“I think so.” He knew she’d hear the lie in his voice, so he didn’t wait for her to call him on it. “I have a bit of a problem. I’m going to be taking a few rads out here. I need to know how much is too much.”
Her voiced tensed. “How much? How fast?”
“Bill? You listening in?”
“I’m here, son. We’re getting the particle beam set up now. We’re going to have to wait until you come over the horizon, so you’ll be damn close. We’ll have to give you a pretty big dose to deflect you enough. Call it eight to ten Sieverts.”
Maura’s image froze again, this time with eyebrows knotted in concern. “I don’t know,” her voice said from the still image. “That’s cutting it close, especially since it’s going to come over a short period of time. Androstenediol isn’t immunity, it just helps you keep your blood and marrow cell counts up.” His faceplate jumped to a moving image, still wearing the same furrowed brow. “You’re going to get sick, at the very least. Ari…” Her voice wavered.
Ari choked back tears. “Hey, I’ll be fine. You know me; I’m too insolent to die when I’m told to.”
She exhaled a tiny laugh.
Bill’s voice spoke in his ear, gentle and soft. “I just activated the particle beam. You should see a change in your orbit soon.”
Ari waited for—what? Pain? Tingling? He felt nothing. He activated the HUD’s graphics overlay. His projected orbit shifted to the right as he watched. Thrust is perpendicular to the beam path.
Would it be enough?
The orbits still passed so close they appeared to overlap. The Earth shuttle was approaching fast, but he still couldn’t find it with his naked eye.
“Ari.” Maura’s voice in his ear was husky with emotion. “If you don’t make it—”
“I will.” But the lines still intersect.
Her image nodded, jerky and pixelated.
Bill’s voice cut in, tense. “I’m not sure about this.”
Ari thought he saw a light behind Maura’s ghostly image, low on the horizon line. A star?
Before he could be sure, it brightened and was gone.
The HUD showed that he’d crossed the Earth shuttle’s orbit. He realized that he’d been holding his breath. He blew it out in a blast of air against his faceplate.
“Woo-hoo! That was close!” The tension was gone from Bill’s voice. “Your heart in your throat, kid?”
Ari nodded. He can’t see you. “It’s still beating, so it’s all good.”
“True enough.”
It occurred to Ari that Bill hadn’t been sure they were going to miss. He’d risked his life for Ari. “You should have shot me down,” he said. “Why didn’t you?”
“Hell, I’m no killer, son. Not if I can avoid it.” He paused a long moment, then added, “You’re not the only one who can disobey orders. Looks like we’re both going to catch some hell.”
“Your leaders should go easy on you. At least they’ll get the landing they wanted.”
“Maybe. All this maneuvering has my orbit fouled up. I don’t think I can make a safe approach to the landing zone. I’m going to have to abort.”
Ari’s eyes went wide. “You’re lying.”
“Hey, a pilot has to make judgment calls. By the time the inquiry is done, word of this incident will have spread. Everyone on this shuttle knows what happened here. Your girl back on your ship knows. It’s hard to keep information bottled up.”
“You’re taking a big risk,” Ari said. “Why?”
“You seemed to think it was important. And everyone else seemed willing to kill over it. I just figured someone more important than me should make the call. Let our leaders talk it out with yours. I think they’ll be more willing to come up with a solution with their people screaming in their ears.”
Ari caught himself nodding again. “Sounds like a plan.”
“You’d better get your ship to send a rescue party. You’re going to need medical attention. Soon.”
“Rescue mission’s already scrambling,” Maura said. “They’re going to bring you directly to the decontamination lock.”
Decontamination. Ari chuckled. Maura’s image looked at him questioningly. “It occurred to me that no amount of decontamination is going to stop what’s coming.”
“What do you mean?”
“The Earth people,” he said. “They’re so different, Maura. Almost as different as the life down on the surface. I wonder if we should be worried about another kind of contamination.”
“We’ll adapt,” Maura said. “We’ll have to.”
Will the same hold true when Earth life finally meets alien ecology? Ari wasn’t the man to answer that question. Maybe no one was qualified.
But they’d find out. Soon enough.