The Space Opera MEGAPACK ®. Jay Lake

illuminated the landscape and caused long trails of incandescent vapor to writhe like serpents, green and yellow and brilliant red, twisting and coiling in enigmatic patterns.

      “The heat is breaking down the elements,” said Nanset quietly. “Cracking compounds locked for millions of years in frigid stasis. That’s oxygen burning, and hydrogen and methane. Who knows what elements and how they will act down here?’

      “Heat?” Pendris snorted his disgust. “What about all those volcanoes? The heat of our blast is nothing to them.”

      “Heat is relative. On Earth those volcanoes would be nothing. They wouldn’t even get started. That stuff isn’t water, remember, but liquid ammonia. Those mountains are of ice. The lower atmosphere must be a mixture of hydrogen, ammonia, methane, and carbon tetrahydride. Interesting.”

      “Check your field,” said Durgan sharply. “You’ve no time to gawk at the scenery. Pendris, get busy on the detector.”

      Creech had given them the instrument. A box fitted with dials, which, he claimed, would register the presence of the cargo. If they could get close enough. If it would work in the conditions existing under the clouds. If the cargo was still as it had been.

      Durgan spoke into the radio.

      “Sheila. We’ve reached bottom. Check my position.”

      “You moved off course. You should have stayed on it.”

      “A mountain got in the way. We—”

      “Brad!” Her voice was strained. “Are you all right?”

      “So far, yes. Now quit being polite and get on with the job. Direct me please. Direct!”

      He fell silent as her professional drone came over the speaker, a string of co-ordinates, corrections, alterations. The ship thrummed as it moved in a wide circle, slowing as it met the head-on force of the wind, which moved at a constant velocity over the ground, bucking as it met it side-on.

      Pendris sucked in his breath.

      “Anything?”

      “I’m not sure, Dugan. The needles kicked a bit. Can you go back over?”

      “I’m spiraling. Keep a sharp watch and yell if you see anything. Nanset!”

      “Yes?”

      “How is the field holding out?”

      “Fine.” The engineer had lacked conviction. He enlarged the comment at Durgan’s insistence. “We dropped a fraction back there. It shouldn’t have happened, but it did. Maybe the atmosphere is corroding the outer hull and thus building up resistance. I’ve made the necessary adjustments.”

      “The hull is corrosion-proof,” said Pendris. “Stop making excuses and keep your attention on your machine. Right, Durgan?”

      “That’s good advice—why don’t you follow it?”

      “I’m doing just that.” His voice was ugly. “But when we get out of here, you and me are going to have a little talk in a dark alley. I don’t go for snotty pilots.”

      Sheila spoke before Durgan could answer. “Have you located it yet, Brad?”

      “No.”

      “What’s keeping you?”

      “Are you joking? It’s a mess down here. We could be lucky and hit it right away, or we could search for a hundred years. Is Creech riding you?”

      “Well, he—”

      “Tell him to get lost. Have you any more data I can use? No? Then quit babbling and let me get on with the job.”

      It was hard to talk with more than two gravities tearing at the muscles, making every movement an exercise in applied strength, and he was beginning to feel the strain. The suits helped, but that help had to be paid for in sore places, a body slimed with perspiration, itches which couldn’t be scratched, aches which couldn’t be relieved. And it was impossible to forget the pressure outside, the giant hand which would crush him into a smear should something go wrong.

      Durgan adjusted the controls, tightening the spiral pattern he had chosen, thinking of a falling ship and the variable forces that would play on it. A last-second shift of wind and it would have been carried miles from the anticipated crash-point. An abrupt loss of mass, the same. Yet the girl had been adamant as to its location.

      He examined the screens, trying to catch a glimpse of twisted metal, the lines of something artificial and alien to the landscape below. He saw nothing but the fury of volcanic activity, the shimmer of disturbed seas, the red glow painted on curtains of glistening ice.

      “There!” Pendris’s voice was high with excitement. “We’ve just passed it. The needles damn near left the dials!”

      The vessel shuddered as Durgan cut acceleration and turned to face back from where they had come.

      “There!” said Pendris again. “There!”

      A torrent of lava fell from the crest of a high ridge, falling into a pool sparkling with flecks of dying brilliance. To one side, almost hidden by a crusted mass of deposited crystals, a sheared plate of twisted metal shone in the ruby light.

      The wreck of the Archimedes.

      * * * *

      They found the cargo container a mile away, lying in a patch of luminous snow, a thin green haze blurring fine detail. Incredibly, it was still almost intact, the thick metal buckled and warped, torn in several places, those openings having prevented crushing implosion. Deftly Durgan steered the ship towards it, his hands delicate on the controls as he fed power to the jets, the outer hull slithering over the frozen surface.

      “How’s that, Pendris? Close enough?”

      Pendris grunted. He sat upright, his helmet enclosed by an enfolding mask, both hands thrust deep into the gloves of the waldo attachments.

      “Can you get it a bit closer?”

      Power thrummed as the ship edged forward. Nanset looked up from his dials.

      “We shouldn’t make actual contact,” he said. “The field is becoming unbalanced, the energies grounding from the area of contact.”

      “Can you compensate?”

      “I’m trying. For a time, yes, I think I can manage it. But be quick.”

      Pendris grunted again. “Quick? The damned thing’s covered with scrap. I’ll have to cut it free before we can hope to fasten the grapnels.”

      “Then get on with it!” Durgan was sharp, worried, on edge now that he had nothing to do. Now they had arrived, Pendris was the main factor. “Don’t waste time flapping your mouth!”

      “I’ll get you!” said Pendris. “When we get out of here, I swear that I’ll get you!”

      “Any time you fancy!” Durgan drew a shuddering breath. “Now get busy earning your pay!”

      On the screen, he could see the waldo attachments unfold from their housings, literal extensions of Pendris’s hands and arms, stretching, reaching, bright fire blazing as lasers cut through jagged pieces of metal. From the operator’s mask, Pendris’s voice came as a musing drone.

      “Tough. The damned thing is built like a safe. Solid metal strapped and reinforced like the vault of a bank. Lucky for us in a way, that’s why it stayed in one piece, but what the hell would they be carrying to take such precautions?”

      The lasers died, were replaced by mechanical claws that ripped the tattered remains from the bulk of the container. A hook caught in one of the openings, pulled, dropped free as it made no impression. Again Pendris tried to turn the container, to shift it from its bed. A third failure and he swore in savage irritation.

      “It’s too heavy! Those walls must be six inches thick! Why the hell didn’t Creech warn us?”