The Eternal Enemy (36 page)

They entered a synchronous orbit, hovering above what looked like a major continent far below.

“Let's have some magnification,” Markos said.

De Sola increased magnification on the screens and they got their first glimpse of the Hydrans' home planet. Magnification was low, and clouds covered parts of the upper atmosphere, but they could still see the surface clearly enough to realize that the planet was no place they wanted to live.

Overpopulation had created nightmarish landscapes below. There were some grayish open areas where there were no buildings, but these were few and far between. The rest of the planet's surface seemed to be covered in buildings and craters. Markos assumed the craters were not naturally formed and were a result of some past war. It was hard to spot any vegetation, but he couldn't tell whether that was because of their distance from the surface or because there just wasn't much.

“They did a complete job on their home,” Markos said.

“That poor guy,” De Sola said.

“Who?”

“The one in Pod Three. If he landed on that piece of rock, there's not a chance he's still alive.”

Markos said nothing. He preferred that alternative. If the Terran in Pod 3 was still alive, or if there were a significant chance of his still being alive, the crew would insist on landing, on finding him, on getting him out of there. One look at the planet was enough for Markos. He might have considered setting down and doing some exploration and reconnaissance in hopes of finding something out about the Terran, but that had been before, when they'd been in deep space, when they weren't orbiting a ball of rock crammed full of Hydrans.

All he wanted to do now was dump the virus and take off. They had too many planets to visit, too many settlements to contaminate to risk everything for a man who might be dead.

“We don't know that,” McGowen said. “He could still be alive, and we're not leaving until we find out.”

Markos said nothing. Now was not the time for an argument or a discussion. If it looked like their mission would not be jeopardized, no lives lost, then he might consent to sending down a search party.

“Straka? You ready to launch?”

“Ready, Markos.”

“All right. Just dump the virus into the atmosphere and return to the ship.”

“Fine,” Straka said.

“I'm launching, too,” Katawba's voice said over the intercom.

“What for?” Markos asked.

“Backup. We still don't know if they have any defense.”

“Forget it, Katawba. You stay where you are.”

“What? I can't hear you, Markos. There must be something wrong with the intercom.”

“I said don't launch!”

“Can't hear you.”

Markos felt the tiny jolt of Straka's launch followed by a second launch, obviously Katawba's.

Wilhelm handled the controls with ease, dropping H-l into the Hydran atmosphere at the maximum safe speed. “You want to dump the virus first or head right for the surface?”

“The virus first,” Straka said.

We owe the Habers at least that much. Just in case we don't make it back, Straka thought.

“Are you going to inform Markos?” Wilhelm asked.

“Yes. After the virus is dumped.”

“Fine with me. Let's get it over with, then. We're low enough now.”

Straka took the vial and walked down the passageway to the top of the ramp. The bay door was still shut; she walked down the ramp and stood directly before it, making her body hard, attaching her feet to the deck. She waited a few minutes for Wilhelm to hit the switch opening the bay door. The door opened slowly, stopping about a meter up. Air rushed in, foul with heavy smells of decay, strong enough to permeate the hardened skin over her nose. Straka opened the vial and threw it to the wind. Within a few days the virus would be an integral part of the Hydran metabolism. There would be no more first-wave ships launched from this planet. There would be no more territorial wars. There would be no more genetic drive making these creatures insatiable expansionists.

The bay door closed, Wilhelm assuming that the seeding had been accomplished, and Straka released her foothold on the deck. She walked slowly back to the bridge.

Straka was a Haber. And Straka was a Terran. Her loyalties were divided, and she knew it. Markos had renounced his past, expatriated himself beyond anything Straka could understand. She knew that Markos would never let anything stand in the way of the mission's success and would have put a stop to what she, Wilhelm, and Katawba were about to do.

There was a human being down there, a fellow guinea pig of NASA 2, a first-wave explorer, who had had his life horribly changed beyond human comprehension. It had been changed by the Habers. The Habers had sent him there, and now the Habers were going to help him, make him whole, return his life, make amends. Whether Markos liked it or not.

Straka remembered too well the time she had spent on Aurianta locked in the pen, being treated worse than any animal would have been treated. No food. No water. And worst of all, no hope.

“Done?” Wilhelm asked.

Straka flashed red and settled into the other control seat.

“Katawba?” Straka asked into the microphone.

“Here,” Katawba said.

“Good. We're going down. Follow us by a kilometer. We're going to skim the surface and find a prisoner. Some smart Hydran who knows about the pod.”

“Right,” Katawba said.

“Get back up here,” Markos said.

“Forget it, Markos. We have to do this.”

“Don't be ridiculous! The three of you will get killed. What good will that do?”

“Don't make me disconnect the radio,” Straka said. “We're not returning until we know whether he's dead or alive. And if we find out where he is, we're going to investigate.”

“But the mission, Straka. The mission—”

“There are enough of you left aboard to complete the mission. We talked the whole thing over and we all decided on this course of action. We owe him this much, and we owe it to ourselves. The matter is settled.”

Markos said nothing.

“You told him,” Wilhelm said.

“I said I would. As soon as the virus was dumped.”

Straka would have wanted the others to do as much for her. If H-l were shot down, she would want Markos to send out a search party for her. If he were still alive, the man in Pod 3 was waiting, but who or what was he waiting for? NASA 2? Not a chance. NASA 2 had no idea as to where he was or what had happened. They had sent the
Paladin
out to investigate and establish contact with the alien race he had discovered at Tau Ceti. And part of their mission was to find out what had happened to the missing pod.

Straka wondered if the remnants of the geltank training had something to do with their drive to rescue this man.

“Five kilometers up,” Wilhelm said.

“Good. Start circling at the equator.”

Straka watched the ground rush by in the screen mounted before her. At this rate, she thought, we should be able to get around the planet in a few hours. But we're really going too fast to see much of anything … “Wilhelm? You want to cut back a little so I can see what we're flying over?”

Within a few seconds H-l had slowed to a more reasonable speed. The screens showed the same basic scene, over and over again. It reminded Straka of a treadmill; she started to think that H-l was hovering over a piece of moving ground connected to some continuous loop. Craters and buildings and buildings and more buildings, then a few craters, then the buildings again. No fields. No farmlands. No parks. None of the area seemed capable of industrial manufacturing either. As far as Straka could figure, they were passing over a continuous city that had seen better days.

“See anything?” Katawba asked.

“Tell him not yet,” Straka said, flashing a deep blue.

“Not yet,” Wilhelm said into the radio.

“Have you found a place to land yet?” Markos asked.

“No,” Wilhelm said. “We're not even sure there is such a thing on this planet.”

“How long do you want us to wait?” Markos asked.

“For what?” Wilhelm asked.

“For you.”

Wilhelm's eyes blazed white. “Hey, man, I really couldn't care less. These ships have their own tau drives and navigational systems, so whenever you're tired, just take off without us. Let me know where you're going and we'll catch up. Sooner or later.”

“Funny,” Markos said.

“Well? What the hell do you want from us? You want to get out of here faster, get your ass down here and help us out!”

Straka looked at Wilhelm with a tinge of yellow in her eyes. She motioned with her head for Wilhelm to kill the transmitter for a moment.

“You think he'll come down here?”

“Who knows? He's been so weird, there's no way of telling.”

“Turn on the radio,” Straka said. She spoke into the transmitter. “If you send some more help down here, we might just make it back alive.”

“I understand, Straka. I just don't like being blackmailed.”

“Join the club. Just send some help.”

“I'll do what I can.”

With four ships they had enough for a real landing party. If they could find a place to land. Straka started to feel hope growing inside.

28

Markos was starting to think Straka would never find a safe landing spot. From the command chair on the
Paladin,
Markos had been unable to spot a large enough clearing far enough away from a populated area. There should have been some farmlands if the Hydrans ate cultivated food, animal or vegetable. There were seas, large enough to hold other kinds of life-forms, but there was no indication that the Hydrans fished or farmed the oceans. The more Markos saw of the planet, the less he liked it. It made no sense at all.

But then, he was getting used to the idea of things not making sense. Getting into H-4 with Jackson made little sense. Trying to rescue the Terran without even knowing where he was or if he were still alive made even less sense.

“You think he's still alive?” Jackson asked.

“No. Not really.”

“I don't either.”

“Then what the hell are we doing here, Jackson?”

“We're here because we're not sure. And that's reason enough.”

Markos looked at him with a tinge of humor seeping through his eyes.

“Is it really? If he's still alive, how sane do you think he'll be?”

“I don't know. And you don't know either. And until we see him, if he's here, it's useless to talk about it.”

Markos turned away and stared into the screen. Straka's ship was only a few minutes away. Jackson's attitude was slightly disturbing. Markos tried his best to see it their way, but he couldn't divorce himself from what had to be done. There was the seeding. Without that there would be more and more Hydrans to deal with. How could the crew consider one human life more important than the seeding of those Hydran-occupied worlds?

“One more thing, Jackson. I'm trying to understand just why we're doing this, but I can't. Explain it to me.”

“I don't expect you to understand, Markos. None of the crew really understands. When you come across something important, you do it no matter what. Like the way you ran from Van Pelt. Once you'd done that, the matter was settled—no room for argument or discussion.

“Well, we're the same way about this. Once our minds are made up, nothing can change them. We just happen to feel that going after this person is as important as seeding the rest of the planets. We need to do this. We feel for each other. We stick together. We have our differences, but we learned a lot in that compound you kept us in.”

Loyalty? Is that what Jackson's talking about? Markos wondered. Some antiquated feeling? What was the name for it, fraternity? Racial unity? What's the difference? Markos wondered. Whatever it was, whatever its name was, they were willing to risk their lives for it, for a man who might no longer exist.

“Here we are,” Jackson said.

“Let's get this over with.”

* * *

It sounded simple enough when they'd all been discussing it over the radio, but Markos knew that Straka was courting disaster. Straka was going to the surface to get a prisoner. That alone looked like suicide.

This was no outpost, recently colonized. This was a heavily populated planet, a Hydran stronghold. But Markos knew better than to try to talk them out of the plan.

Kominski and Markatens were in H-2, hovering beside Markos and Jackson, ready to act as a secondary backup should anything happen to Katawba. Markos glanced at Jackson and then turned back to the screen. There were no answers in that face, he thought. Not anymore. He had learned to control his eyes. These changed humans were becoming aliens to him—as alien as the Habers had once been.

He watched H-l settle to the ground right beside a crater in the middle of a populated area. There didn't seem to be anything they could do about where they landed—one place was as bad as the next. H-3 settled to the ground right beside H-l. There was a lot of activity in the surrounding streets as Hydrans scurried about in a panic. But there was no way Markos could tell whether or not there was some goal behind the movement, whether or not the Hydrans knew what was happening at all.

The bay door on H-l opened, and the movement of the Hydrans ceased. They froze in their tracks.

Straka held the lasetube tightly in her hand. Wilhelm stood beside her. They stared out at a scene that made them both wish they were back aboard the
Paladin.

Hydrans were all around, standing motionless, turned toward their ship. One Hydran, just a few meters away, had been eating. Neither Straka nor Wilhelm had ever seen a Hydran eat before. Now they wished they hadn't. It was holding a piece of meat, and there was a small black shell on the ground by its feet. There was no mistaking the origin of the shell. It had come from another Hydran.