The Escape Orbit

Chapter 1

When Warren had been taken as a prisoner of war along with the other survivors of the erroneously named Victorious, he had thought that he knew what to expect—his expectations being based on the knowledge of how enemy prisoners were handled by his own side.

With the other officers he had been moved to an enemy heavy cruiser and confined in one of its storage compartments, into which had been pumped what the enemy thought was an Earth-like atmosphere and where there was introduced at regular intervals substances which were the enemy’s idea of what human beings ate. The air had had to be breathed but the food would only be eaten after the processes of starvation were well advanced. Then had come the expected series of transfers between supply ships returning from the battle area until eventually they found themselves being herded aboard a vessel of tremendous size which was in orbit around a planet. Within a few hours they were moved again, this time to a ship which was obviously a ferry, and now they were landing.

But on the final approach Warren was able to see that the planetary surface was green and heavily forested and that its night side showed no trace of artificial illumination—two facts which, considering the enemy’s marked preference for dry worlds and harsh, blue-white lighting, came as a surprise to him. He was still wondering about it when the ship landed in a clearing and they were directed to the airlock and down a ladder which had not been made for human feet, onto grass still smouldering from the effects of the tail-blast. Nobody followed them out of the ship and neither did they appear to be under any form of restraint, which surprised Warren even more.

But all he could think about at that moment was the sheer joy of breathing air that was clean and fresh and tainted only by the not unpleasant smell of burnt grass, so that these odd happenings did not worry him unduly. Then above him the ship emitted a low, humming sound. The ladder retracted suddenly and the outer seal of the lock began to swing closed.

“Run!” said somebody harshly.

Seconds later the ship took off with a sound like a continuous crack of doom and a blast of heat which, because their reactions were fast, was horribly uncomfortable instead of being instantly lethal. And even though the dwindling thunder from above told them they were safe, they didn’t stop running until they reached the trees.

Long before they had their breaths back they were all trying to talk, and some of the language was not lady-like even though it was one of the ladies present who was using it. Warren looked slowly around the tragically small group which had survived the destruction of one of the mightiest battleships ever built—twenty-six officers in green battle-dress uniforms, devoid of all insignia or decorations, whose anonymity had been a ruse originally intended to confuse the enemy as to the relative importance of prisoners but which were now simply a matter of tradition. Just as it was traditional for the female half of a ship marriage to retain her own name so as to avoid the confusion of having two officers with the same name aboard ship. But there were no conventions to guide them in their present situation, Warren thought, as he listened to them vocalizing some of the thoughts which were going through his own mind at that moment. He did not say anything himself because there was nothing constructive he could say, and he could not have gotten a word in edgewise anyway.

“Why the thinking lousy Bugs…!”

“This isn’t a prison camp! They’ve marooned us here, without food … or anything…!”

“They tried to kill us with their tail-flare!”

“I’m not so sure about that,” a quieter voice amid the uproar. “The Bugs have never been deliberately cruel. There has to be a reason for all this…!”

“The reason being,” another voice put in, “that after sixty years of war they’ve grown to dislike us?”

“Very funny. But I still say…”

“Why they didn’t isn’t very important at the moment,” said the quiet, competent-sounding voice of Major Fielding. “If we have been marooned, the first problem is to ensure our immediate survival…”

Ruth Fielding was a small, dark-haired girl who had been the medical officer and psychologist aboard Victorious. She was the type who could fly into a tizzy at some trifling upset and yet remain completely and utterly calm when everything and everybody around her was going to hell on horseback. Warren had never been able to make up his mind on whether this odd but very valuable aspect of her character was due to courage or sheer contrariness.

“… We must build shelters,” she continued quietly, “and arrange protection against the weather and possibly dangerous animals. We must find water, search for edible plants and animals, fashion weapons…”

While she was speaking, everyone began looking at the surrounding greenery—tight, almost spherical clumps of bushes whose shadows might conceal anything and tall, proud trees with yellow-veined bark and leaves like big green seashells. From some of the branches brown, hairy fruit hung, or possibly they were parasitic growths or nocturnal creatures asleep for the day. The insects were too small to be seen, but as the thunder of the departing ship died away they could be heard droning to themselves.

And when they had finished looking around them the crew began glancing furtively at Warren, plainly wondering if his vast fund of tactical experience equipped him to handle this sort of problem. They were all intelligent and highly-trained people who would not be thrown into a panic by the immediate problems of survival which Fielding was mentioning. Many of them would already be considering the longer-range, Warren knew, already thinking in terms of the second and third generation while she was still making her final point.

“… Because our observations on the way down,” she concluded in a voice which seemed loud only because everybody else was holding his breath, “make it pretty certain that we have this planet all to ourselves.”

Nobody spoke for a long time. No slightest breath of wind stirred the alien leaves and even the insects seemed to join momentarily in making the silence complete. Then the stillness was shattered by the sudden rattle of drums from the forest around them, the measured though erratic beat making it plain that intelligence of some kind was being transmitted. To the drum-beats was added the sound of whistles blowing and distant shouts, and an unmistakably human figure was running through the trees towards them.

“Oh well,” said Fielding in a highly embarrassed voice, “Maybe we don’t have the planet all to ourselves.”

The running figure slowed as it approached, from a sprint to something which was not so much a fast walk as a ceremonial quick march. After one glance around the group he marched unhesitatingly towards Warren and came to a halt before him. There he tore off one of the tightest, smartest salutes that Warren had ever seen.

“I am Lieutenant Kelso,” he said crisply. “Are you the senior officer of this party, sir?”

Before replying, Warren looked the lieutenant slowly up and down. He noted the details of the kilt which the other wore, the calf-length boots and the sundry other items of harness all of which must have been worked by hand out of animal hides. He noted also the color contrast between the leather of the kilt and boots and that of the pouches and harness, realizing as he did so that he was seeing not just a collection of animal skins tacked together for protection or utility, but a uniform, with all that a uniform implied.

Kelso himself was tall and thin, topping Warren’s five-eleven by at least three inches, but well-muscled. He looked to be in his early thirties and his face and chin were raw as if from constant shaving with a very blunt instrument. His hair, which looked as if it had been cut with a knife, was short and plastered flat against his scalp with something which smelled to high heaven.

Punctiliously, but without the bone-wrenching precision which had gone into the one he had just received, Warren returned the other’s salute and said, “That is correct, Lieutenant.”

Kelso nodded, then said quickly, “I have to escort your group to the nearest committee post as fast as possible, sir. I know that you’ll have questions to ask, hundreds of them probably, and my job is to answer them. But first we have to get moving—”

“What the blazes is this place?” somebody behind Kelso burst out harshly. “We expected a prison dome, with Bug guards and … and…”

“What about those drums…?”

“Committee! What committee…?”

Warren cleared his throat irritably and all at once there was silence—except for the drums and distant shouting. He said, “Go on, Lieutenant.”

Looking suddenly impressed by Warren where before he had been merely respectful, Kelso resumed. “I will answer all your questions, sir, but first I must get you to the nearest committee post as quickly as possible. There are others out searching for you, too, and it is imperative that we avoid them—I’ll explain about that, as well. So if you don’t mind, sir, I’d like us to walk as we talk…”

The Lieutenant was still standing rigidly at attention, but he kept swaying forward onto the balls of his feet in his urgency to get moving. Warren decided to have pity on him before he fell flat on his face.

“I have yet to meet a Lieutenant who did not know all the answers,” he said drily. “Very well, Kelso. Lead on.”

With the Lieutenant at his side and the other survivors from Victorious crowding their heels in an attempt to stay within earshot they moved off. The pace Kelso set was a fast walk, but each time a drum started on a new message or there was a fresh burst of shouting in the forest he increased it. When a few minutes had gone by without him saying anything, Major Fielding decided that she couldn’t wait.

“Why are there others searching for us, Lieutenant?” she said breathlessly. “Who are they and why must we avoid them?”

Kelso looked quickly towards her, then looked again. The regulation battledress uniform, tight-fitting and designed so that with the addition of a fish-bowl became a short-duration spacesuit, did nothing for an ageing officer like Warren with his thickening waistline and tendency towards bowlegs, while for officers like Ruth Fielding it did quite a lot. When he replied Kelso was smiling and he spoke loudly enough for everyone to hear.

“To answer that I’ll first have to fill in some background details,” he said. “As you know, during the sixty-odd years we’ve been fighting the Bugs one of the biggest problems on our side was looking after the prisoners of war…”