Dragons Dawn

“But regular convex, not concave, formations along the equator?”

Jim was incredulous. “You want to believe that plutonic planet could be the source of this attack?”

“I like that better than substantiating the Hoyle-Wickraman-singh theory, I really do, Jim.”

“If Avril hadn’t taken the gig, we could find out what that nebulosity is. Then we’d know for sure! Hoyle-Wickraman-singh or little frozen blue critters.” Jim’s tone was facetious.

“We’ve the shuttles,” Ezra said tentatively, tapping his pencil.

“No fuel, and there isn’t a pilot among those left that I’d be willing to trust to do such a difficult retrieval. You’d have to match its orbit speed. I saw the dents on the Mariposa’s hull myself where the defense shields failed. Also, we didn’t bring down any heavy worksuits that would protect a man out in a meteor storm. And if your theory is correct, he’ll get shot down.”

“Only if he gets too close to the planet,” Ezra went on cautiously. “But he wouldn’t have to, to get a sample of the trail. If the trail is nothing but ice, dirt, and rock, the usual cometary junk, we’d know then that the real menace is the planet, not the trail. Right?”

Jim eyed him thoughtfully. “It’d be dangerous either way. And there’s no fuel to do it anyhow!” Jim opened his arms in a gesture of exasperation.

“There is fuel.”

“There is?” Jim sat bolt upright, eyes wide with surprise.

Ezra gave him a wry smile. “Known only to a chosen few.”

“Well!” Jim made his eyebrows twitch, but he gri

“With a thrifty pilot, enough for our purpose. Or maybe, if we could find Kenjo’s main cache, more.”

“More?” Jim gawked. “Kenjo’s cache? He scrounged fuel?”

“Always was a clever driver. Saved it from his drops, Ongola said.”

Jim continued to stare at Ezra, amazed at Kenjo’s sheer impudence. “So that’s why Kimmer’s nosing about the Western Barrier Range. He’s out trying to find Kenjo’s cache. For his own purposes or ours?”

“Not enough to get anyone’s hopes up, mind you,” Ezra continued, holding up a warning hand. “Maybe it’s not too bad a thing that Tubberman sent off the homer. Because if it is the planet, we need help, and I’m not too proud to ask for it.” Ezra grimaced. “Not that Kimmer said anything to anyone when he made off with the big sled and enough concentrated food and power packs to stay lost for years.

Joel Lilienkamp was livid that anyone would steal from his Store. We don’t even know how Stev found out about Kenjo’s hoard. Except that he knew how much fuel the Mariposa had in her tanks eight years ago. So he must have figured out someone had saved fuel back when Kenjo made those reco

“I’m honored – by your confidence and the cares you have so carefully laid on my bowed shoulders.”

“You walked in here three days ago and volunteered your services,” Ezra reminded him.

“Three days? Feels like three years. I wonder if my skimmer’s been serviced.” He rose and stretched again until the bones in his spine and joints readjusted with audible clicks. “So, shall we take this mess – ” He gestured to the mass of photos and flimsies neatly arranged on the work surface. “ – to the guys who have to figure out what we do with it?”

Paul and Emily listened, saying nothing, until both men had finished expressing their conflicting viewpoints.

“But when the planet is past us in the next eight or nine years the Threadfall will stop,” Paul said, jumping to a conclusion.

“Depends on whose theory you favor,” Jim said, gri

Paul Benden brushed away that notion. “I don’t credit that, Ezra. Thread was ineffective on the previous try. But the Pluto planet could be defending itself. I could live with that much of your theory based on the evidence.”

Emily looked squarely at Jim. “How long will this gunge fall if it’s from your cometary tail?”

“Twenty, thirty years. If I knew the length of that tail, I could give a closer estimate.

“I wonder if that’s what Avril meant,” Paul said slowly, “by ‘it’s not the . . .’ Did she mean that it wasn’t the planet we had to fear, but the tail it brought from the Oort cloud?”

“If she hadn’t taken the Mariposa, we’d have a chance of knowing.” Emily’s voice had a sharp edge.

“We still do,” Ezra said. “There’s enough fuel to send a shuttle up. Not as economical a vehicle as the Mariposa but adequate.”

“Are you sure?” Paul’s expression was taut as he reached for a calc pad on which he worked several equations. He leaned back, his face pensive, then passed the pad over to Emily and Jim. “It might just be possible.” He caught and held Emily’s gaze. “We have to know. We have to know the worst we can expect before we can plan ahead.

Ezra raised a warning hand, his expression wary. “Mind you, they can’t get close to the planet! We’ve lost seven probes. Could be mines, could be missiles – but they blow up.”

“Whoever goes will know exactly what and how big the risks are,” Paul said.

“There’s risk enough in just going up,” Ezra said gloomily.

“I hate to sound fatuous, but surely there’s one pilot who’d take the challenge to save this world,” Paul added.

Drake Bo

“Marriage and dependent children will be the excuse of practically everyone,” Paul told their private counselors, Ezra, Jim, and Zi Ongola, who had been permitted four hours of work a day by his reluctant medical advisers. “The only one still unattached is Nabhi Nabol.”

“He’s a clever enough pilot,” Ongola said thoughtfully, “though not exactly the type of man on whom the future of an entire planet should ride. However, exactly the type if the reward could be made attractive enough for him to take the risk.”

“How?” Emily asked skeptically.

Nabhi had already been reprimanded a dozen times and served Cherry Duff’s sentences for social misdemeanors such as being caught “drunk and disorderly,” several work delinquencies, and one “lewd advance.” Lately he had somewhat redeemed himself by being a good squadron leader, and was much admired by the young men he led .

“He’s a contractor,” Ongola said. “If he should be offered, say, a charterer’s stake rights, I think he might well go for it. He’s griped about the disparity in land holdings often enough. That could sweeten him. He also fancies himself as a crack pilot.

“We’ve got some very good young pilots,” Jim began.

“Who have had no experience in space with a shuttle. ‘ Ongola dismissed that notion. “Though it might be a good idea to choose one to go as copilot and give them the feel. But I’d rather trust Nabhi than a complete space novice.”

“If we suggest that he was also our second choice, rather than our last one . . .” Emily remarked.

“We’d better get on with it, what ever we do,” Ezra said. I can’t keep stalling questions. We need data and we need a sample of the stuff in that trail. Then we’ll know for certain what our future is.

Bargaining with Nabhi began that afternoon. He sneered at the flattery and the appeal to his competence and demanded to know just how much the trip was worth in terms of a holding and other rights. When he demanded the entire province of Cibola, Paul and Emily settled down to their task. When Nabhi insisted on being granted charterer status, they agreed with sufficient reluctance to satisfy the man that he was ahead in the bargaining.