“Yes? Go ahead, Tom.”
“Unless I miss my guess, sir, you've thought up an interesting way to take care of it.”
Potter permitted himself a smile. “I don't know if I'd say 'interesting', Mr. Ollins. But 'thorough'… Yes, I think you'll find my way very thorough.”
58
Rain hammered against the pod's hatch like shot from a battery of shotguns. The pod quivered and shook as the storm shrieked and swore to itself, its voice falling to a whisper then rising to a banshee wail. Stan and the others were suited up in all-weather outfits that would give them some protection against the elements, though not much against the aliens. It was time to go.
“Okay,” Stan said. “Julie, you feel up to this?”
“I'm perfectly ready for a stroll,” Julie said airily. “It's just about sunset, isn't it?”
“Yes,” Gill said. “I've checked out the hive on remote sensing. The activity is reaching a peak.”
“A perfect time for us to drop in,” Julie said.
Stan felt a warm glow go through him when he looked at her. She was young, beautiful, and very brave. They were in about as difficult a situation as he could imagine, but she wasn't giving in a bit to it.
He turned to Gill. “What weapons do we have?”
Gill opened a locker and showed what he had brought. “Five chemical slugthrowers with fifty slug clips. These are somewhat old-fashioned weapons, but they are reliable. And their fifty-caliber slugs pack a wallop. I brought three Gauss needlers. They're recoilless, and their steel slivers ought to have a good effect against the aliens. I was only able to bring one Gyroc, and a bandolier of point seventy-five-caliber spin-stabilized rockets. Two high-impulse laser rifles, both fully charged, and that completes the arsenal, except for half a dozen concussion grenades. I would have liked a greater selection, but that was all that was available at the moment.”
“You have done admirably,” Stan said. “That's quite an array.”
“And, of course, I also have the light tracker, a heavy-duty communicator. As well as the suppressors to get us past the aliens undetected.”
“Very important, that last,” Stan said. “What range do the inhibitors have?”
“They'll dampen at close to one-hundred-percent strength for approximately three meters in all directions.”
“And how long will they last?”
“That's the bad part,” Gill said. “They may be good for half an hour at full strength, but it could be less.”
“Well, we'll just have to move quickly and hope we have some luck. Julie, have you reached Captain Hoban yet?”
“Just getting him now.” Julie spoke into her wrist enunciator. “Can you hear me, Hoban?”
“Loud and clear,” Hoban's voice came back to them. “I was beginning to worry. What happened to you people?”
“Nothing good,” Julie said. “But we're on AR-32 and we're still alive and in one piece. Three pieces, I should say.”
“What are your plans?” Hoban asked.
Julie turned to Stan. He said, “We have to get out of the pod, Captain. The storm is shaking it to pieces. What news do you have about your mutiny?”
“The mutineers grabbed our backup lander and took off for AR-32. It'll be a miracle if they weren't destroyed on their way down.”
“A miracle for us if they were,” Stan said. “Captain, we have our suppressors and there's only one thing we can try that'll bring this off. We're going to go through the hive, following Norbert's trail. That'll get us out of the storm, which will destroy us otherwise. We should be able to follow Norbert's trail to the far side, where the harvester is. We'll board that and come up to you. You, meanwhile, will take geosynchronous orbit at the harvester's coordinates. I'm transmitting those coordinates digitally. Please acknowledge.”
Stan's fingers flew over the computer's keys. Soon he heard Captain Hoban's acknowledgment. “I've got it, Dr. Myakovsky.”
“Good. What do you think of the plan, Captain?”
“It seems to me the best, given the circumstances. Does Gill concur?”
The android nodded. “There's really nothing else to do,” he added in a quiet voice.
“It's perfect,” Julie said. “What have we got to lose but our lives?”
“Signing off, then, Captain,” Stan said. “See you in an hour or so, I hope.”
He turned to Gill. “Have you any objections?”
“As I said, Doctor, given the circumstances, there's nothing else to do.”
“But you wouldn't have gotten us into this fix in the first place. Is that it?”
“I didn't say that, sir.”
“You didn't have to.” Stan looked out the port at the lurid sunset that had just begun flaming behind the upthrust bulk of the hive. He reached into an inner pocket and brought out a small aluminum case, like a cigar case only slightly larger. Opening it, he extracted an ampoule of royal jelly.
“Well,” he said, “time for a little ride down the street of dreams, eh?” He looked at Gill and Julie, who were watching him. “I need it,” he said defensively. “It's the pain….” Abruptly he pulled himself together. He returned the ampoule to the case and put the case back in his pocket.
“No, I'll do it straight,” Stan said. “That ought to be ever so much more amusing. Ready, then? Gill, crack the port!”
Gil undogged the hatch. It took his and Julie's combined strength to push it all the way open against the wind pressure. And then it was done, and the three of them staggered out into the raging storm.
59
There was no easy way to hold a conversation as Stan, Julie, and Gill made their painful march across the wind-whipped plain toward the great rounded mound of the hive. Behind it the sunset flared, sending streamers and columns of radiance around the basalt-blue solid-looking clouds that seemed to march across the plain like giants.
Julie looked at the sunset in awe. She did not consider herself a nature lover, yet this kindling of shapes and colors that seemed too intense to be natural almost brought tears to her eyes. The display touched off a memory.
She was a little girl in the high, carven house of Shen Hui. It was one of his holiday houses in Shan Lin Province, and there was a pool in the garden in which golden carp moved back and forth, and a wind chime in a nearby temple sent forth a sad melody that seemed to speak of ancient days and old-fashioned manners.
It was only then that Julie thought of her mother, whom she had never known, but who visited her almost nightly in dreams whose memory she lost upon awakening.
They walked for a long time, bent into the driving wind, and came at last to the base of the hive. Looking up at the great, pitted, gray-brown surfaces covered with branchlike vines, Stan saw that it resembled some exotic plant. It was pockmarked with puckered holes, many of which were large enough to admit a man. Stan wondered if the hive might not be an organism in its own right, symbiotically connected to the aliens, coexisting with its own weird life-forms.
It was an interesting fancy, but Stan thought it was more logical to assume that the aliens had constructed the hive, following instinctual instructions laid down in their DNA aeons past.
Still, it pleased his fancy to imagine that the hive and the aliens were two different types of living matter. What a startling possibility! He could see the headlines now, heralding his discovery….
He smiled wryly and reminded himself that his only job now was to stay alive, to keep on going until he could find the pure and unadulterated royal jelly that might extend his life — if there was any truth to his conjectures.
He and Julie walked around the hive until they found an opening. It loomed ahead of them, a dark and ragged hole that plunged into the depths of the hive.