Saucer: Savage Planet

9

After Solo left the cave to hunt, Egg Cantrell wriggled his way into the saucer and turned on the power. Then, carefully, he donned a headset and arranged it just so on his balding dome.

He knew what he wanted — Solo’s memories of the Viking ship — and the computer provided it almost instantaneously. It was as if Egg remembered the event himself.

The ship was riding a heavy sea; he was wet and cold; the wind was howling and rain blew sideways. He shouted at the crew, gestured to row harder to maintain steerageway downwind, and felt the ship respond sluggishly as the oars bit into the foaming sea.

Time passed … the storm ended, the ship made a headland, Solo (Egg saw it as Solo had) ran the ship up on the beach, and the men leaped out to secure it to rocks and trees. Solo led a party inland, and soon they came to a village … a deserted village, because everyone had fled. Solo’s men ransacked the village and took all the food and drink they could carry. Several of them searched the nearby woods, and two of them dragged out a young mother. They raped her as the others searched for hidden food or valuables.

Soon the ship was at sea with the sail up, and the men were laughing and drinking mead. Egg could sense what it had tasted like. A bitter, creamy beer full of impurities.

Egg forced himself to think about America, and he saw the Viking ship approaching a beach with a cliff. It was this cliff, he sensed, and he saw the sheltered beach, now a cave, as Solo remembered it from oh, so long ago. The memories were hazy at times, the features of some faces hard to distinguish, and the timeline was scrunched and wavy. Whole weeks and months were missing.

What remained was vivid, powerful, images that Solo had never forgotten, images and sounds and smells and sensations and emotions that he could never forget.

Blood, murder, combat with swords, learning to use bows and arrows, sacking villages, burning, looting, raping …

Curiosity, hunger, anger, anxiety, revenge, longing, depression, guilt, revulsion, lust, rage … fear, panic … and joy.

There was a village, and a woman. Solo remembered her very well indeed, and—

Egg ripped off the headset. All those sensations left him drained and breathing hard. His emotions now were a tangle. He sat, trying to sort it all out.

Yes, he was sitting here in the pilot’s seat of this saucer; the machinery in the compartment behind him was humming ever so faintly; through the canopy he could just make out the flickering campfire.

Egg turned off the reactor and watched the instrument panel go dark.

Several more minutes passed before he felt able to climb out of the saucer.

There stood the Viking ship, with its soaring prow and stern, resting on the sand, almost as if it were waiting for its crew to return and take it back to sea.

The emotions Egg felt now were almost overpowering. That ancient wooden ship was fear and adventure and the pure essence of life … a life lived to the hilt each and every minute. He forced himself to turn away from it and staggered toward the fire, trying to put the inputs from the computer into some kind of perspective.

Charley and Rip were wrestling a dead limb into the cave. Uncle Egg sat on a handy stone while they got it just so and stuck a tip of it into the fire. As the flames ate into it, Rip said to Egg, “What did you learn in the saucer?” Rip knew Egg had been in there only to wear the headband and communicate with the computer.

“Solo remembers the Viking ship,” Egg managed and hugged his knees.

“And?” Charley asked. She picked up a fish and the flint knife and began cleaning it. Rip had caught six nice ones, each a meal in itself.

“That ship,” Egg said, motioning with his head, as he searched for words. “Solo remembered being at sea in it. Vividly remembered. Wild storms, wind, blowing spray, wet, cold, bad food, good companions, shouts to the gods in Valhalla … He remembered.”

“It’s so small,” Charley said, examining the Viking ship with new eyes.

“They were men. No doubt of that. Crossed the Atlantic in those tiny ships. Sailed into the Med. Rowed up rivers into the heart of Europe. Sacked cities and villages. Sacked monasteries … Solo did all that and more. Watched his men carry away screaming women, cut down monks, kill farmers with pitchforks trying to protect what little they had. He was a pirate. They all were.”

“My God.”

“It was more than a thousand years ago, Charley. That was just a toss-off number. I’d say his memories on earth go back at least twelve hundred years, maybe thirteen hundred.”

“He’s a guilty man.”

“Who isn’t?” Egg demanded. “By God, who isn’t?”

Charley Pine wasn’t buying. “He wasn’t some illiterate barbarian from a Norwegian fjord,” she said acidly. “He was a space traveler, a voyager between the stars, a man from a higher civilization.”

“Whatever that is,” Egg remarked.

“You don’t just leave your morals at home when you go slumming,” Charley shot back. “Robbery, rape, murder?”

“Adam Solo was a saucer pilot marooned on a savage planet, amid savages, and he was going to have to become one of them or die,” Egg said heavily. “There was no other way. So he became a Viking. The best one. He was adopted by Eric the Red, claimed as a son.”

Rip stared. “So he was Leif, Eric’s son?”

Egg nodded affirmatively. “Leif the Lucky.”

“Talk about situational ethics,” Charley said tartly and tossed another handful of fish guts into the dark water. “Old Mister Whatever-It-Takes.”

“The ultimate survivor,” Rip said softly. “‘Judge not, and ye shall not be judged.’”

“I wonder how that fine old philosophy plays with the boys from Alpha Theta Six, or wherever in the universe Solo is from,” Charley said darkly. “If it ever occurred to them.”

“The human memory is such a strange thing,” Uncle Egg mused. “The things that happened yesterday, or in the recent past, you can recall, almost like a movie. But the things that happened long ago are lost except for specific vignettes, almost like snapshots engraved in your memory. How a certain person looked, an overwhelming emotion, an impression.” Egg shrugged. “Solo has many such scenes in his memory. Most are frozen, without context, vignettes of a past that is mostly forgotten. The rest of it—ai yi yi—gets jumbled and sometime mixed with things that might be imagined. Or the timeline gets bent, the memories get jumbled. Sorting truth from falsehood is the computer’s strength. It is man’s weakness.”

“Are you trying to say Solo didn’t do those things?”

“No. I’m saying the only things the computer captured are vivid memories, and they aren’t linear. It isn’t like a movie. That’s what I’m trying to say. If you want to see for yourself, get in that flying plate and put on a headset. Just ask for Solo’s memories.”

Rip looked at his watch. “He’s been gone almost three hours. The sun is low and it will be dark soon.” He stood and jammed his hat down over his ears. “I’m going after him. Wish I had some gloves.”

“If the wind rises, it will wipe out your tracks,” Egg said. “Come straight back.” He handed Rip the flashlight.

Charley stood and kissed him. “Be careful, Ripper.” Her kiss was sensual, promising. Her eyes were warm.

He hugged her, then headed for the crack in the rock that led outside.

Solo’s tracks were plain still, although beginning to fill in with tiny snowflakes driven by the breeze.

Rip hurried along in the subarctic half-light.

A half hour from the cave, he came across the bear tracks. They were big, almost six inches across, and the claw marks were deep and vivid. They came into Solo’s tracks at an angle, and Rip could see where the bear had driven his nose into the snow, smelling the tracks Solo had left. Then the bear’s tracks were superimposed on Solo’s.

Rip began to trot. The cold air cut his lungs.

Ten minutes later he found Adam Solo … and the bear. The polar bear lay across Solo’s legs. Blood spattered the snow.

The bear, a male, was dead. A bullet had gone in under his chin and come out the top of his head. Death must have been almost instantaneous. Even so, one paw had caught Solo on the top of his head and ripped his scalp open. He had bled profusely.

Rip checked to see if Solo was still alive. Well, his heart was pumping and he was breathing shallowly. His hands seemed warm enough, despite the temperatures. Amazing, that.

Solo, can you hear me?

No response.

Rip grabbed Adam Solo by the armpits and pulled mightily. The bear was a lot of dead weight; after repeated tugs, Solo’s legs came free.

“Solo, can you hear me?” He said it aloud this time, and still no response.

Rip checked the rifle, opened the action, ejecting the spent cartridge, and ensured the barrel was free of snow. He closed the lever, chambering a fresh round, and lowered the hammer. He laid the rifle carefully in the snow and checked Solo again. No other visible injuries.

A pirate. Murdered monks and farmers. Carried women away to be enslaved and raped. Leif the Lucky. Ah, yes … Lucky.

There was no tension in Solo’s body. He was unconscious. Whether from loss of blood, a concussion, or internal injury, Rip didn’t know.

He lifted Solo, marveling at how slight he was.

Rip draped the spaceman over his shoulder. He was tempted to abandon the rifle, but afraid he might need it later. With great effort he retrieved the rifle with his free hand and started following the tracks back the way he had come.

His burden was heavy and he was soon tired. The wind began to rise, blowing against his back as he trudged on into the gathering darkness.

Rip was at least a mile from the cave when he felt Solo stir. The muscles in his body tightened.

“Solo?”

A grunt in reply.

Rip laid the man in the snow on his back. He didn’t stay down but raised himself slowly to a sitting position. He looked around, looked at Rip and saw the rifle.

“You killed the bear and he darn near killed you.”

Solo merely nodded, then shoved his hands into the snow and tried to stand.

“Don’t do that, you idiot!” Rip ordered. “You’ve lost a lot of blood and probably have a concussion.”

Solo ignored him and got upright. He swayed, then steadied himself. Looked around.

“I can’t understand,” Rip said, “why you didn’t get hypothermia lying out there. Temp is damn near zero. Your hands ought to be frozen.”

Solo felt his head, examining the wound with his fingers. He scraped some of the dried blood away. His hair was coated with it, but there was nothing that could be done about that. His scalp seemed to be in place and it wasn’t bleeding.

“We gotta get back and see what we can do about sewing you up,” Rip said. He picked up the rifle and started walking. Solo followed. He staggered a time or two, but he remained upright with his feet going.

When they were back in the cave, Egg seated Solo by the fire and examined the wound while Rip explained about the bear. For illumination, Egg used the fire and the flashlight, which still had some juice left in its batteries.

“It’s very sore,” Solo said.

“It’s almost healed,” Egg said in amazement. “The wound is completely closed.”

Charley made a noise. “Let me look.” She took the flashlight and examined Solo’s scalp.

“Just an angry red line,” she said softly, and went around the fire to take a seat.

“Rip?” Egg queried.

“That polar bear nearly ripped off his scalp. He bled a lot and was unconscious when I found him. I carried him a mile or so, then he woke up and walked the last mile. There he sits.”

“Mr. Solo?” Egg murmured.

“Mr. Cantrell. I have been shot with bullets and arrows, stabbed, slashed, and have fallen from cliffs. I survived several explosions, extraordinary low temperatures that killed several of my companions, and two airplane crashes. And now, a bear attack. My body’s ability to repair itself has been enhanced.”

“Enhanced?”

“Enhanced. An induced genetic mutation.”

“Ye Gods,” Charley Pine moaned. “If those drug moguls find out about that, they’ll slice and dice you and put the pieces under a microscope.”

“Let’s hope they don’t find out,” Adam Solo said, fingering his healing scalp wound.

“Can you be killed?” Rip asked.

“Of course. If the wound is severe enough, I’ll die before my body can repair the damage.” Solo shrugged. “It will happen someday, a traumatic death, or my body will just wear out. I am mortal, as is every living thing. To be honest, as that white bear charged, I thought my time was over.”

In the silence that followed that remark, Charley asked, “Were you scared?”

“No.” He thought about that answer and added, “Relieved, perhaps.”

Adam Solo eyed the fish. Before anyone could reply to his previous comment, he suggested, “One of those would be superb just now.”

His companions agreed. In minutes they were roasting fish on sticks over the fire and Solo was telling them about the bear.

The conversation moved to the coming starship. “How is it powered?” Egg asked.

“Nuclear fusion,” Solo replied. “The reactors in these saucers use fission, but the starships use fusion, the same reaction that goes on inside a star. Light elements, like hydrogen, are fused into heavier elements, and the energy from the reaction is used to power the ship.”

“Fusion has never been achieved here on earth,” Egg remarked.

“The reaction requires a force field to hold it; no material known in the universe can. Suspended in the electromagnetic field, a few grams of light elements are so compressed that nuclear fusion begins. A tiny star beings to burn.”

“The computer had information about it that I couldn’t understand.”

“I don’t,” Adam Solo replied. “No man can know everything.”

They discussed fusion reactors as the fire burned, more wood was added and the fish roasted.

“How is the energy used to move the ship?” Rip asked.

“The energy powers artificial gravity fields, which are used like the rings in the saucer to repel a gravity force, or to attract it, whichever is most efficient at the time. In effect, the ship hurls itself toward a star or black hole, or pushes it away.”

“What is your world like?” Charley Pine asked, changing the subject rather dramatically.

“It’s been a long time,” Solo said. “A few years ago I was in Hollywood when the Star Wars movie projects came around. I drew up some pictures of what the cities of my youth were like, turned them in to the studio artists, who embellished them more than a little.” He laughed. “When I saw the first movie, I wasn’t sure exactly what I remembered.”

“So how’s your head?”

“Sore.”

“So you survived another adventure.”

“That’s the definition of experience,” Solo said with a trace of a smile, “which is underappreciated by those who don’t have it and overvalued by those who do.”