Mindbridge by Joe Haldeman Read Free Book Online

there.
    NBC: They just disappeared? It couldn’t-
    JB: That’s right.
    NBC: You have no idea what happened to them?
    JB: None whatsoever.
     

15 – CHAPTER FIVE
     
    They left Ch’ing’s body by the riverside and continued to survey the planet.
    Without the floater, it was a difficult task. Most of their time was taken up in traveling-literally running from their high-latitude position up to the pole, down to the equator, and back. With their suits’ amplification they could cover a thousand kilometers or more per day.
    The planet was less than promising:
    There was a sea, covering a fourth of its surface, that had such a high concentration of salt that nothing could live in it, except for certain hardy microorganisms that stayed close to the mouths of rivers.
    The polar cap was a frozen wasteland, arid and lifeless, where fossil snow rolled rattling, hard tiny granules pushed by a never-ceasing gale; where the wind carved ice mountains into fantastic shapes, great curving sweeps that met in razor edges to sing one long note in the wind.
    A chain of dead volcanoes, their tops dusted with a golden snow of monoclinic sulphur.
    An ancient weathered meteor crater, larger than Texas, perfectly round, with the vestige of a central peak-filled with sweet water and a bewildering variety of marine life. None of the creatures had telepathic properties.
    Working down from the pole, the frozen sterile ground thawed into a bog, with more and more plant life as they moved toward the equator; then less life as the ground dried out and the temperature rose. The last several hundred kilometers before the equator was all parched desolation, bare gray rock and sand in monotonously regular dunes.
    On their last day they hurried back to the river, so they could slingshot Ch’ing’s corpse and suit back for the scientists at Colorado Springs.
    DEATH DUE TO UNDIAGNOSED GPEM MALFUNCTION had haunted all of them for seven days.
    They had been pushing their suits to the limit all week.
    Ch’ing had been killed by his just standing, doing nothing.
    But there hadn’t been any problems. These things happen, Tania said; freak accidents. The GPEM’s are checked, double-, triple-, and quadruple-checked. But it’s as complex a mechanism as anyone has ever trusted with his life. The doctors and engineers will find out what happened to Ch’ing and make sure it never happens again. Tania said.
    The river had risen and Ch’ing was standing upright in knee-deep water. They got there with more than two hours to spare, before the Slingshot Effect took hold.
    They moved him out of the water and sat, waiting. Jacque took the creature out of the compartment in Ch’ing’s suit, where they had stored it (in an environment that simulated the river).
    They passed the animal around and its powers seemed undiminished.
    “I have a theory,” Jacque said.
    “On what?” Carol said.
    “Why there aren’t any land animals.” Except for the creature Ch’ing found, they’d found no animal that could survive out of the water. “When that meteor hit, you know, the big crater? It must have caused a worldwide catastrophe. Earthquakes, fires, tidal waves-“
    “Fill the atmosphere with superheated steam, if it landed in water,” Carol said.
    “Radioactive steam,” Tania added. “That kind of impact-“
    “That’s what I mean,” Jacque said. “Nothing on land survived. Only plants and animals that were protected by a buffer of water.”
    “Could be, could well be,” Tania said. “If that happened, the geologists ought to be able to reconstruct it.”
    “From the samples,” Carol said.
    They were quiet for some time. The only one standing was Ch’ing.
    “How much longer?” Vivian asked.
    “About twenty minutes,” Tania said. “Twenty-two.” Another long silence. “Well, we might as well get into position,” Tania said. “Jacque, you’ll be on top again, otherwise the heights won’t match up. I’ll be on the bottom with Ch’ing . . .