Perhaps the most distressing part was the enclosure for his head: he could not bring himself to call it a helmet. He was used to the hard, high-impact protection of a solid bubble for a brain bucket. This suit, however, only featured a clear hood, which Kheoghi had pulled forward over his head and sealed to his collar. It reminded Griffiths strongly of putting his head in a plastic bag—and a thin one, at that. He even began to panic for a moment before Kheoghi smashed his open palm against the chest plate of the outer armor and a sudden inrush of air inflated the bag over his head.
The smell suddenly worsened.
“IT STINKS!” Griffiths yelled at the top of his lungs, hoping his words would penetrate the plastic.
The minotaur drew suddenly back, then Griffiths heard him speaking in normal tones. “Pipe down, ya ground-lubber. I can hear ya just fine. That thar suit lets you be heard clear and true—even in a vacuum. Thar be other things that you’ll be needing to know. That thar strip on both yer forearms be a wind tester.”
“Wind tester?”
“Aye, it tells ye when thar be wind about you rather than empty space.”
“Got it; an atmospheric pressure device.”
“Aye, but it be more than that. If the wind about you be bad for yer breath, it remains green. If it be yellow, then ye’ll be breathing fine without the suit about you.”
“Right. Green is breathable and yellow is not.”
“Nay, fool.” Kheoghi clubbed him in the arm with a blow that the minotaur might have thought of as playful but which nearly toppled Griffiths off his feet. “Yellow is good and green is bad.”
“Sorry—but it still stinks in here,” Griffiths said.
“Aye. This be Flurn’s old suit,” Kheoghi replied as he fussed for a time around the fittings. “He were a good shipmate—may the night rest his soul.”
“He’s dead?” Griffiths choked. “He didn’t die in this suit, did he?”
“Oh, aye, that he did,” the minotaur rumbled. “Do you see that thar patch between your legs?”
Griffiths instinctively bent forward, then nodded.
“Took a bad hit, he did, while we were boarding a transport off the Mikli passage,” Kheoghi said casually as he fussed. “Cannon shot right there. Ol’ Flurn liked to keep the pressure in his suit too high, and I warned him time and time again. That thar cannon shot took a chunk of his suit and the pressure just sort of shot him out of the hole. All that were left of him were a wee bit of mess and this here suit for salvage. Good bit of luck that were … a suit is a hard thing to be replacing.”
“I think I want to throw up,” Griffiths said weakly.
“Now, none of that,” the minotaur cautioned. “This here be the best suit of the lot. You wouldn’t want to be embarrassing old Kheoghi now, would you?”
Griffiths took a deep breath. “No, I suppose not.”
“That’s a good lad.” The minotaur smiled, which Griffiths found unnerving. “You be ready to walk now.”
“Walk?” Griffiths asked.
“Aye, walk the plank, lad!”
Griffiths suddenly hoped that there was something wrong with the translation again.
“Oh, lord, it is a plank!”
Griffiths stood on the deck in his vacuum suit. Targ stood in a similar suit not far from him. Between them, the crew had extended a large plank beyond the gunwales of the ship, the end of which now hovered apparently about a hundred feet from the sides of the treasure ship itself.
Targ turned to Griffiths. The Prime attached a thin cable between their suits. “It’s time to fly, Captain, to our destinies. You to yours, and me to mine.”
Targ stepped over the gunwale onto the plank. Anxiously, Griffiths looked over the edge. In his mind, the hull of the ancient spacecraft now next to them turned into a vertical wall of almost infinite depth. He closed his eyes for a moment, dizzy with the acrophobia and then, when the universe resettled in his mind, stepped over the rail as well.
Slowly, Targ preceding Griffiths, they made their way to the end of the extended plank. When they reached the end, Targ turned back toward the ship and called out.
“Stay here until I return,” Targ instructed Flynn. “If I am not back within twelve hours, then come after me, but not a moment before.”
“I understand you perfectly clearly, Targ,” Flynn said casually.
Targ then turned to Griffiths.
“You will jump first, Captain,” he said, “then I will follow. Just look at the wall and jump toward it.”
Griffiths turned. He jumped as hard as he could. His boots released from the plank and he was weightless, drifting toward the wall. Glancing back, he saw Targ leap after him, the tether still between them.
It was only then that he realized the import of Targ’s words. He had said when “I” come back—not “we.”
Kheoghi watched the human figures dwindle in size as they drifted toward the hulking relic. At last he turned and spoke.
“Captain Flynn, why do you allow this braggart fop to breathe? We’ve found the treasure ship. She’s ours by right of our blood and sweat. Why do we sit here like nursery children at his behest?”
“Master Kheoghi, there are, by my count, two Vestis on that treasure ship, or will be very shortly. Taking Merinda alone would be trouble enough, but to take Targ as well, that would be a task worthy of Marren-kan himself.”
“So, then,” Kheoghi’s nostrils flared, “we just sit here on our claws?”
“No, my friend,” Flynn said with a smile, his eyes never leaving the drifting figures of Targ and Griffiths as they softly made contact with the distant hull. “We simply have to find out what Neskat and Targ are really up to and pick the right time to play our hand. This requires some finesse.”
“What’s the play?” Kheoghi asked, with sudden interest.
“As soon as Targ and his bizarre companion have found a way into the treasure ship, take a party over to Merinda’s saucer and find a way to cut it loose. Have the spacers propel it well into the night. Use explosives if you have to, but disable that ship and set it to drifting far from here. While you’re at it, do the same for that relic ship of Marren-kan as well. I wouldn’t want anyone leaving me behind. More than that, I want to be their only ticket home.”
“By your word, Captain, it shall be done,” Kheoghi enthusiastically replied.
“One more thing,” Flynn said, smiling to himself. “Break out a few additional vac suits. I think, perhaps, that twelve hours is far too long for us to wait. Indeed, I suspect that you and I should keep a closer eye on Targ. You never know when the opportunity to strike will come.”
43
Tomb
The gray wall of the ancient spacecraft expanded before Griffiths as he drifted toward it. It was a mountain of technology covered with intricate hieroglyphics, each skillfully carved into the plates of the craft itself. Much to Griffiths’s astonishment, the picture forms of the ancient language resolved themselves into frames for smaller carvings as well … words within words … bringing those dead millennia suddenly to life under his reading eye. The smaller carvings had lost the raw edge that he had supposed they possessed. Dust particles had gravitated over the intervening centuries, softening the finer details of the surface.
Griffiths spun with a slow grace until, moments later, he gently bumped against the hull. The dust particles, suddenly loosened from the plates, erupted into an expanding cloud around him, quickly dissipating into the immensity of the milky white space. Griffiths rebounded from the gentle impact and began to drift slowly away from the hull. A moment of panic passed before he remembered to twist around and plant the boots of his vac suit against the hull. Their mystical technology engaged at once. Quite suddenly his inner orientation changed and he felt as if he were standing on a vast plane of metal.
He glanced above him. The Venture Revenge hung stationary above him about a hundred feet away. He could easily watch the crew as they moved about the deck and the rigging performing their various tasks. Behi
nd him was a great tower which extended away from the hull and to which both the pirate ship artifact of Marren-kan and what he fervently hoped was Merinda’s saucer were both moored. Many other towering structures of various shapes and purpose jutted from the hull into the distance. Each was beautifully formed, an expression of the soul of an artist who melded function and purpose with life and vision. To Griffiths, however, the hope expressed by the artist took on a sudden melancholy feeling. The future toward which those structures hoped was never attained. The vision they expressed had been a doomed one and had become a monument to their failure.
Griffiths suddenly felt the futility of the ancient tragedy that lay broken all around him. This was a tomb that had remained sacrosanct for thousands of years. A tomb which he was about to desecrate and rob.
The bile suddenly rose in his stomach at the thought.
Targ landed feet-first against the hull several feet from him. It was obvious that such a maneuver was not new to him. The dust again erupted around the new arrival and dissipated quickly. The tall man with the flowing white hair turned at once toward him.
“The dome shapes over there appear to be bay door hatches.” Targ’s voice was clear across the void. “We should be able to find ingress there. Let’s go.”
With cautious steps, they began traversing the uncertain terrain of the ornate hull. Each of their steps loosened small puffs of dust which spun away quickly into the vacuum about them.
“This is a graveyard, Targ,” Griffiths said as he walked. “I don’t much like the thought of disturbing the dead.”
“You’re assuming that the dead are resting,” Targ replied. He walked ahead of Griffiths, the expression on the taller man’s face therefore unseen. “Sometimes the dead are restless and need some satisfaction. I see our mission as not so much waking the resting dead as bringing peace to ghosts whose past still haunts them.”
“Just who is being haunted, Targ?”
The Prime did not answer as he had come to the edge of an immense, low dome protruding up from the hull and spanning at least fifty feet in its diameter. Targ spoke as he pointed down toward the edge of the dome. “This is one of the bay hatches. There must be some way of activating this hatch. Look at the writing—what do you see?”
“So that’s why you brought me along,” Griffiths shook his head.
“We all have our little problems,” Targ answered coolly. “Mine is that I cannot read the ancient language of the Lost Empire. Yours is that your own mortality could be so easily extinguished by my very whim.”
“Subtlety was never your strong point,” Griffiths sighed.
“Only when necessary,” Targ replied.
With a shrug, Griffiths began searching the edges of the dome. There were genealogies, family stories, testaments to Kendis-dai and the great crusade, all of which were scattered amid more mundane labels for conduits and warnings about the locations of pressure relief valves. It took him several minutes before anything caught his eye.
“Here’s one that says it’s a maintenance release for the hatch locks,” Griffiths said, pointing at a small hatch next to the dome. “There’s a warning not to activate it unless the pressure warning light has changed from blue to yellow.”
Targ stepped quickly to where Griffiths stood. “What color is the light?”
Griffiths straightened. “No color at all. Geez, Targ, the ship’s several thousand years old. It might not work.”
Targ kneeled down next to the access panel and opened it. “The Settlement Ship in the Narrows had rested in a dense jungle the same length of time. It was subject to a great deal more wear than this ship and it seemed to fly quite well, I recall.”
Targ reached down and grasped the handle.
“Wait!” Griffiths called out.
Too late. Targ pulled sharply up on the handle. Griffiths felt an impact through his feet as the clamps disengaged. The dome next to them began to shift. Dust erupted all around them, completely obscuring Griffiths’s vision. He stood in the center of an undefined grayness. He held perfectly still, waiting for it all to pass. Hoping that it all would pass.
The gray fog began to thin. The dome still remained, only partially retracted. At Griffiths’s feet had appeared a long arc of an opening, a space that was only about three feet wide at its widest point.
“It is enough,” Targ declared. “After you.”
“You can’t be serious!” Griffiths squawked. “After me—to where?”
Targ looked up at Griffiths. “You want to find Merinda … I want to find Merinda. She is inside. I know it. I see it. I feel it. She is inside. If you want her … this is the way.”
Griffiths glared at the Prime for a moment, then turned. Grabbing both sides of the opening, he pulled himself downward through the black maw of the partially open hatchway.
The whiteness of the space outside was instantly eclipsed by the dark interior of a huge spherical bay. Only the crescent of light coming through the opening dimly lit the space. It was now obvious to Griffiths why the hatch had only partially retracted. A spacecraft of some sort nearly filled the compartment. It was wedged between the retracting hatch and the inner bay wall. The ship had elegant, forward-swept wings and appeared to be carved out of gold, although it was difficult to tell in this light. The access umbilical was still attached to the side of the craft despite its having shifted loose of the overhead mounting bolts. Griffiths could see a set of windows next to where the access umbilical entered the ship itself. The portals were dark and the scant light entering the compartment did not illuminate anything beyond the sheen of the window’s surface.
“The only exit appears to be through the umbilical,” Griffiths said, more to himself than to Targ.
“Let’s check the spacecraft then,” Targ replied as he drifted into the dim compartment beside him. “If there’s another way into the smaller ship, then we can pass through to the main ship.”
Griffiths reached down and pulled the two spheres from either side of his belt. He had used them before to hover over the water in the Narrows but here they worked for him like a small propulsion unit. It took a little getting used to and he had to remind himself to move slowly. After a minor test or two, he managed to orient himself and began to slowly float across the cavernous bay.
There were dust particles drifting in the confined space of the sphere, brilliantly illuminated by the crescent of light cast by the partially open door. It added an eerie quality to the docking bay, as if the light accentuated the cold and desolate feeling of the gigantic artifact. The ship was dead so far as he could tell. No lights of any kind. No movement. His suit felt suddenly colder.
Griffiths drifted over the leading edge of the wing. The fuselage of the ship extended backward from where he now floated. A row of dark windows stared back at him. There was too much dust floating in the bay for him to see anything clearly through them. Then something caught his eye.
“There’s a starboard-side hatch here,” he called back to Targ. “It looks to be about even with where the umbilical connects.”
“I’ll be there in a moment.”
“The mechanism is clearly labeled.” Griffiths looked closer at the markings outlined on the smooth surface of the golden ship. “I think the release is right here. There’s a small window in the door.”
“Wait there and do nothing!”
Griffiths pressed his helmet closer to the window. “Hey! I can see the door on the other side! It looks shut but I think that’s the way in. Targ?”
Silence.
“Targ? Where are you?”
No response.
“Targ! Come in, Targ! Targ are you there?”
Suddenly the Vestis Prime appeared next to Griffiths. “Will you shut up! I’m working on something here!”
“Sorry.”
“Just open the door now, will you!”
“Fine!” Griffiths twisted back and planted his boots on the casing of the spacecraft. Bending over, he pressed his gloved fingers against a
depression next to the hatch outline. A long handle sprang loose from the side of the hull where it had previously lain flush. Griffiths pulled up on the handle as far as it would go, pressed it back down, and then pulled up again. He repeated the process several times until he felt a satisfying thunk under his feet. The hatch, once smooth with the hull, suddenly popped open by a few inches.
Targ grabbed the edges of the door and rotated it open on its hinges. Placing his feet against the floor, the Prime quickly walked across the width of the cabin to the opposite hatch.
“After you,” Griffiths murmured with disdain. He pulled himself through the hatchway, placed his feet against the floor so that they would have something to hang onto, and looked around.
It reminded him strongly of commercial airliners back home, he thought. There was a short, transverse compartment between the access hatches. He could see Targ working on the opposite door, which apparently had a different mechanism to get from the inside out than the one they had used on the outside to get in. There was a closed door to his right. The main cabin appeared to be through the open archway on his left.
Griffiths slowly moved into the compartment and turned to look into the cabin on his left. The interior of the cabin was very dark. Pillars of dim light were drawn by the windows, which marched down between the ranks of forward-facing seats. Seats which were filled with …
Nightsword Page 36