Resurgence

“Of course not.” Ben’s perky tone, rather than his words, added what do you think we are? “There’s plenty of other things to do before we’re ready to go outside. Lara?”

Fully suited, she moved again to the hatch and stared out. “I’m turning on external lights so we can add visuals to the sensor reports. When we go outside we can confirm the surface composition using chemical and physical tests.”

“That’s good, but it’s not just our immediate surroundings that I’m interested in.” Hans was still climbing into his own thermal suit, and making hard work of it. “We’ll be heading for a place about four kilometers away, directly ahead of the ship. Does the surface seem as smooth as it did from orbit?”

“Smooth, and firm enough to support our weight.” Lara Quistner was manipulating an external probe. “We can walk there if we want to.”

“Quite feasible, from the look of it.” Ben Blesh was crouched at a bank of instruments duplicating those at the pilot’s console. “It’s level for a couple of kilometers, until it rises into some kind of low hills. It’s too cold for sleds, so if we don’t walk we’ll need a vehicle with wheels. The ship is provided with at least two, for all-purpose surface work. Want me to go ahead and give the instructions to prepare one?”

“Not just yet.” Hans felt an irrational irritation. Ben Blesh and Lara Quistner were fast, efficient, cautious, cooperative, and doing everything right. Wasn’t that just what you hoped for from a survival team?

It was. Unfortunately, their high-quality performance had another implication: Hans and Darya were not going to be particularly useful.

But then, before that thought was complete, Hans understood why he had come to this world. His instincts were right after all. He hadn’t seen anything, but he knew what they were going to find.

It was all psychological, of course, but suddenly his bones didn’t ache and he felt twenty percent lighter.

“We take a vehicle,” he said. “Get one ready, Ben—and make sure that it comes equipped with a power digger.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN On Deadworld

The Savior was an all-purpose vehicle. Although its designers must have anticipated that its primary uses would be in space-based operations, the ship was well equipped to support surface work. Hans Rebka had a choice of two different types of wheeled vehicle. One was an open form, little more than a bare platform with seats, wheels, and a big cargo area. The other was a fully enclosed car complete with its own atmosphere, in which the riders did not need to wear suits and could eat, drink, or sleep in comfort.

Hans Rebka chose the more primitive form. Even wearing a suit, he felt more in touch with the frozen world when its air was only a fraction of a centimeter away from his skin. Had it not been for the digging equipment—a mystery in its own right—he would have preferred to walk.

If the others questioned his decision on choice of car, they did so in silence. No one spoke as they watched the digger, a hump-backed machine with the blue-black carapace of a gigantic spider, extrude multiple jointed legs and climb effortlessly onto the cargo rack at the back of the car. Rather less easily, Hans led the way to the front of the vehicle and they took their places on hard bucket seats. He engaged the engine and the car began to crawl across the frozen plain.

Above, unfamiliar star patterns twinkled slightly. There was still enough heat in the lower atmosphere to permit small-scale turbulence. Hans glanced at the air temperature sensor. It hovered at a balmy hundred and fifty degrees above absolute zero, far warmer than open space. With no heat arriving from the central star, the planet’s metallic core must contain a good deal of slowly decaying radioactive materials. Some warmth continued to seep out from the interior. The air sniffers confirmed the temperature reading. All traces of radon, xenon, and chlorine had precipitated out onto the frozen surface. Oxygen and nitrogen remained, along with a greater-than-expected abundance of argon and traces of krypton. Hans assumed that was a characteristic of the Sag Arm, rather than of this particular planet.