“Yes, ma’am,” the Captain said with feeling, “but not nearly enough.”
“Eighty minutes to go, sir,” Dodds said.
They detached the few pieces of wreckage and equipment that could be dislodged
by hand and dropped them onto the thorns, but with little effect. Fletcher and
Conway took turns hacking at the growth with a metal support strut, but still it
grew slowly toward them. Soon there was not enough space to move around freely
or exercise to keep warm, or more
accurately, less cold. They could only huddle close to the personnel hatch,
teeth clenched together to keep from chattering, and watch the thorns creep
closer.
The scene was being relayed to Rhabwar and was causing increasing concern.
Lieutenant Haslam said suddenly, “I can launch now, sir, and—”
“No,” the Captain said firmly. “If you touch down before it is safe to do so and
the lander is blown over, nobody here will get out of this mess—”
He broke off because his voice had suddenly sounded very loud.
The wind had died.
“Open up,” Fletcher said. “Let’s get out of here.”
The dark-blue morning sky showed through the opening hatch and a negligible
quantity of sand blew in. They maneuvered the litter and its trussed-up
casualty through the opening and onto the upper surface of the hull.
“The lull may be temporary, sir,” Dodds warned. “There are still a few squalls
running through your area.”
The rising sun was still hidden behind sand clouds, but there was more than
enough light to see that the surface had been drastically altered overnight by
the shifting of many sand drifts. From midships to stem the wreck was denuded of
plating, but the skeleton had been filled out by a tightly packed tangle of
thorns. The upper surface of the ship forward to the prow was intact, and the
rocky shelf ahead was clear of thorns.
•”One large squall will hit you in about twelve minutes,” Dodds added.
They jammed the litter against the open hatch and attached its magnetic grapples
to the hull. Then they secured their suit safety lines to the massive hinge and
threw themselves across the litter, hooking their fingers into the webbing
around the casualty. It was just one more physical indignity for the alien
captain, Conway thought, but by now the being was probably Past caring about
such things.
Abruptly the sky was dark again and the wind and sand tore M them, threatening
to lift them bodily off the hull. Conway desperately gripped the webbing as he
felt the magnetic grap-begin to slide and the litter slue around. He wondered if
the wind would blow him beyond the surrounding
thorns were he to let go his grip and his safety line. But his fingers were
locked in a cramp and he felt that his arms, like those of the alien Captain,
were about to be separated from his torso. Then as suddenly as it had come the
wind died and it was light again.
He saw that Murchison, Fletcher, and the patient were still safely attached to
the litter. But he did not move. It grew brighter and he could feel the sun
warming his side when the sand lashed at them again, accompanied by a
high-pitched, screaming thunder.
“Extrovert!” Murchison yelled.
Conway looked up to see the lander hovering ahead of the ship and blasting sand
in all directions with its thrusters. Haslam touched down on the shelf of rock
which was clear of thorns, barely fifty meters from them.
There were no problems while moving the litter to the other ship, and no
shortage of time to do it even though the thorns were already inching toward it.
Before loading it on board, Conway removed the extra webbing and the makeshift
eye protection from the patient and gave it a thorough examination. In spite of
everything it had gone through it was alive and, in Conway’s opinion, very well.
“How about the others, Prilicla?” he asked.
“The temperatures of all of them have come down, friend Conway,” the empath
replied. “They are radiating strong feelings of hunger, but not on the level of
distress. Since the food supply on the wreck has been lost, and may have been