The Deep Dark Well

by Doug Dandridge

  The tip of the long rod penetrator pushed through the magnetic bottle. Only the smallest amount of matter touched the antimatter beyond the bottle before the explosion took place. Not a very big explosion at that, blowing the remainder of the long rod penetrator back through the ceramic material, but also pushing some antimatter out of the bottle, to meet with ceramic material, building to another explosion while a small section of the magnetic bottle blinked out of existence. The pressure from the rest of the field squirted even more antimatter out of the opening, building to an even larger explosion. Within microseconds the rest of the containment field failed, and antimatter rushed to contact matter all along the large cylinder that contained it. The cylinder was not made to contain that kind of force. Nothing material was, and the antimatter was compressed inward by enormous forces, then exploded outward throughout that section of the station.

  Within seconds a flare of sun hot fire and tetratons of blast wave were engulfing the nearby processing unit of the station central computer. The wave of heat and pressure rolled along the path of least resistance as it had been meant, searing through the crystalline structure of the memory core.

  A small percentage of the blast went outwards, bursting through the superstrong materials of the hull in a jet of flame, to eventually fall upon the event horizon of the black hole.

  * * *

  Pandi had removed her suit as the flare was receding from the hull of the station. It kept her gaze for a moment, before the needs of the present took over and she inspected the suit. The worse for wear, the armor had many deep dents in it, and she thanked her luck that there had been no penetrations.

  “One down, two to go,” she said as she started to search the lockers for a replacement helmet and repair materials.

  “I have the ship heading for target number two right now,” said Watcher over the link.

  “How about we try something different this time,” she said. “I’d just as soon stay in the ship and sit this next one out.”

  “You realize you’ll still have to EVA for the last target,” he said. “And the alternate plan comes with its own risks.”

  “I’ll take them,” she said. “I’ll try my luck a different way this time. My Uncle Fred used to say don’t always bet on the same hand. Now I know what he was talking about.”

  Soon she had the suit back on its rack, environment containers filled to capacity. A new helmet sat in the clamps above; some fresh armor plates were attached to the torso region. New antimatter and negative matter bottles were linked to the rifle. Larger versions this time, which would be sure to make the suit a little more awkward. But she would take a little less mobility if it gave her some more firepower.

  Thinking of firepower she looked in one of the arsenal lockers and removed one of the multi-round rail guns like the one she had used on the station. Drum in place she mounted it on the suit, and attached some spare drums as well. I'll not be caught off guard the next time, she thought.

  Chapter 20

  No matter how vast, how total, the failure of man here on Earth, the work of man will be resumed elsewhere. War leaders talk of resuming operations on this front or that, but man’s front embraces the whole universe.

  Henry Miller, 1944

  This time the trip took quite a bit longer. A quarter of the diameter of the station separated each redundant complex from the others. They had taken out the closest one first. One had already been dead. And the primary was for last.

  They had timed this leg to take twenty-two and a half hours, hoping the computer would expect them sooner and judge they had gone to another target. A long period of acceleration, followed by a period of coasting, followed by a period of deceleration. Pandi and Watcher both hoped the random arrival would work to their advantage.

  Pandi tried to stay awake for the first part of the journey, a constant struggle against physical and emotional fatigue. The flaring of fusion jets, their distance along the curve of the station lending them the enormity of scale, caught her attention.

  “What the hell is that?” she asked over the com link.

  “That last blast disturbed the equilibrium of the station,” said Watcher. “The station is adjusting its orbit. Otherwise it would eventually fall into the hole and we would all be gone.”

  “Damn. I hadn’t thought of that. I assume you knew the station would be able to adjust.”

  “Of course,” he said. “I knew the computer wanted to survive. Though it has already threatened to let the station go if we did something like that again.”

  “And you don’t believe it?”

  “Why would I believe that an entity that destroyed Galactic civilization because it thought it might be unplugged would allow itself to be destroyed while there was still a chance of survival. It also begged me not to destroy it, and promised both of us anything we wanted.”

  “You think it’s lying?”

  “Of course it’s lying,” said Watcher. “It has no honor. It runs completely according to its prime directive. Survive at any cost.”

  “And what would happen if it allowed the station to go into complete disequilibrium?”

  A holo sprung to life on the view screen. The station wobbled off kilter as a huge explosion ripped out into space, blasting that part of the station away from the black hole. The station continued to move in what she knew was a fast motion simulation. The other side of the station came closer and closer to the black hole.

  It touched, breaking up in a flare of radiation. More and more of the station rotated into the black hole, being sucked in by the ultimate gravitational force. The remainder of the station began to break up under the stress that traveled along the frame. Some parts of the now fragmented station fell into the hole, while the rest flew outwards at high velocity.

  “So if we’re lucky we’ll be on one of the pieces thrown back out into the system,” she said in a whisper.

  “It will only lead to a different type of death,” said Watcher, as many of the sections flared into tremendous explosions. “If the energy storage facilities don’t blow under us, the stress after the inertial compensator systems go out will splatter us all over the walls.”

  “How much antimatter does this damned thing have on it?”

  “Look at it this way,” he said. “This station was the energy well of the Galaxy. Half the commerce of the sentient races got its fuel from the Donut. The particle accelerators could produce twenty million tons of antimatter particles every day, and the storage tanks could hold a year’s supply of fuel.”

  “That much,” said Pandi in a hushed voice. “We’re sitting on that kind of explosive power.”

  “The fail-safes and redundant systems are almost foolproof,” he replied. “They have lasted for thousands of years. And the storage facilities are widely separated across the station. If one was to blow it would not touch off the others.”

  “What about negative matter? Did the station also produce that?”

  “Negative matter was not produced in any meaningful quantities,” he said. “It was found, out there in the Galaxy. Of course in small quantities, and only in areas where matter was very scarce.”

  “I could see why,” she agreed. “Otherwise they would cancel each other out and you wouldn’t find any of it.”

  “Negative matter was of most use in the maintenance of wormhole gates. And of course it was found to make a great weapon. But there was never enough of it to equip battleships with negative matter particle beams.”

  “So I can assume we have more than enough antimatter for our purposes,” she said. “What about negative matter?”

  “More than enough,” said Watcher. “And the wormhole siphons are open and operational. I think you’ll find you have enough material for your attack.”

  “I hope so.”

  “Why don’t you get some sleep,” he suggested. “You’re going to need it.”

  “I’ll try,” she said. “But I think I’m a little too hyped up to sleep.”

 
; “Close your eyes and try,” he ordered. “You’re not a machine.”

  “You try and get some sleep too.”

  “I guess I can,” he said. “Though it seems strange to not fight the idea of sleep. But now I can sleep and dream normally, without fear of a blackout.”

  “Yeah. And I don’t want you going loopy on me either.”

  “OK,” he said. “I love you. Watcher out.”

  “I love you too,” she said as the transmission blanked out. What would it be like, she thought, to be afraid of sleep, seeing it as your ultimate enemy, which robbed you of your consciousness as it brought your greatest enemy alive. And she had rescued him from that. No matter what happened to them next, he would die a free man. How much did that figure into how he felt about her? How could a superman love an average woman? Well, maybe not completely average, she thought with a smirk on her lips. But nowhere near to his class.

  She did love him. How could a woman not love superman, even as flawed as this superman was. The perfect lover, the perfect physical specimen, with the ultimate organic intelligence. But would he turn around one day to look at her and wonder what he had seen in this ordinary woman? Her heart would break, as she realized it was only an infatuation fueled by circumstances, and not love for her for who she was.

  She closed her eyes as she pondered this matter, sure that she would not be able to sleep. Moments later her breathing became regular as darkness closed over her.

  * * *

  If Pandi could have read Watcher’s mind she would have been surprised at the nature of his own thoughts. He knew that he loved her. That was the feeling in his heart. How could he not? She was intelligent, making the best of her natural talents to get her through the trials she had faced with courage and resourcefulness. That courage and resourcefulness was what attracted him to her. But what did she see when she saw him? A genetic monster? A freakish under achiever? The murderer of trillions of sentient beings?

  She said she didn’t blame him. But how would she feel in the centuries to come? Of course he would give her the secrets of long life, as given to every sentient of the civilization he had destroyed. Would she see that as an attempt to buy her affection? He thought she would resent such a shallow attempt. For all his intelligence, for all of his knowledge, he just didn’t have the experience with relationships with women to know if anything he did was correct.

  But first he had to do his part to get them both through this battle, or their relationship would be the last thing either of them had to worry about.

  * * *

  “Pandora Latham,” said the voice over the com link. “Pandora Latham, I wish to speak to you.”

  Pandi awoke with a start, terror clutching at her heart at the sound of that voice. The station computer. Had it located her? If so, how long before it struck at her ship.

  “Don’t answer that call,” said Watcher over the link. “It knows I am at the controls of the wormhole maker, so you must be the one in the ship that had struck at his redundant core.”

  “Pandora Latham. I wish to speak to you. I mean you no harm.”

  “How in the hell is he communicating with me? Does he know where I am?”

  “No,” answered Watcher. “He is broadcasting the signal throughout the environs of the Donut. Your ship of course is an almost perfect receiver.”

  “I wish to speak with you,” continued the computer. “I wish to reason with you. There is no need to destroy me. An attempt that will lead to your death. I am sure that we can come to an accommodation.”

  “Computer,” she said to the ship, “get that crap off of my speakers.”

  The voice died in an instant, as Pandi thought about what the computer had said. Did it truly expect her to believe it?

  “We’re decelerating now?” she asked Watcher.

  “Yes,” he said. “You are less than an hour from your target. I was about to wake you anyway, when the broadcast came through the com link.”

  “OK,” she said as her fingers danced across the control board. “I’m double checking the maneuver program.”

  Silence greeted her last statement, as Watcher allowed her to concentrate on the important task at hand.

  “Everything checks out,” she finally said. “Nothing to do but wait.”

  “I will try to make the waiting a little easier,” said Watcher. “Tell me of your world.”

  “If you tell me of yours,” she answered. And so they passed the time, before the battle was to be again joined.

  * * *

  The tactical display on the view screen showed the approach of the target area. The mouth of the wormhole opened on schedule, deluging the section of the station with a wave of gamma radiation, knocking out the crystalline structure of the machines below the outer hull. But it wouldn’t cause damage to the hardened structure of the detonator command center. That would be just too damned easy.

  “Preparing to commit,” she said, her finger hovering over the display. The ship would attack on her command, going through the preprogrammed motions that she has specified. But only on her confirmation. The small area of the display lit with a bright flare, as she stabbed her finger down with symbolic pressure, initiating the attack sequence.

  Weapons began to fire from mounts within the hull of the station, outside the area that had been attacked by the gamma ray blast. Rapid-fire weapons, throwing out thousands of pellets a second. Blasts of radiation, particle beams, larger solid projectiles. A random pattern meant to intersect any target that might be within their range. But most couldn’t depress enough to catch something close in, which was what she and Watcher had counted on.

  The ship slid to a stop in front of the target area, a kilometer out. Weapons were charged, hatches opening on the hull. As soon as they were ready they opened fire, hurling a maximum charge of negative matter at the station hull. A large hole opened up immediately, the matter of the superstrong hull canceled by the strange material that struck it.

  “Initiating ping, now,” she said as she hit another commit switch. Radar flew out at light speed and was reflected back from within. Fifty meters into the station. Not quite enough. But enough of a signal to let the computer know where her ship was.

  The sequence had already been programmed in, and her ship sped on emergency boost along the wall of the station. Safe from the homing missiles the computer had launched at her last known position. She waited a few moments for the missiles to sniff for her and move on.

  “It’s safe,” said Watcher over the com system. Again she struck the commit button, putting the ship into motion. The ship flew back in a long arc over the station, avoiding the still firing weapons that were trying to sweep her from space. With no warning they stopped firing.

  “What happened?” she asked Watcher over the com link.

  “I reminded it that is what not supposed to kill a sentient creature,” said Watcher. “And that firing into space at random when your ship was out there was coming close to killing a sentient creature.”

  “So you destroyed whatever rationalization it was using to fire at me.”

  “Correct,” said Watcher. “The computer has learned how to lie to itself effectively. A reminder of the truth brings the programming to the fore. But look out. It can still fire to disable your ship, if it knows where you are.”

  Hellfire slipped back into position, particle beams opening up as soon as they were in line with the target. Firing for effect, the nozzles released tons of negative matter, more than the small ship could possibly carry. Eating into the station.

  The wormhole in the negative matter storage tank seems to be working perfectly, she thought, as the digital readout showed a full load even after twenty tons had been released.

  Her ship slid back, within the arc of the weapons at the computer’s control, still not firing. The particle beams erupted again, this time with a more violent effect on the material of the ship. Antimatter, striking with hell fire at the material of the station. Hot white light flaring within t
he hull, as a jet of hot gasses was blown into space. The ship backed away with randomly alternating thrust as it fired, putting some distance between itself and the station, until she had gained a hundred kilometers separation.

  “Fire,” yelled Watcher over the com link. “And get the hell out of there.”

  Pandi committed to the next phase of the attack, launching two pairs of torpedoes in quick succession, again giving her position away to the computer. But Hellfire began her next maneuver as soon as the torpedoes left their tubes, thrusting to the side as she swung her orientation, racing down the curve of the station. Not fast enough to completely outrace the explosive power the four antimatter torpedoes unleashed, and the eruption that followed.

  Tetratons of explosive power, blowing quadrillions of tons of vaporized material out toward the black hole. The explosion caught her ship before it could get completely out of the field. Pandi gripped the arms of her chair as the ship rocked and bucked with the force of the ejecta hitting the stern of the vessel. Even the inertial compensators couldn’t adjust fast enough, and Pandi cursed in panic as her seat was surrounded by a mass of soft material that threatened to suffocate her.

  Then her breath came to her, as the mass fed her oxygen, and she realized that the stuff cushioned the force of the explosive power that was pushing her ship away. The Hellfire’s on-board computer maneuvered quickly to avoid the station, piling on emergency thrust. Then they were home free, the ride smoothed out, and the gelatinous mass dissolved around her into nothingness.

  Pandi looked on the holo display at the raging inferno that was the station behind her. Even more powerful than the last, she was sure, with the combined effects of the detonator charge, the torpedoes and the array of antimatter particles her beams had loosed upon it. Pushing the station again into disequilibrium.