Chapter 19: Daybreak
"Wake up, Tarlant!"
Soreto was pushing at his shoulder, calling his name urgently. Groggily, Tarlant opened his eyes and looked at her. There was something different. She was...smiling. He sat up and rubbed his eyes.
"You did it," he said. Above the sound of the wind he could hear the choppy, static-filled transmissions of the research stations, and a projected green field glowed above the control board, sparkling with bright flashes whenever snowflakes were driven by the wind past the aura of warm air the robots radiated.
"There's some tea for you, there," Soreto said, lifting her own mug. "It might still be warm. Belle brought it out. What did you do, threaten to feed her to the penguins?"
If he had been Soreto, Tarlant wasn't sure he would have risked drinking anything Belle brought unexpectedly, but Soreto's mood seemed so much improved that he said nothing. He tried the tea. It was not exactly warm any more, but it hadn't frozen, so he drank it. It seemed all right.
"So, are we picking up anything interesting?"
"It's hard to tell with the snow blowing around. I'm looking for energy signatures similar to our packs, but setting the parameters to a very low level, so that we might still register a pack that's drained or almost drained. So far the most promising indicator is on an island research station."
"So, someone may have made it to the station."
"It's a fair distance from the crash site, but they may have been rescued or picked up by the researchers. Don't get your hopes too high, though. We're picking up a lot of slightly similar readings. I think they must be experimenting here with energy collecting devices not too different from our own. It's also possible they simply recovered one of our lost energy packs."
Which would mean, Tarlant knew, that whoever had been wearing it was most likely dead.
"In the morning, we can start thinking about how to get inside the station for a look," Soreto said.
"The storm is getting worse, though," said Tarlant. "Why don't you go back to the shelter and get some sleep? We have enough junk left to put up some sort of wall to block out the wind. The robots and I can handle it."
The wall was difficult to erect in the screaming wind, and it wasn't until the sky started to turn pale again that he felt the scanning area was adequately sheltered. He dropped exhausted onto the dented crate Soreto had been using as a chair. The scanning field was much easier to read without snow blowing through it. Tarlant closed his eyes and leaned on the control panel. He was out of the wind at last, finished with his work, and ready for another nap. The soft static and muted transmissions coming over the audio circuits nearly lulled him to sleep before he realized what he was hearing.
As he walked with Pollux out to the landing pad, Cooks made his usual detour to the infirmary, hoping to see some change in Ian Cole's condition. Each time before, the boy had still lain comatose on the medical cot. Today, though, the cot stood empty.
And Mac and Della, the two medical techs, were strapping a coffin to a wheeled cart, grim-faced.
Shit, thought Cooks.
"The kid died?" he asked.
"Not yet," said Della. "He's just in the hotbox for the ride out to the ship."
Mac added bitterly, "Ten to one he'll be dead before reaching port. But the last part of Castor's machine arrived this morning, and Baldwin absolutely insists on the 'terrorist' being shipped out on the cargo freighter before the big demonstration. Like a teenage kid in a coma is a huge security risk."
"I'm sorry," said Cooks. "I know you guys worked hard to save him." He stood and watched as the techs completed their work and prepared to wheel Ian Cole's soon-to-be corpse out to the dock.
"Tell you what," said Cooks. "We're going out to the landing pad, anyway. Why don't we take the kid out for you?"
As he expected, both techs were grateful not to have to make the cold trip out into the rising storm. He wheeled the cart out of the infirmary, down the narrow corridor to the exit and out onto the ice.
"What are you doing?" Pollux asked in a panicky whisper.
"Change of plans," said Cooks. "We're leaving now. Can this thing be attached to a helicopter?"
"Yes, that's what it's meant for, to airlift injured people. But it won't fit the scout copter! And the engine's still in pieces!"
"We'll take one of the others, then," said Cooks. They reached the landing pad, and the two of them worked to fasten the insulated container to the skids.
"Can we even take off in this wind?"
"Yep."
"Castor's not here, though! We need to get Castor!"
"The kid in this crate is in danger of being shoved onto an Antarctic freighter for a long, slow, cold, rough trip he probably won't survive. Your brother is in no immediate danger. We'll find a way to get Castor out later, after we get Ian to a hospital somewhere. I figure his chances must be better of surviving a fast helicopter flight than a voyage by freight barge."
"And how do we keep them from coming after us?" asked Pollux. "I mean, in the scout machine, I was going to double the speed and give us a stealth radar profile, and-"
Cooks picked up a large screwdriver and stabbed the two extra helicopters viciously in the fuel tanks.
"You think too much, kid," he said to Pollux. "Let's go."
Soreto ran to the scanning area through the screaming winds. It was just as Tarlant had said. On the scanning field glowed a bright new mark. Over the audio came a message, automatically repeating, in Dumas's voice. "Team Greecia, respond. If you can hear this, try to hold on and we will come looking for you as soon as the sun rises. An evacuation vessel is standing by and is located at-"
Soreto punched buttons. "Is there any way to respond?" She didn't wait for Tarlant's answer, she knew herself they had not thought to incorporate communications functions into the jerry-built scanner. She tried her voicelink with no response. It was either failing to make a connection with the new, unknown network, or possibly, Dumas was sleeping.
Soreto looked at the sky. It was growing pale around the edges, just the faintest blush of pink beginning to color the horizon.
"So, shall we wait here and be rescued?" Soreto asked. It was a rhetorical question. Minutes later, Tina and Belle had been rousted out of the shelter and into the escape pods. They rose up into the fury of the windstorm and moved toward the sea.
The matter transference device worked flawlessly, of course. As he had known it would. Every important system on the ship was working at a higher level of efficiency than its original design would have allowed. Hasmodai could have made some cosmetic repairs, fixed frozen doorways and removed dents and scratches in the wall, and he might have done it if he cared any longer.
The illusion that was Pirya appeared surprised by Hasmodai's emotional withdrawal, then hurt, then resigned. Soon there was only one thing that needed to be done to make the Atalanta ready to depart. Hasmodai began to prepare the preservation chamber for Pirya.
"In a week or so, the Atalanta's power cells should be completely charged, and I've preset your engines to depart for Greecia at that point," he told her. It. "With the improvements I've made to the engines, it shouldn't take more than eight or nine years to get you home again. And there are new safeguards in place. There is absolutely no danger of an accidental collision happening this time."
"I don't want to sleep any more," said Pirya. How unrealistically quickly she had picked up modern language, Hasmodai thought wryly.
"You can't wander around the ship alone for the entire journey. For one thing, the systems required to sustain active life will drain power from the engines, and it may take as much as twice as long to reach home."
"You say the ship will not leave for a week. Let me live free until then. Stay with me."
"No." His voice sounded strange and cold, even to himself. He relented a bit, let his expression soften. He had loved her, once, when he had believed she was real. "You won't even know the time is passing. You will go to sleep and the next thing you know, you will be arriving in Greecia."
"Then come with me," Pirya begged. "Come to Greecia with me, be there when I awake."
"I can't," said Hasmodai. "They need my soul to help save the Zone, remember? You wouldn't want to get to Greecia and find it's nothing but a frozen ball of ice."
"It would make little difference," said Pirya. "I know nobody in this future Greecia. I know not this world. Nothing I possess, none of my skills, none of my knowledge will have the smallest value on a planet filled with such wonders."
"I think you will be surprised to discover how mistaken you are about that," he said. "The Royal Historical Society alone will probably keep you and your shipmates busy answering questions for years on end."
With a last sigh of resignation, Pirya stepped into the preservation chamber. Her eyes, desolate, never left his.
"Will I ever see you again?" she asked softly.
"If we are meant to be together, I know that we will find each other." He forced himself to meet the eyes of Pirya. They looked so real, so sad. "I promise you that."
Hasmodai activated the stasis system, saw the expression fade from under her drooping eyelids. Gel began to fill the chamber.
He was surprised to find his face wet with tears, his chest heaving, and his throat constricted. Of course, he thought, shoving away the emotion with a blast of cynicism. It would hardly be a satisfying fairy tale without the bittersweet parting.
He walked, alone, to the surveillance system, put his hand on the globe. Would the Enma allow him to leave the ship? He thought so. Seeing the Atalanta take off was another necessary plot device, and he could hardly enjoy that from in here. It would be easy enough for them to transfer him to some alternate fantasy.
There appeared to be several interesting things going on in the area. In the end, he decided that a reunion with the friends who had left him to die probably had the most dramatic potential. He took one, long last look around the control center.
The coordinates were selected, and the matter transference system activated.
And Hasmodai left the vision of the Atalanta behind.
The escape pods were buffeted by the wild air currents. The potential for buildup of ice on the hull worried Soreto. She could fly by instrument readings if necessary, but Tarlant and Tina were in the pod which had been cannibalized for its scanner controls.
She needn't have worried-the driven snow was fine as sand and frozen too hard to cling. There was no moisture in the air to form frost, except for that which they exhaled on the inside of the pods.
"How are you doing?" she spoke over the ship-to-ship channel.
"Fine. Just don't go too fast, we need to keep you in visual range," said Tarlant. "It's not easy to see you in this mess." Even as he spoke, there was a hissing noise from the hull as another cloud of driven ice particles engulfed the pod.
Dumas's signal was playing over the scanner system, and Soreto homed in on it. As they left the ice shelf and flew over the sea, the blown snow vanished. She could see it rising like a plume from the ice behind them, falling below the cliff. Tarlant burst out of that cloud of snow into the clear air, and Soreto increased her speed.
Soon she could see something far ahead, a small ship tossing on the windblown sea.
"Soreto?" Belle was looking frightened. "Listen!"
Over the audio, another signal had interrupted Dumas's.
"Repeat: you are an unauthorized flight in violation of the no-fly zone surrounding the climate regulation band. Turn back now, or you will be fired upon." The message played over in another Earth language, and another.
"What do we do?" Belle asked.
"Tarlant, we're crossing the missile range again! Fly above and just behind me, as close as you can get!"
Tarlant changed his position. Soreto anxiously watched the scanner. Soon three warning blips appeared-they had been fired upon. As she had hoped, all three missiles were homing in on Soreto's pod.
"Tarlant, full speed! Get to the ship!"
Soreto veered wildly, drawing the missiles off. She recalled that a second, more dangerous salvo of missiles had been fired the last time they crossed this line, but not until the first barrage had failed. The pods had been safe from the original attack, attached to the ship and protected by its shields. She had little hope that the fragile pod would shrug off even the light missiles now trailing them. Her best chance was to keep the missiles on her tail and hope to give Tarlant time to reach Dumas.
She made a sudden, drastic course change. Belle squeaked as she was thrown against her harness, and the missiles lost ground, veering widely before coming around to bear on her again. She jinked two, three more times, the missiles coming closer with each maneuver.
"Unstrap, we have to jump!" she ordered Belle.
"You're NUTS!" Belle shouted, but unbuckled her harness with no further argument.
Soreto swerved one last time, punched the button to open the hatch, and grabbed Belle. "Hold on tight!" she ordered. Belle wrapped her arms around Soreto's neck, and they leaped from the hatch.
The force of the wind drove them tumbling through the air, Soreto trying to get her bearings before they hit the ice-black sea. She managed to levitate, carrying the weight of Belle, managed to stop them both from plunging into the ocean as the escape pod erupted into a fireball above them, its burning remains flying on to splash into the water.
Soreto spun, trying to find the ship among the tall storm waves, knowing she had only a few moments of suspension before the weak charge in her energy pack gave out entirely.
There it was. Soreto propelled them forward, but a wall of water rose in front of them, struck them down into the depths.
They emerged, gasping, the wrappings around their heads and hands soaked with the freezing sea. Soreto willed every last bit of speed and lift from the energy pack, hurrying them toward the waiting ship, but she could feel that it was not enough, that they were slowly sinking toward the deadly ocean.
Belle suddenly released her grip, and Soreto clutched her tighter, gritting her teeth, hoping the stupid girl wasn't planning some idiotic act of self-sacrifice, planning to leave Soreto free to save herself.
But Belle put her free hand on her own energy pack, and Soreto felt a sudden boost as they rose from the surface once more. It seemed Belle did have a little of her brother's common sense after all. A little.
Then an outer force lifted them from the sea, raised them into the air, and gently put them down on the deck of a wildly tossing ship. Mel left the controls and ran to them, helping them up from the deck as a barrier rose to shield them from the bitter winds outside. Tarlant and Tina were there, and Seth and Dumas.
They were alive