Page 8 of Sentenced to Prism

  Evan considered this while he watched the hedge begin to repair itself. He wasn't overly concerned. The suit had suffered some damage, that was all.

  "How long will it take you to fix the trouble?"

  "It is true that I am self‑repairing, but only to a degree. Even I have limits." A pause. "It appears on introspection that the damage extends to internal functions more com­plex than motor drives. I am attempting to isolate the fire-"

  "Fire?" Evan's eyes widened slightly.

  "‑and prevent its spread to more sensitive compo­nents. It is not easy. Integration precludes much isolation without compounding‑“

  "How long will at take you to fix it?" He was growing warmer.

  "You do not understand the extent of the damage, sir. It is not as if something broke. I carry ample spares for replacement where required. But entire integrated blocks have been vaporized, along with their connections. The cooling unit has also been affected and this compounds the problem."

  So I'm not the only one who's sweating, Evan thought anxiously.

  "I am sorry that I have not been able to live up to my designers' expectations, but they could not have antici­pated, a n t i c i p a t e d, a n t i c i ..."

  As he sat in his seat the voice of the MHW, the strong, reassuring voice that had comforted him from the moment he'd stepped out of the ship high in orbit above Prism, the voice of knowledge and infinite resourcefulness, the voice of Commonwealth technology, died.

  "We have to find a place where you can shut down nonessential functions while you repair yourself. That means we have to move." The faint siren call of the bea­con was forgotten now. Everything else was forgotten. He tried to take a step. This time not even a complaining whine greeted his efforts. He jammed his leg viciously against the sensors. He might as well have been kicking granite.

  "Come on, suit," he whispered nervously, "respond." He nudged switches on a panel near his belly. "Manual emergency override. Basic systems functions, respond. Come on, damn you, respond!"

  Only the echoing silence of dead metal, loud in his ears.

  The audio membranes filled the suit with the unshielded sounds of Prism: electronic whispers and buzzes, harsh whistles and ratcheting growls. Unsettling sounds, alien sounds, suddenly much closer than they'd been before. Behind him the trees rose immobile, drained and drinking in the sunlight, a tall pink wall separating him from the ruins of the station. They took no interest in the tall, immobilized metal shape standing not far away. They weren't interested in him anymore. He was no longer perceived as a threat. And rightly so.

  Then he was falling, unable to slow the descent or stop it. He'd halted on a slight slope and the suit's internal stabilizers had finally succumbed to the pervasive dam­age. He couldn't do anything to regulate the fall, of course. His own muscles were nowhere near strong enough to hold the heavy metal and plastic MHW upright against the pull of Prism's gravity.

  There were no compensators to cushion the shock when he struck. His face bounced off the inside of the visor and blood started from his nose. At least he'd landed on his back. Whether that was sheer luck or a parting gesture by the suit's systems he had no way of knowing. He put his head back and waited for the bleeding to stop. Nor was he in danger of being blinded by the glare outside, since the material of the visor was largely self‑adjusting. As he lay there in the bright light of day it compensated for the increased glare. That rapid chemical response to light was all that had saved him from being permanently blinded by the first burst of the hedge laser.

  It was still comfortable within the suit, though several degrees warmer than optimum. That would soon begin to change. He knew that the cooling system was ruined and that if he lay in the sun very long he'd cook as efficiently as if in an oven.

  Nothing lay unattended for very long on the surface of Prism, however. It wasn't long before he had company.

  It was crawling onto the visor and he flinched even though he knew it couldn't get at him. Short red legs propelled a squat, triangular body. At the fore point were two bright green crystalline eyes mounted on weaving eyestalks. They swiveled to stare down at him.

  What did they see? What was the mind like behind that shiny, slick‑backed body? Could it feel, or was it no more than a mobile machine? The glassy stare was not enlight­ening.

  The lower foresection of the body between the eyes dropped open. Out came something small, thin, and spiral ­shaped. It started to drill into the visor, directly over Evan's right eye, at high speed. He could hear it whine through the audio pickups. He sweated a little heavier for a few seconds until it became clear his visitor was incap­able of penetrating the plexalloy.

  The creature kept it up for more than a minute before finally giving the transparent material up as a bad job and moving away. It hadn't so much as scratched the visor. Even so, Evan found his stomach was churning.

  It returned a couple of minutes later and decided to try the place where the visor was sealed to the body of the suit. Each of its legs operated independently of the others. Again the disconcerting whine, again the suit's integrity remained intact. Of course, if it found one of the places lower down where the hedge had sliced open the duralloy‑ but maybe it wasn't even interested in him. Maybe it was after the minerals in the suit itself. Still, Evan knew from personal observation at the station that there were plenty of scavengers who would find his body more than palatable. He was full of magnesium, potas­sium, calcium, zinc, iron, and all sorts of tasty spices. If he lay there long, sooner or later something would come along that would be ready and able to take him apart.

  A second driller joined its cousin. Evan lay quietly, trying to ignore the intensified whine as he considered possible courses of action. He'd always been good at planning and organizing with a minimum of resources, but the latter usually included more than a dead survival suit. Now it was broken, and he was going to die. He could not think of a way out.

  The drillers went away before nightfall, leaving him to ponder his fate in the darkness. He was only four days out from the station. Four days suit time, that is. Con­siderably longer for a human traveling on foot without the assistance of mechanical muscles.

  Less than a day to the location of the feeble beacon. The beacon that moved around within a confined space. Even if Ophemert was dead, her suit might still be func­tional. If that was the case and he could salvage it, his chances of making it back to the station alive would be improved immeasureably.

  Or maybe she was still alive. Perhaps she'd been out on a field trip, had been informed of the disaster in time to save herself, and was even now awaiting word that it was safe to return. He could convey that information to her and they could return together.

  Except that he knew there was no way he could survive on Prism's surface without a suit. A suit was vital to his continued survival. It moderated the temperature, sup­plied food and water, protected its wearer from the ele­ments, provided communications, advice, and even entertainment. All he had now was his light day‑suit, the one he'd brought along to wear within the civilized con­fines of the station. How could he trade the armored safety of the MHW for a suit of thin, nonfunctional artificial fabric?

  If he didn't, his only alternative was to remain within the corpse of the MHW and hope that the company would come looking for its wayward explorer. One day they would. Trouble was, one day might be months in the future. By then he wouldn't care when they found him.

  Dawning of a new day found him rummaging around inside the suit, having slept well despite his fears. He found that he was able to extricate most of the concen­trates from their storage compartments by hand, as well as the majority of vitamins. If he wore only his under­wear, he might be able to rig a pack from his day‑suit pants. He would then have food for a while and a means to transport it.

  Evan Orgell was not passive. However assured the demise fate appeared to hold out to him, he refused to accept it as inevitable. Some might call such an attitude arrogance. Evan would have defined i
t as persistence in the face of adversity.

  Maybe his suit was broken, but his legs still worked. He'd done a lot of walking on Samstead and thought he was in pretty good physical condition. He could still run and dodge. Human beings had been running and dodging for millions of years, just as they had survived without suits. Surely he, a modern man, could do as well as his ignorant ancestors?

  No, he could manage physically without a suit. Men­tally was something else again. He'd been outside without a specialized suit only twice in his life, both times to go swimming with friends at the beach. On a dare, they'd gone in without surf suits to propel them through the waves and protect them from the sun and salt. It had been a nerve‑wracking ordeal, but he'd survived it.

  He discovered that he was shaking as he contemplated what he was about to do. That was interesting. A new experience. Welcome to Prism. He forced himself to wait until he'd regained control of his muscles before starting in on the latches that sealed him inside. Each opened easily at his touch. The emergency manual release was a bit more complicated, but eventually it, too, yielded to his ministrations.

  The latch was freed. All he had to do was twist the handle a hundred eighty degrees and shove. He did so, and as terrified as he was by the thought of it opening and exposing him suitless to the world outside, he was even more frightened that it wouldn't.

  He pushed. The only advantage he had over a newborn chick emerging from its egg was that he knew what kind of world he was being born into.

  If that counted as an advantage. At the moment, he might have found a little ignorance comforting.

  Chapter Six

  Two things struck him forcefully as he emerged: the overpowering brilliance of the daylight reflected from a million silicate forms and a peculiar smell that caused him to inhale sharply. Peculiar, but not bad, the smell was that of fresh air. The first fresh air his lungs had embraced since he'd left Samstead. It was strikingly different from suit air, as sharp and piercing in its own way as the light.

  The air gave him no trouble, which allowed him to concentrate on the problem of seeing. In order to see at all he had to squint, and still the tears poured from his outraged eyes. He would need some kind of protection if he expected to go more than a hundred meters from the suit.

  Ducking back inside, he worked his way up toward the visor and searched for a release. There was none. The visor was heat‑sealed in place and couldn't be removed without the facilities of a fully equipped machine shop. So he would have to improvise.

  The food concentrates came in heavy plastic packets. He'd pulled one apart and was studying the material when it occurred to him that he didn't have a single tool; not even a pocketknife. Everything was built into the MHW and secured as tightly as the photochromic visor.

  Another foray outside and another search of his imme­diate surroundings assured him he was in no danger of imminent attack by crystalline carnivores. Crying like a baby, he hunted around the fringe of the suit until he found what he wanted: a section of bubble grass that had been shattered by the suit's fall. One curved edge seemed sharp enough.

  The plastic cut more easily than he'd hoped. When he finished he was the owner of a strip five centimeters wide and thirty long. He wrapped it around his head and knot­ted it in back. He hoped he wouldn't have to do any running.

  The next time he stuck his head back out into the light and tentatively opened his eyes he found that he could see without pain, though not very clearly. His first attempt at scavenging had proved more successful than not. He squirmed back into the suit to see what else might be salvageable. It wasn't encouraging.

  His leisure duty suit, which he'd expected to wear on the journey home, became a crude pack with the legs knotted and then tied together and the belt secured at the waist. It wouldn't hold much, but so far he'd been unable to find much to carry. He was more concerned about his footgear than anything else. Sunburn he would suffer when his underwear gave out, but his light shoes would have to last or else his feet would be cut to ribbons. Once more he was grateful for all the walking he'd done at home. At least the soles of his feet were tougher than those of the average desk‑minder.

  He spent a futile half day trying to get at the rest of the food, which was secured within the MHW's dispens­ers. Without the proper tools he was doomed to failure; but that didn't stop him from cursing the suit's designers fiercely.

  One more thing needed to be done before he abandoned the suit permanently; he wrapped one piece of legging over nose and mouth. The air might smell refreshing, but it was full of minute particles of silicon. Silicosis was one disease he intended to avoid at all cost.

  Thus garbed and muffled he took a deep breath, thank­ful that the surface temperature was mild, and stepped clear of the suit. He was standing virtually naked and alone on the surface of a hostile alien world.

  He checked his wrist beacon. It came to life immedi­ately, light strong, battery fresh. The light would grow brighter if he came close to another beacon, a feature designed to enable survivors of a disaster to find one another. He was going to use it to find Martine Ophemert's beacon. Its range was short, but he should be close enough for it to be useful.

  Eventually it would also guide his rescuers to him. Until that blessed day he had to survive, probably for several weeks or more. It would take that long for the company to get worried enough to send a shuttle after him.

  He remembered the line the MHW had been taking prior to its demise: northwest. Orienting himself by the sun, he started off in what he thought was the right direc­tion. If his beacon light did not grow noticeably brighter by the evening, he would backtrack and choose a different tack.

  The suit was utterly useless to him now. Still, he aban­doned it with reluctance. It was his last real link with Samstead and safety.

  The forest closed in around him. Every growth, how­ever innocuous‑looking, presented a hostile appearance to Evan. Every one seemed to follow his steps, waiting for just the right moment to explode, or spit acid, or envelop him in some horrible alien web. It took him several hours to realize that not every living thing on Prism was intent on his destruction. So long as he did not threaten them, they were quite indifferent to his presence.

  As to which were actually dangerous he couldn't have said. Slick growths which appeared unyielding proved to be soft and flexible when he accidentally brushed up against them, while those which looked cuddly turned out to be full of barbed hooks. He spent half an hour pulling the curved objects of that lesson out of his left leg and resolved to avoid contact with everything, even if it meant deviat­ing from his chosen path and going the long way around.

  On the plus side, his shoes were holding up well. The soles were thin but tough, a quality common to the major­ity of modem footwear. Also, most of the silicate growths that filled the ecological niche for ground cover were soft­er than their spiky, larger cousins. On some, like the bubble‑encased chlorophyllic growths, the danger was not cutting himself so much as it was slipping on the slick glassy curves and breaking his neck. He found he had to skate as much as walk across them.

  Water was no problem. If anything, there was too much of it. Late afternoon found him taking shelter beneath a condarite. The big growth reminded him of several dozen glass umbrellas growing one inside the other. Each shell was a different color, but all were tinted green by sym­biotic bacteria. Small six‑legged creatures with triple light­ absorbing back plates lived between the umbrella shells. They crawled out to peep curiously down at him, vanished instantly if they caught him looking at them.

  He wondered if growths like the condarite made any use of the water. It seemed likely they would need it to transport salts and minerals for growth and health throughout their structure, but they were devoid of the woody pulp which formed the body of normal trees. Per­haps they made use of some kind of porous silicate mem­brane. Another question best left to the botanists‑or the geologists.

  It rained all the rest of that day and through the night.
He was up before dawn and on his way again. It would take his system a while to get used to the longer days and nights. Still, he felt refreshed and almost confident as he approached a small pool for a drink the following morning.

  He hesitated only because something‑it looked like a glass centipede‑had chosen the best place for drinking. The thing had just shuffled to the pool's edge and dipped its mouthparts into the water.

  As Evan stared, crouched among a soft clump of what looked like steel‑wool cactus, the worm began to sizzle. Startled, he jumped backward. The reaction did not spread, however, and he slowly resumed his vantage point.

  The water parted and something like a giant amoeba emerged. Slowly and patiently, a gel enveloped the dead worm and sucked it down into the pond. Evan moved forward cautiously and stared downward, risked a peek beneath his plastic eye‑shield. Except that the bubble grass grew only to within two meters of the water's edge and then halted abruptly, there was nothing to indicate that the "pond" was actually filled by something powerful, dangerous, and perfectly transparent.

  Nearby grew a variety of thin photovore that flourished in thick stands like pale yellow bamboo. An intricate inter­nal structure of struts and braces enabled some of the canes to climb to forty meters or more despite their nar­row diameters and apparent fragility. Feeling a little shaky, Evan snapped off a three‑meter length and tucked it under one arm. As a weapon it was next to useless, but it would make a serviceable probe.

  He used it on the next waterhole, but only after some­thing bright purple and beige rolled out of the undergrowth on four ball bearings to sip at the water's edge. It extended a coiled yellow snout, inhaled its fill, and rolled noise­lessly off into the forest. Evan assumed its place by the pool, jabbed repeatedly at the water with his newly acquired staff, and prepared to jump or run as circumstances dictated. He was required to do neither. Nothing grabbed the pole; nothing dissolved it. There was nothing in the pool but water. Then and only then did he bend to drink.