Vernor Vinge: The Witling

One thousand meters altitude. “Bre’en. Give us another boost.”

The Snowman opened his eyes, and looked dazedly out the hatch. For a moment Yoninne thought he was going to scream. Then he realized that their descent was relatively slow, and concentrated on the task Leg-Wot had set. Pulsing explosions of hypervelocity air sounded again above them. The chute pitched over to the west as the air rammed into it. Yoninne estimated that they were being dragged along at better than sixty meters per second—and as long as she kept the chute properly trimmed, much of that velocity was directed upward.

A minute passed and Leg-Wot motioned to the Snowman, who immediately stopped work. Relative quiet returned to the cabin. Four thousand meters, the altimeter said. Not bad; even with all the ballast we’re in good shape. The dead oasis was lost in the morning glare. For the moment, all their problems lay within the skiff itself.

She trimmed the chute for maximum westward glide, and looked at the others. Bre’en was sunk down in his acceleration webbing, his eyes closed, apparently semiconscious. Crammed into the left side of the skiff, Pelio and Ajão looked uncomfortable but alert. As for Samadhom: the watchbear rested limplv across her friends’ laps, his massive head drooping over Pelio’s knee. Every few seconds he swayed his head to the side, and a faint meep sounded from his hidden mouth. Poor fellow. If he had been human, she would have said he was sinking into delirium.

If Sam lost consciousness, then the tables would finally be turned—and Bre’en could kill them all. Then all the Snowman had to do was teleport the skiff back to the oasis, and he’d be home free. No, that wasn’t quite right. They were several thousand meters up now—with all the potential energy that altitude gave them: unless Bre’en could find a rengable exchange mass, he would die of heatstroke teleporting down that far. But that was not an insuperable objection: if they were dead Bre’en could just wait until the parachute lowered the skiff to a safe altitude—and then “jump.”

But did Bre’en know that? Did he really understand the chute’s function? Perhaps she could convince him that without her cooperation, the skiff would fall like a rock. Her hand slid back to grasp the spill lanyard that hung close by the side of her webbing, hidden from Bre’en’s view.

Seconds later, Bre’en groaned and sat a little straighter. Yoninne glanced quickly at the man, then pretended to concentrate on the trim stick in her left hand. “I want to show you something, Bre’en. You’re not the only person needed to keep us in the air.” She waited till she had his full attention, then released the stick from her left hand. At the same time, she surreptitiously yanked the spill lanyard with her right; in the olive dome above them, dozens of tiny vents slid open. The skiff’s gentle descent became a swift free fall toward the desert below.

Pelio’s eyes went wide. Bre’en gave a short barking yell, before trying madly to slow their fall. The Snowman teleported blast after blast at the chute, but it was close-reefed now and their fall continued. Yoninne waited, resisting the terrible urge to act, until the instant Bre’en seemed to realize that all his efforts were in vain. Then she made a great show of grabbing the stick, and pulling it quickly this way and that. Simultaneously, she reset the lanyard with her right hand, and prayed the chute would dereef.

It did, and their fall ended in a protracted thunng sound as the shrouds stretched taut and the skiff resumed its eight-meter-per-second sink rate. Yoninne glanced at the skiff’s simple instrument board. They had lost only two-hundred-meters’ altitude; more surprising still, the whole game had lasted only seven seconds. She trimmed the chute back onto their original glide path, then fiddled impressively with the controls a few seconds more. Keeping her hand on the trim stick, she turned to Bre’en. “See what I mean?”

Thredegar Bre’en nodded dumbly. She noticed that Ajão’s face was blank, an expression that Leg-Wot recognized as carefully concealed amusement.

They flew in silence for several minutes. Now the desert looked like tawny cement, littered with pebbles, splattered here and there with motor oil.

Gradually the land seemed to ripple. Long shadows stood the foothills up like great ridges. She leaned out past the hatch, into the wind: the mountains ahead rose a good thousand meters above them, the rounded summits speckled with trees, pepper on sand.

She had Bre’en give the craft another boost, and minutes later still another. Each time they drew swiftly closer to the mountains but each time they rose hundreds of meters. Yoninne swallowed again and again to ease the pressure in her ears.

They passed over the line of peaks, missing the nearest by less than five hundred meters. In the branches of the trees there, she saw tiny spots of color that must be flowers. But spectacular as it was, the land below them couldn’t compare to what she saw over the mountains. The sea! A dark blue line along the western horizon. And the land between the mountains and the coast was green—not brown or ocher like the deserts behind them. The beautiful green band stretched as far to the north as she could see. So this was County Tsarang.

It was all downhill now; Bre’en had a much easier time of it. Yoninne estimated they could make it all the way to the coast if necessary. “Do you recognize any of this, Pelio?” she asked.

Pelio started to lean across Bre’en to look out the hatch. There were small observation windows slotted into the hull near him, but the open hatch provided a much better view. Samadhom shifted heavily across his lap and rolled limply against the wall. Pelio turned to cradle Sam’s head in his arms. He looked back at Yoninne, and his voice quavered faintly. “Samadhom’s still alive, I’m sure of it—”

But he’s unconscious , thought Leg-Wot. Bre’en’s attention flickered quickly from Yoninne to the watchbear and then back. Thank God Bre’en thinks the skiff will fall without our help.

Pelio reluctantly eased Sam onto the piled ballast, then returned to the hatch. He looked northward, then—gripping the edge of the hatch with both hands—leaned into the wind to look straight ahead. “We’ve done it, Ionina,” he said softly. “The center of Tsarangalang city is just to the right of our path. It can’t be more than a few miles away.”

They grinned foolishly at each other for a moment. Then Pelio turned back to Samadhom.

Yoninne tipped the canopy slightly and the skiff angled off in the direction Pelio had indicated. They weren’t more than two thousand meters up. The country below was wild by Homeworld standards, but Yoninne could see that it must be an Azhiri orchard. The greenery was speckled with red, and here and there she saw large stacks of the fruit waiting for transportation. An occasional building peeked through the foliage.

On the other side of the cabin, Pelio talked softly to Sam. Until the watchbear could be revived, the only thing that kept Bre’en from kenging them all was his fear of a crash. But that fear would diminish as the skiff sank nearer to earth.

Finally they were passing over the central districts of Tsarangalang: the buildings below were separated by scant hundreds of meters. Straight ahead lay the circular blue disk of the city’s transit lake. That’s where they’d have to touch down. With all the tons of ballast aboard, they were coming down so fast that Pelio and Ajão—unprotected by deceleration webbing—could get messed up if she landed on solid ground.

She arced wide around the lake trying to conserve every meter of altitude, trying to give Pelio and Samadhom more time. If necessary, she could force Bre’en to give the skiff still another boost. But what if Pelio couldn’t bring Sam to? What if Sam were dying? She tried not to think about that possibility; they were so terribly close to success now.