"Escape From The Crater"

Escape From The Crater

by Carl L. Biemiller

Published by Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, New York.

“Let’s see if I have this right, Rockwell. After all, we’re recording. You state that you are in no position to do anything, ahem, warlike to the Kirl, despite original orders to destroy them with your obviously adequate weaponry. You state that your last orders were merely to survive, endure, and report.

“You further state that you wouldn’t try anything hostile because you have access to Kirl archives which clearly show their human origin and their right to be considered as a form of humanity. You claim that cooperation with your otter-type fellows would strengthen the Service. Okay?

“Then you claim that the cryo you hatched, that Major Bell, the thermal energy-geologist fellow who’s sitting on that mountaintop with you, has convinced you that a whole new livable continent free of bomb sickness lies ready to take sizable numbers of our people out of the hive cities for colonies which could supply stable minerals, vast food supplies, and something you call unregimented freedom.”

“You sure you don’t want to strike that last assertion,” drawled Jiggs Jensen’s rumbling voice.

“Yes,” said Kim stubbornly.

“You’re not bargaining for your own hides are you, Kim?”

“Blast and damn,” said Toby Lee.

“Comes from associating with bad company, Warden Lee,” said Commander Torrance dryly.

“Where’s Commander Brent, sir?” asked Kim suddenly.

“Oddly enough, he’s still engaged in arguing your case before certain members of the council of Cities at what is known as a plenary meeting in Denver burrow. That means all the brass is there. Trouble is, he’s not sure what side he’s arguing on, as he would just as soon assign you all to some study of deep-basin current in the Antarctic.”

“Does he know? Does the Council know? Do you sir, and Commander Jensen know about this land of Alaska?”

“Only as a land mass that was subject to some of the greatest damage during the old wars and therefore presumed tainted beyond recall. We know a bit more now, however, and not from you.”

“Remember the berg you marked and left for the Polaris? The one with the man, woman, and child cryos?” asked Commander Jensen. “When the neuro-mnemonics wizards worked them over they remembered Alaska, and, what’s more, your Major Bruce Bell, who was their ranking leader. You can tell him, if you think he’s …ah, ugh… adjusted.”

Major Bell snorted. His voice was crisp and hard.

“I’m listening, you know. And right now I’m adjusted enough to know that I may never be adjusted. Are my people all right? And who are they?”

“Names given as Captain William Nagle, wife Frances, daughter, age thirteen, Margo.”

“My executive officer,” said Major Bruce. “What’s neuro-mnemonics?”

“This isn’t any story hour,” snapped Commander Torrance. But briefly, mnemonics is the science of remembering things. The biggest computer ever built can’t store as much data as the human brain. Trouble is, it can’t always retrieve it at command, for one reason or another. Which means that you never really forget anything you’ve ever known, but you can’t dredge it up when you need it all the time. So our biochemical wizards working the field of neuro-mnemonics can do it for you, and with or without your consent. They use some narco-drug-hypnotic process both to implant data in your head and to take it out again when needed. Now let me mind my own business.”

“Have you tried to contact us, sir?” asked Kim.

“Certainly, but we couldn’t use flyers. No sense in stirring up more Service gossip than necessary, which would get back to the council in some garbled form. And you will recall that members of the Council who knew about your mission were divided in their opinions concerning it?”

“However, the Polaris is ready to sail. We’ll be on her and so will Commander Brent, and I suspect with bad news for your Kirl,” said Commander Jensen. “Depending on Council orders.”

Kim was angry, and his long-conditioned Service discipline frayed.

“Would they throw away a new land because they’re afraid some of our own relatives might share the oceans? Oceans which belong as much to them as they do to us, because they are also man-born? Well, it will take the Polaris some four days steady cruising to reach us, and there might not be anybody here by then. At least, in this area.”

“What do you mean, Rockwell?” said Commander Torrance evenly. Mutiny?”

“Exodus 13:21… ‘by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them the way; and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light to go by day and night,’” said Toby Lee sweetly.

“You mean a mountain might get thrown at Polaris again?”

“Exactly,” snapped Kim.

“How could we colonize a country like that?” asked Commander Torrance.

“They could send up,” said Commander Jensen with his cavernous laugh.

“There could be reconditioned recruits from the cities,” said Kim, “and selections from the Service. But what if I told you, for instance, that a group of the original colonists, people like Major Bell and that Captain Nagle and his wife, might be available? Free people? Or as the Kirl say, the Forerunners of the Forerunners?”

Kim made an imperceptible motion. Toby Lee moved around to Major Bell and laid a gentle hand on the back of his neck. The cryo barely felt the tiny prick. She eased him to a sitting position.

“Does your Major Bell know that?”

“I’ll bet he does not,” said Commander Jensen casually.

“That might change things. It would depend upon Commander Brent. He’s the Council’s representative. But you know how it is with Service regulations and discipline. The four of you are for it one way or another, although I must say your orders are loose. By the way, where are your compatriots besides out to lunch?”

“Digging recruits out of a glacier,” said Kim.

“And building a ski jump,” added Toby.

“Explain, please?”

“The Kirl inherited a fondness for sliding down mountains on mud slides, maybe from some land-otter genes, not the sea-otter ones. Genright and Tuktu have worked out a way to put a lip on the slides so the slide shoots them out over the water… Clear? Major Bell says the thing is what he calls a ski jump.”

“Anybody killed yet?”

“It isn’t working yet.”

“Ah, well, there’s time. I gather they do other things as well?”

“All records kept, logs filed, Service routines observed,” said Kim.

Something gnawed at his mind. He remembered holding Toby during that dark moment when she’d fought off the shock of seeing the Kirl archives of the nuclear destruction in the Kirl cavern.

“This is crazy,” he said slowly. “But would you see if there is anything in the records of the cities about a man named Albert Preston Kirl and his work? Probably a great scientist, and one of the founders of the lost Hawaii burrow city… Don’t know why I think of it unless it was the Tardigrades…”

“You’re not making much sense, Rockwell.”

“We’ll check, Kim,” said Commander Torrance gently. “Anything else?”

“Just that this may be the last contact for a time. We’ve had to climb above com interference, and now we’re headed back to the lake.”

“One thing, Toby and Kim. It’s obvious you use the forbidden book we gave you, so when you get to Ecclesiastes just remember, ‘to everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under the heaven.’ Good luck.”

“Not so fast, sir. It’ll only take a minute for the readout on Albert Preston Kirl. And, if you don’t mind, your voice sounds pretty solid to us. Everything’s fine, of course. But it gets a bit wide out here, very large, I might say, what with one thing and another, and we begin to wonder about things we never much wondered about before. Does that sound confusing?”

“Not a bit,” said Commander Torrance, and his voice was husky. “You’re doing fine. You’re alive, well, and coping, and we’re proud of you.”

“We sit around and wonder most of the time ourselves,” rumbled Commander Jensen, “although we keep it a secret. You might say the whole Service is based on people sitting around wondering. But here’s your data…

“Albert Preston Kirl, every medical degree in the book, specialist psychology, neurosurgery, one of the originators of body-bank and cyborg techniques, cryogenic nerve circuits, a biochemical specialist, experiments with artificial genes and forced adaptations of human systems to hostile environments suppressed by government and Kirl and followers fled country…long time ago, Kim. Man obviously a fanatic, although a genius. If alive, he’d be…who knows how many years in subjective time? Why do you want to know?”

“I saw a film of the man in the Kirl archives,” said Toby Lee. “The Kirl are named the Kirl, you know…”

“And there is something very strong about the Kirl leader,” added Kim. “Genright calls him Moses.”

“Kim,” said Commander Torrance, “commanders are supposed to command, not analyze hunches. Expect the Polaris and probably two medical craft to follow as soon as possible. We’ll make suggestions to Commander Brent. He at least has additional ammunition for the Council. We have all the nav fixes necessary from your last venture. Out.”

“I’d say we created some turmoil,” said Kim.

“Back to the lake?”

“Back to the lake.”

“I’m getting pretty sick of being adjusted whenever you people think I need adjustment,” said Major Bell, sitting up and rubbing his neck. “I didn’t have to listen in on your conversation. All you had to do was ask me to take a walk.”

“You’re precious to us.”

“And I told you once before I was pushing you hard,” added Kim. “Usually there’s a long convalescent or treatment period before all the doctors think you’re ready for new life.”

“Yeah, they bend you, bust you, brainwash you, and then half the time they throw you away.”

“We don’t have time for that stuff.”

“Nice to know I’m among friends,” said Major Bell, “if not quite trusted in case I go ding-a-ling.”

They checked instruments. “You’ll notice it’s not the peaks that are pluming that bother me so much,” said the major thoughtfully. “Those topmost fire pits stay fairly stable in most old volcanoes. It’s those side vents and fissures that sometimes bust right out of the mountain, and anywhere. Near the base, along some fold halfway up, in some hidden cave. And they don’t give much warning. Years ago there was a fault belt that ran throughout this area which was responsible for about nine percent of all the world’s earthquakes. Farther north, of course, no trouble at all. A thing geologists called isostasy, which meant all forces in balance.”

They sloped off the ridge, backtracking their original compass course, and entered a small, heavily wooded valley bisected by a small stream choked with struggling fish. The Kirl were uneasy. Reuben and Caleb cast and recast, crossing each other’s tracks. They sniffed deep of the dank vegetation, whined little code messages at each other.

“Let’s move through here in a hurry,” they urged.

Major Bell seemed joyous. “This land is clean,” he said. “Those fish are salmon. They’ve fought their way from the sea, up rivers, steams, rivulets, and brooks like this one to spawn, to lay eggs before they die. Once they came by the millions. I never saw them. Much of this land was ruined by the time I got here, but I heard the old-timers talk. They told of bears standing in these streams, eating salmon like we’d eat berries, scooping them out of the water into piles and then sitting down to dine.”

“Like that?” asked Toby Lee, pointing a grubby, almond finger where approximately a thousand pounds of chestnut coated behemoth was licking a long, curving, clawed forepaw about the size of a medium-growth tree trunk while enjoying a hip bath in a gravelly pool. The Kirl froze, each muscle along their backs, from the neck scruff to tail, outlined as though they had been carved in stone.

There has never been a more formidable animal than the giant brown bear that once inhabited the ancient, treeless, volcanic wasteland that was the Alaskan peninsula before man committed suicide. Not even the Kodiak was larger, more of a loner save in mating season, or more unpredictable and dangerous when the mood was on him.

For all his size and incredible bulk, the great brown can move like a ghost, should he decide to convert a ton or so of meat into a mere wraith. This one rose from his pool silently as a modest grandmother disturbed by a careless plumber, fixed the little group with shining, crimson eyes which leaked a rheumy fluid, and charged. His full-throated roar of rage filled the valley with sound..

The Kirl moved like dark lances and in perfect teamwork. Reuben’s gaping, sharp-toothed jaws closed on the bear’s left paw, digging for traction in the pebbled brook. Caleb’s fearsome fangs locked upon its right. But only for seconds, as the brown’s club-like forepaws brushed them into crumpled humps into the adjacent brush. Kim, stepping back to steady his laser rod, tilted on one knee and pitched on his face out of action. Major Bell, his face a mask of determination and stun gun in his hand, fell into the creek in a snarl of salmon.

He threshed, fought for a footing and yelled.

“Lie still, you booby,” shouted Kim. “It’s Toby’s show.”

Toby’s dexterous fingers adjusted the beam setting on the knurl of the stubby laser rod to something smaller than a pencil-sized diameter. As the bear reared from the stream to close with the slim figure before him, a blaze of ruby light struck the hollow beneath its jaw and moved downward in a thin charred line to the juncture of its massive thighs. There was a ripe smell of surprise barbecue and singed hair. A bloody mass of internal beast erupted into the creek, and a ton of carcass splashed water over the bank as the great brown fell less than five feet from Toby’s firmly planted feet. It did not disturb the salmon engaged in a much older pursuit of nature’s cycle of life and death.

Kim on his knees raised his own weapon to make certain the great bear was dead.

“You spoil my fur coat, and you’ll stay in these hills until you find me a white one, you big fiddle-footed hero,” said Toby.

“I’m getting too much adjustment,” said Major Bell.

“Let’s check the Kirl. They bought us the seconds we needed.”

Caleb and Reuben were battered, but they could travel. Reuben had two broken ribs, which Kim set and splinted firmly with algin gel. “As Genright said, this stuff comes in handy for making shoes.” And Kim sent Caleb ahead to report to the lake colony that they were coming in, bear pelt and all, if possible.

They dragged the monster predator to a level place along the bank when Major Bell took charge of staking out its unwieldy weight. “Fur coat or no fur coat,” said Kim practically, “we need the specimen for proof that the land supports life—food life.”

Handling a pelt the size of a great brown bear is no easy matter, but the instruments reduced the chore immensely, splitting paws, using needle heat to separate hide from adhering flesh, burning off fat and tissue that might spoil the heavy hide.

Major Bell was particularly interested in the creature’s head. “Nobody knows what makes bears chancy creatures. But something I heard a long time ago from a man named Frank Dufresne, a game commissioner, indicated that bears go bad, vicious, and turn killer because of bad teeth. They get an impacted wisdom tooth and the pain is so intense they can’t eat, turn antisocial, and go insane. They want to destroy anything that moves.”

“Just let his teeth alone,” said Toby sweetly. “You had your chance to examine them closely.”

“Maybe he has a mate,” suggested Kim. “You can sort of pick around in them, if you like.”

“What’ll you be doing?”

“Nesting in a tall tree, I think, watching you work. You do nice work. I only hope you’re strong enough to tote about two hundred pounds of fur coat home with you.”

Major Bell fashioned a travois, two sturdy saplings lashed in the form of a triangle, rolled the hide, and coated it with gel. “Things get buggy until cured properly.” They heaved the pelt onto the contraption and manage to drag it behind them. “Mostly downhill anyhow,” he explained.

It was—falling, sliding, their burdens about their necks and caution choking them every step of the way as Kim insisted upon instrument checks, halts for odd map formations, and Major Bruce filling his pockets and a rucksack with whatever rocks struck his fancy. Their welcoming party, consisting of an irate Moses and a handful of limping young, met them nearly at the lake shore.

“Thanks for coming so fast,” said Kim.

“I’m sorry the bear lost,” said Moses.

Chapter One	Chapter Two	Chapter Three	Chapter Four	Chapter Five
Chapter Six	Chapter Seven	Chapter Eight	Chapter Nine	Chapter Ten
Chapter Twelve	Chapter Thirteen	Chapter Fourteen	Chapter Fifteen

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