Earthbound by DM Arnold (read book .TXT) 📕

“I can't lift off. I think the shuttlecar's overloaded and maybe low on power. These are heavy boxes, Zander -- awfully heavy comm gear.”

“You'll need to gang the two main power cells. Open the access panel to the left of the controls.”

Nyk flipped down the panel. “Okay, it's open.”

“Do you see a shunt for the number two power cell?”

“Yes...”

“Pull it out, turn it ninety degrees and push it back in. That'll gang the power cells and give you enough to lift off. You won't have enough for a return trip, but you're not headed back to Earth, are you?”

“No ... but I'm not comfortable making a transit with no reserve power. Maybe I should offload some of this gear and make two trips.”

“If you don't have enough power to gang them how will you have enough for a trip out, back and out again?” Zander asked.

“I suppose you're right ... Okay, the shunt's in ... I have a 'go' panel.” He pressed the launch sequencer. The shuttlecar lifted off and shot into the sky. “I'm on my way!”

“I'll tell the boys on the scout.” The vidisplay went dark.

The craft rolled into the comm relay station's shuttlebay. Nyk went through decontamination, dressed in Floran clothing and fastened Suki's pin onto his sash. He slipped the photoimager's datacel into a fold of his xarpa, inserted a fresh one, dropped the device into his case and walked toward the shuttlebay. Thoughts about the object in his sash began to trouble him. He stopped and returned to the workroom.

Nyk reached into his sash, withdrew the datacel and regarded it, turning it over in his fingers. He inserted it into one of the station's vidisplays. A touch on the screen accessed his comm cipher and he transferred the images into his private database. He stored the datacel in his personal effects locker and headed to the shuttlebay.

The bay decompressed and he pulled the car into space. The vidisplay began signaling him and he answered a call from a crewman on board the scout. “Where are you? We're on a tight schedule.”

“I'm about to subjump from the relay station.”

“What are you doing there?

“I had to go through decontamination,” he replied. “You don't want to get sick, do you?”

“We have decontamination onboard. You could've done that here.”

“Now you tell me.”

“You'd better hurry. The skipper's getting edgy.”

Nyk terminated the vidphone, set the navigation coordinates and triggered a short subjump to meet the cruiser.

The windows and windscreen darkened for the jump and the warpcoil fired with a bang. Transparency returned to the windscreen and Nyk saw a spinning star field. He grasped the unistick and attempted to recover from the spin. The shuttle refused to respond. A low power indicator flashed on the panel.

Nyk opened the access panel, removed the number two shunt and pulled on the stick. The craft continued to spin. The vidisplay signaled him again. “We see you. Control your spin and we'll pick you up.”

“I have no power,” he replied. “The inertial sink won't respond. I have communications and life support, that's all.”

“Divert your number three power cell to the inertial sink.”

“That's auxiliary power. I'll lose life support.”

“You're only metres from the ship. We can't pick you up until your spin's under control.”

Nyk grasped the number three shunt and pulled it out. The control panel and vidisplay went black. Darkness and silence enveloped him -- his own heartbeat and breathing were the only sounds. He felt for the shunt socket. The spinning star field was starting to blur from moisture fogging the windows. He found the socket and inserted the shunt. It slipped from his fingers and centrifugal force from the spin sent it to the floor.

He began feeling around his feet for the shunt. His finger touched it, but it was lodged beneath his seat where he couldn't grasp it. Perspiration begin to bead on his brow and the air was beginning to taste stale.

He felt inside the access panel and pulled the number one shunt. Nyk counted the socket holes and plugged it in -- no response. The fog on the windows was turning to frost.

Nyk was beginning to shiver. He pulled the shunt and moved it one position to the right. The control panel lit up. He grabbed the unistick and began to neutralize the spin. The stars slowed and stopped, and he saw the approach lights to the cruiser's shuttlebay. With the heel of his hand he wiped frost from the windscreen.

The cruiser moved toward him, her forward shuttlebay door open. He pulled on the stick to turn the shuttle to face into the approaching bay and rolled it to align with the deck. The bay loomed before him, a yawning mouth about to scoop up its prey.

The car crossed the threshold of the spacedoor and encountered the scout's artificial gravity. It hit the deck with a thud and rolled toward the rear of the bay. He pulled back on the stick. The car slowed, then the panel went dark again. Through the windscreen he could see the bay's rear bulkhead fast approaching.

He threw his arms over his face and braced for impact. An inflatable crash barrier deployed. The shuttlecar plowed into it and he was thrown against his safety restraint. He could hear the bay repressurize. The pressure door opened.

A crewman approached the shuttlecar and pulled open the door. Nyk stepped out, took a deep breath and wiped his forehead. He looked at the crumpled nose of the shuttle. “Are you okay?” the crewman asked. Nyk nodded. “That'll never fly again. Why didn't you stop?”

“I ran out of power.” He grabbed his case, opened it and handed two pint bottles of Wild Turkey whiskey to the crewman. “Zander said you might like this.”

“You're all right!” The crewman slapped him on the back and set the bottles down. “What else is in the case?”

“Nothing but my travel gear.”

“Let's see.” The crewman took his case. “Do you have any Earth food?” He popped it open and saw the photoimager. “Taking pictures?”

“I wanted some to show my wife.”

“Hey, Zaggo!” Another crewman approached him. “Stand by our passenger.” The crewman snapped a photoimage. “Now you take me.” The two crewmen tossed the camera between each other, taking pictures of Nyk and themselves, making funny faces and goofing with it until a non-commissioned officer entered the bay and interrupted their horseplay.

“What's going on in here?” The sergeant took the camera, removed the datacel and inserted it into a vidisplay. “Not a smart thing to do.” He ejected the datacel and snapped it in half. “Oops. Sorry.” He tossed the photoimager at Nyk and smirked. “Maybe he took other pictures. Check his case.”

The crewmen dumped the contents of Nyk's case onto the deck and rifled through them. “Nothing, chief,” Zaggo said.

“Frisk him.”

The crewman removed Nyk's xarpa and shook it out. They patted him down. “He's clean, chief -- unless he has one stuck up his butt.”

“If you think he's got one there, you'd better check.”

“I was kidding, chief. You don't mean...”

“It'd serve you both right. We're about to get underway. Get those crates unloaded and the breakable gear stowed. On the double!”

Nyk picked up his belongings, packed them into his case and belted himself into a jump seat. The crewmen stowed the bottles and took their seats.

He felt the warp jumps. Zaggo beckoned him to the aft shuttlebay. Nyk heard the bay repressurizing and the pressure door opened to reveal a tender shuttle. The tender crew unloaded supplies and transferred them to levitating pallets. One of the crew motioned to him and he climbed aboard. Soon he found himself on the transit platform awaiting the final inbound shuttle to Sudal.

He boarded the shuttle, sat by a viewport and fastened his safety harness. The airlock closed and it lifted from the pad on the transit platform. Nyk felt weightlessness as the craft left the influence of the platform's artificial gravity fields. The shuttle drew toward his indigo world.

The craft changed orientation to enter the atmosphere belly-first. Weightlessness was replaced by intense gravity as the shuttle lost velocity. There was a quick maneuver, a brief burst of weightlessness and the shuttle became an aircraft flying toward Sudal.

He could see the enormous mons in the distance to the west as the craft lost altitude and headed southward. Below were the older agridomes, some a thousand years old. He could look further south and begin to make out the newer domes.

Nyk felt pride in the agridomes. They were Kyhana domes, named after his father who had developed an innovative means to construct them. The domes were enormous -- each covered an area of ten by ten kilometers. Inside were grown food and fiber crops of Earth plants -- vegetables, grains, legumes, cotton, flax and ramie. The domes provided growing conditions approximating those of his people's world of origin and isolation from the incompatible biosphere of their adopted planet.

The shuttle began its initial approach to Sudal. Nyk could now see the small city -- his home town. He watched through the viewport as the shuttle swept down over row after row of modern agridomes, deployed its landing gear and touched down at the Sudal shuttleport. He debarked the shuttle and ordered a groundcar, specifying the Residence as his destination.

Nyk stepped from the groundcar outside the Residence. The place was shuttered. He pressed his wrist against the scanpad, opened the main entrance and climbed the spiral staircase to the second floor living level.

He switched on a vidisplay, accessed his Agency data store and made copies of the photoimages. He started to place a call to Seymor when he heard a noise from behind. His heart leapt into his throat. “Hello?”

A check of the second-level guestrooms revealed no one. Something moved and he caught it out of the corner of his eye. He spun around but saw no one. “Who's here? It can't be you, Senta!”

Nyk looked into the storage room. He heard footsteps on the spiral staircase as he walked from the kitchen. He climbed the stairs to the third level -- the bedrooms his parents had used were here. The door to one of the bedrooms was closed.

He approached the door and pulled on it. It was locked. He sprinted down the spiral staircase to the lower level and into the house's workshop. There he rummaged through drawers of tools, parts and junk until he found a door latch releaser. By the time he reached the third floor, he found the door open and the room empty.

He stepped into the hallway, headed toward the stairs and heard heavy breathing above him. Someone was crouched on the steps to the trapdoor for the observation platform.

“Hello, who's there?” He started up the steps.

The figure sprinted down and past him into one of the bedrooms. Nyk followed and stood in the doorway. A tall woman with oat-straw white hair stood with her back to the closed shutter. Her pale blue eyes darted around the room. She backed from him as he approached.

“Andra, what are you doing here?”

“Stay back! I'm not going back to him.” He approached her. “Stay back.” She reached into her lifxarpa, removed an injector and pulled off the needle guard. “This is loaded with nerve toxin. I was saving it for myself, but I'll use it on you. I'll use it on any of Zander's flunkies. I'm not going back. I'll kill you, or I'll kill myself, but I'm not going back.”

“Andra, I won't hurt you. I'm not Zander's flunky.”

“Stay back!” She jabbed the injector in his direction.

Nyk stepped to a vidisplay near the door and selected Senta's locator code. She answered from her office at the sequencing labs. “Nykkyo! Where are you calling from?”

“From the Residence. Do you know what Andra's doing here?”

“I thought you were on Earth. Andra said you were on Earth acting as Zander's stooge. I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe you'd tie in with that scumbag.”

“Senta...”

“I'll tell you, Nykkyo, I've been talking to a solicitor about dissolving our marriage. I think you've given me ample grounds. I never in my life thought it'd come to this.”

“Senta, please...”

“To think of a Kyhana falling to these depths. I'm still in shock.” She turned her shoulder to the vidisplay. “I'm ashamed to wear this crest. I never thought I'd live to see the day I'd say that. I couldn't believe it. I still can't believe it. No one would believe it. It's beyond belief!”

“Senta! Will you calm down and listen?” She glowered at him through the vidisplay. “I'm not Zander's stooge. I simply did him a favor in exchange for transit to Earth.”

Her mouth formed an O. “Now, that I believe. Nykkyo, I've known you a long time, and I know you're a good and kind and decent man at heart. I also believe you're still infatuated with