Blocks

by Tara Basi

  Flipping the hatch open revealed a fold-out lever. Grain furiously started turning the handle. A new high pitch screech of abused metal filled the cockpit.

  “Help me turn it, we’re not slowing enough,” Grain shouted.

  Mina joined Grain and with Sara the three of them put their weight behind the handle, which was soon immovable. Piglet started to skew slowly round so it was almost travelling sideways.

  “We’ll have to jump,” Mina threw out, hoping there would be an alternative.

  “And right now,” Grain shouted in reply.

  The edge was charging towards them. It was only minutes away. Their bulky suits fought to keep them on Piglet as they clambered past the cabin seats into the cargo hold. And then all of them were frantically tumbling towards the airlock at the back of the ship. Their progress was terrifyingly slow. Grain got to the back door first and started struggling with the airlock release. Mina could see he wasn’t budging it, the door was jammed. Everyone turned and battled their ungainly way back towards the cockpit to try again to use the landing gear to halt the runaway Piglet. It was hard enough moving around in their suits, without the constant buffeting and her gravity inexperience. Mina felt like she was swimming through molasses. None of them were going to make it.

  Half way back towards the cockpit, Mina was thrown up at the roof when Piglet hit a very solid obstruction sideways on and bounced back. Mina’s momentum, along with the her two companions, hurled them all forward into a tangled, rolling heap, violently smashing into one wall, and then throwing them backwards to roll up against the opposite wall before Piglet finally came to a teeth-crunching halt. Everyone was sprawled at various angles over the cargo bay floor. Only their suits and the thick padding lining Piglet’s cargo bay walls stopped them being turned into jelly.

  The sudden silence was as shocking as the lack of movement. Like a geriatric Mina struggled towards the light streaming into the cockpit to see what Piglet had so fortuitously hit. She was just in time to see the last third of an oblong ship descending into the monolith. As it vanished inside, the smooth surface of the plain magically reappeared. The edge was only a few hundred metres ahead. If Piglet had not smacked into the oblong they would have sailed out into nothing and then straight down for a long time, before being smashed into dust.

  With time to find the right tools Grain got the airlock open and Mina closed her visor and was soon outside, supported by wobbly legs, shaken, but standing on the surface. She might as well have landed on another planet; the surroundings were so completely alien. She was at an altitude of twenty-three kilometres, without her suit she would have burst like an overripe tomato. If the plain had a single rock or the smallest bump they would have flipped over and been killed, but it was not a natural plain. Looking back in the direction their little ship had scraped a path, all Mina could see was a featureless glassy grey surface, strewn with Piglet debris, a trail that stretched off into the distance. Whatever the monolith was made of, Piglets raking belly slide had not left the faintest mark. Their ship on the other hand was badly dented, burned and twisted out of shape.

  Back inside, with their visors up again, Mina asked Sara, “How did you learn to do that?”

  “Used to be a military test pilot, but got bored and took up physics,” Sara answered.

  As one does, Mina thought. She didn’t say anything else, and neither did the other two. Mina guessed she was thinking just what they were. We’re alive but not for much longer. Once their air ran out they would suffocate. Somehow they needed to get to a lower altitude but this was no mountain. The only route down was very unappealing. It was still early; the sun was rising over the eastern end of the monolith, right on cue for the Piglet-stopping alien ship’s arrival at the far western end, where their shuttle had finally come to a halt. Stretching over their heads was a beautiful, cloudless blue-black sky.

  So much for the subtle approach of sneaking in at sunrise and creeping up on the aliens, Mina mused. We’ve crash landed on their roof and smashed into one of their ships. So where were they? Why no flashing lights, sirens and then aliens with big guns herding them into a warm cell with oxygen?

  Battered Piglet was still airtight. One of the few blessings they’d uncovered after climbing back on board.

  “Ship’s systems are dead, there’s enough air in Piglet to keep us going for about ten hours, another six in the suits,” Sara said, while looking out of Piglet’s window, avoiding the others’ gaze.

  “I’ve got Trinity, wait, I’ll see if it’s working. Might be able to help,” Mina answered, briefly hoping Trinity might come up with some options. She fiddled with the little box for a while before giving up.

  “Dead?” Sara asked.

  Mina guessed her sour expression gave enough of an answer. Trinity had fared no better than Piglet. It was comatose.

  “What now?” Grain asked.

  “I don’t think anyone or anything is coming for us,” Grain said, “Comms are dead. Even if we could contact the Maxinquaye they won’t have another shuttle ready for a week. And, it’s just as likely to fall out of the sky if they come anywhere near this,” Grain continued, arms spread wide, indicating the monolith.

  “Shit. But they’ll see us, right? From the Maxinquaye,” Mina whispered.

  “Maybe, but then what?” Grain said, shrugging, “Doesn’t change anything, we’re on our own.”

  “You think, this is how it works, keeps itself safe?” Sara asked Mina.

  “Seems so, it shuts down our complex systems, but nothing simple, or mechanical stuff like our air pumps. The basic Piglet controls and bits of our suits are working,” Mina replied, her curiosity piqued by the phenomena, despite everything.

  “Clever, really clever,” Sara said.

  “There might be one way off this… roof,” Mina suggested.

  “Oh no, not that,” Sara sighed.

  “What, what?” Grain asked, suddenly alert.

  “Hitch?” Mina asked.

  “Hitch,” Sara agreed.

  “What?” Grain asked, looking perplexed and very grumpy.

  “Next little one comes along we climb on top… and go inside,” Mina explained.

  “That’s crazy, could be just as airless inside, and… the tolerance between the top of those oblong things and the roof closing could be microns, we’d get sliced into sushi.”

  “And, the alternative is to suffocate or throw ourselves off the edge?” Mina asked.

  ‘She’s right; we don’t have any other choice,” Sara added, almost apologetically, obviously not wanting to offend Grain.

  Grain shook his head but didn’t say anything. Mina guessed he knew there weren’t any other options.

  “If we survive and get inside we might find out what’s going on,” Mina added, trying to end the conversation on a positive note.

  “When’s the next one due, sunset?” Grain asked, reconciled to the plan.

  Sara nodded.

  “We’ve got hours yet, let’s try and rest and maybe, later, take an hour to explore; we can spare the suit air. Who knows, we might find something,” Mina suggested.

  Mina got out of her space suit and tried to relax, maybe sleep, but neither happened. A couple of hours before sunset they got back into their suits, and stepped outside.

  Mina headed off, due south. Surprisingly there was little wind, she half expected a gale but she couldn’t feel anything. Turning to look back she saw her two companions striding away from Piglet in opposite directions, Grain headed east and Sara went west. None of them expected to find much but Mina felt it had to be worth a try. The dark glassy surface was completely featureless, apart from the odd Piglet dropping here and there. Mina contemplated how weird her situation was. She was above the clouds, higher than the world’s highest mountain, up above most commercial air traffic. Mina was walking under a wonderfully bright sky overlooked by a warm setting sun, across a material of polished perfection. It was beautiful, in its minimalist simplicity of colour and form, a work
of art, a sculpture of titanic proportions.

  She could not guess what the others were thinking but it would be so easy to be seduced by this vista. To just keep walking till her air ran out and she sank to her knees gasping her last breath as the scene carried her away from the nightmare she had woken to only a few weeks before. Piglet’s entrails provided a much-needed distraction from the hypnotic surroundings; it helped her to focus on the task of finding another entrance. She had not expected to find anything and the further she walked the more obvious it became that even if she kept walking, till she fell off the southern edge, she would find nothing but unbroken smoothness. After the allotted thirty minutes she turned and headed back. The return journey was made slightly less overwhelming by the sight of the battered Piglet in the distance, just enough discordance to reduce the mesmerising effect of the monolith’s massive symmetry.

  She was the first to return. Sara and then Grain got back a few minutes later, equally empty-handed. If nothing else, they needed the exercise, getting their muscles used to fighting gravity again. After the hour’s walk Mina was exhausted, her thighs throbbed and her feet ached. Soon, the sun would set and their ride would be arriving.

  “What should we take,” Mina asked, looking around at the gear in the back of Piglet.

  Grain shrugged. Sara turned away and started sorting through what they had.

  Mina stared at Grain in disbelief, “For God’s sake, you’re the Marine, you must have some ideas?”

  “Not that kind of Marine.”

  “What were you then, Special Forces?”

  “Me and my squad are more back office, ordnance supply chain, engineers.”

  “You’ve been in combat though, seen action, right?”

  “Nope, managed to avoid that,” Grain answered with a weak smile.

  Mina stared open mouth for a moment, “What? How the hell did you get picked for the Small Business trip?”

  Sara butted in, “Leave it. I’ve organised three packs, rations, water, first aid kit, torch, basic tool kit and a side-arm.”

  Mina grumped but Sara was right, the oblong was coming, they needed to get ready.

  After refilling their suit air tanks from Piglet’s supply and with only minutes to go they slung kit bags over their shoulders and headed for the spot where Piglet had given the previous arrival a head butt, and waited.

  Mina thought to herself, it’s such a simple plan. Stupidly simple. As the roof surface dilated for the incoming sunset arrival they would see if anything looked immediately appealing inside the opening and jump for it. Otherwise, wait for the little monolith and leap onto the top, lie flat and hope something good came of that. The general consensus was that they should stowaway for as long as possible, and hopefully get low enough to be able to breathe without their suits. Mina was fatalistically calm. A quote from one of the twentieth centuries leading philosophers and pyjama wearers, “whatever will be, will be,” was comfortingly playing in her mind.

  As the sun set, right on cue, stage entrance vertical, came the little monolith. It silently and gently floated down as though made of paper and filled with hot air, even though it dwarfed the Small Business and made Piglet look like a toy. The alien roof material did not start to dissolve until the oblong was only a metre above the surface, making their first option, of jumping inside before the ship entered, impossible. No chance to even take a peek inside. Mina moved as close to the face of the slowly descending ship as she could, her helmet visor almost touching the side of the oblong craft. She could see only a wafer thin gap between the opening in the roof and the descending oblong. As the descent serenely continued Mina knew that if this opportunity was missed they would run out of air before sunrise, and the next chance. She held her arms straight up as though someone had a gun pressed to her back, head tilted back watching the top of the oblong gently approach. Mina looked sideways; Grain and Sara held the same positions. She readied herself to clamber onto the strange ship before it vanished inside.

  As soon as the oblong’s roof cleared her fingertips she grabbed the edge and pulled herself up and onto its roof. It proved easier than she imagined, the downward motion helping her to scramble on board. Once safely on top, she checked on the others. They were already scurrying to get away from the edge and lie as flat as possible, spread-eagled, with their kit bags held at arm’s length.

  In just a few seconds it would be painfully obvious if the gap between the top of the oblong and the reforming surface of the monolith was going to be enough. Blackness enfolded Mina, she could see nothing, and hear nothing. She almost jumped out of her suit when a half choked scream from Grain burst out of her suit radio. Their suits were working again. That happy thought was quickly replaced by the possibility they had all been sliced in half, a tidal wave of pain was going to flood over her any moment, but it never came. Their ride stopped. Maybe it had detected them and done something to Grain? All she could hear was his gasping for breath over an increasingly crackling radio. What was going on?

  “Grain, what happened?” Sara called out before Mina could ask.

  The ship was smoothly moving downwards again, she only felt the movement; there was nothing to see in the pitch black.

  “Helmet’s been cut open, I’m losing air, whole suit’s failing,” Grain gasped over heavy interference.

  Why only him? Maybe he’d lain face down and she and Sara had turned their heads to minimise their profile? Or, he just had a bigger head.

  Without warning, light flooded in all around them. The oblong was in a shaft, slowly descending again. Above her, she could see a featureless roof, lazily receding. The opening had disappeared. Her suit said the environment was nicely pressurised, warm and the air was breathable. They had passed through an airlock.

  “Grain, it’s OK. The air’s breathable. Do you read?” Sara shouted.

  Mina gingerly stood up and turned around. Grain was already up and running towards a cavernous opening in the shaft wall. He charged forward while frantically scrabbling at the back of his helmet as though he might repair the neatly sliced elliptical hole. The closing roof had surgically removed the thinnest slice from the back of his helmet, frying his electronics and creating an unplanned opening through which his curly brown hair had escaped.

  Sara was shouting to Grain over the radio to stop where he was while frantically running to catch up with him. It was obvious to Mina that Grain’s radio had stopped working. He was not seeing the environmental analysis she and Sara were getting. Grain must have thought he was about to explode, freeze or suffocate, and was looking for any way out. Mina started to run towards the other two. Just a few paces ahead of her Grain leapt for the landing at the side of the shaft, followed by a desperate Sara.

  Mina hurried to follow. If the environment was benign at the top there was no point going lower and further away from Piglet. Grain would soon figure out there was no reason to panic. Then she was falling. The oblong suddenly dropped like a lift in free fall and she went with it. Grain and Sara vanished above her as she plummeted down, heading deep into the guts of the monolith. She was alone.

  Mina tried to cling to the smooth roof as it powered its way deeper inside the monolith. And then she was weightless again and the roof of the oblong was opening up a gap between it and her. Mina was still falling, just not as fast as the oblong.

  “We’re nine kilometres down and dropping fast,” Trinity suddenly piped up.

  “You’re working? How do you know where we are?” Mina asked, as surprised by Trinity’s return as its news.

  “Everything’s back on, rough estimate but knowing me it’s probably very accurate,” Trinity replied.

  Mina wanted to ask more but she were falling like a stone, it took all her concentration to keep herself as close to the roof as she could. If the gap got too big and it stopped, she’d be strawberry jam. Hundreds of the huge indentations, like the one Sara and Grain had jumped for, flashed by. Without warning the oblong started to slow and the gap between her and it
gradually narrowed till, mercifully, she gently touched down on its surface and she was riding again and not just falling.

  “We’re less than five hundred metres above the surface,” Trinity said, sounding like an elevator boy announcing the floors.

  The oblong stopped altogether and started to drift sideways, slotting terrifyingly neatly into one of the massive indentations in the sides of the shaft. Mina saw she would be scraped off the surface. She ran to the opposite edge and peered down. Too far to jump, it looked like hundreds of metres to a dark floor, somewhere below. Opposite there was another unoccupied indentation. With no time to think Mina ran back a few metres towards the approaching shaft wall, turned and sprinted to the edge as fast as her pumping heart and soggy muscles would drive her. She leapt for the opening opposite across the rapidly widening gap. Hanging in the air for a long split second, legs and arms wind-milled and she watched the far cave lip slowly reach out for her. Her knees smashed into the shaft wall just below the edge, hard enough to pitch her upper body forward onto the smooth floor. She scrabbled away from the edge, turned on her back and sat up in time to see the oblong she had hitched a ride on slide completely into the opposite wall and seal the indentation. It was as though it had never existed, the shaft wall was now smooth and blank.

  Mina rolled over onto her still throbbing knees and painfully stood up. There was plenty of light but nothing to see except for a small area at the back of the cavernous opening. It looked different. She’d seen the same texture and colour difference in every indentation off the shaft, always in the same place on the back wall. Probably the same thing Grain had spotted and jumped for, in desperation. She trudged across the unblemished floor towards the only visible feature. Close up it looked unnatural. It was a door shape and it was made of, what? Oily water was the only thing Mina could think of. Somehow, the monolith builders had recreated a greasy waterfall, and made it solid.

  “What is it?” Mina asked, hoping Trinity was still working and might have some suggestions.