Dirge - Alan Dean Foster [110]
Tse remained at Mallory’s side. “It’s okay, Alwyn. While the suits are recharged we’ll have something to eat and drink. We’ll talk about it, and you can collect your thoughts. Then we’ll try again.” She smiled hopefully. “Maybe all you need is a fresh start.”
“That’s right.” Though it was not required of her, Nadurovina did her best to encourage him. “If you stepped out of the ship facing the wrong way, you could have started off on the wrong tangent right at the beginning.”
“We’ll recheck the location and orientation of the repair boat, too.” Rothenburg’s tone belied the helpfulness of his words. “If it’s off even a few degrees it would mess everything up.”
Everything was already messed up, Mallory thought apprehensively. The repair craft was properly positioned. He knew that was the case because the cracked hill stood exactly where it ought to be. So did the crater. He knew it was the right crater not only because it was situated precisely where it belonged, but because it was the proper size, shape, and depth. He remembered. There was nothing wrong with his memory—unless he was so seriously impaired that his imaginings had become that real to him. If that was the case, then maybe what he thought was reality was in fact the foundation of his madness. Maybe he wasn’t even here, on this runt rock of a satellite. Maybe he was lying in a hospital somewhere back on Earth, with a solicitous but otherwise disinterested Tse bending over him. He’d been given a lot of medication, he knew. Maybe his return to Treetrunk was drug-induced instead of Kurita-Kinoshita powered.
“Alwyn, don’t look like that!” Tse was at his side, gripping his suit and shaking him. “You’re scaring me.”
Blinking, he nodded slowly as he met her gaze. “It’s nice to have company. I’m scaring me, too.” Gently disengaging his arm, he turned to look at and past the crater rim. “This is right. Everything is right. It’s just as I remember it. The rock should be here. The recording should be under it.”
He became aware that the two techs were now flanking him. “Mr. Mallory, sir,” one of them was saying inside his helmet, “we’re running low on air. Regulations require that we return to the ship for recharging.”
Angry and confused, he allowed himself to be led back toward the waiting repair boat. Aware that their words were common currency via the suit channel, none of his companions voiced their thoughts or feelings. Vacuum helped to dissipate the growing tension, but could not banish it entirely.
Halfway back to the ship, Mallory halted as if shot. When he whirled to confront Rothenburg, the officer recoiled slightly but held his ground. He did not care for the look on the patient’s face.
“When the technicians from the Ronin retrieved my lifeboat, what method did they use?”
“Excuse me?” Taken aback by the abruptness of the question as well as the confrontation, Rothenburg stalled for time.
“How did they reclaim it?” Mallory was in a fit of impatience, not madness. “Did they use a tractor beam from the big ship, did service personnel adjust its position before signaling for it to be taken aboard, did they try to fire the boat’s engine? What recovery techniques were employed?”
“I don’t know,” the major admitted. “But I can find out.” Switching to suit to boat to mothership relay, Rothenburg conveyed the query while Mallory and the rest of the party waited. Not in silence, though, or in contentment.
“Really, Mr. Mallory,” the tech standing on his right declared. “Suit air is approaching ten percent. We absolutely must return to the boat.”
“You go on if you want to.” All of Mallory’s attention was focused on Rothenburg, waiting for a reply, waiting for an explanation. “I’m not finished here yet. Ten percent is more than I need.” At his side, a hesitant but supportive Tse stood with him. With an effort of will, she avoided looking down at her own suit gauge.
Rothenburg finally switched back to suit-to-suit. “Two manned repair craft were used to move your old boat from here to the Ronin. They were smaller than the one we came down on, but larger