Patchett's Planet

A story by Keith Croes

The reports had been filed according to procedure, all signed and sworn and attested to, and for the most part they were even accurate. So a groan must've gone up, probably starting with a full fleet admiral or two, then a lesser admiral or three, then the captain, the lieutenant and ending finally with a grunt from Chief Petty Officer Walter F. Patchett. The planet 09-975UB -- called "Zero-Niner" without a glimmer of affection by the crew of the HMS Wm. Reginald Gaines -- was no place for the Queen.

A humid, overgrown, cantankerous lump of rock even the Service couldn't wait to leave behind, Zero-Niner was no place for humans of any rank. Full of muck and mildew and moldering, fetid reeks, it was a mutant weed garden out of control, a deranged terrarium that seemed to take perverse pride in remaining one or two degrees outside the comfort zone. As a whole, the planet gave the feeling of finding an unidentified glob of disgusting crap on your neck. It was the place where God first stepped in it, a sweaty, stubborn, unlikable place that in the end came across as nothing more or less than just plain unpleasant. Zero-Niner was the screeching fingernails on the blackboard of the universe.

And several of the landing teams had reported creatures that seemed to be extremely put off by having to live there.

On the plus side, it had human-breathable atmosphere, which meant that suits were unnecessary, which was probably more of a negative. You had no excuse for not just sticking your face out into the forest and taking it on the chin. Which Chief Petty Officer Walter F. Patchett had done on three separate occasions.

Trying to read Patchett's face, which at the moment lurked dark and sleepy behind an almost frighteningly coarse stubble, the lieutenant looked a little sick. "Uh, whaddaya say, chief?"

"I don't know." Walt was still having trouble accepting that not only the lieutenant but the captain himself had come to his quarters, invading a fine dream, and he was sitting now on his bunk, drawing things out a bit, squeezing the moment so that the seconds seemed to swell and drip, drop by unbelievable drop. He managed a covert wink in the direction of his bunkmate, Chief Petty Officer Andrew P. Biltmore. "I thought we were leavin' this place."

"What makes you say that?" the lieutenant sputtered.

"We were considering it," said the captain, a small, trim, tight-eyed man as smart as a fast slap with a voice like an educated razor. "But things change, Patchett. We'd laid on a course out of here when the orders came. Will you do it?"

The ship had been in orbit around Zero-Niner for three months and it had been almost a month since anybody had been down to the planet's surface for a simple reason: no one had wanted to go. Every jack-man of them from the captain down had lost interest, and it was understood throughout the ship and even at fleet command that they hung in orbit only to pass the time. Most planetary explorations take several months to complete and it wouldn't look good if they departed any sooner. So here was the small crew of the HMS Wm. Reginald Gaines seriously goofing around at the edge of the known universe when the message came that the Queen, in a pique of political support for the Planetary Exploration Service, aimed to visit the ship and wished to make at least a cursory tour of whatever planet they happened to be exploring. In this case, the luck of the draw would seem to land her on the godawful Zero-Niner.

Walt pondered these events and regarded his huge hands. Walt was a burly, fat-free six-foot-four, too tall to get into the Service by present standards. A grandfather clause allowed him to continue on active duty, and his bulk actually offered some advantages. Take the current situation, for instance. Who better to clear a patch in a festering jungle for the pestering foot of Her Majesty, The Intrepid and Most Unduly Inquisitive Queen Velda? The answer was as obvious as the dirt under his fingernails. "What do I gotta do again?"

The captain replied quickly. "Set up an observation dome and a verter. She and I will vert down for a half hour or so and then we're outta there. You've done it a hundred times, Patchett."

"Yeah, but -- " Walt allowed his giant shoulders a small tremor. "-- Zero-Niner's no fun, captain. No fun, no sir."

"This is the Queen, Patchett." The captain's tone had taken on an even finer edge. "You'll take another man with you and you'll have all the equipment of the modern-day Service."

A brief chuckle rumbled softly, rattling a few bed springs. "Right." Just then Walt saw the limit of the captain's patience looming up like a wall. "When?"

"Now," the captain said. "She arrives in twelve hours, we'll give her eight to freshen up. Figuring two hours for you to get down there, that leaves eighteen hours to get the site ready."

"Why only two men?"

Half a dozen different levels of rage played rapidly over the captain's face as if searching for seams to split open, then a practiced, impressive control settled in. "We've got things to do up here, too, Patchett. The ship's...well, we've let her go a little bit. We'll vert an extra man down if you get in a fix, but, uh --" He offered a pasty cold smile full of sharp little teeth. "-- you really think it'll take more than two?"

Walt shrugged. "Who's the second man?"

"We were thinking Berstler," the lieutenant chimed in.

Walt shook his head, then cocked it toward his bunkmate. "Andy," he said. Chief Petty Officer Andrew P. Biltmore's eyes rallied from sleepy crescents into full moons before a crooked grin caught up to his mouth.

Biltmore was shorter than the captain and seemed the type that sure enough meant well, doing his job with competence and enthusiasm beyond the norm. Alone, the captain considered him a good man. But he had lost track of the number of times Biltmore and Patchett had stood contritely before him at the end of liberty, usually in some degree of physical disrepair, charged with breaking regulations or other precious objects at various ports of call throughout the galaxy. Patchett scrunching down slightly to keep from banging the overhead; Biltmore straining his full five-foot-three at rigid attention. The damn thing is, they always seemed to have a reasonable story. The two together just had a knack for attracting trouble, some of it so unorthodox that he'd only pretend to understand. It was the captain's turn to go a shade green. His eyes drilled into Walt's. "Whatever it takes to get you down there, Patchett."

"We'd be honored, captain," Walt intoned solemnly. "After all, it's the Queen."

At the time, no one had regretted it when the last observation post on Zero-Niner, verter and all, had blinked out of existence three weeks before. It had lasted exactly one hour after they'd abandoned it.

Men milled around the passageways leading to the lander bay and the docklocks. None of the small crafts had been ready, of course, and now the captain's terse orders echoed almost audibly behind introspective faces. Quick steps searched for unaccustomed efficiency. With a wry glance, Walt leaned against a bulkhead and took in the hunk of mud that still clung to one of the footpads of the lander being loaded.

"Boberson!" he barked. "Why this one?"

A chubby ensign across the bay looked up with mad, darting eyes. "It's the only one that's got a charge!" The beady pellets finally found Walt. "It's the only one that's got a charge up! What the fuck d'ya want?"

"Culbert -- " The back of Walt's thick forearm halted the forward progress of an enlisted man marching through the hatch next to him. He pointed a finger of the other hand. "Scrape that dirt off the footpad, will ya?" The man focused in, nodded and was released. Directly behind him came Andy with two small knock-knock cases. Walt grimaced his approval. "Ammunition?"

"Already on board."

Andy headed for the ramp leading up to the open rear hatch of the lander and Walt strode toward a jumble of equipment. The lander bay was one of few places on the ship where he could stand fully upright. He reached a gray box the size of a large footlocker, grabbed the handles on both ends and brought it up so that it rested across his stomach. He could feel his belt buckle poking into his belly as he started for the lander. Boberson was suddenly beside him.

"We've already got a verter loaded," he whined.

"We're taking two."

"Why? The other one checks out fine."

"And I want a few machetes."

The plump man rolled his birdy eyes. "There's a new invention called the laser scythe? You oughta try it."

"And a dome-patching kit, fire extinguishers, electrical tape and wire -- strong wire."

"Anything else?"

"A coolblower would be nice." The self-contained units blew dry, cold air that could raise Zero-Niner to the status of bearable within a ten-foot radius.

"That we thought of, big guy. And you'll find the dome patches where they always are, fire extinguishers ditto -- left, right and rear."

They had crossed the thirty feet to the ramp of the lander when the ruddy-faced man made a half-hearted motion toward one of the handles on the verter. Walt gave a pained expression. "I've got it. Machetes? Electrical tape and wire -- sir?"

The ensign hurried off and Walt met Andy coming out the back of the lander. "What're you bringin' for clothes?" Andy asked.

"Three pair of coveralls."

The little guy nodded.

"Don't think we'll need our dress whites. Did you get my bag?" Walt asked. Andy nodded some more as Walt attached the verter to the folded panels of the dome floor lining the inside hull of the hold. "Then I guess we're ready."

Walt made a grand bowing gesture toward the front and followed Andy forward into the control cabin, securing the hatch behind them. The lander sat four -- two passengers, the pilot and copilot. Andy spun around and looked at him eagerly. "Go ahead, take her down," Walt said, unclipping the microphone from its bracket. His thumb found the PA switch on the receiver as he lowered himself into the copilot's seat. "ATTENTION ALL HANDS! LIFT-OFF IN THIRTY SECONDS!" The voice boomed out through the bay just moments before Andy kicked on the vertical lifters. Glittery shards of plastic wrap, white foam packing peanuts and other detritus skittered and whirled in the powerful blast. Men scattered, hollering. One or two fists pounded on both front hatches. Inside, the shouting was barely audible. "TWENTY-FIVE! WHERE'S MY STUFF, BOBERSON?" The flushed, fat face appeared at the portal on the copilot's side and Walt slid the hatch open about six inches. Two machetes, a fistful of looped bare metal wire and two rolls of black electrical tape fell through the crack. "THANKS," Walt said into the microphone, stowing the items into a compartment near his right foot.

Ahead of them, a docklock gaped open. Walt saw from the panel indicator that the rear hatch of the lander had been closed, then looked over at Andy. "Seem like thirty seconds to you?" Men lined the walls of the bay on both sides, grinning and waving through the spinning debris. Some had their thumbs pointed up.

"Yep."

"For the Queen, then." He squeezed the mike button. "FOR THE QUEEN, THEN!" the voice boomed. "MAY SHE BEAR YOU ALL FINE SONS!"

Andy had brought the lander up into a hover so expertly that Walt hadn't even realized they were floating. The craft eased forward into the docklock and the inner panels closed behind them. They sat for a minute, tightening their seat harnesses and listening to the fading whistle of vanishing air, then watched as the outer panels opened noiselessly to nothing but star-smeared blackness. The words caught slightly in Walt's throat. "Let's go."

All they had to do was set up a dome, just set up a dome, he thought, hearing Andy yell, "Goodbye, Billy Gaines!" as they shed simulated gravity and gunned out into space.

Five minutes later, four oxygen masks popped in hissing unison from the ceiling and hung like sickly vines over each seat.

"What is it?" Andy asked flatly. His eyes raced over the panel, returned to the flashing light.

"Fire in the hold." Unsnapping his harness, Walt wriggled from the straps and propelled his weightless mass back to the fire extinguisher mounted on the hull near the passenger seat behind him.

"Wait!" Andy had released a mask and its little tank from the ceiling and was holding them out in a wad. Walt swam toward him, fitted the mask over his head and face and clipped the tank to his belt. In one shot he was against the hatch and shouldering it slowly open, his left hand gripping the fire extinguisher and his big feet up on the back of the passenger seats. Smoke coiled into the cabin and stretched up toward a ventilation duct as he pulled the hatch closed behind him.

In less than a minute the hatch flew open and he sailed in empty-handed, making muffled sounds and groping toward the other fire extinguisher on Andy's side of the cabin. Andy had already turned up the ventilator, put the lander on automatic pilot and loosened his harness, and now he slipped out of it and pushed off toward the open hatch, slamming it shut while Walt fiddled with the remaining fire extinguisher. "What? I can't understand you, dammit!"

Walt tugged the mask down around his neck and rotated to face him. Tears streamed in wild trails from his eyes through the soot on his cheeks and forehead. "Fire extinguisher -- " he gasped, " -- no good. Short in the rear-hatch control panel. Goin' strong, too. Geeze, if that thing blows open -- "

Andy looked warily at the cabin hatch he had just flung shut, all that might stand between them and eternity. "Shit," he said.

Calm grew from a spot in Walt's chest until it overtook his fumbling fingers and he suddenly felt as if he'd paid all his bills and still had money left over. He drifted above the deck, serene as a helium balloon in a holiday parade. "We'll evacuate the air back there," he said quietly. "There's nothing back there that can't take near vacuum. Except maybe the beer. We just might lose the beer."

"You brought beer?"

"Just a few cans. In my bag."

"Your bag's up here," Andy said, hitching a thumb toward an overhead compartment.

"Well then, no sweat." Walt aimed the fire extinguisher at the floor and it went FFFFUP-ssssshhh, then fell silent.

They chose an area where night had just fallen, a spot that by the appointed hour would be throbbing like an infection in the full swelter of Zero-Niner's febrile day. The roof of the jungle peeled back in a dazzle of orange, white and blue fire as they blasted their way down to a spongy landing, winding up close enough to horizontal that Walt sought a grip on the hatch lever. "I'll have a look," he said.

The exterior spotlights penetrated only several yards into the undergrowth before dying in a mosaic of shadows. Andy blinked away the images of faces and eyes staring back at him through the lander's plastiglas windshield. The moist, pungent air that reached him through Walt's open hatch was cooler than he expected. He had been to Zero-Niner only once, verting down with supplies for one of the first landing teams. Forty-five minutes of hauling crates had been enough. But this was something else. This was for the Queen.

He wondered if the sorry place had any sense of the magnitude of that. A Queen whose reign reached twenty thousand parsecs, encompassed the rich, teeming worlds that washed like jewels in the wake of humankind's advance across the cosmos and the million boiling suns young and old that he saw woven into Her robe, Her flag, everyone's flag -- every jack-man of the HMS Billy Gaines, that's for certain. A Queen like no other in history. But he knew that the worthless rock hadn't a clue.

It was up to him, him and Walt, to prod the unworthy dolt of a planet into at least a small curtsy, a grudging nod of respect. That's how he saw it, anyway.

Walt's footsteps were scraping an unpredictable, back-and-forth route across the top of the lander until they were overhead, then above the open hatch, then the big man came swinging in, reaching with one kicking leg for his seat. "Okay," he said after dropping into position. "This place is as good as any. Pretty flat out back. Nothing we can't handle."

Andy detected a note of worry, but Walt's expression was lost in the dim glow of the panel instruments.

"The rear hatch won't open," Walt confessed easily. "You go to work on it. I'll grease the footpads and start the clearing." He rose and took a step toward the rear of the cabin, then paused. "Oh. Better tell the captain we're down. Don't mention the hatch, though. We'll save it for Boberson. Add it to the list."

Something in the saturated soil of Zero-Niner worked quickly on metal, corroding even the strongest alloy into a brittle imitation of cast iron. Squatting alongside the lander, Walt gagged on the handle of a flashlight lodged in his mouth and pried the top off a canister of grease with a screwdriver. The landing lasers had obliterated everything underneath; as he turned his head, the flashlight beam found all four footpads rising from the blackened char.

Music blared over the PA. The song was "The Dead are 0 so Mannerly," the latest from the Cringers. Walt thought it might help keep company away, at least for a while. Besides, he liked it.

There was simply no better way to protect the footpads. After attaching several lamps to the craft's belly, Walt plunged his hands into the grease, brought out a gob with a sucking sound and began the job of coating the four thick posts, duck-walking beneath the lander until his back ached and his leg muscles cramped. He wore short-sleeved coveralls and a utility belt clanking with a machete, a laser scythe, various tools and a military-issue knock-knock. A thin choker around his neck contained a microphone and the receiver fit in his ear, allowing him to communicate with Andy. The scorched dirt below the lander formed a thin crust that cracked and collapsed in places under his boots, releasing an ominous brackish ooze.

His hands slipped over the left rear footpad and he sat finally flat on his butt and stared at the wall of vegetation in front of him. That's where the dome would be set up, attached to the hold of the lander like a placenta -- that is, if the rear hatch could be opened. He wiped both sides of his gooey hands on his thighs and used the opportunity to massage the kinked muscles. He could hear movement in the hold above him.

He touched his throat. "How's it goin , Andy?" In one motion he came up on his knees, unsnapped the laser scythe from his belt and activated it. Four buttons on the scythe had to be pressed in sequence -- 1, 4, 2, 3 -- which caused a bright red warning band to flash around the business end of the cylinder. At 10,600 nanometers, the laser light itself was invisible, but it vaporized neat slices through most organic material for a distance of five or six feet. He traced an effortless arc and the plant wall shifted and fell back.

"Well -- " Andy's voice carried the distracted quality of intense concentration. " -- it's a mess, all right. Whole panel needs rewired. You know, this thing controls the compressors, too."

Walt's heart flapped a panicky tattoo. The compressors would be needed to inflate the dome. He swallowed. "Yeah. But you know what really gets me? We can't get the coolblower out until you get it fixed. Things warm up around here when the sun comes out."

"Well -- " Walt imagined he heard Andy transfer his weight from one leg to the other as he stood in front of the gutted panel. " -- to hell with the Queen. I wouldn't want to deny you your coolblower."

Sap ran like blood from the cut stems of some of the thicker plants and Walt stared at them blankly, realizing that he was already sweating, that the crowded air of Zero-Niner hadn't room for even one more molecule of water and that the cooler temperature somehow made it even harder to take. Shiver or sweat, take your pick, but don't ask the human body to do both. Suddenly, on air as still as a corpse, the smell swarmed around him of shit and rotting flesh.

He knelt for a moment beneath the lander and listened to the music pulsing away at the dark jungle. To create a fifty-foot circle for the dome they'd have to clear an area at least 25 percent larger just to accommodate the cuttings. Leaning forward, he drew an armful of bleeding stalks to his chest and scooted off to the side to begin a pile.

The laser scythe was useless against a certain tough plant that poked straight up, sharp as antipersonnel pickets, and ranged from several inches to several feet in height. Four or five would be revealed about every other stroke of the scythe, and for these he'd have to go to the machete. Though he had a pair somewhere in the lander, he worked without gloves in case he had to reach for the knock-knock in a hurry. Slowly, amid sheets of sweat and grunts and rustling barely noticeable under the throbbing music, the wall of vegetation retreated.

All manner of small animals scrambled in the underbrush ahead of his rhythmic swings, most of them appearing reptilian. But one scorpion-like thing the size of a shoebox was the boldest, its members charging out at him with bothersome regularity. The wall was soon fully under the stark glare of the rear spotlights and, lacking adequate cover, his determined attackers inevitably tumbled into two or three pieces under the scythe. The flashing warning band danced in close time with the music, taking lightning-quick detours now and then to lop through one creature or another.

Hauling the loose stuff to the side was the worst of the deal. Of necessity he worked with the coveralls unzipped almost to the navel; beneath them, his uniform shirt was open to mid-chest. The brush seemed alive with crawly things that he'd have to bring much closer to himself than he'd like. Occasionally, after heaving a new layer to the top of the growing heaps left and right, he'd stop and stamp his feet, shaking the critters down and out his pants legs.

By dawn the clearing stretched out forty feet behind the lander in the obdurate darkness beneath the jungle ceiling. Walt was whacking with the machete at one of the thick, sharp pickets when a dimness seemed to wrap around him, obscuring even the feeble light of morning he had just noticed. The music was muffled. Puzzled, he stood up straight and rubbed his blistered right palm on the front of his coveralls. He turned almost full circle before he realized that he was surrounded by a translucent wall. A hissing began very close to his ears and a sickly sweet smell filled his nostrils. In a reeling haze, he snatched at the knock-knock, pointed it straight upward where the sky had been blotted out, and fired. The world caved in.

The rear hatch of the lander flew open just as the knock-knock discharged and Andy came down the extending ramp at a full run, his eyes widening in horror as he approached what appeared to be a huge jellyfish wearing a pair of boots. A long, sleek cable sprouted from the top of the thing and wound limply up to the roof of the forest. Andy rammed into the flabby mound straight-armed up to his elbows, his churning feet kicking up clods of loamy dirt behind him, and the 400-pound sac of limp tissue began to roll under itself on the other side until he was peering down at Walt's smiling face.

"Geeze, I'm sleepy," Walt mumbled.

Andy straddled his chest and slapped him twice hard, backhand and open palm. Digestive acids had eaten away the legs of the coveralls in front, but his upper body appeared unscathed. "Walt! Can you hear me?" Andy cocked his elbow again and Walt's head snapped forward.

"I hear ya, I hear ya! Geeze. Get the hell off me."

Andy rolled to the side and fell on his back. "Just got word," he said quietly. "She's here."

"She is?"

"Taking a nap on the Billy Gaines. Using those goddam little sinks to wash her face. She's up there, Walt. She's up there right now."

They rested for a moment, their eyes following the winding cable up to the winks of sky in the dense foliage overhead. The Cringers screeched the unintelligible lyrics to "The Dead are 0 so Mannerly."

"How about we kill the music?" Andy begged finally.

The day began with fresh vigor. Decked out in clean coveralls, Walt virtually trotted around, hauling the heavy coolblower out by himself and starting it up next to the open rear hatch. Its limited range made it valuable mainly for brief rest periods, but Walt had additional duties in mind for it.

Ignoring his throat mike, he shouted across the clearing at Andy, who was flailing away with a laser scythe. "Where's the beer?"

Andy stopped and turned, reaching up to his collar. He saw Andy's lips move and heard the words in his earphone. "In your bag."

"Where's the bag?" Walt hollered.

"Front left overhead," Andy said.

Propped up against a whirring coolblower, the beer would stay icy cold. But the beer was for later. In the meantime the coolblower would also work on the plastic jugs of water they had brought along.

Soon the aluminum floor panels were unfolding across the clearing, requiring a good deal of touch-up landscaping, and by mid-morning the metal had become a radiator that jacked up the local temperature at least ten degrees. Facing the task of inflating the dome, Walt and Andy slumped by the coolblower.

"Almost there, Biltmore," Walt said, sweat cascading over his bushy eyebrows.

Andy's mouth puckered, instantly reminding Walt of a dog about to spit up.

"You all right?"

Andy nodded, then looked lost. "We've still got a lot to do. Got to get the dome attached, test the verter. What if the dome's ripped? What if the compressors're shot?" The words tumbled out with a burgeoning panic.

"Look, the captain said we could get help if we needed it," Walt said quickly. "Do you wanna get some help?"

Andy's eyes went out of focus contemplating the question. "This place really sucks, Patchett. How the hell did I get so lucky to avoid it as much as I did?"

"I was wondering that myself, partner."

"Man, I'm not avoiding it now, though." He turned his head and puked, hacking up some stringy yellow stuff.

"It's no disgrace to ask for help," Walt said. "I'll call for somebody right now."

"Hey," Andy spat weakly, a string of puke swinging from his chin. "Do I look like I need help?"

"Oh, you're ready for Sunday services," Walt said. He held out a jug of water. "Here. Not too much."

There were no holes in the dome, at least none worth mentioning. Unwrinkling slowly like a beautiful big brother to the jellyfish beast, it puffed full of cool air from the compressors and swelled bright and proud under Zero-Niner's high, brooding ceiling. Dingy coveralls loose and soggy with sweat, Walt stood in the center and went into a clumsy jig, laughing boisterously and holding his arms out toward Andy, who grabbed his hands and danced around equally drenched. Droplets spattered off them and plunked to the knobby treads of the floor. Walt stumbled on something and glanced down. The spiky tip of a picket plant protruded several inches through one of the hinged joints between floor panels.

"Uh-oh." He knelt and sawed it off with the machete.

"Let's get the verter out!" Andy seemed close to bursting.

"Okay, okay." Walt stood and started walking toward the open cave of the hold at one end of the dome. Andy followed. "I'll bring it out. You go up and call the Billy Gaines, see what's on the program."

Walt was hefting the verter across the metal floor when the open channel came up in his earphone. Andy was going to let him join in and was already talking to someone.

"...yeah, well, we would've called sooner, but we were busting our butts at the time."

"Have you tested the verter?" It was the captain.

"I don't know. Walt, have we tested the verter?"

Walt reached for his choker. "Verter test in fifteen seconds." He shuffled quickly to the center of the dome, set the verter down, unsnapped the two hasps and threw the lid open. "Ten seconds." His finger found the power toggle and the frequency and amplitude controls for the carrier beam, then hovered over the testing switch. "Five seconds." A blinking green light told him the carrier was headed out, going somewhere. "Test signal -- mark."

The captain came back after a moment. "Clear verter channel to Zero-Niner. Good work, gentlemen. We'll be down in one-half hour. Oh, and, uh, stay out of the dome. I can guess what you two look like. I don't even want her to see you. So make yourselves scarce. No offense, but that's an order."

After patching a few small holes from the inside, they exited one of the dome's two airlocks into a light rain. Walking ahead of Walt around the perimeter toward the coolblower, Andy turned an exasperated face. "Yuk," he said.

Walt fought off a sinking feeling. "Yeah. Feels awful, doesn't it. It'll only last a few minutes, though. Happens two or three times a day."

"Why don't we just go sit in the cabin?"

Walt shook his sopping head. "Gotta keep an eye on the dome. We'll just sit here by the cool..."

Four creatures were huddled on the pile of brush near the coolblower, bouncing and pointing at the whooshing black machine. Andy took in Walt's expression and whirled in time to see the beasts rise up and up and up. They stood at least twelve feet tall, the ugliest, nastiest twelve feet Walt had ever seen, and so it seemed entirely natural to him when Andy yelped, took one frantic step backwards and leaped up into his arms.

He held Andy against his chest and watched. Something told him not to run. The teeth, probably. These were carnivores. And at Andy's shriek, they had hunched down like professional wrestlers. Walt was reminded of coiled springs, tightly wound, thousands of torquing foot-pounds. He felt Andy's hand patting around his utility belt.

"Your knock-knock?" Andy whispered urgently.

"In the hold."

"Shit.

"Yours?"

"In the cabin."

"Geeze."

Three of the monsters stood now to their full height, and one shook a shaggy arm toward the coolblower. Soon they were all gesturing and making noises like a roomful of diners choking on chicken bones.

"They want the coolblower," Walt said.

"What?"

"I'm going to put you down. Then just stand there, okay? Don't move."

Andy's feet regained the ground and Walt took a step forward, holding his hand out toward the coolblower The hacking chorus increased a notch. Keeping his arm outstretched and staying close to the dome, Walt shuffled ahead. The four giants had found a rhythm now and were bounding up and down on the springy pile of brush. Never taking his eyes from them, Walt sidled up to the coolblower, squatted slightly and lifted the frigid machine in a bearhug, kicking the beer back under the lander. He caught the stench then -- feces and carcasses.

"Here ya go," he said, moving toward them. "It's all yours, boys. Lord knows you deserve it." The closest brute reached out a paw the size of a folding chair. "Thank you," said Walt. "Thank you very much." The first paw slipped underneath, the second grasped the top, and in a final coughing fit the coolblower and its new owners retreated around the front of the lander and into the forest.

Walt blinked at Andy. "Let's not be here when the batteries go," he said.

Walt retrieved the beer -- four cans in a mud-splotched white plastic bag -- and left Andy peering silently around into the deep, green, towering woods. He followed the path the Zero-Ninerians had just taken toward the front of the lander and placed the beer on the deck inside the hatch near the copilot's seat. At that moment he heard a round of hair-raising squawks he only slowly identified as belonging to his partner.

"Waaaaaaaaaaalter! Patchett! Patchett! Paaaaaatchetttt!"

Both knees cracking on the takeoff, he sprinted back along the lander toward the noise, instantly seeing the problem and discerning its cause. The miserable misty rain, which was just then petering out, had collected on the dome and spilled to the ground along its perimeter. Responding to the moisture with nightmarish alacrity, in the well-trimmed absence of competing vegetation, the pickets at the edge of the dome were growing, raising the peripheral floor panels. The dome was folding and warping above this gruesome thicket, its bulbous geometry askew over a prickly, threatening wainscoting of razor-sharp spears. Walt reached for the sticky handle of the machete on his utility belt, thinking that the situation was not only potentially dangerous but extremely unattractive.

Watching wide-eyed as Walt launched a furious, slashing attack at that portion of pickets rising up under the dome near where the coolblower had been, Andy moaned and groped until he found the dangling blade around his waist.

"Let's go!" Walt yelled. "Once around and we're home free! They'll stay cut now that the rain has stopped."

The two hacked and sliced like the Queen's own Knight Protectors, passing one another alternately in a panting spray of sweat and slobber. The heavy air seemed to deposit a mucilaginous slough in their lungs and they adopted a strong pace just short of drowning in the liquidy stuff, wielding the machetes as truly as their stinging eyes allowed. Walt was cutting twenty feet for Andy's ten, and that seemed to suit them both just fine as the dome settled after them.

Three-quarters of the way around Walt noticed that the chunk, chunk behind him had come to a halt, and he stopped and looked back. Andy stood gawking out into the forest.

"What's the matter?"

"I'm hungry."

Walt hesitated. His own stomach was grinding at itself and he realized off-handedly that there was something crawling up his back. "She's coming," he said. With a rattling exhale, he heaved up a stringy gob of phlegm and sent it winding away into the bush.

Andy peered through the clear plastic at the verter in the middle of the knobby aluminum floor. "Yeah," he said.

The remaining pickets fell to blows nearly as powerful as those leveled on the first, and Walt and Andy sat finally against the right rear footpad of the lander oblivious to the smearing grease on their backs. They were in the shadows, but from their vantage point they had no trouble making out the figures of the captain and the Queen as they materialized next to the boxy verter.

They watched without speaking amid the droning buzz and cackle of the jungle. Walt waved the blade of the machete lazily in front of his face. Andy chewed on the sweet stalk of a plant he had discovered that morning, hoping his inoculations against indigenous diseases would work and wondering about the Queen wearing pants. Imagine that. Tight sky-blue pants. And a simple white blouse. And the flashing there? Diamonds in her hair? A tiara? And then the verter was smoking.

A puff of smoke, a stream of smoke, a blossoming river of smoke, and Walt was up and through the dome behind one swipe of the machete. Andy followed and bumped into him, felt a grip on his shoulder. The place reverberated with an angry electronic wail. "Go turn the compressors full on," barked into his ear. Andy headed up the ramp and disappeared into the hold.

"Your Highness?"

"Patchett? Over here, Patchett!"

The captain's voice was a mountain of authority over a kernel of fear, and Walt lunged toward it, his big feet clopping on the metal floor. "I'm going to drag this out of here. We've got another one, captain. Andy's turning up the compressors, so the dome will be clearing out pronto." Blinded by smoke and tears, he was delighted when his left shin slammed against the verter. Clamping both fists around a baking handle, he scrambled back to the gash in the dome, where smoke spewed to the outside. The box popped through the opening and flew ten feet, dying with a chirping sound in the brush.

By then Andy had the second verter halfway down the ramp and Walt could see the captain at the far end of the dome slumped over the kneeling Queen, his shirt draped over her head. Walt trotted toward Andy, and the two of them dragged the verter down the ramp and a few feet out onto the aluminum floor. Walt raised the lid and ran through the testing sequence. The display indicated a failure in the translation circuitry.

Walt rolled his eyes at Andy, then stood and turned. "We've got a problem with this one, too, sir. We might have to take the lander."

A woman's voice came back, muffled but flawlessly conversational. "The lander's fine. If you please, captain. Thank you."

Walt fished into his pocket, drew out a roll of electrical tape and squatted in front of the verter. "Maybe there's something I can do. Better back off a little," he said loud enough for Andy to hear.

Cool, clean air -- swooshing through the yawning hold and around him as he stood at the bottom of the ramp -- had replaced most of the smoke, and Andy stood at the bottom of the ramp and watched paralyzed as the Queen approached them from the far edge of the dome. She walked alongside and maybe half a step ahead of the captain, who was tucking in his shirt. Andy made a futile pass at the oily, greenish scum on his face and the verter exploded, thumping him painfully up the ramp on his rump.

Arms clawing wildly at nothing, Walt went staggering backward and fell flat on his back, still clutching the electrical tape in one hand. The Queen's upside-down face entered his field of vision. His smile was shy; to her it looked like a grimace. "Just go right on up, Your Highness, and make yourself comfortable."

With the captain muttering apologies behind her, she stepped around Walt and past the mangled, smoldering remains of the second verter and the two disappeared up the ramp and into the lander. Moments before, Andy had rolled down the incline and off to the side, managing a salute from the prone position as they had walked by. Now he gingerly picked himself up and stumbled toward Walt, who had struggled up on his elbows.

Walt answered the question on Andy's face. "I'll make it. Just go on up there and get ready for lift-off. I'll release the dome."

Andy wambled zig-zag up the ramp and Walt limped behind, teeth gritting as he pressed gently on his right ribcage. The plastic zipped easily from around the open hatch and fell away. A row of switches, blackened but recognizable, hung from a tangle of wires jutting out of the singed control panel. Walt shut down the compressors and turned to find the dome collapsing slowly, almost hypnotically, into itself.

He must have been watching for several minutes, thinking back to the dream from which he'd been awakened to begin this little duty, when suddenly Andy was beside him with a dark look, the kind you bring to someone's bedside for a death vigil. He had changed into a clean pair of coveralls.

"There's something wrong with the left rear footpad. I don't think it'll come up," he said.

"Geeze." Walt put his filthy hand to his filthy chin. The lander would never reach escape velocity with an extended footpad. After a thoughtful stroke, his hand left his chin and felt for the loop of wire in the large pocket along his right thigh. "Look. Take her up a few inches and retract the footpads. I'll be underneath. If the left rear doesn't respond, I'll lift it into position and tie it off."

"We could call for another lander," Andy said.

"After all this? Look, I wouldn't trust anything Boberson sent this way. I think he's trying to kill that woman, and he's going to hear from me as soon we get back, I promise you that."

Andy took in the familiar determined squint of Walt's eyes and nodded resignedly, happy he wasn't Boberson.

"Just keep your earphone on intercom and let me do the talking. The captain will know something's wrong, but he'll have enough faith in us to keep quiet. I think." He reached around Andy's shoulder and gave the smaller man a hearty slap on the back, placing a perfect, black handprint on the clean coveralls, then headed down the ramp, kicking the edge of the deflated plastic dome out of his way.

Three of the footpads folded neatly into their slots under the floating lander, but the left rear came up halfway and stopped. Kneeling in a slurry of crunchy crust and foul-smelling ooze, Walt held the unstrung wire in his left fist and put his shoulder low against the heavy column to maximize the leverage. Andy's fine touch kept the craft nearly stationary in the sluggish breeze, and Walt knew that the only failure at this point would be his own.

The toes of his boots, first one and then the other, punched downward through the sludge for traction, and the leg muscles tautened. The angle was wrong and his shoulder and hands slid down the greasy post. Feeling a biting, tickling sensation on his shins, he glanced downward. Dozens of tiny white worms squirmed on the drenched, flapping fronts of his lower pants legs.

The boots one by one kicked new footholds closer in and his shoulder sought a spot higher up the post. Trying to ignore the wriggling movements below his knees, he heaved and the column rose. His eyes locked on the tab above him, a semicircular lip of metal with a hole drilled through it set back into a small impression in the footpad slot. He had no idea what it was for, but it made the exercise worth attempting and now it was all he saw, the central focus of his existence, the single physical objectification of every reward life and Heaven could ever hope to offer.

The muscles in the bent legs turned to thick, straining cables and the column inched upward. Walt began a slow, desperate rumble deep in his throat that grew into a full-bodied cry as his legs straightened and his knees locked. The worms now seemed to twist in a frenzy beneath the wet pants legs, inflicting stinging jolts that felt almost like electric shocks. In four plunging steps and four wrenching grunts, Walt was standing, his right cheek swimming in grease. The footpad ground into his shoulder just short of its nest.

Walt raised his left hand, still holding the wire, to his throat. "Andy, listen up. When I give the word, bring her down six inches. Exactly. Any farther and you'll break my spine."

Eyes bulging upward, he threaded the wire through the tab and let it hang down on both sides of the post. "Okay. Slowly now."

The ship landed perfectly on his back, forcing the footpad home, and he tied seven different overhand knots and four bowlines before allowing the thick wire to carry the full weight. The wire held. The knots held. His utility belt hit the ground followed quickly by his coveralls, and the shreds of his pants soon joined them. Massaging his bleeding shins, he ran slouched over like an ape back underneath the ramp and waited in his underwear for Andy to lower the lander far enough for him to jump aboard.

The captain was involved in a flowery tour-guide description of Zero-Niner and its star system when Walt came through the rear hatch of the control cabin. He wore a clean pair of coveralls and had left most of his grimy face on a towel in the hold. He smiled and nodded and the captain didn't miss a beat, going on about how the Billy Gaines would push on to at least one more new world before making port. As he dropped slowly into his seat, Walt caught Andy's eye and winked, evoking a silly grin as bright as any sun.

"Can we assume there was a problem of some sort?" the captain asked cheerily.

Stifling a wince, Walt latched the harness about him. "Had a few this trip, captain." He turned and saw the Queen. What he said next he barely heard. "Nothing that all the equipment of the modern-day Service couldn't handle."

"Your Highness," the captain said, "may I introduce Chief Petty Officer Walter Patchett."

Walt looked again and there it was. The Queen's eyes, her eyes in his eyes, offered unwavering, unabashed appreciation. And full-fledged admiration. Eyes to take with him forever. He gulped and shook his head, looking back out the plastiglas windshield. Andy had brought the lander up through the burnt hole in the jungle's leafy carapace and they hung above a sunny green sea. Suddenly, the miserable Zero-Niner actually looked beautiful.

"Yes," said Queen Velda. "Technology is a wonderful thing."

Walt's foot nudged something on the deck. "Captain," he said, "with your permission I'd like to offer Her Highness a warm beer."

"What?"

"I'd love one, Chief Patchett."

Walt unsnapped his harness and reached down for the dirt-spattered bag, humming the melody line of "The Dead are 0 so Mannerly."

THE END

MORE STORIES BY KEITH CROES

keith@croes.com