The Winds of Altair (11 page)

CHAPTER 14

If sheer determination could change a world, the scientists and students of the Village would turn Altair VI into a new Eden.

The entire Village was mobilized for the battle against nature. Believers and secularists worked side by side to tame the wilderness of the savage planet below them. After months of studies and preparation, the students leaped into the struggle with wholehearted enthusiasm. The scientists, who had spent those same months actually observing the planet and trying to deal with it, were more cautious.

New landing parties were organized. The rusting, crumbling equipment from the first camp on the beach was inspected, repaired, refurbished. Many of the pieces were brought back to the orbiting Village to be virtually rebuilt. Many others were simply discarded; the air of Altair VI, rich with methane and sulfur compounds, had ruined the equipment beyond any hope of repair.

As the weeks went by, the landing teams learned that the apes were migrating at this time of the year, heading southward to avoid the coming cold and storms of winter. One of their main migration paths took them directly through the beach on which the humans had established their camp.

"They're being very obliging," Peterson reported to Bishop Foy. "They're coming right to us."

"God's will," the Bishop murmured. "Nirvan is our help and our protection."

The migration was a time of feasting for the wolfcats, who culled the feeble, the sick, the unwary cubs from the families of apes as they trekked southward.

Peterson found that the wolfcats were too successful. "They're in competition with us," he told Carbo. "We want the apes as helpers, but they want them for food."

So Carbo and his hastily-trained teams had to tranquilize wolfcats, too, and implant them with probes. Even when they did, however, few of the students aboard the Village could control a hungry wolfcat. The migrating apes were still being decimated.

The landing teams suffered casualties, too. Like all explorers, they constantly discovered new ways to die.

A biologist made the mistake of stepping on a trigger vine while sampling the flora at the base of the hills that overlooked the beach. The thorny arms of the plant snapped him into their deadly embrace, ripping his suit in a dozen places. His lungs were burned out by the methane-laden air before the vine's poisons could work their way into his bloodstream.

Two zoologists, a husband-wife pair, simply disappeared into the murky darkness one day as they trailed southward to map the apes' migration route. Radio contact was lost in about an hour, and they were never found again.

Dr. Polchek himself was nearly killed when a female ape, frantically defending her already-tranquilized cubs from the terrifying strange aliens, cracked his helmet with a powerful swipe of her paw before he could reload his tranquilizer gun and knock her down. Carbo and another scientist were close enough to get to Polchek in time.

Through it all, Jeff worked with Crown. The big wolfcat helped the humans, despite his growling distaste for them and their machines. He scouted the area for them, warned other wolfcat families away from the migrating apes whenever he could, and protected the frail, puny humans against the wolfcats.

Jeff insisted that Crown's family should not be implanted with neuro probes, despite the plans of the scientists.

He told Amanda, who was now in charge of all the contact work, "We need at least one wolfcat family that behaves normally. If you have all the wolfcats under human control, you might miss all sorts of dangers and warning signs that a free wolfcat would naturally pick up."

Amanda hesitated. "I don't know if . . ."

"And these wolfcats are being controlled by the new students," Jeff added. "They're not as sure of what they're doing as I am. If their control slips, you could have a band of hungry wild wolfcats right in the middle of the camp. At least, Crown and his family can help keep them under control."

Amanda straddled the question. "Well, we won't implant Crown's family yet. But that doesn't mean that we won't decide to do it later on."

Jeff grinned at her. "You won't need to. Crown can handle them."

Frank Carbo stood by the rocketplane's boarding ladder and surveyed the camp. It was coming along well, despite all their setbacks and problems. The big bubble tent that served as shelter for the team was finally repaired and pumped full of good, breathable air. Several team members had lived in it for as long as three days at a time. Carbo himself had spent his first overnight there, and even though he could hardly sleep because of the roarings and screechings of the animals up in the hills, now they had an almost permanent foothold on this godforsaken strip of beach.

Huge arrays of infrared lamps, specially designed to penetrate the eternal darkness of Altair VI, lit up the beach. Carbo could see a full half-kilometer in either direction, as long as he wore the infrared goggles under his helmet visor.

The machinery was getting organized, too. Instead of haphazard piles of crates and abandoned building equipment scattered across the beach, the earthmovers and other tracked vehicles were parked in a neat row now. The air conversion factory was halfway finished, and a firm landing strip had been cemented over so that the shuttle could land and take off easily.

His ideas were succeeding. The apes, implanted with neuro probes, were not exactly
willing
workers, but as he stood by the shuttle plane Carbo could count four dozen of the big shambling creatures lifting heavy crates and slowly, awkwardly fitting together the prefabricated pieces of a power receiving unit. It looked like a maze of slim pipes spreading across the northern end of the beach; Carbo knew that once it was finished, it would receive energy beamed from a solar power satellite that the Villagers had deployed in orbit around Altair VI. Once the receiving unit began to function, there would be more than enough electrical energy to power the air conversion factory. Then the task of removing the methane and other impurities from the planet's atmosphere could begin.

With a satisfied nod, Carbo clambered up the ladder and through the airlock of the shuttle. Once safely inside, he pulled off his pressure suit helmet and lifted the heavy goggles from his eyes. Rubbing at the bridge of his nose, he found a seat and began to quietly dictate his daily report into the recorder he carried on the belt of his suit.

He was leaner and tougher than he had ever been, even when he was a street urchin back so many years ago in Rome. The physical demands of working on the surface of Altair VI had boiled all the slothful fat out of his body and his mind, as well. He was doing a damnably difficult job, and it was finally starting to show signs of success. Even the wolfcats seemed to be under control.

The shuttle filled up with the rest of his team members. They were all going back to the Village, back to the blessed security of good air and a comfortable bed. A new team was already on the way down, aboard the other shuttle craft. Carbo finished dictating his report, leaned his head back against the seat as the shuttle began its take-off roll along the runway, and was asleep before the wheels left the ground.

By the time he entered his apartment, he was feeling physically tired but mentally, emotionally fresh. Still clumping about in the pressure suit and heavy insulated boots, he tossed his bulbous helmet onto the living room couch and made his way into the bedroom. As he peeled off the pressure suit and its undergarments, he thought about phoning Amanda.

"No," he said softly to himself. "You shouldn't. You know you shouldn't. It wouldn't be fair to her."

He stripped to the skin and stepped into his shower. The water was hot and clean and good against his skin.

"If you call her and she refuses to see you, you'll feel terrible," he told himself aloud, over the delicious rush of the water.

"But," he argued back, "you'll feel just as terrible sitting here alone all night, without a friend, without a love to share your life with."

He stepped out of the shower and the water automatically turned off. Towelling himself, he continued his debate.

"So you call her, and she comes to you, and you spend the night making passionate love. And then tomorrow you go back to the surface and you're killed. What then, eh?"

He looked at his new lean, hard body in the steamy full-length mirror and shrugged.

"If you're killed it won't be until tomorrow. Your immediate problem is tonight."

Wrapping the towel around his middle, he went to the phone next to his bed.

It buzzed before he could command the computer chip to call Amanda.

Frowning slightly, Carbo said, "Phone: no visual; answer."

The screen above the microphone grill remained blank, but he heard a student's voice say, "Dr. Carbo? Bishop Foy wishes to speak to you."

Suppressing an irritated sigh, Carbo said, "Very well, put him on."

The student's voice hesitated. "Sir? Bishop Foy wishes to speak to you in person. In his office."

"Now?" Carbo glanced at the digital clock next to the phone. It was time for dinner, for wine, not for conferences in the Bishop's bare little cubicle of an office.

"He says it is very important, sir, and he must see you immediately."

"Immediately?"

"Yessir."

"Very well," Carbo said reluctantly. "Tell the good Bishop that I will present myself at his office in fifteen minutes."

"Thank you, sir." The student sounded very relieved.

It was actually almost a half-hour before Carbo shaved, dressed, and strolled across the Village to Bishop Foy's austere suite of offices.

Does he work twenty-four hours a day? Carbo wondered. The outer office was fully staffed by young students, sitting at their desk consoles, tapping out messages on keyboards or dictating in earnest whispers into recording microphones.

One of the students, a slim but attractive brunette, recognized him immediately and ushered him down the short hallway that ended at the door to the Bishop's private office. She rapped on the door once, lightly, opened it a crack and whispered Dr. Carbo's name.

They all whisper, Carbo realized for the first time. It's as if they were in church all the time.

He heard no reply, but the student turned to him and gestured toward the partially open door. Carbo flashed his best smile for her, and the corners of her mouth twitched slightly in response.

Ragazza fredda
Carbo thought as he stepped into the Bishop's office.

Foy sat hunched behind his massive desk, looking smaller and grayer than ever, his bony skull of a face drawn and wan.

"You wanted to see me?" Carbo asked, as cheerfully as he could manage.

Foy nodded and gestured for Carbo to sit in the straight-backed wooden chair in front of the desk.

"I appreciate your coming immediately," the Bishop said, in his rasping wheeze of a voice.

Politeness? Carbo was instantly wary. Something is in the wind.

Tapping a flimsy sheet of paper that rested on the desktop before him, the Bishop said, "I have received a communication from the Mother Church . . ."

"From Earth?" Carbo blurted.

"Yes, from Earth."

Startled, Carbo thought of how much it must have cost to send the message. Radio or laser beams would take seventeen years to traverse the distance between Earth and Altair. The Church had to send a communications ship, an unmanned radio beacon, by gravity warp drive; that must have cost an immense sum.

"Why . . . what does it say?"

"The news is not good," Bishop Foy muttered.

Carbo held his breath. Until this moment he had not realized how much he had felt cut off from Earth. But a message—even a terrible message—suddenly gave him a feeling that Earth still existed, that he could return to his native land someday, if he wished.

Foy went on bleakly, "Famine has struck Asia again. The monsoon rains failed and billions are starving from India all the way along the southeastern crescent to Japan."

Carbo remained silent. Bad news, yes; but what did this have to do with him? Or the Village?

"Riots have broken out all over the area, and spread to parts of Africa and South America. Virtual civil war in some places. The world government has sent in troops. Millions have been tranquilized and await neuro probe implants to control their violent behavior."

"Oh no . . ." Carbo's heart sank. "Not more . . ."

Foy raised a bony finger. "That is not the worst of it. The world government has forced the Church to accept immediate shipment of several hundred thousand colonists to Altair VI."

"Here? They're sending colonists here already?"

"They have to. The Church was given no choice. The colonists will all be officially converted to the Faith of Nirvan and implanted with neuro probes to assure their behavior."

Carbo wanted to scream, but not a sound could force its way out of his throat. He was choking on the Bishop's words.

"This puts increased pressure on you and Dr. Peterson, I realize," Foy said.

"When?" Carbo managed to gasp out. "When will they send these poor wretches?"

Fov's bloodless lips pulled back in what could have been either a bitter smile or a bitterer grimace.

"They are already on the way," he said tonelessly. "They were packed aboard several vessels and sent out weeks ago, according to this message. The pris . . . I mean, colonists, are being implanted with neuro probes in transit. The first ship should arrive here within three months."

CHAPTER 15

The news of the colonists' approach spread through the Village like a cold whispering wind.

Bishop Foy ordered a mass convocation in the Tabernacle; every student was required to attend. They all renewed their vows, under the Bishop's stern eye, promising themselves and each other and their God to work even harder than before, to tame the planet they had sworn to redeem for the Church, to prepare Altair VI as a fit home world for the thousands of newly-converted Faithful who were on their way.

Carbo and the scientists held their own meeting, crammed into the conference room in the dome that housed the laboratories and medical center. They had to take the long conference table out into the corridor to make room for everyone. Still, there were not enough chairs for them all, even though the scientists sat literally shoulder to shoulder. Almost half of them squatted on the floor or stood along the walls of the long, narrow room.

Carbo paced nervously at the front of the room as he spoke to them. No one had appointed him the leader, yet no one had expected anyone else to assume leadership. He had called the meeting, and they all had come to the conference room. It was that simple.

Now he paced, thinking in the back of his mind that humans and wolfcats shared a few traits in common as he strode nervously, impatiently from where Amanda sat crosslegged on the floor at his left to the spot where one of the young Japanese biologists knelt placidly, sitting on his heels.

". . . slightly more than thirty-two thousand colonists," Carbo was saying. "Naturally, they are being converted to the Church of Nirvan during their flight here."

"They're scheduled to arrive here in three months?" a voice from the crowd asked.

With a nod, Carbo said, "We should be able to see their ship in four or five weeks, when it warps back into normal space out at the edge of the Altair system."

"That doesn't give us enough time . . ."

"For anything," a woman's voice interjected.

Carbo swallowed hard. "The colonists are being fitted out with neuro probes to ensure their good behavior while they're on their transit ships. The ships will take up orbit around Altair VI, just as we have. I assume there will be enough supplies aboard to take care of them for two or three years—just as we have here."

No one spoke. A few people cleared their throats, coughed nervously; feet shifted on the carpeting, hands fidgeted. But no one had a word to say.

"I . . . uh . . . I wanted you to know the entire story," Carbo stammered. "I wanted you to understand the magnitude of the task facing us."

"Nothing's changed, really," said Dr. Peterson, who was sitting in the front row of chairs. "We still have the same job of taming the planet."

"Maybe so," said Lana Polchek, the zoologist's wife, "but knowing that thirty-two thousand colonists are already on their way makes it all—well, more urgent. Don't you think?"

A murmur of agreement rippled through the scientists.

"And this is just the
first
batch of colonists," someone else pointed out.

"What'll they do if we can't tame the planet? If we fail?"

"We won't fail," a man's voice replied. "Given time, we can convert the planet to a fully Earth-like ecology."

"How much time? Is three years enough?"

"It should be."

"But if it's not? What happens to these colonists if we haven't succeeded in three years? What happens to
us
?"

Total silence answered that question.

Finally Carbo clapped his hands together sharply, startling them all out of their frightened musings.

"All right," he said. "It is a very large task that we face. But we can do it . . . if we all work our best and hardest."

Amanda unfolded her long slim legs and rose to her feet. "Okay. So why are we sitting around here instead of getting on with it?"

They all laughed, the tension broke, and the scientists began to leave the meeting and head toward their jobs.

Crown awoke feeling stiff with cold. A biting wind was cutting across the beach, driving sand against the buildings and machines of the humans. The sea looked gray and chill, the sky even grayer. Altair was a dim glow just above the ocean horizon.

It had snowed during the night, the first dark brittle snow of winter. Crown climbed slowly to his paws and shook the sooty clinging flakes off his body. He knew that if the flakes stayed on him for very long, they would eat through his fur and burn his skin.

The apes were still sleeping. The grayish flakes covered them lightly. Crown growled at them, and they instantly snapped awake. There were more than a dozen apes in the camp now. They slept in the scant shelter of an old building that had partially collapsed. It had no roof anymore, and its remaining walls leaned precariously.

The biggest of the apes pulled himself up to a sitting position, his legs poking out awkwardly before him. He shivered and patted his body with his fore-paws to dust the flakes away. His actions bumped the apes next to him, who also slowly sat up and began cleaning the sooty flakes from their fur. And so on down the line, until all the apes were poking and rubbing themselves. Not one of them tried to help another, though.

The biggest ape snarled at Crown, his lips pulled back to bare his teeth. He got up on all fours, staring at Crown, growling. Then his body twitched, jerked, in a convulsive spasm that rocked him from muzzle to tail like a private earthquake shock. The ape's growl changed to a snuffle, almost a whimper. He shook his head as if trying to escape something that was buzzing inside his skull. Then he turned away from Crown.

The ape was under control now. One by one, the others twitched and whimpered, then docilely rose to all fours and headed off to begin their day's work.

Crown watched them as they slowly gathered themselves together and trundled off to the hillside where there were shrubs and roots and crawling little insects for their morning meal. Even under human control, the apes stayed as far away from the new buildings as possible.

Bright and gleaming, the new buildings throbbed with the energy of the machines inside them. Night and day, the machinery hummed and rumbled and gave off strange, sickening odors. Even though the walls of these buildings were warm to the touch, and the nights were getting constantly colder along the beach, neither the apes nor Crown and the other wolfcats would go near the buildings unless they were forced to by their human controllers. They all slept as far from the grumbling machines as their controllers would allow.

Crown knew that since the apes were under control, the other wolfcat families up in the hills would be, also. His own tiny family—Thunder, Brightfur, Tranquil and the cubs—were still normal, still untainted by the invading aliens. Crown was grateful for that, even though he rarely saw his family anymore. He stayed down here on the beach almost all the time now. He even slept within a few bounding leaps of the nervous, frightened apes. He got up into the forested hills only to hunt.

He started his morning's trek up the hillside, past the peacefully-munching apes—who shied away from him instinctively—to find his family and share in the hunting. Halfway up the hill he paused and looked back for a moment at the camp along the beach.

The apes had finished eating and were starting in to work. Standing uncertainly on their hindlegs, slow and hesitant because of the fear that no amount of human control could fully overcome, they were marching off to the crates that had been left next to the new buildings and their humming machinery. Carefully, reluctantly, they reached into the crates and pulled out strange shapes of gleaming metal. Awkwardly, they began to put the shapes together, one piece fitting into another. Crown had watched them build the new machines that way. How many more machines would the apes build? he wondered.

Crown snarled at the scene. These strange things of the aliens were not alive, yet they seemed to breathe and grow like living animals. Far more frightening, though, was the fact that it was becoming difficult, even dangerous, to stay near the machines once they began to hum and vibrate. A few days ago one of the worker apes had collapsed and died, for no apparent reason. The other apes panicked and tried to flee from the beach, but Crown and the other controlled wolfcats outraced them and—snarling and roaring—had herded them back to the camp. The dead ape was dragged away by two wolfcats before the sun went down, but still the other apes were obviously terrified to be near the throbbing, pulsating buildings of the aliens.

Crown himself stayed as far from the new buildings as he could. He found that there was something about them that made him feel weak, drowsy, dizzy.

It's the oxygen The machines are breaking down the methane and sulfur oxides of the air and pumping out oxygen and nitrogen.

Crown grunted angrily. Even here, up near the crest of the hills, the scent of the machines was strong. It grew stronger each day.

He spent the morning hunting. Thunder greeted him with an affectionate roar, while Brightfur and Tranquil stayed shyly behind their leader, as they should. The cubs scampered playfully around Crown, though, and he learned that they had at last been named: Strong was the cub with the white fur on her forepaws; Dayrise was the friskier and leaner of the two.

For several happy hours Crown was nothing more than a wolfcat, hunting with his family for their day's meal. There were still antelope in the woods, although they were getting fewer as the days grew colder. Thunder and two females trotted off to hide in the underbrush while Crown and the cubs headed in the other direction. Once they spotted a few straggling antelope, they slinked around their flank—the cubs watching Crown intently and imitating his every move. Eventually the deerlike animals would catch the wolfcats' scent and flee, leaping and bounding, for safety. Crown and the cubs gave chase, forcing the antelope to run straight toward the waiting Thunder and his females.

Each day the wolfcats brought down two or three antelope this way. The beasts never seemed to learn. Every day it was the same, and every day they raced straight into the ambush. Crown and his family could have killed as many as they liked, but a couple of fat antelope were enough for the family to gorge themselves.

Crown knew that the other wolfcats in the area, the ones under human control, were also hunting antelope; not only for themselves, they brought kills back to the beach, for the apes to eat at the end of each day. But every day the number of antelope they saw was smaller. And farther off to the south. The antelope were migrating southward for the winter, just as the apes had been before the humans had gained control of them. Just as the wolfcats would, under normal circumstances. The antelope migration was slow, measured. The animals were in no hurry to quit these wooded hills, as long as there was shrubbery for them to nibble.

Still, they were edging steadily southward, and each day the wolfcats had to drag their kills a little farther to the camp where the apes worked. Despite the food that the wolfcats provided, though, the apes seemed to be wasting away. They got thinner and slower every day.

This day, as Crown reluctantly headed back toward the beach, it snowed before sundown for the first time. The dark sooty flakes sifted through the trees late in the afternoon as Crown was helping a human-controlled wolfcat to carry one of the day's kill through the forest underbrush. Both wolfcats growled at the snow. It would kill the shrubbery of the undergrowth, Crown knew, forcing the antelope to move even further southward. Even now, it took almost the whole day to find the herd, make the kills, and bring the food back to the beach.

As he got to within sight of the camp, panting and growling from the effort of half-carrying, half-dragging the still-warm antelope alongside the other wolfcat, Crown saw that two of the apes were down on the sand. The others were circling crazily around their two dead companions, neither working nor running away, just milling about on their hindlegs, throwing their long arms over their heads as if in fear or despair.

The wolfcats would usually stay close to the woods up at the crest of the ridge line; Crown was the only one who actually slept down on the beach. The apes feared the wolfcats so much that the cats normally left their kills partway down the grassy slope of the hills and then returned to the woods. The apes would scramble up the hillside to get the meat.

But now Crown dropped his kill. So did the other wolfcat. They both stared down at the camp, standing stock-still, the wind ruffling their gray fur. Crown saw that the other wolfcat dug his claws into the dying grass, growling and rumbling to himself as if fighting against something inside his own skull. Crown started down the hillside, heading toward the apes and the strange, evil-smelling human machines. He turned his head and growled at the other wolfcat. Slowly and very reluctantly, the wolfcat followed Crown.

Other wolfcats appeared out of the trees, growling, snarling at the empty air as they hesitantly made their way down the hillsides toward the beach. Their muscles twitched, as if they wanted to go in two different directions at once.

Crown took command of the wolfcats. With grunts and pushes he directed some of them toward each end of the camp, to make certain that the apes could not bolt and run away. Then he pushed two of the younger males toward the dead apes. Even under human control, they did not want to go. Crown led them himself, walking calmly to the dead bodies, sniffing at them for a few moments, and then turning toward the other apes, who had retreated into a frightened shivering mass back toward the ramshackle shelter where they slept.

The dead bodies lay near the new buildings and their rumbling, evil-smelling machines. The air was hard to breathe. Crown's chest began to hurt, as if there was fire inside him. Quickly, he grabbed at one of the dead apes with his teeth and forepaws and started dragging it away. The other two wolfcats watched him, then slowly went for the other body.

Painfully, with little sparkling flashes of light dancing in front of his eyeplates, Crown dragged the dead ape up the slope and away from the hated machines. It was dark before he had pulled the carcass far away enough so that the other apes seemed to settle down for sleep. Crown watched them huddle together in their sagging shelter, whimpering, clinging to each other as closely as they could manage.