Family Law 3: Secrets in the Stars (14 page)

When they went out Ernie might be insightful as Gordon said, but he was also cautious. He had a square steel bar sharpened to a point on the bottom, the back two thirds turned down round to fit his hand, and knurled coarsely to give a good grip. He jammed this in the ground before trusting his weight to it, even though the lander seemed stable. The salt was sufficiently thin that small ridges of rock poked through it here and there. A few dark streaks of fine gravel or sand colored it occasionally too. All of them aligned the direction they were going.

"Walk right behind me until we've tested out more than just one spot," he ordered. The pilot stayed with the shuttle and Lee and Ernie headed for the first lake about five hundred meters away. This one they'd picked to sample because it had a deep green color and might have bacteria. It was only about three kilometers across, but almost a hundred kilometers long. They should be able to see the other side easily. The more so because the other side was an abrupt escarpment. The few places it showed any beach at the bottom were far too narrow to consider landing. On this side the salt flat ran right up to the water.

"Did you feel that?" Ernie asked.

"No. I didn't feel anything," Lee said. "Or I just thought it was you poking with the bar."

"Stand still with your feet flat and don't move or shift around," Ernie said. He turned far enough to be able to watch Lee, and leaned on the bar like a hiking staff.

Lee stood like he asked, and was patient, but nothing was happening. She was tired of it quickly and about to suggest they move on when the ground rumbled a little under her feet. It felt like when big trucks had gone by on her visit to Earth.

"OK, I felt that." Lee looked back to make sure it wasn't the shuttle. The lander was quiet and the engines hadn't been restarted.

"That was a little earthquake," Ernie said. "I'm thinking this long lake must be in a rift from a fault line in the crust." He was back-lit a little and Lee could see his face inside the faceplate. He had a serious look, thinking hard about something, so she kept quiet and let him process.

"I have to talk with some of the others, and look up some material on our web faction, but I'm thinking the two planets with interacting magnetic fields and the tidal forces must keep the cores stirred up. That's why we see all these little volcanoes," he decided.

"And why not any big ones?" Lee wondered.

"Maybe it's
so
active they get leveled out," Ernie speculated, resuming his walk to the water.

"I felt that one," Lee said after they had covered another hundred meters.

"Yes, you're watching for them now," Ernie said.

When they got to the water Ernie stood looking down at it a bit. "I'm surprised. I thought it would get gradually wetter, like a very flat beach, until we were found enough depth we could take a sample." Instead there was an actual ridge a few centimeters high and a quarter meter wide marking the transition from dry to wet. The ridge had lots of parallel lines along it, some with red or grey coloring.

Looking across the calm lake the far escarpment was a dark brown line that dwindled and ran out of sight both ways. Distance made it hazy and concealed any detail. It was hard to assign any scale to it, but they knew from seeing it from orbit that it was about a hundred and fifty meters high.

Ernie laid the steel probing bar down and removed a specimen bottle from his waist. It had a cap on a lanyard to keep it from being lost, and clipped securely to his tool hangers. When he leaned over to get a sample as soon as he touched the water the surface was laced with zig-zag ripples as scores of little creatures fled in fright. Ernie drew his hand back in surprise.

"What the heck was
that
?" Lee asked.

"I don't know," Ernie admitted. "Even leaning over at arm's length I couldn't see clearly. They seemed to be translucent and very skinny. I saw the shadow of them better than the form."

"Well something obviously eats them or they wouldn't run away like that," Lee said.

"Sounds reasonable, but we haven't seen anything that looks alive," Ernie pointed out.

"Maybe it comes out at night," Lee guessed.

"I wonder if we moved down the edge to a new area, and I reached out and touch behind some, if I could chase them into a specimen bottle?" Ernie said.

"Or maybe get a hunk of salt and toss it in a meter or two from the edge," Lee suggested.

Just then the ground gave a good lurch and Ernie leaning over was caught off balance and sat down hard. Lee standing had to take a couple steps to keep from falling down too. The sudden movement made the water slosh over the ridge and wet it.

"I'm feeling those tremors in the shuttle too," Alex broke in on their comm nervously.

"Well there is your mechanism for making the ridge," Lee said. "It wets the edge over and over. Not often enough to melt it but often enough that each time it dries it builds it up a little."

"And we don't have to chase our little critters because that stranded a few of them on the ridge," Ernie said. He was carefully picking them up and dropping them in the specimen bottle. After that he dipped a sample of the water with another bottle and poured some in with the little creatures. The third bottle he also got water, but with sediment off the bottom too.

"It's so thick with salt it's syrupy," Ernie said.

"And maybe whatever gives it that dark green color," Lee added. "Scoop some of the salt from the edge there and I think we're done."

Ernie tried to just scoop it as she'd said with the edge of the bottle but it was too hard. He broke it up with his bar and put some chunks in his last bottle. The ground did a little dance again and they both had to skip a few steps to keep from going down, then the water in front of them suddenly swirled away and dropped. There was a drop off about another hundred meters away and they could see the water still pouring over that and the level beyond dropping rapidly. The surface was dancing with white caps like it was windy, but there was no wind to be heard.

"We need to get back on the shuttle! Walk fast!" Ernie ordered. He tossed the heavy iron tool away as it slowed him down, and followed Lee in their trail across the salt. Every six or seven meters they had to sidestep or stagger forward as the ground moved under them regularly. When they got about half way back a shock threw them down again and there was a deep roar behind them. They sat up but Ernie held a hand out to keep Lee from standing. "Look across the lake," he said pointing back.

The far escarpment was behind a cloud of dust except a few stretches that held firm. The rest was crumbling in massive landslides. The view was soon obscured as the water burst back over the near lip in a frothy wall.

"Lift off Alex! Get out of here!" Ernie shouted, louder than necessary. "Flood coming!"

It wasn't a full second before the engine's roar swept a minor sandstorm of salt over them and the water hit from the other direction.

Lee just had time to see the hot jet of the shuttle lifting for open sky before the water swept her along on her back, spinning her around and covering her faceplate with a slurry of dirty water and bubbles. She spun until she was dizzy and bumped and scraped along, hitting something hard enough to really hurt a couple times. It seemed to go on a really
long
time before the fast motion became a grinding drag that was loud in her helmet, and the water dropped until it didn't have the power to carry her along. She was flat on her back hard aground, but the water was still flowing against her left side hard enough to splash over her.

Ernie was on com so he was alive, but he was going on and on in angry tones. He ran through all the nasty words Lee had ever heard in less than a minute and didn't slow down for another two or three. Some of the short expletives were said with such vehemence Lee decided she wasn't going to ask anybody what they meant. Some of them she was pretty sure weren't even English.

Finally he said, "Are you there, Lee?"

"Yeah, flat on my back. I got smacked a few times and I think it's going to hurt later, but my suit seems to be sealed and working fine. I'm going to sit up."

There was water as far as she could see when she sat up. The salt and rocks were just starting to show through it as the water spread out. There wasn't any slope to the land so it would take forever to drain away. Maybe most of it would just evaporate, Lee decided. After all that's how all the salt had
gotten
here. Her face plate shed drops quickly and she looked around. There was something dark quite a ways away. It was hard to gauge the distance. It might be two or three hundred meters.

"I might see you," Lee said. "Can you sit up like me so I can tell?"

"I'm not sure," Ernie said, surprising her. "My suit seems OK too, but I'm face down and my leg really hurts. I'm going to try to roll away from the leg that hurts so I don't put weight on it."

The gasp over com was loud and Ernie said, "Oh, shit, shit, shit. I think I busted it... Sorry."

"I've heard worse," Lee reminded him, "recently."

"I'm going to brace myself up sort-of-sitting. I know I can't stand," Ernie said.

The distant dark spot changed shape a little and there was a specular reflection from it.

"I see you," Lee said. "I'll be right over in just a few minutes.

"Ground Party, this is the
Sharp Claws
overhead. The
High Hopes
is over your horizon, but your shuttle contacted us when it was high enough, and we can relay to the
High Hopes
. We've already dispatched our own shuttle and it is braking behind us right now and will be able to land and recover you. Please actuate your emergency beacon for him to home on."

Lee was embarrassed. She hadn't thought to do that at all. She got a finger under the recessed tab and yanked it out.

"We have your signal... And the shuttle says they have it too. They should be arriving within about ten minutes. We'll still be able to get confirmation before we drop below your radio horizon too.”

"Ernie hurt his leg and can't stand. Can we get some help getting him aboard?" Lee asked.

"Our shuttle has crew of two. They dropped off and burned before taking time to suit up. But when they are down one will suit up and help you. There's a hoist to lift him aboard and the medical kit has a over splint for suits to immobilize his leg."

"That's going to be fun," Ernie said.

"I think I see their burn coming in," Lee said. "Unless it's just a flaming meteor dropping on us. It's been that kind of day." She kept sloshing along toward Ernie.

Ernie laughed despite himself.

The hot spark grew brighter and looked like it was going to race past but then tilted down and came towards them. When it got really close a storm of salt slush and brine blew away from the exhaust and Lee turned away from it and bent over until it stopped.

"You dropped so close the blast was hot on my back!" Ernie objected.

"Well you said you can't walk," the pilot said. "It won't be any fun to be dragged to the hoist either."

"You're only about fifty meters away from him," Lee said. She was about halfway there.

"Yeah, I see you on camera," the pilot said. "My mate is suiting up. I'm going to leave him back there in the hold with you two and climb right back to orbit. I'll keep the boost low and you can just lie on the deck."

By the time Lee got to Ernie the hold door was open and the copilot had a hoist extended and rode down it himself with a foot in the lift basket and one hand on the cable. He unclipped the cable and dragged the entire casualty basket over to Ernie.

"I think what we'll try here is tuck the basket right up against you and then rolling you in." the man said. "I'm skipping the splint. It looks like it will just be awkward to fit in the basket. Can you roll on your side at all? That would help."

"Yes. I'm going to turn my mic off though. I'll listen so you can tell me what to do," Ernie said.

"I uh, OK," he agreed. He got one edge almost under Ernie and rolled him right in. He still yelled loud enough to be heard through the suit. When he grabbed the loop of line at the head of the basket and pulled it Lee took the other side and helped. It slid pretty easily on the wet stuff.

The copilot rode up with the basket and then clipped a grab-bar on and lowered it to Lee. When she reached the hatch he already had two tie-downs across the whole basket, leaving Ernie in it. He offered a hand in to Lee and then swung the hoist back in and secured it.

"Lie there if you would please. I'll put a cargo strap across you and do that same for myself.” Once she was secure Lee could hear him fumble around. Then he said, "Ready to lift Mr. Ho'omanawanui." The acceleration
was
very moderate, but Ernie didn't turn his mic back on.

* * *

"So... Pretty tame landing," Gordon quoted Lee when she had com to the
High Hopes
again.

"Well, we dealt with it," Lee said. "We got good data. Some organisms, which we didn't expect."

Gordon sighed. "Yes, and the medic on the
Retribution
is anxious to see them. You are going to leave Ernie with them for now as they have better facilities on a military ship to treat his leg. He'll look at you too before you return."

"They're on the secondary body right? Can this shuttle do a transfer that far?" Lee asked.

"They could but they are changing orbits over to this body to cut time," Gordon said. "The doc wants to see Ernie quickly."

"He's out of it now. The copilot, uh... "

"Marty," Gordon supplied.

"Marty injected him with something through the medical port," Lee said.

"Yes, he's comfortable, but if the leg is really messed up he could still go shocky on us. Their medic is coming aboard when you get to the
Retribution
and get him out of the suit in zero G. That will probably be easier on him than cutting him out of the suit, and we get to save the suit too," Gordon said.

"Maybe. You should see what a mess they are. We didn't get any punctures or leaks, but all the finish is abraded off the back of my helmet, and it's tough stuff," Lee said.