— Gregory MacAllister, "The Moron in the Saddle," Editor at Large
Hours to breakup: 180
There was no single space on board Wendy that was large enough to accommodate everyone. So Beekman compromised by inviting a half dozen of his senior people to the project director's meeting room. Once they were assembled a technician put them on-line to the rest of the ship.
Beekman started by thanking them for coming. "Ladies and gentlemen," he continued. "You're all aware of the situation on the surface. If we're fortunate, there'll be no need for an alternative course of action. But if we don't have one, and we need it, five people will die.
"We were invited to make this flight because somebody thinks we're creative. This is an opportunity to demonstrate the validity of that proposition. I've been telling the captain all along that, if the plan to retrieve and install the capacitors doesn't work, there is no alternative to saving the lives of our people I'd like you to prove me wrong.
"I don't need to tell you that we're running out of time. And I also don't need to tell you that I personally see no way to do it. That's why we need you. Stretch what's possible. Devise a course of action. Find a solution.
"I won't waste any more of your time here. But I'll be standing by. Let me know when you have something."
They beached the raft, limped ashore, and collapsed. Kellie got the medkit out and Nightingale set to work repairing the wounded. No toxin or biological agent could penetrate the field, so the only problem was loss of blood.
Despite the optimistic report that had gone up to Wendy, Nightingale alone had come away uninjured.
Fortunately, the wounds were superficial, but Kellie and MacAllis-ter had both lost too much blood to continue.
The attackers had gotten Kellie twice in the right leg. Hutch in the shoulder, MacAllister in the neck. That one looked painful, but Mac just grimaced and did the kind of thing he usually did, commenting on the ancestry of the dragonflies. Chiang had taken bite wounds to the stomach and an arm.
They felt entitled to a rest and, once safely away from the river, they took it. Everyone fretted about losing time, but there was simply no help for it. Nightingale felt emotionally exhausted and would have liked to sleep, but as the only member of the group who hadn't been injured, he was assigned the watch.
They rested for four hours. Then Hutch roused them and got them on the road again.
The forest was filled with insects and blossoms and barbed bushes and creeper vines. Insects buzzed flowers, transferring pollen in the time-honored manner they'd found in every other biosphere. It was evidence once again that nature always took the simplest way. The external appearance of many of the creatures was different, but only in detail. Animals that resembled monkeys and wolves put in brief appearances. They were remarkably similar to kindred creatures elsewhere. The monkeys had long ears and hairless faces and looked very much like tiny humans. The wolves were bigger than their distant cousins, and were equipped with tusks. There was even an equine creature that came very close to qualifying as a unicorn.
The differences weren't limited to appearance. They watched a group of wolves give wide berth to a long-necked pseudo-giraffe which was munching contentedly on a tree limb and paying them no attention. Was the animal's meat toxic? Did the creature possess a long-range sting? Or perhaps skunk scent? They didn't know and there was neither time nor (except for Nightingale) inclination to linger long enough to find out.
Two more potential threats emerged. One was a python-sized serpent with green-and-gray coloring. It watched them with its black marble eyes. But it was not hungry, or it sensed that the oversized monkeys would not prove an easy quarry.
The other was a duplicate of the feline they'd seen from the tower. This one walked casually out of the shrubbery and strolled up to them as if they were old friends. It must have expected them to run. When they didn't, it hesitated momentarily, then showed them a jaw full of incisors. That was enough, and they cut it down with little trouble or regret.
Plants everywhere react to light, and a patient observer can watch them turning their petals toward the sun in its journey across the sky. There were occasional shadings here, structures, odd organs, that led Nightingale to suspect that this forest had eyes. That it was possibly aware, in some vegetative manner, of their passage. And that it followed them with a kind of divine equanimity.
In another few centuries, give or take, Maleiva and its attendant worlds would be out of the cloud and conditions would return to normal. Or they would if the land was still going to be here. The woods felt timeless.
He wondered if the forest, in some indefinable way, knew what was coming.
And whether, if it did, it cared?
"Hey, Hutch." Chiang's voice. "Look at this."
Chiang and Kellie had gone out to gather firewood. Hutch was seated on a log, rotating her shoulder. She got up and disappeared into the woods. MacAllister, who was security, stayed nearby, but his eyes strayed toward Nightingale, and there was a weariness in them, suggesting he had little patience left for anyone's enthusiasm. They could find a brontosaurus out there, and he wasn't going to care. The only thing that mattered to him was getting home. Everything else was irrelevant.
"It's a wall," said Kellie. Nightingale could see their lights moving out in the darkness.
MacAllister looked at the time, as if it had any relation to the current progress of days and nights. It was almost twelve o'clock back in orbit, but whether noon or midnight, Nightingale had no idea. Nor probably had MacAllister.
Nightingale was desperately weary. He sat with his eyes closed, letting the voices wash over him. A wall just did not seem all that significant.
There was nothing more for several minutes, although he could hear them moving around. Finally, unable to restrain his curiosity, he asked what they'd found.
"Just a wall," said Chiang. "Shoulder-high."
"A building?"
"A wall."
There was a brief commotion in the trees. Animals fighting over something.
"Lot of heavy growth around it," said Kellie. "It's been here a long time."
Nightingale thought about getting to his feet. "Is it stone?"
"More like bricks."
"Anybody see the end of it?"
"Over here. It turns a corner."
"There's a gate. With an arch."
For several minutes they clumped around in the underbrush with no sound other than an occasional grunt. Then Chiang spoke again, excited: "I think there's a building back there."
They had not seen any kind of structure since leaving the tower. Nightingale gave up and reached for his staff. MacAllister saw that he was having difficulty and started over to help. "It's okay, Gregory," he said. "I can manage."
MacAllister stopped midway. "My friends call me Mac."
"I didn't know you had any friends." He collected a lamp and turned it on.
Mac looked at him with a half smile, but there was no sign of anger.
"What kind of arch?" Nightingale asked Kellie.
"Curved. Over a pair of iron gates. Small ones. Pretty much rusted away. But there are some symbols carved into it. Into the arch."
Nightingale, leaning on his staff, started for the woods. "Do they look like the ones back at the tower?"