Jerry Oltion - Anywhere but Here

She was absolutely right. “That’s thinking ahead. Good.” He picked up the lug nuts and threw them into the camper, almost threw the lug wrench in after them, then thought better of it and took that with him into the cab. He might need that in space if he couldn’t get the last lug nuts off with just his fingers.

They had just about used up the air in their suits. Donna helped him roll the spare tire up onto the seat, then the two of them squeezed into the cab with it and slammed their doors. The spare fit lengthwise between the back of the seat and the dashboard, so there was actually still a fair amount of room.

“Okay!” Trent said. He latched his door tight and made sure his window was sealed. “Let’s do it.”

Donna latched her door and checked her window, then picked up the computer and set it on her lap again. Trent peered around the front of the tire to see what she was doing. She was just calling up the launch window when he noticed something moving out her window, and he looked past her to see an alien creature about seven or eight feet tall walking toward them, leaning on a long stick that it held in two of its four hands.

“Wait!” he said.

Donna paused with her finger over the button. “What now?”

“Behind you. We’ve got company.”

She turned to look, and they both watched the alien take a few more cautious steps toward them. It stood upright on two legs, but it looked more insectile than human with its narrow waist, four arms, and a long, oval head on a slender stalk of a neck. It was more than just a big bug, though: it was wearing a red-and-white striped blanket draped over one shoulder and wrapped between its two sets of arms, then tied around its waist. Its stick was sharpened on the top, pretty obviously a spear. It stopped maybe twenty feet away and bobbed its head up and down.

“Somebody lives here,” Donna said. “Do you think they’d be able to help us?”

“I don’t know,” Trent said. He wanted it to be so, because the odds of their finding another planet with air they could breathe in the short time they had left was pretty minuscule, but they would have to communicate the concept of oxygen to the natives, and actually get some from them, in the same amount of time. All from a guy carrying a spear that didn’t even have a metal point. “It doesn’t look good,” he said. “I don’t think this guy is techie enough to even understand what we need, much less provide us with it.”

“What if he’s a sheepherder or something, and there’s a regular city just over the hill?”

“We’d have to get there, and I’ve already unbolted the wheels.”

“We can’t just leave!” Donna protested. “Not without at least trying to talk to him.”

“I don’t think we have a choice,” Trent said. “We’ve got one chance to find another planet, but only if we go now.”

“But—”

“Look out!”

The native had cocked back its spear. It took three running steps toward them and threw it straight at Donna.

“Shit!” she yelled, and she jabbed at the keyboard.

The hyperdrive tossed them into space. The front couple feet of the spear clattered against Donna’s window, adding another set of cracks to the ones already there, then tumbled away to join the dirt and rocks and grass that came boiling up from below. The spare tire between them tried to tumble, too, but Trent held it steady with his right hand.

“Good reflexes,” he said.

She looked over at him with wide eyes. “He tried to kill us!”

“Yeah, he did. And now he’s probably at the bottom of a crater, tryin’ to claw his way out while the edges collapse in on him. Maybe it’ll make him think a little next time.”

“Why am I not convinced?” She took a deep breath. “Damn it, that’s twice in one day. I’m starting to get a little paranoid.”

“Me too,” Trent admitted. “But they haven’t got us yet, and they aren’t going to if I have anything to say about it.” He reached up to the upper latch on his door. “Okay,” he said. “Open yours the same time I do mine, and we’ll let all the air out. As soon as it’s gone, latch your door tight again and I’ll refill the cab with air from the tire.”

“Got it.”

“Go.”

He popped the latch open, and air whooshed out. When he’d used the door seal to let air out before, he had just cracked it open a little so he could control it, but this time he opened the latch all the way and let everything roar out as fast as it could. Donna did the same with hers, so the pickup didn’t pick up much spin, but it did start to tumble forward a little. They would have to use the jets to correct for that when they were done, but it couldn’t be helped.

Trent watched the fog blow out into space, dissipating into nothing a few dozen feet away. The stream of air grew fainter as the air in the cab got thinner and thinner, and at the same time his pressure suit grew stiffer. The little valve in the back of his helmet popped like a bag of microwave popcorn as it tried to keep the same pressure differential between inside and outside. At last Trent could see no more fog rushing away from the pickup, and the gauge on the dashboard read zero.

“Okay,” he said. “Button ’er up again.”

He looked around the tire at Donna. She was saying something—he could see her lips moving—but without any air in the cab, he couldn’t hear her at all. He watched her secure her door again, and he made sure his own was latched down tight, then he unscrewed the valve cap from the spare tire and realized his mistake. With his Ziptite suit on, he couldn’t get a fingernail into the valve to let any air out.

“Shit!” he muttered. He needed something pointy. A pen, or a knife point, or—or the wire he was using earlier to try to unplug the air release valve in his door.

He reached around the tire for the seat pocket where Donna had stowed it, fighting the inflated suit’s tendency to push his arms straight out, but she had seen his problem and was already ahead of him. She popped open the glove box and grabbed the can opener, handing it over with the round side toward him so he wouldn’t stab his suit.

That would do. He poked the tip into the end of the valve stem and sighed in relief when a cloud of fog billowed up into the cab. It took a few seconds for the air pressure to register on the dashboard gauge, but it slowly started to rise, and his Ziptite suit started to loosen up. Trent kept the valve button down until the gauge read ten pounds, then let off. He tucked the church key into the seat pocket on his side, then reached up and unsealed his Ziptite helmet.

The air stank like rubber, but his vision stayed steady after half a dozen breaths. There was oxygen in it.

“I think it’s safe,” he said.

Donna unsealed her suit and wrinkled her nose, then scratched furiously at her head. “Damn, these things itch.” Trent was so used to hearing her voice muffled from inside her suit, it sounded like she was shouting.

He couldn’t help laughing. “It saved your life, and you’re complaining because it itches?”

“I’m not complaining. I’m just making an observation.”

The tire kept trying to get away. There wasn’t anyplace for it to go, but in free fall it wouldn’t stay in the seat, and it kept banging into Trent or Donna or the dashboard or the roof. Finally Trent shoved the center seatbelt through the slotted wheel and had Donna latch it down on her side. It still tilted from side to side when either of them bumped it, but at least it wasn’t flying loose anymore.

Trent’s ears popped, adapting to the lower pressure in the cab. He worked his jaws until they settled down, then used the bumper jets to stop the pickup’s slow tumble. The jets were more sluggish now than when they had a full tank of air behind them, but that actually made them easier to use. Maybe he should put a pressure regulator on that line when they got home.