Michael Hudson - Thieves of Light

Ahead lay four small terrestrial worlds clustered close to the orange dwarf star itself. To Bhodi's surprise, their destination was Ehl, the closest in. He had thought that, like Mercury in his home system, Ehl would be too fiercely hot to accommodate life.

But all Ehl needed to become more hospitable was an improvement on its thin, oxygen- and water-poor atmosphere. So Ehl's crystal had been programmed to create an atmosphere that would screen Cavalon's harshest rays and restore the geochemical cycles which had been interrupted long ago.

"Cavalon went through an active period about 1.8 billion years ago," Parcival told Bhodi. "It boiled off most of the lighter gases and virtually all of the surface water. This was a really promising place for life at one time."

"It isn't now," Bhodi said, studying the even more detailed image appearing on the forward window. Ehl was brown and desolate, its face pockmarked and creased, a forbidding world.

"Sensors are picking up no sign of the courier in orbit," Captain Yier reported.

That news seemed to trouble Li-hon. "Have you begun surface scans?"

"Forty percent complete. No sign-wait. High reflectance anomaly on the surface. Coordinates fifteen-mark-six lateral, twenty-eight-mark-two polar."

" I'olhlm," Pike said.

"Maybe," said Li-hon.

"Getting some residual Photon radiation now off the same site," one of the other crewmen announced. "Forty-six-fifty-fifty-four count. Confirming, profile matches a leaking fractional drive power unit."

"What mass?" asked Parcival.

"Uh-looks like a four-mass."

Parcival turned to Li-hon. "Then that's not Volhlm. That has to be the Majestic." But there was puzzlement in his voice, not the excitement of discovery. "What's she doing on the surface? Couriers aren't dustbellies."

"You've got two choices," Pike observed. "Either they crashed, or they crash-landed."

No one wanted to choose an answer. But as they fell into orbit above the spot where the anomaly rested, the high-res scanners picked out a triangular silver hull resting half in the shadow of a granite cliff.

"I thought for sure it'd be scattered in little pieces across the landscape," Pike said, shaking his head. "She looks like she's in pretty good shape, considering. Maybe we're dealing with an accident after all."

"Maybe." Li-hon addressed Parcival, who was peering over the shoulder of the ship's sensor technician. "Can we pop down to her, or do we have to fly?"

"I'm not picking up any recognition code from Majestic's transporter."

"Are you getting anything coherent?"

"No. She's radio-dead."

"Okay." He turned to Captain Yier. "I'm going to take the platoon down in landing pod A. I want Mlas and six of his Regulars standing by in B with full medpacks, ready to come down as soon as we give the all-clear."

Then he turned back to the others. "Full battle gear, everyone. Atmosphere's not much to chew on down there- Parcival, Bhodi, you'll need the bubbles. Pike, you can get by with a breather. Move! I want you in the pod in five minutes. There may be people hurting down there."

Ehl was even more forbidding up close than from orbit-a desolate landscape of weathered scarps and granite block mountains linked by desertlike expanses. The wind was blowing constantly, but the air was so thin that it could do little more than kick up dust devils and whistle in the bubble helmet's external microphones.

The surroundings made the wreck of the Majestic look even more forlorn and forsaken than it otherwise would have. Its presence was of no consequence whatsoever to the planet, like a burr on the shaggy coat of a golden retriever. The courier's descent and death had gone completely unnoticed.

As the pod descended toward the fault valley in which the hulk rested, Bhodi and the other passengers could see that Majestic must have come in at low speed and reason-ably under control. The great hull rested tail-high and tipped to starboard, both angles dictated by the irregular shape of the ship's underbelly and which parts of the superstructure had collapsed under the unusual stress.

Li-hon landed the cylindrical pod a cautious 200 meters away from the ship. Then he turned to Parcival and asked, "Any activity out there?"

Parcival consulted the pod's sensors, then his own wrist-mounted black box. "Nothing showing."

"Okay. Bhodi, stay with the pod-"

"But-" Bhodi cut off his own protest. He had nothing to gain by jerking at the traces.

Li-hon seemed not to notice Bhodi had spoken at all. "Parcival, set up an alarm on the sensors on Bhodi's frequency. I want him outside as a sentry, not locked up in here staring at dials and gauges."

"Done," said Parcival.

Bhodi came outside with them and stood watching as they started toward the massive spaceship. The sight reminded Bhodi of a photo in his freshman science text. The photo had showed a freighter resting high and dry in a field after being pushed ashore by a tsunami-a jarring clash of context.

Then duty called, and he began walking his beat-a slow circuit of the pod, scanning the surrounding walls of rock. While he walked, he eavesdropped on the radio traffic. There were three circuits in the battlefield com loop: a general-use circuit called the omni, a receiver-selectable circuit called the whisper, and Li-hon's priority-override command circuit. Most of the traffic was on the omni.

"A hell of a job of piloting."

"The D section's all caved in-I hope everybody was out of those cabins."

"I don't see any reason yet why the core pressure hull can't be intact."

"Look-underneath, around the port cylinder intake. She burned, at least for a while."

"Probably on impact-"

They were near enough to Majestic to be lost in her shadow when Parcival called out, "Is that a body?"

"Sure is-sweet Light, the poor thing's all torn up. Didn't they have enough sense to brace and strap in?"

"Bhodi?" It was Li-hon, on the command circuit.

"Yes, sir," Bhodi said eagerly.

"Anything on the activity board?"

"Just you three."

"All right. The external recon shows crash damage, scorching, one casualty. The site looks clean, but we're going to go slow. I'm posting Parcival outside here. Pike and I are going inside to check the crystal vault and look for other bodies. Call up to Captain Yier and tell him to send the Regulars down."

Bhodi did as he was asked, disappointed that he was not being asked to do more. When Captain Yier signed off, Bhodi switched from the omni to whisper mode. "Parcival?"

"What's up?"

"Any sign yet what brought the ship down?"

"Nothing obvious."

"She wasn't shot down?"

"If she had been, she'd be in a lot more pieces."

"What do you think happened?"

"Well-couriers aren't dustbellies, like I said. But neither are the Arr galleons. Captain Lasdree must have been trying to run to the only place he thought he had a chance of saving either the crystals or his people."

"Any sign he managed either?"

"Not yet. Look, I'm going to do a walkaround. Can you watch the front door from there?"

"Sure."

Switching back to the omni circuit, Bhodi watched as Parcival's diminutive form disappeared around the rear quarter of the ship. A minute passed.

"Sergeant!" Parcival shouted suddenly.

"Yes, Parcival."

"I've got a faint life reading in there. Looks like we've got at least one survivor."

"All right. We're getting close to the vault. We'll finish that and then try to track down that life reading. Bhodi?"

"Still all clear."

"Keep your eyes open. Don't rely on the sensors completely."

"Understood."

For almost two minutes-an infinity of time under the circumstances-the radio was silent. Bhodi caught an occasional glimpse of Parcival picking his way along under the belly of the courier, but other than that Bhodi might have been alone on the barren, windswept valley floor.