JAYDIUM
by Deborah J. Ross, writing as Deborah Wheeler
Chapter 5
For a moment Eril considered telling
her the truth, that he had as much chance of getting into the Corps without her
as she had getting off Stayman without him. In the mood she was in, she=d
probably tell him to stuff a comet up his pitouchee. The only thing to
do was to keep his mouth shut and wait for another opening. He hoped he=d
get one.
Kithri picked up the water bottle, took
a long swallow and then dropped it, sputtering. She pointed down the tunnel.
As he followed her gesture, Eril=s
mouth went electrically dry. The last time he=d looked, the tunnel had been empty
except for the two of them and the scrubjet. Now a man-shaped mist hovered in
the middle of the >hole,
one moment diaphanous, then condensing into near solidity. In stark contrast to
the rosy glow of the partly-sealed jaydium, it was a clear, untinted gray. Eril
made out a bulbous head, two arms, and two splayed-out legs. He thought he saw
markings on the head section, but they faded so quickly he could not be sure.
"What the hell is that?"
Kithri whispered. "I=ve
been running these tunnels for years, and I=ve never seen anything like it."
"Space ghost," he said,
dredging his memory. "They=re
sighted along the old interstellar routes. There are only about six or seven
documented cases known, never this close to a planet. By our best guess, they=re
relics of early attempts to exceed the speed of light. Residues of energy that
just happen to be shaped like humans. They probably don=t
actually exist in three-space."
As he spoke, the figure descended until
its feet seemed to touch the tunnel floor. For a moment it stood there,
motionless. Then it began to move. First one leg and then the other stretched
out and swung back as it drifted along in a mechanical parody of walking.
"Whatever you are," Kithri
called out, "you stay away from my ship!"
"There=s
no danger. The ghost can=t
interact with ordinary matter," Eril said with a confidence he did not
feel. It was one thing to listen to a lecture on "quasi-dimensional
oddities" when you were sitting safely in an Academy classroom, and quite
another to confront one in the middle of a jaydium tunnel.
"There=s
nothing to worry about," he repeated. "It=ll
dematerialize again in a moment." I hope.
Moving one awkward step at a time, the
shape continued to advance, not toward the two humans, but the scrubjet and its
precious cargo. Kithri jumped to her feet, as tense as a coiled dust-viper.
"I don=t
care what that thing is, if it messes with my >jet--"
Eril grabbed her hand. "You stay
here. I=m
going in for a better look before it disappears."
He shoved her bodily behind him and
took a couple of steps towards the diaphanous figure. For a moment he wondered
if her instincts might be right about the thing=s innocuous nature. A familiar thrill
shot down his spine, reminiscent of the moments before his first battle in
space. He=d
been just as terrified as all the other rookies, but he=d
never before felt so intensely, exhiliratingly alive.
Maybe Eades was right. Maybe he was
some kind of thrill junkie, a real glory-boy.
The ghost was close enough to the
scrubjet to touch it, still floating stiff‑legged, as if all its joints were
frozen. It stretched out one thick‑fingered hand, now clearly visible as it
took on greater and greater solidity. Eril saw the arm reach for the curved
side of Brushwacker--
"No!"
Kithri screamed. She shoved him aside with surprising force and lunged for the
scrubjet.
Eril grabbed her shoulders and jerked
her to a halt. She pushed against him, hard. He wrestled her around to face
him, holding her close to his chest. She wasn=t trying to hurt him, just struggling
ineffectively to get free.
"Calm down!" he said.
"There=s
nothing to be--"
Kithri twisted away and dropped her
weight, breaking his hold. Too late, Eril realized that in their struggle she=d
slipped his force whip out of its shoulder holster and was now pointing it at
the shape leaning towards her ship.
Ineffective, indeed!
He=d
never underestimate her like that again.
Aiming mostly by instinct, Kithri
pushed the force whip trigger, a broad, flat lever set in a protective groove.
Eril grabbed for the weapon, but the beam of the whip was already arcing
through space. It touched the phantom shape and exploded in a tiny noval flare.
Eril gasped as a shock wave rattled his
teeth. Tears blurred his vision, but not enough to obscure the figure still
looming towards the scrubjet.
Kithri raised the whip again, this time
holding it in both hands and carefully sighting down the barrel. Eril caught
her hand, pulling it backwards before she could press the firing stud again.
"You idiot, it=ll
go away on its own!"
"Skies damn you, Eril! If you won=t do
something about it, I will! I won=t
let that thing mess with my ship!"
Kithri yanked the force whip around
again. It lashed out, this time in a wide, unfocused sweep. She clung to the
firing button, despite Eril=s
attempts to pry her fingers free. The whip beam spiralled downwards to touch
the point of the specter=s
shoulder.
A blast of air and searing brightness,
many times more powerful than the first, stunned Eril. In an instant, the
breath was stolen from his lungs, the strength from his muscles. He staggered
under the sudden impact of Kithri=s
weight and they both went down.
The light gave way to enveloping
darkness. For an agonizing moment, Eril was afraid he=d
been blinded. He struggled to sit upright, blinking furiously.
"Of all the comet-brained things
to happen..." moaned Kithri.
"I warned you," Eril
grumbled. "We had no idea how the whip=s energy would interact with that
thing. I=ll
bet your damned heroics haven=t
even touched it. The ghost will disappear in its own sweet time when the
dimensional gap shifts. Meanwhile, there=s
no way we can duo that jaydium back now. We=re
half blind ‑‑ hardly fit to fly--or at least I am. Can you see anything yet?
"No...yes, I think that blob is >Wacker."
Her voice took on a new urgent tone. "Eril! There=s
something on the ground next to it."
Eril forced himself to concentrate on
the gray soup before his eyes, with very little success. "Don=t
trust your vision, not so soon after a blast like that. Our eyes were pretty
well dark-adapted‑‑"
"Stuff it!" She pulled
herself free and clambered to her feet. "There is something.
Something that wasn=t
there before."
Eril=s vision cleared as he stumbled after
her towards the nebulous shape of the scrubjet. Tone-on-tone gray replaced
velvet black, slowly resolving into the outlines of objects. No rosy glow came
from the cut jaydium face. It must have become sealed under a layer of
protective ash, quicker than he=d
thought possible.
They were almost on top of the sprawled
figure before he was able to make it out. The thing was flat gray instead of
its previous luminous transparency. The bulbous head absorbed light without any
hint of gloss.
Eril touched it cautiously with the tip
of one boot. The surface yielded like stiffened cloth. His vision cleared a little
more and he saw--not a ghost, nor any inhuman figure--but a Terran spacesuit of
ancient design.
"There=s
someone inside!"
"He=s not a space ghost, that=s
for sure," came Kithri=s
voice from beside him. "But what--who is he?"
Without waiting for his answer, she
knelt down. Eril crouched beside her and began searching for the seals of the
globe helmet. In a few moments, he found the primitive lock‑clasp. As they
wrestled the helmet free of its moorings, he wondered what they would find
inside--a human spaceman, in all likelihood long dead--or something else, some
horrendous relic from the depths of space? A thrill raced along his nerves.
The opaque globe came free with a snap
and a burst of humid but not stale air. Inside was no desiccated corpse, but the
fully fleshed head of a living man, lolling in unconsciousness. Eril shoved the
helmet into Kithri=s
hands and ran his fingers along the man=s
neck. The flesh felt warm and resilient under his touch. "I=ve
found a pulse, slow but he=s
alive."
Kithri sat back on her heels.
"Where did he come from? How did he get from deep space to the middle of
this tunnel? And, more to the point, what are we going to do with him?"
"Take him back to Port
Ludlow," Eril said. "He seems stable enough to move. He=s
breathing regularly and his pulse is steady. Do we have room for him in the
hold?"
Kithri considered for a moment.
"We=ve
more than half a load of jaydium, but if we leave the sealing equipment here,
we can make it. It=ll
be a tight fit."
"Don=t worry. Our friend here is in no
position to object."
Kithri insisted on reorganizing Brushwacker=s
hold by herself. She managed to create a space large enough for the spaceman.
Together they lifted him in and strapped him in place.
As they flew back through the tunnel
maze at duo speed, Eril marvelled again at the sensitivity of Kithri=s
handling of the tiny ship. By all the powers of luck and space, he wasn=t
wrong in what a great team they=d
make! Look at the way they=d
gone into action together to detach the spaceman=s helmet. She might be impulsive, but
that was no crime. So was he. And to fly duo with her, not down some
cramped jaydium tunnel in a patched‑up scrubjet, but through the starfields in
a proper ship...
They burst from the tunnel into solar
brightness. Kithri cried aloud and dropped them jarringly out of duo.
The pain of Eril=s
watering eyes blanketed a fleeting moment of erotic backlash. He squinted
reflexively. The quality of the light was too vivid, as if somehow cleansed of
the omnipresent dust. He leaned forward and looked down over Kithri=s
shoulder.
No barren plain lay at the foot of the
Manitous, no endless expanse of rock and drought‑tortured scrub. No curling
plumes of dust where trails had carved through the fragile crust.
Forest.
Lush, exuberant green stretched as far
as his eyes could follow. Shade upon shade of it filled the bowl of the Plain
and spilled on to the sheer sides of the mountains. Trees massed so close and
dense they seemed to be a single growth.
"Eril..."
"I see it," he said in the
same hushed tone. "I see it. But I don=t believe it."
o0o
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