Jack McDevitt: Firebird

Dot indicated that the kids should go into the airlock, and put her own helmet back on. The father kissed each of them as they passed. Then he squeezed Dot's arm and said something to her. He knew she couldn't hear him through the helmet, and wouldn't have understood the language if she could, but the message was clear enough. The captain shook her hand, and she joined the two girls. They looked terrified and relieved and anxious to be out of there. Both had brown eyes. The younger one was trying to talk, and she suddenly started back toward her father. But he shook his head and smiled and said something to her. Go with the nice lady. There was room for only three more adults in the airlock. Julie stepped aside. The others looked briefly at one another, and crowded in.

“I'd, like to have them put Julie into the lock as soon as we leave,” she said, “so she could cross as soon as we're out of the way, but I can't talk to anybody.”

“You're doing fine,” I told her. “Just keep moving.”

The inner hatch closed. It was clearly not designed for six people. No one could move. The girls looked up at their rescuer. The older one smiled. Probably responding to an encouraging grin from Dot, which of course we couldn't see. “You okay?” I asked Dot.

“Yes. I wish Cal would get here.”

Alex never took his eyes from the display. And we heard Melissa again: “Hurry up.” She was talking to the outer hatch, which remained maddeningly, solidly, in place.

“I'm not sure,” said Shara, “that taking the kids from their father was a good idea.”

“Why not?”

“They should not have come off until he was ready to accompany them.”

“But if it goes back under,” I said, “it would be almost seventy years-”

“Not to them, Chase. They'd be together.”

“We need,” said Alex, “to change the way we think.”

Finally, the hatch slid up.

We looked through Dot's imager at the McCandless, floating serenely against a backdrop of stars. Melissa was standing in the open airlock.

It would have been easier had Dot been able to talk to the people she was trying to save. But it was all hand signals. She pointed to the cable and indicated they should take hold of it, and use it to guide themselves to the rescue vessel. She didn't want them trying to jump across; that was a formula for disaster. They signified that they got the message, and Rowena stepped out of the airlock and started over.

Dot picked up the two girls and jumped clear. The McCandless seemed to bob up and down, and once got blocked by somebody's elbow. Then we caught a good view of it, waiting, Melissa waving, and moments later we were inside its airlock. Dot handed the girls to her daughter, and turned to go back.

Rowena, leading the way, was about halfway across. Dot pushed off the hull and, at the moment she did so, Belle became active: “Chase, we are getting a spectrum shift.”

“Dot,” I said. “Get out of there. It's starting.”

She was wearing a jetpack and could have used it to brake herself and get out of harm's way. But she reached out instead for the cable and for Rowena. She grabbed hold of both as the cable itself turned transparent. And became solid again. She pulled at Rowena's hands. Let go. But we were already looking through Rowena. “For God's sake-” The sound died, and the image scrambled.

We saw Rowena and Dot one more time, flickering like a corrupted vid. There was a final blip on the circuit, Dot's voice, “Damn-” Then it was gone, and they were gone. Dot and Rowena and the other two women. And the Antares.

The Intrepide.

Several meters of cable floated out from the McCandless.

“Reception has ceased,” said Belle.

The two girls, who'd already been sufficiently frightened, picked up Melissa's near panic. The fact that they were lost, stranded with a stranger whom they could not understand, did not help. The younger one got hysterical. The older tried to play the role of the big sister. She held her sibling and tried to calm her, speaking in a voice that had itself grown shrill.

The Jubilant was first to arrive at the site. Cal reported that a sweep of the area showed no sign of anyone.

By the time we got there, it was hopeless. Dot's air supply would have been exhausted. We continued to hunt, hoping, or maybe not hoping, that we'd find her somewhere.

Jon Richter arrived on the Gremlin minutes after we did. Michael and Allie and the rest of the squadron arrived over the next few hours, and we continued to look. But there was no sign of Dot, or of the Intrepide.

After three days, we faced reality. “Time to go back,” Alex said.

We moved the girls and Melissa from the McCandless onto the Belle-Marie. Melissa was infuriated, despondent, and overwhelmed by guilt. It wasn't clear whom it was all aimed at. Us, I suppose. Herself, for not dissuading her mother from an action she now saw as suicidal. At Dot, who didn't come back when she had a chance. And probably at the natural order of things, which puts everybody at hazard. She tried to fight off her moods by taking care of the kids, but she was really in no shape to do anything but make matters worse, so ultimately it fell to Shara to calm things down.

The AI took the McCandless home.

We provided food and soft drinks for our new passengers. Melissa finally got her act together and spent time, with Belle's help, trying to set up a system that would allow us to speak with the girls. The plan was for Melissa to say something, which Belle would put on-screen, along with a French translation, and whatever pictures seemed likely to be of use. Of course, they started with basics. Hello. How are you? I'm Melissa. Would you like more juice? We have a game you might enjoy.

She asked the girls to write their responses, which made Belle's translations easier.

“We are happy that you are with us,” said Melissa. “What is your name?”

“I'm Sabol,” said the older child. “My sister is Cori.”

“Beautiful names,” said Melissa.

Cori began to cry.

“It's okay, Cori,” Melissa said. “You're safe.”

The child wiped her eyes. “Where is my father, Melissa?”

Melissa looked at me, and I shook my head. I didn't really want to say anything because I didn't trust my voice. “He is still where he was,” I said, very slowly. “In the ship. But he is all right.”

“I want to go back to him. Can you take me back? Please?”

My heart began to beat harder. “What do I tell her?” I asked Melissa.

Alex broke in: “The truth. Lying to her won't help.”

Melissa, pronouncing each syllable carefully, said, “We can't reach him.”

“I want to go back.” Cori was crying harder.

“We can't go back, Cori. The ship you were on has gone in a different direction.”

Sabol was teary, too. “Why did you take us away from him?”

“We were trying to help.”

“So why can't you take us back?”

“Sabol, we would go back and get him, too. If we could find the ship. But we don't know where it is.”

“I wish you'd left us alone.” Cori knocked over her glass, and tears streamed down her cheeks.

“We're your friends, Cori.”

“Go away, Melissa,” she said. “Take me to my father.”

If they'd believed their father dead, it might have been easier. But the fact of the separation, the knowledge he was out there somewhere, and that they couldn't get to him, tore at them. Melissa, once she got her emotions under control, was magnificent. She talked to them throughout the ordeal, picked up some of the language, assured them we would not leave them, that they were safe with us. And that, eventually, their father would also be rescued. “But it will take a long time,” she said. The experience, I thought, helped her get past the loss of her mother.