by Ryk E. Spoor
‘‘I agree, Doctor. We’re trying to decide just how to proceed from here. A part of me says that what we really need to do is just move as much equipment as we can from Holy Grail to this point and bring everyone together. If we can’t find a source of power, Doctor, the ship will soon be useless anyway. Isn’t that true?’’
After a moment of silence, she heard a slight grunt. ‘‘Um. Yes, I suppose you’re correct. But what about the door?’’
‘‘Let me try something.’’ She addressed the door. ‘‘Remain open until ordered to close.’’ Gesturing for Sandrisson to wait, she walked into the gloom. Watching her internal display, she continued into the alien installation until she’d gone nearly twice as far as the first group had before the door shut. Light still streamed in from behind, undisturbed. She turned and shouted back at the door, ‘‘Close door!’’
Instantly the door rolled shut again. A moment later, it rolled back open, clearly at Sandrisson’s direction.
‘‘That does seem to solve the problem,’’ DuQuesne conceded, ‘‘but then what is the point of not being able to be opened from this side?’’
‘‘Hard to say. Perhaps to prevent people somewhere else in this installation—if there are any—from going into our ship area? Maybe it will become clearer as time goes on.’’
‘‘In any case, that does eliminate the major objection. If the medical equipment for Laila Canning can be brought to this location, I see no reason that we must remain separated by kilometers of corridor and out of potential communication.’’
‘‘I, for one, do not want to be the only conscious person in this ship,’’ Gabrielle’s voice put in. ‘‘If you all are going to be exploring the wilds, I want to be closer.’’
‘‘Any objections?’’ When Ariane heard none, she nodded. ‘‘Okay then, we do it. Dr. DuQuesne, you and your team come back and let’s get this done.’’
‘‘On our way, Captain.’’
Chapter 16
She glanced around at the others. She had—successfully, this time—argued that she would be part of the group exploring through the next door. Part of that success was, admittedly, due to the complete lack of danger found so far, and the fact that unless they not only found a source of power, but an awfully big source of power, her piloting skills were going to become essentially irrelevant. Until that time, her physical enhancements, combat training (simulated, but at high realism levels), and adrenaline-junkie preferences made her a much better candidate for playing explorer than any of the specialists.
‘‘After all,’’ she’d finally pointed out, ‘‘unless we’re suddenly going to have to go blazing out of here, evading cannon and missiles while Dr. Sandrisson tries to activate the drive in a last-minute glorious escape, just about any of you could manage to get Holy Grail undocked and to an appropriate point in the model solar system to be able to make a safe transition back. And, to be honest, Holy Grail isn’t a fighter craft, so if someone is shooting at us, we probably aren’t getting away no matter who’s in the pilot seat.’’
So now she looked forward at the enigmatic portal, which had showed those few tantalizing glimpses in the few moments DuQuesne and the others had opened it. This time the advance party consisted of herself, Dr. DuQuesne, and Dr. Sandrisson; Gabrielle was, of course, staying with the still essentially comatose Laila Canning, Cussler was tending the operation of the replicator, while Carl and Steve were trying to set up simple automation for the camp. ‘‘Open door.’’
The white artificial illumination streamed in, brightening the advance camp that the stranded crew of Holy Grail had set up in the canyon-bracketed antechamber in front of the second door. The other three active crewmembers looked up as the door opened. ‘‘Ready for test?’’ she asked Steve.
‘‘Yep. Go ahead.’’
She faced the door again. ‘‘Allow door to be opened from both sides if commanded by any of the people currently present, but not by anyone else without explicit instructions by one of those currently present.’’
She stepped through the portal. From the other side, Steve said, ‘‘Close door.’’
The door rolled closed again. Ariane waited a moment, then spoke. ‘‘Open door.’’
As obediently as it had from the other side, the door rolled back open. Ariane grinned as she stepped back through. ‘‘It works.’’
DuQuesne nodded. ‘‘We determined that it worked for the main door, after Dr. Edlund made the suggestion; it makes sense, a fairly simple security procedure which does not rely on newcomers to put it in place. Although it has obvious dangers in both directions, which indicates something about the builders.’’ He adjusted the small pack he carried. ‘‘Captain?’’
Dr. Sandrisson gave a smile and a nod as she looked over at him. Ariane took a deep breath and stepped forward. ‘‘Here we go.’’
The door rolled shut once more behind them. While it would have been nice to maintain communications during the exploration, given how little they knew about what was outside, Ariane felt it more prudent to keep the door locked, just in case. And, just in case something else could override that lock, the others would keep a guard on it.
The conical corridor emerged into an oval space, a hundred meters across, a hundred-fifty wide, and reaching a peak of thirty meters in height at the center. Two broad, straight lanes of empty space—one running directly from the corridor’s mouth, the other at right angles to it—divided the space into quadrants. Low ridges or walls, smooth and featureless, interrupted at intervals by spaces, ran along the edges of these quadrants. Inside each were some enigmatic objects or structures, like wind-carved desert rocks and distorted hollowed tree trunks made of pearl-tinted steel and polished coal. The light itself emanated from somewhere near the ceiling, but try as she might, Ariane couldn’t quite make out where. It cast soft shadows, despite the apparent lack of focus.
‘‘Wonder what the hell those things are?’’ DuQuesne murmured.
‘‘Let’s take a look,’’ she said. ‘‘Nothing’s moving, and I’m not picking up any energy readings except the light itself.’’ She picked the nearest open entrance to the first quandrant and walked over to the first object.
Up close it resembled some sort of abstract sculpture, with little upcurved points—not too sharp—small holes, and other small features spaced at intervals over the thing. Sandrisson and DuQuesne were examining the material.
‘‘Well, what do you know. This stuff isn’t the foundation material. We’ve got a central ring-carbon composite structure—not all that different from our own high-end armor—with mixed alloys and composites . . . in a pretty odd pattern, too.’’ DuQuesne frowned. ‘‘No idea what it’s for.’’
Something about the spacing of the smaller features was nagging at her. ‘‘Doctor . . . you know, I think this might be something like support columns. For whoever came here to be able to install other things, like chairs, walls, hang pictures, whatever.’’
Sandrisson leaned forward, touching one of the upcurved points. ‘‘I believe you may be right. This is almost like a wall hook. You could use these to support small objects, or as part of the support for something larger. Or use the holes here as fastening points, for bolts or something of the sort.’’
‘‘And the pattern of materials makes sense from that perspective,’’ DuQuesne agreed. ‘‘If you want to fasten things permanently together—welding, glue, whatever—you can find an appropriate surface pretty much anywhere. Without having whatever technology they used to make the foundation material.’’ He turned to Sandrisson. ‘‘By the way, I know you were looking over the results Edlund got from the high-gamma and other scans, but you haven’t said a damn thing to anyone. What’s the story on that stuff?’’
When Sandrisson hesitated, Ariane spoke. ‘‘Doctor—Simon—let’s not get secretive here.’’
He gave an apologetic grin. ‘‘Sorry, Ariane. If you’re a sensible man, you get in the habit of being very cautious of making extreme pronouncemen
t when one’s in the sciences, especially when it’s not your core field.’’ He shook his head. ‘‘And the implications are pretty extreme, I’m afraid. At the very limit of resolution of the far gamma, I was getting some indications of structure.’’
‘‘But that would be at about 10-14 meters, or even less,’’ DuQuesne said, wrinkling his brow. ‘‘That’s down at subatomic size scale.’’
‘‘Exactly,’’ said Sandrisson, absently pushing back a strand of snow-white hair. ‘‘And I was only getting subtle indications of structure—very regular structure—even then. After examining all the other data—which showed not a single trace of any subatomic particle I could identify—I was forced to only one conclusion. What we are looking at is a structured ultrasubatomic latticework, a self-healing, self-supporting structure that is constructed of quarks. A coherent quark composite, if you will.’’
‘‘I thought that you couldn’t get individual quarks to play with,’’ protested Ariane. ‘‘Don’t they just bind tighter to each other the farther you try to pull them apart, like tying two things together with springs?’’
‘‘Something like that—rather the opposite of most natural forces, of course, which tend to weaken with distance—and yes, that is generally the way it works, with a few minor exceptions. Apparently, however, our unknown builders knew some things that we do not.’’
DuQuesne shook his head in disbelief. ‘‘That’s about as close to the classic sci-fi ‘unobtainium’ as I’ve ever heard. You’d need a thermonuclear bomb to even start chipping away at it. You could lasso Jupiter and drag it in by main force with a rope of this stuff.’’
Ariane nodded. ‘‘Now, if we can just figure out how to make it, we’re all set. But I don’t think we’re going to do that right now, so why don’t we do some more exploring?’’
‘‘Fair enough.’’ DuQuesne surveyed the oval-shaped room. ‘‘Which direction, Captain? There appears to be one door at the far end of this room, and one right across from the one we entered by.’’
Both doors appeared to be identical to the one they’d just recently left; circular and a bit less than four meters across. ‘‘Let’s take the one at the far end. See where a right-angle turn takes us.’’
Ariane gave it the same instructions as the prior door, to which it appeared to respond just as well, and the three stepped through and closed the door. But as they started down this new conical corridor, which seemed to join with a somewhat wider corridor ahead, DuQuesne held up his hand sharply. ‘‘Do you hear that?’’
A stacatto rapping was approaching, growing rapidly louder; to Ariane, it sounded very like the rattle of boots on pavement, many pairs of boots all running. A startling flash of movement, multiple figures passing by the entrance. In that quick moment, Ariane could tell the figures were bipedal, generally greenish in color, tall, and not human in outline, though that might be some kind of uniform or costume the things were wearing. There was no sign anyone had spotted them; the running sounds continued.
Cautiously, Ariane moved towards the corridor’s end, followed by DuQuesne and Sandrisson. The footsteps, now some way distant down the corridor, slowed and stopped. But it was the next sound that turned the entire universe upside down.
‘‘A thin branch that ends in air, Mindkiller. How pathetic this, your last run,’’ said a sharp, cold voice.
Chapter 17
Ariane looked back at the others. DuQuesne’s narrowed eyes and Sandrisson’s widened ones showed they had heard the same thing. Impossibly, it seemed that the barely-seen beings down the corridor were conversing in English.
A deeper voice, with an undertone of exhaustion and defiance, answered. ‘‘If this is the end, then end it with less insult, for it should be beneath the Blessed to Serve. Unless your words come from the fear that we are alike, you and I, Sethrik?’’
By now, Ariane had moved to the end of her own corridor. Suppressing a nervous breath, she risked a look around the corner.
The intersecting corridor ended about forty meters away, in a smooth curve. A number of creatures were gathered there, most in a semicircle around a single other creature which stood against the far wall; a more clear scenario of a fugitive brought to bay couldn’t be imagined. Both pursued and pursuers were indeed tall, perhaps almost the height of Dr. DuQuesne or, counting the twin crests that seemed to adorn each head, even taller. Green and black patterns spotted the chitin-shiny surface of the things, and what appeared to be beetle-like split wingcases were on their backs. A long tail, flexible despite the chitinous exterior, rippled behind each of the creatures, adorned with what appeared to be a stinger; several of these tails were currently held in an erect curve, reminding Ariane unpleasantly and forcibly of a scorpion.
The cornered individual was facing her, allowing her to make out the fact that it did, in fact, have something akin to a face, though the individual features had a size and spacing that was unsettlingly not quite human. The feet appeared to be encased in boots, but judging by the lack of clothing on any of the other parts of the body and the fact that the ‘‘boots’’ had a smoothly-blending color scheme, she suspected that those were indeed the creatures’ feet. But now the first voice—Sethrik?—was speaking again:
‘‘Alike?’’ A buzzing insectoid shriek, like an angered cicada, sounded out. ‘‘We are nothing alike. We understand what we are, and from where we come, and we are united. You are the last of your kind.’’
‘‘So end it, and free your world of my abomination.’’ Ariane almost got the impression of a fleeting smile. ‘‘But there is something more important than eliminating my obscenity, isn’t there?’’
‘‘You will give us full entry, Mindkiller!’’
‘‘I will not. The Minds no longer have an interface, even if you were to bring me back. I burned it out and sealed it with dustswarm motes that will kill me if they ever try to touch me again.’’ The lone alien seemed to crouch slightly, gathering himself.
‘‘You believe your fragment-mind is enough to outthink one of the Great Masters?’’ Sethrik—judging by slight movements and gestures, the alien slightly to the right of the center of the surrounding semicircle—seemed to give the equivalent of a laugh. ‘‘We shall all bear witness, then. In any case, the Blessed shall know peace, for either you shall succeed in your madness, by dying first, or you shall fail, and die after.’’ The semicircle began to close in.
‘‘Wait!’’
Ariane was utterly astounded to realize that this was her voice. More, that she had rounded the corner and was standing in full view when she said it. Vaguely, in her ear, she heard DuQuesne’s incredulous ‘‘What the living hell do you think you’re doing?’’, but now that she had stepped forward . . .
Instantly, three of the circling aliens, one of them Sethrik, spun. The remaining seven did not move, giving the fugitive no chance to escape. ‘‘Wait? Identify your Sphere and Designate, creature! Do you dare issue challenge to the Blessed?’’
When she gave no immediate response, Sethrik and the other two moved forward a pace. ‘‘Your threat posture is unsure. A challenge would be a sure loss for you. What point to your interruption?’’
‘‘I don’t know exactly what’s going on here,’’ she admitted, still completely at sea as to what had possessed her to step out, ‘‘but I’m not going to stand around and watch a lynching or a kidnapping.’’ She sensed, rather than saw, both Sandrisson and DuQuesne step out, flanking her, slightly behind. They were probably even more confused than she was, but—thank God—they knew that they’d better back her up now and worry later.
Sethrik studied her with black, gleaming eyes that were subtly wrong in size and placement. ‘‘Weapons and threat analysis complete. All components concur. Minimal threat. There will be no combat.’’ He turned away and looked at the first. ‘‘Probability of your escape or victory is now below threshold, Mindkiller. We all recognize it. Individual units you are superior to, but not sufficient to overcome order of magnitude numeri
c disadvantage.’’
The lone alien addressed as ‘‘Mindkiller’’ suddenly raised its—his?—voice. ‘‘But if they assist, probabilities may shift.’’
‘‘They will not.’’ Sethrik said confidently.
Ariane found that confidence—so matter-of-factly stated—galling. Even so, she was again startled by her reaction. ‘‘The hell I won’t!’’
That startled Sethrik—more, for some reason, than her initial intrusion, as near as she could tell. But he simply gave a quick open-shut gesture of his wings, and suddenly the two creatures still facing them lunged forward.
‘‘Your diplomacy is unrivaled, Captain,’’ muttered DuQuesne.
The green-black insectoids seemed to blur as they approached, moving at a pace she knew she couldn’t match. No wonder Sethrik had been so confident. She and DuQuesne got off a single shot each; hers missed entirely, but DuQuesne managed a grazing hit. The searing plasma packet scorched a pure black trail along the thing’s side, but it didn’t even flinch. Sandrisson ducked aside and was dealt a blow in passing that kicked him back down the corridor from which they’d come.
She dropped the gun and kicked her own physical enhancements into highest gear; the things suddenly seemed to slow to merely awfully bloody fast instead of impossibly quick. A wingcase whipped open, almost smashing into her face, but she managed to duck under it and kick out.
It felt like kicking a mahogany table leg, but it did throw the creature off a bit. It jumped backward to evade a followup blow, and then lunged forward just as she grasped the hilt of her sword.
Thousands of hours of practice in a dozen virtual realms—all emulated with deadly accurate combat that strained muscles to the utmost—coalesced in that moment. Her body moved in the perfectly coordinated arc-thrust of the ancient iai draw-and-cut.