He punched codes for an engine restart on both drives, and then began working up a new thrust balancing configuration. "I'm going to bring one and two back online," he said to the hovering Maggie after a moment. "But we can't increase individual thrust without exceeding our 'quiet' threshold. So…it will be an extra twelve hours before we are inside the pickup window over Ephesus Three."
"What," Magdalena said, throttling back her temper, "if drive three comes back into operation?"
Parker made an equivocal motion with one hand. "Then we might be able to squeak back into the window, but probably not. We'll just have to see."
The 'Observatory' Base Camp
The Gagarin shuddered to a halt, wings creaking as they sagged, bereft of the lifting wind. Gretchen let go of the stick, grateful to be on the ground again, and tried to uncramp her right hand. Clouds of fine dust drifted past, gilded by the early morning light, obscuring scattered bunkerlike camp buildings. Groaning a little — all of her bruises were throbbing today — she reached up and toggled off the ultralight engines and power plant.
Outside, the camp had a familiar air of abandonment. The usual litter was missing — no discarded cans or forgotten clothing, no shutters banging in the wind, no stray half-feral dogs pacing stiff-legged in the streets — but Gretchen could feel the emptiness crawling between her shoulder blades.
I hate this kind of place. On edge, she swung out of the cockpit. Despite how things had gone in the slot canyon, the Sif-52 was slung forward under her left armpit, the pistol-grip only an instant from her hand. The weight of the gun was balanced by a bandolier of ammunition canisters. Gretchen turned on her heel, scanning the buildings for any sign of movement. Nothing caught her eye. The wind was gusting, smudging the sky white with dust, but nothing seemed out of place.
The camp felt dead, an abandoned toy cast aside by careless children.
Wrapping the kaffiyeh tight across her breather mask, Gretchen ducked under the wing and made short work of setting the sand anchors. Hummingbird approached, djellaba snapping around his legs in a dark, sand-mottled tail. He too was muffled tight, the glow of morning simmering in his goggles.
A hiss of static, then "Is there a hangar?"
Gretchen pointed. The largest above ground building in the camp. "Tight fit for two aircraft, but we'll manage. Better get them inside quick — the wind is picking up."
Turning away from the wind, they both hurried across the quadrangle toward the maintenance sheds and the hangar building. Gretchen kept a wary eye out — her dislike of recently-abandoned places had not faded with age and time, only grown stronger.
If I have this sight, she realized, trying to suppress a chill of apprehension, then I might see whatever is left behind. The thought was not pleasant. Her curiosity only went so far.
"Locked," Hummingbird said, gruff voice nearly lost in the hiss of the wind.
Gretchen knelt, checking the mechanism. A bolt and bar assembly, sliding into a quickcrete footing and secured with a cheap padlock.
"Just like our barn at home," she said in amusement, rising and pulling a hexacarbon prybar from her belt. The tube extended with a snap of her wrist and a metallic clank. "Just a moment."
The lever slid in between the padlock and the vertical bar. Gretchen rotated the hexacarbon tube with a sharp, hand-over-hand motion and there was a groaning squeal as she put her shoulders into the turn. The soft steel of the padlock deformed like taffy and then parted with a ringing ting! "Help me with the door."
With both of them pushing against the articulated plating, the hanging door rattled up into the roof of the hangar, spitting sand and rust out of the tracks. Gretchen stepped inside, her lightwand raised high, and nodded in tight-lipped satisfaction to see the cavernous space empty.
"Good. Let's get yours inside first." Gretchen turned back into the wind. Both Midge s were straining against their anchor lines, wings rippling like salmon skin under a heat lamp. "It's getting stronger. Hurry."
Heads down, they ran across the field, gossamer veils of dust rushing past. The still-rising sun was bloated half-again its usual size with rust.
"So." Gretchen pulled a pressure door closed behind her, shutting off the tunnel leading to the hangar building. Taking care to keep dust from spilling onto the recycler apparatus around her neck, she unwound the kaffiyeh. Hummingbird had done the same, leaving his cloak and scarf and other gear stacked up beside the door. "We're here at last, and better off than I expected."
Without a dozen people milling around and the smell of bacon frying and coffee perking, the base's common room was cold, echoing, and unsettlingly empty. Hummingbird sat on the nearest table, feet bare, running an electrostatic vacuum over his boots. Gretchen pulled up a chair — the plastic was badly discolored and the legs were streaked with a calcitelike crust — and sat down. She stared down at her own shoes, grimacing at the ragged edges of the soles and the general ruin of the uppers. Even Fitz couldn't fix these.
"I am going to go outside," Hummingbird said, banging his left boot against the edge of the table. Reddish grit rained down onto cracked quickcrete. "Before the weather gets any worse. I am…a little worried."
"Huh! Why? We've finally reached some shelter, where we can refuel and resupply and you're worried?" She pointed a finger at the roof. "We're even out of the wind. That tent was starting to smell."
"Yes." Hummingbird looked around, his expression becoming almost morose. "That is the problem. I had no idea the camp here was so extensive."
"Ah." Gretchen ran the edge of her thumb against the boot sole. The material was porous and spongy. Bits of glittering crystalline mica spilled out. She felt a little ill at the sight and dialed her lightwand into UV and stuffed it inside the boot. My feet feel fine…sort of. I hope.
"Well," she said, trying not to stare in sick fascination at her socks, "humans get kind of busy sometimes — I mean, they planned on being here for two, three years. A camp for a long-term expedition isn't just some tents or a carryall. It's a little town."
"I can see." Hummingbird fingered the goggles hanging around his neck. The glassite looked like it had been attacked with a power sander or a steel rasp. "I think — no, I am afraid we are too late. Man has been here too long, put too much of his mark on the land. Even our passage across the world has stirred up rumors, echoes…"
"You mean the Russovsky-thing I spoke to." Gretchen swallowed, preparing herself for the worst, and tugged off one sock. The moisture-wicking, thermally insulated fabric disintegrated in her hand, leaving a blue ring of elastic material around her ankle. Suddenly, she felt light-headed. "Oh, oh sister…"
"You saw more than a rumor." Hummingbird was staring out the portholelike windows. Sodium-tinted shadows turned his face to graven brass. "I know it was gone when we went back — but such things are real. We're a stone, cast into a still pond. Though we sink and disappear, the wave from our entry propagates through this world. Some of the waves turn back upon themselves — well, you saw the effect — and the memory of our passing through this place is retained. Layers build on layers…" His voice trailed off, wrinkled old face growing stiff in anger.
"Sure." Gretchen forced down a surge of nausea, bile tainting her throat. She felt faint, but gripped the edge of the table and waited for the sensation to pass. Hummingbird was saying something, but the words were far away and indistinct, unintelligible. Jerkily, she swung her leg up and put her foot across the opposite knee. In the muted yellow light from the windows, the sole of her foot was shiny and slick, almost glassy. "Uhhh…"