LINKS
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The Christa Affair
Chapter Twenty
Jashi lay unconscious in the infirmary of the \Klondike\. The ship's computer had analyzed his condition and recommended several medications; Suu had administered it as prescribed. So far, no results were apparent, even to Karli's repeated telepathic probing. His right leg was encased in the regenerator unit.
The rest of the crew were in the control room. Suu and Toko were disposing of the breakfast dishes; Karli's dish had hardly been touched. (.... "If you were here, My Darling, you'd be complaining about the proto. Phony food on a frozen planet....") There was no response from her unconscious bondmate.
As First Officer of the \Klondike\, Rang had assumed command once the shore-party returned to the ship. In the control room, a heated argument raged; falling snow was visible thru the starboard viewport.
"The ship's computer said not to \expect\ any improvement for at least forty-eight hours," Rang said. "I'm unwilling to abandon the mission in the Captain's absence until we have waited at least that long. Even if we were within a few days distance of advanced medical facilities, we don't know what we'd be getting into. According to the hyperspace transmissions we've intercepted since our arrival here, the whole galaxy is in a virtual state of war."
*********
Indeed such would seem to be the case. On three occasions since the \Klondike\ had grounded on the runaway world, the hyperband had cleared completely for several minutes at a time; each time the intercepted hyperphone traffic had brought worse news than the time before.
Security at Federation ground installations was minimal. There was no need for it. Federation Worlds were peaceful places -- if not, they wouldn't be in the Federation -- and any threat was expected to come from off-planet. Caught completely off guard by the simultaneous Estarani attacks on nearly every key planet, the Federation had lost most of its administrative and communications network in the first few hours of the hostilities, and virtually every grounded Federation attack cruiser had been either destroyed or heavily damaged.
Within hours of the attacks, there wasn't a live Estarani to be found on most of the devastated worlds. The Grasshoppers had vanished as mysteriously as they had appeared, leaving behind unbelievable destruction. The one exception in the near sector seemed to be the agricultural planet of Delfina-Two, the original destination of the \Klondike\ before receiving the fateful hyperphone call from the Admiral. There the invaders had stayed on in large numbers, holding the entire population of the world hostage.
The attacks had been followed within a few hours by release of the news of Christa's disappearance; chaos had broken out on several of the mixed worlds. Summit was among those suffering the worst violence.
Innermost planet of the Danata system, Summit was populated by representatives of nearly half of the thirty-three Member-Worlds of the Federation, but was the native home of none of them. Soon after the discovery of Infectogan made possible close contact among all species of the galaxy, it had been extensively reformed into habitable condition; its sole function was as home to Sector Headquarters, and a meeting place for important negotiations among Member-Worlds and between the Federation and non-member worlds.
*********
Danata-One was a dead world. It had a breathable atmosphere, with a wide variety of climatic conditions ranging from areas of bitter cold to places where surface pools continuously bubbled into steam. There was water -- lots of it -- broken by sixteen separate, mostly-small land masses of chemically rich soil, but no life of any kind. There was nothing of particular value anywhere on or below the surface, and because of the expense involved in reforming a world, no one had ever thought it worth the difficulty involved to claim or exploit it.
It was perfectly suited to the Federation's needs. When the project was finished, the planet contained an environmental area suitable for all but three of the intelligent species known to exist in the entire galaxy, complete with plant and animal life necessary to make the area mostly self-supporting. Gravity polarizers created small pockets of low-weight for those from low-density worlds, and both low and high pressure atmospheres could be maintained as required beneath bubble force-fields.
The polar land-masses were perfectly suited to the native inhabitants of frozen worlds; the northern cap was given a chlorine atmosphere held in place by a bubble-field to accommodate the natives of Kut'chika-Three. A small island just above the equator had been transformed into a barren desert with a fluorine atmosphere as living quarters for visiting Al'kani.
The only large continent straddled the equator, and stretched two-thirds of the way to the north pole in a long peninsula just five hundred miles wide, and to within three hundred miles of the tiny southern cap in a tear-drop shape just over twelve hundred miles across at its widest point. Sector Headquarters' main complex and ground support facilities were located on this continent. The world was permanently inhabited by representatives of twelve member species, eight of which lived in close contact within Capital, the principal city, sprawling across hundreds of square miles just south of the equator.
When Christa's disappearance became public knowledge, immediate hostilities had broken out among several rival species as they grappled for control of the area they claimed as home turf. According to the fragmented reports intercepted by the \Klondike\, fighting within the city had been intense, and at one point had included an attack on the Bardarani sector by a Federation cruiser.
Most ships of the Federation High Guard were manned primarily by members of a single species, but of necessity some carried mixed crews, while others carried specialists who were of a different species than the crew. Aboard these ships trouble had come quickly. Specialists were arrested and quarantined, and one intercepted transmission indicated eight Elvirani aboard a cruiser manned by an Uzosi crew had been gassed in their quarters as they slept. Without continued doses of Infectogan, close association between those two races brought the most horrible of deaths.
On another ship, an agricultural specialist from Delfina-Two had reportedly taken over the control room at gun-point, ordering the Human crew to take the ship to his planet to fight the Estarani occupation force. Several mixed-crew ships had been disabled by the infighting and were drifting helplessly, and there had been at least one case of one Federation cruiser attacking another.
*********
Surprisingly, Karli was in agreement. "We shouldn't abandon the mission until we have to," she said in support of her bond-brother. "Jashi knew it was important too, Rang."
"If he were awake, he'd be the first to tell you the situation here is beyond our ability to deal with!" responded Toko a bit heatedly. "Every one of us has been injured or nearly killed -- either here or on Ultazari-Seven -- since we accepted the locate-and-rescue mission. We have attempted to penetrate the interior of this place four times, three of which resulted in injury or threatened death. We don't understand \anything\ of what we've found in the city and we still don't have the faintest idea why we were sent here... And if you don't believe we're running out of time, just look at that snow falling outside."
Involuntarily they all turned toward the viewport, even though each of them was well aware of the phenomena occurring just beyond. As the hungry heaters inside the dome demanded more and more hydrogen to maintain the working environment within the dome, and the ship's internal systems continued to operate at the high capacity required by the hostile nature of the place and by their efforts to get inside, the molecular separator gobbled up tremendous volumes of water every minute, converting it into hydrogen fuel for the ship's main powerplant, and into oxygen. While the shore-party was inside, the \Klondike's\ liquid oxygen tanks had reached capacity, and began exhausting surplus lox to the outside; it was this overflow that created the snowstorm as it crystallized in the vacuum and fell to the surface as pseudo-snowflakes. The accumulation around the ship was nearly four feet deep.
"How much longer \can\ we stay here Toko?" asked Roi.
"With the layer of insulating ice on the floor, if we cut the heaters back to the absolute minimum necessary to allow us to shed our pressure suits within the dome before we enter the chamber... A little over four days, ship's time. Remember, this place is traveling in opposition to galactic rotation -- we're getting farther from home every minute."
"You said we can't go there anyway," put in Mowii sarcastically. "This whole discussion is pointless!"
"Well, U-Seven, then," retorted Toko. "We haven't intercepted anything that would lead us to believe \it\ has been invaded."
"Shut up, Mowii!" snapped Rang.
"How can you even consider going back after whatever that was you encountered in the dwelling? I was almost overcome just from my contact with Roi."
"Better include a pressure tunnel from the ship to the dome in those calculations," advised Roi. "It's getting pretty deep out there; in a few more hours we'll have to have shovels to find the air-lock of the dome."
"I vote we head for U-Seven," interjected Suu. "We can refuel there, and maybe enroute we'll hear some good news and can find treatment for Jashi somewhere."
"And what if we don't?" asked Karli. "And even if we do, four more days won't make that much difference. I vote we stay here and try to complete the mission... Otherwise, we've been put to all this risk for nothing! Since when did we become quitters?"
"I don't think anyone would consider us quitters, Karli. We're up against something we just can't handle." Roi looked deeply into her eyes as he spoke. "Jashi least of all."
"I agree!" declared Rang. "But I think he would be pleased if we stuck it out till the last minute."
"Whatever happened to 'anything you don't understand is dangerous'?" interrupted Toko. "We don't understand anything we've seen since we arrived here."
"Granted," agreed Rang. "And that's exactly why we must stay as long as possible and make every effort to understand why we were sent here. I'm going back down and see if the Keeper can help. If that doesn't work, I am going to try the helmet in the Hall of Records."
"You're crazy!" spat Roi.. "You damned near got killed by your own brother just a few hours ago, and you're going back for more?"
"Have you considered the possibility that we may have been deliberately sent into harm's way? Or that this is just a wild bird chase?" countered Toko.
Suddenly Mowii stood up; her chair fell over backwards from the violence of her sudden movement. She reached across the table and slapped Rang across the face -- hard. "Don't you \ever\ tell me to shut up, Rang Abram!" she shouted, then broke into heavy, gut-wrenching sobs. Suu, who was sitting next to her, reached out to her, offering understanding.
Rang sat in shocked silence as the mark on the left side of his face grew more pronounced. When Mowii's crying was under control, and she was seated again, he spoke. "At the moment, I am in command of this ship. I have made my decision and it stands... I order it so logged!" He stood up to leave the room; Mowii started crying loudly.
As he reached the door, Rang stopped and turned back to the room. He addressed Toko. "Run the whole thing thru the computer and calculate the latest time for departure that will give us a ten percent safety margin to Ultazari. We'll stay until four hours before that time. Include provisions for the tunnel," he added.
Toko stood to his feet; his expression betrayed his unwillingness to comply with the order. Rang's hand hovered near his needlegun. Suddenly, the voice of the Keeper filled the control room.
\"I SENSE YOU ARE AGAIN DISTRESSED... MAY I BE OF ASSISTANCE?"\
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
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