Jack Chalker - Priam's Lens

About an hour after sundown, though, when it was so dark at ground level they could barely see their hands in front of their faces, they could all first hear and then feel the coming of the storms. And when they hit with furious thunder and lightning and great gusts of wind, there was little any of them could do but get wet in the almost impossibly dense downpour or huddle inside the bags. The clothing, boots, and sleeping bags were waterproof, of course, but where there was an opening or something was exposed, it got soaked.

It lasted a good twenty to thirty minutes and seemed like forever. It wasn’t the steady tropical dumping all that time, but it only let up briefly, never stopping, then roared back again. And when it ended, it ended. Five minutes after the last drop fell, the wind was down to next to nothing and the clouds were breaking up and revealing an exceptional, spectacular sky.

Mogutu and Father Chicanis walked around, to be sure that everyone was all right. Everyone was waterlogged, but they were okay.

Neither Harker nor Kat Socolov had been asleep; it was difficult to get comfortable, and the situation was still tense, with more unknowns than knowns about this strange new place. Neither had managed to keep water out of the head end of the sleeping bags, although it took only a couple of minutes to open them up, drain them, and let the inside liner dry out. Everything about and on them would have to air-dry, though you didn’t pack towels on this kind of trip.

Once things settled down, the sounds of the night bugs rose to a crescendo, creating a background that was impossible to ignore. Note to outfitters on future expeditions, Harker thought, feeling a bit miserable. Pack earplugs.

True to the colonel’s schedule, and in spite of the thunderstorm, Mogutu awakened Harker from a less than perfect sleep after what was, by their watches, precisely a three-hour shift, but which seemed to Harker to have lasted, at most, ten minutes. He felt worse than he had riding the keel, and much more vulnerable. Still, he heard Father Chicanis gently waking a probably more miserable Katarina Socolov, and he whispered to Mogutu, “Couldn’t you at least let her sleep?”

“No exceptions,” the sergeant responded. “We have to get into this. It’s not going to get easier, you know. The priest volunteered to take an extra shift for her and I nixed that, too.” He reached down for something that turned out to be a low-gray sealed cup and handed it to Harker. You could suck on it, like a baby bottle, but otherwise it was tight. Harker took a pull and was surprised. “Coffee? Hot coffee?”

“Self heating canister,” Mogutu responded. “No heat signature. We don’t have too many, but I think you and the doc will both need it now.”

In truth, he did, and the taste of the coffee, as military strong and black as it was, energized him a bit. It was still extremely hot and humid, but there were times when caffeine in a hot solution was the only thing that worked and this was one of them. He also checked his pocket, took out a small tablet, popped it into his mouth, and swallowed it. It made the aches and pains go away, at least for a little while.

They didn’t have a lot of those, either.

He felt human enough to be worried about standing a watch with a still truculent Socolov, and wondered what the hell they might do to pass the time.

He made his way over to her, his eyes finally clearing and adjusting to the darkness. At least the moon Achilles, half-full, was up; not a lot of help, but it was better than before. He could see that she, too, had been given a stimulant to drink, as well as Father Chicanis’s rifle. He was a bit better armed; he had Mogutu’s submachine gun. He didn’t like either crude and noisy weapon, but at least with his you only had to aim in the general direction of something to hit it.

She heard him, but said nothing. He decided that the ice had to be broken, lest one or both of them fall over exhausted. “How are you feeling?” he asked in a barely audible whisper.

“Like I was at the bottom of an elevator shaft when the car crashed down on top of me,” she responded in a little louder tone, sounding less than friendly. “I guess I’m not like the macho men of the military, who don’t need sleep or armor or food or anything.”

“Come on over here, away from the others,” he invited. “Just to talk without having them be as miserable as we are. If nothing else, we should get this guard business sorted out before we have reason to shoot somebody or something.”

She couldn’t argue with that, so she followed him perhaps ten meters from the sleepers, a bit inside the grove. The insect noises were still pretty loud, but either they’d died down some or the interlopers were getting accustomed to them.

“Sit down,” he suggested, trying to sound as friendly and nonthreatening as possible. “We don’t have to be uncomfortable yet. If we take turns, at least we won’t wear ourselves out early. That thunderstorm took a lot out of us.”

She did sink down, back against a tree, but said nothing. “You take a pain pill with a stim?” he asked her.

“I took the stim. Maybe you’re right on the pain. I used to go fifteen kilometers with a full pack in the workout rooms, but this is already more tiring.”

“Gravity does it.”

“There was gravity on the ship.”

“True,” he agreed, “but it’s a standardized gravity, just eighty percent of one universal gee unit. That’s been found to be the most comfortable with the least complications for long, cramped voyages. Air pressure is a stock one point seven five kilometers, humidity’s forty percent, air is just exactly so, and it’s always that way. Your body gets used to it. Now, suddenly, we’re on a world that’s at least one standard gee pressure at sea level, with the air extra-dense from eighty to ninety percent or more humidity and a temperature that’s hotter than we’ve been in in quite some time, even this late at night. We’re all feeling it. Even N’Gana is feeling it, probably more than any of us. He’s at least ten years older than any of us.”

“He looks pretty spry to me. So do the rest of you.”

“It was said long ago, in ancient times, by some ancient soldier maybe just back from walking half a world and fighting the whole way, that the trick wasn’t not to feel pain, exhaustion, and all the other ailments. The trick was not to show it, particularly to those below you in rank. I think maybe Mogutu’s probably in the best shape of any of us, and I can tell by how he reacted and how he’s moving that he’s feeling it, too.”

“Then—we’re never going to make it! If it’s this bad now…”

“We’ll make it. It won’t get much easier, but, after a while, it won’t seem to get any worse, either. If we have the willpower to stick out the walk all the way, then by the time we really need to be in top trim, we will be. At least, that’s the theory. Who knows what’s in this brush that might be out to get us?”

“I thought there weren’t any large animals left ”

“There aren’t, or so the good father assures us. But something out here is dangerous—bet on it. Maybe even our own people. And don’t put down plants or insects, either. Some of them can be real killers.”

“Thanks a lot,” she responded sourly. “You’ve given me a lot more confidence.”

“Listen, the biggest threat I can think of right now, assuming nobody knows we’re here, is accidents. Stepping off a ledge, even just off a little path that could twist or break an ankle or snap a ligament. Those more than anything get you.”

“What happens if that does happen? If one of us can’t walk or something?”