I was speechless as I fumbled in my pocket and brought out an identical copy of the plastic object sitting before me: Paddy Enderton’s mystery “calculator/display unit.”
Naturally, I then had to explain how I came by that, and again reveal the news of the death of the two women on the scoutship. This time I was wide awake instead of totally exhausted, so I could observe the distress on Mel’s face. The controller’s voice showed no sign of emotion, and I assume it could feel none—or perhaps it just had no way to show it.
“Take the new one,” it said, when I was done. “This navaid has been loaded with information about the Net itself, also with all that is known, conjectured, or rumored about the Godspeed Drive. Connect the aid to your navigator and it will define an optimum trajectory to the Net. Take the silver box also. The capsules that it contains are diet supplements. Swallow one each morning after you leave here, until none is left.”
After you leave. I was going to be allowed to leave Paddy’s Fortune! And the sooner the better. I absolutely had to get all this new information back to Doctor Eileen and Jim Swift.
But there were problems. I picked up the little plastic wafer and fingered the familiar indents on its surface. “We don’t have a navigator on our ship. I mean, we do—but it’s a person, not a machine. I don’t have anywhere to connect this.”
“Then you must employ it in manual mode. You know how to interact with it directly?”
“Not really. I tried for days and days.”
“I know how!” Mel Fury exclaimed. “I’ve trained on those for years. I can do it.”
Maybe she had, and maybe she could, but the last thing I wanted was Mel Fury up on the surface with me, or worse yet on the Cuchulain. She was a female. One sniff of a woman—or even a young girl—and the crew of the Cuchulain would be wild beasts. Mel had no idea of the risk she proposed to run.
Fortunately, the controller was on my side. “You appear to be suggesting that you might accompany Jay Hara away from Home,” it said to Mel. “That is forbidden. The biological reserve must not be further depleted.” And then to me, “She cannot go, but you are expendable. Therefore you must learn to use the navaid yourself. It should not be difficult, even for someone of your limited capacities.”
I realize it makes no sense to dislike a machine, but there are limits. After those last couple of cracks, I would never feel the same about the controller of Paddy’s Fortune.
Chapter 20
Looking back, I see my time inside Home as a dream, a strange period where everything was touched with fantasy.
Strangest of all, I had the illusion of safety. Certainly, I knew that danger walked the surface above my head, and at any moment some crewman might find a way to the interior. But everything else around me was so different from what I knew, danger became unreal, too. Inside Home I could think about Danny Shaker rationally, even affectionately, and wonder if I was totally misjudging him. As Mel Fury pointed out, Shaker had killed Sean Wilgus only to defend himself, and it was no more than his good fortune that he happened to have acquired Walter Hamilton’s gun to do it with. She did not see him as a cold-blooded killer. When she talked that way, I had trouble with the idea myself.
Well, all dreams ended six hours after my session with the controller. Reality came back like a plunge into cold lake water as I watched the circle of plant-covered earth descend toward me, stepped onto it, and was lifted through the access point to the drenched surface of Paddy’s Fortune.
I was dressed again in my torn and ragged clothes. They were clean now, but that would not last long in the mud and undergrowth. In my pockets I had Walter Hamilton’s electronic book and the new navigation aid. The hours of tutoring that Mel Fury had given me were not nearly enough, but at least I knew how to read out the coordinates and general information I needed. I would have liked instruction in the hundred other capabilities that the navaid possessed, but I dared not stay longer in the interior. The rain on the surface had ended. Danny Shaker, if no one else, would suspect the truth if the search for me continued unsuccessful for much longer.
Maveen was rising. In its pale dawn light I stared around me at the world of Paddy’s Fortune.
The tall vegetation was water-logged and bowed down, and the ground underfoot was a swamp into which I sank ankle-deep. The controller had certainly done its job in providing rain.
Now I had to do my job. When I described the plan to Mel Fury she frowned and shook her head, although I made it sound simple and straightforward. I would return to the surface at the access point closest to the cargo beetle in which I had landed. From there, according to the controller, all I had to do was head slightly north of east, almost toward the rising sun. In a few minutes I would see the beetle itself. Then it was a matter of lying low, waiting until the beetle was unattended so that I could go aboard. I was sure that I knew enough to fly it away from the surface of Paddy’s Fortune and up to the translucent shield. Even if I had trouble after that, I could send my warning to Doctor Eileen and the others aboard the Cuchulain.
Simple and straightforward—in principle. The trouble began with the first step I took on the surface. I had to assume that the crewmen were still hunting for me, so I dared not lift my head above the plants. But now the leaves were so heavy with water that the tops of the tallest plants came only to waist height. I had to squelch along doubled over, moving as silently as I could with one eye out for danger and the other on the golden circle of Maveen. Twice I had to detour sideways, to avoid a couple of the long, narrow crevices that were scattered across the surface of Paddy’s Fortune. In such low gravity I could probably have cleared them with a high, running jump, but I dared not take the risk of exposure.
After a few minutes the vegetation around me began to steam in the sunlight. Sweat trickled down my forehead and into my eyes. My body must have been sweating, too, but I couldn’t be sure because my clothes had been soaked through in the first steps.
Encouraging myself with the thought that at any moment I would see the cargo beetle, I plodded on.
And on, and on. Finally I stood up to my full height and stared ahead over the top of the plants. Nothing.
I stopped and squatted down on my haunches. It couldn’t be this far to the beetle. Somehow I had gone astray, too far north of east or not far enough.
I stood up, turned, and looked back the way I had come. As the rain water evaporated from the leaves of the plants they were beginning to lift and straighten. I might be able to follow my own track to the access point and start over—or I might not.
But there was really no choice. I had to go back. Otherwise I would be reduced to wandering randomly around the surface. Chances were that the crewmen would then find me long before I found the cargo beetle.
I stood upright, prepared to take a first disconsolate step.
And I saw the topmost leaves swaying, maybe twenty paces away and directly in front of me.
I froze. If I ran, the noise would make my presence obvious. If I did not, I would be caught without making any effort to escape.