Part 30 (2/2)

”All they got to do is wait,” said the gunner. ”We're dead.”

”Geegee doesn't kill you,” said C/S control. ”You just wish it did.”

”They say.”

The strip was extended, and three attack bombers came in. Hobie looked them over. He had trained on AX92's all one summer; he could fly them in his sleep. It would be nice to be alone.

He was pus.h.i.+ng the C/S chopper most of the daylight hours now. He had got used to being shot at and to being sick. Everybody was sick, except a couple of replacement crews who were sent in two weeks apart, looking startlingly healthy. They said they had been immunized with a new ant.i.toxin. Their big news was that geegee could be cured outside the zone.

”We're getting reinfected,” the gunner said. ”That figures. They want us out of here.”

That week there was a big drive on bats, but it didn't help. The next week the first batch of replacements were running fevers. Their shots hadn't worked and neither did the stuff they gave the second batch.

After that, no more men came in except a couple of volunteer medicos. The billets and the planes and the mess were beginning to stink. That dysentery couldn't be controlled after you got weak.

What they did get was supplies. Every day or so another ton of stuff would drift down. Most of it was dragged to one side and left to rot. They were swimming in food. The staggering cooks pushed steak and lobster at men who s.h.i.+vered and went out to retch. The hospital even had ample s.p.a.ce now, because it turned out that geegee really did kill you in the end. By that time you were glad to go. A cemetery developed at the far side of the strip, among the skeletons of the defoliated trees.

On the last morning Hobie was sent out to pick up a forward scout team. He was one of the few left with enough stamina for long missions. The three-man team was far into Gue territory, but Hobie didn't care. All he was thinking about was his bowels. So far he had not fouled himself or his plane. When he was down by their signal he bolted out to squat under the chopper's tail. The grunts climbed in, yelling at him.

They had a prisoner with them. The Gue was naked and astonis.h.i.+ngly broad. He walked springily; his arms were lashed with wire and a s.h.i.+rt was tied over his head. This was the first Gue Hobie had been close to. As he got in he saw how the Gue's firm brown flesh glistened and bulged around the wire. He wished he could see his face. The gunner said the Gue was a Siriono, and this was important because the Sirionos were not known to be with the Gue's. They were a very primitive nomadic tribe.

When Hobie began to fly home he realized he was getting sicker. It became a fight to hold onto consciousness and keep on course. Luckily n.o.body shot at them. At one point he became aware of a lot of screaming going on behind him, but couldn't pay attention. Finally he came over the strip and horsed the chopper down. He let his head down on his arms.

”You O.K.?” asked the gunner.

”Yeah,” said Hobie, hearing them getting out. They were moving something heavy. Finally he got up and followed them. The floor was wet. That wasn't unusual. He got down and stood staring in, the floor a foot under his nose. The wet stuff was blood. It was sprayed around, with one big puddle. In the puddle was something soft and fleshy-looking.

Hobie turned his head. The ladder was wet, too. He held up one hand and looked at the red. The other one, too. Holding them out stiffly he turned and began to walk away across the strip.

Control, who still hoped to get an evening flight out of him, saw him fall and called the hospital. Thetwo replacement parameds were still in pretty good shape. They came out and picked him up.

When Hobie came to, one of the parameds was tying his hands down to the bed so he couldn't tear the IV out again.

”We're going to die here,” Hobie told him.

The paramed looked noncommittal. He was a thin dark boy with a big Adam's apple.

”But I shall dine at journey's end with Landor and with Donne,” said Hobie. His voice was light and facile.

”Yeats,” said the paramed. ”Want some water?”

Hobie's eyes flickered. The paramed gave him some water.

”I really believed it, you know,” Hobie said chattily. ”I had it all figured out.” He smiled, something he hadn't done for a long time.

”Landor and Donne?” asked the medic. He unhooked the empty IV bottle and hung up a new one.

”Oh, it was pathetic, I guess,” Hobie said. ”It started ou... I believed they were real, you know?

Kirk, Spock, McCoy, all of them. And the s.h.i.+p. To this day, I swear... one of them talked to me once, I mean, he really did.... I had it all figured out, they had left me behind as an observer.” Hobie giggled.

”They were coming back for me. It was secret. All I had to do was sort of fit in and observe. Like a report. One day they would come back and haul me up in that beam thing; maybe you know about that?

And there I'd be back in, real time where human beings were, where they were human. I wasn't really stuck here in the past. On a backward planet.”

The paramed nodded.

”Oh, I mean, I didn't really believe it, I knew it was just a show. But I did believe it, too. It was like there, in the background, underneath, no matter what was going on. They were coming for me. All I had to do was observe. And not to interfere. You know? Prime directive... Of course after I, grew up, I realized they weren't, I mean I realized consciously. So I was going to go to them. Somehow, somewhere. Out there... Now I know. It really isn't so. None of it. Never. There's nothing.... Now I know I'll die here.”

”Oh now,” said the paramed. He got up and started to take things away. His fingers were shaky.

”It's clean there,” said Hobie in a petulant voice. ”None of this s.h.i.+t. Clean and friendly. They don't torture people,” he explained, thras.h.i.+ng his head. ”They don't kill-” He slept. The paramed went away.

Somebody started to yell monotonously.

Hobie opened his eyes. He was burning up.

The yelling went on, became screaming. It was dusk. Footsteps went by, headed for the screaming.

Hobie saw they had put him in a bed by the door.

Without his doing much about it the screaming seemed to be lifting him out of the bed, propelling him through the door. Air. He kept getting close-ups of his hands clutching things. Bushes, shadows.

Something scratched him.

After a while the screaming was a long way behind him. Maybe it was only in his ears. He shook his head, felt himself go down onto boards. He thought he was in the cemetery.

”No,” he said. ”Please. Please no.” He got himself up, balanced, blundered on, seeking coolness.

The side of the plane felt cool. He plastered his hot body against it, patting it affectionately. It seemed to be quite dark now. Why was he inside with no lights? He tried the panel, the lights worked perfectly. Vaguely he noticed some yelling starting outside again. It ignited the screaming in his head. The screaming got very loud-loud-LOUD-and appeared to be moving him, which was good.

He came to above the overcast and climbing. The oxy-support tube was. .h.i.tting him in the nose. He grabbed for the mask, but it wasn't there. Automatically, he had leveled off. Now he rolled and looked around.Below him was a great lilac sea of cloud, with two mountains sticking through it, their western tips on fire. As he looked, they dimmed. He s.h.i.+vered, found he was wearing only sodden shorts. How had he got here? Somebody had screamed intolerably and he had run.

He flew along calmly, checking his board. No trouble except the fuel. n.o.body serviced the AX92's any more. Without thinking about it, he began to climb again. His hands were a yard away and he was s.h.i.+vering but he felt clear. He reached up and found his headphones were in place; he must have put them on along with the rest of the drill. He clicked on. Voices rattled and roared at him. He switched off. Then he took off the headpiece and dropped it on the floor.

He looked around. 18,000, heading 88-05. He was over the Atlantic. In front of him the sky was darkening fast. A pinpoint glimmer 10 o'clock high. Sirius, probably.

He thought about Sirius, trying to recall his charts. Then he thought about turning and going back down. Without paying much attention, he noticed he was crying with his mouth open.

Carefully he began feeding his torches and swinging the nose of his pod around and up. He brought it neatly to a point on Sirius. Up. Up. Behind him a great pale swing of contrail fell away above the lilac shadow, growing, towering to the tiny plane that climbed at its tip. Up. Up. The contrail cut off as the plane burst into the high cold dry.

As it did so Hobie's ears skewered and he screamed wildly. The pain quit; his drums had burst. Up!

Now he was gasping for air, strangling. The great torches drove him on, up, above the curve of the world. He was hanging on the star. Up! The fuel gauges were knocking. Any second they would quit and he and the bird would be a falling stone. ”Beam us up, Scotty!” he howled at Sirius, laughing, coughing-coughing to death, as the torches faltered- -And was still coughing as he sprawled on the s.h.i.+ning resiliency under the arcing grids. He gagged, rolled, finally focused on a personage leaning toward him out of a complex chair. The personage had round eyes, a slitted nose and the start of a quizzical smile.

Hobie's head swiveled slowly. It was not the bridge of the Enterprise. There were no view-screens, only a View. And Lieutenant Uhura would have had trouble with the freeform flas.h.i.+ng objects suspended in front of what appeared to be a girl wearing spots. The spots, Hobie made out, were fur.

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