below, alongside the lake: that would be meadow. Not one of the great lakes—no larger than[18] Lake Champlain, its outlet in the south blurred by marsh; only a portion of its northwest shore adjoined the meadow—except in that region the lake was a blue S written on red-green dark of jungle. A winged brown thing slipped by, teasing the edge of vision. "Bird or something...."

In the earphones was a dazed note, like shame. "Power was out of control, Paul—port motor. Had to be a defect in the building—something that couldn't take the strain of what happened eleven years ago. All the way—God!—and then to be loused up by a builder's error!" To Spearman, Paul knew, a mechanical defect was the gravest of indecencies, beyond any forgiveness.

True sunset here. A world. And you don't climb out of gravity on charlesite. Paul said, "Doc—parallel lines—I think."

But the speed of the glide allowed no certainty, only a glimpse of three dark bars, perhaps half a mile long in the jungle area northwest of the meadow, and a hint of other groups further north. They should be there, according to a map Spearman had made in orbit from the final photographs. And some fifty miles south of here was a great network of them thirty miles long. The glide brought them out over meadow once more.

A thing was riding with them. A grumbling moan. Paul told himself: With Model L-46 it cannot happen—it cannot—Dorothy—Doc——

Dorothy cried, "Specks—in the open ground. Moving, hundreds of 'em. Oh, look! Smoke, Paul—campfires. How high are we?"

"Under seven thousand. Check your compass by the sunset, Doc. See if we have a magnetic north."

"We do...."

Spearman's far-off voice said, "Life all right. I can't make out——"

Paul cut in with hurried precision: "Ed—vibration, port wing, bad. I'm going to make one more circle over the woods if I can and try for the north end of this meadow."

A startled croak: "I'll jet off—give you room." Paul saw the squirt of green flame. Ed's boat darted westward[19] like a squeezed apple seed. Paul dipped and leveled off as much as he dared. "We're—all right."

He lived with it a timeless time. Knowing it would happen. They were circling over jungle, pointed into sunset. The jet would only make matters worse—rip the heart out. Soon the meadow would come around again....

But the moment was now. An end of the moaning vibration. A lurch. Paul's hand leaped stupidly for the charlesite ignition and checked itself.

Calm, but for the reeling of sunset. I must tell Dorothy not to fight the straps: L-46 is solid—is solid——

Then the smash, the tearing and grinding. Somehow no death. Sky in the window changed to a gloom of purple and green. No death. Elastic branches? Metal whimpered and shrieked. Is that us? They built them solid....

There was settling into silence. The pressure on Paul's cheek, he knew, was the wonderfully living pressure of Dorothy's hand, because it moved, it pinched his ear, it groped for his mouth. A hiss. Through the wrenched seams the old air of Earth yielded to the stronger weight of Lucifer's. The starboard wing parted with a squeal like amusement, letting the boat's body rest evenly on the ground, and Christopher Wright said, "Amen."

[20]

2

The Earphones Were Squawking: "Speak Up! Can you hear me? Can you——"

"Not hurt. Seams open, and there goes Sears' thirty-six-hour test for air-borne bacteria. Down and safe, Ed."

"Listen." In relief, Ed Spearman was heavily didactic again. "You are three quarters of a mile inside the jungle. I will land near the woods. It will be dark in about an hour. Wait there until we——"

"One minute," Paul said in sudden exhaustion. "We can find you, easier. Sears' test is important. We're already exposed to the air, but——"

"What? Can't hear—damn it——" The voice dimmed and crackled.

"Stay sealed up!" Nothing. "Can you hear?" Nothing. "Oh, well, good," said Paul, discarding the headset, adding foolishly: "I'm tired."

Dorothy unfastened his straps; her kiss was warm and quick.

"Radio kaput, huh?" Wright flexed lean cautious legs. "Pity. I did want to tell Sears one I just remembered after eleven years, about poor lackadaisical Lou, who painted her torso bright blue, not for love, not for money, not because it looked funny, but simply for something to do."

"You're not hurt, Doc," Dorothy said. "Not where it counts."

"Can't kill an anthropologist. Ask my student Paul Mason. Leather hides, pickled in a solution ten parts curiosity to one of statistics. Doctors are mighty viable too. Ask my student Dorothy Leeds."

Paul's forehead was wet. "Dark in an hour, he reminded me."[21]

"How close are we to the nearest of those parallel lines?"

"Three or four miles, Doc, at a loose guess."

"Remember that great mess of 'em fifty or sixty miles south of here? Shows on Ed's map. We must be—mm—seventy miles from the smallest of the two oceans—oh, let's call it the Atlantic, huh? And the other one the East Atlantic? Anyway the ocean's beyond that range of hills we saw on the way down."

"I saw campfires in the meadow," Dorothy said. "Things running."

"I thought so too.... Paul, I wonder if Sears can do any testing of the air from the lifeboat? Some of the equipment couldn't be transferred from Argo. And—how could they communicate with us? They'll have to breathe it soon in any case."

Paul checked a shuddering yawn. "I must have been thinking in terms of Argo, which is—history.... You know, I believe the artificial gravity was stronger than we thought? I feel light, not heavy."

"High oxygen?" Dorothy suggested. "Hot, too."

"Eighty-plus. Crash suits can't do us any more good." They struggled out of them in the cramped space, down to faded jackets and shorts.

Wright brooded on it, pinching his throat. "Only advantage in the others' staying sealed up a while is that if we get sick, they'll get sick a bit later. Could be some advantage. Paul—think we should try to reach them this evening?"

"Three quarters of a mile, dark coming on—no. But so far as I'm concerned, Doc, you're boss of this expedition. In the ship, Ed had to be—matter of engineering knowledge. No longer applies. I wanted to say that."

Wright turned away. "Dorothy?"

She said warmly, "Yes. You."

"I—oh, my dear, I don't know that it's—best." Fretfully he added: "Shouldn't need a leader. Only six of us—agreement——"

Dorothy held her voice to lightness: "I can even disagree with myself. Sears will want you to take over. Ann too, probably."[22]

His gray head sank in his hands. "As for that," he said, "inside of me I'm apt to be a committee of fifteen." Paul thought: But he's not old! Fifty-two. When did he turn gray, and we never noticing it...? "For now," Wright said, "let's not be official about it, huh? What if my dreams for Lucifer are—not shared?"

"Dreams are never quite shared," Dorothy said. "I want you to lead us."

Wright whispered with difficulty, "I will try."

Dorothy continued: "Ed may want things black and white. Not Ann, I think—she hates discussions, being obliged to make up her mind. You're elected, soldier.... Can you open the door, Paul?"

It jammed in the spoiled frame after opening enough for a tight exit. Wright stared into evening. "Not the leader kind. Academic." His white hands moved in doubtful protest. "Hate snap decisions—we'll be forced to make a lot of them."

Paul said, "They're best made by one who hates making them."

The lean face became gentle. "Taught you that myself, didn't I, son...? Well—inventory. What've we got, right here?"

"Thirty days' rations for three, packed eleven years ago. Two automatic rifles, one shotgun, three automatic pistols, three hundred rounds for each weapon. Should have transferred more from the ship, but—we didn't. Three four-inch hunting knives, very good——"

"They at least won't give out. With care."

"Right. Two sealed cases of garden seeds—anybody's guess about them. Six sets of overalls, shorts, and jackets. Three pairs of shoes apiece—the Federation allowed that you and Ann might grow a little, Dot—plasta soles and uppers, should last several years. Carpentry tools. Ed's boat has the garden tools instead. Sears did pack his microscope, didn't he?"

"Oh my, yes," said Dorothy, in affectionate mimicry of the fat man's turn of speech.

"Each crash suit has first-aid kit, radion flashlight (good for two years maybe), compass, field glasses, plus whatever else we had sense enough to stuff in. Set of technical[23] manuals, mostly useless without the ship, but I think there's one on woodcraft, primitive tools and weapons—survival stuff——"

"Oh, the books!" Wright clutched his hair, groaning. "The books——"

"Just that woodcraft——"

"No, no, no—the books on Argo! Everything—the library—I've only just understood that it's gone. The whole flowering of human thought—man's best, uncorrupted—Odyssey—Ann's music, the art volumes you selected, Paul, and your own sketches and paintings——"

"No loss there——"

"Don't talk like a damn fool! Shakespeare—Divina commedia——"

Dorothy twisted in the narrowness to put both arms around him. "Doc—quiet, dear—please——"

"I can remember pages of Huck Finn—a few pages!"

Dorothy was wiping his face with a loose comer of her jacket. "Doc—subside! Please now—make it stop hurting inside yourself. Oh, quiet...."

After a time he said lifelessly, "Go on with the inventory, Paul."

"Well—there's a duplicate of that map Ed made yesterday from orbit photographs of this area, about a hundred miles square. We're near the eastern edge of that square. There's the other map he made of the whole globe. We didn't duplicate that one. I guess that's about it."

"Knives," Wright muttered. "Knives and a few tools."

"The firearms may make a difference while they last."

"Yes, perhaps. But thirty years from now——"

"Thirty years from now," said Dorothy, still sheltering his head, "thirty years from now our children will be grown."

"Oh." Wright groped for her fingers. "You almost wanted it like this, didn't you? I mean, to land and not return?"

"I don't know, Doc. Maybe. I'm not sure I ever quite believed in the possibility of return. State Orphanage children like Ann and me, growing up in a tiny world within a big one, we weren't quite human ever, were we? Not that the big world didn't seep in plenty." She smiled[24] off at private shadows of memory. "We did learn things not in the directors' curriculum.