Paws and Planets (15 page)

All in all, it
made for an uneasy journey.

* * * * *

EPISODE 5 -
FORT

The team of
four who had volunteered for the task of burying the core were by
now well on their way. Geophysical reports had indicated a suitable
area east of the ship. Task complete, they would turn back and
after dumping the ore driller a few miles away from the drill site,
drive towards the rendezvous, some miles north of where the convoy
was to begin its long riverbank trail towards the ocean and closer
to the hills that could be viewed from where they were as a faint
smudge on the horizon.

After a hot and
dusty journey (they recharged the vehicle batteries during the
sunny daylight hours) they were approaching the designated grid
reference. Looking round the arid and dusty landscape, Angus, the
youngest in the team, decided that it was the most terrible place
imaginable. As the majority of his life had been spent in the
rarefied and protective atmosphere of the ship, he was finding life
decidedly hard on the surface.

“Worse than the
filmdiscs,” he said in disgust.

The three men
looked at him.

“I saw a film
on the ship called Lawrence of Arabia,” he offered by way of
explanation, “it was set centuries ago, in a desert, but this place
is much worse. Surely the Sahara Desert on Earth isn’t like this?
The heat’s unbearable.”

The other three
had ever been there so couldn’t answer. He rumbled away about the
unfairness of it all, complaining about the intolerable heat and
the dust for quite some time. His compatriots grew heartily sick of
listening. It was one thing to have to cope with the journey, they
were finding the going difficult as well, it was quite another to
have to listen to someone complaining at the same time; all the
time. Eventually Tom, their fourth member, not so politely told him
to put a sock in it and give them all a bit of peace. Angus obeyed,
but with a hundred and one grumbles.

The engineer
looked at his handheld and at his Captain, his voice muffled by the
square of cloth which covered the lower part of his face as a
protection against the dust that made breathing difficult, Johannes
Pederson uttered the words they were waiting for.

“This is it,”
he announced. “Stop here.”

Young Tom put
his foot on the brake with a huge sigh of relief that the first and
most difficult half of their journey was over. All four had taken
their fair share of the driving. It was hard work, keeping the
vehicle on course, the ore-driller bumping along behind, attached
as it was by an improvised tow bar. They stopped at least once an
hour to dig the driller and sometimes the jeep itself out of the
sand. The driller was heavy and seemed to have a will of its own,
successfully embedding its wheels in the soft sand on a regular
basis and without a great deal of effort. Unfortunately it took a
great deal of strength and effort to dig it out again.

Finding
their way across the desert was also difficult. In vain they had
searched the ship’s databases for a program designed to aid
navigation dirtside to no avail, not even in the little used
historical data libraries. Eventually they had unearthed a
twentieth century compass in a collection of old artefacts one of
the junior engineers had been squirreling away since early
childhood. It had proved invaluable, without it there would have
been no way they could have negotiated the featureless desert. The
handhelds were only as good as they information they were
programmed with and they had nothing in their memories on the
topography of the planet. There were disadvantages of being brought
up in a heavily technological society. One relied on the computers
to do the work and old skills were forgotten. These would have to
be re-learnt now. For the umpteenth time that day, Peter Howard
checked the notebook where he had noted down the co-ordinates of
their destination. It felt strange using these archaic methods like
pen and paper.

“We’ll rest
until dawn,” announced Johannes. Peter nodded, he trusted the chief
engineer’s judgement, problems would be more likely to occur if
they tried to drill in the dark. Tomorrow, they could take the
hours needed to set up the machine and drill the hole. Once the
core was safely deposited and the hole filled in they would head
back to their families and friends at top speed and much faster
than during the journey outwards as the driller would not be
careering along behind. They should make good time.

The two young
seamen who had volunteered for this duty set out their bedding and
promptly fell asleep; to all intent and appearance without a care
in the world. Not so their officers, who sat talking, wondering how
the convoy was getting on, their conversation interspersed with
comments about their families.

By noon the
next day the power-core was buried. The team was on their way to
the rendezvous. Peter Howard still regretted the necessity of
leaving his wife and family to do this but believed it was his duty
as Captain to lead this dangerous and potentially fatal expedition
into the unknown. Johannes Pederson had felt the same. The other
two were volunteers and unmarried. The power-core was not as
unstable as the old nuclear reactors of the twentieth and
twenty-first centuries but it was very powerful and could still do
a lot of damage in the wrong hands. Well, he reflected, it was done
now for good or ill – he didn’t think even he could find it again.
Now I can go back to Anne and the children.

* * * * *

Back at the
ship, Elliot Murdoch had been very busy. His plans were laid; he
would now carry them out. There were no dissenting voices when he
told the men of his own block about what was to happen. He had
expected none. He approached the prisoners incarcerated behind the
security doors, informed them of what his orders were and left them
to argue it out between themselves. They would realise that his
proposal was the only one open to them and agree to follow
him
. He would then and only then, release them.

His own men
were arming themselves with knives and surplus batons and were
appropriating the best of everything that they could find. Not for
them the leftovers. They intended to be the leaders of the crowd,
this army in the making. Excited and undisciplined as a result of
their unexpected freedom they might be now, but over the following
weeks Murdoch would mould them all into a disciplined force and one
that would overrun the crew and in his own words, ‘make them
pay’.

There was the
expected mayhem when the blocks emptied. The prepared food was
almost gone by now and crowds of men began to strip the ship of
anything edible. The fresh produce area containing the vegetables
and nutrients was cleared within the hour. Murdoch and his men took
charge of the remaining cattle. When they left for the river they
would take them with them, an irreplaceable asset. His own men had
orders to keep them safe from the ex-prisoners from the other
blocks.

They would hunt
out the crew, however long it took and however far away. In the
lush soil beside the river they would recuperate from their desert
trek, it was not after all that far away, he had sent out scouts to
take a look. The convoy’s tracks would be easy to follow and his
plan was simple.

He would catch
up with the crew, kill the men and appropriate the women. He wanted
a woman, a virile man, the enforced abstinence of his prison block
on the ship over the last twelve years (and the six before that in
the penitentiary on Moonbase Three) had almost driven him mad. He
intended that it would not be long before he would take his pick of
the most nubile and attractive. In the back of his mind he was
remembering the holo in the Captain’s cabin on the ship. He stood
there, thinking hard about the pleasures to come and rubbing his
hands together with anticipation.

* * * * *

Miles away and
to the northeast, Tom kicked at the back wheel of the jeep. The
vehicle had stopped dead in its tracks and despite his best efforts
was showing no signs of ever intending to move again. The dry,
harsh climate had done its work well and the engine was damaged
beyond repair. They would have to walk to the hills.

“It’ll take us
weeks to reach the rendezvous in this heat. We can’t take the
direct route. Have to detour for water,” said Johannes in a gloomy
voice, “they’ll not wait around for us either. Camilla will drive
them on no matter what.”

“I know,”
replied Peter, “but she’ll activate the locator. We will be able to
find them with the handheld. I vote we head straight for the hills,
miss out the idea of the rendezvous entirely.”

“As long as the
handheld keeps recharging,” said Johannes. He seemed determined to
look on the black side. “This blasted planet seems well designed to
incapacitate our equipment.”

“We’ll not
switch it on until we get out of the desert,” answered his Captain,
clapping his friend on the shoulder. “We’ll find them, never
fret.”

The engineer
grunted. His wife and teenage daughter were part of the convoy and
he was desperate to reach them. The two men were both wondering how
their loved ones were faring.

* * * * *

The convoy had
made good time and was camped in the low foothills of what was a
fairly substantial mountain range. The desert may have been a dry
and inhospitable place but the land beside the water (the river cut
the mountains in half and through the centuries had cut a deep
gorge) more than compensated. The summer season was by now well
advanced.

Although
strange to their eyes after their lives on Earth and on the ship
the countryside they were travelling through lightened their
hearts. The grass was lush and teemed with miniscule life. Insects
buzzed around. River ‘birds’ flew in the sky then dived into the
water for ‘fish’. The birds had no feathers, being covered with a
very fine downy fur, but were definitely birds for all that with
huge narrow wings. Multi-coloured fish swam in the river and when
tasted gingerly by those brave enough to do so, were succulent
enough for them to ask for second helpings. The hills themselves,
being higher than the desert possessed a light breeze that was
pleasant. The blue flowers that covered the expanse of ochre grass
held a sweet spicy tang. They saw no animals larger than a small
squat rodent type and Camilla hoped that was not indicative of
environmental stagnation.

“The bigger
animals will have headed away as soon as they sensed us,” Shelley
Lambert reassured the older woman, “there were some dried out
tracks and droppings at our last stopping place, I couldn’t say
what kind of animals left the imprints but they were large.”

“How
large?”

Shelley cupped
her two hands together in a circle about the size of a horse’s
hoof.

Camilla’s
eyebrows rose and she decided to double the perimeter guard that
night. Better safe than sorry was an old space-fleet adage.

“The scouts are
returning!” called out an excited voice.

With an
apologetic smile at Shelley for deserting her, Camilla turned and
walked towards the perimeter. She had sent the scouts in the
direction of the west side of the gorge where in the distance she
had spied a promising rock formation. It had looked as if it might
be defensible from the distance, now was the moment of truth. If
the spot were to be chosen it would mean crossing the swirling
river but it would be worth it, one more hazard the convicts would
need to deal with before they could reach them. She would use the
vehicles as a makeshift bridge, then dispose of them on the other
side. They could and would walk the rest.

It was good
news. The leading scout rider spurred his grey mare on towards her,
his face one big beam of delight and accomplishment of a job well
done.

“Found the
perfect place,” he shouted as soon as he was within earshot. One or
two of the guards pricked up their ears. The mare came to stop and
the rider dismounted in one fluid movement that spoke of a lifetime
spent with horses, “about two miles north of the crossing.” Both he
and his mount steamed in the midday sun, they had swum across the
river, it being too deep to ford with any ease. “There’s a corral
for the animals.”

Trust Gerry
Russell to put the horses first
, Camilla thought with a weary
chuckle. He was nothing if not predictable.

“And the
humans?” she prompted.

“Caves, plenty
of trees, good water springs. A small tributary bisects the corral
too.”

“Defensible?”

The man thought
for a moment. “Absolutely. Lots of loose rocks. The summit can be
made into quite a little fortress.”

Camilla nodded.
That might be enough.

“We can be
there by evening,” encouraged Gerry persuasively.

“I’d certainly
feel safer with the river between us and them. Perhaps we can make
it before dark. We have to get the bridge built first though, drive
the vehicles into the shallowest point then move everything and
everybody across. On reflection, I think that if we can get across
the water tonight that’s as much as we can hope for.”

Gerry looked
and felt disappointed. He had been so looking forward to showing
them his ‘perfect place’ that very day, but, perhaps it would be
better (and certainly safer) if they did it in two stages. The
horses were tired and could do with a rest. He himself did not feel
tired in the least. Gerry had recently entered his fourth decade,
but most people who met him found this difficult to believe. His
gentle boyish face had it seemed to those who knew him, never
altered an iota since the day he had led the livestock up into the
Electra
twelve years before. At twenty, he had been the
youngest qualified livestock handler in the fleet. He never
appeared to put on an ounce of flesh either, no matter how much he
ate.