featureless as that on either side. He got further back into the shuttle
and tried his communicator, but there was nothing from his helmet
speakers; all the circuits were dead; everything seemed
to have been knocked out by the electromagnetic pulse from the explosion on the
Megaship.
Horza considered taking the suit off and throwing it out, too, but he was already cold, and if he took the suit off he’d be
virtually naked. He
would keep the device on unless they started losing height suddenly. He shivered, and his whole body ached.
He would sleep. There was nothing he could do for now, and his body needed rest. He considered Changing, but decided against
it. He
closed his eyes. He saw Yalson, as he had imagined her, running on the Megaship, and opened his eyes again. He told
himself she was all
right, just fine, then closed his eyes once more.
Maybe by the time he woke they would be out from under the layers of magnetized dust in the upper atmosphere, in the tropical
or even just
temperate zones, rather than the arctic region. But that would probably mean only that they would finally ditch
in warm water, not cold. He
couldn’t imagine Mipp or the shuttle holding together long enough to complete a journey right
across the Orbital.
… assume it was thirty thousand kilometers across; they were making perhaps three hundred per hour….
His head full of changing figures, Horza slipped into sleep. His last coherent thought was that they just weren’t going fast
enough, and
probably couldn’t. They would still be flying over the Circlesea toward land when the Culture blew the whole Orbital
into a fourteenmillion-
kilometer halo of light and dust….
Horza woke rolling around inside the shuttle. In the first few blurred seconds of his waking he thought he had already tumbled
out of the rear
door of the shuttle and was falling through the air; then his head cleared and he found himself lying spread-eagled
on the floor of the rear
compartment, watching the blue sky outside tilt as the shuttle banked. The craft seemed to be traveling
more slowly than he remembered. He
could see nothing from the rear view out of the doors except blue sky, blue sea and a few
puffy white clouds, so he stuck his head round the
side of the door.
The buffeting wind was warm, and over in the direction the shuttle was banking lay a small island. Horza looked at it incredulously.
It was
tiny, surrounded by smaller atolls and reefs showing pale green through the shallow water, and it had a single small
mountain sticking up from
concentric circles of lush green vegetation and bright yellow sand.
The shuttle dipped and leveled, straightening on its course for the island. Horza brought his head back in, resting the muscles
of his neck
and shoulder after the exertion of holding his head out in the slipstream. The shuttle slowed yet more, dipping
again. A slight juddering vibrated
through the craft’s frame. Horza saw a torus of limecolored water appear in the sea behind
the shuttle; he stuck his head round the side of the
door again and saw the island just ahead and about fifty meters below.
Small figures were running up the beach which the shuttle was
approaching. A group of the humans were heading across the sand
for the jungle, carrying what looked like a huge pyramid of golden sand on
a sort of litter or stretcher, held on poles between
them.
Horza watched the scene slide by underneath. There were small fires on the beach, and long canoes. At one end of the beach,
where the
trees cut down toward the water, there squatted a broad-backed, shovel-nosed shuttle, perhaps two or three times
the size of the
CAT
’s. The
shuttle flew over the island, through some vague gray pillars of smoke.
The beach was almost clear of people; the last few, who looked thin and almost naked, ran into the cover of the trees as though
afraid of the
craft flying over them. One figure lay sprawled on the sand near the module. Horza caught a glimpse of one human
figure, more fully clothed
than the others, not running but standing and pointing up toward him, pointing toward the shuttle
flying over the island, with something in his
hand. Then the top of the small mountain appeared just underneath the open shuttle
door, blocking off the view. Horza heard a series of sharp
reports, like small, hard explosions.
“Mipp!" he shouted, going to the closed door.
“We’ve had it, Horza," Mipp said weakly from the other side. There was a sort of despairing jocularity in his voice. “Even
the natives aren’t
friendly."
“They looked frightened," Horza said. The island was disappearing behind. They weren’t turning back, and Horza felt the shuttle
speeding
up.
“One of them had a gun," Mipp said. He coughed, then moaned.
“Did you see that shuttle." Horza asked.
“Yeah, I saw it."
“I think we should go back, Mipp," Horza said. “I think we ought to turn round."
“No," Mipp said. “No, I don’t think we ought to…. I don’t think that’s a good idea, Horza. I didn’t like the look of the place."
“Mipp, it looked
dry.
What more do you want." Horza looked at the view through the rear doors; the island was nearly a kilometer away
already and
the shuttle was still increasing speed, gaining height all the time.
“Got to keep going, Horza. Head for the coast."
“Mipp! We’ll never get there! It’ll take us four days at least and the Culture’s going to blow this place apart in three!"
There was silence from the far side of the door. Horza shook its light, grubby surface with his hand.
“Just leave it, Horza!" Mipp screamed. Horza hardly recognized the man’s hoarse, shrill voice. “Just leave it! I’ll kill us
both, I swear!"
The shuttle suddenly tilted, pointing its nose at the sky and its open doors at the sea. Horza started to slide back, his
feet slipping on the
shuttle’s floor. He jammed the suit fingers into the wall slot the seats had been attached to, hanging
there as the shuttle started to stall in its
steep climb.
“All right, Mipp!" he shouted. “All right!"
The shuttle fell, side-slipping, throwing Horza forward and against the bulkhead. He was suddenly heavy as the craft bottomed
out of its
short dive. The sea slithered underneath, only fifty or so meters below.
“Just leave me
alone,
Horza," Mipp’s voice said.
“OK, Mipp," Horza said. “OK."
The shuttle rose a little, gaining altitude and increasing speed. Horza went back, away from the bulkhead which separated
him from the
flight deck and Mipp.
Horza shook his head and went to stand by the open door, looking back toward the island with its lime shallows, gray rock,
greenblue
foliage and band of yellow sand. It all slowly shrank, the frame of the open shuttle doors filling with more and
more sea and sky as the island lost
itself in the haze.
He wondered what he could do, and knew there was only one course of action. There had been a shuttle on that island; it could
hardly be in
a worse state than the one he was in now, and their chances of being rescued at the moment were virtually nil.
He turned round to look at the
flimsy door leading to the flight deck, still holding on to the edge of the rear door, the
warm buffeting air spilling in around him.
He wondered whether just to charge straight in or to try to reason with Mipp first. While he was still thinking about it the
shuttle gave a
shudder, then started to fall like a stone toward the sea.