Then the smash, the tearing and grinding. Somehow no death. Sky in the window changed to a gloom of purple and green. No death. Elastic branches? Metal whimpered and shrieked. Is that us? They built them solid.…
There was settling into silence. The pressure on Paul’s cheek, he knew, was the wonderfully living pressure of Dorothy’s hand, because it moved, it pinched his ear, it groped for his mouth. A hiss. Through the wrenched seams the old air of Earth yielded to the stronger weight of Lucifer’s. The starboard wing parted with a squeal like amusement, letting the boat’s body rest evenly on the ground, and Christopher Wright said, “Amen.”
CHAPTER 2
The Earphones Were Squawking: “Speak Up! Can you hear me? Can you—”
“Not hurt. Seams open, and there goes Sears’ thirty-six-hour test for air-borne bacteria. Down and safe, Ed.”
“Listen.” In relief, Ed Spearman was heavily didactic again. “You are three quarters of a mile inside the jungle. I will land near the woods. It will be dark in about an hour. Wait there until we—”
“One minute,” Paul said in sudden exhaustion. “We can find you, easier. Sears’ test is important. We’re already exposed to the air, but—”
“What? Can’t hear—damn it—” The voice dimmed and crackled.
“Stay sealed up!” Nothing. “Can you hear?” Nothing. “Oh, well, good,” said Paul, discarding the headset, adding foolishly: “I’m tired.”
Dorothy unfastened his straps; her kiss was warm and quick.
“Radio kaput, huh?” Wright flexed lean cautious legs. “Pity. I did want to tell Sears one I just remembered after eleven years, about poor lackadaisical Lou, who painted her torso bright blue, not for love, not for money, not because it looked funny, but simply for something to do.”
“You’re not hurt, Doc,” Dorothy said. “Not where it counts.”
“Can’t kill an anthropologist. Ask my student Paul Mason. Leather hides, pickled in a solution ten parts curiosity to one of statistics. Doctors are mighty viable too. Ask my student Dorothy Leeds.”
Paul’s forehead was wet. “Dark in an hour, he reminded me.”
“How close are we to the nearest of those parallel lines?”
“Three or four miles, Doc, at a loose guess.”
“Remember that great mess of ’em fifty or sixty miles south of here? Shows on Ed’s map. We must be—mm—seventy miles from the smallest of the two oceans—oh, let’s call it the Atlantic, huh? And the other one the East Atlantic? Anyway the ocean’s beyond that range of hills we saw on the way down.”
“I saw campfires in the meadow,” Dorothy said. “Things running.”
“I thought so too.… Paul, I wonder if Sears can do any testing of the air from the lifeboat? Some of the equipment couldn’t be transferred from Argo. And—how could they communicate with us? They’ll have to breathe it soon in any case.”
Paul checked a shuddering yawn. “I must have been thinking in terms ofArgo, which is—history.… You know, I believe the artificial gravity was stronger than we thought? I feel light, not heavy.”
“High oxygen?” Dorothy suggested. “Hot, too.”
“Eighty-plus. Crash suits can’t do us any more good.” They struggled out of them in the cramped space, down to faded jackets and shorts.
Wright brooded on it, pinching his throat. “Only advantage in the others’ staying sealed up a while is that if we get sick, they’ll get sick a bit later. Could be some advantage. Paul—think we should try to reach them this evening?”
“Three quarters of a mile, dark coming on—no. But so far as I’m concerned, Doc, you’re boss of this expedition. In the ship, Ed had to be—matter of engineering knowledge. No longer applies. I wanted to say that.”
Wright turned away. “Dorothy?”
She said warmly, “Yes. You.”
“I—oh, my dear, I don’t know that it’s—best.” Fretfully he added: “Shouldn’t need a leader. Only six of us—agreement—”
Dorothy held her voice to lightness: “I can even disagree with myself. Sears will want you to take over. Ann too, probably.”
His gray head sank in his hands. “As for that,” he said, “inside of me I’m apt to be a committee of fifteen.” Paul thought: But he’s not old! Fifty-two. When did he turn gray, and we never noticing it…?”For now,” Wright said, “let’s not be official about it, huh? What if my dreams for Lucifer are—not shared?”
“Dreams are never quite shared,” Dorothy said. “I want you to lead us.”
Wright whispered with difficulty, “I will try.”
Dorothy continued: “Ed may want things black and white. Not Ann, I think—she hates discussions, being obliged to make up her mind. You’re elected, soldier.… Can you open the door, Paul?”
It jammed in the spoiled frame after opening enough for a tight exit. Wright stared into evening. “Not the leader kind. Academic.” His white hands moved in doubtful protest. “Hate snap decisions—we’ll be forced to make a lot of them.”
Paul said, “They’re best made by one who hates making them.”
The lean face became gentle. “Taught you that myself, didn’t I, son…? Well—inventory. What’ve we got, right here?”
“Thirty days’ rations for three, packed eleven years ago. Two automatic rifles, one shotgun, three automatic pistols, three hundred rounds for each weapon. Should have transferred more from the ship, but—we didn’t. Three four-inch hunting knives, very good—”
“They at least won’t give out. With care.”
“Right. Two sealed cases of garden seeds—anybody’s guess about them. Six sets of overalls, shorts, and jackets. Three pairs of shoes apiece—the Federation allowed that you and Ann might grow a little, Dot—plasta soles and uppers, should last several years. Carpentry tools. Ed’s boat has the garden tools instead. Sears did pack his microscope, didn’t he?”
“Oh my, yes,” said Dorothy, in affectionate mimicry of the fat man’s turn of speech.
“Each crash suit has first-aid kit, radion flashlight (good for two years maybe), compass, field glasses, plus whatever else we had sense enough to stuff in. Set of technical manuals, mostly useless without the ship, but I think there’s one on woodcraft, primitive tools and weapons—survival stuff—”
“Oh, the books!” Wright clutched his hair, groaning. “The books—”
“Just that woodcraft—”
“No, no, no—the books on Argo! Everything—the library—I’ve only just understood that it’s gone. The whole flowering of human thought—man’s best, uncorrupted—Odyssey—Ann’s music, the art volumes you selected, Paul, and your own sketches and paintings—”
“No loss there—”
“Don’t talk like a damn fool! Shakespeare—Divina commedia—”
Dorothy twisted in the narrowness to put both arms around him. “Doc—quiet, dear—please—”
“I can remember pages of Huck Finn—a few pages!”
Dorothy was wiping his face with a loose comer of her jacket. “Doc—subside! Please now—make it stop hurting inside yourself. Oh, quiet.…”
After a time he said lifelessly, “Go