Zach Hughes - Deep Freeze

Inside the hull of the Fran Webster the tiny flux engine of the specimen container purred on, suspending the bin three feet above the deck. Two animated extensions soared to the site and nudged the other specimen container into the ship. Ice began to hide the exposed metal once more.

The animated extensions returned to the chamber below the ice. The Watcher was busy for a time. The barren rock that had been exposed by the aliens' weapons took on a coating of ice. Alternate routes of communications had minimized the damage. All sensors were working at just under ninety percent efficiency. That level matched the Designers' age deterioration charts and was acceptable.

The Watcher waited. The only evidence to indicate that the Erin Kenner had ever been to DF-2, as the aliens called it, was the dead bodies of the captain and four crewmen inside the Fran Webster. The Watcher considered destroying both the bodies and the pieces of equipment from the Erin Kenner, but decided that the risk of bringing the attention of the government of Man to DF-2 was outweighed by the need to keep the bodies of members of the Webster family to lure that last link in the chain of necessary silencing within reach. Once the last member of the family was silent, the peace that had blessed the planet for millennia would return.

Sarah Webster de Conde raised her voice to emphasize a specific criticism of the chairman of the Educational Oversight Board. The screen of the voice recorder recognized the change in modulation and printed the words in boldface. She paused, consulted her notes before going on. She was dressed in a loose fitting jumpsuit. Her hair was hanging free. She was alone in the house and she was feeling just a bit sorry for herself, for Pete and the kids were at the local shopping pod watching Sheba as Miaree on a giant holo-film stage while she was spending her Sunday afternoon preparing still another speech to be delivered to still another assemblage of parents of T-Town schoolchildren.

There were times when she regretted having decided to enter politics.

She liked people well enough, and enjoyed her moments in the spotlight, but the campaign was making unanticipated demands on her time. She hadn't yet resigned as leader of Cyd's Young Explorer group, but her assistant leader had been going it alone. Pete had hired a driver to chauffeur Petey and Cyd to dance class, Space Scouts, groundball practice, visits to friends. There were six million people in Tigian City and itseemed that all of them had children in school and wanted to hear Sarah de Conde's solutions to the problems that plagued the school system.

She was speaking about discipline. Her words appeared on the screen as she spoke. She was moderately well pleased with the way it was going.

Most of the time she spoke without notes or rehearsal, but the speech on Monday night was especially important. At least a thousand parents from T-Town's most troubled district would be in the hall.

"Discipline is not punishment," she was saying when the screen went black and flashed her name.

SARAH. SARAH. SARAH. SARAH.

She shook her head in exasperation and reset the machine.

SARAH. SARAH.

"Oh, damn," she said. She pounded on the side of the screen.

HELP US, SARAH. HELP US.

The words were in boldface caps.

HELP US. HELP US.

She felt momentary panic, for in addition to the words on the screen there were images in her mind. Joshua and Sheba. David and Ruth. She leapt to her feet and turned the voice recorder off. A soft, musical chime announced that there was someone at the door. She touched the communicator on her desk.

"Yes, who is it, please?" she asked.

"My name is Vinn Stern," a pleasant male voice said. "I'd like to speak with Mrs. de Conde. I'm a friend of Sheba Webster."

"One moment," she said. She switched on the front door viewer, saw a rather handsome, well dressed man. She opened the front door.

"Sorry to bother you on a Sunday afternoon, Mrs. de Conde," Vinn Stern said. "I just wanted to know if you've heard from Sheba in the last few months."

"No, I haven't," Sarah said. "Do you work with Sheba?"

"I was scientific adviser on her last picture," Vinn said.

Sarah sighed inwardly. First the voice recorder goes crazy, she thought, and now this. "You'd better come in, Mr. Stern."

"Thank you."

"May I offer you something?" she asked, as she led him into the rather sternly furnished room which Pete called his audience hall. The chairs were hard and uncomfortable, the decor stark. It was a room designed to encourage callers to state their business and seek more pleasant surroundings.

"No, thank you," Vinn said. He sat on the edge of a hard chair. Sarah sat primly, knees together, hands in her lap.

"I had assumed that Sheba was either at her home on Selbel or working somewhere on another film," Sarah said.

"She stowed away on her brother's X&A ship," Vinn said.

Sarah laughed. "That sounds exactly like Sheba. Poor Joshua." She leaned forward. "But you must tell me all about it."

"We'd just finished the picture, The Legend Of Miaree. Captain Webster's ship arrived. They talked about your other brother and your sister, and your parents, of course, and Captain Webster told us that he was going out to look for them. When the ship left the planet where we'd been filming, Sheba disappeared, and I was pretty worried until I found a note pasted to the mirror in my bedroom stating that she was going to sneak aboard the Erin Kenner."

"You and Sheba were—" She left the question unfinished.

"Friends," he said. He grinned. "I had the brass to hope that we could be more." He brushed back a forelock of thick, dark hair. "Mrs. de Conde, I'm a bit anxious about her. It's been six months. The studio has not heard from her. I can't get much out of X&A, but they did condescend to tell me that the Erin Kenner was on routine exploration duty and, since she was in unexplored areas, there were no communication routes."

"It is my impression that when an X&A explorer goes into new territory it leaves blink beacons behind it," Sarah said.

Sarah, Sarah, help us. Come.

She shook her head quickly.

"Yes," Vinn said.

"Mr. Stern, I don't think there's anything I can do."

"Your husband is on the T-Town Board of Governors," Vinn said. "He could reach a higher source at X&A."

"Yes," she agreed. "Yes, I'll ask him to make inquiries. Are you staying in T-Town?"

He gave her the name of his hotel, rose. She offered her hand. "When I have something to tell you, I'll call you, Mr. Stern."

"I just hope that I'm not worrying you without reason," he said.

"No." She heard the voices, Josh's voice, Sheba's voice. We need you, Sarah. "It's time to be concerned, I think."

"Once again let me apologize for disturbing you on Sunday afternoon,"

Vinn said, as she walked him to the front door.

Sarah got lost twice in the labyrinthine corridors of X&A headquarters before she found the office of Staff Colonel Jefferson Watch. Pete's position and influence had secured an appointment quickly, but when she was shown into Watch's office by a polite Service rating she realized that Pete de Conde's request had not been given serious priority. Colonel Watch was a man in the middle fourth quarter of his life. Sarah knew enough about the Service to understand that she'd been steered to a man who was serving out his last few years before retirement, a man who had been pushed aside in the fierce competition for top command.

In spite of his wrinkles and white hair, Watch was an impressive man.

He rose from his desk, a smile showing that he'd availed himself of the finest dentures available.

"Did you have a pleasant trip from Tigian, Mrs. de Conde?" he asked, as he shook her hand.