S. Stirling - Dies The Fire

Christ almighty, how did she manage that, strapped in? A major fucking fracture, joy and delight undiluted. Looks like the bone ends cut things up in there. At least nothing's poking through the skin.

"And her shoulder's dislocated. You two hold her."

They did; he grabbed shoulder and arm, and gave a quick strong jerk. The shoulder joint went click as it slipped back into its socket; Mary Larsson's eyes turned up in her head, and she fainted. Which was probably all to the good, because there wasn't a thing on earth he could do about a major fracture of the thigh here and now.

"No, don't build the fire any bigger," he said, looking up as Astrid came into sight doggedly dragging a small log. For a wonder, her cat was with her-out of his box, his orange fur slicked to his body, and looking extremely unhappy.

"You get more heat out of a couple of small fires than a big one," he explained; you couldn't get close enough to a bonfire to get the full benefit. "Start another one, there. Let's get going-"

He showed them what to do; build three medium-sized fires, and heap rocks close by on the river side of each blaze-when the stones had absorbed some heat they could be put around the injured couple, and in the meantime the rock would reflect some of the fire's warmth back towards them. For a wonder, there was plenty of fallen wood of about the right size to pile up in reserve; the only tool they had with them was his folding knife, and it wasn't much use as a woodchopper.

"Get the wet clothes off and prop them up on sticks to dry near the fires, like this," he said. "OK, cover up with these dry leaves and cuddle up close to your folks. The body heat will help. Got to get their core temperatures up or they'll go into shock."

By the time that everything was as close to finished as he could get it the numbness had faded, and he was just miserably cold. He looked at his watch-stopped at precisely 7:15-and then up at the stars, and the moon just clearing the heights to the south; maybe two hours since they'd hit. No point in delaying any further.

"Right, kid, let me have your jacket," he said with a sigh.

Eric Larsson had recovered a bit too, enough for physical misery to bring out irritation; his glare was sullen. "My name's not kid, and why do you want it?" he said.

Havel fought back an impulse to snap; it wouldn't help right now. "Because my sheepskin's too heavy," he said. "Eric. Yours is nylon and it won't get soaked, but I need it to hold some water next to my skin when I dive, I'll lose a little less body heat that way. It isn't a wetsuit but it's the best we've got."

The three youngsters stared at him. "Dive?" Signe Lars-son said incredulously, her breath smoking out from the heap of leaves and needles where she huddled.

"Yeah, dive," he said, giving her a crooked smile, and jerked his head towards the black water that gurgled behind them. "The current could push the ship downstream overnight, and there's stuff in there we really need-the first-aid kit, and some emergency rations. We're a long way from anywhere, I'm afraid."

By dawn Mary Larsson was awake enough to drink some of the hot sweet chocolate. Her husband held her head up, bringing the tin cup to her lips with infinite tenderness until she turned her head away and slid back into semi-consciousness.

The morphine had taken effect, and an inflatable pressure-bandage immobilized her thigh; they'd put one of the high-tech thin-sheet insulating waterproofs under her, over a bed of pine boughs, and slipped her into the sleeping bag of the same material. The rest of the Larssons were taking turns with the two remaining sheets, using them as cloaks while they huddled by the hearths.

Mike Havel squatted by one of the fires, concentrating on getting the last of the MRE out of the plastic pouch; then he wolfed down another chocolate bar and finished his cup of cocoa. That meant he'd put away about five thousand calories, and he'd need every one of them. It was barely forty degrees with the sun well up; the south-facing riverside cliff caught a welcome amount of the light, but it was still damned uncomfortable in their damp clothes.

Signe was finishing her pouch, too, with no more than a muttered gross at the meat and the amount of fat. Havel gave her a wink as he finished and rose; she turned half away, spoon busy. The rations had been designed with heavy labor in mind, and the cold counted as that.

Her father started slightly as the pilot touched him on the arm. He'd been murmuring something. It sounded like: I'm sorry, Mary-girl, I'm so sorry. Havel pretended not to hear, and said softly: "We have to talk, Mr. Larsson," he said, jerking his head slightly to make clear that he meant in private.

"Yeah," Larsson said. His face firmed a little as they walked a dozen paces upstream. "What the hell happened, Havel?"

"The engines cut out," he said. "So did every damn electrical system in the plane. I tried to restart her, but-" He shrugged.

Larsson sighed. "Water under the bridge," he said, then realized what he'd said, half chuckled, and stopped with a wince. "Signe and Eric told me how you got me out, by the way, Mike. Thanks."

He held out his hand. Havel shook it briefly, embarrassed. "Part of the job, Mr. Larsson-"

"Ken."

"Ken. Couldn't leave you there, could I?"

Larsson managed a smile. "The hell you couldn't," he said. "All right, let's get down to business. I remember a white flash: "

"Me too, and your kids. That's not all, though." He showed his watch; it was a rugged Sportsman's Special quartz model.

"This stopped. That might be an accident, but all your watches stopped at exactly the same time, just before we went down. I'd swear it was the same instant the engines died, too. The GPS unit in my survival pack is kaput, and I know that wasn't the water-everything in the pack came out of it dry-and it was secured and padded, too. The ELT in the plane is out, and those are real rugged. The flashlight and electric firestarter and the radio and everything else electrical in the pack are dead as well. Nothing visibly wrong, they just don't work. What's the odds on all that stuff going out at exactly the same time?

Larsson's heavy face went tight. "EMP?" he said.

"I don't think so," Havel said. "I don't know what the hell it was, though, but we're in deep shit. I know pretty well where we are-"

He brought out the map of the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness; it was printed on waterproof synthetic silk, colorfast and wrinkle-resistant.

"Hereabouts." His finger touched down. "Here, just east of Wounded Doe Ridge, near as I can figure, and north of West Moose Creek."

They knelt, putting rocks to hold down the corners of the map.

"So we're not far from the State Centennial Trail, maybe twenty miles south as the crow flies. A lot longer on foot, of course, and most of it up and down."

Larsson nodded; he was a part-time outdoorsman too. "Goddamn, but my head feels thick: what do you think we should do?"

"Well: " Havel hesitated. "Normally-if there's such a thing as a normal crash-I'd say you and your wife and daughters stay here, Eric and I go out on foot and get help, and we send a helicopter to lift you out. There's not likely to be anyone on the Centennial Trail in March, but there's a ranger cabin with two-way radios along it and this sure as hell justifies breaking in. Two, maybe three days on foot for fit men pushing hard."

Larsson frowned and rubbed a hand over his face, the skin of his palm rasping on the silvery-gray stubble that coated his jowls. "You don't want to do that?"

"Mr.-Ken-I checked that plane myself, and Steelhead has good mechanics. There wasn't something wrong with the ship; she was knocked out. And by the same thing that screwed our watches and the GPS in my pack. OK, so say, worst case, the radio at the cabin isn't working either."