Kenneth Gantz - Not in Solitude

Major Noel stood outside. “Greetings,” he said cheerfully. “Just getting up?”

Dane said, “No. I just got back from a swim off the pier.”

Noel grinned. “How about getting on some clothes? There’s things to do.”

Dane said, “I had the impression from your boss man that I was supposed to stay put until he changed his mind. You got new news about that?” He stood back and let Noel inside.

“It’s changed. We’re getting messages.”

“This early!” How did it fit in?

Noel pre-empted the armchair. “Yeah. They don’t make any sense. The Old Man wants you to take them over.”

Dane followed his eyes to the envelope he had sealed the night before. He got out fresh undershorts and pulled on his coveralls.

“I got to thank you for pulling me in last night,” Noel began again. “I hear you were kind of terrific.”

Dane fumbled under the bunk for his gravity footgear. “How you feeling this morning?”

“Good as ever except for my shoulder muscles.” Noel flexed his arms indolently. “That piggy-back ride they say you gave me must have stretched them a real stretch.”

“If I’d had enough sense to shuck your weights, it might have helped.”

“Hot damn about it! It took plenty of guts to deal the hand at all. Let alone remember to turn trumps.”

Dane stood up and stamped his feet, clumsy with the weighted boots. “Forget it.”

Noel twitched off his familiar shrug. “Anyway, I owe you one. A big one. Nothing changes that.”

“How about time out to brush the teeth? I can’t go far if I escape.”

Lieutenant Yudin had photo record prints scattered over the chart table. “These are the best.” He shuffled them a little. “Still scrambled, it looks like. The table’s been dead for a long time.”

It wasn’t scrambling, Dane decided at once. It was more like a distortion of the code symbols, as if their shapes had been imperfectly transmitted. Their characteristics were bent and portions of them were suppressed.

“No can do?” Noel asked.

“I don’t see anything yet,” Dane admitted. “Maybe their transmitter is out of tune.”

Noel said, “One thing is for sure. Don’t you send out any messages yourself. The colonel gave strict orders about that.” He stepped over the hatch. “Things are shaping up for take-off,” he went on. “We’re scheduled to go off at 1100 hours, but there’s a chance we might be able to move it up to 1030.”

“Major,” Yudin spoke up, “what do you think?”

“What do I think about what?” Noel asked.

Yudin fumbled. He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “About the take-off,” he blurted. “Does it look to you like we’ll make it? Get off the ground, I mean.”

“It won’t be a take-off if we don’t,” Noel said coldly. “I’ve got work to do. Stand by your equipment.” He let himself down out of sight.

Yudin wiped his glasses with care. Dane felt the man’s embarrassed fury. “How’s things look outside?” he asked him conversationally.

Yudin put on the glasses. He felt around in a pocket and pulled out his curved pipe and tobacco pouch. Dane had gone to the ports before he answered. “They’re all around us. The same as they were last night, as well as I can see.” He made an effort to speak lightly. “How does it feel to be a hero?”

Dane laughed briefly. “I don’t think running like hell makes a hero.” He was going to have to kick this sort of thing around all day.

“Go ahead. Be modest. Isn’t that the way you newspaper fellows always write it up? Modest hero bashfully denies he did anything but his duty?”

Dane swung around and looked at him.

Yudin shook his head. “Forget I said it, will you? That guy gets me sore. You got plenty of credit coming for what you did.”

“Skip it,” Dane said. “We’re all on edge. Bound to be. Everybody in this teakettle is on edge. Why wouldn’t they be?”

The Far Venture sat within the tip of a broad tongue of lichens at least three hundred yards wide and pushed a good hundred yards past the spacecraft to a round terminus on the western side. The vegetation didn’t look fresh-grown. It was brown-green and moribund, laced with streaks of fibrous gray, like plants that awaited a killing frost. Looking directly down on it, or at least as directly down as the rounded ball of the Far Venture would permit, Dane could see a suggestion of red, but the sweep of bare sand, friendly in contrast, was now far removed from the spacecraft.

Dane fiddled with the record prints, dealing them out one by one. The early hour of the reception was a puzzle in itself. No previous messages had come in earlier than 1000 hours. The early transmittal didn’t jibe at all with his theory. Unless, he thought suddenly, it came from far over the horizon! That would fit. Perfectly! It could also explain the distortion. Now he couldn’t doubt it! He had to be right!

He got on the telephone and called the command post for Major Noel. Major Noel was on 2-low, the main drive deck. The voice that answered there told him the major couldn’t be interrupted. It promised that the major would call him back as soon as he could. No, it couldn’t call him now, he was inside the generator block with Major Beloit.

His eagerness cooling a little, he thought of calling Colonel Cragg. Might as well forget that. Noel was the better bet for this story. At first, at least. Especially with little more than two hours’ time left before the take-off trial.

He went over to the ports. It was already a bright day. Very little high-altitude haze. Yellow sunlight poured over the lichens, warming them. The ice crystals would have already melted in their intercellular spaces, photosynthesis would soon be in process and their metabolism flourishing—in short, they would be living and growing. Seeping acid.

“Lieutenant,” he said, “if you ordered them, do you suppose they would bring us up some sandwiches and milk?”

Yudin looked up from the papers he incessantly scribbled on watch. “Yeah. Why not? Hungry?” He picked up the phone and called the mess. After he had hung up, he said, “Good idea. I could stand one myself.”

“You must be writing a book,” Dane said on impulse. Yudin was an uncommunicative sort, until you got him started. Then he could talk you out of all patience. So you didn’t often start him.

Yudin looked startled. “Journal,” he said. “Two sections. One technical; one personal. It passes the time and I might be glad to have it someday.” He gathered up the penciled sheets and carefully folded them away in his pocket, as if he were afraid Dane might ask to read a sample.

After they had eaten their sandwiches, there didn’t seem much use in more talk. Until the phone rang.

Yudin picked it up. He listened for a minute and said, “Jesus.” He listened again and said, “Yessir.” He let the phone drop on its cord. “The lichens are beginning to cover the spacecraft. We’re going to take off at 1000. He wants to speak to you.”

Dane glanced at the clock. It stood at 0937. “Noel?” He grabbed up the instrument.

Noel came on briskly, with a tone of confident command. “If you like, you are welcome at the command post during take-off. Journalist’s press pass, so to speak.”

“Lichens on the outside of the hull?” Dane demanded.

“About a third of the way up to the midline. Colonel Cragg just now advanced the take-off to 1000 on account of them. Check in at the command post about five minutes before if you are coming down.”

“I’ve got something important—”

“Can’t it keep until we get in the air? I’m crowded for time, man.”

It might as well keep, Dane admitted. Certainly no time for it now. “How about sending a message?” he tried.