Something moved at the corner of Mark’s field of view. He shut down the helmet projection and turned. The spacesuited figure approaching wasn’t hard to identify, since his copilot was the only other person within at least a hundred kilometers. Drifting alongside, Ben Brigham touched two fingers of his gloved right hand to a point along the inside of his left sleeve. This was followed by two quick chopping motions, a hand turn, and an elbow flick.
The sun was behind Mark, shining into Ben’s face, turning his helmet screen opaque and shiny. But Mark didn’t need to see Ben’s expression to read his meaning.
Big chiefs hope to catch coyote in the act, his partner had said in sign talk, descended not from the speech of the deaf, but from the ancient Indian trade language of the American plains.
Mark laughed. He left the comm channel turned off and used his own hands to reply. Chiefs will be disappointed … Lightning never strikes twice in same place…
Although space sign talk formally excluded any gesture that might be hidden by a vacuum suit, Ben answered with a simple shrug. Clearly they’d been sent to observe the latest site of the “disturbances”… weird phenomena that were growing ever creepier since Erehwon was blown to kingdom come.
Still, are we really needed here? Mark wondered. By treaty, NATO and U.N. and USAF officers were probably already prowling the disaster site below in person, even cruising by in observation zeps. The only way Intrepid’s orbital examination would add appreciably to what on-site inspectors learned would be for the shuttle’s instruments to catch a gremlin in the very act. So far routine satellite scans had captured a few bizarre events on film, at extreme angle, but never yet with a full battery of peeper gear…
Mark’s thoughts arrested as he blinked. He shook his head and then cursed.
“Oh, shit. Intercom on. Ben, do you feel—”
“Right, Mark. Tingling in my toes. Speckles around the edge of my visual field. Is it like when you and Rip, on Pleiades — ?”
“Affirmative.” He shook his head again, vigorously, though he knew that wouldn’t knock away the gathering cobwebs. “It’s different in some ways, but basically… oh hell.” Mark couldn’t explain, and besides, there wasn’t time for chatter. He spoke another code word to start their suits transmitting full physiological data to ship recorders. “Full view, main scope,” he ordered then. “Secondary cameras — independent targeting of transient phenomena.”
The picture of the river loomed forth again. Now, though, the scene was no longer efficient and businesslike. Men scurried about the barges like angry ants, some of them diving off craft that bobbed and shook in the suddenly choppy water.
Tiny windows appeared on Mark’s faceplate, surrounding the main scene as Intrepid’s secondary telescopes began zooming in under independent control. Half the scenes were too blurry to make out as Mark’s eyesight grew steadily worse. Bright pinpoints swarmed inward like irritating insects.
“What do we do?” Ben’s voice sounded scared. Mark, who had been through this before, didn’t blame him.
“Make sure of your tether,” he told his copilot. “And memorize the way back to the cabin. We may have to return blind. Otherwise…” He swallowed. “There’s nothing we can do but ride it out.”
At least the ship is probably safe. There aren’t other structures around, like Teresa had to deal with. And a model-three shuttle is too small to worry about tides.
Mark had himself convinced, almost.
The outer half of his visual field was gone, though it kept fluctuating moment by moment. Through the remaining tunnel, Mark watched a drama unfold far below, where the Ob jounced and writhed as if someone were poking it with invisible rods. Flow deformed the hills and depressions nearly as quickly as they formed. Still, the undulations seemed to take clear geometric patterns.
Then, within a circular area, the Ob simply disappeared!
It was only pure luck none of the study vessels were inside the radius when it happened. As it was, the boats had a rugged ride as the columnar hole rapidly filled in.
“Where… where’d the water go?” Ben asked.
Joining the growing ringing in Mark’s ears came the blare of a camera alert. One of the secondary pictures suddenly ballooned outward, rimmed in red. For a moment Mark couldn’t make out what had the computer so excited. It looked like another view of the river valley, but at much lower magnification, or from higher altitude.
But this image appeared warped somehow. Then he realized it wasn’t unfocused. He was looking down at the Ob through a lens. The lens was a glob of water, which had suddenly manifested in midair at an altitude of… he squinted to read the lidar numbers… twenty-six kilometers!
Mark breathed the sweaty incense of his own dread. Something tiny and black squiggled inside the murky liquid blob that paused, suspended high above the planet. But before he could order the telescope to magnify, the entire watery mass was gone again! In its wake lay only a rainbow fringe of vapor, melting into the speckles at his eyes’ periphery.
“What the… ?”
“It’s back!” Ben cried. “Fifty-two klicks high! Here…” and he rattled off some code. Another scene, from another instrument, popped into view.
Now the ground looked twice as far below. The Ob was a thin ribbon. And the portion of stolen river had reappeared at double the altitude. Mark had time to blink in astonishment. The black object within looked like…
The spherule vanished again. “Mark,” Ben gasped. “I just calculated the doubling rate. It’s next appearance could be — Jesus!”
Mark felt his copilot’s hand grab the fabric of his suit and shake it. “There!” Ben’s voice crackled over the intruding roar of static. An outstretched arm and hand entered Mark’s narrow field of view and he followed the trembling gesture out to black space.
There, in the direction of Scorpio, an object had appeared. He didn’t have to command amplification. Even as telescopes slewed to aim at the interloper Mark cleared all displays with one whispered word and stared in direct light at the oblate spheroid that had paused nearby, shimmering in the undiminished sunlight.
What strange force might have hurled a portion of the Ob out here — momentarily, magically co-orbital with Intrepid — Mark couldn’t begin to imagine. It violated every law he knew. Small flickerings told of bits being thrown free of the central mass. But in its center there floated a large object—
— a woman. A diver, wearing a black wetsuit and scuba gear, with twin tanks that Mark bemusedly figured ought to last her another couple of hours, depending on how much she’d already used.
Mark had left only a narrow tunnel of vision, but it was enough. Through the diver’s face mask he caught the woman’s strange expression — one of rapt fulfillment mixed with abject terror. She began to make a sign with her hands.
“We’ve got to help her!” he heard Ben shout over the roar of static, preparing to launch himself toward the castaway.
Realization came instantly, but too late. “No, Ben!” Mark cried out. “Grab something. Anything!” Mark fumbled and found a stanchion by the cargo bay door. This he now gripped for all his life.
“Hold tight!” he screamed.
At that moment his helmet seemed to fill with a terrible song, and the world exploded with colors he had never known.
When it was all over, quivering from sore muscles and wrenched joints, Mark gingerly reeled in his copilot’s frayed, torn tether. He searched for Ben everywhere. Radar, lidar, telemetry… but no instrument could find a trace. Of the hapless Russian diver, also, there was no sign.
Perhaps they have each other for company, wherever they’re going, he thought at one point. It was a strange solace.
He did detect other things nearby… objects that command insisted he pick up for study. These were bits of flotsam… a mud-filled vodka bottle… a piece of weed… a fish or two.