Owen said, “Continue planetside with all possible speed.”
“Yes, sir.”
Sir. Owen—Lieutenant Lamont—was CO now, of Ritter as well as the Army unit. They were all dead: Captain Lewis and his crew, Colonel Matthews and Miguel Flores, the ambassador, that physicist … all dead.
Don’t think about that now. Leo awaited Owen’s orders.
The pilot said, “Entering the atmosphere. We—”
The shuttle pitched and rocked—too much pitching. Ritter said, “We’ve taken a hit, sir.” Smoke seeped from the back of the shuttle into the cabin.
* * *
Salah didn’t know which of the women had screamed. Not Ranger Berman, surely, so it must have been Claire Patel or Marianne Jenner. Before he could see if either needed help, the shuttle was hit.
By what? Not the same beam—laser? alpha particles?—Salah was no physicist. But the shuttle didn’t explode as the Friendship had. It lurched, and something somewhere began to smoke. Salah pulled his filter mask from his pocket and put it on; everyone else fumbled with theirs. If the young pilot could get it to the ground …
Lieutenant Lamont was saying over and over, “This is the Friendship shuttle. We are making an emergency landing. Come in, Kindred…”
Salah unstrapped himself and lurched to the front of the craft. “I can say that in Kindred, Lieutenant, if you wish.”
Lamont said, “Go.”
Salah found the strange and difficult words, short syllables interspersed with clicks and rising inflections that could totally change the meaning. But languages came easily to him, and he’d studied Kindred every spare moment for six months. “Kal^mel¡ hibdel…”
No response.
He kept on, as the ground hurled skyward to meet them. Trees, buildings, fields … then rougher terrain as steep hills rose toward distant mountains.
“Kal^mel¡ hibdel…”
* * *
Crash. They were going to crash.
Leo twisted in his seat and yelled to the civilians to assume the safest crash position, demonstrating what it was. The doctor sat in the copilot’s seat, talking gibberish. Leo felt the engines turn off as Ritter took the shuttle into a long, controlled glide. Outside the window the ground rose. Where was Ritter going? There: a long, empty field at the base of a hill. Closer, closer …
The shuttle was hit again and black smoke filled the cabin.
They struck the ground hard enough to rattle Leo’s teeth. Then he was on his feet, yanking people out of their seats as Owen pulled open the door. Kandiss jumped down. Leo threw the passengers at Owen, who tossed them to Kandiss, never mind who was injured, just get them out.… Marianne Jenner, still clutching her laptop. The lab kid, Dr. Sherman, the two doctors—Dr. Patel would not let go of her big suitcase—Christ on a cracker! Leo threw it down beside her. Zoe was unstrapping the two people farthest back, why weren’t they unstrapping themselves, had the smoke overcome them …
Something from above hit the shuttle and it burst into flame. Leo jumped and rolled, instinct and training both taking over, a seamless whole. Owen landed to his right, and then Zoe on top of him. Her pants were on fire. He rolled her on the ground until it was out and then they were up, following Owen and Kandiss, who were dragging the civilians toward the hill.
No one else emerged from the burning shuttle. Not the pilot or Bentley or Henry.
Leo’s legs wobbled under him. Not injury, something else … gravity wasn’t right. He steadied himself.
Owen said, “Who is—” just as something happened that Leo had never seen, could not have imagined.
A beam of light swept across the sky, bright enough to show red against the pearly dawn. It swept from side to side before disappearing.
Then silence.
Someone quavered, “What was…”
“That was a weapon,” Owen said flatly. “The same one that destroyed the Friendship. Kindred is under attack from the Stremlenie.”
Dr. Sherman said, “But they must have counterweapons … an advanced civilization like this—”
No one answered him. Leo didn’t see any counterweapons. He didn’t even see any civilization. All he saw was a burning shuttle with nine survivors, marooned on an alien planet that either had not or could not come to their defense.
CHAPTER 4
Isabelle Rhinehart yawned, stretched, and rose from her sleeping mat. She folded it, put it away in the karthwood chest, and padded barefoot from her privacy room into the atrium of the house. No one was there; it was barely dawn. Isabelle made herself a cup of tea and, still in her night shift, opened the teardrop-shaped double door to the terrace beyond. Leaning on the railing, she sipped her tea and gazed at the valley brightening under the rising sun.
It was so beautiful: all of it, valley and terrace and house. Her lahk had built it two years ago, when Tony’s job and Isabelle’s art and Nathan’s inventions had produced enough money. Well, mostly Nathan, and Isabelle was grateful to her lahk-mate, even though he was never home anymore and wasn’t that nice a person to begin with.
Made entirely of karthwood, the house sat on the top of a low hill. Karthwood, which it had taken Isabelle a year on World to stop calling “bamboo,” was the basic building material everywhere, and structures were designed for the natural curves of its hollow, tapering stalks, which were treated with natural salts against insects and weather. “Let the karthwood become what it chooses” was the construction motto, and what karthwood wanted to become was buildings with swooping curves, oval rooms, woven roofs lacquered against rain, sliding panels to open houses to World’s semitropical air. Karthwood had the tensile strength of steel, the compressive strength of concrete, and the beauty of natural wood. In addition, as one of the few lighter colors in nature, its warm tan stalks were a welcome contrast to World’s other vegetation.
But the fields and gardens were beautiful, too, in their more somber way. Vegetation used rhodopsin instead of chlorophyll; the darker coloration allowed less light reflection and more retention from World’s orange sun. Skihlla rose above the horizon, suffusing the valley with its delicate light and glinting on the river that flowed to the east of the house until, beyond several other lahks, it fell in shining stages to the valley. From the garden below Isabelle’s terrace rose the sweet, heady scent of pika¡ leaves, perfuming the moist air. And now all of it, the whole lovely life her lahk had put together, might not last.
Isabelle drained her tea, raised the cup to the rising sun, and said in World, “Mother World, you are beautiful beyond compare.”
“Bullshit,” a voice behind her said in English.
Isabelle turned. “Good morning, Kayla.”
“Yeah. Right.”
So this was one of her sister’s bad days. Kayla vacillated between staying in bed all day and complaining bitterly when out of it. Kayla had hated World for ten years, and it seemed to Isabelle that the hatred was growing. Isabelle recognized depression but had no idea what to do about it. Antidepressants did not exist on World. Medicine here, as on Earth, developed according to need. Isabelle, naturally robust, tried to be patient. But she had liked World from the beginning, even during the first difficult months of microbe-adjustment, financial dependency, and language ignorance, when the clicks and trills and inflected syllables of Worldese had swirled around her as incomprehensible as the insect sounds it resembled. Kayla still had learned no more than a few words.
She said, “I need help today, Kayla, in the studio, if you will.”
Kayla snorted. “‘Studio.’”
Isabelle hung on to her temper. “Please.”
“You’re just going to go on with this sham life as if nothing is going to happen? As if everything isn’t going to come to an end in a few more months?”
Isabelle lost the battle with her temper. “I thought that’s what you wanted! For World to come to an end!”
“Not us with it. Face it, Isabelle, when the spore cloud hits, everything ends.”
Isabelle di
dn’t answer. They’d been through this before.
Kayla gripped the railing and glared at the valley below. Figures moved, now, among the fields and gardens; bicycles sped along the roads. “Look at them, going to work like nothing is about to happen to them.” Then Kayla’s voice turned plaintive. “No, Izzy, I didn’t want World to end. What I want is to go home. Have you forgotten home? Green trees and a yellow sun and cars and computers and steaks and—”
“Have you forgotten home—the home you and I knew? Welfare didn’t exactly provide us with steaks or a car. Our cousin was shot outside the apartment building. Your child brought home a used needle he found on the sidewalk. The gangs—”
“So shoot me!” Kayla flared. “I remember the good stuff, and I don’t want to die next month! When the spore cloud—Austin!”
Isabelle turned. Her nephew stood there in the Terran pajamas Kayla had sewn for him and insisted he wear, blinking against the brightening day. His thin face showed nothing. Sometimes he tried to make peace between his mother and aunt, which always filled Isabelle with shame; a thirteen-year-old should not have to take on that role. Today, however, he merely said in a flat voice, “We are all going to die?”
“No,” Isabelle said, before Kayla could say anything. “You know we’re not, Austin.” She had explained it all to him more than once, even though once had been all that was necessary. The kid was smart. However, there was something of Kayla’s negativity in him, too, which worried Isabelle.
Austin said, “We’re immune, right. We’re Terrans. But Mom is worried about all the people here who aren’t. About everything falling apart and Worlders just losing it and going on rampages.”
Isabelle turned on her sister. “What have you been telling him? God, Kayla!”
“The truth. I’ve been telling him the truth about what happens when a society falls apart! As in, you know, history!”
“World’s history is not ours!”
“They’re human, aren’t they? That’s what you always insist!”
Kayla’s face shone with petty, pathetic triumph. Isabelle turned away in disgust, to find out exactly what Austin had been told and to correct it if she could. But Austin was no longer there. He’d gone into his privacy room, and when Isabelle whistled softly at the door to request entrance, he neither opened the door nor answered.
“Shit,” Isabelle said softly.
The studio would have to wait. This was more important. Isabelle sat cross-legged on a pillow outside Austin’s karthwood door and waited for the boy to come out.
He did, five minutes later, eyes wild. “Tra¡kal!” he cried in World. “On the radio … killed! A whole city—” He started to cry, tears flying off his face with the violent shaking of his head.
* * *
“Check weapons and then recon the area,” Owen said, and Leo and Kandiss jumped to obey, even though Leo wasn’t sure what “the area” actually was. The shuttle still burned, smelling horribly. They’d crashed beside a small, very irregular hill covered with boulders and purplish vegetation. Fallen rocks littered the ground, although away from the hill, the land was level. Owen had backed the civilians under an overhang of rock, almost a small cave. Zoe guarded them, weapon at the ready, even though Leo suspected she was having trouble staying upright. Dr. Bourgiba was bent over Dr. Sherman, treating his burns with something from Dr. Patel’s suitcase. If that was all filled with doctor stuff, then it was a good thing that Dr. Patel had refused to let go of it. It was something they still had, anyway.
What else did they have? As they performed the weapons check, Leo cataloged their resources. His 107A1, the .50 caliber long-range sniper rifle zeroed to him. Four Mk 19 SCARs, Special Forces combat assault rifles; one of those was fitted with a modular shotgun system for ballistic breaches. Four Beretta sidearms. Ammo and hand grenades—Christ, no wonder Owen had staggered a little under the weight of the duffel. The gear they had all been wearing, even Zoe, who must have gone back to her quarters from sick bay to put it on right after Owen had told her to stay in sick bay. Filter masks for everybody. One person who spoke Kindese. No fucking idea where they were, or what kind of OPORD Owen could put together.
Leo conferred briefly with Kandiss. They went away from the burning shuttle, in opposite directions along the base of the hill. The sun rose orange, and it wasn’t just the bright colors of dawn; it stayed orange. It looked larger than the sun on Earth. All the strange plants, broad-leaved and spicy smelling, were dark purplish. Leo felt himself adjusting to the lighter gravity.
Still no natives. Fields, with some sort of strange dark animal grazing in them. One raised its head, looked at Leo, and went back to chomping the purplish grass. Another trotted slowly toward a clump of brush and Leo saw a splash of pink paint on its rump.
A few of the dark, long-haired animals grazed on the hill, these with pale blue splotches on their necks. Choosing a spot with cover in case of ambush, Leo climbed partway up the east face of the hill. Light-colored, curved buildings in the far distance. A road, with something moving on it, too far to distinguish but the traffic was light and slow. In the very far distance, smoke rising from whatever the Stremlenie had destroyed.
And in the sky, two moons: one setting on the horizon and one fading in the growing sunlight.
He reported back to Owen. “No one in the area. Natives two klicks off on a road paralleling here, not approaching us, moving at approximately ten klicks per hour. Animals which appear to be similar to sheep”—unless you counted the fact that they had three eyes—“that don’t appear dangerous. Buildings two klicks away at eleven o’clock.”
Kandiss returned from the other side of the hill. “Settlement about half a klick away. Two dozen houses, people in the streets talking, agitated but not armed. No military installations visible.”
“Okay,” Owen said. “Someone’ll spot the shuttle fire soon, if they haven’t already seen it. Just so we are all clear: This is now the Kindred squad, Second Platoon, Bravo Company, Seventy-Fifth Regiment. The mission now is to secure the area and let them come to us. If approached with hostile intent, defend as necessary. If they want to send in a negotiator, he—”
“There won’t be hostile intent,” Bourgiba said, and Owen spun around. Leo caught the brief flash of chagrin on Owen’s face that he had not heard the doctor approach.
“Doctor, this is a military conference. Please return to—”
“There will be no hostile intent,” Bourgiba said, just as if Owen had not spoken. “Kindred have no tradition of hostility, let alone war. Their society is peaceful, matrilineal, with its first principles those of—”
“I have read the briefing materials,” Owen said stiffly. “Return to the others, please. Now.”
Bourgiba did not move. He said softly, “I know your duty is to protect us. But with the deaths of both Ambassador Gonzalez and her second, Wayne Henry—”
“My charge is to protect you,” Owen said. “And I am going to do that. Kandiss, escort Dr. Bourgiba back to safety.”
Kandiss, looking startled, took a step forward. Bourgiba said quietly, “That won’t be necessary. But, Lieutenant Lamont, bear in mind that this is a peaceful diplomatic mission to establish international and trade relations with the government on World. It is not about anything else, despite what happened here. It is especially not about what the Stremlenie desired, which was revenge. Against anybody, for any reason.”
Bourgiba walked back under the overhang.
Zoe walked up, her face stiff with, Leo thought, determination to hide weakness. Owen said, “Secure the area. Report any movement at all to me. Brodie, you take the top of the hill. Berman—”
Under the overhang, Bourgiba was talking to Marianne Jenner. Dr. Jenner turned her head to stare at Owen.
Oh shit, Leo thought. The last thing they needed now was some kind of military-civilian turf war.
* * *
For two hours, nothing happened. Leo lay in his listening-observation post on top of the hill, rifle re
ady. He was glad for the Army’s latest tech, a scope that could switch from a narrow field for accuracy at range to a wide angle like a spotting scope—especially good since he didn’t have a spotter. He spent the time sweating in the growing heat under his gear and thinking over possible scenarios, knowing that Owen was doing the same. The Kindred might blame them for the attack on the city. After all, how would the planet know which ship had fired on them? They might send their own ship, or more than one if they had it and why wouldn’t they, to sweep that red beam over this area, in which case all nine of them were toast. Or, Dr. Bourgiba might be right and they would send a negotiator to find out what happened. If they did, the negotiator might be a trick. Everybody in every city might be dead and the Rangers would have to defend the five civilians against looters or people bent on revenge or who-the-fuck-knew-what.
No, not five—four. The geologist, Dr. Sherman, was unconscious, and Dr. Patel said he would die of his burns.
Then what? The eight humans had no food or water, and couldn’t eat or drink what they found without risking disease.
Bright spots: Dr. Jenner’s son was some kind of high brass here. He wouldn’t want his mother dead. And the Kindred had starships, or a ship. If this could be straightened out, maybe the Kindred would take the eight Americans home. The scientists and doctors agreed that with such advanced civilization, the Kindred would all be vaccinated already against the spore plague, so if they could be made to see that it was the Stremlenie and not the Friendship that had wasted that city …
Leo was a little surprised to realize how much he wanted to go back to Earth. Being away for a few months had been one thing. Even going back to an America twenty-four years later would be okay; the Army was still there and it was the Army he wanted. They were his family, his brothers, his purpose. But if this played out so that he never got to go home …
Don’t think about it until it happens. And anyway—
Movement below.
“Group approaching north side of the hill,” he said through his wrister. “Five people. No visible weapons.”