Zach Hughes - Deep Freeze

"If necessary," he said. "I can't imagine any sequence of events that would cause me to do it, though."

"It gives me the shivers," she said.

"You are not alone," he said, as he overrode the commands that had brought him within three steps of having one of the planet destroying weapons ready to fire. "By the way, if it's all the same to you I'd just as soon Iain and Kara don't know I busted into private areas."

The Carmine Rose made a left turn relating to the plane of the galactic disc and jumped inward to the one permanent blink beacon laid down by the Erin Kenner. There she paused, while those aboard her gathered in the control room and studied the sparse sprinkling of stars that lay within a relatively few light-years.

"Here's where the fun begins," Kara Berol said. "Offhand I'd guess that we have six months' work ahead of us just checking out the nearest stars."

But there was a Webster aboard, and, like Ruth and Sheba before her, Sarah Webster de Conde remembered her mother's shopping habits. So it was that the Carmine Rose followed the same procedures that had led three other ships carrying Websters to the ice planet.

Those who studied the human brain and mind had long since negated the myth of racial memory. The experts were in agreement, however, that the actions and attitudes of a people could be affected by their legends. A

Zedian had, somewhere in his subconscious mind, the semi-memory of dying worlds. Therefore, in unknown space, a Zedian ship's captain, such as Iain Berol, often took precautions that would have made the most meticulous X&A commander seem reckless. As the Rose approached the planet, she bristled with weapons at the ready, and she sent out an electronic cacophony of detection signals.

Kara Berol, at instrument control, pointed out to the others, first of all, the total lack of life signals and electromagnetic radiation from the icy world. This precautionary survey completed, she turned herself to other tests.

"What we have here is a round ice cube with a hot core," she said. "The depth of the ice cover ranges from roughly two hundred feet to several miles in the ocean basins, where the density of the deep ice shows salinity."

Iain, at weapons control, was scanning for metal. "Boss," he said, "I think we'd better file a claim as soon as we can. This one has good ore fields, light metals to heavy."

"Wouldn't that have been the first thought of anyone else who took the same readings?" Vinn asked.

Iain frowned. "To answer that you have to assume that the other ships came here."

Kara was bent over her instrument panel, her fingers busy at the detection station keyboard. Suddenly she straightened. "I think you all had better take a look at this," she said.

She displayed the findings of a surface scan. On the screen the regular pattern of metallic installations extended to the horizons of the world that turned slowly beneath them.

"What we should do, right now, is jump back to the beacons and yell loudly for an X&A alien contact ship," Kara said.

Pete de Conde said, "If I had always done what I should have done, at least according to the rules, I'd still be crunching numbers in an accounting office." He turned to Iain. "There's nothing living down there?

Nothing to indicate any sort of activity?"

"None," Iain said.

Pete took Sarah's hand. "We came out here to find your family," he said. "Do you want to go back now?"

"I don't want to endanger the ship, nor anyone in her," Sarah said.

"I see no harm in taking a few more readings," Vinn said.

"I'm thinking of a share of discoverer's rights when the mining crews go to work out here," Kara said, lighting the room with her happy smile.

"Kara, set us up in a polar orbit so that we'll cover the whole surface,"

Vinn said. He lifted one hand. "Sorry, I didn't mean to sound as if I was giving orders."

"No problem," Kara said, her fingers flying as she punched in the problem. A few quick bursts of flux power positioned the Rose into the desired orbit. Instruments charted the surface. Pete and Sarah left control to have a meal and a rest. Iain was alert, watching the detectors diligently.

Kara was monitoring the viewer as the grid of regularly shaped metal objects was charted. Vinn was using the most powerful of the optics to examine the surface.

"Oh, ho," Kara said.

"What? What?" Vinn asked.

She read off figures to indicate a specific spot on the surface. Vinn focused the optics on a mound of ice that protruded slightly above the level plain.

"See anything interesting?" Kara asked.

"Something on the surface. It's not covered as thickly as its surroundings."

"Durametal," Kara said.

Vinn felt his heart flip. "Program for stationary orbit," he said.

"Aye, aye."

Holding her position directly over the mass of durametal, Rose used all of her sensors and detectors. "There are two separate objects," Kara said.

"The mass of one matches that of a Mule, the other a Zede Starliner."

Iain said, "It's decision time, kiddies."

Vinn chewed on his lower lip, thinking of Sheba. They couldn't know for sure, not just yet, but it was odds on that the two durametal objects under a shallow coating of ice were Old Folks and David's Starliner. "Iain, before we call Pete and Sarah in for a conference, let's complete the surface sweep."

"I can understand how civilians might disregard standard procedure and land on an untested planet," Iain said, "but I don't think you're going to find an X&A explorer down there."

"Resuming polar orbit," Kara said.

They did not, of course, find an X&A ship on the surface of the planet.

They found only more of the grid installations. Twenty-four hours later,the planetary sweep completed, Rose floated in stationary orbit above the two durametal objects. A port opened. A small, projectile-shaped drone fluxed away toward the surface.

The drone represented Zede technology at its best. It was thought controlled. Kara wore the control helmet. As the probe reached the icy mound on the surface, she projected the probe's binocular vision images onto a screen. The little vessel hovered, sent out a beam of heat.

Durametal was quickly exposed. Kara shifted the drone's position and the heat beam penetrated the open lock of a Zede Starliner.

Sarah held her breath as the optics of the probe took them inside the hull of the ice-bound ship.

"Look at this," Kara said, zooming in on a specimen container that hovered on flux two feet above the icy deck.

"How long would the power last in that flux engine?" Iain asked.

"Just over a year," Vinn said. "Kara, can you clear away the frost there on the front of that bin?"

The probe flared heat, and he knew that Sheba was dead, for the ice melted to show the X&A logo, and, under it, the name Erin Kenner. The specimen bin had belonged to Joshua's ship. He felt heavy. He wanted nothing more than to be alone, to grieve for what might have been. But Kara, in grim silence, had moved the probe to scan the control room of the starliner. There were four bodies on the deck. Through the film of ice came a definite tinge of Service blue.

"You might not want to see this, Sarah," Kara said, as she positioned the probe and focused. The frozen face looked up at them with an expression of surprise.

"Oh, Josh," Sarah whispered. "Oh, please, no."

"That's your brother?" Iain asked.

Pete put his arm around Sarah. "Yes," he said. "That's Joshua Webster."

"What's in the bins?" Iain asked.

"Let's have a look," Kara said.

It took a while, after the probe was positioned above the bin, to make out the mass inside. Kara played the heat beam lightly over the frozen contents. Ruth Webster's face emerged, ruptured eyeballs looking upward past a male head.

It took some time to discover the second specimen bin, which had been left outside when Josh and his party entered the Fran Webster.