Poul Anderson - Hunter's Moon

The little craft shivered and drummed on the ground. Takeoff took skill—with a foul moment when a gust nearly upset her—but once aloft her vehicle flew sturdily. Risen above the cloud deck, she saw it heave like a sea, Argo a mountain rearing out of it, stars and companion moons flickery overhead. Northward bulked a darkness more deep and high, the front. The weather would really stiffen in the next few hours. If she wasn’t back soon, she’d better stay put till it cleared.

The flight was quick to the battleground. When the inertial pilot had brought her there, she circled, put on her helmet, activated the system. Her pulse fluttered and her mouth had dried. “A’i’ach,” she breathed, “be alive, please be alive.”

The green light went on. At least his transmitter existed on the site. He? She must will herself toward rapport.

Weakness, pain, a racket of soughing leaves, tossing boughs—“A’i’ach, hang on, I’m coming down!”

A leap of gladness. Yes, he did perceive her.

Landing would be risky indeed. The aircraft had a vertical capability, excellent radar and sonar, a computer and effectors to handle most of the work. However, the clear space below was not large, it was cleft in twain, and while the surrounding forest was a fair windbreak, there would be vile drafts and eddies. “God, into Your hands I give myself,” she said, and wondered as often before how Hugh endured his atheism.

Nevertheless, if she waited she would lose courage. Down!

Her descent was wilder still than she had expected. First the clouds were a maelstrom, then she was through them but into a raving blast, then she saw treetops grab at her. The vehicle rolled, pitched, yawed. Had she been an utter fool? She didn’t truly want to leave this life…

She made it, and for minutes sat strengthless. When she stirred, she felt her entire body ache from tension. But A’i’ach’s hurt was in her. Called by that need, she unharnessed and went forth.

The noise was immense in the black palisade of trees around her, their branches groaned, their crowns foamed; but down on the ground the air, though restless, was quieter, nearly warm. Unseen Argo reddened the clouds, which cast enough glow that she didn’t need her flashlight. She found no trace of the slain ouranids. Well, they had no bones; the dromids must have eaten every scrap. What a ghastly superstition—Where was A’i’ach?

She found him after a search. He lay behind a spiny bush, in which he had woven his tendrils to secure himself. His body was deflated to the minimum, an empty sack; but his eyes gleamed, and he could speak, in the shrill, puffing language of his people, which she had come to know was melodious.

“May joy blow upon you. I never hoped for your advent. Welcome you are. Here it has been lonely.” A shudder was in that last word. Ouranids could not long stand being parted from their Swarm. Some xenologists believed that with them consciousness was more collective than individual. Jannika rejected that idea, unless perhaps it applied to the different species found in parts of Nearside. A’i’ach had a soul of his own!

She knelt. “How are you?” She could not render his sounds any better than he could hers, but he had learned to interpret.

“It is not overly ill with me, now that you are nigh. I lost blood and gas, but those wounds have closed. Weak, I settled in a tree until the Beasts left. Meanwhile the wind rose. I thought best not to ride it in my state. Yet I could not stay in the tree, I would have been blown away. So I valved out the rest of my gas and crept to this shelter.”

The speech held far more than such a bare statement. The denotation was laconic and stoical, the connotations not. A’i’ach would need at least a day to regenerate sufficient hydrogen for ascent—how long depended on how much food he could reach in his crippled condition—unless a carnivore found him first, which was quite likely. Jannika imagined what a flood of suffering, dread, and bravery would have come over her had she been wearing her helmet.

She gathered the flaccid form into her arms. It weighed little. It felt warm and silky. He cooperated as well as he was able. Just the same, part of him dragged on the ground, which must have been painful.

She must be rougher still, hauling on folds of skin, when she brought him inside the aircraft. It had scant room to spare; he was practically bundled into the rear section. Rather than apologizing when he moaned, or saying anything in particular, she sang to him. He didn’t know the ancient Terrestrial words, but he liked the tunes and realized what she meant by them.

She had equipped her vehicle for basic medical help to natives, and had given it on past occasions. A’i’ach’s injuries were not deep, because most of him was scarcely more than a bag; however, the bag had been torn in several places and, though it was self-sealing, flight would reopen it unless it got reinforcement. Applying local anesthetics and antibiotics—that much had been learned about Medean biochemistry—she stitched the gashes.

“There, you can rest,” she said when, cramped, sweat-soaked, and shaky, she was done. “Later I will give you an injection of gas and you can rise immediately if you choose. I think, though, we would both be wisest to wait out the gale.”

A human would have groaned: “It is tight in here.”

“Yes, I know what you mean, but—A’i’ach, let me put my helmet on.” She pointed. “That will join our spirits as they were joined before. It may take your mind off your discomfort. And at this short range, given our new knowledge—” A thrill went through her. “What may we not find out?”

“Good,” he agreed. “We may enjoy unique experiences.” The concept of discovery for its own sake was foreign to him… but his search for pleasures went far beyond hedonism.

Eager despite her weariness, she moved into her seat and reached for the apparatus. The radio receiver, always open to the standard carrier band, chose that moment to buzz.

Argo in the east glowered at the nearing, lightning-shot wall of storm in the north. Below, the clouds already present roiled in reds and darknesses. Wind wailed. Hugh’s aircraft lurched and bucked. Despite a heater, chill seeped through the canopy, as if brought by the light of stars and moons.

“Jan, are you there?” he called. “Are you all right?”

Her voice was a swordstroke of deliverance. “Hugh? Is that you, darling?”

“Yes, sure, who the hell else did you expect? I woke up, played your message, and—Are you all right?”

“Quite safe. But I don’t dare take off in this weather. And you mustn’t try to land, that would be too dangerous by now. You shouldn’t stay, either. Darling, rostomily , that you came!”

“Judas priest, sweetheart, how could I not? Tell me what’s happened.”

She explained. At the end, he nodded a head which still ached a bit from liquor in spite of a nedolor tablet. “Fine,” he said. “You wait for calm air, pump up your friend, and come on home.” An idea he had been nursing nudged him. “Uh, I wonder. Do you think he could go down into that gulch and recover Erakoum’s unit? Those things are scarce, you know.” He paused. “I suppose it’d be too much to ask him to throw a little soil over her.”

Jannika’s tone held pity. “I can do that.”

“No, you can’t. I got a clear impression from Erakoum as she was falling, before she cracked her skull apart or whatever she did. Nobody can climb down without a rope secured on top. It’d be impossible to return. Even with a rope, it’d be crazy dangerous. Her companions didn’t attempt anything, did they?”

Reluctance: “I’ll ask him. It may be asking a lot. Is the unit functional?”