A Fire Upon the Deep

Mom sat in the hatchway, watching the land beyond them. She had Dad's old pistol.

"Anything?" Dad shouted to her.

"No. And Jefri doesn't see anything through the windows."

Dad walked around the cargo shell, inspecting the misused docking pylons. Every ten meters they stopped and set up an sound projector. That had been Johanna's idea. Besides Dad's gun, they really had no weapons. The projectors were accidental cargo, stuff from the infirmary. With a little programming, they could put out wild screeching all up and down the audio spectrum. It might be enough to scare off the local animals. Johanna followed her father, her eyes on the landscape, her nervousness giving way to awe. It was so beautiful, so cool. They were standing on a broad field, high in hills. Westward the hills fell toward straits and islands. To the north the ground ended abruptly at the edge of a wide valley; she could see waterfalls on the other side. The ground felt spongy beneath her feet. Their landing field was puckered into thousands of little hillocks, like waves caught in a still picture. Snow lay in timid patches across the higher hills. Johanna squinted north, into the sun. North?

"What time is it, Daddy?"

Olsndot laughed, still looking at the underside of the cargo shell. "Local midnight."

Johanna had been brought up in the middle latitudes of Straum. Most of her school field trips had been to space, where odd sun geometries were no big deal. Somehow she had never thought of such things happening on the ground… I mean, seeing the sun right over the top of the world.

The first order of business was to get half the coldsleep boxes out into the open, and rearrange those left aboard. Mom figured that the temperature problems would just about disappear then, even for the boxes left on board: "Having separate power supplies and venting will be an advantage now. The kids will all be safe. Johanna, you check Jefri's work on the ones inside, okay?…"

The second order of business would be to start a tracking program on the Relay system, and to set up ultralight communication. Johanna was a little afraid of that step. What would they learn? They already knew the High Lab had gone wicked and the disaster Mom predicted had begun.

How much of Straumli Realm was dead now? Everyone at the High Lab had thought they were doing so much good, and now… Don't think about it. Maybe the Relayers could help. Somewhere there must be people who could use what her folks had taken from the Lab.

They'd be rescued, and the rest of the kids would be revived. She'd been feeling guilty about that. Sure, Mom and Dad needed extra hands right at the end of the flight — and Johanna was one of the oldest children in the school. But it seemed wrong that she and Jefri were the only kids going into this with their eyes open. Coming down, she had felt her mother's fear. I bet they wanted us together, even if it was only for one last time. The landing had been truly dangerous, however easy Dad made it look. Johanna could see where the backsplash had gouged the hull; if any of that had gotten past the torch and into the exhaust chamber, they'd all be vapor now.

Almost half the coldsleep boxes were on the ground now, by the east side of the boat. Mom and Dad were spreading them out so the coolers would have no problem. Jefri was inside, checking if there were any other boxes that needed attention. He was a good kid when he wasn't a brat. She turned into the sunlight, felt the cool breeze flowing across the hill. She heard something that sounded like a birdcall.

Johanna was out by one of the sound projectors when the ambush happened. She had her dataset plugged to its control, and was busy giving it new directions. It showed how little they had left, that even her old dataset was important now. But Dad wanted something that would sweep through the broadest possible bandwidth, making plenty of racket all the way, but with big spikes every so often; Pink Olifaunt could certainly manage that.

"Johanna!" Mom's cry came simultaneous with the sound of breaking ceramic. The projector's bell came shattering down beside her. Johanna looked up. Something ripped through her chest just inside her shoulder, knocking her down. She stared stupidly at the shaft that stuck out of her. An arrow!

The west edge of their landing area was swarming with… things. Like wolves or dogs, but with long necks, they moved quickly forward, darting from hummock to hummock. Their pelts were the same gray green of the hillside, except near the haunches where she saw white and black. No, the green was clothing, jackets. Johanna was in shock, the pressure of the bolt through her chest not yet registering as pain. She had been thrown back against uptilted turf and for the moment had a view of the whole attack. She saw more arrows rise up, dark lines floating in the sky.