“The port sled is free. We’ve fueled it with cubes from the ship’s supply—”
They had no right to do that ordinarily. But now it was sheer folly not to raid the stores when the Starfire would never use them again. Kartr crawled over the battered hatch to the now open berth of the sled. Fylh was already impatiently seated behind the windbreak, testing the controls.
“She’ll fly?”
Fylh’s head, the crest flat against the skull like some odd, stiff mane of hair, swiveled and his big reddish eyes met the sergeant’s. The cynical mockery with which the Trystian met life was clear in his reply.
“We will hope so. There is, of course, a fair chance that within seconds after I set us off we will only be dust drifting through the air. Strap down, dear friends, strap down!”
Kartr folded his long legs under him beside Zinga, and the Zacathan fastened the small shock web across them both. Fylh’s claws touched a button. The craft swept sidewise out of the hull of the Starfire, slowly, delicately until they were well away from the ship, then it arose swiftly with Fylh’s usual disregard for the niceties of speed adjustment. Kartr merely swallowed and endured.
“To the river and then along it, hover twenty feet up—”
Not that Fylh needed any such order. This was the sort of thing they had done before. Kartr edged forward an inch or two to the spy-port on the right. Zinga was already at the similar post on the left.
It seemed only seconds before they were over water, looking down into the tangled mass of bright green which clothed its banks. Automatically Kartr classified and inventoried. It was not necessary this time to make detailed notes. Fylh had triggered the scanner and it should be recording as they flew. The motion of the sled sent air curving back against their sweating bodies. Kartr’s nostrils caught scents—some old, some new. The life below was far down the scale of intelligence—reptile, bird, insect. He thought that this desert country supported little else. But they did have two bits of luck to cling to—that this was an Arth planet and that they had landed so close to the edge of the wasteland.
Zinga scratched his scaled cheek reflectively. He loved the heat, his frill spread to its greatest extent. And Kartr knew that the Zacathan would have much preferred to cross the burning sands on his own feet. He was radiating cheerful interest, almost, the sergeant thought a little resentfully, as if he were one of the sleek, foppish officers of a Control or Sector base being escorted on a carefully supervised sightseeing tour. But then Zinga always enjoyed living in the present, his long-yeared race had plenty of time to taste the best of everything.
The sled rode the air smoothly, purring gently. That last tune-up they had given her had done the trick after all. Even though they had had to work from instructions recorded on a ten-year-old repair manual tape. She had been given the last of the condensers. They had practically no spare parts left now—
“Zinga,” Kartr demanded suddenly of his seat mate. “Were you ever in a real Control fitting and repair port?”
“No,” replied the Zacathan cheerfully. “And I sometimes think that they are only stories invented for the amusement of the newly hatched. Since I was mustered into the service we have always done the best we could to make our own repairs—with what we could find or steal. Once we had a complete overhaul—it took us almost three months—we had two wrecked ships to strip for other parts. What a wealth of supplies! That was on Karbon, four—no, five space years ago. We still had a head mech-techneer in the crew then and he supervised the job. Fylh—what was his name?”
“Ratan. He was a robot from Perun. We lost him the next year in an acid lake on a blue star world. He was very good with engines—being one himself.”
“What has been happening to Central Control—to us?” asked Kartr slowly. “Why don’t we have proper equipment—supplies—new recruits?”
“Breakdown,” replied Fylh crisply. “Maybe Central Control is too big, covers too many worlds, spreads its authority too thin and too far. Or perhaps it is too old so that it loses hold. Look at the sector wars, the pull for power between sector chiefs. Don’t you think that Central Control would stop that—if it could?”
“But the Patrol—”
Fylh trilled laughter. “Ah, yes, the Patrol. We are the stubborn survivals, the wrongheaded ones. We maintain that we, the Stellar Patrol, crewmen and rangers, still keep the peace and uphold galactic law. We fly here and there in ships which fall to pieces under us because there are no longer those with the knowledge and skill to repair them properly. We fight pirates and search forgotten skies—for what, I wonder? We obey commands given to us over the signature of the two Cs. We are fast becoming an anachronism, antiques still alive but better dead. And one by one we vanish from space. We should all be rounded up and set in some museum for the planet-bound to gawk at, objects with no reasonable function—”
“What will happen to Central Control?” Kartr wondered and set his teeth as a lurch of the sled stabbed his arm against Zinga’s tough ribs and jarred his wrist.
“The galactic empire—this galactic empire,” pronounced the Zacathan with a grin which told of his total disinterest in the matter, “is falling apart. Within five years we’ve lost touch with as many sectors, haven’t we? C.C. is just a name now as far as its power runs. In another generation it may not even be remembered. We’ve had a long run—about three thousand years—and the seams are beginning to gap. Sector wars now—the result—chaos. We’ll slip back fast—probably far back, maybe even into planet-tied barbarianism with space flight forgotten. Then we’ll start all over again—”
“Maybe,” was Fylh’s pessimistic reply. “But you and I, dear friend, will not be around to witness that new dawn—”
Zinga nodded agreement. “Not that our absence will matter. We have found us a world to make the best of right here and now. How far off civilized maps are we?” he asked the sergeant.
They had flashed maps on the viewing screen in the ship, maps noted on tapes so old that the dates on them seemed wildly preposterous, maps of suns and stars no voyager had visited in two, three, five generations, where Control had had no contact for half a thousand years. Kartr had studied those maps for weeks. And on none of them had he seen this system. They were too far out—too near the frontier of the galaxy. The map tape which had carried the record of this world—provided there had ever been one at all—must have rusted away past using, forgotten in some pigeonhole of Control archives generations ago.
“Completely.” He took a sort of sour pleasure in that answer.
“Completely off and completely out,” Zinga commented brightly. “Clear start for all of us. Fylh—this river—it’s getting a bit bigger, isn’t it?”
The expanse of water below them was widening out. For some time now they had been coasting above greenery—first over shrubs and patches of short vegetation, and then clumps of quite fair-sized trees which gathered and bunched into woodland. Animal life there—Kartr’s mind snapped alert to the job on hand as the sled rose, climbing to follow the line of rise in the land beneath them.
There were strong scents carried now by the wind they breasted, good scents—earth and growing things—the tang of water. They still hovered over the stream bed and, below, the current was stronger, beating around and over rocks. Then the river curved around a point thick with trees and before them, perhaps half a mile away, was a falls, a spray veil splashing over the rocky lip of a plateau.
Fylh’s claws played over the controls. The sled lost speed and altitude. He maneuvered it toward a scrap of sand which ran in a tongue from the rock and tree-lined shore. They dropped lightly, a perfect landing. Zinga leaned forward and clapped him on the shoulder.
“Consider yourself commended, Ranger. A beautiful landing—simply beautiful—” His voice cracked as he tried without much success to reach the high note which might be sounded by a gushing female tourist.
Kartr scrambled awkwardly out of the seat and stood, feet braced a little apart in the sand. The water purled and rippled toward him over green-covered rocks. He was aware of small life flickers, water creatures about their business below its surface. He dropped to his knees and thrust his hand into the cool wet. It lapped about his wrist, moistened the edge of his tunic sleeve. And it was chill enough and clear enough to offer temptation he could not resist.
“Going for a splash?” asked Zinga. “I am.”