“I see.” Hutch’s eyes narrowed. “So then we are going to…” Her voice trailed off, inviting him to finish.
“…look for a way to open the hatch ourselves.”
“Okay. What happens if there is no manual?”
“Hutch, we can’t just let this thing go away. One way or another, we have to get into it.”
“Which means…?”
“…if we have to we’ll cut our way in.”
“Cut our way.”
“Yes.”
“That presents a danger to the occupants.”
“Surely we can do it in a way that opts for safety.”
“Not easily,” she said.
“Well, let’s hope it doesn’t come to that, shall we?”
The target hatch was in a plain bordered by two ridges that angled in on it. Pointing forward to the bow. Between the ridges lay a section of flatland. Good place to bring down the lander. Behind it, about fifty meters, the ridges joined.
“Hutch.” It was Bill. “You’re being tracked by one of its sensors. It knows you’re coming.”
GEORGE HAD NOT gotten past Herman’s death. Never would. The images from that terrible moment on the ground at the place they called Paradise were a knife in his heart. He would never forget how those creatures had turned, how their beatific appearance had shifted, the gentle eyes gone demonic, the amiable smiles hungry. They’d come for him, and Herman had tried to intervene as he always had, but he’d gone down beneath the talons and claws. One of the things had sunk its teeth into Herman’s neck and Herman had looked to him for help that one time, but George had been fighting off his own nightmare.
Hutch had almost persuaded him that the mission had been successful, despite the losses. But now, as they settled toward the chindi, he knew that was a lie, a deception, a piece of motivational manipulation. What after all had they found? An abandoned moonbase near a decimated world, a group of primitives, and an empty house.
The gray bleak landscape was growing larger. He could see the proposed landing site. And the hatch.
This was the real prize. Herman would not have wanted him to sit on the Memphis and wait for Mogambo to come and knock on the door. Because that’s what he’d do. He would establish communications with whoever waited inside, and they would talk about science and God, about why the universe existed, about the future relationship between the two species. And the world would forget Safe Harbor, which had died stillborn, and the killer angels, and the Retreat. Herman and George would become a footnote to the real story.
No. This was his chance, for himself and for Herman, and for everybody who’d trusted him. He pictured himself with the pilot of the alien ship, somehow seated in front of a blazing fire, downing beer and pizza.
And he thought: If I could do that, if I could have an hour with him, I wouldn’t care if the damned thing took off with me on board. I really wouldn’t care.
From short range, it was hard to see how anyone could miss the obvious fact that the chindi was shaped rock. No natural object. And no attempt to make it look like one, although he could see it had not been turned out of a mold. This was a vessel that LeTurno might have created, or Pasquarelli. A piece of art rather than an engineering product. And there was something ineffably mournful about the design.
He did not mention his impressions to the others in the cabin, none of whom would have understood. Nick and Hutch were good people, but they were essentially superficial creatures, unable to grasp the poetry of the moment. And Tor, who might have perceived the implications of the chindi’s architecture, was probably too distracted by the captain.
They crossed the terminator, and the chindi broke into blinding sunlight. Hutch did something at the controls, and they moved closer.
They hovered over the flat patch of land, gray and level and unspectacular save for the silver coin at one end, the hatch, the door into the future. He checked his harness with easy familiarity, as if he were a veteran jumper.
“Don’t forget,” Hutch said, “this place will have no gravity. Keep together. And no sudden moves.”
Yes, Maw.
George picked up the wrench he’d brought along and looked at it. Historic wrench. Maybe wind up in the Smithsonian one day, after he used it to bang on the hatch.
The chindi filled the viewports, and George’s pulse pounded in his ears.
WITH A SLIGHT jar, the lander set down. Hutch did things, and the lights came on, the electronics changed tone, and the cabin began to depressurize.
“Welcome to the chindi,” said Tor.
George got up and stood by the airlock. Hutch looked out at the rockscape as if to make sure there weren’t savages approaching. They connected their tether, George at one end, Hutch at the other.
“Got your line ready?” Nick asked George.
“What do you mean?”
“Your remark for history.”
“This isn’t a world, Nick. It’s just a hollowed-out rock.”
“I still think you should say something. Something a little more rousing than last time.”
“Okay,” he said. “I will.”
The air pressure went to zero, the outer hatch cycled open, and George looked out across the rocks. The hull of an alien ship. A tiny world. He floated out the door, got hold of the ladder, and pushed himself down. Nick appeared in the hatchway.
George’s feet touched ground. But he had to hold himself down. “Well,” he said, “here we are.”
Nick gazed at him. “That’s it?”
“It’ll have to do.”
Nick began to get farther away. The lander was floating off the surface. Then the thrusters blipped, and it came back. “Everybody out,” said Hutch. “Let’s move it.”
Nick and Tor followed him down. Then Hutch, wearing a go-pack, managed somehow to step out of the airlock and drift gracefully to the surface. George noticed that there was no dust to kick up. They were standing on bare rock.
Hutch spoke into her link, probably to Bill. The lander rose and assumed a position about twelve meters off the ground. “Just in case this thing takes off,” she said. “If we need it in a hurry, all you have to do is tell Bill.”
Cobalt floated overhead like a giant moon. The sun, somehow brighter here than it had seemed from the Retreat, sparkled just above the horizon. Autumn was beneath them somewhere, invisible, but making its presence felt by the glare that illuminated the horizon on all sides. The horizon itself was impossibly close, a short stroll and take a dive. He found it momentarily hard to breathe and wanted to press back against a wall.
Nick was watching him with an odd expression. “You okay?” he asked.
George hadn’t realized his feelings were showing. “Yeah, Nick,” he said, making an effort to sound composed. “I’m fine.”
The hatch lay just ahead. Only a few dozen paces.
If there was any gravity at all, George couldn’t feel its effects. He wore the standard-issue grip shoes, but there was still a tendency to bounce and drift every time he took a step. Nevertheless he managed, and the others trailed out behind him, Nick staying just a couple of paces in the rear, and then Tor, who was looking around, trying to take it all in. And Hutch, dressed in her captain’s uniform, blue lined with white, with the Memphis patch over her left breast. Very official.
Not bad looking, he decided. Bit of a crank, but that probably resulted from having her authority go to her head. Not as lovely as Alyx, of course. Nobody was like Alyx. But she was attractive, nonetheless.
A dish antenna lay off to one side, supported on a six-meter-high mount. The cradle was utilitarian, a simple metal casing hoisted on a vertical axis. The dish was maybe four meters in diameter. Was it pointed back toward Icepack? He touched one of the support bars and sensed the flow of power.
There was nothing loose on the surface, no pebbles, no rocks or boulders. Not enough gravity, probably. Although it seemed as if there should be some accumulation.
“We’re on the hull of a ship,” said Hu
tch. “When it accelerates, everything that’s not nailed down falls off.”
The hatch was dead ahead. George thought he could feel the distant throbbing of engines. He pressed his palms against the rock, searching for vibrations. It was hard to be sure.
Hutch was talking to someone again. Maybe Alyx. Probably Bill. The Memphis was visible over the lip of the hill, off to his right. He did something wrong with his feet and drifted off the surface. Nick tugged him back down. “Whoa, George,” he said.
THE HATCH WAS round and gray and smooth, set flat in the ground. The ridges on either side were about fifty meters apart, and the hatch was almost centered between. It was hard not to think it had been deliberately placed within a marker. Visitors’ Entrance.
George’s heart pounded. They moved up on it crosswise, George on the left, Hutch to the right. And at last he stood over it, the thing he had pursued his entire life.
He pushed down onto his knees and started to float off again, but good old Nick was there, clapping a hand to his shoulder, restraining him.
There was no visible means of gaining ready access. No handle, no lever, no panel concealed in the stone. It was simply a round iron plate, about the size of a manhole cover. It projected ten centimeters out of the rock. He traced its rim with his fingers, felt under it, tried to lift.
There was no give at all.
“There must be a way to get it open,” Tor said.
“Maybe a remote of some kind.” Hutch glanced at George. “Your show, big fella. This is your chance.”
She flashed that pixie grin that told him okay, time to quit talking and take the plunge. He lifted the wrench out of his harness. Moment of glory. And he rapped twice on the hatch. He couldn’t hear the sound, of course, but the vibration ran up his arm.
They backed away a few paces.
Nobody spoke. He heard a click on his private channel, and then breathing. As if someone wanted to say something but had changed his mind.
Their shadows ran off in a variety of sizes and directions, created by the sun, Cobalt, and the various sets of rings.
He tried again. “Hello,” he said. Bang. “Anybody home?” Clang. The flat side of the wrench produced more vibrations. He imagined the sound echoing through the great ship.
They waited. George was conscious of Bill listening from the Memphis, and Alyx from the bridge.
They shifted around. Looked at one another. Stared down at the hatch.
Admired Autumn’s rings. From that angle, edge on, they were a razor-sharp slice of light across the top of the sky. Beyond them, a hazy narrow cloud curved to infinity. The outer ring.
“Taking a long time,” said Tor. “I don’t think anybody’s in there.”
“Be patient,” said Nick. “It’s a big ship. It’s possible they might have to come from several kilometers away to open up.”
Hutch said nothing. She looked daunting in the shifting, uncertain light. Little belt-high babe with her laser ready to defend the world against whatever waits behind the door. Whatever else he might think about her, he knew she would be a good woman to have at his back if they got in trouble.
“Anything happening?” Alyx’s voice.
“No,” said George. She was, of course, watching everything on the screens, the pictures transmitted by the imagers they all wore pinned to their vests. But Alyx wouldn’t know if vibrations had begun underfoot, if there were indications of activity below.
George was beginning to feel cold inside his energy field.
“They don’t seem to want company,” said Nick at last. “Maybe they’re too advanced to be bothered.”
Hutch shook her head. “I doubt it. Look at their technology. They’re still throwing stuff out the back in order to get propulsion.”
“So are we.”
“But we won’t be forever. There’re other ideas on the drawing boards.” Her eyes moved between him and the hatch. “They just may be less open to strangers.”
George checked the time, but couldn’t remember when they’d arrived. Had it been five minutes ago? Twenty? “I think we’ve waited long enough,” he said.
Tor and Nick concurred.
Hutch turned that deep blue gaze on him. “You sure you want to do this?”
“We have to.”
“You’re going to punch a hole into a hull that may be pressurized. You could kill somebody.”
She meant somebody inside. George had been trying not to think about that possibility. “I don’t see an alternative.”
Tor looked uncomfortable. “It would be a shaky start to diplomatic relations,” he said. “Maybe we should back off.”
George shook his head. “We can’t. Not now.” Surely if there were someone in the immediate area, he’d respond. Right? “Let’s go ahead. Hutch, may I have the cutter?”
She hesitated. “I’ll do it,” she said. “Everybody stay clear.”
George motioned the others back, but took his place alongside Hutch. Couldn’t have her assume all the risk.
She activated the cutter.
THE METAL FELT old. It was discolored, scabrous, dull, almost the same tone as the rock in which it was set.
It began to smoke and flake under the cutter. She narrowed the blade and concentrated on one pinpoint area. Just push a hole through first and find out whether she was dealing with air pressure.
They’d all fallen silent again. The red glimmer of the laser reflected off their energy shields.
“Hutch.” Bill’s voice, out of the darkness. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but there’s another bottle out there. This one is approaching. From the object’s rear.”
“It’s not one of the two we saw earlier?”
“No. The electronic signature is different.”
“Is it coming toward us?”
“No. Unless it changes course, it’ll go beneath the chindi. In fact I think I see a bay opening up for it.”
“Okay. Thanks, Bill. Let me know if anything changes.”
“We should be on the other side of this rock,” said Tor. He and George began discussing the possibility of getting back into the lander and circling the ship. Meanwhile Hutch broke through and saw no evidence of air pressure. “It’s a vacuum,” she said.
They stared at one another. “How can that be?” asked George.
Hutch looked at him, you know as much as I do. She began a long horizontal cut. “Make yourselves comfortable, gentlemen,” she said. “This’ll take a few minutes.”
“What do you think about going back to where the bays are, Hutch?” asked Tor. “They’re going to take the bottle on board. We could maybe go right in with it.”
“I think it’s safer to do it this way.”
“Why?”
“I don’t think we want to take a chance on falling into the works. Let’s just be patient.”
She heard a sigh from somebody, but they didn’t argue the point. It became moot almost immediately when Bill reported that the chindi had taken the bottle aboard and closed up again.
Hutch cut a piece big enough for George to get through, and pushed on it. After some resistance, it broke free and dropped. It was dark down there. But the intriguing thing was that it fell.
“Gravity inside,” she said.
Nick put a light down into the hole. There was an airlock, although the inner hatch was open. And a ladder descended through it down into a passageway.
ALYX WAS HORRIFIED to watch George disappear inside the hull. He was wearing an imager on his vest, but everything was dark, and his lamp didn’t help much. He was on the ladder, and the floor looked about six meters down. She knew, absolutely knew, this was going to have a bad end.
She’d had some respect for Hutch until this last hour or so. But watching her stand there like an idiot while George hammered on the hatch had literally driven her up the wall. She’d half expected it to open and some ungodly creature to snatch them all inside. But she’d resisted getting on the link and telling them what she thought. She tried to console
herself by translating the scene to choreography, as she’d done so often on this flight.
Too many sims. How many times over the last four hundred years, in books and theater, had humans made contact, only to discover the aliens were either vastly superior mentally, or were primarily interested in having people as snacks. The culture was saturated with the twin premises, and it was hard to shake the notion that one or the other had to be true.
Hutch, I really wish you wouldn’t do this.
She watched them climb down past the inner lock. They stepped off into the passageway. It was unlighted, it ran in both directions, and it looked like nothing more than a tunnel with walls hewn out of rock. A few doors lined the walls. The doors appeared to be metal. Each provided a gripping ring, or an ornamental ring—it was difficult to know which—bolted about head high.
“Which way?” asked Tor.
She saw George hesitate, trying to make up his mind. He mentally flipped a coin and turned right, toward the after section of the ship. The others fell in line behind him. And the images got fuzzy.
“Losing video, Hutch,” Alyx said.
“How’s the sound?”
“Some interference. Otherwise okay.”
“All right. We’re going to go in a little way. I’ll let you know if we find anything interesting.”
“I hope you don’t.”
The closest door was on the left, about fifteen paces.
“—They look airtight—,” Hutch said, between bursts of noise.
“Hutch, I’m losing you.”
“—loud and clear—.”
“Say again, Hutch. I can’t hear you.”
Hutch came back toward the ladder. “Your signal’s breaking up,” she said. “Sit tight. We won’t go far.”
GRAVITY WAS AT about a half gee. The corridor was wide enough for ten people to walk abreast, and the overhead would have been out of Tor’s reach had he stood on George’s shoulders.
The walls had a textured feel, not unlike sandstone.
They stood in front of the first door. It was rough-hewn, but it was set inside a frame and appeared to be airtight. Tor pushed on the ring, then pulled it. It didn’t budge, and nothing happened.
“Why do you think this is vacuum down here?” asked George. “Are they all dead?”
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