Mind Link: 5/?
by Nancy Smith and Linda Garrick
10
Mark Linley woke up. He was lying on his bunk in his quarters at the Underground station and a sheet had been pulled over him. The curtains were drawn and the room was dark and very quiet. Mark sat up carefully, feeling the bunk lurch under him. There was something he had to do.
He glanced at his chronometer. The readout was blurred and he blinked, trying to focus his eyes. It had been perhaps three hours since he had been in the communications room and there had been that business of the escape craft...
Linley frowned, rubbing his face. Damn! Why the devil had he drunk so much of that stuff? Now, of all times, when he needed a clear head, he was fool enough to get falling down drunk. He must have passed out, for he had no memory of returning to his quarters. Slowly, he pushed the sheet back and swung his feet to the floor. His head swam.
Alan's coffeepot sat on the warmer on the opposite side of the room and Mark stood up, clutching the back of a chair as the room tipped sharply.
He was still thoroughly intoxicated. Mark was an experienced drinker and knew that he was anything but sober. It didn't matter. Alan was dead and the murderer had gotten away. But somewhere in the Utgard Mountains an escape craft had crashed and if there were any survivors, then they could tell him what had happened. Mark intended to find them. Under all the layers of alcohol fumes lay a knot of grief and rage and the desire to make someone pay for the life of his partner.
Mark made it to the coffeepot and dropped into a chair beside the counter, feeling the room sway. With great care, he poured himself a cup of the hot, black liquid and gulped it down. The heat raised wrinkles on his tongue but it didn't matter. He gulped another cup and then a third. Slowly he stood up and went to the water pitcher on the table. Someone had filled it recently, for ice clinked against the sides as he lifted it with a shaking hand.
He poured it into his coffee cup and drained the cup. One of the things he probably needed now was liquid, he reasoned. And maybe something to eat.
The thought of food made his stomach lurch slightly. Deciding to postpone that for the present, he poured more water into his handkerchief and slathered the dripping cloth across his face and neck. Then, feeling shaky but slightly more alert, he glanced around.
They must have removed his boots. The footgear stood by the side of his bed. He pulled off the rest of his clothing and opened the closet door, leaning against the doorframe for support.
In the closet was a Patrol uniform in his size. Mark pulled it on with some difficulty, as the clothing was snug and his fingers weren't functioning well. Then he went to the window.
His quarters were on the second floor but he couldn't leave by the front way. Waters wouldn't let him go. In fact, he was going to be disobeying orders by what he was about to do, but he could claim that he didn't remember Waters telling him he couldn't go. He hadn't seen it as actually necessary to inform the Terran Underground about his photographic memory, after all. On the other hand, the man hadn't actually made it an order, and besides, technically Linley outranked him. It didn't matter anyway. The Commander in Chief of the Terran Underground could have directly forbidden him to go after the occupants of that lifeboat and Mark would have gone anyway.
He opened the window and peered cautiously out.
There was no living being within his field of vision, excluding a pair of golden crowned whoopers that had apparently chosen one of the big evergreens that lined one edge of the property for a nesting site.
Well, he couldn't jump. In the shape he was in, he'd probably break both ankles or, more likely, his neck.
Slowly and carefully, he returned to the bunk and stripped off the sheet. With unsteady hands, he tore it in half and tied the two lengths together. He fastened one end to the desk and dropped the rest from the window. Very carefully, he slid over the sill and lowered himself hand over hand toward the ground.
The desk began to slide as he descended and then came to a stop against the wall by the window. Mark reached the end of the sheet and looked down.
The ground was still nearly two meters below, muddy and bristling with rosebushes, but there was no choice. Linley dropped, aiming for the clear ground just outside the hedge of roses.
He landed unsteadily and fell backwards into the thorny embrace of one of the plants.
Swearing softly to himself but aware of the need for silence, he yanked his uniform free of the barbs and turned toward the garage, set some distance away from the ranch house, sucking at a long gash in the heel of one hand. The side door of the garage was unlocked and he went through.
The base's Patrol car was concealed behind a false panel. Mark struggled with the lock, swearing unimaginatively to himself and at last succeeded in opening it.
The car was locked, as might be expected. Quickly, he flipped his blaster to needle beam and disabled the mechanism.
The door opened. He reached inside and touched the stud that would open the hood. It popped open with a soft click and Mark went swiftly around to the front of the car. With professional expertise, he disabled the engine lock, made several other adjustments to the engine and it obediently roared to life.
Mark slammed the hood, ran to the front of the garage, still weaving slightly and threw the door wide. Bare seconds later he jumped behind the controls, shut the door and lifted from the ground almost before the vehicle cleared the entrance. He scraped the doorframe as he went out, shearing off the sensor on the left side, and soared upward into the clear blue sky of late afternoon. Without another thought, he turned the car directly northward, toward the Utgard Mountains.
11
"Alan!" Kevin scrambled and slid across the steep, icy slope. His companion had vanished from view over the edge of the cliff. If he had been delivered from the Jilectans by Alan, only to let him fall to his death -- "Alan! For God's sake, answer me, kid!"
"Here, Kevin!" The reply was very close. Bronson peered over the edge of the drop.
Alan was four meters below him, clinging to a scrubby, ragged bush that projected from the side of the cliff.
"Oh man!" Bronson closed his eyes for a moment with relief. "Are you okay?"
"I think so. Get me up, will you?"
Bronson looked around. Alan was well out of his reach and the bush didn't look all that secure. It could give way at any moment. An idea hit him. "Toss me your shawl."
Alan tugged at the knot holding the torn blanket around his shoulders. It loosened and came free. Working with one hand and clinging to the bush with the other, Alan balled the blanket as tightly as he could and tossed it up.
Bronson grabbed for it, snagging it out of the air. Carefully, he tied the two fragments of blanket together.
"Make sure the knot's tight," Alan said.
"For sure." Bronson tugged experimentally on it. "Okay." He dropped the end of the blanket over the edge.
It didn't reach. Even with Bronson leaning as far over the edge as he could, his arm extended straight down, the end of the blanket was still a meter above Alan's groping hand. Kevin cussed softly. "Hold on. Maybe if I tie my shirt to it --"
"Kev! The bush is coming loose!"
"Holy hell!" Bronson reached again, hopelessly, the blanket dangling from his clenched fist. Alan gave an alarmed yell.
The bush came free suddenly. With another yip, Alan grabbed for the wall, somehow getting a fingerhold on what seemed to Bronson to be a sheer strip of rock. The bush fell leisurely downward.
"Kid!"
With the incredible speed and dexterity of a trained acrobat, Alan came up the cliffside, finding holds where Bronson could see none. Then he had the end of the blanket in his grasp and Bronson felt the young man's welcome weight on his arms.
"Hang on!" Kevin hauled him up, hand over hand, until he could grasp one of Alan's wrists. With a single, mighty heave, he lifted Alan over the edge.
For a second, Alan clung to the rocks, gasping. Then he turned his head to look at Bronson. For a second they stared at each other and then Alan's face broke into a grin. "Thanks."
Bronson returned it. "You're welcome. Didn't know you were such a good mountain climber."
"Guess I had to be." Alan sat up, beginning to tug at the knot binding the two fragments of blankets together. "Thanks for the loan."
The rest of the trip to the bottom of the slope was remarkably uneventful. Canyon walls towered on either side and the whole area was thick with the tall, bushy evergreens. The snow reached nearly to Alan's knees and he meekly followed in Kevin's wake, letting the larger man break a trail for him. Twilight was beginning to fall.
"It'll be dark soon," Kevin said. "Guess we'd better find some place to spend the night."
"Aircar!" Alan said.
They dodged beneath the trees as the car hummed softly out of the south and buzzed north up the canyon. Bronson stared thoughtfully after it for a long moment before turning to Alan. "Let's stay near the cliff wall. Maybe we'll find a cave or somethin'."
They started north, keeping to the rocks as Bronson had suggested. Some distance back Alan had noted a narrowing of the river, which should allow them to cross without too much difficulty, after which they would turn south again. The sky darkened and Jotenheim glittered overhead. Dimly, just barely visible over the trees, Alan noted the dull red spark in the heavens that was Proxima, the third star in the Centauri system, now on its way toward the horizon. By midsummer, it would be overhead in the daytime, lending a faint pinkish hue to the afternoon sunlight. Alan pulled his ragged shawl tighter around his shoulders against the gusts of wind that blew the snow in flurries around them. The air grew colder as twilight deepened.
The trees grew thinner and more scraggly as they advanced until they were walking through a fairly open area with only low brush and small, scattered trees. They kept close to the rock wall in the hope that, should an aircar pass by, they would be able to escape notice. Alan found that he was listening intently for the sound of aircar engines, but nothing except the sound of the wind and the crunch of their footsteps disturbed the silence.
They passed a deep crevice in the rock wall, skirted an outcropping of snow-capped boulders and at last found their cave. A low, jagged tunnel ran unevenly back into the rock wall. Alan took the handlight from the kit and got down on hands and knees to shine it into the blackness.
"Anybody home?" Bronson inquired.
Alan shook his head. "I don't think so."
"Gimmie the light. I'll check it out." Bronson reached for it.
"Come on," Alan said. "We'll go in together."
Bronson grinned slightly. "Yessir, Colonel Westover."
They entered the cave on all fours, Kevin holding the blaster at ready and Alan shining the light around on the rock walls. A couple of meters back, the narrow tunnel suddenly opened out into a fairly flat area of about two meters by two and a half that was apparently empty of any inhabitants.
Bronson sank down onto the rocky floor with a sigh of relief. "I s'pose we'd better stand watch. You look shot, kid. Better let me take the first one."
Alan didn't argue. He was feeling more exhausted than he could remember since his incarceration aboard the "Leviathan". He extended the light to Kevin. "Here, hold this while I check the pack. I think there's some rations in here. It's too bad we can't have a fire."
"I know. I'd like a fire." Bronson shivered and pulled his portion of the blanket closely around himself.
"Here's some canned stuff." Alan produced a can of what he recognized as the traditional "survival rations" that were provided in most civilian emergency kits. There were, he noted, a total of four.
"Whoever the guy that owned that planet hopper was, he sure didn't believe in preparin' for emergencies, did he," Bronson grumbled.
"Well," Alan said, "he probably never expected anything to happen. You'd be surprised how many people think that way."
"Or don't think," Kevin said, refusing to give up his grievance.
Outside a familiar hum was becoming louder and they fell silent, listening, as an aircar approached from the south and passed overhead. The sound retreated as the car continued on north up the canyon.
"Why do you suppose so many of those cars are going north?" Alan asked.
Bronson didn't answer for a moment. "I dunno," he said finally.
Alan shifted uncomfortably. "Do you suppose they know something we don't?"
"Maybe," Bronson said.
Alan was silent. Another aircar buzzed past, also heading north, followed almost immediately by another.
"I hope Mark's okay," Alan said suddenly. "Unless Worley's managed to make it back to town, he probably thinks I'm dead."
Bronson didn't answer.
"He must be half out of his mind by now," Alan added.
"Yeah," Kevin said. "I would be, in his place. Probably kickin' himself for gettin' drunk an' not bein' there."
"I've been thinking about it," Alan said softly. "Poor Mark."
Kevin pulled the top off his can. "Don't worry. It'll be good for him. Teach m'big brother to be a bit more careful with his drinkin' habits."
"I just hope he's okay," Alan said, scraping out the half-frozen remnants of food in the can. It might not be gourmet, he told himself, but at least it filled his stomach. "I know how I'd feel if I thought he --" He broke off. "I did, once, on Kuloghi. I'd been in a bad crack-up. I couldn't remember who had been with me and I thought Mark was dead." He stopped as another aircar hummed by, going north. "It was pretty awful."
"Yeah, I know," Bronson said, uncomfortably. "But there ain't nothin' we can do about it now. Finish your dinner an' go to sleep. You need it."
"I'm done." Alan lay back on the cave floor. The night was very still and another car was approaching. It followed its predecessors northward, up the canyon. The number of cars seemed to have increased with the coming of darkness.
"Screwy," Kevin muttered.
Alan wiggled around and finally decided that the fewest things gouged him when he lay on his back. He glanced at Bronson. "What do you think is going on? I don't think all those cars are looking for us."
"Me neither." Bronson shook his head. "Whatever it is, I don't like it one bit."
Silence again. Something screamed wildly from the evergreens without, making them both jump.
"Night bird, I guess," Kevin said. "Go to sleep."
The thing screamed again, nearer this time. Alan sat up and Kevin drew the blaster.
Another scream, louder and much closer, lifting the hair on Alan's scalp. Kevin moved until he was partially between Alan and the entrance. Alan got to his hands and knees.
The thing screamed again, sounding so near that it seemed to be in the cave with them. Bronson cursed softly.
Alan took the light and trained it on the entrance.
A small animal was poised in the cave opening. It was no larger than a housecat and shaped vaguely like one. Two large tufted ears stood up straight on the rounded head and long, mobile whiskers twitched at them. As they sat frozen, watching, the thing opened its mouth, revealing white, pointed teeth and voiced again that shrill, nerve-grating screech.
There was a faint scuffling sound toward the rear of the cave. Alan and Kevin scrambled to one side as half a dozen small forms, no larger than chipmunks, scurried past them toward the animal. The creature turned as they approached and bounded away. The smaller creatures followed.
Alan began to grin. "Mom came back from her hunting trip and found us in her cave. Guess she figured she'd better move her kids and let us have it."
Bronson sank back down. "Damn! She scared the pants off me! Go to sleep, kid."
Alan lay back down, switching off the light as he did so. "All right. I guess I *am* pretty tired." He pulled the fragment of blanket tightly around him. "G'night."
"G'night," Kevin answered.
**********
tbc
