Donald Moffitt - Second Genesis

“This way,” Jao said.

He led the way across the field to where a helter-skelter collection of walkers and wheeled machinery had been abandoned. Boxes, bundles, and personal possessions were strewn at random where they had been dropped. Some of the walkers stirred nervously, giving the illusion of life. They had no consciousness, of course—they were just protein machines—but still Bram hated the thought of leaving them here on a dragonfly world. Though, he reflected, if a dragonfly tried to eat one, the walker would poison it.

“This one,” Jao said. “It’s Old Speedy, the one that won all the races last summer.” He checked the reselin tendons to make sure they were hard and taut, eyed the diameter of the central ball of muscle to see that it still retained sufficient running time, and climbed inside. Bram followed him through the flap, and Jao put the biomachine in motion with a slap of the reins.

The walker ran flat out toward the digs, Jao urging it on at a gallop. Bram twisted around for a look at the launching pad. The first shuttle was mounting the sky on a tail of fire. There were six more to go, with the approximately one hundred eighty remaining evacuees crowded into them. The life-support facilities would be strained, but they’d survive until they reached Yggdrasil.

A half hour later, the moon ladder came into view, with the stalled car dangling from it. The low, regular rubble mounds of the outskirts of the city lay only a few miles ahead of them.

“We’re running late,” Bram said. “Do you see any sign of him?”

“No.”

Behind them, another shuttle rose into the sky. It was the fourth. There were only three left to go.

“There’s his walker,” Jao said, slowing down.

The derelict walker stood spraddle-legged in a patch of loose gravel, its blunt prow facing the digs, not the landing field. There was no sign of the curator in the vicinity. Bram got out and examined the interior of the driver’s bubble.

“Ran out of power,” he announced to Jao. “He must have taken a walker that was already run down. I saw a few footprints. I guess he decided to walk the rest of the way in.”

“What was it that he was after, anyway?” Jao said.

“A collection of Rembrandt engravings.”

“You’d think they were germ plasm samples. Couldn’t he have holoed them or something?”

“He said they were originals from Earth.”

Jao looked nervously behind him. “There goes another shuttle.”

Their pilot heard him. “I think you’d better start back now,” she said. “Your time’s running out.”

“How close are they?”

“About thirty miles. They can probably see our shuttles by now. But they’re still sticking pretty closely to the inner rim route that their scouts took. So far they’ve shown no sign of veering inland for a look at us.”

“That’s because as far as they know, all of the goodies are still waiting for them at the digs,” Jao said gruffly. He turned to Bram. “Where would your Rembrandt lover have been headed?”

“Back to the sports arena, I suppose. That’s where he left the things he wasn’t able to carry.”

“Serve him right if he got left behind himself,” Jao growled, He made no move to start up the walker again.

“Bee butchers,” Bram said softly. “That was one of the names for dragonflies. Bees were another kind of insect. They lived in communal hives. Original Man raised them for a substance called honey that they produced. Some dragonflies learned to hang around bee yards and wait for the workers to return with their loads. They’d dismember the bees on the wing, Harld told me, until the ground was littered with bee fragments.”

“Like the way they massacred us in the arena,” Jao said harshly.

“Yes.”

Jao reached to the tiller. “You’re right, of course, chaos take it. We can’t leave the little fellow there.”

The walker unlimbered its long legs and in a moment was flying at top speed toward the oval of reflected moonlight that marked the central city.

They came upon the curator a couple of miles farther on. He staggered toward them out of the rubble, carrying a huge portfolio that he seemed unable to lift high enough to keep from dragging, even in the microgravity. Jao came jolting to a halt, and he and Bram climbed down. The curator stared dully at them through his helmet, his face gray. They hustled him into the walker and cracked his helmet, while Bram checked his tanks.

“His air’s, almost gone,” Bram said. “He never would have made it back on foot.”

Jao tossed the portfolio into the back of the inflated compartment. “I hope these were worth it,” he snarled at the curator. “You risked a shuttleful of lives for them.”

Through blue lips, the curator said defiantly, “They’re irreplaceable.”

“So are we,” Jao snapped.

The walker’s long strides ate up the miles. Through the radio, the pilot’s strained voice kept them informed. “Year-Captain, the main body of the dragonfly force just passed our position. But several vehicles have separated from it and are crossing the plain toward us. The other remaining shuttle is going to take off now.”

Ahead, flame boiled from the landscape and climbed the black sky. Bram looked across at the rim road and saw a line of tiny specks heading toward the city.

“I can see the vehicles,” Bram said. “We should reach your position in about ten minutes.”

“I’m warming the engines. Please hurry.”

“Oh, oh,” Jao said. “Take a look at that.”

The walker’s movement had attracted attention. On the rim road, four of the specks left the dragonfly cavalcade and headed inland.

“Trying to cut us off,” Jao said. “But a walker can outrun one of those rolling travel tubes without half trying.”

“Don’t be too sure,” Bram said. The tilted cylinders were picking up speed, streaking across the surface like gigantic writing pens guided by an invisible hand. Now their speed was too much for the low gravity. They began to jounce into the air, higher and higher, between the brief scrabbling of the wheels at the ground. One of them bounced a good thirty feet and came down upright, still moving. The passengers within must be shifting their weight around to keep it stable. Wingless the nymphs might be, but they still had the instincts of fliers.

Bram could see the shuttle now, a minuscule dome on stilts. A haze of escaping gas covered its skirts. Beyond, a wave of the angled tube vehicles rolled toward it.

“It’s going to be close,” Jao said.

“Too close,” Bram said. “We’re drawing them toward you,” he told the pilot. “It’s no good. You’d better lift off now !”

“No,” the pilot said. “I can see you now. The outside air lock door is open, and everybody’s in a suit and helmet just in case. I’ll hold for you until the last minute. Jump for the door, hold on to the ladder or a strut—anything—if you have to. I’ll use the docking jets to get us space-borne, so you don’t have to worry about being cooked.”

In the rear of the walker, the curator hugged his portfolio to himself and moaned. Bram wondered about jumping for the air lock one-handed. Perhaps he could throw the curator at the door. No, Jao could jump first, catch the curator and fling him inside, then catch the portfolio.

It would be a shame to leave the etchings behind after they had risked their lives for them.

“We’re not going to make it,” Jao said.

Bram gave up the idea. The tube vehicles were fanning out to engulf the base of the lander—fanning out to engulf the walker when it arrived.

“Do as I say,” Bram ordered. “You’ve got thirty people there to think of.”

The pilot’s voice was filled with anguish. “We’ll wait. We’ve talked it over together.”