"Maybe it's a lapsed colony world."
"Could be. Whose? How long has it been isolated?"
"Stop it, please . . ." said Ayrlyn. "If the fusactors are down, can we fix them? If not, what do we do?"
"We die or colonize." Ryba looked coldly back to Nylan. "Atmosphere?"
"Rough analysis indicates low CO, oxygen about twenty-two percent, mostly nitrogen. There's nothing obviously wrong, but I can't rule out toxic or chronic trace elements in the soil or atmosphere."
"Inhabited?"
"The traces I've picked up say so." The engineer shrugged again. "Could be anything, but it's carbon-based, and, if I had to guess, probably some form of humanoid. There are some regular patches that could be fields and some lines that could be roads ..."
"Better than savages, but not much."
"You could be jumping to conclusions," pointed out Ayrlyn.
"I have to go with the odds." The captain glanced back at the readouts. "And we're continuing to lose power."
"This whole world is against the odds."
Ryba turned and called up the visual display of the smaller continent on her console. "Nylan, Saryn, Ayrlyn . . . come here."
"Captain? Gerlich here. What's the drill? The marine force leader wants to know. So does Merlin."
"We're in stable orbit, but we'll have to abandon the ship. We're surveying landing sites. You can commence figuring loads for the landers. Something along the line of configuration C."
"Self-sustaining?" came the weapons officer's voice.
"That's affirmative. Local culture looks primitive, but organized. Roads and fields, and that probably means things like blades, archers, and cavalry or the local equivalent if they have horses or what passes for them. Mass density is standard, and that means metal-working."
"Understood. All four landers appear operational..."
"Fusactors aren't going to work here, Gerlich," added Nylan. "You'll have to modify the configuration for that."
"Fusactors work everywhere."
"Not here, wherever here is."
The captain looked at Nylan. "You sound absolutely certain."
"You can have Gerlich test the survival fusactor, but it won't work."
"Weapons . . . the engineer is probably right, but test the fusactor and let me know."
"Will do, Captain. How much time do we have?"
"Take enough time to do it right, Gerlich. We're operating on stored power. We can't take the tier two firin cells, but try to make room for the fully charged cells left in tier three."
"What tools?"
"All the hand tools, and"-Ryba looked at Nylan-"two sets of laser cutters."
Nylan nodded.
"No energy weapons?" asked Gerlich.
"The heavy-weapons head for one laser. Hand weapons might be useful for a time, but we probably won't have any way to recharge them. All the slug-throwers the marines have. And take all your clothing-especially sweaters or warm things-even if you have to wear it or stuff it into cracks in the landers. And blankets. I can guarantee we won't be coming back for anything."
"We'll get working on it, Captain."
Ryba turned to the bridge crew and gestured to the screen. "Where do we go down? Here's the planet."
The four clustered around the single wide screen.
"Four major continents. The one that looks like a fish- roughly-has an island off it." Ryba glanced at Nylan. "Would we be better off on the island?"
The engineer shook his head. "It's hot; it's so dry that the sensors don't show any moisture, and there are no signs of habitation. It's also pretty rocky."
"What about the big southern continent?"
"Isn't it hot?" asked Saryn. "It's not that far south of the equator."
"Very hot," admitted Nylan.
"You don't seem very positive, Ser Nylan," commented Ryba. "Each unit we sit and talk costs us power, and all you do is say no."
Nylan shrugged. "I'd vote for the second-largest continent. It's got some high mountain plateaus in that western range. It's spring or early summer now, and we can land. There's greenery there, but no signs of habitation-probably too cold for the locals, and it might be helpful not to tramp on anyone's boots."
"It's hundreds and hundreds of kays from any access to oceans or major rivers," pointed out Ayrlyn.
"We're not exactly into seafaring," Nylan said dryly.
"Fine," said the captain. "We land on this mountain plateau. We get a defensible position-maybe. We get snow and ice over our head in the winter, a short growing season, and probably not much access to building materials."
"We also have more time to establish ourselves before the local authorities, or what passes for such, show up," answered Nylan.
"It's insane to try and put a lander into a mountain pasture. It could be just a high-altitude swamp," protested Saryn.
"The odds are against that, and there are two areas where we could land. Each is twice as long as a lander's set-down distance."
"Twice as long in the middle of mountains that could rip a lander into little shreds."
Nylan shrugged. "How long will anyone last if we set down on those hot and flat plains?"
"We don't even know if they have local authorities, or if the locals are intelligent, or if they even look remotely like us," protested Saryn. "This is insane."
"I think you just validated the engineer's suggestion," said Ryba. "There's too much we don't know, and we don't have the energy to shuttle things off the ship. Besides . . ." She left the sentence unfinished, but Nylan knew the unspoken words. Except for removable power supplies, weapons, and tools, the Winterlance would shortly be unusable in any case.
"Trying to hit mountain landing areas? That's crazy."
"You're right," Nylan agreed. "Except that trying to land anywhere else would be even riskier. The landing is high risk, but it makes survival lower risk. Take your choice."
"We're opting for long-term survival," announced the captain. "I'm not interested in merely prolonging existence enough to die of heat exhaustion on a nice flat plain where landing is easy. I'll begin computing the entry paths," the captain announced. "Nylan, would you do a survey of your equipment to see if there's anything else that could be useful planetside?"
The engineer nodded as the captain assigned the responsibilities for cannibalizing the Winterlance.
IV
"HAVE YOU DETERMINED the cause of the great perturbation between order and chaos-the one that shook the world last evening?" asks the white-haired man dressed in the more traditional flowing white robes.
The younger, but balding, man straightens and looks up from the circular glass in the middle of the white oak table. "Ser?"
"I asked, Hissl, about the great perturbation. Jissek still lies in a stupor, and my glass shows that waves flooded the Great North Bay."
"Waves always flood the Great North Bay, honored Terek." Hissl inclines his head to the older magician, and the summer light that reflects off the roof of the keep of Lornth and through the window glistens on his bald pate. "I do believe that order fought chaos in the skies, and that times will be changing."
"A safe prediction," snorts Terek. "The times always change. Tell me something useful."
The man in the white tunic and trousers stands and bows to the older white-clad man. "There are strangers approaching from the skies."
"There are always strangers approaching. How do you know they are from the skies?"
"The glass shows a man and a woman. The man has hair colored silver like the stars, and the woman has flaming red hair, like a fire. They are seated in a tent of iron."
"An old man and a redheaded weakling?"
"The man is young, and the woman is a warrior, and they bring other women warriors."
"How many?" Terek walks to the unglazed window of the lower magicians' tower, where the shutters tremble against the leather thongs that hold them open. His eyes look out upon the barely green hilly fields above the river.
"A score."
"I should tremble at a score of women warriors? This is the message of such a great disturbance?"
Hissl bows again. "You have asked what I have seen, and you mock what I tell you."
"Bah! I will wait until Jissek wakes."
"As you wish. I have warned you of the danger."
Terek shakes his head and turns toward the plank door that squeaks on its rough hinges with each gust of the spring wind. He does not shut it as he leaves.
Hissl waits until he can no longer hear the sound of boots on the tower stairs. Then he smiles, recalling the lances of winter that the strangers bear, and the breadth of the women's shoulders.
V
NYLAN WENT THROUGH the manual controls a third time, as well as through the checklist once more. Then he studied the rough maps and the readouts again. He had one of the two landing beacons, and his was the one that the other three landers would hone in on-assuming he managed to set down where he planned, assuming that he could find the correct high plateau in the middle of the right high mountain range without getting spitted on the surrounding needle-knife peaks. The second beacon would go down with Ryba-in case he ran into trouble.
"Black two, this is black one. Comm check." Nylan watched his breath steam as he waited for a reply.
"One, this is two. Clear and solid."
"Good. You're cleared to break orbit."
The engineer took a deep breath. "I'm not quite through the checks. About four units, I'd guess."
"Let us know."
"Will do."
In the couches behind him were the eight marines assigned to his lander. The craft wasn't really a lander, but a space cargo/personnel shuttle that could be and had been hastily modified into a lifting body with stub wings for a single atmospheric entry in emergency situations. Only one of the four landers carried by the Winterlance was actually designed for normal atmospheric transits, and it had far less capacity. That was the one Ryba was bringing down with the high-priority cargo items.
Although Nylan had more experience in atmospheric flight than Saryn or even Ryba, he wasn't keen about being the lead pilot through an atmosphere he'd never seen, belonging to a planet he suspected shouldn't exist. Because he was even less keen about dying of starvation or lack of oxygen in orbit, he continued with the checklist. Still, the business of trying to hit mountain plateaus bothered him, even if it were the only hope for most of the crew. "Harnesses strapped and tight?"
"We're tight, ser," responded Fierral from the couch beside him, the blue-eyed squad leader, who once had been a brunette, but who now had become a fiery redhead as a result of the Winterlance's strange underjump. "It wouldn't be a good idea to be floating around here anyway, would it now?"
"No," admitted the engineer. He took another deep breath before flicking through the remainder of the checklist.
He scanned the screens, then thumbed the comm stud. "Black one, this is two. Breaking orbit this time."
"We'll be tracking you."
"Thanks." Nylan pulsed the jets, amused as always that it took energy to leave orbit, then watched the three limited screens as the lander slowly rose, then dropped, although neither sensation was more than a hint with the gentle movements. He knew those movements would be far less gentle at the end of the flight.
The first brush with the solidity of the upper atmosphere was a dragging skid, and enough of a warming in the lander that Nylan's breath no longer steamed.
The second brush was longer, harder, like a bareback ride across a fall-frozen stubbled field just before the snows of a Sybran winter began. And the lander warmed more.
Nylan studied the screens, not liking either the temperature readouts or the closures.
"Make sure those harnesses are tight! This is going to be rough."
"Yes, ser."
With the third and last atmospheric contact, the lander bucked, stiffly, and then again, even more roughly, as the thin whisper of the upper atmosphere slowly built into a screaming shriek.
Whhheeeeeee . . .
The lander was coming in fast... too fast.
Nylan flared the nose, bleeding off speed, but increasing the heat buildup. Then he dropped it fractionally.
Whheeeeeeeee . . .
The lander bounced, as though it had skidded on something solid in the upper atmosphere, then dropped as if through a vacuum. Nylan's guts pushed up through his throat, and he could taste bile and smell his own sweated - out fear.