Chapter 9
PSD 29-212: 1911 hours
Beyond the cockpit canopy, the stars were shining faintly in the twilight of Proc-One’s sky. Procyon A had set, and its smaller counterpart, the white dwarf Procyon B, was now the dominant feature of the heavens, brighter than any other star or planet that shone from above. The constellations were different from this planet, unfamiliar to one such as Landry, who had spent most of his life on Earth, and that only increased his feeling of isolation.
He was a long way from home.
He sat up and looked out at the surrounding terrain. The half-light that fell across the landscape created shadows and gloomy hollows that had not existed before, and Landry wondered what they might be hiding.
The Argoni was still out there. In his mind he pictured it moving closer, skipping between the abundant shadows, coming ever nearer to the wreck of the scout. Preparing itself for the killing blow, when it would finish him off once and for all.
It would not be a difficult task, he knew. At that moment, tethered to his oxygen umbilical inside the cockpit, defenseless, Landry represented nothing more than Oysters Kilpatrick to the Toad. He was a wad of flesh inside the hard shell of the scout, waiting to be scooped out and eaten.
That about summed it up.
He hadn’t made any progress yet, he decided. Not really. He’d prolonged his life by a few hours, but he was no closer to getting himself out of his predicament. As long as the OXEE was in operation he would be able to breathe, and his In-suit Drink Bag (IDB) contained enough water to last him a couple of days if he used it sparingly. Heck, he’d even taken the precaution of wearing his absorption garment (that is, a diaper) just in case the outing with Gus had taken longer than he’d anticipated.
He had air, water, and something to pee into. All good.
But he was still stranded out here, and no one knew where he was. Sooner or later those at the outpost would find the scout had gone missing, but if Gus had stayed under radar as effectively as he’d believed, they wouldn’t have a clue where it had gone. That meant he had to figure out a way of getting home on his own.
Okay, Landry. This isn’t so hard. You can do it.
He weighed it up for a few moments, then began to speak out loud to himself.
“It’s simple. I need to breathe, and the only way to breathe is through the OXEE, which is inside the scout. So, I’m effectively chained to the scout. All I have to do is drag this two ton wreck a few hundred kilometers across rocky terrain, all while evading the alien monster that’s roaming around the place trying to kill me. And I have to do that before my tiny water supply runs out.”
He raised his arm and gave an ironic little fist pump.
“This one’s
in the bag
.”
Then he slumped back against the broken seat inside the cockpit, exhausted at the mere thought of it.
As “easy” as all of that sounded, he had another problem. He had no idea how long the backup battery was going to feed the OXEE. The solar cells had been sitting in the light of Procyon A all day, and, if they were still functioning correctly, that should have allowed the battery to build up a full charge.
But since Procyon A had set, the light was greatly diminished. He doubted the white dwarf would supply much energy at all to the cells. Perhaps none. So the energy store would be dipping markedly. It wouldn’t begin to go up again until Procyon A crested the horizon again tomorrow morning.
Also, the backup battery wasn’t designed to provide power for long periods. It was there more for flight controls, to allow the pilot to land the craft safely in the event of primary power loss.
In reality, the battery could run dry in five hours or five minutes. Either way, Landry would probably be dead before Procyon A came up again.
Should probably get some sleep. I’ll use less oxygen that way, make better use of the supply.
But, try as he might, he could not get to sleep. He kept replaying the events of the day over and over in his mind. The discussion with Gus at the workshop, and agreeing to help him out. Removing the transponder. Flying away from the outpost, and the horror and confusion of the crash. The confrontation with the Argoni.
His mind went back again to the flight, before the crash. After they’d taken off, Gus had disengaged the scout’s AI, figuring they wouldn’t need it for the short trip. Landry distinctly remembered hearing it beep as it had tried to initiate.
Maybe that was what he needed. The AI. Maybe it could help.
“Help with what?” he muttered to himself. “It can’t fly the ship anymore.”
But he knew that the AI was not limited to assisting with flight parameters. It was also designed to run diagnostics on the ship, assist with navigation, and a whole host of other functions.
The AI could be an invaluable tool in getting out of this predicament, he knew. It might be able to provide crucial information that Landry had no other way of obtaining.
But, assuming the AI processor hadn’t cracked apart or melted in the crash, he still couldn’t attempt to turn it on just yet. In order to do that, he’d have to hook it up to the backup battery, increasing the drain on the reservoir of energy that was providing him oxygen. It was too risky.
If he made it through to morning, however, then he might have enough power budget to make it work.
If
he made it through to morning.
He tilted his head back and looked up at the sky again. “Shine bright, little star,” he murmured to Procyon B. “Give me everything you’ve got.”
He tried to ignore the fact that, like its counterpart had done, the white dwarf was now also dipping toward the horizon. Maybe it would be one of those rare occasions when full night would come to Proc-One.
Just my luck.
He lay there in silence, knowing there was no chance he would find sleep, his mind still whirring. Seconds and then minutes passed, and with the steady hiss of air flowing through the umbilical being the only thing he could hear, something strange happened.
He fell asleep.
Chapter 10
PSD 29-212: 1758 hours
Back inside the workshop, Cait found Landry’s desk in the back corner of the room, a gloomy little nook where he could often be found toward the end of the day finishing up his paperwork. He was a hands-on guy, she had to give him that. In general, he liked to get stuck into the manual work with the other Optechs, and seemed to treat his supervision duties almost as an afterthought.
The desk itself was a mess. Cluttered and scored by scratches and the markings of spilt fluid, it looked more like a melting pot for the workshop detritus than a symbol of rank, of privilege.
I worked my butt off for
this? Cait thought, underwhelmed.
She glanced over her shoulder. The other Optechs had already left, heading to bars or home to their wives as soon as the buzzer had sounded. Now an eerie quiet had descended on the place. It was just her and the partially disassembled machines that lurked in the gloom, inert sentinels watching over her.
These were the only ones to witness her triumph, to see the moment that she took her first step up the ranks.
“Clean the desk,” she reminded herself, clapping her hands together once and then rubbing them together in anticipation of her task. “Landry’s stuff goes out, and mine goes in.”
She began to remove the clutter one piece at a time. To her surprise she found that most of it didn’t belong to Landry. There were half a dozen omni-devices, the electronic clipboards used by the Optechs, that had been haphazardly tossed on the desk at the end of the shift, some other paperwork that had come from Dodge, and a drill driver with Landry’s initials engraved on the side that Cait had seen Pasternak lugging around earlier in the day.
Once she had cleaned that off, she had to admit that the desk was quite orderly.
Landry’s in and out trays were neatly arranged, his own personal omni-device neatly placed at the edge of the desk, his collection of screws and nuts and bolts categorized into separate containers according to size. There were three photographs tacked to the wall: an old fighter jet Cait didn’t recognize; a huge Albatross Warship floating on the edge of Earth’s atmosphere, fitted with a second-gen fold engine; and a silver sports car with blue LEDs threaded across its flanks in a wave pattern.
The photographs were all perfectly aligned and equally spaced. Not the work of someone who lacked attention to detail.
Who cares?
Cait thought irritably, then she reminded herself that now she could afford to be gracious.
The guy is still a screwball.
She reached for the garbage bag she had brought with her and began to pack away Landry’s gear. She ripped the photos off the wall first, then removed everything else from the desk. Dropping down into Landry’s chair (
my
chair
), she pulled open the drawer and began to flick through the contents. She found a modified soldering iron, three rolls of gaffer tape, neatly stacked, and a box of capacitors. In the next drawer down was an assortment of cables and rechargeable batteries, and a packet of unopened chocolate rolls. She dumped all of it.
She was going to need this space for her own stuff.
She pulled open the bottom drawer and then stopped.
There was nothing inside but a dusty digital photo frame. Cait touched the screen and frowned, looking down as images began to scroll across it. She stared at the pictures as if they were some kind of indecipherable puzzle.
She glanced over her shoulder, suddenly feeling as though she were being watched. As if this might have been some sort of prank all along.
But she was still alone in the workshop.
Turning back to the drawer, she reached inside and pulled out the photo frame, a digital wafer no thicker than a piece of paper, and looked at each image in turn. Then she looked through them a second time in more detail.
The first photograph was of Landry posing with a young woman with red hair, her pale skin dotted with freckles. There was a cluster of them over her nose and the top of her cheeks. Landry seemed relaxed, his mousey-brown hair wind-blown, his normally light complexion appearing somewhat tanned. The picture was a selfie, taken by the woman, and both she and Landry were laughing as they gave each other a goofy kiss on the lips.
The second photo was of the woman herself, lying in a bed with her hair tousled, morning sunlight streaming across the room. She was smiling at the camera with a dreamy look on her face, as if she’d just woken up.
The last image was nothing like the first two. It appeared to be a photograph of a tiny round cell taken under a microscope, the center dappled with bumps and waves and irregularities. A watermark read
Lifeblood Fertility Clinic
.
A human embryo?
Cait dropped the photo frame on the desk and slumped back, conflicted. She realized that her momentary high at Landry’s misfortunate had well and truly ebbed away. Now she felt flat. Empty.
What
is
this? What’s going on? Landry’s a loner. He doesn’t have a wife or a child. He’s got nobody.
A horrible thought occurred to her.
“But what if he
does?
” she said out loud.
Torn by a moment of guilt, she picked up the photo frame again, almost against her will. She stared as the pictures began to cycle through again.
Are you really going to just dump these in the bag and move on with your life?
“It’s his own fault,” she spat, her voice ringing out across the empty workshop. “He brought this on himself.”
She got up and gripped the garbage bag, her hand poised above it, the photo frame dangling in her fingers, but her own words sounded empty to her.
Well, Supervisor Underwood. You have your first managerial duty to carry out.
She decided to check with Dodge about the disappearance of the scout and make sure there was nothing else they could do to track it down. She would do her job thoroughly. The last thing she wanted was to be slammed for negligence on the first day of her new job. Besides, if Landry had family that was going to miss him, that could very well happen. They’d want to know what steps had been taken to track him down.
Her anger toward Landry intensified, as if he were to blame for this mess. Like he’d known Cait would come to clean out the desk, find the photos, and be subsequently racked with guilt. Her moment of triumph was ruined.
“Gah!” she said, kicking the chair away. It smacked into the desk and then fell on its side.
She stashed the photo in her coveralls, then headed out of the workshop and slammed the door behind her.
Chapter 11
PSD 29-212: 2009 hours
Landry gripped the fishing rod and headed along the pier. Ahead, the great expanse of the ocean sparkled like an emerald, and whitecaps glinted in the midday sun.
Freida was standing at the edge of the pier, waiting, a patient smile on her face.
This is a dream
, he thought.
No. A memory.
Maybe it’s both, or neither.
“Come on, slow coach,” Freida called, waving at him. “We don’t have all day.”
He hefted the basket under his arm, trying his best not to drop the rods. “It might have helped if you’d, like, carry something.”
“I’m not here to carry. Remember? I’m the teacher, you’re the student.”
“No, I’m the pack mule. I’m not sure what you are.”
“Set it down here, donkey boy,” she said imperiously, pointing at her feet.
He dumped the gear and heaved a sigh of relief. “With pleasure.” Through the wooden planks of the pier he could see water sloshing against the barnacle-encrusted pillars below, a kid paddling on a surfboard as he navigated his way underneath. “What now?”
She smiled at him from under her sunhat and brushed a lock of auburn hair away from her face. “Now we pillage the world’s oceans.”
“You make it sound so . . . grand.”
“That’s because it
is
, dear Landry.”
His grandma had always told him that he’d end up falling for a redhead. Saw it in her tea leaves when he was eight, of all things. Back then he hadn’t really thought falling for
any
girl would be possible. He was more concerned with gluing together model airplanes and building his own motorized scooter. Adding to his stack of Robowars collectible cards.
But Grandma had stuck by her claim for years afterward. She’d brought it up every time they saw a girl at the supermarket or on the way to school who vaguely fit the description, and in return Landry had always told her she was crazy.
And now, here he was, not just falling for a redhead, but absolutely smitten with one.
So much so that he’d even agreed to come out fishing for the day, a pastime that he would normally have found as interesting watching a patch of oil dry on the garage floor.
“Take the bait,” Freida was saying, handing him a wad of meat from a bucket, “and thread it over the hook. No, not that way. It’ll fall off too easy like that.” She reached out and corrected his work. “There. That’s step one.”
“And step two is go home?”
“No. Step two is cast.” She baited her own hook, then gave him a demonstration. “Nice fluid motion. Point the rod at your target, then bring it up to vertical, and then push forward again. Make sure the motion is in your elbow and wrist, not your shoulder.” She let fly with an expert flick. “Voilà.”
Landry gave his own rod a try, and the line splashed ineptly at his feet. “Okay, I’m no good at this. I’ll just watch you.”
“Don’t be a sook,” she chided. “A bit of practice and you’ll be hauling in three meter sharks like shelling peas.”
“That’s not really something I want to aim for.”
They sat there long into the afternoon, not catching a
thing
, constantly re-baiting hooks and casting again. Sitting, standing. Talking.
Landry had loved every minute of it.
The odd thing was, he couldn’t really put his finger on
why
. Maybe it was the serenity of the ocean waves rumbling rhythmically against the shoreline. Maybe it was the oneness with nature, or the way Freida favored him with that smile whenever he tried to be funny.
Whatever it was, he soaked up every second of it with deep gratitude. Carefree afternoons didn’t come along much anymore. Not since the war had started.
“What do you think is going to happen to us?” he said at one point, staring up into the sky. “Humans, I mean.”
She looked at him, evaluating. “Are you asking if I think we’re going to win the war with the Argoni?”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah, I do. We’ve taken a lot of hits, but they’re not even close to finishing us off. Look at how many outposts we’ve built in neighboring systems in just over ten years. Almost forty, I think, that form the Fold Perimeter around Earth. The Marines stationed out there catch just about anything that tries to come through, and the Earth defenses mop up the rest.”
“Not all of them,” Landry said.
“Not all, but most. Eventually we’ll drive those Toad cretins back to where they came from.”
“What if they keep coming?”
“Then we’ll keep fighting back. That’s what people do. It’s why we’ve survived on our own planet so long. This is just another predator we have to put below us on the food chain. We did it to all the others, so why not these as well?”
At that moment the line dipped in Landry’s hands, and he clutched at it, panicked, scrambling to his feet. “Whoa! Speaking of food chains, here comes dinner! What do I—?”
“Calm down, my little donkey boy,” she said, moving in behind him and placing her hands over his to guide his movements. “Keep a firm grip, and reel it in . . .”
Together they fought with their prospective catch for two, maybe three minutes, and during that time Landry thought that he would lose it, that the line would surely break. That the catch would wriggle free from the hook. But then, all of a sudden, he was pulling it free of the water with a final, triumphant tug. He stood there, looking at the tiny fish in disbelief, then began to laugh.
“Are you kidding me? All that effort just for
that?
”
She linked her arms around his chest and kissed his ear. “It’s magnificent.”
“I’ve seen molecules bigger than this thing.”
“You have not.”
“You know what I mean.” He glanced at her, enjoying the proximity of her face to his. “What do we do? Throw it back?”
“No. You take it home, fry it up, and eat it.”
“
What?
That wasn’t part of the deal!”
“It’s tradition. In my family, the first fish you catch gets taken home and eaten, regardless of how it looks, smells, or tastes.”
“But this thing isn’t
dinner
. It’s not even an entree. And it looks like it’s nothing but bones—”
“Tradition!”
He shrugged. “Well, now that you mention it, I
am
getting hungry. What time is it?”
Freida checked her watch. “Oh, wow. Later than I thought.”
Landry put the rod down and turned to her, suddenly serious. “I forgot about the call.”
“Well, that was the point of coming out here, remember? To get out and do something, keep our minds off
the call
.”
“Yeah, but . . . they were supposed to call. How could they not call?”
“It’s a busy clinic.” She shrugged. “They have a lot of clients.”
He lowered his eyebrows, unimpressed. “We need to call them.”
“Let’s just wait for tomorrow.”
“Call them.”
Freida sighed and took out her phone, then dialed the number. “It’s late, they’re probably closed already.” A moment later Landry heard someone answer. “Oh, hi. This is Freida Cooney. My partner and I were expecting some news today, but we didn’t hear back yet.” She paused. “Yes, I’ll hold.”
“What did she say?”
Freida rolled her eyes at him. “She said she’s going to check. Poor woman was probably just on her way out the door.”
“Sucks to be her.” Freida gave him a merciless knuckle punch to the bicep. “Ow!”
“Yes?” Freida said suddenly. “Oh, Dr. Daley. Yes, I’m fine. I’m really sorry to bother you—” She listened, casting a nervous glance in Landry’s direction. “Blastocyst stage? Really?” Her eyes lit up. “We haven’t had one go that far, have we?” She covered the mouthpiece with her hand and made a cry of joy, then did an odd little tap-dance on the spot.
“Blastocyst?” Landry hissed at her, caught up in the excitement. “That has a good chance of going full term, doesn’t it?”
She waved him away as she tried to listen to what the doctor was saying. “Yes, that’s great news.” She paused again, then gave Landry a perplexed look. “Oh? What about?”
“What is it?” Landry whispered.
“What’s an anomaly?” Freida said. The joy seemed to have been sucked out of her face all of a sudden. She checked her watch. “Tomorrow morning? Does it have to be that soon?” She glanced at Landry, unnerved. “Yes, okay. All right, I can do that. Thank you.” She nodded. “No, I’m fine. Like you said, I’m sure it’s nothing.”
She hung up and stood there unmoving, just staring at the waves sliding past the pier.
“Babe?” Landry said, taking her arm. “What’s going on?”
“Dr. Daley said they found something on one of the scans. An anomaly, whatever that is.”
“So what’s the deal? What is it?”
“I don’t know. They want me to go in. First thing tomorrow.”
“To the fertility clinic? But it’s—”
“No, to see a specialist.” She took a deep breath, then seemed to shake off her mood. “Anyway. Let’s look on the good side of things. We’ve got a real shot at having a baby this time. A
real
shot.” She threw her arms around his neck and held him tight. “A baby boy, just like I told you we would.”
He smiled, and couldn’t help but laugh as he picked her up. “Don’t you ever get tired of being wrong?”
Somewhere in that moment, in between their embrace and the gentle swell of the tide, the dream came to an end.