The getaway special (41 page)

"They nuked us," he said. "Tippet figures they must have salted the entire volume of space around the planet with relays a couple of light-minutes apart, just waiting for us to jump in to broadcast another message. As soon as one picked up our signal, it popped home with our location, and they spit a bomb back at us."

"Who's 'they'?"

"Who knows? Every nation on Earth is claiming credit for it, even the ones who didn't have the bomb." He reached up to scratch his head, and she realized he had a big gash between his right eye and ear.

"You're hurt!"

"Tell me about it. So are you. You've got a broken arm, two broken ribs, and a concussion, but Tippet swears you'll live. I damned near pulled his wings off for not letting me take you home to a real hospital, but he's right; there's no way we could get you to the ground without killing you even if we didn't get shot down trying."

That would explain why her elbow wouldn't bend. She raised it and saw a brownish cast from wrist to shoulder, then suddenly what he'd told her soaked in. "We actually survived a nuclear strike?" she whispered.

"Yeah. The only reason we're alive is because they didn't account for the ship's mass. The bomb went off about a quarter kilometer behind us. The aft section took most of the blast, and the rest of the ship actually flexed with the impact, so that helped, too, but the main engines are toast and the ship is metamorphosing to rebuild what it can with what's left. It's a real mess."

"And Earth?"

Allen laughed softly. "Well, we managed to divert their attention. They're strutting around like a bunch of sailors after they've busted up a bar, slapping each other on the back and bragging about how tough they are. Tippet and the rest of the hive are starting to have second thoughts about letting us loose on the rest of the galaxy."

"I don't blame them."

The radio at Allen's hip hissed softly, then Tippet said, "Are you serious, or was that sarcasm?"

"I—I don't know. Are
you
serious?"

"We don't know either. We're not happy with the situation. Your species seems congenitally insane. Allen didn't tell you that they bombed themselves as well as us."

A little shiver ran up her spine. "They did? Who?"

Allen said, "Just who you'd suspect. India and Pakistan. Israel and Palestine. And of course somebody tried to drop a bomb on New York City, but they didn't correct for the rotation of the Earth, so New York moved out from under it before it hit. It wound up in western New Jersey instead."

"That's still not good," Judy said.

"No, it's not, but it could have been a lot worse."

Tippet said, "Not to the inhabitants of western New Jersey."

There was no denying that. "Do they know who did it?" Judy asked. Allen shook his head. "No. From the trajectory, we know it came from about a hundred degrees around the globe to the east of where it hit, give or take about twenty degrees." Judy had orbited the planet enough times to know where that was, and how big the margin of error was. "That means it could have come from anywhere in the mid-East or Europe. That's helpful." Allen snorted. "Well, in a way it is, because the U.S. doesn't know who to shoot back at." She closed her eyes. Jesus, it had been close. And they weren't out of the woods yet. Now that people on Earth thought they'd killed the Galactic Overlord, the situation was right back where it had started.

"What did our rocks do?" she asked.

"Nothing," Allen said. "Which was just what we planned, of course. They made nice big flashes and loud bangs when they vaporized in the atmosphere, and the concussion rattled a lot of windows, but that was it. They didn't scare anybody for more than a few minutes, because the news after that was all about the bomb that killed the alien ship."

Judy could feel her injuries starting to catch up with her. She hurt everywhere, and she felt as tired as if she'd been working out all day. Her body probably had been, just not the usual way. It took energy to heal.

Zero-gee was a rotten place to feel sick. Fluids accumulated in the upper body, and your stomach always felt close to heaving. She wanted to sleep again, but she forced herself to concentrate. "You should have thrown more rocks afterward," she said. "Shown them we're not dead yet." Tippet said, "We would rather they weren't looking for us."

"Oh. Yeah, I guess that makes sense. But what are we going to do, then?" Neither Allen nor Tippet answered right away. Finally Allen said, "Well, that's kind of up to Tippet. I've suggested—"

Tippet said, "Another 'demonstration' from our fictitious overlord would be counterproductive unless we caused actual damage this time. Believe me, we are contemplating just that, but if we do, we won't stop the bombardment until your species is truly extinct. We have our own survival to consider." Judy felt her skin prickle at his words. That was the trouble with enlisting aliens for allies. Hell, that was the trouble with
any
allies: they always had their own agenda. She closed her eyes again. The ship had been nuked, she was busted up bad enough to hurt two days later, Earth was still on the brink of war, and now Tippet—and by extension his entire hive mind—was pissed as well. "Is there any
good
news?" she asked. Allen grinned. "People are slipping through the cracks like sand out of a fist. In another couple of days, it'll be too late to stop us."

Another couple of days, Judy thought. In post-hyperdrive time, that was practically an eternity. Or it could pass in the blink of an eye. She suddenly realized part of why she felt so awful; she probably hadn't eaten in two days, nor bathed. Nor peed, by the pain in her abdomen.

"Is there anything remotely like a bathroom on this ship?" she asked.

"I'm sorry," Tippet said. "We haven't had time to create one for you."

"They did give us some jugs to put . . . ah . . . stuff in," Allen said. "And we can give you a sponge bath right here."

"Oh, joy," Judy said. "How about food?"

"There's still plenty left in the
Getaway
," he said. "That's right next door. Want me to get you something?"

"Yeah," she said. Then she remembered something else. "Hey, how's the tree?" Tippet said, "Asleep. We turned the lights on. It was injured, too, and it heals best while it's photosynthesizing."

"Oh. I guess I don't have to ask what it thinks about humanity breaking out of the cradle, do I?"

"Actually, it's ambivalent. It likes the idea of sharing its world with other trees that consume oxygen and excrete fertilizer, but at the same time, it very much dislikes the idea of chainsaws." She didn't blame it. Nor could she blame Tippet for his attitude, either. She wished she could think of some way for humanity to redeem itself in the aliens' eyes, but at the moment she wasn't feeling all that charitable herself.

Of course, she would probably bite the head off a nun right now, the way she felt. "I need something to eat," she said.

"I'll get it." Allen was gone before she could even ask him what was left. While he was away she used the empty water gourd for a chamber pot and splashed cold water on her face from the aft-wall pond, and by the time he returned she felt almost human again.

He brought a can of chicken soup and a butterfly-built gadget that looked like a thermos bottle. He opened the can and held it next to the thermos, then spun around a couple of times to centrifuge it across from one container to the other. He added water from another gourd, shook the thermos to mix it up, and held down a button on the side with his thumb, holding the thermos at arm's length and spinning around slowly to provide artificial gravity to hold everything inside. A minute or so later, steam wafted out of the top, and he handed it to her.

Her mouth watered at the aroma. Food!

"Careful, it's hot."

She shook a shimmering glob of it out into the air and blew on it softly, guiding it back toward her face with the fingers of her left hand until it was cool enough to swallow. For the moment, at least, all her problems faded into the background.

47

Allen was washing her back when the radio at his hip crackled to life and Tippet said, "Listen to this." The speaker hissed with static, then a different voice, much fainter, said, "Mayday, Mayday, Mayday. Is anybody listening? Mayday, Mayday, Mayday."

"Sounds like somebody's in trouble," Allen said.

"Yes, we gathered that much," said Tippet. " 'Mayday' was the same word that the French used. Could this be the same submarine needing rescue again?"

"Not likely," Allen said. "They're speaking English between the Maydays, for one thing. Where's it coming from?"

"Near your home planet. About one hundred thousand kilometers from the surface, above the center of the North American continent. One of our relay satellites picked it up."

"Sounds like somebody hit the escape button on landing," Judy said. She was floating in front of Allen, wearing no clothing except her panties and the cast on her arm while he gave her a bath.

"Mayday, Mayday, Mayday," the voice said again. "This is Trent Stinson, calling Mayday, Mayday, Mayday. Can anybody hear me?"

Judy flinched so hard when she heard the name that she nearly doubled over with the pain in her ribs. "Wait a minute!" she said when she could breathe again. "We know him!"

"Impossible," Allen said. "I mean, what are the odds?"

"Pretty good, actually," she replied. "You built him a hyperdrive engine before we left." She turned around and listened through another set of "Mayday"s to be sure, but the voice was unmistakable. "It's him. We've got to go help him."

"Someone from your own planet will rescue him, won't they?" Tippet said.

"With what? It would take a hyperdrive ship to reach him, but they'd need regular docking equipment to bring him back. NASA's the only outfit with the gear for it, but if I know them they're a mile deep in paperwork without a ship to show for it yet. Besides, he's out there because of
us
. We've got to go get him."

"No," Tippet said. "Not in this ship. It could be a trap. Even if it's not, the moment we appear that close to Earth, we'll be attacked."

Allen shook his head. "We only need to be there for a couple of seconds. Jump in, move close enough to make sure he's inside our jump field, and jump out again. Then we can take him on board just like you did us."

Tippet thought about that for a moment, then said, "This ship doesn't need to go anywhere."

"You can't leave him out there to—"

"Of course not. But you can bring him here with your own spaceship, can't you?" Allen narrowed his brows. "It's got a blown seam. And I can't maneuver it in regular space."

"Your pressure suit still contains enough air for the short time you would be away," Tippet said.

"And if you put yourself in the right spot, your relative velocity will bring you together. You could then bring him back here with your hyperdrive and let us dock with both of you."

"Do we know his position that closely?"

"In another three minutes we will. When the next relay satellite reports in, we can triangulate on his broadcast."

Allen rubbed his chin. "Hmm. I'd have to expand the jump field so I was sure to pick him up on the way past, but that's easy enough." He reached out absently and handed Judy the sponge he'd been using to bathe her. "All right. I'll be right back."

"Wait a minute," she said. "You've got to breathe oxygen for at least an hour first."

"Trent may not have an hour. I'll be fine. It'll only take a few minutes."

"Famous last words," she said, but she couldn't think what else to do. If Trent was in serious trouble, they needed to get him to safety
now
.

She wished she could go with Allen, but she couldn't fit inside a spacesuit with her arm in a cast, and with two broken ribs she would be useless anyway, even in zero-gee.

"Be careful," she said, leaning forward cautiously to give him a kiss.

"Always."

She went with him at least as far as the
Getaway
and watched him push it from the garden back into the cargo hold. He positioned it right up against the airlock so the escaping air would blow him away from the ship, then climbed inside and donned his spacesuit, handing her the walkie-talkie at the last minute before he sealed it inside with him. Judy made sure he got all his joints sealed correctly, then Tippet gave him the coordinates for Trent's location and helped him calculate an intercept jump and figure out when to trigger their return. Allen spent a few minutes adjusting the jump field, then gave the thumbs-up.

She saw his lips move, and Tippet relayed his words through the walkie-talkie: "Back in a flash."

"Good luck," she replied. She was still holding the wet sponge in one hand and the radio in the other, naked except for her cast. It was less than ten minutes since they'd heard the distress call. She and Tippet went back into the garden they'd just been in, and the door sealed behind them. They heard a hollow thump that had to be the airlock opening up and the
Getaway
blowing out into space. Judy went to the window and watched the yellow tank dwindle into the distance. It was tumbling slightly, and she wondered how Allen would stop the rotation without the air release valves, but then she saw him stick his arms out through the hatch and throw something into space. A can of beans, maybe?

Whatever it was, the reaction from tossing it slowed the tank's rotation, and he did it again until it stopped.

"That was smart," she said.

"Of course it was smart," Allen's voice said through the walkie-talkie. Tippet had relayed her comment.

"Are you okay out there?" she asked.

"Fine. Let me get a little farther away from—holy cow. The whole back half of the ship is covered in a gooey-looking layer of gunk." He must have realized how that sounded, because a moment later he added. "It's actually kind of pretty, in the right light."

Tippet said, "That's the cocoon. The metamorphosis is nearly done; if you think this is pretty, wait until you see the finished spaceship underneath."

"Neat. Okay, I'm definitely far enough away now. Here goes."

"Good luck!" Judy called out. If he heard her, he didn't reply. The yellow speck winked out, and space was empty again, save for the dark, cratered surface of the asteroid they were using for cover. She finished her bath one-handed, then dressed in her old clothes, since her fresh ones were in the
Getaway
with Allen. While she was doing that, she asked Tippet, "Are you seriously considering . . . what you said about Earth?"