“What is it." Kraiklyn said over the cabin speaker. “I’m looking for a place to put down. If that’s you, Lamm, just sit down."
Lamm stared at the door with a look first of surprise, then of annoyance. He snorted and went back to his seat, shoving past
Lenipobra
again. “Bastard," he muttered, then put his helmet visor down and turned it to mirror.
“Right," Kraiklyn said. “We’re putting down." Those still standing sat again, and in a few seconds the shuttle bumped carefully
down. The
doors jawed and a cold gust of air entered through them. They filed out slowly, into the wide views of the silent,
rock-steady Megaship. Horza
sat in the shuttle waiting for the rest to go, then saw Lamm watching him. Horza stood and gave
a mock bow to the dark-suited figure.
“After you," he said.
“No," Lamm said. “You first." He nodded his head to one side toward the open doors. Horza went out of the shuttle, followed
by Lamm.
Lamm always made a point of being last out of the shuttle; it was lucky for him.
They stood on a flyer landing pad, near the base of a large rectangular tower of superstructure, perhaps sixty meters tall.
The decks of the
tower soared into the sky above, while over the surface of the cloud bank in front, and to all sides of the
pad, towers and small bulges in the mist
showed where the rest of the ship was, though where it ended it was impossible to
tell now that they were so low down. They couldn’t even see
where the nuke had gone off; there was no list, not a tremor to
reveal that they were really on a damaged ship traveling over an ocean, not
standing in a deserted city with clouds moving
smoothly past.
Horza joined some of the others by a low restraining wall at the edge of the pad, looking down about twenty meters to a deck
just visible
now and again through the thin surface of the mist. Streamers of vapor flowed across the area below in long sinuous
waves, sometimes
revealing, sometimes obscuring a deck covered with patches of earth planted with small bushes, with little
canopies and chairs scattered about
and small tent-like buildings on the surface. It all looked deserted and forlorn, like
a resort in winter, and Horza shivered inside his suit. Ahead of
them, the view led to an implied point about a kilometer
away, where a few small, skinny towers poked out of the cloud bank, near the unseen
bows of the craft.
“Looks like we’re heading into even more cloud," Wubslin said, pointing in the direction they were heading. There a great
canyon wall of
cloud hung in the air, stretching from one side of the horizon to the other, and higher than any tower on the
Megaship. It shone for them in the
increasing sunlight.
“Maybe it’ll go away as it gets warmer," Dorolow said, not sounding convinced.
“If we hit that lot we can forget about these lasers," Horza said, looking round from the rest toward the shuttle, where Kraiklyn
was talking to
Mipp, who was to stay on guard at the shuttle craft while the rest went forward to the bows. “With no radar
we’ll have to lift off before we go into
the cloud bank."
“Maybe—" Yalson began.
“Well, I’m going to take a look down there," Lenipobra said, bringing his visor down and putting one hand on the low parapet.
Horza looked
across at him.
Lenipobra waved. “See you at the b-bows; ya-hoo!"
He vaulted cleanly over the parapet and started to fall toward the deck five stories below. Horza had opened his mouth to
shout, and started
forward to grab the youth, but, like the rest of them, he had realized too late what Lenipobra was doing.
One second he was there, the next he had leapt over.
“No!"
“Leni—!" Those not already looking down rushed to the parapet; the tiny figure was tumbling. Horza saw it and hoped that somehow
it could
pull up, stop, do something. The scream started in their helmets when Lenipobra was less than ten meters from the
deck below; it ended
abruptly the instant the spread-eagled figure crashed onto the border of a small earthed area. It bounced
slackly for about a meter over the
deck, then lay still.
“Oh my God…" Neisin suddenly sat down, took off his helmet and put his hand to his eyes. Dorolow put her head down and started
to
unfasten her helmet.
“What the hell was that." Kraiklyn was running over from the shuttle, Mipp behind him. Horza was still looking over the parapet,
down at the
still, doll-like figure crumpled on the deck below. Mist thickened around it as the wisps and streamers grew thicker
for a while.
“Lenipobra! Lenipobra!" Wubslin shouted into his helmet microphone. Yalson turned away and swore to herself softly, turning
off her
transmit intercom. Aviger stood, shaking, his face blank inside his helmet visor. Kraiklyn skidded to a halt at the
parapet, then looked over.
“Leni—." He looked round at the others. “Is that—. What
happened.
What was he doing. If any of you were fooling—"
“He jumped," Jandraligeli said. His voice was shaky. He tried to laugh. “Guess kids these days just can’t tell their gravity
from their rotating
frame of reference."
“He
jumped.
" Kraiklyn shouted. He grabbed Jandraligeli by the suit collar. “How could he
jump.
I
told
you AG wouldn’t work, I
told
you all,
when we were in the hangar…."
“He was
late,
" Lamm broke in. He kicked at the thin metal of the parapet, failing to dent it. “The stupid little bastard was
late.
None of us
thought to tell him."
Kraiklyn let go of Jandraligeli and looked around the rest.
“It’s true," Horza said. He shook his head. “I just didn’t think. None of us did. Lamm and Jandraligeli were even complaining
about having to
walk to the bows when Leni was in the shuttle, and you mentioned it, but I suppose he just didn’t hear." Horza
shrugged. “He was excited."
He shook his head.
“We all fucked up," Yalson said heavily. She had turned her communicator back on. Nobody spoke for a while. Kraiklyn stood
and looked
round them, then went to the parapet, put both hands on it and looked down.
“Leni." Wubslin said into his communicator, looking down too. His voice was quiet.
“Chicel horhava," Dorolow made the Circle of Flame sign, closed her eyes and said, “Sweet lady, accept his soul in peace."
“Wormshit," Lamm swore, and turned away. He started firing the laser at distant, higher parts of the tower above them.
“Dorolow," Kraiklyn said, “you, Wubslin and Yalson head down there. See what… ah, shit…" Kraiklyn turned round. “Get down
there. Mipp,
you drop them a line or the medkit, whatever. The rest of us… we’re going forward to the bows, all right." He
looked around them, challenging.
“You might want to go back, but that just means he’s died for nothing."
Yalson turned away, switching off her transmit button again.
“Might as well," Jandraligeli said. “I suppose."
“Not me," Neisin said. “I’m not. I’m staying here, with the shuttle." He sat with his head bowed between his shoulders, his
helmet on the
deck. He stared at the deck and shook his head. “Not me. No sir, not me. I’ve had it for today. I’m staying
here."
Kraiklyn looked at Mipp and nodded at Neisin. “Look after him." He turned to Dorolow and Wubslin. “Get going. You never know;
you might
be able to do something. Yalson—you, too." Yalson wasn’t looking at Kraiklyn but she turned and followed Wubslin
and the other woman when
they set off to find a way down to the lower deck.
A crash they felt through their soles made them all jump. They turned round to see Lamm, a distant figure against the faraway
clouds, firing
up at flyer-pad supports five or six decks above, the invisible beam licking flame around the stressed metal.
Another pad gave way, flapping