Wasteland of flint

Cornuelle boost it into the sun.'

'No, I don't think so!' Gretchen stepped between the Marine and the box. 'This artifact is worth my entire career, Sergeant. Worse, it's worth an enormous amount of money for the Company and for the Company's primary contractor – which is the Imperial Navy.' She stopped, searching his face. He looked back, so plainly worried for his own safety, for her life and the others on the ship, her anger drained away as quickly as it had flared.

'I'm sorry, Sergeant, I've no business shouting at you.' Gretchen put her hand on his arm. 'Like you, I'm under pretty strict orders – and my first order is to make sure things like this are brought back intact and well documented. So even if we talk to Captain Hadeishi, the answer is going to be the same – the cylinder stays and comes back to Imperial space with us.'

Fitzsimmons's eyes narrowed, and one hand made an abortive movement to his comm pad, but then he nodded, taking a long look at the battered, rusted box on the floor. 'Are you going to try and study it on the ship?'

'I…' Gretchen paused. Why lie? He'll know, and you'll look like an idiot. 'Yes, I have to try. But – I'm not going to try anything invasive, or high energy, and I'm going to run passive scans on this thing for a day or two first.'

Fitzsimmons gave her an arch look and she blushed. 'Really, Sergeant. And we'll be sure to evac the airlock of any atmosphere. I'll be careful!'

'Sure, ma'am,' he said, picking up the g-box controls. 'Why don't you call Parker – or Bandao if our coffee- drinking man is still horking up his lunch – and have them get the number three airlock ready, while I angle our little friend here out of this place?'

'See? Safe and sound.' Gretchen leaned against the wall of a cargo bay, watching the atmosphere gauge sink toward zero pressure. Fitz and Deckard were packing up a welding kit they'd found in one of the workshops. Inside the airlock, the chunk of shale and its ancient passengers were firmly secured in a hexacarbon cradle. The metal cage was oriented toward the outer lock door on a pair of rails. A scratch-built launching mechanism – half blasting putty and a comm-controlled detonator – rode underneath. A couple of metal-cased sensors Gretchen had scavenged from the lab ring were pinned up on the gleaming white walls of the airlock.

'You seem a little more relaxed,' Fitzsimmons said, in an offhand way, as he coiled up a length of comm cable. He was trying not to smirk. 'Now your precious baby is on the other side of the lock.'

'Maybe,' Gretchen said, nodding. 'I -'

Her comm warbled, and Magdalena's voice filled the air around them. 'Hunt-sister, the main comm array is working, and there's someone who wants to speak with you.'

'Patch 'em through,' Gretchen said, turning away from the two Marines. 'Someone on the Cornuelle?'

'No,' the Hesht said in a sly voice, 'I managed to whisker the camp planetside. Everyone seems to be alive – but they're pissed and hungry and want to know if the showers are working.'

Damn. Gretchen clicked her teeth, cursing herself for forgetting about the scientists stranded on the planet. 'I'm a fine leader,' she muttered. 'We should have called them first thing. They must be half-mad with fear from being abandoned.'

'I wouldn't say half covers the strength of their feeling,' Maggie commented. 'You want to take this call from the bridge?'

'Doctor Lennox, I'm sorry, but Doctor Clarkson,' Gretchen repeated for the sixth time, 'is dead. Everyone who was on the Palenque, save for crewman Fuentes and crewwoman Flores, is dead.'

In the v-pane beside the captain's chair – now covered with an Imperial Marine field blanket – a thin, distressed-looking woman stared back at Gretchen, her face framed by the hood of a z-suit which had seen better days. Two men crowded behind her in some kind of shelter – Gretchen could make out the roof supports characteristic of an extruded building – and both of them seemed to have grasped the facts of the matter, to judge from their stunned expressions.

'I – I don't understand. He just went on the shuttle…' Lennox had faded blond hair and high cheekbones. Gretchen guessed she'd been very pretty when she was younger, but years spent in the glare of alien suns had not treated her kindly.

'Margaret,' Gretchen leaned forward, catching the woman's eye. 'I know it seems very sudden, but you've been out of contact with the Palenque for weeks – surely you thought something had gone awry aboard?'

'Yes…' Lennox swallowed and seemed to become aware of her surroundings again. 'I just hoped…he was still alive.'

'I'm sorry, but there was an accident and the crew, Doctor Clarkson and Doctor McCue, were all killed. Now – is everyone at base camp all right? Do you need medical assistance?'

'We're fine,' rumbled one of the two men, a hulking, bearded face with a stout nose. 'And very, very glad to hear from you, Doctor Anderssen. I am Vladimir Tukhachevsky – dobre den!'

'Good day to you, Doctor.' Gretchen bobbed her head in greeting. 'I know you all want to get a real shower and eat a different brand of ration bar, but there's going to be a delay before we can bring you back up to the ship.'

'What do you mean? Is there still a problem?' The other man – a smaller, wirier fellow – pushed his face into the camera. 'Don't you have a rescue ship?'

'Mister Smalls,' Gretchen smiled amiably in greeting. 'The Imperial Navy has been good enough to bring us here to help you, but accommodations are lacking on the Cornuelle for guests. There is also a problem with the shuttle engines, which has to be resolved. When there is a place to put you on the Palenque, and we can retrieve you safely, we will do so immediately.'

What a fine manager I make, passed through the back of Gretchen's mind. Next I'll be expressing my profound sympathies at their recent layoff.

Tukhachevsky frowned, heavy black eyebrows beetling in concern. 'What kind of accident, Doctor Anderssen? Has the Palenque been damaged?'

'She's…a little Spartan right now, Doctor.' Gretchen – watching the faces of the three scientists on the planet – decided not to explain the events of the artifact and its activation. Not today, at any rate. 'The accident that killed the crew also…destroyed most of the amenities onboard. Luckily, the Cornuelle has been able to supply us with new bedding, towels and food.' If you call Marine ration bars and olive-colored threesquares food.

'In any case, we should have a shuttle ready to go in a day, perhaps two, so call in your field crews and get everyone ready to ship up.'

Lennox nodded, turning away with a distant, frightened expression on her face. Smalls was already gone, leaving only the bearlike Tukhachevsky with a troubled look in his eyes.

'Doctor? Is something wrong?'

'Ah…' Vladimir twisted the ends of his mustache with a nervous motion. 'Almost everyone is already in camp. Since the Palenque stopped responding to our hails, I fear morale has suffered. No one is even working in the excavation anymore. But one of us, I fear, is not here. She's gone, out wandering in the wasteland.'

'Who?' Gretchen felt irritated, but at the same time she knew who it must be, even before Tukhachevsky said her name aloud. Who else would I want to talk to? Who do we need to talk to?

'Our own dear Russovsky,' Vladimir said sadly, scratching a sore on the side of his nose. 'She left in her Midge the same day Clarkson and McCue went up to the ship. We've heard nothing from her since, not so much as a word.'

Aboard the Cornuelle

'Captain? The civilians have established contact with their ground team. Do you want the recording on your number two?' The midshipman looked up with a painfully earnest expression on his face, fingers poised over the main communications panel.

Hadeishi shook his head. 'No, thank you, Smith-tzin. Just give me a realtime on my display if anything interesting happens.' He gave the young officer a stern look. 'Has Sho-