A World of Difference Read online

  “Your body,” Sarah said. “Your life.”

  “Ask Reatur.”

  Sarah threw her hands in the air. Lamra had never seen a human do that and did not know what it meant. All Sarah said, though, was, “All fight. Ask Reatur. Ask Reatur now.” She stood up and started out of the mates’ chambers.

  Lamra watched her go. She scratched the itchy skin over her buds again. The notion of not ending when the buds dropped off was still a long way from real to her. For that matter, the time when the buds would drop still seemed a very long way off. To a mate, anything further away than tomorrow seemed a long way off.

  Morea came rushing in. Lamra was so lost in her own thoughts that the other mate managed to grab two of her arms and almost pull her over. That roused Lamra. She squealed, straightened up, and tugged back. Morea jerked free. She ran away, squealing herself. Eyestalks wiggling happily, Lamra dashed after her.

  The rover purred along until the right front wheel hit a big rock hidden by a snowdrift. The tough little vehicle climbed over the stone but came down with a jolt that rattled its two riders-it did not have much in the way of springs or padding for the seats. Every possible gram of weight had been left off.

  Shota Rustaveli’s teeth came together with a click that effectively served as a period to the song he had been singing. He clutched at his kidneys with a theatrical groan. “So this is what it’s like to serve in the tank corps,” he said.

  Valery Bryusov did not reply for a moment; he was busy wrestling the rover back on course. “I would not mind having a few tons of steel around me to smooth out the ride,” he said as the machine finally straightened out.

  “Nor would I.” Rustaveli shivered. “A few tons of steel would also enclose a space which could be heated,” the Georgian went on wistfully. Only a windscreen and a roll cage separated him from the cold all around; not enough, he thought, but again it saved weight. He did not think well of saving weight, not after nine days in the chilly, drafty rover.

  Snow spattered off the windscreen. Some blew over and spattered off Rustaveli’s face. He swore and wiped it away. It was blowing on Bryusov, too, but the Russian paid it no mind. Like everyone aboard Tsiolkovsky but the Georgian, he seemed perfectly comfortable on Minerva and wore his coat and fur hat as if he had thrown them on only as an afterthought.

  “I want something warm,” Rustaveli said. “A woman, by choice.”

  “Sorry I can’t oblige you there,” Bryusov grunted. “Will you settle for some tea?” Without waiting for an answer, he pulled to a stop so Rustaveli could pour from the vacuum flask without spilling tea all over himself.

  The Georgian drank quickly; had he hesitated, he would have been taking iced tea by the time he got to the bottom of his glass. He savored the warmth. “Not a woman,” he said, “but it will have to do.”

  “I wouldn’t mind a glass myself,” Bryusov said. “I could use a break.”

  Rustaveli felt his cheeks grow hot-not the kind of warmth he had been looking for. “I’m sorry, Valery Aleksandrovich. That was thoughtless of me.” He poured for the linguist. Baiting Bryusov was enjoyable when he did it on purpose; being accidentally rude was something else again.

  Despite the snow flurries, the day did seem less grimly chill without the wind of the rover’s motion. Rustaveli looked around. “Good enough for some pictures,” he decided, and reached for the camera beside him.

  Through the spattering snow, the countryside was much more rockribbed than it was around Tsiolkovsky’s landing site. Of course, by now the ship was 120 kilometers to the southwest; Jotun Canyon lay only a few kilometers eastward. If the land hereabouts was rockribbed, Rustaveli thought, the canyon madea gash big enough for a heart transplant.

  Something moved that was not snow. Rustaveli and Bryusov saw it at the same time. The linguist grabbed for binoculars, Rustaveli for a long lens for his Nikon. “Not a Minervan,” Bryusov said after a moment. “Not one of their domestic animals, either, or not one we’ve seen before.”

  “No.” Rustaveli watched the animal through the camera’s viewfinder. “It doesn’t move like a domestic animal.” The more the Georgian studied the beast, the greater the unease that flowered in him. He held the camera in one hand while making sure with the other that he knew where the Kalashnikov was.

  The Minervan animal did not move like anything domesticated. It moved like a tiger, as nearly as could a creature built on this planet’s lines. Like all Minervan beasts the Soviets knew about, it was radially symmetrical, with six legs, six arms, and six eyestalks above them.

  But where Minervans ambled and their domestic animals plodded, this creature stalked. Its legs were long and graceful, its arms, by contrast, relatively short but thick with muscle and appended with talons that put Minervans’ fingerclaws to shame. Even its eyestalks had a purposeful motion different from anything Rustaveli had seen before. Somehow they reminded him of so many poisonous snakes.

  Three of those eyestalks fixed on the rover. “It’s spotted us,” Bryusov said, dismay in his voice. A moment later, he sounded unhappier yet. “It’s coming this way.”

  “l noticed that myself, thank you.” Rustaveli was pleased he was able to make light banter when he would sooner have jumped off the rover and fled. That was what his body was screaming he ought to do, though his brain had a nasty suspicion the animal would be faster than he was. Instead of running, he set down the Nikon and picked up the assault rifle.

  The Minervan animal drew closer. Even when less than a hundred meters away, it was not easy to see; its mottling of brown and dirty white made it blend into the background the same way a tiger’s stripes camouflage it in tall grass. The parallel, Rustaveli thought, was probably no coincidence.

  The Georgian’s head swiveled as the beast prowled around the rover, peering at it-and its occupants-from all sides. “Maybe we ought to get moving again,” Bryusov said nervously.

  “I have a feeling the beast can go faster than twenty kilometers an hour, and I know quite well the rover can’t,” Rustaveli said. “Or were you planning to outmaneuver the thing?”

  Bryusov did not bother answering that. With their six equally spaced legs, Minervans were more agile than Earthly beasts or machines. The linguist slipped out of his safety harness and stood up so he could take a picture of the creature without also including a view of the back of Rustaveli’s head.

  Maybe the motion set the beast off. Things happened too quickly for Rustaveli to be certain afterward of cause and effect. He was sure that Bryusov had not got all the way to his feet when the Minervan animal let out a shriek-an unearthly shriek, he would think later and then reject the word; how else was a Minervan animal supposed to sound? and sprang at the rover.

  Reflex screamed attack. The Kalashnikov was hammering against Rustaveli’s shoulder before he realized he had raised it. Hot brass cartridge cases spit backward. The assault rifle’s staccato bark drowned the squall of the Minervan beast.

  That squall cut off abruptly, as, a moment later, did the AKT4. Rustaveli grabbed for another magazine and slapped it into place. He did not fire again, though-no need. He was sure he had missed as often as he had hit, but even part of the clip of high velocity 5.45mm bullets had been plenty to knock down the Minervan creature. It was still twitching and thrashing, but it was not going anywhere, not anymore.

  Bryusov sat down with a thump that made the rover shake. Then he half rose again and used a gloved hand to brush spent cartridges off the seat. He cut in power to the wheels; the rover silently rolled toward the dying animal. “Let’s see what we have,” the linguist said.

  “We have at least one person, Valery Aleksandrovich, who is glad these beasts don’t hunt in packs.”

  Bryusov thought about that and gave a shiver that had nothing to do with the weather. “Make that two, Shota Mikheilovich. My old grandmother always used to go on about the wolves that would come out of the deep woods to raid the farms around her village when she was a girl. The only wolves I’ve ever seen are th
e ones in the Moscow Zoo, and that suits me just fine.”

  “Me, too.” For once, Rustaveli agreed completely with his companion.

  The Minervan animal had fallen over, giving the two humans a good view of the mouth in the center of its circle of eyestalks. The needlelike teeth inside were plenty to cancel any lingering doubts about its nature.

  One of the beast’s arms lashed out and smacked against the side of the rover, hard enough for the two riders to feel the jolt.

  Rustaveli swore and put a couple more bullets into it, carefully aimed to pierce the nerve centers Minervan creatures had under their eyestalks. The big carnivore convulsed one last time and lay still.

  Bryusov took more photos. Rustaveli got down from the rover and used a gloved hand to dig through snow till he found a few pebbles. He tossed one at the beast. When it did not stir, he moved closer and threw another pebble, hard this time. Only then was he satisfied that the beast was dead.

  Its claws were too big to fit into a specimen bottle. He took one anyway. If all else failed, he thought, he could have it mounted on a chain and wear it around his neck. He took other, more conventional specimens, too; Katerina would never have forgiven him for failing there. The stink of alien body fluids made him cough.

  The dead Minervan beast still had one twitch left. Rustaveli gave a backward leap any Russian folk dancer would have been proud of. He came down next to his Kalashnikov and had it pointed at the carnivore in essentially the same instant. The beast was inert again. He shook his head in self-reproach. “Jumpy,” he muttered.

  “In the most literal sense of the word,” Bryusov said admiringly. “Had you thought about the Olympics?” The Georgian really looked for the first time at the distance he had put between himself and the animal. He whistled softly. “Talents you had not dreamed of?” Bryusov asked.

  Rustaveli was not one to stay shaken for long. Grinning, he switched to English. “I’ve always been good at the broad jump- ask Katerina.”

  “Why? What does she know about your ath-“ Bryusov made a sour face as he finally caught on.

  “Yes, she was once one of my chief athletic supporters,” Rustaveli went on blithely, still in English. This time Bryusov did not respond at all. Calls himself a linguist, Rustaveli thought scornfully-he’s only a dictionary that walks like a man. Sighing, the Georgian went back to hacking bits off the animal he had killed. When he was sure he had enough to keep Katerina happy, he got up. “Let’s go back, Valery Aleksandrovich. So long as we don’t exactly retrace our way, every kilometer we cover is a new one.”

  “True enough.” Bryusov pulled his fur cap down a little farther on his forehead; it was starting to snow harder. “I won’t be sorry to get back to our comrades.”

  “I won’t be sorry to get back to heating.” Rustaveli knew he was repeating himself and did not care. He climbed onto the rover and buckled on his shoulder belt. The machine glided away, leaving the dead beast to whatever passed for scavengers on Minerva.

  The snow began falling heavily-thick, wet flakes that clung to the rover’s windscreen and made Bryusov slow down. “Springtime on Minerva,” the linguist grunted.

  “Yes,” Rustaveli agreed, as sardonically. “The southern latitude equivalent to Havana, Katerina said, and at a season much like May. I wonder how our ally Comrade Castro would enjoy the weather-about as much as I do, I daresay.”

  Bryusov slowed still more. “I don’t like this at all. I can’t see what I’m doing.”

  “If it gets worse, we can stop and put tent fabric over the rover’s frame till it blows itself out. I hate to do that, though, when we’re on the way back, no matter how much I’d like to be warm.”

  “I feel the same way. Besides, the heater uses a lot of energy, and the solar panels aren’t putting out much in this weather. Even so, though, we may have to if-“ The linguist never got his “if” out. The rover’s front wheels went into an enormous hole filled with drifted snow. The rover was not supposed to flip over, no matter what happened. It flipped over anyhow.

  Bryusov and Rustaveli shouted as the world turned upside down. Both shouts cut off abruptly. The Georgian had the wind jerked from him as his shoulder harness brought him up short. The linguist was less fortunate. He had not bothered to strap himself in after standing up to photograph the Minervan carnivore. His head smacked a bar of the rover’s roll cage.

  When he could breathe again, Rustaveli made several choice comments in his own language. After a moment, he noticed that Bryusov was not answering-the linguist lay unmoving in the snow. Rustaveli wished he had not wasted his curses before.

  He reached out to kill power to the wheels. Then, holding on to the frame of the rover with one. hand, he unbuckled his safety belt with the other. Olga Korbut, he thought, would have spun around in midair to land gracefully. He was happy enough not to have dislocated his shoulder.

  Bryusov was breathing. Rustaveli muttered silent thanks for that. The linguist remained unconscious, though, with blood on his face and the side of his head. None of the cautious things Rustaveli did to try rousing him had any effect.

  The Georgian tried the radio and got only static for an answer. That sent panic shooting through him. He certainly wasn’t getting any incoming signal. If he wasn’t getting out, either, the rest of the crew would not even know that Bryusov and he were in trouble until they missed their next scheduled ca. ll-and even then, what could they do? Assuming they could find the rover at all, they were several days’ forced march from it. And Bryusoy might not have several days.

  Knowing that he had to think straight for his companion’s sake helped bring Rustaveli out of his fright. He scrambled out of the rover. Turning it back over, unfortunately, proved more than a one-person job. Another design flaw, he thought, and immediately filed the idea away. No time to worry about it now. The radio was the pressing concern.

  The most obvious reason for its failure was damage from the accident. Rustaveli could do nothing about that. But, he reasoned, crash damage should have silenced the radio, not left it flatulent. “The antenna!” he said out loud. It would hardly do much good, buried in a snowdrift.

  He had to bend a kink in the springy wire to make it go up past the body of the rover. Even then, it was less than half as tall as it should have been. That was the best he could do, though. He crawled back under the rover’s chassis and tried the radio again. “Rustaveli calling, Rustaveli calling. Do you read? Emergency. Do you read?” The repetition was very much like prayer.

  “Shota! What’s wrong?” Katerina Zakharova’s voice sounded as if she were talking from behind a waterfall, but it was the most welcome thing Rustaveli had ever heard.

  “Katya!” he exclaimed, then went on more calmly. “We’ve had an accident-this damned buggy overturned. Valery’s hurt.”

  “Hurt? How? How badly?” Even through the roaring static, the Georgian could hear Katerina turning into Dr. Zakharova.

  “How badly I don’t know,” he told her. “He’s unconscious- hit his head. This was fifteen minutes ago, maybe more, and he hasn’t come to yet. I haven’t tried moving him-“ “Good,” she broke in. “Don’t, not unless you have to.”

  “I know that. I also didn’t much fancy the idea of undressing him to check for anything else wrong, not while it’s snowing.” As it always did, his wry sense of humor reasserted itself. “So much for springtime in Havana.”

  “Rustaveli.” That was Colonel Tolmasov, doing his best to mask the concern in his voice. “Give me your exact position.”

  The panel connected to the gyrocompass was hard to read upside down, but Rustaveli managed. “Distance 112.T kilometers, bearing 63o.”

  There was silence for a moment from the radio; Rustaveli could picture Tolmasov drawing a line on a map. “Near Jotun Canyon,” the colonel said at last.

  “Da, Sergei Konstantinovich.” Somehow, Rustaveli managed a chuckle. “A good deal closer to the Americans than to you, as a matter of fact. Only one tiny obstacle in the way.” He laughed
again-only a gorge that dwarfed anything Earth knew!

  Tolmasov was businesslike as usual. “Can you right your vehicle?”

  “Not by myself. I’ve tried. If Valery comes around-“ As if on cue, Bryusov moved and groaned. “Rustaveli out,” Shota said. He bent by his companion. “Valery! Are you all right? Do you know who I am?”

  “Head-“ Bryusov muttered. He started to lift his left hand to his head, then stopped with another, louder groan. Under the blood that splashed it, his face was gray.

  Katerina and Tolmasov were both screaming at Rustaveli on the radio. He ignored them until Bryusov drifted away from consciousness again. This time, though, the linguist seemed less deeply out. He was also, Rustaveli saw with much relief, able to move his legs and right arm, although he whimpered whenever his left arm so much as twitched. The Georgian relayed the news.

  “No broken back or neck, then,” Katerina said. “That’s something.”

  “Exactly what I was thinking. But that arm…, and he has no idea of where he is or what he’s doing. He took a nasty shot in the head.”

  “Do you think he can hold out until Dr. Zakharova and I can reach you?” Tolmasov asked, still sounding very official.

  “Comrade Colonel, I do not know,” Rustaveli said with equal formality. “What choice has he, however?.”

  “I am coming to that.” Now something was in Tolmasov’s voice: distaste. Whatever he was about to say, Rustaveli thought, he was not happy about it. Then Tolmasov went on, and the Georgian understood why. “Shota Mikheilovich, you were facetious when you said the Americans were nearer to you than we are, but you were also right. They have some sort of very light aircraft with them. If I ask, they may be able to cross the gorge and treat Valery. If I ask. Do you want me to ask?”

  Rustaveli knew the colonel wanted to hear a no. Tolmasov had been ready to bite nails in half when the Americans proved as able as he to throw around charges of deception. Begging help from them had to be the last thing he wanted to do. Or almost the last thing-he couldn’t be eager to have Bryusov die, either. To say nothing of the linguist himself, news of a death on Minerva would hurt the Soviet space program the same way one would damage the Americans’ effort.