The strangeness of the transformed world beneath its pond of air contrasted with the cozy kitchen-like familiarity of the Soyuz, so that it was as if what they saw beyond the windows was all a light show, not real at all.
About midday on that tenth day Sable stuck her head, upside down, out of the hatch to the living compartment. Unless you two have another appointment, she said, I think we need to talk.
The others huddled in their couches, under thin silvered survival blankets, avoiding each others eyes. Sable twisted into her place.
Were running out, Sable said bluntly. Were running out of food, and water, and air and wet wipes, and Im out of tampons.
Musa said, But the situation on the ground has not normalized
Oh, come on, Musa, Sable snapped. Isnt it obvious that the situation never is going to normalize? Whatever has happened to the Earthwell, it looks as if its stuck that way. And we are stuck with it.
We cant land, Kolya said quietly. We have no ground support.
Technically, Musa said, we could handle the reentry ourselves. The Soyuz s automated systems
Yeah, Sable said, this is the Little Spaceship That Could, right?
There will be no retrieval, Kolya insisted. No helicopters, no medics. We have all been in space for three months, plus ten unexpected days. We will be as weak as kittens. We may not even be able to get out of the descent compartment.
Then, Musa growled, we must ensure we land somewhere close to peopleany peopleand throw ourselves on their mercy.
Its not a good prospect, Sable said, but what choice do we have? To stay on orbit? Is that what you want, Kolya? To sit up here taking pictures until your tongue is stuck to the roof of your mouth?
Kolya said, It might be a better end than whatever awaits us down there. At least he was in a familiar environment, here in this failing Soyuz. He had literally no idea what might await them on the ground, and he wasnt sure if he had the courage to face it.
Musa reached over with his bearlike hand and pressed Kolyas knee. Nothing in our pastour training, our traditionhas prepared us for an experience like this. But we are Russians. And if we are the last Russians of all, as we may be, then we must live, or die, with suitable honor.
Sable had the good sense to keep her mouth shut.
Kolya, reluctantly, nodded. So we land.
Thank God for that, Sable said. Now, the question iswhere?
The Soyuz was designed to come down on landhappily, Kolya realized, for surely an ocean landing, as the Americans had once used, would have been the death of them without support.
We can decide where to begin the reentry, Musa said. But after that we are in the hands of the automatic sequence; once we are dangling from our parachute, we will have little control over our fate. We dont even have a weather forecastthe wind could drag us hundreds of kilometers. We need the room for a messy landing. That means we have to land in Central Asia, just as our designers intended.
He seemed to have expected an argument from Sable over that, but she shrugged. Thats not necessarily a bad idea. There are signs of people in Central Asianothing modern, but human habitation, quite a concentrationall those campfires we saw. We need to find people, and thats as good a place as any to look. This seemed logical, but Kolya saw a puzzling hardness in the set of her mouthas if she was calculating, already thinking ahead to the situation beyond the landing.
Musa clapped his hands. Good. Thats settled. There is no reason to hesitate. Now we must prepare the ship
A buzzer sounded from the living compartment.
Shit, said Sable. Thats my ham radio rig. With a single movement she launched herself up through the hatchway.
The simple detector Sable had rigged up had actually detected two signals. One was a steady pulse, strong but apparently automated, coming out of a site somewhere in the Middle East. The other, though, was a human voice, scratchy and faint.
Othic. This is Chief Warrant Officer Casey Othic, USASF and UN, at Jamrud Fort in Pakistan, broadcasting to any station. Please respond. I am Chief Warrant Officer Casey Othic
Sable grinned, showing gleaming teeth. An American, she whooped. I knew it! She began to adjust the tangled equipment, eager to reply before the radio footprint of the Soyuz drifted too far.
12. Ice
On the day Bisesas scouting party was to set off, the reveille was sounded by a trumpeter at fiveA.M. Bisesa woke blearily, her body still not quite accustomed to this new time zone, and went to look for her companions.
After a quick breakfast, the party formed up, lightly loaded with gear. A unit of twenty troopers, mostly sepoys, under the command of newly minted Corporal Batson, had been assigned to escort Bisesaand here were Josh and Ruddy, both of whom insisted they couldnt possibly miss this jaunt. They were all on foot; Captain Grove, reasonably enough, didnt want to risk any of his dwindling population of mules. Grove was also uneasy about allowing the journalists to go. But there had been no sightings of Pashtuns to the north and west, not a single snipers bullet. Even their villages seemed to have disappeared, as if apart from Jamrud humanity had been scraped off the planet. Grove relented about Ruddy and Josh, but he insisted that the party was to keep to tight military discipline at all times.
Off they marched. Soon Jamrud had disappeared over the horizon, and the world seemed empty, save for themselves. It was the tenth day since Bisesas stranding.
The going was tough. They were clambering over country that was little more than a mountainous desert. At noon the heat climbed ferociously, though it was Marchif this actually was still a slice of March 1885, of courseand at night, Bisesa was given to understand, the temperature would drop below freezing. Still, Bisesa expected to be comfortable enough in her flight suit, which was made of all-weather fabric manufactured in 2037. The British soldiers were much more poorly equipped, with their serge jackets and pith helmets, and laden down with heavy-duty kit, arms, ammunition, bedding, rations and water. But the men didnt complain. They were evidently used to their gear, and knowledgeable about ways around its shortcomings, such as using urine to soften boot leather.
As they advanced, following military drill, Batson sent picketing troops out ahead. In a country crowded by hillocks and ridges, three or four of them would clamber up the next commanding feature, covered by the rifles of their comrades, to be sure there were no Pashtuns hiding there. As they made their way further north, some of the hills rose as high as three hundred meters or so above the track, and it could be forty minutes or more before the pickets had reached the high point, but even so the rest of the column would not be moved forward until they were in position and had confirmed the way ahead was clear. It was frustrating, but the routine enforced plenty of rest halts, and they still made respectable progress.
As they marched they found more Eyes. There would be one every few kilometers or so, hovering silently, all apparently identical to the one at Jamrud. Batson marked their positions on a map. But soon these became as familiar as the first Eye, and nobody seemed to notice themnobody save Bisesa. She found it hard to turn her back on an Eye, as if they really were eyes, watching her pass.
What a place, Ruddy announced to Bisesa as they plodded across one particularly barren stretch. He gestured at the file of sepoys ahead. Scraps of raw humanity, crushed between the empty sky and the used-up earth underfoot. All of India is like this, one way or another, you know. Its just that the Frontier is even more so than the resta sort of gritty quintessence. One finds it hard to retain ones dogmatism here.