The impact hadn’t killed the tree, but it now tilted at a perceptible angle away from the lifeboat, which had recoiled and rolled to its final stop about ten meters away in the direction from which it had come. Judging by the scar burned in the tree’s trunk, and the orientation of the lifeboat, Nickolai suspected that slamming into the tree was what had dented the bulkhead.
Another twenty meters downslope, and the other side of the lifeboat would have slammed into it; the bulkhead where they’d been strapped in. That might have been the most heavily-shielded portion of the lifeboat, but if it had been that bulkhead taking the brunt of the impact, the two of them might not have survived.
At least not in shape to crawl out of the lifeboat.
“The beacon’s still active,” Kugara said, “but that’d survive anything. Comm’s for shit though.”
Nickolai stood between the tree and the wreck of the lifeboat staring up at the bluest sky he had ever seen. A tiny yellow flare of a sun heated his face, especially the leather of his nose, way out of proportion to its size.
He wondered why he was still alive.
“Nickolai?”
He turned around to face her. She was crouched down, the broken comm unit spread out on sheet before her. It was in a half dozen pieces. “Are you listening to me?”
“Can you fix it?”
She laughed. “The main circuit snapped in half. Even if I had an electronic repair kit and knew exactly what I was doing, we’d still have to replace the thing. This is pretty much a disposable unit.”
“We set up a rendezvous at lifeboat five.”
“Yeah, but no telling where they landed without this.” She tossed the part she was holding into the pile. “They could be two klicks away and we’d never find them.”
“So what do we do?”
Kugara stood. “We got two choices.” She looked at the wreckage. “We stand pat and wait for our dubious comrade Mallory, or someone else, to catch up with the emergency beacon.” She looked back at him. “Or we strike out independently to find civilization or another lifeboat with a working comm.”
Nickolai nodded. “There’s a third choice.”
She arched an eyebrow, an expression that Nickolai still didn’t quite know how to interpret. “Oh, really?”
“One of us can stay by the lifeboat, the other go out and—”
“Oh, hell no!” She folded her arms. “You think I’m letting you out of my sight, tiger-man? Have you forgotten why we’re in this mess in the first place?”
“You think I—”
“I’m not stupid, Nickolai. I know you don’t want to kill me, otherwise I’d be several flavors of dead right now. That does not mean I trust you.”
“Then what do you want us to do?”
She sighed, and thought a moment. “If we’re lucky, another lifeboat put down in line of sight.” She glanced up at the trees. “Think you can get to the high ground with that arm?”
As large as the trees were, they were easy enough to climb. The bark was rock-hard and scaled in a semiregular pattern of hexagons that spiraled up the trunk. The six-sided plates were the size of Nickolai’s fist, and the gaps between them were more than wide and deep enough for him to insert his claws. Almost a ladder.
He pulled himself up the side, climbing up over a hundred meters until he got a good, mostly unobstructed, view of their surroundings. It helped that they landed on the side of a small mountain. He might not have climbed the highest tree, but the tree’s placement on the slope meant that he was hanging on above the tree line for most of the forest.
From his perch he had a good view to about 120 degrees’ worth of horizon before the mountain range behind him started interfering with his view.
Below him, Kugara shouted up, “What do you see?”
“Forest goes south all the way to the horizon. There’s a large body of water to the southeast, about sixty kilometers away at its closest, I’d guess. Down the shoreline I see some sort of settlement. It’s too far away to see details, but there are a few very large buildings.”
“How far?”
“Possibly a hundred and fifty klicks—it’s just at the horizon.” Of course, the estimate could be way off, considering he had no idea how big the planet was, and barely had a feel for how high above the forest he actually was.
“Anything closer?”
He shouted down an inventory for her. He could see a couple of spots of color which could be drag chutes caught in the forest canopy at fifty and sixty klicks. He saw a couple of large cleared areas that might have been signs of logging activity. Those were farther away, close to the settlement.
Southwest of them, Nickolai saw a closer scar in the woods. It almost seemed to be a scar from some oblique impact. But he could see some sort of structures dotting the clearing.
“How far is that?”
“Fifteen kilometers, twenty at most.”
“Okay, get a good bearing on that site. That’s where we’re going.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Mixed Blessings
Sometimes victory is simply deciding to act.
—The Cynic’s Book of Wisdom
One person with a belief is equal to a force of ninety-nine who have only interests.
—John STUART Mill (1806-1873)
Date: 2526.6.4 (Standard) Salmagundi-HD 101534
Mallory had already made four kilometers toward lifeboat number five by the time dawn broke. He kept trying to radio the others, and the yellow point of the sun had begun poking through the canopy at him before he finally got a response.
“Father Mallory?” came Dr. Dörner’s voice.
“Yes, what’s your situation?”
“Dr. Brody is still unconscious, but Dr. Pak and I are both all right.”
Mallory thanked God that they had made it through reentry in one piece. “Good, that’s good. Have you heard anything from the Eclipse or Kugara?”
“No. But it took a while to get to the comm unit. We have a little problem.”
Mallory’s breath caught. “What?”
“We seem to be stuck in a tree.”
Mallory picked up his pace through the woods as he got the details from Dr. Dörner. Their lifeboat had made a softer landing than anyone had a right to expect. The unfortunate side of this was that, unlike Mallory’s lifeboat, lifeboat number five didn’t hit with quite enough force to break the trees it landed on. Dr. Dörner had managed to open the door and discovered that they were at least fifty meters up. There was rope in the emergency kit somewhere, but their perch was precarious enough that Dr. Dörner didn’t want to risk the movement that would be required to find it in the jumble of debris that filled the lifeboat. Even if they had the rope at hand, they had no way to safely get Brody to the ground.
“Can you see how the lifeboat is supported?”
“N-no.” Her voice was thick with fear.
“We need to get all of you out of that lifeboat,” Mallory said.
“I don’t know how we can.”
Mallory heard creaking wood over the open link. They had to get out of there before the support gave way. “Look, don’t worry about getting down. The immediate problem is getting Brody to a stable location. Look out the door. You must see other branches big enough to support you.”