Charles Sheffield - The Spheres of Heaven

“Maybe he’s hurt. He sure looks like hell. He probably took quite a beating in the storm when his ship was driven ashore. But he’s smiling — and he’s waving . Chrissie, he knows we’re here. What do we do now?”

“We ought to turn and run. We were told, no risks.”

“Deb said, turn back if there’s any sign of trouble. There hasn’t been any. Chrissie, we’ve at least got to wait long enough to say hello to him. He’s unarmed, and he seems pleased that we’re here — look at that grin, even though he can’t possibly know who we are or where we came from.”

“I don’t know.” Chrissie sounded troubled, but she made no move.

“Hello there.” The approaching man called the greeting. He had passed through the fence and was still grinning. “Welcome to Limbo. I don’t know you, but my name is Friday Indigo.”

“I’m Chrissie Winger, and this is Tarbush Hanson. We came here on a ship called the Hero’s Return . But you’re hurt.”

Now that he was closer, Chrissie could see streaks of dried blood running down from his temples and ears. His feet and calves were water-soaked, and more blood had run from a jagged hole in the left thigh of his suit.

“Oh, that’s nothing.” He was still grinning, and he dismissed his wounds with one wave of his hand. “I don’t need help, and I feel great. This is a wonderful planet. Wonderful people on it, too.”

“You mean the people who made this?” Chrissie waved her hand, to take in the encampment, with its cleared airstrip and the tri-lobed aircraft ready for flight.

“Who else? Come on, I’ll introduce you. You need to meet Two-Four, he’s a funny little devil and a good friend of mine. Oh, and you definitely have to meet The One — especially The One, he’s the greatest.”

He had turned and was leading the way toward the fence and the encampment. Chrissie began to follow, but Tarbush said, “Wait a minute. These people you want us to meet. Are they people ? Or are they aliens?”

“They’re the Malacostracans — bit of a mouthful at first, but you’ll get used to saying it.” Friday was still walking, and they were at the gate to the fence. “They’re people, but not exactly like us. I mean, not actual humans. But that’s all right, because they’re better than humans. Far better.”

“Now let’s hold it right here.” Tarbush had stopped just inside the gate, and he and Chrissie were looking at each other. “I can see I’d think well of anyone who saved my life — but better than humans? I don’t like the sound of that. Did something else happen to you, messing up your head? Your ears have been bleeding.”

“My head is better than it’s ever been. I’ve never thought so well and so clearly.” Friday turned back to them. “Come on. If you’re lucky, The One will make you feel the same way.”

Chrissie took a step backward, away from the buildings. “Who is this `The One’ that you keep talking about?”

“The leader of the Malacostracans. She’s beautiful. Oh, don’t judge by those specimens. They’re lower level and they look nothing like her.”

Friday was pointing toward another of the buildings. Three creatures had emerged.

“Those are the ones I saw before.” Tarbush grabbed Chrissie’s arm. “Let’s get out of here. It was stupid to come this far.”

“Not stupid at all.” Friday called after them. “Hey, it’s running that’s stupid. You’re making my friends do something that you won’t like — I know, because the same thing happened to me. Did you hear what I said? Stop running!”

Chrissie and Tarbush ran faster than ever. They were almost at the edge of the cleared area when Tarbush risked a quick look back. Friday Indigo was standing where they had left him, still urging them not to run away. The three dark-shelled aliens had advanced to stand by his side. They carried black canes, which they were lifting to point toward the humans.

“Down, Chrissie. I think they’re going to fire.” Tarbush started to throw himself flat. Two more meters, and they would reach the safety of the scrub.

He heard a faint popping from behind, like the bursting of children’s small balloons. Then his brain was boiling, turning to liquid and spouting out of his ears. He heard Chrissie scream, and he began his own matching scream which was never completed.

They were diving forward, seeking cover — and unconscious before they hit the ground.

“Nine, eight, so seven’s next. Or did I do seven already?”

Bony was muttering to himself, counting hull partitions as he crawled past them.

He had already seen more than enough partitions. The Hero’s Return was divided along its entire length into twenty-meter segments, each separated from its neighbors by bulkheads strong enough to allow vacuum on either side. That was all very well for a cruiser in space, where during a battle any section might be breached by enemy weapons; but when you were down on the seabed of an alien planet, with vacuum a longed-for memory, partitions were nothing more than a nuisance with sealed hatches to be negotiated at each one.

Water was seeping into the ship, slowly but steadily, and Bony wanted to know where it came from. The ship’s external sensors were no longer working, which meant he had to examine the condition of the outer and inner hulls for himself. That involved crawling the length of the ship and looking for water in the space between the hulls.

He had begun without a suit, and learned by the fourth segment that was a mistake. The Hero’s Return did not have a bilge like a seagoing vessel, but in a gravity field everything seeped down to pool in the curved space between the inner and outer hulls. As he passed the third bulkhead he had skidded into — and fallen down in — a revolting mixture of oil, water, and slick ooze. He went back and put his suit on, but it was already too late. His face and body were coated with black glop, and sweating inside the suit only made things worse.

“Six — or is it five?” Bony crawled grimly on, oily water covering him to shoulder level and casting rainbow reflections from the light in his suit’s helmet. Never before had he realized the true size of a Class Five cruiser. But now he was far past the ship’s midpoint, and the curve of the hull was upward. Another couple of sections and he should have ascended until he was above the water level.

That was small comfort. His journey along the lowest level had convinced him that the Hero’s Return was dying, and far faster than the ship’s computer was willing to admit. Jettisoning the defensive shields had been necessary for the ship’s immediate survival when they arrived in the ocean of Limbo, but the same act had guaranteed long-term and irreversible failures.

He reached the last two sections, and discovered worse news. On the ship’s arrival on Limbo its forward motion had finally been halted by an underwater ledge. Even at a speed of a few meters a second, the impact of the ship’s bow with unyielding rock had buckled and twisted the outer and inner hulls and mashed them into each other. Worse than the damage to the hull was the destruction of the vital navigational instruments mounted at the bows. The Hero’s Return would be ready for another trip to space only after major refurbishing had been performed; which, in practice, meant never.

Bony made his final assessment as he clambered up a tight spiral staircase leading to one of the main corridors, and from there headed for what had once been the fire control room. It was the most likely place to find Chan Dalton and Dag Korin and give them his report. Bony’s message would be a grim one: the ship could not be used for a Link transition, and it would become totally uninhabitable in a few days.