IGMS Issue 2 Page 15

  "Postelwaite, you okay?" I asked; and after a moment he answered.

  "Yeah, I'm okay. Gonna have a bit of a bump on my forehead, though. Forgot to pull my upper chest restraint tight."

  Out in the hallway I heard running and shouts -- and then the S.O. came on the horn.

  "That was the 'little bump' I told you all about," she said, and I swear she had a little chuckle in her voice, and I'm paranoid enough to think it was just for me. "I trust you all were strapped in as instructed." At this, Postelwaite groaned and made an amendment to Jameson's title, adding a 'B' to the end, that would live in Russell fame.

  But even Postelwaite forgot his woes a moment later when the S.O. added: "I'm happy to report that all systems are working. Ladies and gentlemen, we find ourselves at the beginning of a great adventure, and, hopefully, a successful mission. All chosen participants in Mission A please report to the bay in twenty minutes."

  At that moment a holo opened on our opposite wall, as it did in every compartment on the ship, and there was a collective gasp of wonder: there, floating like a bizarrely colored Earth, with bright blue oceans and dark brown, almost black, land masses, punctuated by brilliant Kelly green patches, was our destination, planet two of the Epsilon Eridani system. Epsilon Eridani itself, smaller and redder than Sol, lay in the background, a deep red eye looking baleful.

  "Think we'll find anything brainy on it?" I asked Postelwaite, but it was Koprowski who answered.

  "I don't know," he growled in his basso voice, "but they better as hell be polite."

  He jumped down from the top bunk at that moment, and I saw him slip a long length of heavy-looking pipe into the leg pocket of his work overalls. He winked at me. "I know about the reg on no weapons," he said. "And if anybody asks, this ain't a weapon -- it's a toothbrush."

  I was at the entry to the docking bay fifteen minutes early, and still had to wait on line. There were eight of us going, I saw -- the S.O. was already inside and with her was her second, Bill Felder, a grin on his face as usual, and two of the other Specialist One A's: Marjorie O'Hearn, and Rasha Pikal. Rasha had something to do with biology and planetary atmospheres, and played an excellent game of chess. Marjorie was the closest thing I had to competition on the ship; she was the equivalent of a publicist, and I'd already had a couple of run-ins with her over what I considered censorship of the press. But she was a pretty good sort, and so far we hadn't come to blows.

  Koprowski and three other techs rounded out the crew. Two of them bore equipment; Koprowski and the remaining crewman were engine specialists.

  As I passed the S.O. into the shuttle I cracked, "We in for any more bumps, Cap?"

  She pretended not the hear me, but Bill Felder laughed for both of them. "Just a routine ride this time, Mr. Fowler," he said. "Hopefully I'll put the shuttle down nice and easy."

  "I'm counting on it," I said.

  Inside, the shuttle was almost spacious compared to the cramped quarters of the Russell. My seat was padded, and there was even a footrest. I made sure to strap myself in tightly, though.

  My nearest seat mate, Rasha Pikal, was asleep, which was a shame, because I was in the mood for a game of chess -- he had already beat me twice to my one win.

  The ride down, which took a thousand times as long as the Russell's trip through the wormhole, was, as advertised, strictly routine. There was a little turbulence as we hit E-E 2's atmosphere, but Felder did as promised and put the boat down as gentle as a breath. I was out of my seat and toward the lock before Jameson's voice, sounding more and more like a true captain every minute, barked over the horn, "All personnel are to stay put until we finish atmospheric testing. Then, Mr. Pikal and I will disembark."

  "C'mon, c'mon," I muttered, returning to my seat. "You tested the damned atmosphere from the Russell."

  "Might be very different at ground level," Pikal said, yawning himself awake now. His coffee-colored face was impassive. "Pockets of toxins and such."

  "Whatever. You owe me a game of chess."

  Pikal smiled. "Perhaps you are still regretting that Queen to Rook 5 move you made yesterday?"

  "It wasn't that dumb --"

  "It was exceedingly dumb," Pikal replied, and then he laughed. "If it was a good move, I'll look forward to you making it again."

  I answered sourly: "Like I said: whatever."

  He grinned. "It would be my pleasure to beat you a third time."

  "Don't be so sure --"

  Jameson's voice intruded into my about-to-be foul language. "Mr. Pikal, please report to the air lock."

  "That's my cue!" Pikal said, moving past me.

  It was the last I ever saw of him.

  We waited an hour, twenty minutes past the prescribed time, for Pikal and the cap to return. When they didn't, and when Felder couldn't raise them on either their direct link or the backup radio, he formed a rescue party made up of himself and two of the techs, including Koprowski. I noticed that one of the other techs, a guy named Quint, was paying a lot of attention to a section of the shuttle behind the pilot seating that looked a lot like a gunnery console; it had been sealed shut till now.

  Seeing my interest, Felder said, "We've got more in the way of protection than the Council liked to let on. It was politic to keep it quiet. I assume you'll keep it quiet for now, also."

  "Only too happy," I said, probably revealing more of my relief than I'd intended. I'd been truly afraid we'd come on this mission naked as a jaybird, as far as armaments were concerned.

  "And the Russell?" I asked.

  "Plenty there, if needed," he answered. He added quickly, "We hope it's not needed, of course."

  "Of course."

  He surprised me by saying, "Want to come along?"

  "You don't need to ask twice!" I replied, retrieving my recording equipment and meeting him two minutes later at the lock.

  I sidled up to Koprowski as the outer lock door slid open and said, "Still got your toothbrush?"

  His grin spread from ear to ear. "I always worry about my teeth."

  "Well, worry about mine, too."

  He kept his grin as we stepped out.

  It was greener -- and much brighter -- than I thought it would be. Apparently we'd landed in one of the 'vegetation oasis,' as Pikal had dubbed the green sections visible from orbit. The black patches, he'd explained, were analogous to sand, only more oxidized. "Like former organic areas that had been burned out," he'd said.

  The sky was a sickly yellow-blue, with high, thin, wispy clouds. The ground was loamy and loose underfoot. But it was the trees that startled me. In no way could this be called a jungle -- the vegetation was set too wide apart -- but the trees were the most vivid shade of green I've ever seen, and the same color all the way from their boles up their smooth trunks to the tips of their broccoli-like leaf bunches, a couple of hundred feet in the air.

  "Never did like broccoli," I said, but no one laughed. Felder was busy with one of the techs, pointing off into the thickest part of the 'forest'.

  "Weren't the cap and Pikal being scanned from the The Russell?" I asked.

  Without turning around, Felder replied, "Of course. One moment they were . . . there," he pointed to an area between two huge plants that was slightly darker than the surrounding area, "and then they were gone."

  "I don't like that word: gone," I said.

  "Neither do I," Felder answered.

  It was then we heard shouts for help.

  It was undeniably Jameson's voice, but it sounded as if it came from behind a wall. Koprowski instantly had his 'toothbrush' out. He took two steps forward, determined anger on his face -- and then he disappeared. There was a lightning quick blur where he had been, and then we heard his own voice added to that of the cap, sounding as if it was close, yet far away.

  "Did you record that?" Felder said to the tech standing beside him.

  "Got it," the tech said. "But I'm damned if I know what it means. According to this, Koprowski is right where he was, only ten feet lower."
<
br />   Felder started to say something -- but then everything went haywire around me.

  One moment I was looking at Bill Felder and the tech, and then the next I was surrounded by wet, sticky darkness. There was something oddly soothing about it -- like being held in your mother's arms -- but that didn't stop me from yelling my head off.

  The next instant I was on my back, there was a hissing sound, the smell of baking bread, and I saw daylight again.

  "What the --" I began, spitting a resinous material out of my mouth, along with every invective I could think of, and a few I made up along the way.

  A hand helped me up, and then dropped me again. Through rheumy eyes I saw that it was one of the techs, and he was making disgusted sounds.

  "Help him up, Simmons," Felder's voice ordered.

  "But he's a mess, Sir!"

  "Your service record will be a mess if you don't do what I say."

  A moment later, amidst grumbling from Simmons, I was on my feet and wiping my eyes clear of the green goo that covered me.

  At my feet, split open, lay something that looked a lot like a huge pea pod with a severed stem.

  "Was I in that?" I said.

  Felder answered, "It had you in a tenth of a second. If we hadn't cued the shuttle to scan for something that quick, it would have had you underground by now."

  "I take it that's where the cap and Koprowski and Rasha are?"

  "Not Rasha," Felder answered grimly. I then saw two techs bundling up a d-bag. Before I could ask, Felder answered my question. "Cut him cleanly in half. His reaction time was too good. He must have tried to jump out of the pod as it was closing around him. Part of him was up here, behind that nearest tree. The other part ended up . . ." He looked at the ground, and I winced.

  I knelt down, running my finger lightly across the open lip of the pea pod I had been in. It was sharp as a knife and blade hard. At the stem end, where it had been severed by a beamer from the shuttle, was the remains of a tough, braided cord made of vegetable matter.

  "I want everyone back to the shuttle," Felder ordered, to my surprise.

  "But what about --?"

  "We know where they are, we know they're alive," he answered. "The Russell's already scanned the substance in these pods, and it's not digestive in nature, so they're not being eaten alive." Again he anticipated my next question. "Now we have to figure out how to get to them."

  To my further surprise, Felder took the shuttle back to the Russell. It was almost a full day before I heard anything more about Jameson and Koprowski. During that time I busied myself with getting the rest of the goo off whatever parts of my anatomy hadn't been protected by my jumpsuit, not easy in the cramped, stingy showers on the Russell, and sending a preliminary report off by drone to my network. The drone would take a roundabout route of wormholes, and be back on Earth in a month. It would take us that long to get home ourselves, since wormholes were all one way, and we couldn't go back the way we'd come. Felder's own preliminary report was on the same drone. From what I heard, it was not a happy one. What was left of Rasha Pikal, whose chess game and laughter I already missed, would be sent home later for burial, on one of the larger, scheduled drones.

  It was during this period of maddening inaction that the singing began. I don't know exactly how it started, but once it did start it became legend, and forever part of the lore of the Russell.

  And though I don't know how it started, I sure as hell know who started it.

  Bella Post was a tech second class with a voice like a bellows. She wasn't big in the usual sense, actually she was no taller than five feet and slim as your arm, but she was big in the lungs, and you could hear her throughout whatever deck she happened to be on. She claimed later she didn't write the first song, but no one else stepped up to take credit, so it stuck with her. Someone of an historical bent told me it was like the sea shanties swabbies used to sing in the old Earth navies, and it became the usual thing to see Post, or a group of other techs up to the task, break out into it while working:

  "The gals and guys of Number One

  Are pledged to visit any sun!

  We're ready to meet with anyone who

  Wants to join our little zoo!

  We techs are apt to groan and gripe --

  We say: 'Speak softly -- and carry a big pipe!"

  That last bit, of course, in honor of Koprowski, though I did notice that a lot of techs seemed to have that same long pocket sewed into the leg of their coveralls. Speaking of Koprowski: it was finally decided that the only way to go after him and the cap was to allow three or four heavily armed personnel to be captured by pea pods. It had been attempted to excavate the area where they had been taken, but just underneath the loamy soil, it was discovered, was an incredibly thick and resilient layer of vegetable fibers. The fibers could be cut by beamers, but the area almost instantly healed up again. Just under the surface, the entire planet was alive with plant life, to a depth of twenty feet. Epsilon Eridani Two was a huge artichoke. After some experimentation it was found that a small area could be cleared with heavy, sustained beamer fire. At first it was decided that with intensive, long-term fire the two captives might eventually be reached -- but it was Simmons who finally asked, "Isn't there a good chance we'd roast the S.O. and Koprowski along the way? Wouldn't it be quicker to go heavily armed, and let the pods take us down? Then we could just blast our way back up."

  That became the plan.

  Simmons's bright idea earned him a spot on the rescue team. It was an honor he didn't relish. After Felder and Jim Postelwaite and Quint, who, it turned out, could handle the biggest beamer rifle we carried, the last spot went to me over Marjorie O'Hearn, after I threatened to report terrible things about Felder and the rest of the crew if he didn't choose me over their Council publicity hack.

  The shuttle had a full complement this time. Now, there was no politically correct language about weaponry. We were armed to the teeth. Inside the lightweight bio suit with oxygen compliment I wore, I carried everything but an old fashioned bazooka. I even did away with my pocket knife in favor of something Simmons provided me with that looked like a machete.

  "Just keep it in the sheath or you'll cut yourself open like a melon," he said.

  I noticed he had his own machete, as well as his Koprowski-style toothbrush stowed in his coveralls.

  But we didn't get to use any of it. As soon as we landed, Epsilon Eridani Two simply swallowed us up whole, shuttle and all. A lightning quick pod larger than the shuttle (I watched the slo-mo pictures later) shot up out of the ground, grabbed us like an elephant taking a peanut, and yanked us down into the planet.

  We quickly discovered why communications with the cap had been severed. We heard her yelling her head off as soon as we came to a halt. Which meant there was nothing wrong with her equipment, only with the layer of matter above us, which proved to be impenetrable to every communications frequency, up and down the spectrum.

  "Gentlemen," Felder announced, "we are on our own. The Russell, as per contingency plans, will send another shuttle, but it will not land. It will attempt to beamer the area around us, but we know that will take some time and may not free us in the end. So . . ."

  "Slice and dice," Simmons said, opening his own bio suit and hauling out his machete.

  Felder kept the line open so we could all hear his conversation with the cap. Mostly, she was steamed, if you'll pardon the pun, but when she calmed down she was able to provide us with some information of value.

  "I haven't been able to move much in the last twenty four hours," she said. "I was covered in a sticky green substance that eventually dried and flaked away, and the pod that snatched me opened on its own. But that left me in a green box, perfectly formed out of vegetation, just tall enough to stand in. The vegetation will move out of your way, but only when it wants to. Mostly, up to this point, it's wanted to keep me where I am. I can hear Koprowski cursing a blue streak not ten feet from me, but I haven't been able to get to him."

&
nbsp; "We came fully loaded with weapons," Felder reported.

  "Well, it's a funny thing -- they might not be of much use to you. I had a small burner, the kind you use to light camp fires, and when I lit it the green matter moved away from the heat in a hurry. But then, just as if it was curious, it crept slowly back and then . . ."

  We waited, and then Felder said, "S.O.?"

  She laughed. "If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes I wouldn't believe it. I'm still not sure I do. A hand formed out of the green matter. Then it reached out with two fingers and snuffed the flame."

  "You said a hand?"

  Again the laugh. "That's what I said, Bill. There were . . . other manifestations, also. When I got so tired I thought I'd have to sleep standing up and started to sag, a spot opened up for me, a kind of floor. I was able to sleep horizontally. And when I woke up . . ."

  We all waited.

  "Well," she continued, "there was a figure of some sort leaning over me. A human figure, made of green matter. When I yelped, it instantly melted back into the wall of green. I spent most of today trying to coax it back out, but no soap."

  "Anything else?" Felder asked, but at that moment we heard Koprowski's invective-filled voice.

  "Finally!" he said, after the cursing subsided. "Do you know how long I've been calling you apes?"

  "Since you were captured, I imagine," Felder answered. " Radio frequencies don't penetrate to the surface. I'd guess we'd find some metal, possibly lead, mixed in with this vegetable matter."

  "Wonderful! And here I am -- hey! Cut that out! I said cut that out!"

  There followed what sounded like giggling.

  Felder said, "Koprowski, you all right?"

  The giggling intensified into blurts of laughter. "Stop it, dammit! I tol' you before --!"

  "Koprowski!"

  "They been botherin' me since I got down here, Mr. Felder! Make 'em stop -- make 'em stop!"