Poul Anderson - The Star Fox

Elsewhere Fox plunged dark, every engine stilled, nothing but the minimum of life-support equipment in operation, toward the far side of the moon Diane. It was not garrisoned, and a diameter of 1275 kilometers makes a broad shield. Even so, the tender that went from her carried brave men. They might have been spotted by some prowling Aleriona warcraft, especially in the moments when they crammed on deceleration to make a landing. Once down on that rough, airless surface, they moved their boat into an extinct fumarole for concealment, donned space gear, and struck out afoot. Their trip around to the planet-facing hemisphere was a miniature epic; let it only be said that they completed their errand and got back. Rendezvous with the ship was much too risky to attempt. They settled in the boat and waited.

Not long after, a giant meteorite or dwarf asteroid struck New Europe, burning a hole across the night sky and crashing in the Ocean du Déstin a few hundred kilometers east of the Garance coast. A minor tidal wave shocked through the Baie des Pêcheurs, banged water-craft against their docks at Bonne Chance, raced up the Bouches du Carsac, and was still observable—a rumbling foam-crested front, sleekly black under the stars—as far inland as the confluence of the River Bordes. Atmospherics howled in every Aleriona detector.

They faded; alerted flyers returned to berth; the night stillness resumed.

For all but the men aboard Meroeth.

When the fifty thousand tons to which she was grappled hit the outermost fringes of atmosphere, she let go and dropped behind. But she could not retreat far. Too many kilometers per second of velocity must be shed in too few kilometers of distance, before ablation devoured her. That meant a burst of drive forces, a blast of energies from a powerplant strained to its ultimate. The enemy’s orbital detection system was still inadequate; but it existed in part, and there were also instruments on the ground. Nothing could hide this advent—except the running, growing storm in the immediate neighborhood of a meteorite.

Radar would not pierce the ions which roiled at the stone’s face and streamed back aft.

Optical and infrared pickups were blinded. Neutrino or gravitronic detectors aimed and tuned, with precision might have registered something which was not of local origin. But who would look for a ship in the midst of so much fury? Air impact alone, at that speed, would break her hull into a thousand flinders, which friction would then turn into shooting stars.

Unless she followed exactly behind the meteorite, using its mass for a bumper and heat shield, its flaming tail for a cloak.

No autopilot was ever built for that task. Gunnar Heim must do it. If he veered from his narrow slot of partial vacuum, he would die too quickly to know he was dead. For gauge he had only the incandescence outside, instrument readings, and whatever intuition was bestowed by experience. For guide he had a computation of where he ought to be, at what velocity, at every given moment, unreeling on tape before his eyes. He merged himself with the ship; his hands made a blur on the console; he did not notice the waves of heat, the bufferings and bellowings of turbulence, save as a thunderstorm deep in his body.

His cosmos shrank to a firestreak, his reason for being to the need of holding this clumsy mass nose-on to the descent pattern. Once, an age ago, he had brought his space yacht down on a seemingly disastrous path to Ascension Island. But that had been a matter of skillfully piloting a slender and responsive vessel. Tonight he was a robot, executing orders written for it by whirling electrons.

No: he was more. The feedback of data through senses, judgment, will, made the whole operation possible. But none of that took place on a conscious level. There wasn’t time!

That was as well. Live flesh could not have met those demands for more than a few seconds.

The meteorite, slowed only a little by the air wall through which it plunged, out-raced the spaceship and hit the sea—still with such force that water had no chance to splash but actually shattered. Meroeth was as yet several kilometers aloft, her own speed reduced to something that metal could tolerate. The pattern tape said CUT and Heim slammed down a switch. The engine roar whirred into silence.

He checked his instruments. “All’s well,” he said. His voice sounded strange in his ears, only slowly did he come back to himself, as if he had run away from his soul and it must now catch up. “We’re under the Bonne Chance horizon, headed southwest on just about the trajectory we were trying for.”

“Whoo-oo-oo,” said Vadász in a weak tone. His hair was plastered lank to the thin high-cheeked face; his garments were drenched.

“Bridge to engine room,” Heim said. “Report.”

“All in order, sir,” came the voice of Diego Gonzales, who was third engineer on Fox. “ Or as much as could be expected. The strain gauges do show some warping in a couple of the starboard bow plates. Not too bad, though. Shall I turn on the coolers?”

“Well, do you like this furnace?” grumbled Jean Irribarne. Heat radiated from every bulkhead.

“Go ahead,” Heim decided. “If anyone’s close enough to detect the anomaly, we’ve had it anyway.” He kept eyes on the console before him, but jerked a thumb at Vadász. “Radar registering?”

“No,” said the Magyar. “We appear to be quite private.” Those were the only men aboard.

No more were needed for a successful landing; and in case of failure, Heim did not want to lose lives essential to Fox.

Gonzales, for instance, was a good helper in his department, but Uthg-a-K’thaq and O’Hara could manage without him. Vadász had been a fairly competent steward, and as a minstrel had a lot to do with keeping morale high. Nevertheless, he was expendable. One colonist sufficed to guide Meroeth, and Irribarne had pulled rank to win that dangerous honor. The rest must bring their story to Earth, did the present scheme miscarry. As for Heim himself—

“You can’t!” Penoyer had protested.

“Can’t I just?” Heim grinned.

“But you’re the skipper!”

“You can handle that job every bit as well as I, Dave.”

Penoyer shook his head. “No. More and more, I’ve come to realize it. Not only that this whole expedition was your idea and your doing. Not even the way you’ve led us, as a tactician, I mean, though that’s been like nothing since Lord Nelson. But damn it, Gunnar-r—sir—we won’t hang together without you!”

“I’m far too modest to have any false modesty,” Heim drawled. “What you say may well have been true in the beginning. We’re a motley gang, recruited from all over Earth and every man a rambunctious individualist. Then there was the anti-Naqsan prejudice. I had to get tough about that a few times, you remember. Now, though, after so long a cruise, so much done together—we’re a crew. A God damn ship. C.E.’s proved himself so well and so often that we haven’t a man left who won’t punch you in the nose if you say a nasty word about Naqsans. And as for tactics, Dave, half the stunts we’ve pulled were your suggestion. You’ll manage fine.”

“Well… but… but why you, sir, to go down? Any of us with a master pilot’s certificate can do it, and say wizard to the chance. You going bloody well doesn’t make sense.”

“I say it does,” Heim answered. “End of discussion.” When he used that tone, nobody talked further. Inwardly, however, he hadn’t felt the least stern. Madelon—No, no, ridiculous. Maybe it’s true that you never really fall out of love with anyone; but new loves do come, and while Connie lived he had rarely thought about New Europe. For that matter, his reunion with Jocelyn Lawrie on Staurn had driven most else out of his mind. For a while.