Jack McDevitt - A Talent for War

"Yes, Mom."

"And Alex—?"

"Yes?"

"Do what you said. Keep the cameras on. I’ll be with you."

"Okay."

The capsule trembled as the magnets took hold. Then I fell away, down through the clouds.

It was raining over the ocean. The capsule descended into gray overcast and leveled off at about a thousand meters. It turned southwest on a preset course, which would parallel the overhead track of the Corsarius.

There were thousands of islands scattered through the global ocean: no way I could hope to search them all. But Corsarius had been left in orbit.

I was certain now that there had been a conspiracy. Its shape and form was unclear, but I had no doubts who the principal victim had been. But why abandon the ship? To torture him, perhaps? Or as a sign they would come back for him? Whichever it was, the conspirators, with an entire planet to choose from, would have placed him somewhere along its track, close beneath its orbit.

Within the womb of the bubble cockpit, I felt warm and safe. Rain splattered in large sluggish drops on the plexiglass.

"Chase?"

"Here."

"Islands ahead."

"I see them. How’re you doing?"

"Ride’s a bit rough. I don’t know what this thing’ll be like if it gets windy."

"The capsule’s supposed to be reasonably stable. But it’s small. They really don’t expect you to go joyriding in it, Alex." She still sounded worried. "You might want to cut the search area down."

I was planning to look at everything in an eight-hundred-kilometer-wide band centered on a line drawn directly beneath Corsarius 9s orbit. "It’s probably too narrow already."

"You’re going to be busy."

"I know."

"You’ll run out of sandwiches long before you run out of islands. You’re lucky you don’t have to track across the continent."

"That wouldn’t matter," I said. "It’s too cold there." It must have seemed a cryptic remark to her, but she didn’t press me.

The first group of islands lay dead ahead. They looked sterile, sand and rock, mostly, with scattered brush and a few withered trees.

I flew on.

Toward sunset, the storm had fallen behind. The skies purpled, and the sea became smooth and transparent and still. A school of large, black-bodied creatures glided below the surface; and towers of sun-streaked cumulus drifted on the western horizon.

The ocean was studded with white, sandy reefs; lush, fern-covered atolls; and ridges, bars, and islets. There were thousand-kilometer-long island groups, and solitary fragments of rock lost in the global sea.

Chase’s voice, exasperated: "If I knew what you were looking for, maybe I could help."

"Sim and the Seven," I said. "We’re looking for Christopher Sim and the Seven."

I saw no birds anywhere, but the skies were filled with schools of floaters. They were bigger by far than their cousins on Rimway and Fishbowl, and indeed larger than any I had seen anywhere. These living gasbags, variations of which could be found on so many worlds, gamboled through the air currents. They rose and dived in synchronized movements, and swirled in wild chaos like balloons in a sudden gust.

All the floaters I’d ever heard about, though, were animals. These seemed different, and I learned later that my first guesses about them were correct. Their gas sacs were green; and they possessed a vegetable appearance. The larger ones tended to be less mobile. Long tendrils trailed from a stem and, on the more sedentary creatures, floated on the surface. I saw no indication of eyes or any of the extrusions associated with animals. I suspected this was one of those ecologies which produces animates, species not possessing the clear distinction between plant and animal which adheres on most living worlds.

A few approached the capsule, but they could not keep up, and though I was curious, I resolved not to slow down. Keep moving. Tomorrow maybe.

I passed over a group of desert islands while the last of the sunlight was fading. They were strung out at remarkably constant intervals, alternately to my left and right. Footprints of the Creator, Wally Candles had said of a similar chain on Khaja Luan. (By then, I had become something of an expert on Candles.)

Candles and Sim: how much had the poet known?

Our children will face again their silent fury,

Who walks behind the stars

On far Belmincour.

Yes, I thought: Belmincour.

Yes…

I crossed into the southern hemisphere in the late afternoon of the following day, and approached a wedge-shaped island dominated by a single large volcano. It was a place of luxuriant growth: of purple-green ferns and broad white flowers and vast green webs that clung to every piece of rock. Placid pools mirrored the sky, and there was a fine natural harbor, complete with waterfall. It was an ideal site, I told myself, setting down on a narrow strip of beach between the jungle and the sea.

I climbed out, cooked my dinner over an open fire, and watched Corsarius pass overhead, a dull white star in a darkening sky. I had a steak that night, and beer. And I tried to imagine how it would feel if the capsule (whose cabin lights glowed cheerfully a few meters away) were gone. And if Chase were gone.

I kicked off my boots and walked beneath the stars toward the sea and into the surf. The tide sucked the sand from around my soles. The ocean was very still, and the immense isolation of that world was a physical thing I could touch. I activated the commlink.

"Chase?"

"Here."

"I can see the Corsarius."

"Alex, have you thought about what you’re going to do with it?"

"You mean the ship? I’m not sure. I suppose we should take it home."

"How? It has no Armstrongs."

"There must be some way to manage it. It got here. Listen, you should see this beach."

"You’re out of the capsule," she said, accusingly.

"I’m sorry you’re not here."

"Alex, I have to watch you every minute! Do you have anything down there to defend yourself with? I didn’t think to pack a weapon."

"It’s okay. There are no large land animals. Nothing that could be a threat. By the way, if you look at the sky a little to the north, you’ll see something interesting."

I heard the sound of movement over the commlink, and then she caught her breath. Wally Candles’s wheel. The cluster of stars seemed almost to spin in the heavens: a blazing halo dominating the night, a thing of supernal beauty.

I went back to the capsule and extracted two blankets from the utility box. "What are you doing, Alex?"

"I’m going to sleep on the beach."

"Alex, don’t do it."

"Chase, the cockpit is cramped. Anyhow, it’s lovely out here." It was: the surf was hypnotic, and the moving air tasted of salt.

"Alex, you don’t know the place. You could get eaten during the night."

I laughed—the way people do when they want to suggest that someone is being unnecessarily alarmist—stood in front of one of the capsule’s cameras, and waved. But her concern was sufficiently infectious that I would probably have retreated back into the cockpit, if I could have done so graciously.

With a suspicious glance at the black line of jungle which was only a dozen or so meters away, I spread one of the blankets on the sand. The spot I’d picked was only a few quick steps from the capsule. "Goodnight, Chase," I said.

"Good luck, Alex."

In the morning, I crisscrossed the island for an hour, but there was nothing. Disappointed, I set out again, over a wide expanse of unbroken ocean. About midmorning, I ran into a sudden squall. I went higher, to get over the storm. There were patches of heavy weather throughout most of the rest of the day. I inspected more sites, sometimes in bright sunlight, sometimes in cold drizzles. There were plenty of floaters, which sheltered from the storms under trees or on the lee side of embankments and rock walls.