To The Stars

There was some confusion as to what he meant, but no confusion when Chun repeated the orders at the top of his lungs. They moved quickly. Jan wiped his gloves on the stubble then climbed on top of the harvester. A sound of loud fluttering announced the arrival of the Big Hook. The big copter, the largest on the planet, rumbled up and hovered overhead. Jan took his radio from his belt and issued orders. A square opening appeared in the belly and a lifting bar dropped slowly down at the end of the cable. The downdraft of the rotors beat at Jan as he placed the bar carefully, then set the large hooks, one by one, into the edge of the lumper. If the creature felt the sharp steel in its flesh, it gave no indication. When the hooks were set to his satisfaction, Jan circled his hand over his head and the Big Hook began to slowly lift.

Following his directions, the pilot put tension on the cable, then began carefully to reel it in. The hooks sank deep and the lumper began to shiver with a rippling motion. This was the bad time. If it jumped now it could wreck the copter. But the edge came up, higher and higher, until the moist white underside was two meters in the air. Jan chopped with his hand and the Big Hook moved slowly away, towing the edge of the creature behind it level with the ground. It was like taking a blanket by the edge and turning it back. Smoothly and easily the lumper rolled until it was lying on its back on the ground, its underside a great expanse of glistening white flesh.

In a moment it changed, as the thousands of legs shot suddenly into the air, an instantly grown forest of pale limbs. They stood straight up for long seconds, then slowly dropped back to rest.

“It’s harmless now,” Jan said. “It can’t get off its back.”

“Now you will kill it,” Chun Taekeng said warmly.

Jan kept the distaste from his voice. “No, we don’t want to do that. I don’t think you really want seven tonnes of rotting flesh in your field. We’ll leave it there for now. The harvester is more important:’ He radioed the Big Hook to land, then detached the lumper from the lift bar.

There was a bag of soda ash in the copter, kept there for just this kind of emergency. There was always some kind of lumper trouble. He climbed on top of the harvester again and threw handfuls of soda ash into the pools of acid. There did not seem to be much pitting, but there could be trouble inside if the acid had dripped into the machinery. He would have to start taking the plates off at once. A number of the covers were buckled and some of the bogie wheels torn free, so that it had shed one track. It would be a big job.

With the one track still powered, and four trucks towing the other side, he managed to back the harvester a good two meters away from the lumper. Under the critical eye, and even more critical comments, of Chun Taekeng, he had the Big Hook drag the lumper into position and turn it over.

“Leave the ugly beast here! Kill it, bury it! Now it is right side up again and will jump again and kill us all.”

“No it won’t,” Jan said. “It can only move in one direction, you saw how the legs were aligned. When it jumps again it will be headed back for the wastelands.”

“You can’t be sure, accurate…”

“Accurate enough. I can’t aim it like a gun, if that’s what you mean. But when it goes it is going out of here.”

Right on cue the lumper jumped. It had no reasoning power and no emotions. But it did have a complex set of chemical triggers. They must all have been activated by the rough handling it had had, the apparent reversal of gravity, burning, and having pieces removed. There was a heavy thud as all the legs kicked out at once. Some of the women screamed and even Chun Taekeng gasped and fell back.

The immense form was hurled into the air, soaring high. It cleared the field and the sensor beams and fell heavily into the sand outside. A heavy cloud of dust rolled out on all sides of it.

Jan took his toolbox from the copter and set to work on the harvester, pleased to lose himself in his work. As soon as he did this, when he was left alone, his thoughts returned instantly to the ships. He was tired of thinking about them and talking about them, but he could not forget them. No one could forget them.

Two

“I don’t want to talk about the ships,” Alzbeta Mahrova said. “That’s all anyone ever talks about now.

She sat on the bench on the public way, very close to Jan with the length of her thigh pressed hard against his. He could feel the warmth of her body through the thin fabric of her dress and the cloth of his coveralls. He wrung his hands tightly together so that the tendons stood out like cables in his wrists. This was as close as he was ever going to get to her, here on this planet. He looked at her out of the corners of his eyes; the smooth tanned skin of her arms, the black hair to her shoulders, her eyes wide and dark too, her breasts…