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By the time he got past the pilot's console, Sisko was 3rd in line. He swung over the rail to see two Jacquelines about halfway down and Hikaru past them, still descending fast. Huddled at the bottom was Nyota Uhura, with Al kneeling beside her. Well, he and Hikaru would have to cope, there.
Ben knew which Jacqueline was which because the real one couldn't float in 1G. So the other was the Timeloster. When it reached to touch her he repressed a cry of warning so as not to jar her further, and started down as fast as he could go without missing a hold.
He saw Jacqueline begin to sag and moved to get there faster before her weight could pull hand and lower forearm free of the precarious leverage she'd obtained---and barely made it, his right hand under her arm and holding her against his thigh while his left on the metal handhold above began to ache with strain. One foot found support, the other scrabbled uselessly.
Leaving him absolutely no way to fend off the thing that had zapped Jacqueline. Well, my talk! "Don't touch me. You see what happened to her." She was breathing, though. "We fall, you see, if we pass out. And if we fall, we get hurt. Damaged. So just stay back and we'll talk. Okay?" Feeling like a little kid chattering to his teddy bear, but what else could he do?
As the intruder's hand came away from Jacqueline, between the two a translucent sheer of film stretched briefly, then pulled thin and snapped, vanishing. Or did it resorb into the hand? Ben shook his head. Pain shot along his arm; he couldn't hold this weight much longer. "Somebody help me!"
"I'm coming!" Marlena, Nick yelled something too. But before either could get there, the Timeloster moved. Nodding as if in reassurance, it put one arm under his where he held Jacqueline and the other around his opposite thigh. Ben tensed against whatever had knocked Jacqueline out, but nothing happened. The Timeloster rose, just enough to ease strain from his outstretched arm. Releasing that hold he reached to free Jacqueline's hand and wrist from the metal loop, then took a better grip as his other foot also found purchase. Now, if he had to, he could hold a little longer. As he stared at the apparition, fright fought disbelief; he said, "If you'll just tell us what you want, maybe we can help you."
He saw Marlena stop her descent level with him, a couple of feet away along the tunnel wall; Nick Leger took station on the other side. "Are you all right?"
"Later." Again he spoke to the outer manifestation. "What is it you want here?"
It gestured towards Jacqueline. "This one knew of need sometimes, tell noncontiguous volitionals." The Timeloster moved jerkily, like a holo on fast forward. "Sensing extension must to end. Spatial/chronal accommodation fails. Retract is occur."
"Come on, Nick," Marlena said. "It's safe, don't you see?" As the two moved to hold Jacqueline and Sisko, the imperfect likeness pulled free. It started to shimmer and dwindle, contracting towards its midpoint.
"Thanks for your help." For no particular reason, Ben found himself yelling the words. "I appreciate it." The shape kept shrinking until a tiny image vanished with a pop and sparkle. Leaving Sisko not the only one to stare in silence.
Mumbling nothing intelligible, Jacqueline began to move slightly. "We have to get her up top," Marlena said.
Ben was about to lose his handhold. "All right, can you take her now?" And waited while the transfer of weight was made.
"You're not coming?"
"Priorities," Sisko said. "Jacqueline's all right physically. Shaken up, I'd expect. Let her lie quietly; when she comes to, give her some water. And call me. Right now, though, I need to go down and see how bad Nyota's hurt."
He waited to see them begin to raise her safely, then made his way in hand by hand down the long tunnel. Absolutely refusing to let his mind dwell on the apparition he'd just talked with!289Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡP2tz30VZkV
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It didn't look good, Ben thought. Uhura, her breathing shallow, looked paler than he'd thought her natural melanin could allow. Above her left eyebrow swelled a nasty, gashed lump, and that shoulder lay hunched unnaturally inward.
She lay with her hand in Nightgazer's lap; Hikaru Sulu fussed around her right foot and ankle. "How bad?" said Ben.
Without looking up, Hikaru said, "Just above the ankle, both bones fractured. Collarbone. Wrist. Concussion." Now he paused in his work and faced Ben. "That's the obvious stuff. If I had my gear from the ship I might find more."
He sounded angry, but Sisko knew it was nothing personal, just fury at the fates for doing this. "Is it safe to take her up to the deck? Can you work better there?"
Sulu shook his head. "I don't want to try it. Not now. Just moving her into the Motel bed is risky enough."
So that's what they did. Odessa drew the 1st shift in attendance to call for help if she thought it was needed. Then, with Sisko's okay, the two other men mounted an expedition into Arrowprize proper, to bring back as much of Hikaru's medic apparatus as was applicable---and feasible to move.
For perhaps the 60th time, Ben did the 55-meter climb. It never seemed to get any shorter...289Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTyRkeQj7Fa
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"Whether we can move her up here," Sisko told the group, "depends on what Hikaru discovers. One thing we do know: Nyota won't be in shape to take this DM down to scout the planet."
That was all he would say; Jacqueline was stirring and it was past time he saw to her. Lying on the communicator's couch, partly curled up and partly sprawling, she started to move her head from side to side.
He put a hand to her cheek. "Jackie? You okay?"
The movement halted; her eyes opened, then blinked. "Daddy?" She frowned. "Ben, I mean." then, "Is it gone?"
"Yeah, it's gone. Kept us from falling, first, though. How do you feel now?" And "Can you tell us what happened?"
A nod. "I think so. It wasn't trying to hurt anybody. Nyota must've thought it was me in the air and tried to grab me. Then when we tried to talk, it couldn't get the words right as it went in my head some way, and....." She shrugged. "I guess I passed out."
"You sure did. How do you feel now?"
"Okay." And sounding surprised. "Great, in fact." With a quick motion, she sat up. "But I've got to---I've got all this and I don't understand, that I'm s'posed to say. Maybe you better tape it; my hunch is, I'll be lucky to get it straight, even once."
"You're in the right place for that." Ben hit a switch. "Go ahead, while it's fresh." Not that any of this made sense, he thought, but might as well play out the hand.
So she started.289Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡL6sSCsETUN
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"Volitionals utilize nonvolitional mass devices, manipulate parameters, obtrude from sub-plenum into contiguous dimensional array. Harms ensue, can be averted by continuum adjustment.289Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZZRGVETyyz
. But small mass of excess kinesis obtruding beyond usual loci brings great damage extent. This volitional"---Jacqueline indicated herself--"designates mass as error singular. Recurrence mandates corrective measures, maybe unfortunate to sub plenum."
As she paused to get her breath, Ben stared in wonder. Then: "This and adjacent sub-plena are each of normal six-vector array, half spatial half-chronal. Yet in obstruding, volitionals choose least efficient chronal-prime over two of superior merit; either would lessen chronal component of spatial displacement event produced by volitionals usurping loci of contiguous sub-plena. It is desired to ascertain bases for vector choice."
Abruptly Jacqueline shook her head. "The rest---I'm losing it. Something about we can't see from in here, how to make a choice. From our universe, not the ship. And they can't show us, from theirs. And maybe they're not sure whether they want to, but still this one came to tell us about it."
"And that if there's any more bullets flying loose in their space," said Nick Leger, "we get our asses kicked!"
"It sounds that way," Jacqueline said.
"And nothing else?" said Ben. "Can you get any more?"
"I think that's it." She put her feet down, and stood. "If anything new pops up, I'll tell you. But right now, isn't there something to eat around here?"
For now, at least, further discussion did seem futile.
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"I guess I just figured out, Marlena," Nyota said. After near a day of semi-consciousness and restless sleep she had come awake with a seemingly clear head, and restless sleep she had come awake with a seemingly clear head, and Hikaru Sulu said she was fit to answer questions. So: "Out of nowhere there's Jacqueline holding onto nothing; I thought she's falling, so I grabbed, and from there it was a rough ride."
Marlena agreed; a free-fall drop would have killed Nyota. She must have tried to clutch at every hold within reach; going too fast to stop, still the contacts slowed her enough to save her life. But at the expense of several ahe and ssorted fractures.
With the readouts he'd brought from his med files, Hikaru managed a good job of setting and immobilizing; his spray-on splint casts weren't as neat as the readout illoes showed them, but he kept them light and compact; they worked. The collarbone, not the wrist, had Nyota's left arm in a protective harness.
Marlena considered the setup. "It's only a bout 40 hours until our vee and position should be at nominal end of decel. Nyota, nobody expects you to try and co-pilot then; someone will have to fill in. But if we get you topside, do you think you could sit alongside and advise?" Looking to Hikaru: "If you feel she can be safely moved...."
Nyota nodded; Hikaru Sului said, "She can if we do it right," and explained what she meant.
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The sling Nyota lay in, Ben thought, resembled a hybrid of stretcher and hammock. Lines from each corner met a few feet above and spliced to the main rope. Up at the deck, he and Nightgazer manned that line while behind them Nick Leger took a bight around two of the main monitor screen's supporting legs. Below, Hikaru and Odessa stayed with the sling, climbing carefully as between them they kept the burden riding steady.
Ben had cut decel to half a gee, trusting the computer to tell him how long an d ho w much he'd have to run it high, to compensate. Still the process was slow and strenuous, everything done on command and in small steps. Before the ascent was half over, Sisko had sweat running from his forehead and down his sides. "Check your since, Nick; everybody rest a minute." But then they took it to conclusion, bringing Nyota through the C-Gate in the protective railing and carrying her to her personal bed.
Mopping himself off partially, Sisko went to stand over her. "You okay after all that?"
Uhura's smile looked shaky. "As good as before, not saying a whole lot. But yes, and thanks for the lift up."
Ben touched her forehead; she didn't feel feverish. "Think you can observe and advise, when orbit time on comes?"
"As things stand now, you can count on it."
And granted any luck, Ben felt, things might stand. For now, he set thrust at 1.2G to get back on sked.289Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqRtLTWwCJK
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Two days later the intercraft sounded and a strange voice yelled at him. ":Where is everybody? We're stuck here at the Ass with about 1G pulling aft, and aboard ship nobody answers. If you're not in the Module, we're up shit creek!"
It was the first echelon of the arrival team, of course: a gang of twelve, under the agitated leadership of one Kurt Seitz. When Earth's C-Gate to the DM refused to transmit, after a time the brass had decided to send Seitz's crew through the regular C-Gate. And here they were.
"We had a problem," Ben explained. The false mass reading, placing Arrowprize billions of miles short after normal decel, "so we had to move up here, where things are designed for living under thrust, to home in." Then the delay to install the DM C-Gates. "There just wasn't any way to warn Bolt Park. We plugged the Ass and hoped someone would get the message."
He heard some low-voiced cursing before Seitz said, "How early are we? We can't manage here very long, you know . There are no johns we can get to, even if everybody could shift sideways to the G field. And we'll be getting hungry pretty soon."
"Yes, of course. But I can't cut thrust now; we're too close, couldn't make it up in time. And you couldn't reach the galley anyway; the belt and ring are both locked down."
"If we must, we can follow this bulkhead around to the far side and C-Gate back."
"No, don't do that." This guy would shoot for four years?
The trouble was, safety lines for climbing had been run only as far aft as the bridge. But there was more line available. "Hang on a minute." And to Nightgazer, "How about we get Nick up, and you and he go down and string line to these guys? It's going to crowd hell out of us up here, but it's only for another 2 or 3 days." Al thumbed an okay so Ben reopened the talk circuit. "I'm sending 2 men down to get climbing lines to you. We already have them as far as the bridge, so it shouldn't take long. Then you can come up here. Meanwhile, relax."
As he turned away, Nick Leger came over, still half asleep and suitably grumpy. "We better bring 'em by way of daily supplies reserve. We didn't stock this can to feed that many."
"Good point. But we're not all that far from orbit, Nick. And then we can spread out again."
12 more people, though. Well, that's what the double decks bunks, unneeded 'til now, were for.
But except for the C-Gates Motel, there went the final semblance of privacy.289Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTZNUWX5ZmG
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Jacqueline didn't mind the disruption; she found the influx of new people exciting. At first she couldn't get the names down; Kurt Seitz. was the only one she knew for sure. Round-faced and sandy-haired, Seitz stalked the deck with the stride of someone a foot taller, and wasn't at all like the petulant voice on the intercraft. "Finding thrust on, and the place deserted, gorked me out," he said, obviously now ungorked.
Whatever that meant.
8 mean, 4 women, this team: certainly no pairoff operation, J.M. explained. "They're not set up to live as a group for any length of time; they'll be part of a much bigger community soon. So balance doesn't matter."
Right; ships were different.
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1 way or another, waiting for the end of decel, everybody put up with everybody else. After the 1st excitement of meeting, the new group tended to stay cliqued up. Mutual ground was missing; Jacqueline found no one in the lot who seemed interested in much that she had to say, and their own discussions might as well have been in an alien language. When she stopped to think about it she realized that these people, all early 20s to late 30s and first time out, had been born at least five and in some cases more than six decades after her own birth, and grown up in a culture she'd never gotten to know.
Was this how it would be with the colonists? Probably.
She'd long since quit keeping track of Earth fashions, and when it came to clothing, issue jumpsuits didn't change much. Other items did: these women wore their hair quite short and noticeably thinned, wispy halos with the scalp showing through; monkey fur, the fad was called. Jacqueline declined one young lady's generous offer of a fashionable makeover; if she wanted to look gootzy she'd pick something original.
The men tended towards brush cuts, "white sidewalls," and what Ben called Fu Manchu mustaches---except Seitz, who wore a shaggier look and no whiskers at all. Which did make him easy to distinguish from the rest.
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With Nyota out of action, Talia Winters would have been next choice to fill in as a fourth watch officer, but short of drafting Nick or Odessa into unfamiliar duties, she would lack a co-pilot. Instead, after considering other options Ben cut the daily schedule to 3 8-hour shifts---with Talia standing relief, as Elyse Cawthorn had done earlier in the trip. But nominal end-of-decel was due on the watch where he'd be the one relieved, so when that time came, Sisko waived the offer. "I may want to do some fast improvising here. Still, though..."
He looked across to Beverly. "Would you mind if Talia sits shotgun for this part?" She wouldn't; Winters took the seat. "All right; now we've got to change heading and give ourselves a little boot. So we can coast down the gravity well towards Jackpot.
The closer he got it the first time, the less he'd have to correct for, later.
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Jacqueline knew the factors involved in approaching orbit; the star's gravity well, the planet's V, and of course the ship's own speed and position which were the only items subject to pilot control. Slowing orbital V dropped you starward and vice versa; the converse was that aiming you out would slow you, et. cetera.
Ben had to come up behind the planet on the outside and do a little tweaking to match its speed. How he would put it all together to achieve orbital capture was less than clear to her, so she spent most of the next hours at the edge of the co-pilot's couch, watching.
She had to sleep sometimes, though, in the upper bunk she'd drawn because Talia won the coin toss. And waking from one of those naps she found an unaccustomed hush and no weight.
The drive was idling, one notch above standby. 2 months since accel began, 44 billion miles out, Arrowprize rode in orbit around its destination planet. Jackpot.
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A lucky thing, Sisko thought, that all the small auxiliary Warp drives, for attitude control and rotation and reverse thrust, were controlled in the same pattern he'd learned for the earlier model ships. And that Talia's telemetry carrier idea had given him enough channels to operate them all from here. He'd tried to bone up from the manual, but there hadn't been time for more than a quick scan. And yet he'd done the job with no really major setbacks. Thank God for a retentive memory!
After a bit more futzing around than he'd anticipated, using the attitude drives in various combinations, Ben had the ship in temporary surveillance orbit, slightly more than a planetary radius out. He'd tried for a four-hour period, but by the time he'd had his orbit stable and mostly circular, an extra fifteen minutes or so sneaked in. The difference, he decided, wasn't worth messing with.
For now, Arrowprize pointed outward from Sol-Jr, to put Jackpot on the forward screens during daylight observation while he picked a promising area for 1st exploration. Some attitude changes would be needed then, but nothing more; as long as the DM was shuttling down and back he wanted to stay in close. Once past that stage he intended to move out to synchronous orbit above that chosen spot, in preparation for assembly and activation of the macro-C-Gate.
But that would come later. The macro crew hadn't arrived yet and Ben hoped they wouldn't for a while yet. As soon as he had position stable enough to put his main drive on standby, he set his people and Kurt Seitz's to unbuttoning Arrowprize for 0G living. The belts revved up to .3 G; the transfer ring was freed to operate; galley and living quarters were made usable again.
It seemed chitnzy to put the arrival gang into the barracks-type housing provided for them, what with crew quarters vacant. But Ben didn't intend to encroach on the preserves of the decel group. still C-Gating, or on the move-ins who still kept stuff in their original quarters; after all, his troops had put in 3 solid years aboard this tub and earned a few perks. But, was it still possible to work something out?
Of the 20 regular-quarters rooms, four had been spares all along. And let's see: Kynon Nagada's old space lay idle, and Nightgazer had cleared his in favor of Nyota's, Charles Tucker the same with Beverly, and Yasmin with Bruno.
Well hell. Even excluding the VIP suite which was going to stay just that, and captain's digs which he'd never got around to move into but you could never tell---and besides, that terminal accessed too many command functions to let strangers play around with it---8 spaces should be enough.
He put the motion to Seitz; the man said, "Do you have any rules, such as who's allowed to room together?"
Sisko was not going to get involved with other people's ideas of propriety. "They're in your charge; you make those rules. Mine are simple; no messes and no trouble."
Kurt Seitz. grinned. "Pretty much like mine. Thanks." Well, you have to check....
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With Arrowprize no longer under way, watch duty as such became a 1-person chore and largely a formality; charting the planet and gathering data from it were the major efforts. Jacqueline spent more of her waking time in control than elsewhere, sometimes in the nominal watch seat but mostly at whatever control console might be free, soaking up every bit of available information.
Possibly due to the lack of polar ice caps, the surface of Jackpot was about 90% water. For the most part its land masses were not so much continents as archipelagos, but in the northern hemisphere one mass formed an exception. Spanning slightly more than 40 degrees of longitude, its outlines resembled nothing more than a crooked and disgustingly widened fluer-de-lis laid upside down, sprawling from roughly 70 degrees latitude to barely past 35. Its 3 ranges of hills or mountains---difficult to evaluate from up here---were broken by slanting galps, saddle-shaped passes, and in one case a large water-filled depression that might have been a meteorite crater. J.M. Colt called it Lake Pimple and the name caught on.
The central range's northern end dropped abruptly to meet a big inlet. Most of the coastline, in fact, ran jaggedly and deeply indented. So that while extremities reached over a considerable span, computer integration of the area when properly projected put it at not much over 2 million square miles.
"About two-thirds the size of Australia," Ben commented. And on one thing else showing above water covered a quarter as much. There were quite a lot of elses, though, lying in jagged streaks along that surface---enough to make up ten percent of the world's total area, give or take a little.
The matter of tides audibly concerned Callie Mills, a short, dark-haired woman who seemed to be Seitz's prime aide. The vast clear sweeps of ocean permitted tidal bulges to move almost unimpeded, and of 3 noticeable moons, one appeared to mass almost half that of Earth's satellite. Much smaller, though: about eight hundred miles across. "So it's heavier than Earth," Callie said, "by nearly ten percent."
A chunk from the core of a planet destroyed in some unimaginable catastrophe? Who knew? But it rode nearly two hundred thousand miles out, and finally Callie calculated its tidal effect as something under three-fourths of the moon's on Earth, and quit worrying. Even though those effects had slowed the planet to a 30-hour day. On the other hand this could be an ancient planet; dim stars last well.
Jacqueline decided not to mention that the tidal tug was being resisted by only 85 percent of Earth's gravity. She told Ben, though; he laughed and said, "Don't get her started."
Jackpot wore a deeper atmosphere than Earth's. Spectrographic readings showed nothing overtly toxic and a fair share of oxygen, fitting well with the land's predominant bluish green tinge, which everyone wanted to interpret as vegetation. With the axial tilt very slight, no obvious winter/summer differences were expected or noted.
As to wildlife, no clues appeared. And if intelligence or civilization existed here, it didn't go in for nightlife; darkside observations showed merely shadow. The sole exception was a patch of glare glimpsed, on one pass, through cloud cover. But the first time a clearing wind pattern revealed the area to the light scan, it turned out to be an equatorial island, now mostly darkened. "A forest fire," guessed Ben. Or some equivalent. At least it supported the vegetation hypothesis.
"Well, unless someone's down there rubbing two sticks together," said Nightgazer, "get braced for electrical storms."
"Wouldn't we have seen something?" Jet asked.
He only shrugged. No one else had an answer, either.289Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWYa4vauKhc
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Marlena turned over to face Ben. "We've got all the information we can get from here; you know that." The sudden switch confused him; in quarters and off duty for a change they had been catching up on the benefits of privacy. She said, "How much longer are you going to put off sending the Module down?"
And why? She'd know, of course, but she wasn't saying it; Nyota wouldn't be healed enough to operate the DM for some weeks, Jacqueline was the best qualified to land that can, and Sisko dreaded sending her off to do it.
Failing to outwit Marlena, finally he said, "Yes, I know; I have to, don't I?" His sigh came out ragged. "I'll work out a mission plan tomorrow, okay?"
"Fine." Pause. "I'll lend a hand."
So then they could get back to catching up.289Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFJTewBS5gL
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"We can program a superb trajectory in the computer," Nyota said, looking serious, "but figuring modifications on the fly might give you trouble. You may be better off, Jacqueline, doing it the easy way." Like, by hand? Well, maybe...
"We're down to human-scale velocities and distances here," Nyota continued. "Just over 38,000 miles out, tangential velocity 185 miles a minute. So, tell me your easiest way to ground safely."
Hmmm; all right. "Kill the tangential and drop." Ben's map readout showed the target, gradual slope up to the rim of Lake Pimple in the Eastern Range, at latitude 60. With surface rotation speed in the metallozoomer range, nothing hyper at that end, "How fast would you like me to set down?"
Nyota frowned. "Choose your own leeway, and this time fuel's no issue. Oh, say you shoot for 3 hours. In any case, set launch time to put your target somewhere near position when you get down there. Now tell me the rest."
So Jackie spelled it out the way she saw it. Except for a few minor corrections, Nyota approved.
Ready or not, next day the DM was going for a spin. Lake Pimple would be clearing the morning terminator about 2 hours after the Arrowprize did, giving nearly maximum possible daylight for this initial recon. It could hardly get better than that....289Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSM6MOzWs7Q
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Disengagement and separation went by the book; with the magnetorestrictive seal released, igniting gases made the Module shudder, buck, then pop out smoothly. Using the attitude thrustors Jacqueline turned the tiny craft 90 degrees by the gyro, checking against the planet's image on a starboard view.
Eight and a half minutes of drive thrust killed tengential velocity. In the rear screens Arrowprize dwindled. For 1 moment Jacqueline watched. Suddenly it all seemed very final; there went the ship and here she was, with two of her crewmate and Kurt Seitz, with three of his. On the way down, all by themselves.
As she swung the can to point tail down, Nyota's voice came. "Looking good!"
From the comm seat, Al Nightgazer acknowledged. "Module in free fall now." About 5 minutes and 60 miles later, surface-reflection radar showed drop speed at 15,000 miles per h our. Jacqueline kicked in her drive thrust control, slaving surface radar through the computer to hold that speed until further notice. Alfred relayed the figures to Nyota.
Sitting co-pilot, Talia said, "Check me on this: we watch for how the target area's lining up and tilt to drift whichever way we need to." Because launch timing would bring Lake Pimple around close, but no bullseye. "So when do we start real decel?"
It wasn't critical; fifteen hundred was well within the speed range of executive jets. Of course those didn't make their runs straight down; slowing, their passengers weren't bucking gravity head on, plus a Module's own retardant thrust. Jacqueline intended keeping total decel forces down near one G; no point in subjecting passengers to more when she didn't have to. Which meant that near the surface she had only about 15 percent of that to play with, drivewise. So: "After two and a half hours of drop, a little less. At about 100 miles up."
Over the comm circuit Nyota said, "That sounds right. Gives you some leeway, too. Where's your target by now?"
Talia checked. "Thirty degrees to go yet, close as I can make it." Jacqueline nodded; that guess fit the planned timing.
Which left her with over two hours to wait, doing nothing but watch instruments while the planet's gravity field, fully perceptible at constant drop, grew too slowly to really notice.289Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡueCmwa4fxd
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Construct containing the volitional earlier studied and simulated has reached relative spatial/chronal status. Indicated is a further approach to this volitional, to ascertain surety of ending undue kinesis emergencies. At execution, however, sensing extensor finds volitional in parametric fluxion. With cautionary reference to damage of other volitional at least previous emprobement, essayance is deferred.289Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡp7sw2Ictwj
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If the computer knew its stuff, Jacqueline's arbitrary hundred miles gave her a margin of about 7. "That should be plenty," Nyota assured her. The satellite that was Arrowprize would be setting soon after the DM grounded; Jacqueline felt grateful for the contact now.
Reaching for the drive control she nodded to Nightgazer.
"Initiating decel thrust," he reported, and everyone's apparent weight grew to Earth normal..
Jacqueline kept tabs on the radar; altitude and drop speed both stayed close to the numbers she wanted. Target lay a few miles north and west; she tipped the Module's nose that way and watched the eastern shore of Lake Pimple creep towards bullseye.
Except to his own people, Kurt Seitz hadn't spoken much. Now, turning to Jacqueline, he said, "Once we ground and you button down, I'm in charge, understand?"
Well sure; he and his people ran the tests, the first emergence (if any!), and whatever unladling he deemed necessary. Jacqueline had no problem with any of that. Nightgazer, though, swung around to say, "We're not there yet."
Seitz's expression turned blank; he stood, saying, "I'll be down below. Cargo Bay 18. Clearing away stuff around the gates so that we can get them out, and up and running. C'mon, troops!"
"Just don't clear out the Ass," said Al. Frowning, Seitz straddled over the railing, not bothering to open the little gate, and vanished down the tunnel. The others followed.289Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3vjdUxwKL6
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Keeping her voice mild because she didn't like being steamed at Alfred Nightgazer, Jacqueline said, "Why so gritty with him?"
He shrugged on one side. "I didn't care for his takeover t one, I guess."
"I'm the one he was pushing, if anybody. If it starts to bother me, I'll take care of it."
Alfred blinked. "How old did you say you were?"
"What's that got....?" Oh well: "Uh, two-three months short of fifteen, last time I counted. Why?"
"Well, I was thinking: your age makes you a kid. And that maybe Seitz was into the same mistake." He grinned. "Sorry."
"No sweat." Shaking off the distraction she turned back to the board. Drop speed was tapering off towards zero, with a safe margin of altitude remaining. And the target area....
"Maybe you're growing up in other ways, too? Are you?"
What the fuck? Swiveling to look at him she said, "Could you please shut up while I land this damn thing!?"289Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ331TxKKVpe
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At exec jet altitude and falling like a rock, Jacqueline had time for good look below: The Lake Pimple crater rim sloped away steep at first and then leveled off. As the ground grew closer, she saw treelike growth, interspersed with clearings.
One big one looked fairly level. Checking to make sure the landing legs were fully spread and locked, she tilted enough to sidle directly above the spot she wanted and eased down. Impact was barely enough to jar; she cut drive and hit the “Level” button, then waited while the uphill leg creaked, its bottom segment telescoping enough to counteract the slight tilt of the ground beneath.
Ignoring the blue-green flora in the side screen views, she turned on “Alfred Nightgazer. “What other ways?”
“Huh?” He blinked. “Oh. Well, I just wondered, with you Not egrowing up and all, if having no boys around…”
In front of Talia he was asking her stuff like this. “Let’s just say that I’m in no hurry.”
His sight, then, sounded like one of relief. “Well, that’s good. No reason why you should be. I just wondered….”
So it was all right; friendly curiosity, nothing more. “And I’m okay, thanks for asking but you didn’t need to. Let’s go see what Seitz’s finding out.”
Talia stayed, to keep touch with Arrowprize while contact held.289Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYCwBmYX2T8
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"The air's heavy, all right," Kurt Seitz said. "Nearly 1.5 atmospheres. Callie tested a sample; it's okay to breathe, nothing toxic, no anamolous parituclates."
"Not even pollens?" Nightgazer asked.
Seitz looked at him, but both voice and expression had been friendly this time. "Evidently not. She pumped air through a filter and caught practically nothing."
"So where is she?" Jacqueline asked. For here in Cargo Bay 18 only Seitz and one other man labored at clearing the C-Gages for offloading.
"Outside, she and Justin both. Taking samples. Don't worry; we haven't seen anything out there that moves, and she's got a wideband soundblaster just in case.' The impact of one of those things would derail the purpose of a charging rhino.
Relaxing, Seitz smiled. "Your aft airlock, down there, worked just fine the first try. Compression rate's perfect, Callie said on the intercom; about as fast as you can do it without discomfort."
Jacqueline had forgotten the airlock comm set. Oh well; she said, "Would it be all right if we went out for a while?" If Seitz needed boss treatment, why not?
It seemed to work. "Sure. Stay close, though. We'll be ready to winch out the C-Gates soon, along with their prefab housing, and we'll need everybody on that. Except your watch, of course; we should keep contact with the ship."
Which had set behind the planet's bulge by now, anyway. Never mind: Jacqueline and Nightgazer headed down to the airlock. Instructions said not to let native atmosphere into the ship yet, so they had to pump it out first and refill from the tanks.289Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡN5dUjFpSKW
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The heavy air outside, carrying a fugitive scent that was neither mint nor sage but suggestive of both, had a sensuous quality. The lesser gravity added to the effect; Arrowprize's 2 months at 1G were recent enough that her muscles hadn't forgotten.
Yellower sunlight somehow gave the feel of artificial lighting; okay, ignore that. Underfoot lay dark soil, firm but not rock-hard. Stringy dark green tendrils, punctuated by bulbous purplish growths, crisscrossed the immediate area---while all around the open space clustered thick, gnarly trees of a sort; above the bottom sections of ribbed trunks she saw masses of rather blobby, bluish green flora.
Why, she wondered, did all this feel more like a holo set than an actual new planet? All right, look around. Less than 100 yards upslope, the rim of Lake Pimple rose against a patch of clear sky, deeper-colored than Earth's. Jacqueline turned to Al. "Let's go up and take a look."
"Why not?" Moving fast enough to run short of breath they climbed, threading their way among closely spaced trees, then clambered as they came to the rocky crest, until they topped it and saw the lake beyond. Jacqueline gasped. From orbit it was an oval blue dot; the readout said forty miles along the major diameter. This barely rippling purpled reality took her breath away.
Nightgazer said, "This would be a good place to start a colony," and she sp. Too far from shore to make out any details, she saw water spurt up. A splash? For several minutes they watched, but the effect refused to repeat itself.
From downhill came Seitz's shouts. Time to tote that bale!289Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmVDqJpdP8r
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He had the hold's main hatch opened out, a winch crane arm unfolded and protruding, along with the hoseline that had pumped quickset from an inboard tank to fill pre-fab plastic forms and make a large floor slab, starting only a few feet from a landing leg. In a vague way Jacqueline had known these things existed, but preoccupied with the jobs she really needed to learn, she hadn't paid much attention.
If Callie Mills wasn't back aboard the Module she had to be still scouting, as Kurt Seitz directed Justin and Williams, the other man, in assembling the panels he winched out to form outside walls and partitions. With just the front wall and that area of the roof left to place, Seitz signaled a break and climbed the landing leg, leading the way back up to the hold.
There wasn't much left of the C-Gates Motel, but Seitz hadn't dismantled the refreshment bat. He'd only moved it over out the way, and now fresh coffee scented the heavy air. As to that, Seitz said, "This cargo bay is now part of the outdoors; we don't use its tunnel entrance again until we've bled this air to space on the way up." It sounded overly cautious to Jacqueline, but so did the airlock procedure and to the same end, so she made yessir noises and nodded.
She was rinsing her cup when Talia on the intercom said, "Jacqueline? Come on up. Captain Sisko wants you right now."
Seitz said, "I'll go with you."
"I know how to work the airlock. I just did."
"I need some papers from up there, anyway."
Anyway?! Well, if it made him happy....289Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5AKoNXFTIC
