Cold Welcome

^{CHAPTER THIRTEEN}

The camp settled into a routine: fishing, gathering seafood from the rocks they could reach, desalinating water from the bay, emptying the honey buckets, moving rocks to piles around the base of the raft-shelters. The piles grew slowly, but now reached the top of the flotation chambers of one raft, with a gap matched to the canopy hatch. They all slept in that one now, crammed in uncomfortably, but slightly warmer. Work on the next windbreak pile went on.

If shelter had been the only lack, Ky was sure they could overcome it in time. Thanks to the desalinators, they had ample water from the sea. Slotter Key’s tides were not large, but Ky hoped the movement of water in and out of the bay would prevent dangerous contamination from their cesspit.

But day by day, hunger and deepening cold took their toll, sapped everyone’s energy. Their initial inventory of rations, after landing, revealed that only thirty-six portions of the original six hundred in the lost raft remained. They still had 600 each from the Ounce and Stitch, and 479 left in Ducky, but it wasn’t enough. Seventy-seven days from now, at one pack per person a day, it would all be gone. And winter would last longer than that.

She herself was hungry and cold all the time; she knew the others were as well, including the ones who never complained. It was harder to walk over the rocks to the water, harder to pile rocks up, harder even to think. Hardest on those who foraged in the water, their hands so stiff they could not unclench from the bucket handle. Rations calculated for warmer conditions and less exertion were not nearly enough in this cold. She looked at the total calories on the ration pack and asked Tech Lundin, as their resident medic, how many were really needed.

“Three and a half to four thousand, in this kind of cold, without heated shelter. Almost double what these packs contain. And before you ask, I’m having to guess what the bay can supply. If it was all fish and shellfish—plenty of it—it might be enough, but so far each person’s getting only a few hundred calories more per day than the ration packet.” Lundin leaned closer. “Admiral, I hate to ask this, but have you considered that some people may be stealing food already? Not everyone is losing condition as fast as the others.”

“Surely not! We need each other.”

“I would recommend a daily count, and some surveillance.”

“Who do you suspect?”

Lundin shook her head. “I’m not going to accuse without proof. Two people should make the count, one from each raft, and it should change every day.”

Ky nodded. “I’ll do that. The situation’s too critical to be careless.”

The first count, that evening, showed the number was five short of what it should have been had everyone eaten a single pack every day. The next day’s count was five short again. Nobody had seen anyone taking rations; no one admitted to suspecting anyone. The day after, the count was only two packs short. But at the supper call, two people were missing: Staff Sergeant Vispersen and Corporal Lanca.

“I saw them out near the point there,” Staff Sergeant Kurin said. “They were on the foraging team today and it looked like they were fishing.”

“I thought they caught something,” Kamat said. “And then threw the line back in. But I was on desalinator duty and just thought we might have fish for supper.”

“They’re supposed to bring a fish in right away,” Kurin said. “They were told that; everyone knows a fish is important.”

“Maybe they thought they could catch enough for a feast.”

“Not Lanca,” Corporal Lakhani muttered.

“What is your problem with Corporal Lanca?” Ky asked. It was not the first time Lakhani had made a comment about his fellow corporal.

“Beyond he’s lazy and selfish and I wouldn’t be surprised if he and Sergeant Vispersen had themselves a fish supper just to hog it, nothing,” Lakhani said, getting it all out in a rush. “At least this time I can’t be blamed for what he did or didn’t do.”

“Have you any evidence that he’s taken food before?” Ky asked. Before he could answer, she turned to Lundin. “And what about you?”

“I told you I had no proof.” Lundin frowned. “I did see both of them—one at a time, I mean—enter a shelter when others were out working. It could have been to use the bucket instead of walking over to the cesspit. Or they’d forgotten something. But neither one looks as pinched as everyone else. So if they’re having a private feast, it wouldn’t surprise me.”

“We were in the same recruit platoon,” Lakhani said, less truculently. “The DI was always on him about being lazy and gossiping. Only, we’re the same height, same coloring, and my name’s next to his, alphabetically. So the DI would yell my name sometimes when it was Lanca shirking. A year later, we were both assigned to that base west of Port Major. Stuff went missing. They found out he took it, and he was punished, but the gossip paired me with him, mixed us up. I even heard an officer say, ‘Lakhani, Lanca, it doesn’t make any difference—they’re both slugs.’ When I was up for sergeant and didn’t get it, I’m sure that was what happened.”

“You haven’t impressed me as sergeant material,” Sergeant Chok said, scowling. “But not as a thief, either.”

“I see.” Ky nodded. “Before I assume that Lanca and Vispersen are thieves, I, too, would prefer some proof. Meanwhile they’re missing, and we need to find them before dark. Four of us—me, Staff Sergeant Gossin, Sergeant Chok, and Master Sergeant Marek—will go out far enough to see if they’re still where they were fishing. Commander Bentik, you have the camp until we return; Staff Sergeant Kurin is your second.”

“Admiral, I think I should stay in camp,” Marek said. “No offense to Staff Sergeant Kurin, but Commander Bentik should be backed up by the most senior NCO.”

Ky glanced at her aide. “I would prefer that arrangement,” Jen said. “No insult to Staff Sergeant Kurin, of course.”

“Of course,” Ky said. “Fine, then. Staff Sergeant, come along with us.”

When they were well out of earshot, Ky said, “You have any problems with Commander Bentik, Staff?”

“No, sir—Admiral—I haven’t. I think she just feels comfortable with Master Sergeant Marek. Maybe because he’s older, more her age. And they were in the same raft.”

“Possibly.” It was something to think about, along with why she herself hadn’t considered asking her aide along on this trek.

They found both men lying crumpled among the stones, stinking of vomit, with the carcass of a fish, mostly consumed, and a single SafStov can between them. A section of fishing rod with several chunks of fish still on it made it clear how they’d cooked the meat; the rest of the rod lay under Vispersen. The skin and spines to one side showed it was a puffer fish as long as Ky’s arm, a smaller relative of the one that had speared the raft.

Tight-lipped, Ky bent over to check. Both were dead, their bodies cold. She looked in the pockets of Vispersen’s suit and found two ration bars. Lanca’s pockets had three of them. She handed them to Kurin for safekeeping and collected their ID tags.

“How fast does it kill?” Gossin asked.

“It varies with the dose,” Kurin said. “And the particular species, and what it fed on. I don’t know why the terraformers imported such a horrible fish.”

Ky looked in the foraging bucket. Nothing. They had come out, caught their big fish, and then instead of eating their hoarded ration bars, decided to eat the fish. “I told people when the other one was being hauled in—they had to know it was poisonous.”

“It’s my fault,” Kurin said. “I—I said we could eat them where I lived, and then you said it wasn’t safe to trust these. But Lanca asked me later—after we got here—how to tell. I said I didn’t know, but ours were blue-green on top, no spots. But that the location made a difference, too. If the water has the right bacteria in it, they’re all toxic. He must not have paid attention to that.”

“Would you have eaten one?” Ky asked.

“No! Only at home, because they’re farmed and checked carefully.”

“Their carelessness,” Gossin said. “Their greed.” She shook her head. “Unmilitary. Both of them.”

“We need to get back,” Ky said. “It’s almost dark. They’re well above the tide line, and it’s cold; we’ll tell the others and retrieve the bodies tomorrow; I should have brought rope but I didn’t think they’d be dead. Nothing’s out here to bother them.”

Next morning a working party went to retrieve them, only to find nothing at all but the little red SafStov can. Even the puffer fish skin was gone.

They had nothing to bury, so McLenard picked up the SafStov can and they went back to camp. No more rations went missing, but everyone was hungrier as the cold deepened. Ky recalculated how long they could last: the loss of two extended their survival another seven days. She didn’t tell the others. Soon a fringe of ice collared the shore, thickening as high tides left layers on it.

On the twentieth day since the crash, Ky woke to a strange sound outside, not the usual sounds of waves lapping. She left the shelter, peering into the dim predawn light. Something about the water looked strange, though she couldn’t define it. As the light grew, she could see that the water looked thick, not clear as it had been. She could feel the wind at her back; she should have seen the familiar feather-look of ripples, but the water didn’t show anything but heavy low swells, thick and sullen. She could hear that strange sound, as if the water were almost full of something—sand? Gravel?—and had as much as it could hold. Her mind groped for words to describe the sound, the sight.

In the distance, the waves that had broken in normal fashion the day before heaved up slowly, thick and gelid. They fell with a plop, like very wet mud, not like water.

“It’s freeze-up.”

Ky looked around. Others had come out to stare at the strange water. “Freeze-up?”

“Yeah. It’s cold enough for ice crystals to form in it. Opposite of melting snow but the same kind of slush.” Sergeant McLenard kicked a chunk of the ice on shore into the water. “It gets like this before it actually freezes, but from here on it can freeze really fast.”

“What about gathering food?”

“Much harder. Until the ice is thick enough to walk on—and even then, all you can do is cut a hole and drop a line through.”

“Do you think the sea will freeze?”

“Yes, certainly right here. See that patchy bit out there? At least the ice isn’t as salty as seawater, which is good because the desalinators can’t handle slushy water.”

And they had no fuel for melting quantities of ice or snow for water. Just the few SafStovs.

“We have to move,” Ky said. “We have to find someplace where there’s better shelter and fuel for fires.” And another food source.

“There isn’t anyplace,” Marek said. “I’ve seen reports on Miksland. Scans.” I told you so seemed to be hanging over his head, but he didn’t say it.

“Are we just going to starve? You have to do something!” Jen sounded on the edge of hysteria. The others looked away from her.

“I intend to,” Ky said, trying for a confidence she did not feel. “But first, we eat breakfast.”

“That’s not what I meant!” Jen said. “You got us into this; you said to land here—”

Marek touched her shoulder and gave Ky a sympathetic glance. “It’s not the admiral’s fault,” he said. “There’s nothing she can do; once the shuttle was sabotaged, once we landed where we did… even if we’d stayed at sea, there’s no guarantee we’d be found before the rafts sank or the food ran out.”

“Breakfast,” Ky said again. “Everybody back inside.”

Inside was only a little warmer. Breakfast was a meager cube of biscuit and a small protein bar. Everyone was looking down, away from others. Ky finished hers and waited until everyone had eaten.

“Here’s what I know,” she said. “Our food will not last the winter, and we won’t last without more food and better shelter. Our best chance is to look for more resources somewhere else.”

“But we don’t even have a map!” Corporal Riyahn said. “We can’t just wander around without knowing where we are.” He glanced at Marek, as if for support.

“Actually we can,” Ky said. “And we do know, in a way, where we are. I’m going to take a small party up to the top and see what’s there.”

“It’ll take a long time to get through all that tumbled rock—and it’s dangerous; someone could fall…” Riyahn again.

“It’s the chance we have,” Ky said. “If we don’t move, we’ll freeze or starve, one or the other or both.” Several flinched, as if she’d struck them. “If we explore we might find something we can use to live longer.”

“I’ll go with you,” Betange said.

“Good,” Ky said. “We won’t leave today. We need good weather and there’s clearly some bad on the way. Today, before the next weather hits, I’m going up to the rock tumble and see how bad it really is in there.”

“Looks impassable,” Marek said, though he smiled at her. “But I imagine you’ll find a way.”

“That’s what admirals are for,” Ky said, grinning. About half the group managed a laugh. “Sergeant Cosper, Corporal Yamini, I’d like you to come along as well. Anyone else who has mountain experience, you’re welcome to join us.”

They set off at once; the clouds were already thicker. “It looks to me,” Ky said, “like there’s a real gap in the cliffs beyond these boulders. They could be what’s fallen off the cliffs, but there’s a regularity—it could be intentional, to block the way.”

“I’d agree,” Yamini said. “A roadblock, not a complete barrier.”

When they got in among the rocks, they found a mix of impossible unstable piles and narrow gaps that sometimes led to another narrow gap. In several hours, they’d worked out a path to the slope beyond, rising between walls of rock to either side, and marked the way with reflective stickers.

“I think we can get up to the plateau in—one day?”

“Easily,” Sergeant Cosper said. As Ky had expected, he had proven both strong and untiring. “We could go up today, in fact.”

“But not make it back to camp by dark,” Ky said. “We’ll need supplies for two days, and some of those survival blankets, because we’ll need to overnight up there somewhere.”

“I could go on just a little way,” said Cosper. Even as he spoke, a wall of cloud lowered down the slope.

“It’s going to snow,” Yamini said. “We’d better start back.”

By the time they reached the camp, it was hard to see more than ten meters. “We’re not starting out in this snow. But the next clear spell, we leave at first light.”

Later that evening, Marek asked to speak to her privately. “Sir, I’m not—well, I am, actually—questioning your decision. People are already losing weight on these short rations. The effort to climb up there, to explore—it’s just going to cost them more. It won’t help.”

Ky held up her hand, and he stopped. “Master Sergeant, I believe we’re on the same side here—we both want the best for everyone here. Tell me how staying here, with no more shelter than we have, and no more food than we have, will let everyone live through the winter, in shape to find a way to signal for help when the weather eases.”

“Sir—Admiral—I can’t. I don’t think there is a way. But I think what you’re doing is just giving them false hope.”

“We won’t know that if we don’t try, Master Sergeant.”

He nodded, looking down. “I understand, sir. I hope you’re right.”

“So do I,” Ky said.

“I know you mean well,” he said. “And good luck on the search.”

It was an odd farewell, but Ky thought she understood. For all that she was from Slotter Key and had been to the Academy, she wasn’t really part of his chain of command. It worried him—it would have to worry him—to have her making life-or-death decisions for Slotter Key personnel.