Dave Duncan - Wildcatter

“Inhospitable of you.”

“Very. I napped for an hour or so. When I awoke, Mariko was hallucinating and Dylan had died. My memory gets a bit fuzzy around then.

“It was likely the next day when I found I was tied to a bunk in the biologist’s dorm and Mariko was looking after me, although she could barely walk, she was so dizzy. She kept telling me were both going to die.”

“Commander Duddridge reported that an unmanned shuttle was sent down about then, but it crashed.”

“I spoke to him and he told me that, but we saw no signs of it. I don’t know what day it was when the storm surge came and I found myself turning cartwheels in bed and Mercury ended up on its side like this. All systems dead. I’ve told you the rest. Dammit, someone’s been sandblasting my throat.”

“Take a break. You’ve done very well.”

The pond was washing into the cave with every wave. That water must be fresh, although it was certainly not sterile. There was no sign of a break in the torrential rain.

“Prospector to Golden Hind .”

“Go ahead, Seth.” It was JC himself on watch.

“There’s no chance of rescue for at least three hours, and eight or ten is more likely. I’m dehydrated. I’m going to open my vizor and drink some of the rainwater that’s slopping around outside. Plan to quarantine both of us when you get us back.”

“Seth, that’s suicide!”

“It’s sensible. Meredith’s alive and well, and it sounds as if Mariko survived until after the second crash, so whatever infection they caught wasn’t fatal. Once that storm surge arrives, there won’t be any fresh water anywhere. Prospector out.”

“No!” JC was not easily dismissed. “Listen. Collect some water by all means, but don’t drink it until you’re truly desperate.”

“Good idea,” Seth said, although he knew he couldn’t last another five or six hours without the dehydration affecting his physical and mental state. Dehydration brought on cramps, dizziness, delirium and a lot of other things he could not afford if he was going to get out of this mess alive.

“And Reese wants a word with you.”

“Seth? This is Reese.”

“Hi, Reese.”

“Those samples you sent up… No signs of reversed chirality. The proteins are terrestrial-normal.”

“So it was just the sort of stupid idea only a Neanderthal like me would think of. Thanks. Prospector out.”

“Come and sit down, Neanderthal,” Meredith said.

He obeyed. “So tell me the rest of your story.” Anything to take his mind off his thirst.

“Nothing to tell. By the next day I was feeling much better, thinking more clearly, but I knew I was doomed to die here. I could get water from the taps in the decon room but no food. I thought I heard Mariko tapping sometimes. I tried tapping back, but her response never seemed to make any sense, so perhaps I was just hearing a loose piece of the hull blown around by the wind. It stopped after a couple of days.

“When I was strong enough, I crawled out here, to the lab. I renamed it the lanai. I had no way of calling De Soto or the other ships. I tried to mark out a signal on the sand, because by then I’d decided that the infection wasn’t always fatal. It probably killed Dylan, I wasn’t sure about Mariko, and I seemed to be recovering.”

“ De Soto was still there, then?”

“They all were. They were in very low orbit, and sometimes, when the sun was behind a cloud, I could see sunlight reflected off them as they went by overhead. Always there would be at least one of the three. Then they closed up into a group, close together, and I knew they were about to leave. Then I saw their jump flash. And knew I was alone.”

“Did you write your message in the sand?”

“It was very faint. I did drag a chair outside to show that there was still someone alive. They either didn’t see it, or they ignored it. The centaurs took it away later.”

Seth tried to imagine what the media would do with this story, but it made his mind reel. Duddridge was a dead man walking. He would be torn to shreds.

“That must have been almost three weeks ago.”

“Feels like three years. Now you turn up. I may start weeping soon.”

“Weep away. Trauma and stim shorts can do that to anyone. You’ll be an international celebrity, you know. Sell your memoirs for a fortune.”

She leaned against him. It was a romantic gesture, except that she weighed a ton. “You really think this damned world will let us go?”

He put an arm around her. “I think the wind’s dropping already. As soon as the storm lets up, Niagara will come for us. We’ll walk over, load the samples, and be on our way.”

“You’re sweet,” she said dreamily.

She must be more confused than he’d realized. No one had called Seth Broderick sweet in the last twenty years.

He took Meredith’s cup and went over to the mouth of the cave. After one last breath of pure air, he removed his helmet, ignoring Control’s squawks of protest. The roar of the storm grew louder. Cacafuego smelled of steam, and sea, and something that he thought might be mulch. Despite the rain, the air was hotter than a sauna, provoking instant beads of perspiration on his face. He filled the cup where a steady trickle of water was running down the side of the shuttle. He drank.

“This hemlock tastes like champagne.”

Meredith smiled. “Champagne is iced. If it’s warm, it’s hemlock.” She stared at his face until he wondered what she was thinking. Then she said, “I didn’t know Neanderthals were so good looking.”

She was probably joking, but stim shots could have strange effects on people, especially if they were seriously traumatized, as she was. He drank another cupful.

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. You’d have been happy to see Quasimodo or one of his gargoyles.”

“Come and sit by me, Quasimodo. Why not take off your bell-ringing costume first?”

She must know what men wore inside an EVA suit, but she was right. The suit’s temperature control wouldn’t work without the helmet, so in this heat he must either remove the suit or put his helmet back on.

“I think I may as well die in comfort. But I’ll undress in the bedroom, if you don’t mind. My gear will be safer there.” The larger waves were coming well inside now, lapping close to the table. The castaways might soon have to abandon the lab and retreat to the dorm.

“Right. You go and slip into something comfortable,” she said.

Not knowing her, he wasn’t sure how much she was playacting or what he would do if she started making serious advances. Under normal circumstances he wouldn’t hesitate, for she was an attractive woman, but in their current predicament there was something grotesque about the idea. He had given her drugs, which would make it feel like date rape.

“Here,” he said, detaching the communicator and camera from his helmet. He handed to them on their strap, which could be worn as a headband. “You talk to the nice people upstairs.”

He clambered back into the decon room and crawled across the unsteady shower doors to the dorm. There, far from the raging storm, the air stank of rotting fish and human sweat. He removed his suit by the light of his helmet, stripping down to shorts and shoes. He was glad to be rid of the heavy suit, but now perspiration was pouring off him and he would need to drink much more water.