Brad trudged back to his shuttlecraft, through the lengthening shadows of evening, mulling over the tale of fear and death that was troubling Mnnx.
They’ve disobeyed their so-called Sky Masters, he thought. When presented with a way to survive the beasts from Beta, they allowed me to save them. When face-to-face with certain death, they chose life.
Okay. But now Mnnx is afraid that he’s broken some moral commandment. Afraid that their supernatural overlords are going to return and punish them.
How can I convince them that they’re terrified of phantoms? And what happens if they’re not phantoms? Mythology is based on reality, at heart. How did this legend of the Sky Masters get started?
Then one overwhelming fact rose up in Brad’s mind. How did those monsters from Beta develop the technology to fly here during the planets’ closest approach? Those egg-shaped spacecraft aren’t mythology. They’re high technology.
What happened to these people? What’s going to happen to them—and to us?
* * *
It was fully night by the time Brad reached the crippled shuttlecraft. In starlit darkness he scrambled up the tree trunk that served as his ladder and ducked through the air lock’s outer hatch.
Turning to look out at the quietly peaceful night, he saw a point of light rising in the star-flecked sky. The starship, he realized. It’s in orbit, only a few hundred kilometers away. Felicia’s there.
As he made his way through the inner air lock chamber and along the tilted passageway that led to his quarters, Brad also realized that Kosoff and Littlejohn and all the others were aboard the starship, too. The whole chain of command, ready to look over his shoulder, ready to second-guess his decisions, ready to take control of his life.
He went past his narrow sleeping chamber and straight to the cockpit. Sliding into the only chair there, he called, “Emcee, connect me with Felicia, please. Private and personal.”
Felicia’s image took form in the holographic display. She was in their quarters, on the couch in their sitting room. Waiting for me, Brad thought.
“Hi,” he said, feeling awkward and happy at the same time.
“Hello, Brad.”
“You’re here.”
“Yes, we established orbit a few hours ago.”
“I saw the ship overhead.”
Felicia smiled. “Captain Desai told me he’ll send a shuttle down to pick you up tomorrow morning.”
“What time is it aboard the ship now?”
“Nineteen hundred hours, almost. We’ve adjusted ship’s time to agree with your time on the ground. It’s costing us four hours of sleep tonight.”
“Sorry about that,” he said, feeling slightly inane.
“It’s all right,” Felicia replied, the corners of her lips curving upward slightly. “Tomorrow we’ll have a regular night, full time. The two of us.”
Brad could feel his own face breaking into a wide, cheery grin. “We sure will.”
* * *
Emcee woke Brad just as sunrise gleamed over the mountain ridgeline.
“Captain Desai is coming in person to bring you back to Odysseus,” the master computer announced. “Arrival in two hours.”
Snapping awake, Brad pushed himself to a sitting position on the bunk. Its sheet had somehow twisted itself around his body. As he disentangled himself, he recalled that he had dreamed while he slept, but it wasn’t the old nightmare that had plagued him. He couldn’t remember what his dream had been; the harder he tried to recall it, the more it melted out of his memory.
Exactly two hours later Brad stood at the foot of his improvised ladder and watched a shuttlecraft glide over the distant mountains, white contrails trailing off its wingtips. It flew down the length of the meadow, banked gracefully at its far end, then lowered its landing gear and came in for a flawlessly smooth landing.
And two hours after that, approximately, Brad stood before Kosoff’s desk. Littlejohn sat in front of the desk, beaming up at Brad like a proud father. Kosoff’s face, though, looked grimly unhappy.
“You look slimmer,” Kosoff said.
“And tanner,” added Littlejohn, smiling.
“You’d better get Yamagata to—”
Brad interrupted, “I had a preliminary medical scan during the flight up here. Dr. Yamagata said I’m in good health.”
Kosoff h’mphed. “You should get a complete physical exam.”
“Yessir.”
“I suppose you know you’ve made a shambles out of the mission protocol,” Kosoff rumbled.
“Could we talk about that later, please?” Brad said. “I’d like to see my wife.”
Littlejohn’s eyes flicked to the office’s side door. “She’s in the next room, waiting—”
“Excuse me,” Brad said as he bolted toward the door. “I’ll make a full report to you tomorrow, first thing.”
Kosoff watched, open-mouthed, as Brad opened the door and rushed into Felicia’s waiting arms.
Littlejohn chuckled lightly and turned back to Kosoff. “The course of true love,” he said.
Kosoff tried to scowl, but couldn’t quite manage to pull it off. “I’ll schedule a meeting of department heads for tomorrow morning,” he grumbled.
A broad grin splitting his dark face, Littlejohn suggested, “Better make it tomorrow afternoon. Give the lad a chance to recuperate before making his report.”
* * *
Brad awoke slowly, like a swimmer rising up to the surface of a deep pool. He saw that the bedroom was still dark, although the digital clock readout on the holo viewer said 08:54.
Turning slightly, he made out Felicia’s tousled head on the pillow next to his. She was sleeping soundly.
Brad tried to figure out how he could get out of bed without waking her. I told Kosoff I’d make my report to him this morning, he remembered. But instead of getting out of bed, he lightly ran his hand along Felicia’s back and across her bare rump.
She popped one eye open.
“Time to get up,” Brad said softly.
“Wrong,” she contradicted. “I gave Emcee orders to leave us alone until ten hundred.”
“But Kosoff—”
“He can wait.” And she wrapped an arm around Brad’s neck and pulled him to her.
Brad sighed contentedly. “I guess he’ll have to.”
* * *
When he finally got out of bed, Brad asked Emcee for any messages that had come through while he’d slept.
“There is only one,” the computer’s humanized image replied. “From Professor Kosoff. The meeting of department heads to hear your personal report is scheduled for fourteen hundred hours, main conference room.”
Brad grinned at Emcee and replied, “Please tell Professor Kosoff that I’ll be there. And thank him for scheduling the meeting at a reasonable hour.”
After a long, luxurious hot shower and a breakfast of waffles slathered with oleomargarine and syrup, Brad tossed his bathrobe onto the thoroughly rumpled bed and pulled out of the closet a crisply pressed set of coveralls.
“First new set of clothes I’ve put on in weeks,” he said.
“You’re thinner,” Felicia said.
“Haven’t had any real food down there: just pills and prepackaged meals.”
She nodded. With a firm sense of purpose, she said, “I’ll take care of that.”
Brad hesitated, then told her, “I’m going back there as soon as I can.”
“I know. I’m going with you.”
“You…?”
“I’ll be part of the biology team. It’s all arranged.”
With a grin, Brad replied, “Fine. Wonderful.”