Lark's pressure suit.
He tucked the habitat between his knees and reached, tried swimming for it. His rope stopped him.
He stared after the suit for a long time. “Calvin?”
No answer.
Of course not, he'd turned off the audio. “Calvin—track the damned suit.”
“We are tracking it.”
Well, he had the two most immediate things, but now he'd have to carry them. He left the collapsed habitat between his legs, tied the handle of the med-kit to the rope with a butterfly knot, and pulled himself back. The rope was attached to a creeper. Henry was anchored above him with his small belt rope, still out cold.
Kyle tied the med-kit to Henry's rope. He expanded the bulky habitat and plugged it into a vine. For once, there was a good cross-section of vines nearby to hang it on. He pulled Henry inside and collapsed next to the older man, panting. He had ten minutes to do nothing but think while the habitat pressurized. An hour had passed—Lark had fifteen hours left before she'd start running out of air.
He was so tired he could barely get Henry's helmet off.
Henry's vitals looked ragged. He checked with the med-team, and they agreed. Exhaustion. The verdict: no stims. So he'd lost Lark's carefully modified Tourist suit to retrieve stims, and then decided not to use the stims, at least for Henry. He looked up, toward where the bubble had to be.
Henry's face was white, peaceful. Kyle touched him, rolling him gently back and forth. Henry's eyes fluttered open, and a slow smile touched his mouth. “I must have passed out again.”
“Something like that.” Kyle filled Henry in. “I don't think I have time to go after the suit. I'm going after Lark. You'll be safe here. I'll come back with Lark. The suit she has will get her here. The habitat will keep her alive while I go after her suit. If that doesn't work—if it's gone—we'll just have to go down the slow way while we figure something else out.”
“Huh?”
“Creepers are growing down, right? Almost a klick a day. We'll be the first humans to live off broth for two hundred days.”
Henry shook his head. “Never make it. The habitat won't survive that long.”
“We all have suits. Little Siberia can send us supplies. There's no more Adventure suits, but maybe they can modify something else to tap the vines.”
“Go get Lark. Lemme sleep.”
Kyle picked his own helmet back up, jammed the stinking thing back on. “Yeah, okay.” He didn't have any choices. “Sleep well.” He fed the stim-pack into his suit's auto-med reservoir, asked for and received a dose. He watched Henry put his helmet back on, made sure he was secure, and then breached the hab and stepped back into the cold river Styx.
“Calvin—where's Lark's suit?”
“Snagged. Down. Kyle—it went two klicks down.”
Time was against him. He cursed the basket, cursed the damn vines, cursed Henry, cursed his back. “Show me.”
“You can't get there from here by yourself. Not unless you trust the winds to send you after the suit if you dive for it. We don't recommend that.”
What Lark didn't have was the modified siphons. There wouldn't be any way to get broth or water or anything into her. All he had to do was get her to the habitat.
He started out fast. Henry's early words about running a marathon came back to him, and he slowed down. But he needed to make over two klicks an hour to have any time to spare. “Lark be safe ... Lark be safe.” He thought about Henry. “All be safe ... All be safe.
“Play music for me.”
“Huh?” Calvin sounded sleepy.
“Calvin—don't you sleep?”
“Not until you get to Lark.”
“Thanks. Play me some music. I need some rhythm to keep going.”
“What do you want?”
“Hell, I don't care. Something with a beat.” He looked around. “Got some African drums?”
“I'll find some.”
Every two hours he stopped for fifteen minutes rest and more stims, doing the equivalent of vine-sprinting in between. The drumbeats helped. His back still hurt. It became a familiar pain, something that kept him awake and aware, gave him a tie to his aching body. Every step was hard.
Lark wasn't answering. The team said she was asleep, exhausted. So many days of living in one place, in a pressure suit, were taking their toll. Four hours passed.
Calvin started peppering him with questions about Henry. A thought crossed Kyle's mind.
“How is Henry? I haven't seen his med-reads for hours.”
“We cut you off from everything but you and Lark and us. Don't want to distract you.”
