Redline the Stars

25

Doctor Tau was wedged in between Jasper Weeks and Karl Kosti, sharing with four Canuchean laborers a transport somewhat too small to carry so many.

He was only vaguely aware of the discomfort of the journey. The people around them were taking almost the whole of his attention. Most of them were moving away from Canuche Town, lines of dazed, frightened refugees. A horribly high percentage of their number were obvious physical as well as emotional casualties of the disaster, struggling on with the assistance of their fellows to reach medical care at one of the temporary hospitals set up in the camp on the hardpan until the grave danger of fire subsided sufficiently for the facilities to return to the city itself.

He did not see any of the more severe cases, of course.

They were being brought in by flier and transport, but what he did observe was sufficient to reveal the scope of the catastrophe that had stricken this community. His trained eyes appraised each group, and he silently shook his head.

In saner times, many of these so-called walking wounded would rightly be labeled gravely injured themselves.

Just about all of Canuche Town's windows had shattered, and jagged shards of glass had flown everywhere, causing the greatest part of the injuries sustained in the outermost parts of the city. Others, and he realized there would be many more of them as people from farther within Canuche Town began reaching this point, had been struck by falling materials or were burn or gas cases. A few stumbled along, blood flowing from their ears and noses, victims of the blast concussion.

Once more, he shook his head. Already, it was a nightmare, and it would only grow worse as they neared the place where the explosion had occurred. He acknowledged the bonds laid on him by the ancient oath he had taken, but that notwithstanding, he was not looking forward to the work that lay in front of them all.

The spaceport, when they reached it, was alive with activity. It was to there that the relief convoys were coming, and several had arrived already.

Relatively little visible damage had been sustained at the facility. It was located far enough from the coast that only a minute amount of debris had reached it, and most of the power driving that had been spent. He had learned from Colonel Cohn, however, that two people had been killed when a piece of sheet metal had skimmed over their transport and decapitated them. The potential for grave disaster had unquestionably been here, and the starships had done well to lift when they had.

Once they passed through the port, their transport was not long in reaching Canuche Town itself and then the place where it was to pick up its load of badly wounded for the return trip.

Tau walked over to the waiting stretchers to see what he and his comrades might expect to encounter.

What he found there was no worse than he had anticipated, but seeing the actual victims drove the enormity of the horror more sharply home, and he returned to the others even more sobered.

Their instructions were simple—to start searching the thickly populated slope above the harbor. Whenever they found a group engaged in a rescue that called on them for aid or discovered someone who was trapped, they were to provide whatever help they could.

Since the Solar Queen trio had come bearing digging equipment and first aid supplies, they had no need to wait for gear to be issued to them. They separated from the Canuchean laborers who had traveled with them and started out at a brisk pace.

When they crested the rise above the slope, all three stopped as if on command.

The sight meeting their eyes was almost beyond credulity. Here and there, part of a wall rose up out of the ruin, windowless, roofless, more pathetic than the unidentifiable jumble around them. Nothing else remained. Even the bay was wreckage and desolation only.

Total as the destruction obviously was, Ganuche Town was already crying its defiance. Fire and smoke were everywhere to be seen, but so, too, were those assembled to quell them. Fire brigades stationed in less dreadfully visited districts, bringing their equipment and foam in by flier and on their backs, had poured into the port region and had already begun to isolate and beat down a number of the individual blazes.

That their efforts had begun to show effect so soon, that they were able to have an effect at all, lay in large part with the thoroughness of Macgregory's evacuation operation.

The Caledonia plant itself was gone, a victim of the volatile materials already present within its walls, but with all the feeder and fuel lines shut down along their whole length, no new materials arrived to support the voracious fire that had consumed the installation itself. Had that not been done, given the key location of the place and the vast volume of the chemicals pouring into it, there would have been little hope of quelling the flames in this part of the seaport for a long time to come and no hope whatsoever for any living victims pinned in the rubble around it.

The spacers were spared the horror of having to watch bloodstained adults and children frantically seeking one another amidst the ruins. The first people into the district had shepherded wounded into the hands of medical personnel and then to the refugee camp, where efforts to reunite families had already begun.

That part of the tragedy should have been worse than it was, too, and once again, thanks was due to Adroo Macgregory that it was not. The Caledonia, Inc., workers and their people had formed a large percentage of the population of the heaviest-stricken areas, and no few of their neighbors, remembering the storm that had sparked such an evacuation before, had taken warning and fled with them. Those who remained, alive or dead, who had not already been discovered lay buried beneath the ruins of their homes and workplaces.

The Free Traders passed several groups striving to free the trapped. Because they had to start someplace, the rescuers had begun their efforts at the crest of the slope. These first parties had their particular situations on the perimeter in hand by then. Much as they would have welcomed more help, they were willing to forgo it, realizing how desperately laborers were needed farther downslope.

At last, they came upon a party more frantically engaged than any they had thus far encountered. The forewoman was alternately wielding her ax with no little skill and driving her navies on with a vocabulary that would have reduced any proverbial Navy Master Sergeant to a state of silent awe.

She spotted the three and summoned them in one instant. "Stop gawking, space hounds, and get to work!

There's a damn big job on here."

They hastened to obey. "What's the specific problem?"

Tau asked the grim-faced Canuchean when he reached her side.

She pointed down, and his breath caught in sick horror.

There, far below them, was a small child, a toddler. She was held in place, but apparently only by her clothing, for she was squirming around and was shrieking her discomfort and terror. They could have reached her and drawn her out with no more difficulty than that of hard, careful labor had they enjoyed the luxury of unlimited time, but that last they did not have. A slow fire was inexorably eating its way toward her, and it was patent even from one hurried glance that it would reach her long before they could hope to do so.

"We won't get within twenty feet other in time," he said.

"If that near. It's not far from her now."

"Would you suggest that we stop working and just watch the show?" the woman snarled.

"No!" Anger and anguish mixed equally in Karl's bellow.

Jasper Weeks said nothing. He stood where he was, watching the tot and the fire. "This is like a chimney," he said quietly, as if to himself. "She probably fell or was blown down there, and she's certainly not badly stuck."

"Very observant," the Canuchean snapped. "Now start chopping, you son—"

"No, listen! You've got plenty of rope. Someone small enough could be let down and try to get her."

Her breath caught. She eyed him carefully, then the others. "It's got to be you or me. No one else'd have an iceberg's chance."

"My idea. Besides, you're in charge here. You're needed more." There was no point in pretending to be oblivious to

the danger a would-be savior faced of getting stuck himself

and joining the child in her fate instead of rescuing her from it.

The other nodded. "Have at it, space hound."

With time in such short store, the work crew squandered none of it. Even while their chief and the spacer were discussing which of them should make the effort, they fetched and began to ready the rope.

The harness they rigged was no more than a large loop held by a fixed knot that would neither release nor tighten in such a fashion as to squeeze in upon him. A smaller piece was fastened to it at chest height so that he would be able to tie himself and the little girl to it for additional support—if he could get to her in time.

Jasper stripped off his belt lest it catch on any of the jagged debris but left his clothing on. The uniform was close-fitting, and he would need the protection it would afford.

Kosti, by far the biggest man there, drew a length of the line about himself. He would belay while a monstrous stone block served as anchor.

Weeks pulled the rope over his shoulders and lowered it until he was sitting in the loop, then gingerly let himself over the edge.

It was at once apparent that he had set himself no easy task. What he had described as a chimney was in fact no more than a relatively clear space in the sea of rubble, open more in the visual than the physical sense. He was not at all certain he would be able to get by all the obstructions extending into it. Also, the fire seemed much closer from this angle than it had from above.

It was a drop of less than fifty feet, but there could be no hurrying the descent if he did not want a broken leg or to find himself inextricably wedged. Every few inches, he had to wriggle and twist to escape collision with one shard or another, and there was no point in beginning to count the number of times he struck something despite all his care. Assuming he lived to leave this miserable hole, he would have some interesting bruises to show for his work.

Weeks swallowed hard. He was down about twenty-five feet now, and it was not his fear that was making him sweat like this. It was getting hot, and smoke was fouling the air.

Worse, the space seemed even tighter, and a new dread entered his mind. If it got much narrower than this, he would not be able to come back up with the girl in his arms, if he could reach her at all. He would have to send her up first, and he very much doubted the line could be lowered to him again, which would have to be done slowly for fear of its catching and tangling before . . .

It seemed that he was dropping by bare inches instead of feet, but in the end, he came within reach of the child, just barely ahead of the lead tongues of the fire.

Jasper tried to keep himself between the flames and the tot. They had not yet reached the point of actually touching her, but the heat was already blistering.

He could not quite come even with her, and she was not of an age that he could expect to get any help or information from her. He leaned over at a precarious angle until he could see how she was held and gave an audible sigh of relief. A piece of pipe had torn through the skirt of her frock, which had then become twisted about it. He could get to it readily and slice through it with his knife without hurting her.

The spacer grabbed hold of the little Canuchean with his left hand and held her tightly despite her yowl of protest and fear. He could not risk freeing her only to have her fall farther down.

It was done, but they were out of time. The material covering his thigh was smoldering.

"Karl, pull! I've got her!"

Bad as the journey down had been, the ascent was worse. Twice, he was seriously afraid they would not be able to pass at all, and several other times, they had to maneuver through places very nearly as tight. It required careful work to get through, and that took time, a constraint not binding the fire licking hungrily below. Ever in his mind and in the minds of those above was the knowledge that if the blaze suddenly leapt up toward the greater supply of air on the surface, they would both be cooked as they hung there. Only the fact that the ruins in this place were porous and also quite poor in flammable material had saved them thus far, a tenuous leash indeed to be holding so fearful a force.

They passed the worst stretch. A little more speed was possible after that, the small increase that could be permitted without threatening to snag the line or batter the pair too greatly.

There was no escaping some hammering. Weeks wrapped himself as a living shield around his tiny charge, but in so doing, he thereby vastly reduced the efforts he could make on his own behalf. Time and again, his body struck hard against solid projections, on several occasions sharply enough that he was scarcely able to retain his hold on rope and child.

Suddenly, unbelievably, there was only clear air above them. Hands reached out, drew him onto solid ground.

Jasper was conscious of broadly smiling faces and unrestrained cheering. He was smiling himself as he handed the little girl over to Craig Tau, then the world seemed suddenly to tilt sideways, and a not unwelcome darkness settled over it.