FSF, March-April 2010 Page 9

  The silence inside Wolverton's helmet made it all the more terrifying. He could hear his own breathing and pulse—but nothing else—as he watched the compound being destroyed.

  The caravan veered away from the digger's path, and soon the black colossus was out of sight. Wolverton thought about the few mementos he'd brought from Mars; they were all gone, along with everything else that fifty-two people had called home.

  Panic overwhelmed him. Where would they go? It would take at least three hoppers to get everybody off the asteroid, and there weren't three of them close enough to get here any time soon.

  "Oh, God,” he said.

  "Take it easy, Wolverton,” Nozaki said. “We're not dead yet."

  "We might as well be."

  "Don't start with that defeatist stuff. That's why you didn't make it back through the bubble."

  "The bubble...."

  "It's our only chance."

  "Do you think we can find it in time?"

  "If we're lucky,” Nozaki said.

  Wolverton could see her mouth through her visor. She hadn't spoken. It must have been the second Nozaki on the open channel. Or was this the second Nozaki he was riding with? He had no way of knowing if he didn't ask. He quickly switched to a private channel.

  "Uh, which one are you?"

  "I'm the one who didn't leave you behind."

  "Oh.” He'd gotten into the rover with the wrong Nozaki. He reminded himself that they were the same woman.

  He returned to the open channel as the caravan drove on ahead of the deadly dawn.

  Soon his stomach rumbled with hunger, a sound louder than the destruction of base camp. He hadn't eaten since before going out to cut the ore samples. Would they starve out here on LGC-1's surface? It was likely, if their pressure suits’ liquid processors didn't break down first, in which case they would die of thirst. And if the rovers’ battery packs failed, Gamma Crucis's hydrogen shell would ultimately cook them alive.

  Jyoti's voice came through. “We shouldn't all be driving in a caravan. The probability that we'll find the bubble is increased if we spread out."

  "That's sensible,” Nozaki said. “If you see any sign of it, send up flares."

  She pulled the joystick to the left and drove at a sharp angle away from the caravan. The other rovers peeled off from both sides of the column. Soon they were spreading out in all directions, excepting toward base camp. Nobody had any intention of going back, even though the digger must have been long gone from the site by now.

  They drove for another twenty minutes before they saw something over the horizon. It was virtually invisible, except that it obscured the stars. At first, Wolverton thought it was the digger, but he soon realized that this was even bigger.

  "That's it!” Nozaki shouted.

  Flares were going up even as she turned the rover's wheels toward the huge anomaly. The flares burst gloriously in the negligible gravity, several kilometers overhead.

  Wolverton was excited, although he had no idea what they were going to do once they reached the bubble.

  "It's moving away from the surface!” Jyoti's voice cried in dismay. “We've got to hurry or it will be too late!"

  Wolverton exhaled, realizing he'd been involuntarily holding his breath.

  But as the rovers rolled over the barren landscape, he saw exactly what Jyoti meant. The bubble's amorphous, black border was meters above the barren asteroid's surface—and receding steadily.

  "How can we get through it?” Wolverton said.

  Someone ahead of them fired another flare. Its glowing trail vanished inside the bubble.

  "The gravity's low,” Nozaki said. “We may be able to make it through if we jump, but we've got to do it before the bubble gets any farther away."

  The rovers were gathering under the anomaly as if for a tailgate party. As soon as they stopped, Wolverton pulled himself out of his seat, floating a meter off the ground with the effort. He was looking up into the bubble as his feet touched the ground. From directly below, he could see stars inside it, but they weren't the stars that should have been there.

  "We're going through that?” he said.

  "If we don't,” Nozaki said, “we're dead."

  "The edge is too far off the ground."

  "If someone jumps onto the ore boot, it can be done."

  "Who's going to be the first to make the jump?” Zaremba asked.

  "I will,” said Wolverton, before Nozaki could speak. He wanted to be sure he went ahead so that he'd be there waiting for her, no matter where they ended up.

  "That's my boy,” Nozaki said, her words giving him courage.

  "Better get going, Wolverton,” Labutunu said, his nervousness audible.

  Wolverton turned and took a couple of elongated steps. He faced the bubble and ran toward it. Hopping up onto the rover's ore boot, he leaped with all his strength straight into the darkness, somersaulting into space.

  Expecting some sensation of change or dissociation, Wolverton spun in the void. He felt nothing, and he feared he'd missed the bubble. He wished that Nozaki was with him, holding his hand.

  But when he was briefly in position to see the asteroid below him, everything had changed. It was pitted with craters, unlike the smooth surface he'd seen while coming down in the hopper when he'd first arrived on LGC-1.

  He rolled again, and this time the asteroid and the sun were gone.

  "Nozaki!” he called.

  There was no reply.

  He was alone. Spinning end over end, Wolverton saw nothing but blackness and stars. After a while, his inertia slowed. For a moment he was looking straight into the sun, his visor screen darkening to filter out the glare. It didn't seem to be Gamma Crucis. For one thing, this sun was yellow shot with fiery orange, not bloodred. For another, it was much smaller. It appeared to be a main sequence star, very much like Sol.

  Had he been whisked to another star system, or was he looking at Gamma Crucis at an earlier stage? And why had his spinning slowed?

  Something was pulling him now, and the space around him transformed into a tube. He was sucked inside it, but gently, as if he were being siphoned by a tremendous force that somehow took his human fragility into account.

  As long as the nitrogen and oxygen in his tanks held out, he would live. After that....

  Suddenly his visor was filled with a green planet's surface, striated with clouds. The force tugging at him was gravity. He was being transported to the planet's surface.

  Or nearly so. He dangled at the mouth of the tube for a moment before dropping onto a large, disc-shaped platform. He fell on his backside, looking up at the tube as it snaked into the clouds.

  Slowly Wolverton stood up. He was unharmed, thanks to his suit's padding, but shaking badly. He tried to calm his breathing and to give his heartbeat a moment to slow, while gawking at the clouds drifting by. His movements felt ponderous, and he realized after a moment that it was because he'd been living in the asteroid's light gravity. Taking a tentative step, he reckoned that the density and size of this world were somewhere between those of Earth and Mars. It wouldn't take long to get used to it.

  He staggered to the edge of the platform and looked out.

  He was at the summit of a tower. A city spread out below, its roads like the radii of a spiderweb, connected by interstitial strands. Vast, it appeared to be orderly rather than sprawling. Things were moving around down there. He couldn't tell what they were from this height, especially through the cloud vapor. Off in the distance he saw an irregular coastline on the edge of a dark green sea.

  Wolverton felt, rather than heard, something behind him. He turned and saw a projection rising at the platform's center. There was a door in it, large enough for three humans to pass through at the same time. It was an elevator.

  Wolverton waited fearfully to see if anything was going to come out. Nothing did. He hesitated just a little longer, hoping that Nozaki would drop down through the siphon tube.

  Nothing happened. Cyan-tinged clo
uds drifted across the platform like an intermittent fog.

  Wolverton walked to the elevator door and looked in. It was empty. Had the inhabitants of the tower sent it up especially for him? One thing was certain. The greenish haze of the atmosphere suggested he wouldn't be able to breathe. He couldn't stay on this platform for long. He would run out of air, and he needed food and rest. He had to go down.

  He entered the spacious elevator car. The door shut behind him and the lift started to descend. It was slow at first, but quickly gained speed. His gut was in his throat most of the way down, but the brakes were applied in time and the car slowed to a light stop.

  The door opened like an eyelid, but there was no one there to greet him. A corridor led him to the light. Wolverton stepped out onto a street. He could hear muffled sounds through his helmet.

  One of the city's inhabitants nearly stepped on him. He barely came up to its knee. Its head seemed quite small for its ungainly height. It took a long stride over him and quickly disappeared behind the tower. He wondered what he looked like to this alien, a tiny biped wearing a pressure suit. He was lucky it hadn't broken his spine under its huge foot.

  A thing that crawled in a curious gait on four legs, each with three joints, came from the other direction. Smaller limbs encircled its bumpy head, which was set on a thick neck over an hourglass torso. The head pivoted toward him, as if it were on a swivel. He got out of its way, his heart pounding and his breath coming in gasps.

  Now he was separated from the tower by dozens of species passing back and forth. Most of them wore pastel, balloonlike coverings, while others were encased in more elaborate protective gear.

  A teardrop-shaped object shot by overhead, more or less parallel to the ground. Wolverton was afraid he'd be sucked into its wake as he stumbled about, disoriented and scared.

  He was alone among all these creatures. Was he the only one who'd made it through the bubble? If not, why hadn't anyone arrived on the platform with him? Were they scattered in time and space, like pollen adrift in the wind?

  Grotesque passersby towered over him. Dodging off the curved walkway, Wolverton found himself at the door of a little dome. It didn't look nearly as threatening as the busy street. He intended to go in and gesture for help. The door was open, but he couldn't see much from where he was standing. He was able to make out a few angular shapes in the dim interior light as he stepped inside to escape the monstrous traffic behind him.

  Wolverton surprised what at first appeared to be a featherless ostrich. Its long, sinuous neck supported a bulbous cranium with a beaked face. It glowered at him as he stumbled inside. Its neck formed a J as it lowered its face to look more closely at him.

  "Please, I don't mean to intrude,” Wolverton said. “I need help."

  A goiter swelled beneath the creature's beak, its unlikely nostrils flared, and it made a rasping sound, muffled through Wolverton's helmet. It swung around and showed him its purple rump. Strutting across the room, it folded its bamboo-stalk legs under its plump torso and sat on a pad facing a basketball-sized dodecahedron set on a plinth.

  Wolverton expected it to use its beak, but instead it pulled its wings forward to reveal half a dozen dainty fingers on the tip of each, opposable thumbs, and an eye on the underside of either wrist. It touched the darkened dodecahedron, which immediately began to spin.

  The birdlike creature waved its delicate hand and a three-dimensional image of yet another alien popped out of one of the dodecahedron's facets, startling Wolverton. It appeared to be standing in the same room with them. Not exactly standing, Wolverton thought as he tried to take in its contours. More like flopping.

  It was a gelatinous being with six curved horns sticking out at the top. Tiny holes ringed each horn; Wolverton guessed that they were sensory organs or respiratory openings.

  The grotesque creature burped, and Wolverton's host cackled back at it. The conversation went on for half a minute or so. Wolverton wanted to run back outside, but when he turned his head he saw that the street traffic hadn't let up.

  His involuntary host fingered the dodecahedron one last time and the image shrank back into it.

  Was the ostrich going to have him arrested for trespassing?

  It craned its neck and hooted toward another room.

  A moment later, another creature of the same species entered through a slash in the wall. The two of them squawked at each other for a few seconds, and then both turned toward Wolverton. He thought about saying something, but what good would it do? Frantic as he was, reason told him to be patient, to hold on a little longer. These creatures lived across the street from the elevator tower. They saw many different species every day. He might be new to them, but they weren't likely to be shocked by his appearance.

  They stood at least eight feet tall at the little crests on top of their round, beaked heads. They might peck him to death if he got out of hand in their home.

  So Wolverton tried to remain calm while he waited, taking in the details of their domed dwelling. The purposes of some things, such as the pad and the dodecahedron, were obvious. Other things, not so much. Splatters on the walls presumably were decorations of some sort, but he wasn't sure. Some items seemed jerry-built, such as the bent rods propping up sloping partition walls.

  Unlike the other species he'd seen so far on this world, these beings wore no coverings or breathing aids. They must have been native to this planet. He wondered if they, or their ancestors, had lived in this dome before the elevator tower was built, because he detected signs of age in the carved, polished limestone. It made sense that sedimentary rock would be common here, so close to a sea.

  In a few minutes someone arrived, although it seemed much longer to the heavily perspiring Wolverton. A blue being with three arms, its head protruding from its belly, came to the door. It was covered with a violet, elastic balloon that stretched with its movements. It listened attentively to the comments of the dome's two occupants. Five eyes, situated in a crescent, occasionally rolled as it glanced in Wolverton's direction.

  It beckoned Wolverton with its middle hand over its head, and he followed it outside. When he turned and took one last look at his unwilling hosts, they screeched something at him while holding up their blinking wrist-eyes. Farewell or good riddance, he had no way of knowing.

  Wolverton followed the blue creature into the street, and noticed in the hazy sunlight that a prominent network of pink blood vessels showed through its skin. Its limbs had a puzzling way of flowing, but it moved quite gracefully despite its ungainly appearance.

  The alien burbled something at him, and it gestured for him to join the flow of pedestrian traffic. He could see that this creature commanded respect. Everyone moved aside, allowing him and his captor to walk without fear of being trampled on.

  Wolverton craned his neck to look at the elevator tower, its summit lost in the green clouds. Two huge worms crawled out of the corridor. Their featureless faces swelled and emitted high-pitched whistles.

  The alien led him around the tower's base. On the other side of it was a squat building.

  They went inside. Angled walls peaked overhead. The alien took Wolverton to a chamber with improbably angled dimensions.

  Stored inside were large ovoid balloons, colored pale violet, orange, green, and blue. The alien reached into the nearest violet balloon and pulled away a bobbing section which it slapped onto a cavity located between its legs—apparently its mouth. It scooped up more of the balloon and applied this as well, and then peeled open part of its clear body covering. It breathed in the contents of the balloon through its curiously placed orifice, its body swelling with the effort.

  The alien pointed at one of the orange balloons with a snaking finger. It was telling Wolverton to do what it had done.

  He wasted no time, quickly scooping out several orange handfuls and covering his head with them. He shut off his air supply and carefully removed his helmet. The pale orange balloon jiggled and settled onto his shoulders. A bit of it str
etched like a cobweb from his helmet before snapping back into place. He inhaled pure oxygen.

  Wolverton greedily sucked in the air and felt giddiness force its way into his racing mind. How did this alien know he was an oxygen breather? Was it a member of the same species Nozaki had met?

  He decided not to think about Nozaki. It would only depress him, and he needed to keep his wits.

  Wolverton was soon high on pure oxygen. Concentrating on trying to be observant, he thought about the translucent balloons he saw on various species that contained the gas mixtures they breathed. The more complex coverings must have aided those who couldn't function in this gravity while providing artificial atmospheres.

  There was a lot to learn. The important thing right now was that he was breathing and not using up what was left of his air supply. Maybe he could find a way to fill his tanks with oxygen. Who knew, maybe he could even find nitrogen to blend with it.

  He comforted himself by remembering that, as difficult as graduate school on Earth and fieldwork on Mars had been for him socially, he'd always done well because he had an analytical mind. If anything he'd ever seen qualified for analysis, this was it.

  Wolverton slapped more balloons over himself, until he was covered from head to toe. In his jiggling, orange cocoon, with his helmet off, he could hear sounds quite clearly.

  "What happens now?” he asked.

  The alien, of course, didn't answer.

  "You're not going to arrest me, are you?” he asked, fighting the urge to bolt. “I hope I haven't broken any laws or anything like that...."

  The alien's eyes widened as if it questioned what he was saying, and Wolverton understood that he was at its mercy. He had nowhere to go except where this creature took him.

  He watched the alien through the pale orange balloonskin. It lifted its middle arm and waved its snaking fingers at him, gesturing for him to come along as it moved toward the door.

  Wolverton followed it out of the room, delirious from inhaling raw oxygen but filled with trepidation.

  They took a different route, a zigzagging corridor that led outdoors. Wolverton felt grateful that there were few pedestrians about.