The lander was here, and the exit was there, about a kilometer away on a thirty-degree heading.
She began braking.
The wind caught her and drove her down. Toward the hull. She fought the controls and heard Nick or someone in the chindi party, it was impossible to know who, mutter a prayer. The long bleak surface of the chindi rose inexorably to meet her. Alarms sounded, and the AI began to babble.
She fired thrusters, trying to break the grip of the wind, but she banged into the surface, heard the undercarriage, something, break. The jolt rattled her teeth, and she was drifting away again, turning over, spinning while one of the thrusters fired out of control.
It was portside three. She shut it down, told Onboard Bill to keep it off-line for the duration, righted the vehicle, and staggered back on course.
“I’m okay,” she told George. “Be there in two minutes.”
The snowswept surface rolled past. She stayed close to it. Wind and snow were less intense along the hull. The cabin had grown tranquil. Occasional gusts rocked the vehicle, and her earphones were full of static.
She opened the airlock’s inner hatch and debated whether she should release the harness that held her in her seat. No. Best not do that. If she got thrown around at the wrong moment it could turn into a general disaster. The truth was she wouldn’t be able to help anyway. Old Hutch would have her hands full just keeping the rescue vehicle from getting blown away.
One minute. She opened the outer hatch. Snow and ice blew into the spacecraft.
“I see you,” said George.
She would have liked to waggle her wings, show some encouraging demonstration. But not in this weather.
A light appeared ahead. She looked down at the little circle of light, and at the long pair of ridges that ran beyond it, toward the bow.
“Okay,” she said. “I see you, too.” She braked. The vehicle slowed, and wind action became more severe. “You’ll need to be quick, guys. Doors are open, but I’m going to be busy. You’ll have to help yourselves.”
She tried to hold the lander just to the rear of the exit hatch, within a couple of meters of the ground. She didn’t have enough control to go closer.
The hatch was dead in front of her. A figure came out of it, stepped awkwardly onto the surface. George. Easily the biggest of the three. He got out and bent down and helped someone else out.
Alyx.
The wind died off. Perfect. Alyx was favoring a leg. She held onto George and used one foot to clear off some snow before trusting her weight to the grip shoe.
Come on, Alyx.
She limped out toward the lander while George moved just behind her, ready to help.
Tor appeared in the hatch. “Twisted her ankle,” he said.
But she was beside the lander now, ready to jump for it. Easy in zero gee.
Hutch saw that something was wrong with the landscape. It had begun to move.
Tor’s voice ripped through her earphones. “Where are you going, Hutch?”
“Not me. The chindi’s accelerating.”
She didn’t dare try to match acceleration, not with Alyx and George trying to get aboard. She heard George deliver a piece of invective and then he was tumbling past. Must have lost his footing. He hit the ground awkwardly and bounced off the surface. Tried frantically to get hold of something. Started to drift away. The snow-covered rockscape was speeding up, moving forward, taking Tor with it. Leaving George behind. Tor jumped out of the hatch and scrambled after him, made a desperate grab but there was no chance.
“I’m on,” said Alyx.
Tor, having missed George, was clinging to the exit hatch as the ship continued to accelerate.
Hutch watched the ground rippling past her, saw the rims of a low sweep of hills coming fast and coming faster. George and the lander were both in the way.
IT HAD ALL happened too quickly. One moment George was helping Alyx out of the hatch, and everything was going exactly as planned, they were starting across the ground toward the lander, which looked so good, so inviting, floating just off the ground, the snow blowing around it, blurring its lights. He could see Hutch in the cabin, her face pale in the green glow of the instruments.
George had been only a few paces away when the ground had jerked under his feet, and he fell forward, toward the spacecraft. But the ground kept moving, dragging him away. He didn’t understand what was happening except that he was getting farther from the lander, as if Hutch was drawing off. But he knew she wasn’t.
He tried running, but the rock beneath his feet was moving too quickly. Alyx jumped for the ladder, went higher than she expected and crashed into its side, but managed to get hold of one of the rungs. She was hanging on to it while Tor tried to come to the rescue, but he couldn’t do anything for George or even for himself. George was off the ground, floating, and the rock beneath him was moving faster, picking up speed, getting almost blurry. A line of hills appeared on his horizon, toward the rear of the chindi, where the big engines were, where they had to be lighting up at last. During those last moments, he wondered how he would be remembered, regretted things not done, regretted most of all that the Retreat had been empty and the chindi had remained mute.
Nobody home.
He wasn’t high enough and the hills were rushing toward him.
THERE WAS NOTHING Hutch could do. She warned Alyx to hang on and climbed. She’d lost track of Tor, but she told him for God’s sake to get back down through the hatch.
The winds were back, stirred up by the passage of the chindi. She steadied the lander and saw a hand catch one of the grips in the airlock. The cords in the wrist stood out.
“Hutch?” Nick’s voice. “What’s happening?”
She wanted to release her harness, let go of the controls, go over to the airlock and pull Alyx in, but the winds rocked and hammered the lander, and she dared not leave her seat.
“Hutch!” Tor this time. “I’m okay. Back down inside.”
Alyx pulled herself into the lock. The wind howled around her, and snow blew through the cabin. Hutch watched, and as soon as she was inside, shut the hatch. “I’ve got Alyx,” she said.
Chapter 27
Those who extol the joys and benefits of solitude have never tried it. No man is fit company for himself.
TOR STOOD AT the foot of the ladder, safe now from the gee-forces, his head pressed against one of the rungs. Holding on, nonetheless.
He’d watched George float away, had seen the desperate fear darkening his face, the eyes pinpoints, the lips drawn back because he knew it had all gone wrong.
Out of reach. He’d been out of Tor’s reach and receding swiftly like a runaway moon.
“He’s dead.” Hutch’s voice was angry and accusing.
“Keep looking. Don’t worry about me. Just keep looking.”
“I saw him die, Tor.”
Not possible. Not George, who’d been a living presence since the first day. He squeezed the rung and thought about just letting go. The hell with it. Gradually, he became aware that the pressure on his arm was increasing. The impression that the world had gone awry, had tilted away from him, was not a mental aberration, as he’d supposed. Main Street was in fact angling down, toward First Street. Toward the Ditch.
“It’s the acceleration,” said Hutch.
It was increasing, and he began to wonder if the damping field would be enough. If the chindi poured it on, he was going to be in trouble. “Can you get me off?”
“No. Not until it goes to cruise.”