He wrapped the harness round one arm, and with his other hand he began hitting the harness’s release stud. It took several attempts, his numb hand being as much of a hindrance as an advantage because he felt no pain… yet. Finally it gave, and as he began to slide out of his seat toward the main console, he was able to check himself.
Turning round and grabbing hold of his chair arm as well, he hauled himself up until he got a foothold on the side of the console between the two seats. Then he reached for his pilot.
Beneath a frosting of snow, Weis’s face had a bluish-white tinge that was far from healthy. Reaching out to grasp him by the front of his padded flight suit, he noticed his own hand was the same bloodless color.
“Weis! Wake up! We crashed.”
The other began to move sluggishly, his hand going up automatically to brush the snow off his face before his eyes even opened. Jensen let him go, squatting back on his heels.
“What…” Weis groaned and began to move.
“We crashed,” said Jensen, slithering off his perch and down to the main console.
Hitting the emergency beacon, he prayed that the backup power unit hadn’t taken any damage.
Weis sniffed audibly, then, hitting his release buckle, catapulted himself out of his seat into Jensen, sending them both flying against the starboard bulkhead.
“Fuel,” he said succinctly, scrambling to his feet and reaching down to haul Jensen up by the collar. “Tank’s gone. We gotta get outta here.”
“Damnit, Weis…” Jensen staggered as Weis released him, biting back a groan of pain as he rubbed the back of his head.
“She could go up like a torch any minute. Can’t you smell the goddamn fumes?” Weiss demanded, grasping the dangling harness and pulling himself up onto Jensen’s seat, then onto his own.
Jensen followed, trying to ignore the pounding headache and the pain in his hands now that the circulation was finally returning to them. Snow made the surfaces slick and he slipped more than once, but finally he made it to the gash in the hull through which Weis had disappeared.
Grasping hold of the rough edges, he yelped in pain as the bitterly cold metal burned into his hand. Pulling free hurt even more. Dazed from this fresh pain, he stood watching as the blood welled up from the torn flesh into the hollow of his palm.
“You retard! Why didn’t you put your gloves on first like I did?” Weis demanded, hauling him bodily from the crashed scouter out into the darkening night and the full force of the blizzard.
“The ship’s not going to blow!” Jensen yelled, staggering through the deep snow in Weis’s wake as he was hauled along. “We must have been unconscious for over an hour!”
Weis said nothing, only increased his pace until they rounded a snow-covered rocky outcrop that offered some protection from the worst of the blizzard; then he stopped.
Jensen jerked himself free, and, unfastening one of his thigh pockets, reached inside for a field dressing. The wind had dropped and he could actually hear himself think.
“Give it here,” Weis snarled, looming over him and snatching the pack. Moments later, the dressing had been slapped over his palm and hastily tied in place. “Now put your headgear and gloves on! Didn’t the Company teach you tekkies nuthin’ about survival out here?”
The analgesic in the dressing hit his system almost instantly, bringing relief from the pain and sealing the wound. From his other pocket, he drew out his gloves and face mask.
He was angry, bloody angry if truth were told, at the way Weis had been treating him right from the moment they’d taken off from the valley settlement.
“Yeah, they taught me,” he said, fitting on the earpiece and mic set, then the face mask. Activating the mic, he reached behind his head for the hood, pulled it up, and secured it, then turned his attention to easing his hands painfully into the mitts.
“But they didn’t teach me how to survive a kamikaze pilot and being thrown against a bulkhead and landed on by him!” he added when he heard the click of Weis’s mic going live.
Weis’s laughter nearly deafened him, and the slap on his back sent him sprawling into the outcrop.
“You’re OK, Jensen.” he said, throwing him the end of a piece of fine rope. “Here, tie that ’round you and let’s get moving before the shuttle blows. I wanna reach those caves we scanned in the valley just before we crashed. We can hunker down there till the storm passes, then signal the
Jensen stopped dead in the middle of tying the rope and looked up. Toggling his goggles to infravision, he shoved his hood back.
“What the hell you doin’, man?” Weiss demanded.
“Shut up. I heard something.”
“You heard something? You heard the…”
“I said shut the hell up!” Jensen snarled, moving a few feet away from him, back around the outcrop. He had heard something, and now he was scanning the white-speckled swirling darkness for a clue to what it was.
His hearing was legendary on the
“There it is again,” he muttered, swinging around to face the direction they’d come from. It was high-pitched-had to be to carry over the banshee howling of the wind-and like nothing he’d ever heard before as it rose and fell in pitch before stopping abruptly. It came again, this time only a short burst, and from the opposite direction.
A flicker of red at the edge of his sight drew his attention back to the direction in which the shuttle lay. He grabbed hold of Weis’s arm, shaking him.
“Look! Over where the shuttle is!” he said. “Movement!”
“Can’t see a damned thing in this blizzard,” said the other. “Let’s get moving now before the shuttle…”
The ground beneath their feet began to tremble, gently at first, then more violently as a plume of flame even Weis could see erupted high in the night sky. Just as suddenly, it was gone, and as the mountain under them heaved and bucked, they were tossed to the ground like unwanted children’s toys.
Jensen lay there, arms cradled over his head, even though he knew it would be no protection.
“This region isn’t volcanic,” he muttered, more to himself than Weis.
“Tell the goddamn mountain that!”
The ground beneath them gave one last heave, then was still. Slowly he moved his arms and pushed himself into a kneeling position.
“Tell me there was enough fuel on the scouter to cause that,” he said, turning to watch as Weiss scrambled up.
“I can’t, and you know it.”
He got to his feet, dusting the snow off his flight suit and pulling his hood back up. “I’m going back to look at the scouter.”
“You’re mad,” said Weis. “You’ll not catch me goin’ back there after that!”
“Then wait here,” he snapped, losing patience with the burly pilot.
“Jensen, don’t go,” said Weis grabbing him by the arm. “Some things it’s better to ignore.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” he demanded.
The large man hesitated. “The locals were saying the mountain’s haunted.”
He snorted derisively. “And you believed them?”
“You said you heard somethin’, saw movements before she blew!”
“I didn’t see ghosts!” Then it came to him, what his subconscious had been trying to tell him for the last five minutes. “Whales! It sounded like whales.”
“Now who’s talking rubbish? Weis demanded. “There’s no whales five thousand feet up a mountain!”
Ignoring him, Jensen set off back the way they’d come. There was a mystery here and he aimed to solve it. As soon as he stepped out from the shelter of the outcrop, the wind howled around him, grabbing at him, trying to thrust him back. Doggedly he pushed on, keeping his head down, putting one foot in front of the other, following the tracks they’d left.
“Jensen, damnit! Come back! You can’t go off on your own in this weather! You didn’t even tie the rope round you!”
Jensen had reached the crash site before Weis caught up with him.
“Jesus Christ,” said Weis reverently as he came to an abrupt stop beside him. “The mountain ate it!”
Where the scouter had been was a ridge of bare rock some fifty feet long and as tall as a man. Of their craft, nothing remained.
Not a superstitious man by nature, even he was shaken by the sight before them. “I see it,” whispered Jensen, taking a tentative step forward. Something lying in the newly fallen snow, glowing faintly, caught his eye and he stopped to pick it up.
As he did, he heard the call again, this time a longer and more plaintive cry that got rapidly louder. Grabbing the object, he stood up in time to see something rushing toward him out of the night.
Weis yelled out a warning and dove for him as he stood rooted to the spot, staring in disbelief at the almost invisible shape hurtling toward him. At the last moment, it veered to one side. His cheek was brushed by something soft yet bitterly cold moments before Weis catapulted into him, knocking him back against the mountainside.
The call sounded again, urgent this time, and from the opposite direction. He’d no sooner swung his head to the right than he heard it answered from the one on his left-both sounded very close by. Looking wildly from side to side, Jensen tried to pinpoint their locations. From the one that had come at him, he’d gotten the impression they were human-sized, but what he saw was insubstantial-they had no visible heat source.
He flicked his goggles back to normal sight. Now he could see something-a pale fluttering shape within the swirling snow… No, two, they were together! They were silent now, but he could sense an urgency in their movements as they seemed to edge closer to them.
“What the hell’s going on?” demanded Weis, breaking his concentration. “What came at you?”
He pushed himself away from the rock face. “We have to leave!” he said.
“I’m not moving till I know what’s out there, and neither are you!” said Weis, pulling him back with one hand while waving his pistol menacingly in an arc in front of them.
“Put the goddamn gun away,” snarled Jensen, hitting Weis’s arm down. “Whatever it is, it isn’t dangerous to us! If it was, we’d be dead already.”
