He went back to check on Meredith and found her condition unchanged. How was he going to transport her if he couldn’t carry her? The simplest way would be to strap her on a stretcher and drag one end, trailing the other like a travois. No doubt this flying palace had included a stretcher in its medical supplies, but it would not likely have been stored in the bow section. He had not found one, and could think of no way to improvise one. He attacked one of the bunks with his bare hands, hoping he could somehow detach the frame, but he made no impression at all. The mattresses were too flexible. The nearest he found to anything useful was a metal rod from a closet. He needed two of them, each twice as long.
The waiting was getting to him. He had a headache.
He returned to the cab, where the larger windows gave the best view of the landing ground. The centaurs were all facing west, hearing something.
The dream is over. Ready to wake up and go back to waiting on tables, Master?
The centaurs stampeded, fleeing to the safety of the chimneys, which probably meant underwater. The chimneys were always wet, always seeping. So when winter brought snow instead of rain, they would drain completely and their porous walls would provide insulation, while their exteriors would be sealed by ice. Storm surges would pile sea ice around them, natural igloos with rocky cores. It was quite possible that the centaurs could hibernate inside them.
A shadow passed slowly overhead. Niagara blew fire on the sand, then settled in a perfect landing. Seth released his breath with a rush, not having realized that he had been holding it. He passed on the good news to the ship, although Control would be monitoring and reporting.
“Seth,” Jordan said, “Control doesn’t give much for Meredith’s chances of surviving, even if you can deliver her safely to Golden Hind. I know you’ll do your best to save her, but don’t kill yourself trying. That’s an order, Prospector.”
Seth said, “Yes, sir.” They both knew that no one could give him orders while he was master of Niagara, but the captain might feel better for having tried.
His headache was worse. He was shivering, despite the heat. Whatever had infected the Galactic crew was getting to him too. That was another reason not to waste time.
The shuttle’s skin would be cool by the time he reached it, if he ever did. He went back to Meredith. She was still alive, barely. Again he tried to lift her, but she was completely limp and here she weighed more than he would back on Earth. He would have to negotiate the ladder down to the ground, drag her over some nasty terrain, and arrive at Niagara with enough strength to carry her up the ladder there. If he dropped her, he might kill her.
He couldn’t do it.
Damn!
Think…
He laid his precious sample bag nearby and closed all the doors except the one to Meredith’s sickroom. Then he armed himself with the curtain rod, went to the exit, unfastened the manual clamps, and let the door fall open. The fuselage was too close to the ground, so it dropped to about a forty-five degree angle, instead of all the way to vertical.
A few centaurs had emerged and gone to inspect Niagara from what they must think was a safe distance, yittering nervously about the traces of steam still rising from the sand. Their panda-like faces swung around when Seth appeared in Mercury’s doorway. He beckoned them.
They came running, caparisons flapping. They gathered around the ladder. Fortunately, there was a spear-carrier among them. Seth must gamble that the spears were a symbol of rank. He pointed his curtain rod at that one and beckoned with his free hand.
Much yittering.
“Come here, dammit! You think I can stand for hours in this damnable gravity, waiting for you? Yes, you. Come here!”
The spear-carrier understood the gestures, if not the words, and advanced to the foot of the ladder, others clearing a path for him, or perhaps her—unless they were carrying young, they were as hard to sex as penguins. Seth stepped aside and beckoned for it to enter.
The spear-carrier scurried up the ramp at once, nosey as a monkey. Seth led the way to Meredith.
The centaur uttered what sounded like an alarm cry. It… he… poked her arm with a flipper, stroked her hair, made a strange noise that sounded mostly like a chuckle but could well be a Cacafuegian distress call.
“I need help, you cute little idiot. Summon your friends and relations. I want you to carry her for me. Like this.” Seth tugged the edge of the sheet, to show how that worked. Then he cradled the sample bag in his arms like a baby. “So jump on all six feet, understand?” He pointed an arm in Niagara’s direction, cradled the bag again.
Seth had found the Albert Einstein of Cacafuego: the apple dropped, understanding dawned. The centaur rushed out into the corridor, where several others had arrived.
Yitter yitter yitter yitter yitter…
One thing they had in common with humans was that they never stopped talking.
But his desperate plan worked. About eight of them crowded into the dormitory. They all kept yittering, but Einstein yittered loudest. Under his direction, they hoisted Meredith shoulder high—their shoulders—which were about thigh-height on Seth. He led the way, down the ramp, and off toward Niagara, aware that Control would be recording this procession and wondering how it was going to play on his plog: history being made, a naked human conscripting a team of hexapod aliens to carry another human to safety. Or perhaps to a barbecue pit? He held the sample bag before him in a strategic location, partly for modesty, but also to protect important locations from the centaur’s busily exploring flippers. They found his legs fascinating.
He dared not stop to rest and he was staggering by the time he reached the shuttle. The door swung down for him, alarming his escort just enough that he managed to be first up the ramp. The two-meter climb was almost beyond his strength.
Overhead, the first bulkhead hatch of the Gut was closed, restricting the entrance to what would normally be the decontamination chamber. The rest of the shuttle would not be infested by centaurs, which might see Niagara as a giant chimney and want to explore it.
There was little enough room for Meredith as well, but Einstein yittered orders, many eager flippers raised her, and Seth somehow managed to haul her in, at the risk of wrecking his back. He arranged her, sitting against the wall, knees up. Then he gently resisted efforts for the whole tribe to join him. One of them was a spear-carrier—probably Einstein, although he still could not tell one Cacafuegian from another. Seth offered to trade a priceless imported curtain rod for a wooden spear armed with a sharp shell point. Einstein caught on at once and yittered loudly as they made the exchange.
ISLA would throw purple fits, of course, but if the centaurs were not already rummaging all through what remained of Mercury, they wouldn’t need long to work out how the doors opened. They would find bedding, clothes, and many other goodies. Seth had broken every rule in GenRegs 002, the section that dealt with first contact, and would face a charge sheet as long as his arm. He would plead force majeure and sanctity of human life. More important, he was going to be an international hero, so ISLA wouldn’t dare penalize him harshly. Just fine him a million dollars or so. By then he wouldn’t care about small change like that.
“Control, start raising the ramp, but go slowly until the centaurs are all off it.”