Odyssey. Part 6

There were a lot of complaints from the pa.s.sengers about the cold, the short rations, the recycled water, bruises, and other things. They'd been all right, in s.p.a.ce, glad to be alive. Now that they were ash.o.r.e they seemed to expect instant relief. I called some of the men aside for a conference.

"I'm taking a party to make the march to the beacon," I told them.

"Party?" Ognath bellied up to me. "We'll all go! Only by pulling together can we hope to survive!"

"I'm taking ten men," I said. "The rest stay here."

"You expect us to huddle here in this wreck, and slowly freeze to death?" Ognath wanted to know.

"Not you, a.s.semblyman," I said. "You're coming with me."

He didn't like that, either. He said his place was with the people.

"I want the strongest, best-fed men," I said. "We'll be traveling with heavy packs at first. I can't have stragglers."

"Why not just yourself, and this fellow?" Ognath jerked a thumb at Ommu.

"We're taking half the food with us. Somebody has to carry it."

"Half the food-for ten men? And you'd leave seventy-odd women and children to share what's left?"

"That's right. We'll leave now. There's still a few hours of daylight."

Half an hour later we were ready to go, the cat included. The cold didn't seem to bother him. The packs were too big by half, but they'd get lighter.

"Where's your pack, Danger?" Ognath wanted to know.

"I'm not carrying one," I told him. I left the boat in charge of a crewman with a sprained wrist; when I looked back at the end of the first hour all I could see was ice.

2.

We made fifteen miles before sunset. When we camped, several of the men complained about the small rations, and a couple mentioned the food I gave Eureka. Ognath made another try to gather support for himself as trail boss, but without much luck. We turned in and slept for five hours. It wasn't daylight yet when I rolled them out. One man complained that his suit-pack was down; he was s.h.i.+vering, and blue around the lips. I sent him back and distributed his pack among the others.

We went on, into rougher country, sprinkled with rock slabs that pushed up through the ice. The ground was rising, and footing was treacherous. When I called the noon halt, we had made another ten miles.

"At this rate, we'll cover the distance in ten days," Ognath informed me. "The rations could be doubled, easily! We're carrying enough for forty days!"

He had some support on that point. I said no. After a silent meal and a ten-minute rest, we went on. I watched the men. Ognath was a complainer but he held his position up front. Two men had a tendency to straggle. One of them seemed to be having trouble with his pack. I checked on him, found he had a bad bruise on his shoulder from a fall during the landing. I chewed him out and sent him back to the boat.

"If anybody else is endangering this party by being n.o.ble, speak up now," I told them. n.o.body did. We went on, down to eight men already, and only twenty-four hours out.

The climbing was stiff for the rest of the day. Night caught us halfway to a high pa.s.s. Everybody was dog-tired. Ommu came over and told me the packs were too heavy.

"They'll get lighter," I told him.

"Maybe if you carried one you'd see it my way," he came back.

"Maybe that's why I'm not carrying one."

We spent a bad night in the lee of an ice-ridge. I ordered all suits set for minimum heat to conserve power. At dawn we had to dig ourselves out of drifted snow.

We made the pa.s.s by mid-afternoon, and were into a second line of hills by dark. Up until then, everyone had been getting by on his initial charge; now the strain was starting to show. When morning came, two men had trouble getting started. After the first hour, one of them pa.s.sed out cold. I left him and the other fellow with a pack between them, to make it back to the boat. By dark, we'd put seventy-five miles behind us.

I began to lose track of days then. One man slipped on a tricky climb around a creva.s.se and we lost him, pack and all. That left five of us: myself, Ommu, Ognath, a pa.s.senger named Choom, and Lath, one of my power-section crew. Their faces were hollow and when they pulled their masks off their eyes looked like wild animals'; but we'd weeded out the weak ones now.

At a noonday break, Ognath watched me pa.s.sing out the ration cans.

"I thought so," his fruity baritone was just a croak now. "Do you men see what he's doing?" He turned to the others, who had sprawled on their backs as usual as soon as I called the halt. "No wonder Danger's got more energy than the rest of us! He's giving himself double rations-for himself and the animal!"

They all sat up and stared my way.

"How about it?" Ommu asked. "Is he right?"

"Never mind me," I told them. "Just eat and get what rest you can. We've still got nearly three hundred miles to do."

Ommu got to his feet. "Time you doubled up on rations for all of us," he said. The other two men were sitting up, watching.

"I'll decide when it's time," I told him.

"Ognath, open a pack and hand out an extra ration all around," Ommu said.

"Touch a pack and I'll kill you," I said. "Lie down and get your rest, Ommu."

They stood there and looked at me.

"Better be careful how you sleep from now on, Danger," Ommu said. n.o.body said anything while we finished eating and shouldered packs and started on. I marched at the rear now, watching them. I couldn't afford to let them fail. The Lady Raire was counting on me.

3.

At the halfway point, I was still feeling fairly strong. Ognath and Choom had teamed up to help each other over the rough spots, and Ommu and Lath stuck together. None of them said anything to me unless they had to. Eureka had taken to ranging far offside, looking for game, maybe.

Each day's march was like the one before. We got on our feet at daylight, wolfed down the ration, and hit the trail. Our best speed was about two miles per hour now. The scenery never changed. When I estimated we'd done two hundred and fifty miles-about the fifteenth day-I increased the ration. We made better time that day, and the next. Then the pace began to drag again. The next day, there were a lot of falls. It wasn't just rougher ground; the men were reaching the end of their strength. We halted in mid-afternoon and I told them to turn their suit heaters up to medium range. I saw Ognath and Choom swap looks. I went over to the a.s.semblyman and checked his suit; it was on full high. So was Choom's.

"Don't blame them, Danger," Ommu said. "On short rations they were freezing to death."

The next day Choom's heat-pack went out. He kept up for an hour; then he fell and couldn't get up. I checked his feet; they were frozen waxy-white, ice-hard, hallway to the knee.

We set up a tent for him, left fourteen days' rations, and went on. a.s.semblyman Ognath told me this would be one of the items I'd answer for at my trial.

"Not unless we reach the beacon," I reminded him.

Two days later, Ognath jumped me when he thought I was asleep. He didn't know I had scattered ice chips off my boots around me as a precaution. I woke up just in time to roll out of his way. He rounded and came for me again and Eureka knocked him down and stood over him, snarling in a way to chill your blood. Lath and Ommu heard him yell and I had to hold the gun on them to get them calmed down.

"Rations," Ognath said. "Divide them up now; four even shares!"

I turned him down. Ommu told me what he'd do to me as soon as he caught me without the gun. Lath asked me if I was willing to kill the cat, now that it had gone mad and was attacking people. I let them talk. When they had it out of their systems, we went on. That afternoon Ommu fell and couldn't get up. I took his pack and told Lath to help him. An hour later Lath was down. I called a halt, issued a triple ration all around and made up what was left of the supplies into two packs. Ognath complained, but he took one and I took the other.

The next day was a hard one. We were into broken ground again, and Ognath was having trouble with his load, even though it was a lot lighter than the one he'd started with. Ommu and Lath took turns helping each other up. Sometimes it was hard to tell which one was helping which. We made eight miles and pitched camp. The next day we did six miles; the next five; the day after that, Ognath fell and sprained an ankle an hour after we'd started. By then we had covered three hundred and sixty miles.

"We'll make camp here," I said. "Ommu and Lath, lend a hand."

I used the filament gun on narrow-beam to cut half a dozen foot-cube blocks of snow. When I told Ommu to start stacking them in a circle, he just looked at me.

"He's gone crazy," he said. "Listen, Lath; you too, Ognath. We've got to rush him. He can't kill all three of us-"

"We're going to build a shelter," I told him. "You'll stay warm there until I get back."

"What are you talking about?" Lath was hobbling around offside, trying to get behind me. I waved him back.

"This is the end of the line for you. Ognath can't go anywhere; you two might make another few miles, but the three of you together will have a better chance."

"Where do you think you're going?" Ognath got himself up on one elbow to call out. "Are you abandoning us now?"

"He planned it this way all along," Lath whispered. His voice had gone a couple of days before. "Made us pack his food for him, used us as draft animals; and now that we're used up, he'll leave us here to die."

Ommu was the only one who didn't spend the next ten minutes swearing at me. He flopped down on the snow and watched me range the snow blocks in a ten-foot circle. I cut and carried up more and built the second course. When I had the third row in place, he got up and silently started c.h.i.n.king the gaps with snow.

It took two hours to finish the igloo, including a six-foot entrance tunnel and a sanitary trench a few feet away.

"We'll freeze inside that," Ognath was almost blubbering now. "When our suit-packs go, we'll freeze!"

I opened the packs and stacked part of the food, made up one light pack.

"Look," Ognath was staring at the small heap of ration cans. "He's leaving us with nothing! We'll starve, while he stuffs his stomach!"

"If you starve you won't freeze," I said. "Better get him inside," I told Ommu and Lath.

"He won't be stuffing his stomach much," Ommu said. "He's leaving us twice what he's taking for himself."

"But-where's all the food he's been h.o.a.rding?"

"We've been eating it for the past week," Ommu said. "Shut up, Ognath. You talk too much."

We put Ognath in the igloo. It was already warmer inside, from the yellowish light filtering through the snow walls. I left them then, and with Eureka pacing beside me, started off in what I hoped was the direction of the beacon.

My pack weighed about ten pounds; I had food enough for three days' half-rations. I was still in reasonable shape, reasonably well-fed. With luck, I expected to make the beacon in two days' march.

I didn't have luck. I made ten miles before dark, slept cold and hungry, put in a full second day. By sundown I had covered the forty miles, but all I could see was flat plain and glare ice, all the way to the horizon. According to the chart, the beacon was built on a hundred-foot knoll that would be visible for at least twenty miles. That meant one more day, minimum.

I did the day, and another day. I rechecked my log, and edited all the figures downward; and I still should have been in sight of home base by now. That night Eureka disappeared.

The next day my legs started to go. I finished the last of my food and threw away the pack; I had a suspicion my suit heaters were about finished; I s.h.i.+vered all the time.

Late that day I saw Eureka, far away, crossing a slight ripple in the flat ice. Maybe he was on the trail of something to eat. I wished him luck. I had a bad fall near sunset, and had a hard time crawling into the lee of a rock to sleep.

The next day things got tough. I knew I was within a few miles of the beacon, but my suit instruments weren't good enough to pinpoint it. Any direction was as good as another. I walked east, toward the dull glare of the sun behind low clouds. When I couldn't walk anymore, I crawled. After a while I couldn't crawl anymore. I heard a buzzing from my suit pack that meant the charge was almost exhausted. It didn't seem important. I didn't hurt anymore, wasn't hungry or tired. It felt good, just floating where I was, in a warm, golden sea. Golden, the color of the Lady Raire's skin when she lay under the hot sun of Gar 28, slim and tawny. . . . Lady Raire, a prisoner, waiting for me to come for her.

I was on my feet, weaving, but upright. I picked out a rock ahead, and concentrated on reaching it. I made it and fell down and saw my own footprints there. That seemed funny. When I finished laughing, it was dark. I was cold now. I heard voices. . . .

The voices were louder, and then there was light and a man was standing over me and Eureka was sitting on his haunches beside me, was.h.i.+ng his face.

4.

Ommu and Ognath were all right; Lath had left the igloo and never came back; Choom was dead of gangrene. Of the four men I had sent back to the boat during the first few days, three reached it. All of the party at the boat survived. We later learned that our boat was the only one that got away from the s.h.i.+p. We never learned what it was we had collided with.

I was back on my feet in a day or two. The men at the beacon station were glad to have an interruption in their routine; they gave us the best of everything the station had to offer. A couple of days later a s.h.i.+p arrived to take us off.

At Ahax, I went before a board of inquiry and answered a lot of questions, most of which seemed to be designed to get me to confess that it had all been my fault. But in the end they gave me a clean bill and a trip bonus for my trouble.

a.s.semblyman Ognath was waiting when I left the hearing room.

"I understand the board dismissed you with a modest bonus and a hint that the less you said of the disaster the better," he said.

"That's about it."

"Danger, I've always considered myself to be a man of character," he told me. "At Cyoc, I was in error. I owe you something. What are your plans?"

He gave me a sharp look when I told him. "I a.s.sume there's a story behind that-but I won't pry. . . . "

"No secret, Mister a.s.semblyman." I told him the story over dinner at an eating place that almost made up for thirty days on the ice. When I finished he shook his head.

"Danger, do you have any idea how long it will take you to work your pa.s.sage to as distant a world as Zeridajh?"

"A long time."

"Longer than you're likely to live, at the wages you're earning."

"Maybe."

"Danger, as a politician I'm a practical man. I have no patience with romantic quests. However, you saved my life; I have a debt to discharge. I'm in a position to offer you the captaincy of your own vessel, to undertake a mission of considerable difficulty-but one which, if you're successful, will pay you more than you could earn in twenty years below decks!"

5.