“We were worried about you,” Tor said, in what had to be the understatement of the mission.
“It looks as if Nick broke his leg.”
“Lucky that’s the worst of it. How badly?”
“It’s not through the skin.” And then, obviously talking to Nick. “You’ll be fine.”
“You’d really fall forever?” asked Nick in a strained voice.
“Until they scraped you off the walls.”
“Well, that’s charming.”
“Do you have enough lift power to get out of there, Hutch?”
“No.”
“We’ll look around,” said George. “There should be a stairway here somewhere.”
“I think we just tried the stairway.”
“Then what do we do now?”
“Go back to the lander. It’s got plenty of cable.”
“Okay.”
“You know where we keep the aid kit?”
“It’s in one of the storage cabinets.”
“Right rear as you face the back. There’s a collapsible litter. Bring it back with you.”
“On my way.”
“Stay together.”
“Somebody needs to stay here.”
“Why?”
“With you.”
“We’re not going anywhere.”
Of course not. George edged away from the precipice and stood up. Tor was already on his feet, starting back.
They hurried down the passageway, past all the doors, and reached the ladder that ascended through a short alcove in the overhead and then to the exit hatch. George was relieved to look up and see the stars. And the arc of the rings.
They climbed out onto the surface. The lander floated a few meters overhead. “Bill,” George told his commlink, “we need to get into the lander.”
“What’s been happening?” It was Alyx’s voice. He’d forgotten about her.
“Nick fell into a bottomless pit,” he said. And then, quickly, he explained what they’d been through, what they’d seen.
“He is okay?”
“Yes. He’s fine. Other than that I guess he’ll be limping around for a bit.”
The lander descended, and the hatches opened.
THEY RETURNED WITH the cable and the litter and passed down some pain killers which Hutch administered. Tor tied the cable to the ring in one of the doors, and they hauled first Nick and then Hutch up to the top level. Then they got him into the litter. He was still pale but seemed to have gotten his wind back.
“I thought I was dead,” he told them. “I mean, you fall all that way, you don’t expect to walk around anymore.”
George told him to lie still. He and Tor lifted him, and they started back toward the exit. They’d reached the ladder when Hutch signaled them to put out their lights and set him down.
“What is it?” whispered George.
“Something’s coming,” she said.
He turned around but saw nothing.
She pointed. “Other way.” Forward.
And he saw that the darkness ahead was lessening. A light was approaching from somewhere. A side corridor. There was another intersection up there.
“We could make a run for it,” said George.
Hutch’s hand touched his shoulder. “You wanted to say hello, George. This is your chance.”
A glow appeared on the floor about fifty meters ahead. George watched a round yellow lamp glide into the intersection. It was mounted on front of a vehicle. He pushed back and tried to melt into the wall.
“Nobody move,” said Hutch.
He was able to make out a single wheel and something that undulated above the light. A tentacle, he thought, and his blood froze.
“What’s happening?” asked Nick. Hutch was kneeling beside him, keeping him still.
The vehicle stopped in the middle of the passageway, and the lamp turned slowly in their direction, blinding him.
He thought he saw a squid on a bike.
Hutch produced the cutter.
George stared into the light. The thing turned slowly and advanced in their direction.
The moment, at long last, had come.
Gathering his courage, George stepped forward. Hutch’s voice rang in his ears, telling him to take it slowly. No sudden moves.
He shielded his eyes with one hand and raised the other. “Hello,” he said, pointlessely. Unless the thing was listening to his frequency, it could not hear him. Nevertheless he pressed on: “We were passing by when we saw your ship.”
The vehicle was a three-wheeler, one in front, two behind, with a pair of tentacles mounted where the handlebars would be. The headlight also seemed to be on a tentacle. The vehicle moved to within a couple of paces, and stopped, facing them.
George held his ground.
One of the tentacles touched him. He thought it looked polished, smooth, but segmented. The appendage looped smoothly around one arm. George wanted to jerk away from it, but he resisted the impulse. He heard Nick say something. Nick was sitting up, watching.
The tentacle was tipped by a small rectangular connector with three flexible digits.
“We’re friends,” he said, feeling dumb. Was anybody recording this for posterity?
Someone behind him, obviously thinking the same thing, laughed. In that moment, the tension evaporated.
“We’ve tried not to do any damage.”
The tentacle released him and went through a graceful series of swirls and loops.
“Nick fell into the hole back there. But fortunately he wasn’t hurt.” You should mark them.
Both appendages withdrew into the handlebar. Then the light swung away and the device started up again and trundled past. He noticed a stack of black boxes piled on a platform in the rear. A kind of saddle was mounted midsection. In case someone wanted to ride?
It continued to the intersection and turned right.
“SO WHAT DO we do now?” Alyx looked at George, and George looked at the image of the chindi, still gliding serenely above the roiling clouds.
They were in mission control. “We go back and try again,” said George.
Tor and Nick looked at each other. Nick was on a crutch. His leg was bound so he couldn’t move it. “He’s right,” said Tor. “We’re doing pretty well. We have a good idea what the chindi is about, and they don’t seem to be hostile.”
“They don’t even seem to be interested,” said Hutch.
“If it’s a scientific survey vessel,” said Nick, “how could that be?”
Nobody knew. “Hutch said earlier that it might be automated,” said Tor. “Maybe it is. Maybe there’s really nobody over there.”
George was chewing on a piece of pineapple. “That’s hard to believe.”
“If this is some sort of ongoing, long-range mission,” said Hutch, “which is what it’s beginning to look like, running it with an AI and an army of robots might be the only way to go.”
“The problem with going back over there,” she added, “is that we still can’t predict when it might take off. If it does, and we’ve got people on board, we could lose them.”
“That’s a risk I think we’re willing to take at this point,” said Nick.
George shook his head. “Not you, Nick.”
“What do you mean, Not me? I can get around.”
“I don’t think any of you ought to go back,” said Hutch. “You’re just asking for trouble.” But she could see they were determined to go. It looked as if the major danger was past. No people-eaters to worry about. “But George is right.” She looked at Nick. “If the chindi starts to move, we’ll have to clear everyone off in a hurry. There’ll be less chance of survival if you’re there.”
Nick stared back at her. But he knew she was right. And it was hard for him to get angry with Hutch. So he just sat back and looked unhappy.
George was obviously trying to weigh the risk. “This would be a lot easier if we had an idea how much longer they might be here. Hutch, are you sure there’s no way to guess?”