"Thank you, Sweety."
"It's nothing, Thinker."
"Funny," I mused. "The O's have obviously programmed the ship to travel here, and orbit this world. I wonder why."
"Are we going to land?" Willard asked. "Can we wear a vac suit?"
"I don't think we're going to land, honey," Tara replied.
"Why would anyone want to come here?" I asked. "It looks awfully dead to me."
Tara did not answer. She was watching the planet as we approached it. There was nothing at all we could do about it—we could not control the ship.
In orbit, we lounged on the bridge sipping dox, looking out the plex. The airless planet rolled past to one side, crisp and clear, a terrifying panorama—stark frozen mountains of silvery rock and ancient plains of pale powdery dust, awful seas of icy dust with grim islands of glittering stone. A dead world peppered with millions of harsh craters, splattered with the debris of the cosmos. An ancient, fossil moon. It was clear that it had never known life. It had been hurtling through infinity, lost and alone, since the dawn of time.
"What do you think?" I asked.
"I don't like it," Tara replied.
"Neither do I."
"Why here?"
"Yeah. Why here."
"There's a reason the O's were coming here," Tara said.
"Probably. Certainly! What do you think?"
"They were escaping from Uldo."
"All right."
"Maybe with a damaged star drive."
"But they made it here—it's quite a journey! Something worked," I said.
"All right, they made it here. But something was wrong. Maybe they couldn't go where they would normally go."
"Or maybe they couldn't go how they would normally go."
"So they came here." Tara was gazing out the plex.
"An alternate."
"It was an emergency. A designated emergency destination."
"Meet you in Omega Spiral, Null Six Sector, nobody will bother us there. And bring the tow-truck."
"I think that's it," Tara said. "That's it! We're here for a rendezvous with the O's!"
I put down my dox, carefully. We sure didn't need this.
###
"Well, I'm damned if I can figure this out." I turned away from the controls, baffled.
"This isn't going to work," Tara said. "Their minds are completely different from ours. The only thing that makes any sense here is the nav settings—and the stars. And that's because it's quantum, and Tess can read it. But the rest of it is not quantum. It's based on something else. Maybe some kind of mental energy. We could work on this all our lives and never understand it."
I was looking out at the dead world below us. This was the very edge of the galaxy, and the stark, tortured terrain was typical of almost all worlds—airless, lifeless, and incredibly beautiful.
"Tara to Wester, over."
"Sorry. You were saying?"
"I was saying we're…finished. I don't know what to do next. I've tried everything, and so has Tess. We've looked at uniphysics, rads, pressure, fluids, mags, biomags, biotics, vac, sound, quantum effects, DNA, electrochem, electrorads, lasers, vac, plasma, ionics, crystalflash, temperature…I even tried psyching it to life. Nothing makes sense. It may be mental."
"So we wait. For them to come."
"You're not going to be able to do any funny tricks this time, Wester. It was a miracle you stabilized that containment system. But we're not going to be able to drive this ship without knowing exactly what we're doing. And I can't understand these controls."
"But we've got the navs down, right? It looks like we can set it to exactly where we want to go."
"Maybe—but without activating the drive, we're not going anywhere. And as you said about the power controls, we can't even find the ON switch."
I pondered the controls. It was an incredible mess, a wide panel of glowing lights, a rainbow of lights, with plenty of movable tabs. Brilliant airy holo structures of multicolored lights hung in the air over the controls, ever changing, incredibly complex geometrical structures flashing on and off, never the same twice. Tara was right—the last time had been pure luck. But playing dice with Deadman was not recommended—especially on a star run.
"You said the promat is stable, right?" I asked.
"That's right—the unitium-based containment system for the D-neg appears to have stabilized."
"So—as far as we know, this stardrive could be in working order now."
"I don't know, Wester. We got here somehow. I guess it means one of the drives was working before—maybe the antimat. Something sure was. And whatever the problem was that we had in the power control room, it appears to have stabilized. Working order? Who knows—it could be."
Another great green O flickered and shimmered briefly on the bridge, then vanished abruptly. I was getting used to it.
"Too bad he can't help us."
"I've even tried that. Gildron has already tried to communicate with it. No luck."
"Well, how about the local drive? Assuming we can identify it."
"That won't do us any good, if the O's show up in this sector. They'll be on us in a flash. The actual propulsive power for the ship appears to be an antimat drive. The D-neg is used to generate and hold open the wormhole."
"Yeah—right." I lapsed into silence. Tara was absolutely right. It was the stardrive or nothing. We were on the wrong side of the galaxy, and we understood nothing about the stardrive.
"Have you ever heard of the C.S. New Worlds?" Tara asked.
"Yes—it's one of those ghost ships, isn't it?"
"That it is, trooper—that it is. It was one of the early explorers, in the first generation of stardrives. A fully-equipped scientific research vessel, with the mission of mapping the galaxy and discovering new worlds. They thought they had the antimat drive perfected. But they were wrong."
"Is that the one that keeps sending off signals?"
"That's the one. They blundered into another universe—an extension of our own. The signal probes pop back into our universe every few years. But the starship doesn't. They have no idea whether or not their probes are getting through. It's just a fluke, that the probes can make it back but the ship can't. They're all still alive, cruising unholy stars in an alternate universe. We have a very full record of their activities—an invaluable look into that particular universe. And the info in the probes keeps getting stranger and stranger. Several generations have grown up by now in the C.S. New Worlds, people who've never been off the ship. And they'll never return. They can't return, and we can't help. There've been a few reports of a spectral ship glowing like a star, struggling to break free from the hole, then vanishing. I don't believe that, of course. But that's what they say."
I was quiet. Tara wet her lips with her tongue, then continued. "There are other ships that disappeared into the hole, plenty of them. Ghost ships—that never came back. We're populating other universes, Wester. Who knows, maybe that's where we all came from. A lost ship marooned in time, circling a virgin world in an alien universe. Gods from the stars, to start a new race."
"Shut down," I said. "Just shut the hell down!" I did not want to hear it. We were in enough trouble already, without worrying about things that hadn't happened yet.
"Gildron won't let us play with the E!" Willard shrieked suddenly.
"You can't play with the E, honey," Tara said patiently. "It's dangerous. Why don't you play with the toolpak?"
"We don't WANT to play with the toolpak!"
"It's fun—there's a lot of stuff in there."
"We SHOULD play with the E! It's OURS!"
"Can't you shut him down?" I asked.
"Shut him down yourself!" Tara snapped. Wonderful—now she was upset with me, just because I'd yelled at her. Perfect! Marooned in the Omega Spiral with a stunningly beautiful girl who suddenly decides she can't stand the sight of me. Good move, Thinker.
"It should play with us." Willard stood before me, gazing at me gravely.
&nb
sp; "Play with Gildron, all right?"
"Gidron is BORING! It won't let us play with the E!"
"I won't let you play with the E either."
"It SHOULD!"
"Why don't you do something useful?" I asked. "You don't even know your ABC's, do you?"
"We do."
"Gildron says you don't. Gildron knows his ABC's."
"Gidron is STUPID!"
"Widdard doopid," Gildron growled ominously.
"We are NOT! We know our ABC's! ABCDEFG—SIJK…"
I let it fade, glaring at the controls. We were finished, unless we could fire up this pile of junk and get out of the neighborhood, fast. But there was no way we could understand these controls. It was just lights—a rainbow of lights—every color in the spectrum. I looked over at the adjoining control panels, and the displays on the ceiling, over the plex. The same—every color in the spectrum.
"Tara…"
"Shut down! I'm busy!"
"Say, Tara—have you noticed the colors?"
"I've been staring at them for hours, trooper. What about the colors?"
"Well, they use the same colors—in every control panel."
"There's only so many colors, Beta Three. If you were a little more alert, you'd have noted that they use all the colors of visible light, and go into the ultra violet and infrared spectrum. I checked. So they're using color-coding. So what? Unless we know what it means, we can't do a thing. And you've got to start by understanding those damned holos."
"Maybe it's the same for every procedure."
"What do you mean?"
"Maybe the colors are the procedure. Maybe you start at one end of the spectrum and just go from one color to the next, until the procedure is completed. Maybe it's the same, whether you're ordering breakfast or going into stardrive. Just find the right control panel and touch the right series of colors—which is always the same. Like the alphabet—A,B,C—the same every time. Or 1, 2, 3. Look at the patterns—the colors. There's an arrangement. A gradual deepening of color, from top to bottom."
"I noticed. I thought it was like a keyboard. Something to control the holos."
"What if it's an alphabet? Only you always start at 'A' and it never changes? Maybe we can forget the holos. They're always changing. Maybe it's because they're purely decorative."
Tara stared at the control panel, silent.
"Tara?"
"I said shut down. I'm thinking."
###
"Will you please stop doing that?" Tara asked. I was looking out the viewport, lost in dark dreams, honing the edge of my cold knife against the cenite sharpener on the scabbard. I stopped. The edge was razor sharp—I could probably split an atom with it. The cold knife was Legion issue, a single slab of black cenite, brutal and functional, completely devoid of soul. This one had been with me since Planet Hell.
"I was just sharpening it," I said softly. Tara did not respond. She was busy with the tacmod and the controls. She was numbering some of the colored control tabs with a lightpen. I had lost interest in the task. I knew she was smarter than I was—let her do it.
Gildron hummed a strange song. Willard dozed in his arms, exhausted. We were all tired. I pressed the edge of the knife against the heel of my thumb and gently sliced downwards. The skin split and a thin line of blood appeared. I could barely feel it. It was sharp, all right.
I put the knife down. Our three E's were beside me, along with our remaining contac and psybloc grenades. I had checked out all three E's—they were functioning perfectly. What could go wrong? There were no moving parts. Perfect, unholy tools. Just what we needed for our unholy trade.
It was cold. Too cold for humans, this far from home. I could not take my eyes off the viewport. Strange dark stars and an evil, dead world, rolling past below us. No human had ever seen this before. The Omega Spiral—Deadman! It was cold inside the O ship, but it was colder yet in my heart. I had never asked for this—but I certainly deserved it. I had stepped through the Legion gate—what a fool! I deserved everything I got. I should have known—I should have known! We were all going to die in this alien ship, on the far side of the galaxy. We were not going to get home—not ever!
"It's done," Tara said. "They're all marked. I'm certain you're right—and Tess confirms it. There's a lot more to do, but this much is done."
"I'm not right," I said. "I'm wrong. It can't possibly be that simple. If it was, Willard could pilot this ship."
"Yes—what simple beauty! Just follow the colors, and you're there. Why should things be so complicated? This is where science is leading us—to simplicity."
"You're going to blow us all to hell."
"Would you rather stay here?" Tara turned her lovely face to mine, blinking Assidic eyes. I had always been able to float away under her gaze. Even after I lost her, on our home world, Galgos, she had always been with me in the back of my mind.
"Maybe it wouldn't be so bad," I said. I picked up the knife again and resumed honing it. "We'd have ourselves. Plenty of food and water—we could live here forever, in our own world. We even have a kid to raise. And if you get tired of me, there's always Gildron."
She turned back to the controls. "You forget the O probably want their ship back."
I did not respond. She was certainly right. I had gone for a walk into the dark heart of the ship when Tara was working on the controls. I had come back quickly. The place gave me the creeps. I certainly didn't want the bloody ship.
But the Legion did—and anybody else, including the O's, would have to kill me to get it back.
"You're bleeding," Tara observed.
"Sorry." I continued honing the knife. The damned thing was beautiful—like a woman.
"You'd better calm down, Wester."
"I'm calm."
"No you're not—your mind is very tense. Please try to relax. We'll be out of here shortly."
"Out of here…right. Where shall we go?"
"Anyplace on the other side of the galaxy would be an improvement. I can set the nav function for anywhere."
I held up the knife to examine the edge. There was blood on the blade. "I'll tell you exactly where we're going," I said.
A harsh buzzing. A light popped to life on an overhead control panel, flashing on and off. The buzzing continued.
"Now what?" I put the knife down again.
"There's no way of knowing," Tara said calmly.
"Wonderful," I said. "That's just great! We're getting set to do a blind star hop on an alien ship, with no idea what we're doing, and now something else is wrong. That's just terrific!" I stood up. Something snapped past the viewport, outside. I froze.
"Calm down, Wester. Please! I'm starting to worry about you."
I reached for an E and picked it up.
"What are you doing, Wester?"
"There's something out there!"
"What?"
"There's something out there!" I strained to see out the viewport—nothing. Only the stars, and the dead world we were orbiting.
"What do you mean?" Tara watched me warily.
"Something flashed past the viewport, Tara. I'm not imagining it. Something small and dark—and fast."
"Are you sure?"
"I'm sure!"
"What did it look like?"
"I don't know! It was too fast!"
Gildron was with us now, picking up his E. Willard was awake and not happy about it.
"Tess!" Tara commanded her Persist. "Scan near and far space. What's out there?"
"No life detected. The exterior configuration of the ship has recently changed."
"What? Show us the change." I picked up my tacmod. The changes were highlighted—five little protrusions, scattered randomly on the hull.
"Analysis, Tess."
"First object examined is ninety-seven percent iridium mixed with silver, rhodium, palladium, gold, traces of other metals. Objects are bonded to the ship. Origin unknown. Further information required."
"What does that mean?" I asked.
>
"It means someone's going to have to go out there," Tara said, "and see what it is. Iridium…hmm. According to Tess, it's a natural metal, found mostly in asteroids. But Tess says it shouldn't be ninety-seven percent—that's much too high. I don't know what this could be."
"I'll suit up," I said. Under siege—we were under siege. The bastards just wouldn't leave us alone. When was it going to end? And how?
"No, Wester. I'll go. You…stay here. Just stay here."
"I'm all right."
"I know you are."
"All right, I'm not all right. But I'm going out there anyway—no arguments! Help me suit up."
"Wester, please—let me go."
"I'll go. We can't afford to lose you, Tara. I can't pilot this damned ship. I'll be all right! Quit worrying!"
###
Outside in the vac, I chewed on mags. I was ice cold, but I felt just fine. I walked the skin of the Omni ship like an intruding insect. The ship was a massive, triangular wedge of blackened cenite with a long nose boom.
I had come out an airlock topsides, but I was well back of the front viewport—I was alone. Cold stars burnt overhead, a magnificent panorama of alien constellations, strange nebulae of silver dust and a faint glowing road in the sky.
Atom's Road, I thought. It was the nucleus of our own galaxy, seen from the wrong side. And all we had to do was follow the stars to the other edge.
"Play me the stars, Sweety." The music of the stars, crawling over my skin. Sweety knew—she knew me better than anyone. I snapped the safeties off my E. The right leg of the A-suit was dead, but it was all right—I could still walk.
"Turn off that music, Wester. Can you hear me?" Tara, right in my ears.
"I hear you fine, Tara. You see everything?"
"The monitor's clear, Wester. The first one is right up ahead—be careful!"
I had a great view of the dead world we were orbiting. This was surely the last stop, the last world, on the very edge of our galaxy. After this there was nothing. After this, you would die from the distance. It was a massive, cold, dark rock pitted with the scars of the dust of the cosmos. Last stop, I thought. Omega Spiral, Null Six Sector, a dead world with no name. Last stop, for the Legion. I looked into the pocked face of that nameless rock and saw our God, the Legion's harsh God, looking right back at me.
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