Bradley, Marion Zimmer - Darkover 01 - Darkover Landfall

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Copyright ® 1972 by Marion Zimmer Bradley
All Rights Reserved.
Cover art by George Barr.
Border art by Richard Hescox.
DAW Book Collectors No. 36.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: The songs quoted in the text from the New Hebrides Commune
are all from the Songs of the Hebrides, collected by Marjorie Kennedy_Fraser
and published 1909, 1922, by Boosey and Hawker. The Seagull of the
Land_Under_Waves, English words by Mrs. Kennedy_Fraser, from the Gaelic of
Kenneth MacLeod. Caristlona, words traditional, English by Kenneth MacLeod.
The Fairy's Love Song, English words by James Hogg (adapted). The
Mull_Fisher's Song, English words by Marjorie Kennedy_Fraser. The Coolies of
Rum, English words by Elfrida Rivers, by special permission.
First Printing, December, 1972
DAW TRADEMARK REGISTERED U.S. PAT. OFF. AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES _MARCA
REGISTRADA HECHO EN U.S.A.
PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.
ISBN 0-88677-234-6
Chapter
ONE
The landing gear was almost the least of their worries; but it made a
serious problem in getting in and out. The great starship lay tilted at a
forty_five degree angle with the exit ladders and chutes coming nowhere near
the ground, and the doors going nowhere. All the damage hadn't been assessed
yet--not nearly-_but they estimated that roughly half the crew's quarters and
three_fourths of the passenger sections were uninhabitable.
Already half a dozen small rough shelters, as well as the tent like
field hospital, had been hastily thrown up in the great clearing. They'd been
made, mostly out of plastic sheeting and logs from the resinous local trees,
which had been cut with buzz_saws and timbering equipment from the supply
materials for the colonists. All this had taken place over Captain Leicester's
serious protests; he had yielded only to a technicality. His orders were
absolute when the ship was in space; on a planet the Colony Expedition Force
was in charge.
The fact that it wasn't the right planet was a technicality that no one
had felt able to tackle... yet.
It was, reflected Rafael MacAran as he stood on the low peak above the
crashed spaceship, a beautiful planet. That Is, what they could see of it,
which wasn't all that much. The gravity was a little less than Earth's, and
the oxygen content a little higher, which itself meant a certain feeling of
web_being and euphoria for anyone born and brought up on Earth. No one reared
on Earth in the twenty_first century, lie Rafael MacAran, had ever smelled
arch sweet and resinous air, or seen faraway hdlg through such a clean bright
morning.
The hills and the distant mountains rose amend them in an apparently
endless panorama, fold beyond fold, gradually losing color with distance,
turning first dim green, then dimmer blue, and finally to dimmest violet and
purple. The great sun was deep red, the color of spilt blood; and that morning
they had seen the four moons, like great multicolored jewels, hanging off the
horns of the distant mountains.
MacAran set his pack down, pulled out the transit and began to set up
its tripod legs. He bent to adjust the instrument, wiping sweat from his
forehead. God, how hot it seemed after the brutal ice_cold of last night and
the sudden snow that had swept from the mountain range so swiftly they had
barely had time to take shelter! And now the snow lay in melting runnels as he
pulled off his nylon parka and mopped his brow.
He straightened up, looking around for convenient horizons. He already
knew, thanks to the new_model altimeter which could compensate for different
gravity strengths, that they were about a thousand feet above sea level_-or
what would be sea level if there were any seas on this planet which they
couldn't yet be sure of. In the stress and dangers of the crash_landing no one
except the Third Officer had gotten a clear look at the planet from space, and
she had died twenty minutes after impact while they were still digging bodies
out of the wreckage of the bridge.
They knew that there were three planets in this system: one an
oversized, frozen_methane giant, the other a small barren rock, more moon than
planet except for its solitary orbit, and this one. They knew that this one
was what Earth Expeditionary Forces called a Class M planet --roughly
Earth_type and probably habitable. And now they knew they were on it. That was
just about all they knew about it, except what they had discovered in the last
seventy_two hours. The red sun, the four moons, the extremes of temperature,
the mountains all had been discovered in the frantic intervals of digging out
and identifying the dead, setting up a hasty field hospital and drafting every
able_bodied person to care for the injured, bury the dead, and set up hasty
shelters while the ship was still inhabitable.
Rafael MacAran started pulling his surveying instruments from his pack
but he didn't attend to them. He had needed this brief interval alone more
than he had realized; a little time to recover from the repeated and terrible
shocks of the last few hours-the crash, and a concussion which would have put
him into a hospital on crowded, medically hypersensitive Earth. Here the
medical officer, harried from worse injuries, tested his reflexes briefly,
handed him some headache pills, and went on to the seriously hurt and the
dying. His head still felt like an oversized toothache although the visual
blurring had cleared up after the first night's deep. The next day he had been
drafted, with all the other able-bodied men not on the medical staff or the
engineering crews in the ship, to dig mass graves for the dead. And then there
had been the mind-shaking shock of finding Jenny among them.
Jenny. He had envisioned her safe and well, too busy at her own job to
hunt him up and reassure him. Then among the mangled dead, the unmistakable
silver-bright hair of his only sister. There hadn't even been time for tears.
There were too many dead. He did the only thing he could do. He reported to
Camilla Del Rey, deputizing for Captain Leicester on the identity detail, that
the name of Jenny MacAran should be transferred from the lists of unlocated
survivors to the list of definitely identified dead.
Camilla's only comment had been a terse, quiet `Thank you, MacAran.'
There was no time for sympathy, no time for mourning or even humane
expressions of kindness. And yet Jenny had been Camilla's close friend, she'd
really loved that damned Del Rey girl like a sister--just why, Rafael had
never known, but Jenny had, and there must have been some reason. He realized
somewhere below the surface, that he had hoped Camilla would shed for Jenny
the tears he could not manage to weep. Someone ought to cry for Jenny, and he
couldn't. Not yet.
He turned his eyes on his instruments again. If they had known their
definite latitude on the planet it would have been easier, but the height of
the sun above the horizon would give them some rough idea.
Below him in a great bowl of land at least five miles across filled with
low brushwood and scrubby trees, the crashed spaceship lay. Rafael, looking at
it from this distance, felt a strange sinking feeling Captain Leicester was
supposed to be working with the crew to assess the damage and estimate the
time needed to make repairs. Rafael knew nothing about the workings of
starships--his
own field was geology. But it didn't look to him as if that ship was ever
going anywhere again.
Then he turned off the thought. That was for the engineering crews to
say. They knew, and he didn't. He'd seen some near-miracles done by
engineering these days. At worst this would be an uncomfortable interval of a
few days or a couple of weeks, then they'd be on their way again and a new
habitable planet would be charted on the Expeditionary Forces star maps for
colonization. This one, despite the brutal cold at night, looked extremely
habitable. Maybe they'd even get to share some of the finder's fees, which
would go to improve the Coronis Colony where they'd be by then.
And they'd ail have something to talk about when they were Old Settlers
in the Coronis Colony, fifty or sixty years from now.
But if the ship never did get off the ground again... .
Impossible. This wasn't a charted planet, okayed for colonizing, and
already opened up. The Coronis Colony--Phi Coronis Delta--was already the site
of a flourishing mining settlement. There was a functioning spaceport and a
crew of engineers and technicians had been working there for ten years
preparing the planet for settlement and studying its ecology. You couldn't set
down, raw and unhelped by technology, on a completely unknown world.
It couldn't be done.
Anyway, that was somebody else's job and he'd better do his own now. He
made all the observations he could, noted them in his pocket notebook, and
packed up the tripod starting down the hill again. He moved easily across the
rock-strewn slope through the tough underbrush and trees carrying his pack
effortlessly in the light gravity. It was cleaner and easier than a hike on
Earth, and he cast a longing eye at the distant mountains. Maybe if their stay
stretched out more than a few days, he could be spared to take a brief climb
into them. Rock samples and some geological notations should be worth
something to Earth Expeditionary and it would be a lot better than a climbing
trip on Earth, where every National Park from Yellowstone to Himalaya was
choked with jet-brought tourists three hundred days of the year.
He supposed it was only fair to give everyone a chance at the mountains,
and certainly the slidewalks and lifts installed to the top of Mount Rainier
and Everest and Mount Whitney had made it easier for old women and children to
get up there and have a chance to see the scenery. But still, MacAran thought
longingly, to climb an actual wild mountain--one with no slidewalks and not
even a single chairlift! He'd climbed on Earth, but you felt silly struggling
up a rock cliff when teen-agers were soaring past you in chairlifts on their
effortless way to the top and giggling at the anachronist who wanted to do it
the hard way!
Some of the nearer slopes were blackened with the scars of old forest
fires, and he estimated that the clearing where the ship lay was second-growth
from some such fire a few years before. Lucky the ship's fire-prevention
systems had prevented any fire on impact-otherwise if anyone had escaped
alive, it might have been quite literally from a frying pan into a raging
forest fire. They'd have to be careful in the woods. Earth people had lost
their old woodcraft habits and might not be aware any more of what forest
fires could do. He made a mental note of it for his report.
As he re-entered the area of the crash, his brief euphoria vanished.
Inside the field hospital, through the semi-transparent plastic of the shelter
material, he could see rows and rows of unconscious or semiconscious bodies. A
group of men were trimming breaches from tree trunks and another small group
was raising a dymaxion dome--the kind, based on triangular bracings, which
could be built in half a day. He began to wonder what the report of the
Engineering crew had been. He could see a crew of machinists crawling around
on the crumpled bracings of the starship but it didn't look as if much had
been accomplished. In fact, it didn't look hopeful for getting away very soon.
As he passed the hospital, a young man in a stained and crumpled Medic
uniform came out and called.
"Rafe! The Mate said report to the First Dome as soon as you get back--
there's a meeting there and they want you. I'm going over there myself for a
Medic report --I'm the most senior man they can spare." He moved slowly beside
MacAran. He was slight and small, with light-brown hair and a small curly
brown beard, and he looked weary, as if he had had no sleep. MacAran asked,
hesitatingly, "How are things going in the hospital?"
"Well, no more deaths since midnight, and we've taken
four more people off critical. There evidently wasn't a leak in the atomics
after all--that girl from Comm checked out with no radiation burns; the
vomiting was evidently just a bad blow in the solar plexus. Thank God for
small favors--if the atomics had sprung a leak, we'd probably all be dead, and
another planet contaminated."
Yeah, the M-AM drives have saved a lot of lives," MacAran said. "You
look awfully tired, Ewen--have you had any sleep at all?"
Ewen Ross shook his head. "No, but the Old Maws been generous with
wakers, and I'm still racing my motors. About midafternoon I'm probably going
to crash and I won't wake up for three days, but until then I'm holding on."
He hesitated, looked shyly at his friend and said, "I heard about Jenny, Rafe.
Tough luck. So many of the girls back in that area made it out, I was sure she
was okay."
"So was I.' MacAran drew a deep breath and felt the clean air like a
great weight on his chest. "I haven't seen Heather--is she--"
"Heather's okay; they drafted her for nursing duty. Not a scratch on
her. I understand after this meeting they're going to post completed lists of
the dead, the wounded and the survivors. What were you doing, anyway? Del Rey
told me you'd been sent out, but I didn't know what for."
"Preliminary surveying," MacAran said. "We have no idea of our latitude,
no idea of the planet's size or mass, no idea about climate or seasons or what
have you. But I've established that we can't be too far off the equator, and--
well I'll be making the report inside. Do we go right in?"
"Yeah, in the First Dome." Half unconsciously, Ewen had spoken the words
with capital letters, and MacAran thought how human a trait it was to
establish location and orientation at once. Three days they had been here and
already this first shelter was the First Dome, and the field shelter for the
wounded was the Hospital.
There were no seats inside the plastic dome, but some canvas
groundsheets and empty supply boxes had been set around and someone had
brought a folding chair down for Captain Leicester. Next to him, Camilla Del
Rey sat on a box with a lapboard and notebook on her knees; a tall, slender,
dark-haired girl with a long, jagged cut across her cheek, mended with plastic
clips. She was wrapped in the warm fatigue uniform of a crewmember, but she
had shucked the heavy parka-like top and wore only a thin, clinging cotton
shirt beneath it. MacAran shifted his eyes from her, quickly--damn it, what
was she up to, sitting around in what amounted to her underwear in front of
half the crew! At a time like this it wasn't decent... then, looking at the
girl's drawn and wounded face, he absolved her. She was hot--it was hot is
here now--and she was, after all, on duty, and had a right to be comfortable.
If anyone's out of line it's me, eyeing a girl like this at a time like
this... .
Stress. That's all it is. There are too damn many things it's not safe
to remember or think about... .
Captain Leicester raised his gray head. He looks like death, MacAran thought,
probably he hasn't slept since the crash either. He asked the Del Rey girl,
"Is that everyone?"
"I think so" the Captain said, "Ladies, gentlemen. We won't waste time
on formalities, and for the duration of this emergency the protocols of
etiquette are suspended. Since my recording officer is in the hospital,
Officer Del Rey has kindly agreed to act as communications recorder for this
meeting. First of all; I have called you together, a representative from every
group, so that each of you can speak to your crews with authority about what
is happening and we can minimize the growth of rumors and uninformed gossip
about our position. And anywhere that more than twenty-five people are
gathered, as I remember from my Pensacola days, rumors and gossip start up. So
let's get your information here, and not rely on what somebody told someone
else's best friend a few hours ago and what somebody else heard in the mess
room--all right? Engineering; let's begin with you. What's the situation with
the drives?"
The Chief Engineer--his name was Patrick, but MacAran didn't know him
personally--stood up. He was a lanky gaunt man who resembled the folk hero
Lincoln. "Bad." he said laconically. "I'm not saying they can't be fixed, but
the whole drive room is a shambles. Give us a week to sort it out, and we can
estimate how long it will take to fix the drives. Once the mess is cleared
away, I'd
say three weeks to a month. But I'd hate to have my year's salary depend on
how close I came inside that estimate."
Leicester said' "But it can be fixed? It's not hopelessly wrecked?"
"I wouldn't think so." Patrick said. "hell, it better not be! We may
need to prospect for fuels, but with the big converter that's no problem, any
kind of hydrocarbon will do--even cellulose. That's for energy-conversion in
the life-support system, of course; the drive itself works on anti-matter
implosions." He became more technical, but before MacAran got too hopelessly
lost, Leicester stopped him.
"Save it, Chief. The important thing is, you're saying it can be fixed,
preliminary estimated lime three to six weeks. Officer Del Rey, what's the
status on the bridge?"
"Mechanics are in there now, Captain, they're using cutting torches to
get out the crumpled metal. The computer cobsole is a mess, but the main banks
are all right, and so is the library system."
"What's the worst damage there?"
"We'll need new seats and straps all through the bridge cabin--the
mechanics can handle that. And of course we'll have to re-program our
destination from the new location, but once we find out exactly where we are,
that should be simple enough from the Navigation systems."
"Then there's nothing hopeless there either?"
"It's honestly too early to say, Captain, but I shouldn't think so.
Maybe it's wishful thinking, but I haven't given up yet."
Captain Leicester said, "Well, just now things look about as bad as they
can; I suspect we're all tending to look on the grim side. Maybe that's good;
anything better than the worst will be a pleasant surprise. Where's Dr. Di
Asturien? Medic?"
Ewen Ross stood up. `The Chief didn't feel he could leave, sir; he's got
a crew working to salvage all remaining medical supplies. He sent me. There
have been no more deaths and all the dead are buried. So far there is no sign
of any unusual illness of unknown origin, but we are still checking air and
soil samples, and will continue to do so, for the purpose of classifying known
and unknown bacteria. Also--"
"Go on."
"The Chief wants orders issued about using only the assigned latrine
areas, Captain. He pointed out that we're carrying all sorts of bacteria in
our own bodies which might damage the local flora and fauna, and we can manage
to disinfect the latrine areas fairly thoroughly--but we should take
precautions against infecting outside areas."
"A good point," Leicester said. "Ask someone to have the orders posted,
Del Rey. And put a security man to make sure everybody knows where the
latrines are, and uses them. No taking a leak in the woods just because you're
there and there aren't any anti-littering laws:"
Camilla Del Rey said, "Suggestion, Captain. Ask the cooks to do the same
with the garbage, for a while, anyhow."
"Disinfect it? Good point. Lovat, what's the status on the food
synthesizers,"
"Accessible and working, sir, at least temporarily. It might not be a
bad idea, though, to check indigenous food supplies and make sure we can eat
the local fruits and roots if we have to. If it goes on the blink--and it was
never intended to run for long periods in planetary gravities--it will be too
late to start testing the local vegetation then." Judith Lovat, a small,
sturdily built woman in her late thirties with the green emblem of Life-
support systems on her smock, glanced toward the door of the dome. "The planet
seems to be widely forested; there should be something we can eat, with the
oxygen-nitrogen system of this air. Chlorophyll and photosynthesis seem to be
pretty much the same on all M-type planets and the end product is usually some
form of carbohydrate with amino acids:"
"I'm going to put a botanist right on it," Captain Leicester said,
"which brings me to you, MacAran. Did you get any useful information from the
hilltop?"
MacAran stood up. He said, "I would have gotten more if we'd landed in
the plains--assuming there are any on this planet--but I did get a few things.
First, we're about a thousand feet above sea level here, and definitely in the
Northern hemisphere, but not too many degrees of latitude off the Equator,
considering that the Sun runs high in the sky. We seem to be in the foothills
of an enormous mountain range, and the mountains are old enough to be
forested--that is, no active apparent volcanoes
in sight, and no mountains which look like the result of volcanic activity
within the last few millennia. It's not a young planet."
"Signs of life?" Leicester asked.
"Birds in plenty. Small animals, perhaps mammals but I'm not sure. More
kinds of trees than I knew how to identify. A good many of them were a kind of
conifer, but there seemed to be hardwoods too, of a kind, and some bushes with
various seeds and things. A botanist could tell you a lot more. No signs of
any kind of artifact, however, no signs that anything has ever been cultivated
or touched. As far as I can tell, the planet's untouched by human--or any
other--hands. But of course we may be in the middle of the equivalent of the
Siberian steppes or the Gobi desert--way, way off the beaten track."
He paused, then said, "About twenty miles due east of here, there's a
prominent mountain peak--you can't miss it--from which we could take
sightings, and get some rough estimate of the planet's mass, even without
elaborate instruments, We might also sight for rivers, plains, water supply,
or any signs of civilization."
Camilla Del Rey said, "From space there was no sign of life."
Moray, the heavy swarthy man who was the official representative of
Earth Expeditionary, and is charge of the Colonists, said quietly, "Don't you
mean no signs of a technological civilization, Officer? Remember, until a
scant four centuries ago, a starship approaching Earth could not have seen any
signs of intelligent life there, either."
Captain Leicester said curtly' "Even if there is some form of pre-
technological civilization, that is equivalent to no civilization at all, and
whatever form of life there may be here, sapient or not, is not of any
consequences to our purpose. They could give us no help in repairing our ship,
and provided we are careful not to contaminate their ecosystems, there is no
reason to approach them and create culture shock."
"I agree with your last statement" Moray said slowly, "but I would like
to raise one question you have not yet mentioned, Captain. permission?"
Leicester granted, "First thing I said was that we're suspending
protocol for the duration-go ahead."
"What's being done to check this planet out for habitability,in the
event the drives can't be repaired, and we're stuck here?"
MacAran felt a moment of shock which stopped him cold, then a small
surge of relief. Someone had said it. Someone else was thinking about it. He
hadn't had to be the one to bring it up.
But on Captain Leicester's face the shock had not gone away; it had
frozen into a stiff cold anger. "There's very little chance of that."
Moray got heavily to his feet. "Yes. I heard what your crew was saying,
but I'm not entirely convinced. I think that we should start, at once, to take
inventory of what we have, and what is here, in the event that we are marooned
here permanently."
"Impossible," Captain Leicester said harshly. "Are you trying to say you
know more than my crew about the condition of our ship, Mr. Moray?"
"No. I don't know a damn thing about starships, don't know as I
particularly want to. But I know wreckage when I see it. I know a good third
of your crew is dead, including some important technicians. I heard officer
Del Rey say that she thought--she only thought--that the navigational computer
could be fixed, and I do know that nobody can navigate a M-AM drive in
interstellar space without a computer. We've got to take it into account that
this ship may not be going anywhere. And in that case, we won't be going
anywhere either. Unless we've got some boy genius who can build an
interstellar communications satellite in the next five years with the local
raw materials and the handful of people we have here, and send a message back
to Earth, or to the Alpha Centauri or Coronis colonies to come and fetch their
little lost sheep."
Camilla Del Rey said in a low voice, "Just what are you trying to do,
Mr. Moray? Demoralize us further? Frighten us?"
"No. I'm trying to be realistic."
Leicester said, making a noble effort to control the fury that congested
his face, "I think you're out of order, Mr. Moray. Our first order of business
is to repair the ship, and for that purpose it may be necessary to draft every
man, including the passengers from your Colonists group. We cannot spare large
groups of men for remote contingencies," he added emphatically, "so if
that was a request, consider it denied. Is there any other business?"
Moray did not sit down. "What happens then if six weeks from now we
discover that you can't fix your ship? Or six months?"
Leicester drew a deep breath. MacAran could see the desperate weariness
in his face and his effort not to betray it. "I suggest we cross that bridge
if, and when, we see it in the distance, Mr. Moray. There is a very old
proverb that says, sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. I don't
believe that a delay of six weeks will make all that difference in resigning
ourselves to hopelessness and death. As for me, I intend to live, and to take
this ship home again, and anyone who starts defeatist talk will have to reckon
with me. Do I make myself clear?"
Moray was evidently not satisfied; but something, perhaps only the
Captain's will, kept him quiet. He lowered himself into his seat still
scowling.
Leicester pulled Camilla's lapboard toward him. "Is there anything else?
Very well. I believe that will be all, ladies and gentlemen. Lists of
survivors and wounded, and their condition, will be posted tonight. Yes,
Father Valentine?"
"Sir, I have been requested to say a Requiem Mass for the dead at the
site of the mass graves. Since the Protestant chaplain was killed in the
crash, I would like to offer my services to anyone, of any faith, who can use
them for anything whatsoever:"
Captain Leicester's face softened as he looked at the young priest, his
arm in a sling and one side of his face heavily bandaged. He said, "Hold your
service by all means, Father. I suggest dawn tomorrow. Find someone who can
work on erecting a suitable memorial here; some day, maybe a few hundred years
from now, this planet may be colonized, and they should know. Well have time
for that, I imagine."
"Thank you, Captain Will you excuse me? I must go back to the hospital"
"Yes, Father, go ahead. Anyone who wants to get back now is
excused__unless there are any questions? Very well." Leicester leaned back in
his seat and closed his eyes briefly. "MacAran and Dr. Lovat, will you stay a
minute, please?"
MacAran came forward slowly, surprised beyondwords; he had never spoken
to the Captain before, and had not realized that Leicester knew him even by
sight. What could he want? The others were leaving the dome, one by one; Ewen
touched his shoulder briefly and whispered, "Heather and I will he at the
Requiem Mass, Rafe. I've got to go. Come around to the hospital and let me
check that concussion. Peace, Rafe; see you later," before he slipped away.
Captain Leicester had slumped in his chair, and he looked exhausted and
old, but he straightened slightly as Judith Lovat and MacAran approached him.
He said, "MacAran, your profile said you've had some mountain experience.
What's your professional specialty?"
"Geology. It's true, I've spent a good deal of time in the mountains."
"Then I'm putting you in charge of a brief survey expedition. Go climb
that mountain, if you can get up it, and take your sights from the peak,
estimate the planet's mass, and so forth. Is there a meteorologist or weather
specialist in the colonist group?"
"I suppose so, sir. Mr. Moray would know for sure!'
"He probably would, and it might be a good idea for me to make a point
of asking him," Leicester said. He was so weary he was almost mumbling. "If we
can estimate what the weather in the next few weeks is likely to do, we can
decide how best to provide shelter and so forth for the people. Also, any
information about period of rotation, and so forth, might be worth something
to Earth Expeditionary. And__Dr. Lovat__locate a zoologist and a botanist,
preferably from the colonists, and send them along with MacAran. Just in case
the food synthesizers break down. They can make tests and take samples "
Judith said, "May I suggest a bacteriologist too, if there's one
available?"
"Good idea. Don't let repair crews go short, but take what you need,
MacAran. Anyone else you want to take along?
"A medical technician, or at least a medical nurse," MacAran requested,
"in case somebody fall down a crevasse or gets chewed up by the local
equivalent of Tyrannosaurus Rex."
"or picks up some ghastly local bug," Judith said. "I ought to have
thought of that."
"Okay, then, if the Medic chief can spare anybody," Leicester agreed.
"One more thing. First Officer Del Rey is going with you."
"May I ask what for?" MacAran said, slightly startled. "Not that she
isn't welcome, though it might be a rough trek for a lady. This isn't Earth
and those mountains haven't any chairlifts!"
Camilla voice was low and slightly husky. He wondered if it was grief
and shock, or whether that was her natural tone. She said, "Captain, MacAran
evidently doesn't know the worst of it. How much do you know about the crash
and its cause, then?"
He shrugged. "Rumors and the usual gossip. All I know is that the alarm
bells began to ring, I got to a safety area__so_called," he added, bitterly,
remembering Jenny's mangled body, "and the next thing I knew I was being
dragged out of the cabin and hauled down a ladder. Period."
"Well, then, here it is. We don't know where we are. We don't know what
Sun this is. We don't know even approximately what star cluster we're in. We
were thrown off course by a gravitational storm__that's the layman's term, I
won't bother explaining what causes it. We lost our orientation equipment with
the first shock, and we had to locate the nearest star_system with a
potentially habitable planet, and get down in a hurry. So I've got to take
some astronomical sighting, if I can, and locate some known stars_-I can do
that with spectroscopic readings. From there I may be able to triangulate our
position in the Galactic Arm, and do at least part of the computer re-
programming from the planet's surface. It is easier to take astronomical
observations at an altitude where the air is thinner. Even if I don't get to
the mountain's peak, every additional thousand feet of altitude will give me a
better chance for accurate readings." The girl looked serious and grave, and
he sensed that she was holding fear at bay with her deliberately didactic and
professional manner. "So if you can have me along on your expedition, I'm
strong and fit, and I'm not afraid of a long hard march. I'd send my
assistant, but he has burns over 30 per cent of his body surface and even if
he recovers__and it's not certain he will--he won't be going anywhere for a
long, long time. There's no one else who knows as much about navigation and
Galactic Geography as I do, I'm afraid, so I'd trust my own readings more than
anyone else's."
MacAran shrugged. He was no male chauvinist, and if the girl thought she could
handle the expedition's long marches she could probably do it. "Okay," he
said, "it's up to you. We'll need rations for four days minimum, and if your
equipment is heavy, you'd better arrange to have someone else carry it;
everybody else will have his own scientific paraphernalia." He looked at the
thin shirt clinging damply to her upper body and added, a little harshly,
"Drew warmly enough, damn it; you'll get pneumonia."
She looked startled, confused, then suddenly angry; her eyes snapped at
him. but MacAran had already forgotten her. He said to the Captain, "When do
you want us to start? Tomorrow?"
"No, too many of us haven't had enough sleep," said Leicester, dragging
himself up again from what looked like a painful doze. "Look who's
talking__and half my crew are in the same shape. I'm going to order everybody
but half a dozen watchmen to sleep tonight. Tomorrow, except for basic work
crews, we'll dismiss everyone for the memorial services for the dead; and
there's a lot of inventorying to do, and salvage work. Start__oh, two, three
days from now. Any preference about a medical officer?"
"May I have Ewen Ross if the chief can spare him?"
"I's okay by me'" Leicester said, and sagged again, evidently for a
split second asleep where he sat. MacAran said a soft, "Thank you, sir," and
turned away. Camilla Del Rey laid a hand, a feather's touch, on his arm.
"Don't you dare judge him," she said is a low, furious voice, "he's been
on his feet since two days before the crash on a steady diet of wakers, and
he's too old for that! I'm going to see he gets 24 hours straight sleep if I
have to shut down the whole camp!"
Leicester pulled himself up again. "--wasn't asleep," he said firmly.
"Anything else, MacAran, Lovat?"
MacAran said a respectful, "No, sir," and slipped quietly away, leaving the
Captain to his rest, his First Officer standing over him like-the image
touched his mind in shock___a fiercely maternal tiger over her cub. Or over
the old lion? And why did he care anyhow?
Chapter
TWO
Too much of the passenger section was either flooded with fire_prevention
foam, or oil_slick and dangerous; for that reason, Captain Leicester had given
orders that all members of the expedition to the mountain were to be issued
surface uniforms, the warm, weatherproof garments meant for spaceship
personnel to wear on visiting the surface of an alien planet. They had been
told to be ready just after sunrise, and they were ready, shouldering their
rucksacks of rations, scientific equipment, makeshift campout gear. MacAran
stood waiting for Camilla Del Rey, who was giving final instructions to a
crewman from the bridge.
"These times for sunrise and sunset are as exact as we can get them, and
you have exact azimuth readings for the direction of sunrise. We may have to
estimate noon. But every night, at sunset, shine the strongest light in the
ship in this direction, and leave it on for exactly ten minutes. That way we
can run a line of direction to where we're going, and establish due east and
west. You already know about the noon angle readings."
She turned and saw MacAran standing behind her. She said, with
composure, "Am I keeping you waiting? I'm sorry, but you must understand the
necessity for accurate readings."
"I couldn't agree more," MacAran said, "and why ask me? You outrank
everybody in this party, don't you, ma'am?"
She lifted her delicate eyebrows at him. "Oh, is that what's worrying
you? As a matter of fact, no. Only on the bridge. Captain Leicester put you in
charge of this party, and believe me, I'm quite content with that. I probably
know as much about mountaineering as you do about celestial navigation_-if as
much. I grew up in the Alpha colony, and you know what the deserts are like
there."
MacAran felt considerably relieved_-and perversely annoyed. This woman
was just too damned perceptive! Oh, yes, it would minimize tensions if he
didn't have to ask her as a superior officer to pass along any orders_or
suggestions--about the trip. But the fact remained that somehow she'd managed
to make him feel officious, blundering and like a damn fool!
"Well," he said, "any time you're ready We've got a good long way to go,
over some fairly rough ground. So let's get this show on the road:"
He moved away toward where the rest of the group stood gathered,
mentally taking stock. Ewen Ross was carrying a good part of Camilla Del Rey's
astronomical equipment, since, as he admitted, his medical kit was only a
light weight. Heather Stuart, wrapped like the others in surface uniform, was
talking to him in low tones, and MacAran thought wryly that it must be love,
when your girl got up at this unholy hour to see you off. Dr. Judith Lovat,
short and sturdy, had an assortment of small sample cases buckled together
over her shoulder. He did not know the other two who were waiting in uniform,
and before they moved off, he walked around to face them.
"We've seen each other in the recreation rooms, but I don't think I know
you. You are__"
The first man, a tall, hawk_nosed, swarthy man in his middle thirties,
said, "Marco Zabal, Xenobotanist. I'm coming at Dr. Lovat's request. I'm used
to mountains. I grew up in the Basque country, and I've been on expeditions to
the Himalayas."
"Glad to have you." MacAran shook his hand. It would help to have
someone else along who knew mountains. "And your?"
摘要：

Copyright®1972byMarionZimmerBradleyAllRightsReserved.CoverartbyGeorgeBarr.BorderartbyRichardHescox.DAWBookCollectorsNo.36.ACKNOWLEDGMENTS:ThesongsquotedinthetextfromtheNewHebridesCommuneareallfromtheSongsoftheHebrides,collectedbyMarjorieKennedy_Fraserandpublished1909,1922,byBooseyandHawker.TheSeagul...

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