by Neely Dobbs
CHAPTER 2: Alliance
Deep within the mountain’s hibernation complex, ADIZ— Advanced Digital Integrated Zythertron Unit Number Thirty-Two— gracefully propelled his humanoid form through one of the long corridors inside Sanctuary-1. ADIZ raced ahead at top speed, becoming a silver and bronze blur. No emotion—not impatience, nor desire—was possible within his programmed positronic brain, yet any sentient observer would have noted his alacrity of movement. His three years of infrequently interrupted power-down in this mammoth cavern of echoing silence had finally come to an end.
Although his urgent mission would soon require a thorough check of long unused transportation facilities prior to his departure, ADIZ moved unquestioningly and unerringly toward a different destination. He quickly reached and deactivated the sounding chronograph's alarm and the piercingly strident tone stopped. He felt electronic relief, yet the driving force of its meaning remained.
Stepping quickly into a recess of the adjacent wall, he extended a socket from his hand into its matching receptacle. A rapid energy transfer took place, evidenced by the quickening of an array of lights and gauges covering one wall. With the system check complete, deep subterranean rumblings reverberated, testifying to the awakening of powerful machinery.
ADIZ’s thoughts returned to his surroundings and he moved toward the docking bay. Clearly a robot could have thoughts, stemming from responses to both initial and experiential programming. But he could not be troubled by those thoughts; they were generated purely by advanced functions and sophisticated logic. Thoughts—even questions—existed, but only for functional reasons. When he questioned how long he had been on standby power, his internal timer reported the answer to the exact nanosecond.
He passed through a short branching corridor and emerged onto a platform hanging over a vertiginous drop to the deck below. A discolored metallic stairway led from the platform down the face of one wall of this giant chamber. ADIZ ignored it. Without pausing, he stepped from the platform into a floorless cylindrical cage, instantly spread his arms and grasped two opposing vertical stabilizing rods, then plummeted downward. When the floor loomed close, He gripped the stabilizer-rod brakes tightly, slowed, and landed lightly on his feet.
The chamber’s dust-shrouded air of solitude was eerily accentuated by the silent descent of snow through the newly revealed gap in the mountain’s peak; the force field covering had dilated. In the snow-dusted bay, all but a single transport ship stood still and mute. Thrumming sounds escaped from an illuminated opening in that craft’s side, echoing the generators quickening far below.
He entered and assumed his station, a stark recess in the forward bulkhead. He closed the hatch and touched a lighted panel. Multi-colored dots of light brightened, activating other screens. The cabin pressure decreased to a near vacuum, which would be maintained throughout the flight.
Rising through the cavernous opening in the mountain’s top, the vessel rapidly accelerated toward a glowing cylindrical tube now forming nine light-minutes away at an angle perpendicular to the plane of the planetary system.
ADIZ reviewed the mission directives summary. My mission cannot abide failure, yet I may not use force. Those crucial to the success of my mission must accept me. The mission has been planned well. I will succeed.
The ship had been en route for less than an hour when ADIZ refocused his attention toward the growing, radiant tube in the sky. Its long axis stretched into the depths of space. Its sides reflected and distorted all visible light sources like an endless fun-house mirror. Points of light were stretched into light-lines. Curious rainbow arcs of light swirled around the tube’s entrance.
The ship slowed as it approached the fully formed InterSpace tunnel. As it moved closer, the number and size of these multi-colored arcs grew larger until, as the ship reached the tube’s mouth, the portal was large enough to receive it. ADIZ monitored all phases: the ship’s movement into the glowing green interior, the radiance’s growing brilliance and the portal’s apparent closing.
Sweeping circular waves of mint-green luminance engulfed the ship and catapulted it forward.