Charles Sheffield: Resurgence

She stared and stared, but now she could find nothing unusual. “That’s strange,” she began. “I thought there was—”

She paused. Here it came again, a thin bright line that slowly expanded to a fat silvery oval. Just as steadily, it then thinned and disappeared.

This time Sinara had some idea what to expect. She waited patiently for another half minute. Right on cue, the silver line appeared and swelled.

“I see it,” she said. “Or at least, I see something , over in the upper right quadrant.”

“That’s the place,” Teri said eagerly. “What do you think it is?”

“Well, it could be just a flat rock, a lot brighter on one side than the other. It’s rotating, so sometimes we see it edgeways and sometimes we don’t see it at all.”

“Exactly what I told her. See, Teri, Sinara agrees with me.”

“Except that it’s nothing like any of the other rocks,” Sinara went on slowly. “One side is really bright, like silver. We could be looking at one of the beetlebacks. They would have been thrown out into space with everything else when Marglot disintegrated.”

“Told you!”

“So what if it is?” Torran was defensive. “I hate to quote Julian Graves to you, but getting back alive to the Orion Arm is our main concern. Saving Ben was one thing, we were right to insist on that. But worrying about some dumb beetleback is another matter entirely.”

“Returning to the Orion Arm alive, with information . Didn’t you hear E.C. Tally complaining during our take-off from Marglot? One beetleback, with all the data it contains, could make a huge difference to what we know.” Teri moved away from the other two. “Torran, I don’t care what you think. I’m going out there to try to snag it.”

“Suppose it snags you?”

“That will be my problem. I don’t expect you to come after me if I get in trouble—I don’t want you to come after me. Your priority is the same now as when we started: getting yourselves and Ben back to the Have-It-All .”

Teri didn’t hang around for more debate. Already she was moving toward a gap in their primitive protective barrier.

“No, Torran.” Sinara had seen his reaction. She grabbed hold of his arm. “Teri is right, and this isn’t like Ben. She’s taking a risk, but she wants it to be her risk.”

“She’s crazy.” Torran shook his arm free.

“If you believe Julian Graves, we’re all crazy. And if you believe E.C. Tally, one beetleback could be worth the price of this whole expedition.”

Torran hardly seemed to be listening. His attention, like Sinara’s, was focused on the diminishing figure of Teri. He muttered again, “She’s crazy.” But his comment was drowned out by Teri’s exultant cry. “It is a beetleback. Badly damaged, with most of its legs gone. But since Atvar H’sial says it’s inorganic, that should make no difference at all to its information content. I have it, and I’m towing it. Five minutes and we’ll be back there with the rest of you.”

Five minutes, after all the hours that had passed since they left the Have-It-All . That seemed like nothing. It was a total shock when Teri suddenly cried out, “Oh God. I’m hit!”

Torran said, “Where?” and Sinara, “How bad?”

“Not good. Something hit me hard, in my lower back.” Teri did not sound the same at all. “My suit sealed itself, but I have no feeling in my legs. Don’t do anything silly. I’ll still try to return with the beetleback.”

“Anything silly.” Torran was already accelerating. “Didn’t I tell you she’s crazy? You stay here.”

Sinara, all ready to race off after Torran, hesitated. The trade-offs were difficult to compute. Help Torran, and so improve the chances of recovering Teri and the beetleback? Or stay with Ben Blesh, to make sure that he remained alive long enough to reach the Have-It-All ?

Torran’s voice steadied her. “Sinara, Teri and I did too good a job moving rocks. I’ll be hauling Teri and the beetleback but I don’t see a gap big enough for us all to fly through. Teri is losing consciousness. Can you work from the inside? Once we’re in, I’ll help you close the hole.”

Dragging rocks out of the way was the easy part. Much harder was looking at Teri’s chalk-white face and half-closed eyes as Torran pulled her through after him. Sinara took charge at once, moving the second body into place beside Ben Blesh. She gave the beetleback one quick glance. It was legless, one side of the scarlet head was mashed in, and the silver back was crumpled along the central line. More to the point, the creature was crippled and immobilized. That was good enough for her.

Was it worth the effort, to capture a beetleback? Well, to Teri it had been, and Torran had gone to the trouble of finishing the job.

He was at Sinara’s side. “I didn’t have time to check all the suit readings. How is she?”

“Her suit reports a problem between the third and fourth lumbar vertebrae. Her spinal column there is either cut or severely damaged. The regrowth of nerve tissue would be an easy job back on Miranda, but the robodoc on the Have-It-All was stripped out and dumped, nothing left but the bare essentials.”

“Will she live?”

“She will, if any of us do.” Sinara glanced at the time read-out in her own suit. “Survival training, Torran.” She gestured at the two bodies in front of them. “We all had it. But tell me the truth, did you ever imagine the real thing might be anything like this?”

“I didn’t, but Arabella Lund pegged it exactly. Remember what she told us? ’Survival is ninety-eight percent boredom, and two percent panic.’ How many hours to rendezvous?”

“Eighteen, if the Have-It-All is on time.”

“Will Ben and Teri be in danger of dying during that period?”

“Not according to all the signs.”

Torran blew out a long, gusty breath. “Then I say, bring on the ninety-eight percent boredom. I’m more than ready for it.”

“You don’t want to look at the beetleback?”

“To hell with the beetleback. That’s Tally’s area, not mine.” Torran moved so that he was stretched out next to Teri. “I’m done. Wake me if a rock flies in and kills me. Otherwise, I’m gone.”

Sinara could hardly believe her ears. With eighteen hours to go, and with the primitive defense of rocks around them needing constant attention, Torran Veck was proposing to go to sleep?

Her feeling of outrage lasted less than one minute. She went across to peer in through his visor, and saw that his face was as pale and drawn as Teri’s or Ben’s. She examined the suit’s report of his vital signs. He wasn’t sleeping, he was out cold. The shoulder wound that he had dismissed so casually was far worse than she had realized. The effort to bring Teri back, and the beetleback with her, had pushed Torran past the point of exhaustion.

Sinara examined, in turn and in as much detail as she could, each of her three companions. She was beginning to understand something else about survival training—something that Arabella Lund had not mentioned. You trusted your teammates to do whatever was necessary to keep you alive. And you in turn did the same for them. Whatever .

Seventeen and a half hours to go.

Sinara moved the others so that each of them would always be in her sight. Then she floated away to examine the condition of their protective shield of rocks, and began the tedious and endless task of filling in gaps as they appeared.

The Have-It-All had started its journey as a luxury ship. In its equipment and its fittings—even in its weapons—it served as a symbol of the best that the Orion Arm could provide. Louis Nenda had worked for many years to make it that way.