David Brin - The Heart of the Comet

Saul shook his head, fighting down the ringing in his eats brought on by a fit of allergy-symbiosis reaction. He sneezed, and the children clapped their hands laughing at the explosive report.

“What are you and these kids doing down here, Hans?” Saul recognized the nearby intersection by its incised markings. They were deep, far below these Orthos’ clan territory.

Pestle looked at the floor. “Just strollin’… you said the kids should get more exercise…”

Clearly, Hans was concealing something. But Saul didn’t have time to probe.

“Did you see someone else come this way?” he asked the old man—a once-famous astrophysicist, now reduced by frailty to tending crippled children while the clear-minded and able-bodied labored on the surface.

“Minute or so ago.” Pestle jerked his head toward the nearby shaft and gestured upward. He seemed about to ask a question, then shook his head and was quiet.

“Thanks,” Saul said, and started off toward the shaft.

“Wouldn’t, if I were you.”

The voice of the old man stopped him abruptly. Saul turned. “Why not?”

Pestle looked away again, bit his lip nervously. One eye was still cloudy from damage done long ago. Saul had managed to eliminate the lingering disease, but not the harm already done.

“You’re our doctor,” the old man mumbled. “Can’t afford t’ lose you.”

“Lose me?” Saul felt a sudden sinking feeling. “What are you talking about? Is there danger above?”

Virginia’s gone up there, was his chilled thought.

Pestle shook his head. “Heard tales. May be more fightin’ soon. Took the youngsters down here to be safe. That’s all.”

Saul frowned. This was not good.

“Thanks for the warning, Hans. I’ll be careful.”

He kicked off and started climbing the shaft, grabbing tufts of tamed, hybrid Halleyvirid covering and using his toe-spikes to speed upward almost at a run.

He had nearly reached B Level when a shrieking noise, like giant stones rubbing against each other, echoed shrilly in the passage. Another damn quake, he thought. Or was it something else? Something more sinister? The vegetation up ahead started swaying, like a wave rolling down the dimly lit shaft. The ripples arrived and suddenly it was as if he were trying to ride a furry snake, one that bucked and slithered and threw him back and forth.

Saul’s grip tore loose and he was flung across the shaft, landing inside a tunnel mouth just as pieces dislodged from the ceiling. He rolled to one side to avoid a jagged boulder that dropped slowly, but irresistibly. Another one popped free of the left wall and proceeded with terrible inertia to collide crushingly with the right side.

So busy was he dodging those, he did not see the third and smallest rock. A sudden, crushing blow to his head sent him reeling against the floor. He slumped over an icy boulder and moaned.

Consciousness never completely vanished, but neither did it quite remain. To Saul, the next few minutes, or hour, or several hours, were a confusion of rumbling sounds, of icy dust settling slowly, of blinking and not being quite sure what it was he was supposed to remember.

Finally, it came to him.

Get to Carl…warn him…

He couldn’t quite recall what it was he was supposed to warn him about, or why. Perhaps it would come to him when he arrived. He knew only that he had to go back into the shaft and start climbing again.

Find Paul… he reminded himself. Hurry… find Virginia…

He repeated the instructions over and over again, pushing aside the ringing and the pain in his head.

Hurry…

As she stepped onto the surface she felt again the chilly majesty of the ice, the void, the swallowing darkness they all swam in. Earth is the sultry Hawaii in a solar system of perpetual Siberias, she thought. Willwe ever feel true warmth again?

As she took long, loping strides across the speckled gray ice Virginia resolutely banished the thought. She had had quite enough experience with the onset of depression, thank you, in the last several years. It was an occupational hazard. Even her love for Saul had not proved an adequate shield against it… just as the psychology people Earthside had predicted, decades ago. They had warned the crew not to put too much weight on any relationship, that no human bond could take the full pressure of their isolation, the unremitting hostility of the hard empty world.

People weren’t made to take the full brunt of the world , she thought. Particularly not one as barren as this. Anthropologists had found that even the simplest societies had quickly invented alcohol—usually beer—probably as a shelter against the storm of naked, incessant reality. Intelligence able to deal flexibly and subtly with its environment was also inescapably vulnerable to it. Halley’s crew had tried the predictable escapes—alcohol, drugs, senstim, torrid and fleeting affairs—and weathered the years. But no victory was permanent, and Virginia knew she had to steer herself through shoals of depression, avoid the triggering thoughts and moods.

She felt a faint tremor through her boots and glanced nervously around. Nothing unusual, apparently. A few teams working at distant launchers. No shouts over comm, nothing awry. Good. I don’t want. to be up here when something goes ka-boom. Not my strong suit, crises, nossir. Not without waldo gloves, JonVon, and a hundred mechs at my beck and call.

The new, huge hydro domes loomed nearby, erected by Jeffers and his crews when the quakes had started. It was risky to keep farms and factories running beneath the ice near the launchers, in case a stress line opened under the relentless pounding of the flingers. Carl had ordered a lot of agro moved to the surface, set up near the shafts.

Amid all the work, there were the usual rumors. That the defeated Arcists had struck some kind of deal with the Ubers. That the Ubers were going to make trouble again over the choice of the Mars trajectory. That the P-Threes were building a space ship in secret. She thought it was idle talk, but you never knew.

Everything’s so rushed these days, so exciting. A million jobs, nearly the whole crew revived… so why am I depressed?

The answer was obvious. She really didn’t want to come up here and confront Carl.

She glide-walked for Dome 3, where she knew he was looking at some new agro results. As she came through the hissing lock she saw Carl studying some canisters, running his hands through rich kernels of wheat. He was wearing his spacesuit; these days he was in and out so often, checking the launchers, he seldom shed it. Agro workers floated above ripe fields of rye and wheat and spires of coiling vegetables. Gene-crafted to thrive here in low-G among the pervasive Halleyforms, they had odd, asymmetric forms.

“Great stuff, huh?” He grinned at her as she approached.

“You’re a thorough man. Checking the breakfast cereal, too?”

His face clouded. “I like to see good work praised, and these people have done—”

“Hey, I was just kidding.” She gave him a playful punch in the arm, and then immediately felt the gesture was forced, awkward. Calm down. This is going to be hard enough without trying to pretend it’s a Shriners’ convention.

Carl shrugged. “I’ll be with you in a minute, Virginia.” He turned back to a crewwoman standing nearby. “The new hybrid is excellent. Tastes great, too.”

Virginia watched as Carl and the agro tech discussed variants on the growing cycles. Halley’s gentle but drumming acceleration was affecting the mirrors that lit the greenhouses, and there were adjustments to be made.