Serpent's Gift Page 10

  "And?" Rob said, knowing the answer, but wanting to hear her say it.

  "And if she can do this, she could get into the other environmental systems.

  The food, the water... the air, Rob. If she can bypass all those safeguards we put in these systems, she could cause a pressure drop, too."

  A chill ran down Rob's spine. "The thought of that makes me want to expel her, stick her on the next Earth-bound transport. But without proof. .." He shrugged. "What if I'm wrong? That would be a terrible injustice."

  They stood in silence for a minute, frustrated and more than a little frightened. "So what now?" Janet asked finally.

  Rob sighed. "Activate the cleaning servos, I guess. Then go over those dumps with a fine-toothed comb."

  "It'll take me several days, at least."

  "I know. But keep at it. If you discover even a shred of evidence that this was sabotage, I'll confront Heather, see if I can rattle her a little." He bit his lower lip, then shook his head. "Maybe I should ask Doctor Blanket to scan her.

  Then we'd know."

  Janet raised her eyebrows at him. "That's not ethical, Rob. We're supposed to set a good example--not let the ends justify the means."

  "I know," Rob said wearily. "But remind me about ethics when we're all trying to breathe vacuum, why don't you? If this kid is unbalanced, there's no telling what she might do."

  "We don't have any proof," Janet reminded him. "Hold off and let me do those checks."

  "Okay. Maybe just dropping a hint or two would be enough to make her betray herself. But I'm not going to bet on it with this one, she's a tough little customer."

  Janet turned to look back at the excrement smearing the floor matting outside the bathroom door. "No shit," she muttered sourly.

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  CHAPTER 5

  Siteseeing

  Serge stood in the locker near the hangar dome, sealing his pressure suit while keeping one eye on his class. Many of them had finished suiting up, but some were still struggling with recalcitrant fastenings and seals--except, of course, the Mizari students. They shimmered, surrounded as they were with the radiant energy fields their race had developed in lieu of garments to protect against vacuum.

  When he and the Professor had first begun working out at the dig, Serge had invested his entire savings to purchase his own pressure suit, tailored to his exact height and weight. It was a metallic ice-blue, standard color, but in anticipation of this field trip, he'd emblazoned scarlet lightning bolts on the upper arms, across the chest and back, so he'd be instantly recognizable to his students.

  Leaving his helmet and gloves lying on the bench, the young instructor clumped across the room to where pretty, brown-haired Susan Whiteman was struggling to put on her helmet. "Allow me," he said, taking it and settling it on her head. "Next time, put the helmet on before you put on the gloves. That way, it's much easier."

  Grasping the helmet, he turned it slightly, then clicked it into place against the collar of her pressure suit. Fastening the safety seals, he peered into the bulbous transparent faceplate, squinting at her face behind the glare of the overhead lights. "Commence your suit-check!" he cried, raising his voice so she could hear him.

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  "Who is your suit partner?"

  She pointed to Howard Weirtberg, a slight, dark-haired student with a beard.

  The young man was apparently ready, but as he saw Serge watching him, he pointed at his face, then grimaced behind his faceplate. Serge understood the student's discomfiture immediately; his beard was rasping and prickling against the suit controls as he attempted to activate them using his chin or his lower lip. I should have warned him about that, Serge thought, remembering his experience with facial adornment inside a helmet. With his fair coloring, it had taken him a long time to grow that beard, but he'd removed it without a second thought the instant he got back to his quarters.

  Leaving Howie and Susan to complete their suit-checks, he put on his own helmet (but not his gloves), then went down the line of students, checking fastenings here, seals there. As he reached Professor Greyshine, the teacher glanced down at him, his eyes bright. Heeyoon helmets were shaped like blunted eggs, with the long, rounded portion of the oval extending outward from their faces, to accommodate their long muzzles.

  Greyshine's helmet, unlike those of human design, was completely

  transparent.

  The Professor activated their private frequency: "Where is Hing, Serge? If she is going to accompany us, she should be here by now."

  Serge sighed. "She is late, comme d'habitude," he said, hoping that it was true and that she hadn't simply changed her mind. Hing would not do that, he argued mentally. She may be scatterbrained at times, and chronically late--

  but she would never break a promise.

  As if in response to his thoughts, the door slid open, and Hing hurtled in like a shuttle leaving the dock. Her cheeks were flushed as she waved at him, mouthing "Sorry I'm late," then dived for the suit lockers, pawing through their contents to find one small enough to fit her. .

  Serge watched as she stepped out of her shoes, then shucked off her blue StarBridge coverall, leaving her wearing the black, one- piece leotard and tights designed to prevent clothing wrinkles from chafing a spacesuit wearer.

  After years of ballet classes to improve her balance and coordination onstage, she was boyishly slender. Her hips and rear had almost no padding, but her stomach, much to her expressed disgust, would never get quite flat. Her small, firm breasts jiggled as she stepped into the spacesuit and began tugging it up. It was chilly in the suit locker, and her nipples were clearly visible beneath the snug garment. Serge swallowed, unable to stop 74

  a rush of memory. Stop that, he reprimanded himself sternly. Of all the times to think about sex!

  He waited until Hing had slipped her arms into the sleeves before he went over to help her fasten the final seals. "I'm sorry," she gasped as soon as her helmet was on and she'd activated her radio. "Play rehearsal ran overtime.

  You can draw and quarter me, I deserve it."

  "Draw and quarter?" he repeated the English phrase carefully to make sure he had it right. "I haven't heard that expression before."

  "Tear me limb from limb," Hing translated, grinning.

  "There is no cause for concern," he hastened to reassure her. "Most of the students are only now finishing their suit-checks."

  Quickly Serge and Hing ran through their own checks, verifying that seals were tight, their air paks were full, and that all interior displays were properly activated.

  As soon as he was finished, Serge activated the universal frequency. "May I have your attention, please, class?" A moment later he continued, "Now we will form a line and walk through the hangar dome and out to the Morning Cry. Everyone stay with your suit partner, please, and remember--this asteroid's natural gravity is only one-tenth Terran normal--even less than that of Earth's Moon."

  He paused, then continued grimly, "You will feel so light and floating that almost everyone is tempted to try a jump, but I beg of you, don't] It will be hard enough to keep your balance with both feet on the ground, because of the asteroid's irregular mass. The gravity forces here fluctuate slightly, depending on where one is standing. That can make people feel as though they are being pulled sideways, when actually they are standing up straight.

  It can be extremely disconcerting--and can cause you to lose your balance and fall."

  He regarded them grimly. "One of the few casualties that ever occurred here at StarBridge Academy happened when one student wagered with another that he could jump high enough to achieve escape velocity--which, I assure you, is impossible, even at one- tenth gee--but the student actually attempted it. He jumped about a hundred meters high. Unfortunately, when he landed, he ripped his suit on the edge of a crater and decompressed. By the time the rescue team found him, the body was frozen solid."

  The new students murmured and shuffled; they hadn't heard the story until now. "So please--no
leaps, no jumps. Okay?"

  A general murmur of assent followed.

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  Once through the first airlock, Serge led them to the outer hangar exit. "Enter, please," he said, opening the inner door of the airlock leading onto the asteroid's surface. Hing and the Professor brought up the rear as the excited crowd jammed into the big supply lock. "Now I am going to depressurize the lock, at the same time reducing the gravity to the one-tenth gee outside."

  Within moments, as the air was sucked out, Serge began to feel lighter.

  Gradually he decreased the gravity, until it matched that of the asteroid. "Is everyone okay?" he called, hearing muffled giggles and murmurings over the radio frequency. "Thumbs-up if everyone is A-okay!"

  Seventeen thumbs were raised, plus two Mizari tentacles. Serge smiled, seeing that Khuharkk' had solemnly raised both his thumbs on his right hand.

  Despite the many times he'd been out on the surface, Serge's pulse quickened, as it always did, when he keyed open the outer door. It was exciting but unnerving to think that the only thing standing between oneself and hard vacuum was a thin layer of plas-steel fabric.

  Glancing up, he was struck once again by how extraordinarily brilliant and alive the stars were, viewed through the faceplate of a spacesuit. Unwinking, they hovered like myriads of sapphires, rubies, sunstones, and diamonds, a scattered treasure so vibrantly close that Serge fancied he could stretch out his gloved hand and gather them up.

  "Please follow me," he said, starting forward. "Move slowly. Human students, flex your knees, keep them bent, and keep your feet fairly wide apart. .."

  At one-tenth gee Serge weighed only 6.53 kilos, but his body mass remained the same, so he moved carefully. The closest analogue was trying to walk underwater. Keeping his knees bent, he did a queer little step that was a cross between a skip and a shuffle as he led the way to the ship waiting for them a hundred meters away.

  The Morning Cry had once been a luxury vessel, designed to ferry passengers at sub-light speeds from the Heeyoon mother world to its six moons. Its engines were still in decent shape, but it was no longer pressurized--after the Heeyoons had donated it, Janet Rodriguez had stripped out the seats and substituted handholds and restraining straps to make more room for passengers.

  Serge reached the ship first, as he'd planned, and checked to see that everything was ready. It was, so he stood beside the ramp, beckoning his cautiously moving students forward.

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  "Look!" Hing, who was in the forefront of the column, suddenly pointed up.

  Serge followed her finger to see a ship emerging into realspace in a silent explosion of color. The sight was breathtakingly beautiful, and the visual image echoed inside Serge's head as rich chords--a sustained E-minor, then, as it dispersed into the blackness, an A-minor. He could see the notes on sheet music, hear the opening notes of a symphony, the Starburst Symphony . . .

  He'd heard it before, in his mind--first that opening chord would be a triumphant blare of trumpets, fortissimo, then the Woodwinds would come in to help the chord alter and fade, as the rainbow colors had faded--

  No! Serge thought angrily, looking back at his students, pushing the music and its siren lure away. No matter how he tried to forget, notes that he could no longer translate into beauty kept intruding into his mind, his heart. His mouth a grim slash, he forced himself to concentrate on his students, helping each of them up the ramp until all were safely aboard.

  Once all the students were belted into place, Serge turned off his radio and touched his helmet to Hing's so they could speak privately. "If you would like to ride up front, it is cramped, but the view is spectacular."

  She hesitated, and for a moment he was afraid that he'd overstepped, but then she smiled, nodded, and followed him into the control cockpit. "This will be close quarters," he apologized as they squeezed in together. "This cabin was designed for one Heeyoon pilot."

  There was just room enough for her to squat down and brace herself beside the pilot's seat. Serge had to wriggle to fit into it; it was designed for a Heeyoon's narrower hindquarters, padded and shaped to fit people who had tails. But he was used to the old ship. Responsive to his commands, the Morning Cry rose obediently on her belly-jets, hovered some twenty meters above the surface, then glided forward over the slagged, crater-pocked terrain.

  Hing leaned forward to peer out of the viewport, watching the surface as the running lights spotlighted it in quick flashes of reddish-brown, gray, and black slag. "It's hard to believe that living things once grew down there," she said softly. "Have you found any fossils of large animals dating back to when this asteroid was part of a planet?"

  "A few," Serge replied. "The plant and sea life had progressed to a level similar to Earth's during the Miocene. We found tiny charred and fused bone fragments in the slag covering the cave floor. Nothing large enough to give us a picture of the creature."

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  In the distance he could make out the Lamont Cliffs, visible only because their jagged edges blocked out the stars on the eerily close horizon. "Fused bone fragments?" Hing's voice held surprise. "Oh! Burned and fused during the comet's impact, you mean."

  "That, too," Serge replied. "But last week Greyshine discovered that someone--presumably the Lost Colony--deliberately vaporized the top soil and rock levels in the caverns, smoothing them out."

  "Which would destroy any fossils."

  "On the top levels, yes. Besides," he added, "Greyshine and I are archaeologists, not paleontologists. If the Mizari change their minds and send a complete team to investigate, one of them will undoubtedly be someone with fossil experience, someone who will be able to tell more than we can from those fragments. Until that time, we must confine ourselves to collecting and preserving them."

  "Change their minds?" Despite his effort to keep it level, she'd heard the bitterness that tinged his voice.

  "There is a good chance that the Mizari Archaeological Society will not fund the dig further .. . c'est bien dommage," he admitted heavily. "They are sending Esteemed Rizzshor and one assistant to make an evaluation. If they decide against us. .." he trailed off.

  She was distressed for him. "Oh, Serge, I know how disappointed you must be! You were counting on the Mizari to help, weren't you?"

  "We were," he replied, struggling not to sound curt. It was not easy for him to talk about something he felt so strongly about, but An his sessions with Rob Gable in the past months, he'd painfully learned that if you expected people to share with you, you had to start by giving something of yourself. "But it may not be the end-- Jeffrey Morrow has promised to give us some funding personally, so we can continue, at least for the moment. We will be opening up more caverns, because the two we have worked on to date seem to be, as miners put it, 'played out.' "

  "I've got my fingers crossed for you," she promised, shifting restlessly in the cramped space.

  "We are nearly there," Serge said, pointing to the mountain peaks that were now blotting out wide swaths of stars. "But if your legs are tired, you could go back to the passenger cabin."

  "I'm okay," she assured him.

  Serge was tempted to ask her whether she wanted to sit on the arm of the seat beside him, but he resisted. He thought he was

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  making progress in getting back in Hing's good graces, and he didn't want to spoil it.

  "So, how is your play?" he asked, after a moment, changing the subject.

  "At the moment, we're still learning lines. The director's having academic problems, and he may have to drop out. That'll leave me holding the bag,"

  Hing said ruefully. 'Talk about bad timing!"

  "You would make a gifted director," he reassured her. "You have had a great deal of experience by now."

  "Maybe, but I'd rather make my directorial debut in something I don't have a part in," she said. "And this part, it's a real challenge! It may be the hardest I've ever done. It's difficult, playing somebody old and embittered. Mara is a character who won't l
et anyone get close to her. .. and now she's alone, and facing the end of her life, and she's beginning to regret, but she doesn't know how to reach out to others."

  Serge winced inwardly, wondering whether Hing was trying to twist the knife. Toward the end of their time together, she'd complained that he held people at arm's length, wouldn't let anyone get really close to him. She'd tried to persuade him to open up to her about his feelings, talk about his music, his lost hands, but he'd rejected every such attempt with stony silence . .. and worse.

  For a moment he tensed, but then, as Hing chattered on, giving him a complete character sketch of Mara and her history, Serge realized there were no hidden agendas in what she'd said; it was his own guilt that made him hear a silent comparison and accusation.

  Vainly, he racked his brain for some way to bring the conversation back to a more personal level when Hing lapsed into quiet once more. "By the way, how is Heather?" he said finally. What he really wanted to know was, "Are you seeing anyone?" but he couldn't figure out a way to make that question sound casual.

  "She's fine, except that environmental drill we had the night Khuharkk's John blew up really scared her. The poor kid went absolutely white when the alarm went off, and she's been subdued--for Heather--ever since."

  "It is frightening to truly realize that there is no air outside," Serge said, gesturing at the viewport. Slowing the Morning Cry, he checked his position on the computer map grid, heading the ship for McAuliffe Pass. Stars suddenly winked into view between Shrann Peak and Greendeer Peak--

  they would enter the pass in moments.

  "That's true," Hing said hesitantly, "but somehow I don't think 79

  that's the whole story. Heather's a funny kid . . . she talks a lot, but not much about things that really matter to her. I'm trying to be her friend, and I can tell she likes me, but she doesn't trust me. I don't think she trusts anyone--it's sad, a kid that age."