Resurgence

“The engines to permit atmospheric flight present no problems. They are high above ground level. If there is snow and ice to be cleared from them, it will be no more than an hour’s work after they have cooled down. There will also, of course, be the need to clear a runway for takeoff. The drive to return us to orbit is another matter. It sits on the underside of the ship. It must be cleared of packed snow and ice, which will be a lengthy task. That, however, is not my main concern. The efficiency of the thrustors is low until they have had a chance to warm up. In space this is no problem. Here, however, heat is constantly carried away by wind, and in such intense cold the Have-It-All may be unable to achieve orbit with its projected loading.”

“You’re talkin’ big stuff, right? We may need to lighten a lot, not just dump the odd person out of the hatch and overboard.”

“I fear so. Major fittings must be removed from the ship, and even then the attainment of orbit is questionable.”

“Lovely.” Nenda turned to Sinara. “Did you know, it took me twenty years to put all this together an’ get the Have-It-All the way I like it?” He did not expect an answer. “Come on. You an’ me have to leave.”

“But we only just arrived!”

“I know. But it’s gettin’ colder out there, an’ it’s still snowin’. Before things freeze solid an’ nobody can walk through it, we have to bring everybody over from the cone-house. After that, I give ’em the good news-bad news routine.”

“Isn’t it all bad news? You may have to strip your ship down to the bare bones, and even then you don’t think it will fly out of here. What’s the good news?”

“That everyone except Lara Quistner is still alive. If we work real hard an’ have a bit of luck, maybe we can keep it that way.”

* * *

Inside the cone-house Ben had merely been useless. On the way to the Have-It-All he became an out-and-out liability.

He had tried. When Nenda, backed by Julian Graves and Hans Rebka, stated that they must move to the comparative safety of the ship, Ben had closed his suit and stood up with the others. He followed Torran Veck. The outer leaves of the cone-house had frozen brittle and snapped off when they were pushed out of the way.

Torran headed straight for the ship, using the path made through the snow by Louis and Sinara. Ben intended to do the same. He had taken only half a dozen steps when the full force of the wind hit him. Without the strength to resist and unable to react quickly, he was blown sideways to lie full-length and helpless. He could not bite back a cry of pain as his rib cage twisted.

Torran turned at once. “Ben? Can you hear me?”

He spoke over the suit radio channel. Ben replied—he hoped it was calmly, “Yes. But I don’t think I can move.”

“Don’t even try. I want you to stiffen your suit all over and make it rigid. Can you do that?”

“I think so.”

“Do it now. Tally, Rebka, can you help? We need to turn him over. The back of his suit is smoother than the front.”

With his suit stiffened, Ben felt no pressure on his limbs or body. A few moments later he was on his back, staring upward. Tiny flakes of ice, hard as sand grains, pelted his faceplate. He found his body moving, head forward. The others were pushing him like a human sled toward the Have-It-All

. Except that it must be far harder than pushing a sled. In this temperature, the pressure of his suit on the snow would not cause the melting that made a sled’s movement so easy. His progress was a series of unpleasant bumps and jumps.

How much farther?

Ben gritted his teeth and told himself that it was much easier for him than for the ones who were half-pushing, half-carrying his body. He knew he had reached the Have-It-All only when one of Archimedes’s great tentacles coiled around his body and lifted him slowly and carefully through the hatch.

The Zardalu had to be freezing. He wore no suit. The whole entrance chamber was covered in snow, and it was almost as cold here as it was outside. Archimedes held his position, hoisting humans and aliens one by one from the frozen surface of the planet and into the ship.

When Louis Nenda, the last one, was lifted in, Kallik slammed the hatch closed. Archimedes, shivering all over and with his great body puckered into midnight-blue goosebumps, headed rapidly for the ship’s interior.

Nenda said, “Archie has the right idea. Come on, everyone will fit into the main conference room, provided Archie lies down along one of the walls. We can all take our suits off and sit in comfort.”

This time Ben was going to walk if it killed him. He didn’t know who to thank for getting him this far, but he moved with the others to the Have-It-All’s luxurious conference room. And if everyone’s suit was coming off, so was his. It took him three times as long as anyone else, but finally he was done and could ease himself into a seat.