Resurgence

Ben took little heed of that. He felt like a new man. And that new man could, at last, began the action that had formed in Ben’s mind as he listened to Louis Nenda in the conference room.

* * *

He headed back through the ship to locate his suit. On the way he passed Kallik and Archimedes, but the aliens were busy and gave him scarcely a glance. The conference room had its own terminal and display. Ben decided he wanted something closer to an exit. He found another terminal in a room next to the chamber where he had first entered. Rivulets from melted snow still pooled on the floor.

The message he left had to be fairly short and simple. He didn’t want someone to come in and catch him in the middle of writing it.

To all of you—and especially to Sinara. I am going outside again, but it is certainly not my intention to seek death in the cold and snow. Nothing could be more inconsistent with my training as a survival specialist. I am going because I believe that all the measures proposed will prove insufficient to raise the Have-It-All into orbit from the surface of Marglot.

I want to help, and I have something in mind. It is a long shot, but it is different in kind from everything else that you are doing. It can certainly do no harm to anyone except possibly me. Do not come looking for me; that would be a waste of time that you should devote to your own plans as stated. Although I do not expect to return, you will know if I succeed. Good luck to all of us, whatever happens. Ben Blesh.

He climbed into his suit and went through to the next room. He opened the hatch and looked down. It was a long drop, but into deep snow. He would suffer no injury. A bigger worry was the hatch. If he left it open when he jumped, freezing air would invade the inside of the ship, which needed all the warmth it could get.

The hatch could be raised upward. If he stood on the edge, grasped the top in both hands, and stepped out backwards, then he could snap the hatch closed as he dropped.

Ben stood for a long time before he moved. If he was wrong he would die a drawn-out and lonely death as his suit ran out of air, water, and warmth. If he was right he might die even less pleasantly. Not the greatest of options.

But waiting would not improve them. Ben opened the hatch, grasped the top, and stepped out backwards for the blind drop to the surface.

* * *

The snow had stopped falling, and for the first time the sky was cloudless. It was full daylight. All around Ben stood a frozen wonderland of pure and dazzling white. He stared up. Light reflected from the surface and scattered so intensely in the atmosphere that M-2 was invisible in the bright sky.

The drifted snow changed the appearance of everything. There was a real danger that he might lose his way. That would be the ultimate failure, a journey that ended not in tragedy but in farce.

Ben studied the faint line that marked earlier movements between the cone-house and the ship. It should be easy to go that far. Beyond the cone-house he saw a lumpy hummock that must be the walking car. It had not moved since its arrival with Ben and Darya aboard, and it ought to provide the bearing that he needed.

He followed the half-covered track to the cone-house. With no wind and with his improved condition, it was hard to believe that he had been unable to cover this short distance just an hour or two ago. He continued into the unmarked wilderness beyond. With snow so deep and a hardened crust of ice, this was much harder going. He told himself that he would only need to do it once.

Snow had drifted against the car. He stepped close and brushed one side clear to provide a line of sight up the hill. He fixed that vector in his suit’s locator and began to plow his way up the shallow incline.

The other side of the hill led down to the valley with the stream, now frozen and snow-covered. The road had vanished. Ben could see no landmarks at all. He was forced to operate from memory—unreliable memory, from a time when he had been strongly and continuously medicated. He walked, stopped, hesitated, started again, and finally halted. This was as good as he would get. He cleared a place big enough to sit, then used packed snow to make a steep little bank against which he could lean. He sat down. The scene had an eerie tranquillity and beauty. As far as the eye could see, the valley was an undisturbed white. Above it the cloudless sky shone greenish-blue.