The Star Fox (23 page)

Unless she followed exactly behind the meteorite, using its mass for a bumper and heat shield, its flaming tail for a cloak.

No autopilot was ever built for that task. Gunnar Heim must do it. If he veered from his narrow slot of partial vacuum, he would die too quickly to know he was dead. For gauge he had only the incandescence outside, instrument readings, and whatever intuition was bestowed by experience. For guide he had a computation of where he ought to be, at what velocity, at every given moment, unreeling on tape before his eyes. He merged himself with the ship; his hands made a blur on the console; he did not notice the waves of heat, the buffetings and bellowings of turbulence, save as a thunderstorm deep in his body.

His cosmos shrank to a firestreak, his reason for being to the need of holding this clumsy mass nose-on to the descent pattern. Once, an age ago, he had brought his space yacht down on a seemingly disastrous path to Ascension Island. But that had been a matter of skillfully piloting a slender and responsive vessel. Tonight he was a robot, executing orders written for it by whirling electrons.

No: he was more. The feedback of data through senses, judgment, will, made the whole operation possible. But none of that took place on a conscious level. There wasn’t time!

That was as well. Live flesh could not have met those demands for more than a few seconds. The meteorite, slowed only a little by the air wall through which it plunged, out-raced the spaceship and hit the sea – still with such force that water had no chance to splash but actually shattered.
Meroeth
was as yet several kilometers aloft, her own speed reduced to something that metal could tolerate. The pattern tape said CUT and Heim slammed down a switch. The engine roar whirred into silence.

He checked his instruments. ‘All’s well,’ he said. His voice
sounded strange in his ears, only slowly did he come back to himself, as if he had run away from his soul and it must now catch up. ‘We’re under the Bonne Chance horizon, headed southwest on just about the trajectory we were trying for.’

‘Whoo-oo-oo,’ said Vadász in a weak tone. His hair was plastered lank to the thin high-cheeked face; his garments were drenched.

‘Bridge to engine room,’ Heim said. ‘Report.’

‘All in order, sir,’ came the voice of Diego Gonzales, who was third engineer on
Fox
. ‘Or as much as could be expected. The strain gauges do show some warping in a couple of the starboard bow plates. Not too bad, though. Shall I turn on the coolers?’

‘Well, do you like this furnace?’ grumbled Jean Irribarne. Heat radiated from every bulkhead.

‘Go ahead,’ Heim decided. ‘If anyone’s close enough to detect the anomaly, we’ve had it anyway.’ He kept eyes on the console before him, but jerked a thumb at Vadász. ‘Radar registering?’

‘No,’ said the Magyar. ‘We appear to be quite private.’

Those were the only men aboard. No more were needed for a successful landing; and in case of failure, Heim did not want to lose lives essential to
Fox
.

Gonzales, for instance, was a good helper in his department, but Uthg-a-K’thaq and O’Hara could manage without him. Vadász had been a fairly competent steward, and as a minstrel had a lot to do with keeping morale high. Nevertheless, he was expendable. One colonist sufficed to guide
Meroeth
, and Irribarne had pulled rank to win that dangerous honor. The rest must bring their story to Earth, did the present scheme miscarry. As for Heim himself—

‘You can’t!’ Penoyer had protested.

‘Can’t I just?’ Heim grinned.

‘But you’re the skipper!’

‘You can handle that job every bit as well as I, Dave.’

Penoyer shook his head. ‘No. More and more, I’ve come to realize it. Not only that this whole expedition was your idea and your doing. Not even the way you’ve led us, as a tactician, I mean, though that’s been like nothing since Lord Nelson. But damn it, Gunnar – sir – we won’t hang together without you!’

‘I’m far too modest to have any false modesty,’ Heim drawled. ‘What you say may well have been true in the begin
ning. We’re a motley gang, recruited from all over Earth and every man a rambunctious individualist. Then there was the anti-Naqsan prejudice. I had to get tough about that a few times, you remember. Now, though, after so long a cruise, so much done together – we’re a crew. A God damn
ship
. C.E.’s proved himself so well and so often that we haven’t a man left who won’t punch you in the nose if you say a nasty word about Naqsans. And as for tactics, Dave, half the stunts we’ve pulled were your suggestion. You’ll manage fine.’

Well … but … but why you, sir, to go down? Any of us with a master pilot’s certificate can do it, and say wizard to the chance. You going bloody well doesn’t make sense.’

‘I say it does,’ Heim answered. ‘End of discussion.’ When he used that tone, nobody talked further. Inwardly, however, he hadn’t felt the least stern.

Madelon
—

No, no, ridiculous. Maybe it’s true that you never really fall out of love with anyone; but new loves do come, and while Connie lived he had rarely thought about New Europe. For that matter, his reunion with Jocelyn Lawrie on Staurn had driven most else out of his mind. For a while.

No doubt he’d only been so keyed up about Madelon because of … he wasn’t sure what. A silly scramble after his lost youth, probably. She was middle-aged now, placidly married, according to her brother-in-law she had put on weight. He wanted to see her again, of course, and chuckle affectionately over old follies. But all he need do was instruct
Meroeth’s
pilot to make sure the Irribarnes were among the evacuees.

Insuwwicient, as C.E. would burble
, he thought.
Common sense had very limited uses. This goes beyond. Too many unforeseen things could happen. I want to be in the nucleus, personally
.

A new sound filled the hull, the keening of sundered air, deepening toward a hollow boom, as
Meroeth
dropped below sonic speed. Heim looked out the forward viewport. The ocean reached vast beneath, phosphor-tinged waves from horizon to horizon. A shadow loomed in the distance, which Vadász told him from the radar must be an island. So, the lies des Rèves already, at the end of the Notre Dame peninsula. He wanted to get the archipelago between him and whatever guardian instruments were at the uranium mine farther north, before he switched the gravitrons back on. It would take some
doing. This hulk wasn’t meant for aerodynamic maneuvers. He applied the least bit of lift to get her nose up.

Immensely preferable would have been to land in the Océan des Orages and come eastward over Pays d’Espoir, crossing unpopulated Terre Sauvage to reach the central mountains of the continent. But while meteorites are plentiful, his had had too many requirements to meet. It must be large, yet not too large to nudge into the right orbit in a reasonable time; the point at which
Fox
grappled and towed must be fairly near the planet but not dangerously near; the path after release must look natural; it must terminate in one of those seas at night. You couldn’t scout the Auroran System forever, but must settle for the first half-way acceptable chunk of rock that happened along. Meanwhile
Meroeth
could be reconverted: lights, temperature, air systems adjusted for human comfort, Mach units repaired, the interior stripped of plants and less understandable Aleriona symbols, the controls ripped out and a new set put in of the kind to which Terrestrials were accustomed. The bridge had a plundered look.

Onward the ship fell, slower and lower until the ocean seemed to rise and lick at her. Vadász probed the sky with his instruments, awkwardly – he had gotten hasty training – and intently. His lips were half parted, as if to give the word ‘Fire!’ to Irribarne in the single manned gun turret. But he found only night, unhurried winds, and strange constellations.

It would not have been possible to travel this far, undetected, across a civilization. But New Europe has 72 per cent of Earth’s surface area; it is an entire world. Coeur d’Yvonne had been almost the only outpost on another continent than Pays d’Espoir, and that city was annihilated. The Aleriona occupied Garance, where the mines and machines were: a mere fringe of immensity. Otherwise they must rely on scattered detector stations, roving flyers, and the still incomplete satellite system. His arrival being unknown to them, the odds favored Heim.

Nonetheless … careful, careful.

When the archipelago was behind him and his ship almost plowing water, he turned the engines on again. Like a flying whale,
Meroeth
swung about and lumbered westward. An island passed near. He made out surf on a beach overshadowed by trees, and imagined he could hear its wash and the soughing leaves, could even smell the warm odors of a semitropical forest. The sight was dim, only half real – indeed an island of
dream.
Men’s dreams
, he thought angrily.
No one else’s
.

Crossing the Golfe des Dragons, he felt naked in so much openness and increased speed. Northwestward now the ship ran. Diane hove into view, nearly full. The moon was smaller than Luna seen from Earth – twenty-two minutes angular diameter – and less bright, but still a blue-marked tawny cornucopia that scattered metal shards across the sea.

Then the mainland rose, hills and woods and distant snow-peaks. Heim reached for altitude. ‘Better get on the radio, Jean,’ he said. We don’t want them to run and hide when they see us, not to mention attack. What’s the name of that place again where we’re headed?’

‘Lac aux Nuages,’ Irribarne said.

Heim studied a map. ‘Yes, I see it here. Big upland lake. Isn’t it too conspicuous to make a safe headquarters?’

‘There is ample concealment, precisely because it is large and misty and has so many islands,’ Irribarne answered. ‘Besides, if there is a raid one can always retreat into the wilderness around about.’ The intercom bore the sound of his footsteps leaving the gun turret for the radio room, and presently a harsh clatter of Basque.

The land beneath grew ever more rugged. Rivers ran from the snows, leaped down cliffs, foamed into steep valleys, and were lost to sight among the groves. A bird flock rose in alarm when the ship passed over; there must be a million pairs of wings, blotting out half the sky. Vadász whistled in awe. ‘
Isten irgalmazzon!
I wondered how long the people could stay hidden, even alive, in the bush. But three times their number could do it.’

‘Yen,’ Heim grunted. ‘Except for one thing.’

The lake appeared, a wide wan sheet among darkling trees, remotely encircled by mountains whose glaciers gleamed beneath the moon. Irribarne relayed instruction. Heim found the indicated spot, just off the north shore, and lowered ship. The concealing waters closed over him. He heard girders groan a little, felt an indescribable soft resistance go through the frame to himself, eased off power, and let the hull settle in ooze. When he cut the interior gee-field, he discovered the deck was canted.

His heart thuttered, but he could only find flat words: ‘Let’s get ashore.’ Even in seven tenths of Terrestrial gravity, it was a somewhat comical effort to reach the emergency escape
lock without falling. When the four men were crowded inside, clothes bundled on their necks, he dogged the inner door and cranked open the outer one. Water poured icily through. He kicked to the surface and swam as fast as possible toward land. Moonlight glimmered on the guns of the men who stood there waiting for him.

T
HE
tent was big. The trees that surrounded it were taller yet. At the top of red-brown trunks, they fountained in branches whose leaves overarched and hid the pavilion under cool sun-flecked shadows. Their foliage was that greenish gold hue the native ‘grasses’ shared, to give the Garance country its name. Wind rustled them. Through the open flap, Heim could look down archways of forest to the lake. It glittered unrestfully, outward past the edge of vision. Here and there lay a wooded island, otherwise the only land seen in that direction was the white-crowned sierra. Blue with distance, the peaks jagged into a deep blue sky.

Aurore was not long up. The eastern mountains were still in shadow, the western ones still faintly flushed. They would remain so for a while; New Europe takes more than seventy-five hours to complete a rotation. The sun did not look much different from Earth’s: about the same apparent size, a little less bright, its color more orange than yellow. Heim had found Vadász in the dews at dawn, watching the light play in the mists that streamed over the lake, altogether speechless.

That time was ended. So too was the hour when Colonel Robert de Vigny, once constabulary commandant, now beret-crowned king of the
maquis
, returned to headquarters. (He had not been directing a raid, but finding some technicians and arranging for their transportation to the Ravignac lodge, where a major hydroelectric generator needed repairs. Of such unglamorous detail work is survival made.) Ended even was the first gladness of reunion, with Irribarne who had been lost, with Vadász after a year and Heim after a generation. ‘
Bon, passons aux affaires s
è
rialises
,’ he said, and sat down behind his desk.

Vadász found a chair, slumped low, and stared at his boots. Heim kept his feet, met the green gaze, but found no words. ‘You tell him, Jean,’ he mumbled at length. ‘My French is shot to hell.’

De Vigny stiffened himself, like a man expecting a blow. He was grizzled and not tall, but his back was rifle straight and the face might have belonged to a Trajan. ‘
Continuez
,’ he said without tone. The Basque snapped to attention. ‘
Repos
,’ de Vigny invited, but Irribarne seemed unable to stand at ease while the news jerked out of him.

At the end, the colonel remained expressionless. One hand drummed a little on the desktop. ‘So,’ he said most quietly, in French. ‘Earth has abandoned us.’

‘Not all Earth!’ Vadász exclaimed.

‘No, true, you are here.’ The mask dissolved; one could see muscles tighten along jaws and mouth, calipers deepen on either side of the gray toothbrush mustache, a pulse at the base of the throat. ‘And, I gather, at considerable risk. What is your plan, Captain Heim?’