The Spheres of Heaven

Elke seemed to know exactly what she was doing. When she had traveled a certain distance she angled to the left. They had reached a drowned valley, and were walking along its center. In another few hundred meters she turned left again, this time more sharply, and began to ascend the valley slope.

In another half minute the helmet of her suit disappeared from view. Chan realized that it must have broken the surface and was now above water. One by one, the rest followed. Helmet vanished, then shoulders, then chest. Finally it was Chan’s own turn, and he instinctively blinked as his head emerged.

Elke was already beyond the waterline. He took one quick look at her, at the Mood Indigo on the slope right ahead — thank Heaven for Elke’s mania for precision — then up and down the shore. It was full day. There was no sign of Malacostracans. If everything could just stay the way it was for five more minutes …

Chan heard a commotion in the line ahead. He dropped his side of the Angel and hurried forward. Tully and Bony were having trouble, trying to hold on to a suddenly animated Vow-of-Silence. In spite of its tube-like build, the Pipe-Rilla was incredibly strong. Vow-of-Silence broke free, and before anyone could manage to reach her she went bounding away along the shore of the inlet in ten-meter leaps.

Bony was all set to follow when Chan grabbed his arm. “No. You’d never catch her. Look at her go.”

They followed the Pipe-Rilla’s direction of travel. “Away from the Malacostracan camp,” Elke said. “If she keeps that heading at that speed, she’ll reach the line of vegetation in a few minutes. There’s a very rough area beyond it, and I’m not sure we can follow her there. But neither can anyone else.”

“Vow-of-Silence will have to look after herself for the moment,” Chan said. “We have to get inside the Mood Indigo. Come on, up the slope.”

Easier said than done. Lifting the ship from the sea to its present location would have been impossible if the Malacostracans had not possessed anti-gravity machines. The side of the inlet was a mess of sharp-edged rock that at first sight could not be climbed. Liddy was the one, ranging away to the left, who found a long cleft that a person could scramble up. Then it was everyone working together, to hoist the unwieldy bulk of the Angel along the narrowing crack in the rock. In any gravity field stronger than Limbo’s they could never have done it. As it was, the whole party was panting and strained when at last they levered Gressel over the lip of the rocky bowl where the Mood Indigo lay, and could scramble the rest of the way.

Again, Chan was the last one up. He found Bony standing by the side of the stranded ship, shaking his head.

“Looks pretty good,” Chan said, as he came up to Bony.

That earned him a skeptical glance. “Appearances don’t tell you much,” Bony said. “The storm gave her a terrible bashing. All the external communications equipment was stripped off.”

“How’s the hull? Was it breached?”

“I can’t tell from here. Friday Indigo bought the best, so that should help. But there’s only one way to know. Once we’re inside we’ll change internal pressure and see what happens.”

Bony sounded upbeat. Chan didn’t let that fool him. Rather than being terrified by their situation, the Bun was exhilarated by the chance to try his fix-up skills on a ship that back in the solar system would have been consigned to the junkyard. Even so, repairing the Mood Indigo so it could fly might need magic; and the specialist in magic, Chrissie, was not here.

Chan paused to worry about that, too, while the others were opening the lowest hatch on the ship and putting in place the portable ladder. He watched as the Angel was lifted and stuffed unceremoniously inside.

It was all a question of timing and distance. If The One followed her original plan, Chan had about two hours. Chrissie and Tarbush would have less than that to reach the Mood Indigo , assuming that he called them now and was able to contact them at once. Every minute he waited decreased their margin. On the other hand, once he made a call the Malacostracans might detect it, trace its point of origin, and either capture the party on the Mood Indigo or simply destroy the ship.

Chan went to the ladder and ascended. He did not enter the ship, but simply poked his head inside the hatch. Bony already had everyone except the Angel organized and hard at work. He caught sight of Chan and called, “Come inside. I want to close the hatch and check pressurization.”

“I’ll be outside for a while longer. Carry on with your test, and I’ll be in when it’s finished.”

In a sense it made Chan’s decision for him. The internal pressure change and test of hull integrity would take at least half an hour. Bony had all the help that he needed. Chan was ready to duck away and descend the ladder when he realized that there was still a missing piece. He stuck his head back in and called again.

Bony glared impatiently at Chan. As he came over to him he said, “Look, if you want me to get this thing to fly—”

“I do. We may have to try, even if the ship isn’t ready. Have Liddy keep an eye open for any big vessel taking off from the Mallies’ field and heading out to sea. If she sees one, you lift off and follow it — whether I’m on board or not.”

Bony looked startled. “But if you’re not here—”

“Do it. I’ll explain later.” If there is a later. Chan ignored Bony and called to Elke, “Do you have the protocols you developed for moving between levels of the multiverse?”

She was over by the little computer of the Mood Indigo , studying it. She gave Chan or the computer — it was hard to tell which — a disdainful glare. “Of course.”

“If Bony takes off, feed him the final one of those protocols, and tell him to use it.”

“But won’t you be at the controls? You were the one—”

Chan was out of the hatch and down the ladder before he could hear the rest of her sentence.

He glanced around him. He needed a location with some specific properties. It had to be high, so that it provided good line-of-sight radio transmission over a wide area. It needed to be in a position from which the Mood Indigo was not directly visible; and ideally it should be hidden from the Malacostracan encampment.

The best he could manage was a compromise. He walked southeast for ten minutes, away from the sea and over the brow of a jutting ridge. On the other side of the hill he stopped. He couldn’t see the encampment, and he couldn’t see the ship. But would anyone hear him?

He began transmission. “Chrissie and Tarb, are you receiving? Hello. Can you hear me?”

He repeated the message three times at one-minute intervals. He was looking at his watch and begi

“Chrissie?”

“Yes. And Tarb. We’ve been sending out signals every hour, but we move around all the time because we don’t want the Malacostracans to be able to home in on our signal. We’re both fine.”

“Good. Where are you?”

“We’re in the area that Elke Siry marked as `badlands.’ She wasn’t kidding. When we heard your call we were only forty meters from our suits, but it took us until now to scramble back to them. This place is more up and down than sideways. It has caves and crevasses and overhangs worse than Miranda. Where are you ? My suit shows you farther south and closer than I expected.”

“How far?”

“About ten kilometers line-of-sight.”

“Damn.” Chan chose his next words carefully. He had to assume that the Mallies might be listening, and that Friday Indigo would be there to interpret anything that was said. “We left the Hero’s Return. You have our heading and our distance. Can you get here in two hours?”