Dave Duncan - Wildcatter

Gulp.

“ Niagara to Golden Hind . Request clearance to launch.”

“You are cleared to launch, Master.” Jordan.

“Bring me back a diamond.” That was Reese, with a joke that must be older than she was.

The START button lit up. Seth pushed it and was on his way.

Niagara rose gently and almost silently, just a slight vibration. Once clear of the ship, it turned to shed orbital velocity. He watched the edge of the disk go by, then the greater mass behind it, in the part they called the tower, the tokamak generators. He watched for signs of damage, but saw none and had not expected to.

In a few minutes he had left the ship behind and was floating over the planetscape of Cacafuego. He felt almost drunk with joy. He had achieved his life’s ambition, to go exploring in the Big Nothing. He could even cling to the illusion that he was alone, although the back of his mind knew that five people were watching his progress very carefully. He hoped—for their sakes almost more than his own—that they wouldn’t have to abandon him the way Commodore Madison Duddridge had deserted his people.

JC’s voice: “Commodore to Master. Don’t forget to plog. Gotta keep the kiddies happy. Commodore out.”

Seth muttered an obscenity. A plog was a prospector’s log, and a valuable part of the expedition record. The contract required him to record a commentary during EVA, and he ought to start now. Traditionally, the rights to the plog belonged to the person who made it, and there were many sly rumors of prospectors who had made more money out of their plogs than their employers had made out of the voyages.

He talked for a while about the view, his lifelong ambition to be a prospector, and the dangers of bad weather. He mentioned that Galactic had lost prospectors but was careful not to hint that they had been marooned. Then he signed off to prepare for landing. He fetched his EVA suit and left it handy. He put his two bags by the rear hatch, where he could kick them out.

“Control, report weather forecast for Site Apple.”

—Calm at estimated touchdown and for one hour thereafter.

“It seems that the weather window is narrowing,” he told his plog. “The ship’s computers cannot predict this planet’s weather more than an hour or two ahead. A strong gale would wreck this shuttle once it’s on the ground, and a Category One hurricane is a mild breeze by local standards. I need a clear two hours’ sampling. As soon as I land, therefore, I will send Niagara back to the mother ship to refuel…”

He was a private, self-contained person and hated this mindless, anonymous chatter.

He was eating a sandwich, which might be his last meal for a long time, when Control announced go-no-go point for an Apple descent. The decision was his, but out of courtesy he called home.

“ Niagara to Golden Hind . You see any problems?”

Jordan’s face appeared in the viewer. “Negative. All looks clear to us for a landing and prompt take-off. Good luck, Master.”

“Thanks. Start synthesizing a roast ox for the banquet tomorrow. Niagara out. Control, landing confirmed. Use cold-skin approach.”

The cold-skin approach would waste more fuel, exuding it from pores in the hull to cool it, but he had fuel to spare now that he was committed to the first choice landing site, and the faster his exit from the shuttle, the less time it must sit on the ground and be vulnerable.

A short burst of the rockets began the final descent into the atmosphere. He stripped and put on the EVA suit. It was a marvel of technology and plumbing, light and comfortable, yet strong enough to stop a shark’s bite, airtight, air-conditioned, and able to change color when needed. Cameras on the helmet would send a visual record of anything he looked at back to Golden Hind . His heartbeat and other personal statistics would also be reported. He attached a scoop, knife, water bottle, sample wipes, and the stun gun. By the time he had checked all the circuits and gadgets, Control was warning him to strap in for turbulence. The shuttle had begun final approach, angling down over a blue enamel sea.

“I hope you can make out those whitecaps, and there are some shapes over to starboard that look to be whale-sized. Whether they’re mammals or reptiles or jellyfish we don’t know, and they may be some other type never met anywhere else.” They might just be seaweed, but seaweed wasn’t romantic. “Those misty peaks are the southern coastal range of Sombrero Island, which is our destination. We are approaching from the west, aiming for the site named Apple, on the eastern coast. I am really feeling the gravity now.”

Deceleration, in fact, but he could edit that out of the published version.

He explained how the fog on the wings was fuel being exuded to cool the ship so that he could make a quick exit when it landed. He did not comment on the stall light flickering orange as Control spun out the approach as long as possible.

“A very rocky coast in sight now. Just look at those breakers! Big waves do not necessarily mean strong winds near here, of course. The storm may be a long way away. The swell outruns the wind, and this is a planet-sized ocean. You may think that looks like great surfing, but low-gravity planets offer better. Waves ten stories high were sighted on Pixie.”

The interior plains of Sombrero were green, with meandering rivers, but he was too high to see any detail. The central peaks looked volcanic, but he decided not to say so. He could ask Maria later.

“The eastern sea is just coming into view ahead.” So was a major storm to the south, cloud tops dazzlingly white, ominous lightning flashes underneath. “I’m turning up the magnification on this screen to take a look at that cluster of what we’re calling chimney rocks over there. These are a major mystery, one of the things I have to check out. We don’t know what they are or what makes them.

“ Niagara ’s coming in about treetop height, except there are no trees, at least not here. Less than fifty meters. The plain is very green, but not grass. You can see it waving in the wind gusts.”

The cabin display was showing wind gusting to sixty klicks. Control wouldn’t try landing in that. Damn! Damn! Damn! Keep hoping.

“The sandy channels are the distributaries in the delta of a great river, mostly dry now because it’s summertime and we’re too far from the equator for glaciers. There’s a bigger arm over there; lots of water in that one; this place gets a lot of rain.” He would edit out all this rubbishy babble. “And that white thing straight ahead in that smaller channel is the wreck of one of Galactic’s shuttles. I am planning to land close to that because… Here we go!”

Niagara tilted to the vertical, jets flashed fire, and… and hovered, drifting.

“It looks like I’m not going to be able to…”

What? Why? The wind gauge had dropped to twenty klicks, just a gentle breeze hereabouts, but the shuttle was floating over the greenery, moving steadily farther away from the wreck.

—Looking for level ground, Prospector.

It all looked level to him, but Control had radar. The vegetation was thrashing in the wash from the jets, as well as in the wind. This hovering ate fuel at a murderous rate. His chatter dried up as he stared in horror at the fuel gauge. Forty-six… forty-five… Forty-one was the point of no return. When the numbers showed that, Control would blast back into orbit… Forty-three…

The shuttle gently settled down in a roiling mass of smoke.

Then came silence—and sheer panic as the shuttle began to tilt. He added some comments that would certainly have to be cut. If the undercarriage could not find a level footing, the engines would fire again and the landing would be aborted.