“From a person who died twenty- five years ago.” Paul tossed me a squeeze bottle with brown liquid. “I think we better do as he says.”
Scotch flavor, pretty harsh. “Yeah.” I coughed. “Almost a day to spare.”
“If the lander works, and Earth doesn’t screw things up.”
I wished there were some way to pour a drink over ice in zero gee. “What if they say they can’t be ready by that time?”
“Hm. I’ve landed these things on gravel beds on Mars and the lunar regolith, with no ground support. If it’s working, I can find someplace flat. But then we’d have to explain why we left early.”
“Life-support emergency,” Carmen said, “or a medical emergency. Hard to fake.”
Snowbird drifted over. “A Martian medical emergency. There is probably no one on Earth who could say I wasn’t sick.” Upside down, she bumped against the couch and righted herself. “In fact, I probably will be, with all the gravity and oxygen. California heat.”
At turnaround we’d suggested leaving her on Little Mars, and it was the closest we’d ever seen her come to losing her temper. She was going to be the first Martian to swim in an ocean, or die trying!
Dustin and Elza joined us, then Meryl.
“Maybe we should tell people,” Meryl said. “They’re obviously planning something dramatically destructive, in space.”
Carmen disagreed vigorously. “The last time we broke a promise of secrecy, the Others almost destroyed the planet in retribution. And we’ve seen what they did to their own Home, because it posed a threat.”
“Putting two and two together,” I said, “or one and one… I assume they’ve learned about the fleet, and are going to destroy it. Within Moonboy’s time frame.”
“We could save some of them,” Meryl said.
Paul pointed out that we had no idea of how many they were. “If they actually did build the fleet up to the planned thousand strong, and they’re in a defensive array between the Earth and the Moon…”
“If they all suddenly withdraw,” I said, “the Others will know we betrayed them. And strike immediately.” If the fleet are warriors, I did not say, warriors have to be ready to die.
Paul shook his head slowly. “The logistical problem. Landing a thousand ships would be impossible if you had a week. Twenty hours?”
“And I wonder how many people are in orbit who aren’t in fleet ships,” Carmen said. “Little Mars, Little Earth, the Hilton, all those new structures. Surely hundreds, at least.”
“Maybe they wouldn’t be in danger,” Meryl said. “Not being part of the fleet.”
“He didn’t say anything about that,” Paul said. “ ‘Leave space’ and ‘go to Earth’—that doesn’t leave much room for interpretation. And even if you warned the people here, in Little Mars and so forth, what could they do? You might be able to cram a hundred into all the Space Elevators, but in twenty hours they wouldn’t be anywhere close to Earth. They’d still be in space.”
I wondered where Spy would draw the line between space and not-space. Never in all my unpleasant space experiences had I so fervently wanted to have my feet on solid ground.
17
CLOCK-WATCHING
We put on our gecko slippers and lined up at the air lock. I turned around for one last look at the cave in the ice that had been our home for almost four years.
It would have been twelve without the Others’ gift of time compression. Hard to imagine eight more years’ confinement here. We’d all be crazy as Moonboy.
I knew every square centimeter of it better than anyplace I’d ever lived before, but there was no sadness in parting. I hoped never to see it again.
A robot crew was coming aboard to maintain it as a historical artifact. It would become a museum, eventually. But first it could see service for other starflights, to places nearer than Wolf 25, before its fuel ran out.
If it survived whatever was happening tomorrow.
“Here you go, girl.” Elza smoothed a patch on the back of my hand. I immediately felt calmer. She gave them to everybody else but Paul and Namir. And Snowbird had her own resources.
We secured our luggage in the back, the stern I suppose, and came forward to strap in. I was right behind Paul, and so had the dubious privilege of being able to watch us land, if my eyes weren’t squeezed shut.
Namir was in the copilot chair, though he’d only flown light planes. More than the rest of us, though I didn’t know how much good that experience would be. Paul cheerfully told me it was like landing a slightly streamlined brick.
He had been talking quietly over the radio, I assumed to the control people on Earth. He switched on the intercom, and said, “Brace yourselves. We’re gonna kiss this rock good-bye.”
The steering jets made a low rumble and a sharp hiss. In the forward viewscreen, the rock-strewn ice fell away. Then a gentle acceleration pressed me back into the soft seat.
I half dozed for an hour or so as we approached the atmosphere. Then the ship started to vibrate and shake. Then buck alarmingly, with serious-sounding creaks and pops.
It had been more than six years since I last went through atmospheric braking, landing on Mars. Earth is more violent, but shorter. And when the red glow faded away, I was looking down at blue ocean!
We banked around and started falling toward the desert, which was not at all like home. Too much vegetation and high mountains everywhere. Maybe hills, technically. Mountains to me.
I knew the approach angle was going to be steep. But it felt way too much like a vertical drop. I shut my eyes so hard I saw stars, and didn’t open them until the huge thump and then jittery scraping as Paul executed a somewhat controlled slide toward some buildings on the horizon.
We stopped in a cloud of dust, which rapidly blew away. A vehicle almost large enough to be called a building lurched toward us on tracks.
Paul swiveled half around. “There’s a decontamination unit coming toward us. They say it will only take an hour or so, with, quote, ‘a minimum of discomfort.’ At least for the humans. Snowbird, they have to take you to another place.”
“I’m on Earth, Paul. It’s all another place.”
We all unstrapped and did some stretches. I felt a little weak and had twinges in both knees, but the gravity wasn’t too oppressive. It was good to be on solid ground.
My wrist tattoo was working again, and it had set itself to the right time zone, 10:32 A.M. So we had about five and a half hours before something impressive happened.
“Should we say anything?” Meryl said. “About—”
“No,” Paul said. “What would we say? What would be safe?”
Namir nodded. “Some of the pilots and crew might be able to take measures to protect themselves. From whatever it is. But then our Others get pissed and fry the Earth. Or bake it, as Spy suggested. Or cover it with sulfuric acid. Too big a gamble.”
The decontamination team hooked their vehicle onto the lander with a crinkled metal tube like the one we used in space. They came on the viewscreen and asked for me and the other women first.
I went through two air locks into a white room, where three female techs were waiting, clad in heavy protective suits. Meryl and Elza went into other rooms.
They asked me to disrobe and filed all my clothing into individually sealed plastic bags. Then they vacuumed me, an experience that could be full of erotic possibilities, depending on who was doing it to you.
Then the internal part: they gave me a glass of what they called a “super-nano-laxative,” and warned me not to drink it until I was seated on a toilet. It had a pleasant lime flavor and a less pleasant explosive effect. A businesslike enema completed the charming sequence. All of this internal fortune duly cataloged and sealed away.