Half an hour later Chastain broke the silence: "Hey Mac, what's a coonskin cap?"
She had to admit it; the generator made sense.
* * *
Chapter 10
Third Landing
"Take the generator!" Buccari shouted. "That's crazy!" She and Quinn had retired to the mess decks, joining Rhodes and leaving Hudson on the flight deck. Gunner Wilson was on watch in the communications center.
"We need a power source," Quinn said patiently. "Nearly everyone's down and safe. Now's an acceptable time to take risks. With fuel from the lander we can keep the generator running for years. We can recharge our electrical equipment. We can generate heat. We can keep some level of civilized behavior. It'll be a long time before we're rescued, and Shannon says it's cold down there."
"Commander, I understand," Buccari debated. "That's what I wanted in the first place, but...you were right. The lander is unreliable. I say we load everyone in the lander and get down on the planet while we can. It's too risky to try two runs."
"The lander has gone through a full diagnostic, and we fixed everything that was possibly broken. Right, Virgil?"
"We found all sorts of discrepancies. Full maintenance checks always do," the engineer declared. "We switched out the blaster control. All systems look good."
"All systems look good," Quinn cajoled, his tone revealing his impatience. "Enough discussion. Two more flights, Lieutenant."
"Yes, sir," Buccari said, struggling to sound supportive. "The sooner we try it out, the sooner we'll know what we're up against." She noticed Quinn's fatigue. His eyes had dark circles. His features were haggard, his head and face stubble grizzled and scruffy.
"Two more flights," Quinn repeated with less of an edge. "Virgil and I will keep this hulk alive for a few more orbits. You and Jones take Chief Wilson and Mr. Hudson down with the generator. I have a feeling we will be in for a long, cold winter."
MacArthur and Chastain broke through the last line of brambles. Their burgeoning little watercourse spilled out of its defile and was soon lost in a wide, shallow, gravel-rattling flow. Large bars and shoals built up by previous floods were strung at irregular intervals across the valley bottom. Many of the buildups had reverted to solid land, overgrown with trees and underbrush. Smooth stones squeaked beneath their boots.
"Don't you want to make camp?" Chastain asked.
MacArthur checked the skies, his shoulder pain dulled by the long day's efforts. The overcast was darker. Winds had shifted from the south. The weather had changed.
"Let's keep moving," MacArthur said. "Looks like rain, and I don't want this river rising any higher. I figure no more than four or five kilometers to high ground." He crunched across gravel. The first finger of the river was wide but barely ankle deep.
"This won't be hard to cross," Chastain said. "It's a bunch of shallow rivers."
"Yeah," MacArthur grunted, looking into the distance. A fine mist hung in the air. A low rumbling intruded into his awareness. The next channel was deeper and more powerful but only paces across. They lifted their packs overhead and forded the opaque green-gray torrent. Chilled by the icy waters, the Marines trudged onward, crossing more and more fingers of river. In midvalley they heard a double sonic boom.
"They're still there," Chastain said, looking upwards. MacArthur said nothing, staring futilely into the clouds. The noise signified the presence of other humans and paradoxically made the Marine feel even lonelier. MacArthur moved out with renewed vigor.
* * *
Shannon stood on the high plateau and stared into the overcast. Lee, with her medical equipment, stood at his side. The double sonic boom had echoed overhead ten minutes earlier—the lander should be on final. There it was—a black pinpoint against gray clouds, growing larger. He passed the alert over helmet radio. He had to get the cargo off fast; the weather was deteriorating.
The lander had definition; he made out the cruciform shape of wings and tail hanging in the air, rock-steady on glide slope; magically it grew larger. Closer, it appeared to settle and drift to the right, his offset from the landing point generating enough parallax to provide perspective. The EPL commenced landing transition, slowly raising nose attitude and bleeding off airspeed. Huge flaps deployed. The craft approached in a silent, graceful swoop. But then the nose of the craft jerked sideways. The lander oscillated back and forth, a cobra with its hood fully deployed. Something was wrong!
* * *
Buccari was ready. She felt the renegade inputs. They had come earlier this time, before main engine firing. She had two options: abort the landing—hit full igniters and blast back into orbit—or ride it in, hoping the retro programs would work correctly while she overrode the controls. Training and logic said to wave off and return to the corvette. Intuition told her the lander was only going to behave worse the next time. In a fraction of a second she chose to fly the landing and get those on board safely down.