by B. V. Larson
“He’s down there? Can we spot him optically?”
“The location is barely out of our view due the angle.”
Kwon came in at that moment with two beers in each hand. He held out one pair to me. I took them, clinked one and drained it all at once, tossing the empty aside to be recycled. Then I slammed the second one down. When I looked up, Kwon was already wiping his mouth; he’d beaten me again. I found this slightly annoying, but I had to excuse myself. How could I hope to out-chug a man who had a mouth like a bullfrog?
“God, even factory beer tastes good right now.” I chucked the second empty over my shoulder. “Good news, Kwon. We’re going on a rescue. Valiant found Marvin.”
I wanted to launch right then, but I waited for Valiant and Sakura to do the upgrades on Greyhound’s brain. That gave me a couple of hours to gather some extra gear we might need and cram it into the former yacht.
I found Adrienne working in engineering, looking worn out. “No luck?” I asked.
“No. Nothing seems to affect us one bit. It’s as if something is hanging on to our center of gravity. We can rotate and turn, but we can’t go anywhere.”
“Where’s the ship’s center of gravity?” I asked.
Adrienne looked around and then walked over to Valiant’s central I-beam, her spine. “Right about here.”
“Have you thought about trying to define the edges of the effect and then remove the piece that’s affected?”
“That would be like removing some of your vertebrae. Valiant would be extremely fragile without her main supports.”
I shrugged. “Just an idea. Better than crashing.”
“I’ll bring it up to Sakura when she gets back from upgrading Greyhound.”
I sidestepped closer to my girl. “Kwon and I are going to go after Marvin. We may have found out where he is.”
“Why retrieve Marvin and not the rest of the crew?” she asked suspiciously. “They’re real people and they’re in real danger.”
I marveled at her attitude. Just because she’d seen me with another woman in a faked vid she was questioning my every motive, looking for sinister intent.
“Marvin’s a person too. More importantly, he might be able to get Valiant out of this trap. I can’t let the crew still aboard die while I try to rescue others.”
That softened her somewhat. “If we have to, we’ll take the pinnace off the ship,” she suggested. “We won’t crash with it.”
“And then what? A few days or weeks of supplies and then we’ll die anyway. The factory is too big to dismount onto a pinnace, or even Greyhound. No, our only hope is to save Valiant, and to do that we need Marvin.”
“Okay.” Adrienne stepped toward me, her long blonde hair fluttering. I reached to take her in my arms but she put out a hand, stopping me. “No. Not yet. I’m still…”
“Whatever.” I moved back and turned to walk away. “After we get Marvin, he can help me find and deal with Sokolov. Only Marvin understands this technology of the Ancients. Once we’ve handled that situation, I’ll prove to you those vids were faked. I haven’t been with anyone but you.” With that I left her standing there, forlornly rubbing her arms.
Served her right for not believing in me.
Once Greyhound was ready, we cut loose and set course for Marvin’s reported location. Valiant assured me the improved brain would be able to fly us just fine, so I decided to armor up with Kwon rather than sit in the cockpit.
I did watch the screens from behind the empty pilot’s chair, as well as feeding my HUD with an overall navigation view. As we descended, the smooth golden planet resolved itself into the illusion of cubes stacked upon cubes with windows distributed randomly all over the place. Marvin’s icon continued to pulse, but our optics showed nothing but an empty space. Something was transmitting on the quantum radio, but it wasn’t Marvin.
Greyhound bucked from time to time like an airliner in turbulence, but I was pretty certain it wasn’t from air. The golden planet had a thin atmosphere, but it was barely detectable and certainly not breathable.
We landed on fusion engines because the repellers weren’t reliable. The gravity waves they created seemed to reflect unpredictably off the stardust and were more trouble than they were worth. I directed Greyhound to set down in the next plaza over, not wanting to fry everything at the icon’s location.
“Time to climb,” I said as we squeezed out of the airlock and stared at the cubes forming walls around us. The stardust seemed slightly slippery under my feet but not unduly so. I fired a grappling hook up to the top of the nearest but couldn’t get it to grab.
“I got a better idea,” Kwon said. “I’ll toss you up to the top. You drop a line.” He squatted, offering his armored hands cupped to hold my boot.
“Worth a try,” I said, and after readying myself, hopped and planted my foot in Kwon’s hands. He threw me upward like a Scottish pole-hurler and I flailed in space until I landed on the roof of the cube. I skidded to a stop just short of a window set like a skylight in its flat surface.
Backing away carefully, I dropped a line down and a moment later had Kwon up with me.
“Watch that hole,” I said, leading him around the gaping black emptiness. Moments later we overlooked the plaza where our HUDs said Marvin should be.
Nothing.
“I’ll lower you down, boss,” Kwon said. He clipped a line on my suit. “I can stay up here to haul you up if we need to.”
“Good thinking.” Soon I was bumping down the side of the golden cube. At the bottom, I turned in all directions, looking. My HUD identified the only window visible as the source of Marvin’s transmission.
Approaching closely, I saw something sticking out of the window. A rivulet of smart metal ran down the side and puddled in a mass the size of a large coin.
“This is it,” I told Kwon. “Marvin left an antenna that runs through the window to the maze. Hold on, let me try him.”
Patching through Greyhound’s quantum radio, I tried to reach Marvin.
“Marvin here, Captain Riggs. I am pleased to hear from you.”
“Marvin, what year is it?”
“Answering such elementary questions is a waste of my neural circuitry.”
“Just indulge me. What year? What date?”
Marvin confirmed the right year and month but quoted yesterday’s date. That could be due to the effect we already knew about that screwed with his time sense just as it had Sokolov’s.
“Marvin, did you receive a transmission about twenty years ago claiming to be from a grown-up me in the future?”
Marvin remained silent, though I was certain he was still on the line. “Marvin?”
“I’m not at liberty to answer that question,” he said finally.
“That’s okay. You just did.” Obviously, if he hadn’t heard from me he’d have said no. Maybe he thought he would screw up the universal continuum if he let me know there was something that could communicate through time. The implications were staggering, but I had no time to worry about them right now.
Ha. No time.
“Marvin, I need you to get the hell out of that multidimensional maze and help me free Valiant from some kind of force field.”
“Force fields projected from a planetary surface up to an orbiting ship are a theoretical impossibility,” Marvin replied. “The power consumption would be equivalent to that of a small, dim star.”
“Yeah, well, an impossibility has Valiant in its grip, and you of all people should know that advanced technology eventually makes the impossible possible. Now quit quibbling and tell us how to get you out of the maze.”
“What if I don’t want to come out? What if I like it in here? There are all sorts of amazing things to see.”
I wasn’t certain what approach to take. Order him as a Star Force member under my command? Threaten him with taking away Greyhound? Promising him something seemed to be the best bet, but what did I have that he wanted? What could Marvin like better than wandering aroun
d inside a huge robotic device of the Ancients?
“Do you want to stay in there forever?”
There was a pause, then: “Perhaps.”
“What if I told you Sokolov is trying to blow it up?”
“Blow what up?”
“The maze, the Slab, the Square, the entire planet for all I know. He transported nukes into the interior.”
That stopped Marvin cold for one speechless moment. When he spoke again, he sounded worried.
“Captain Riggs, you have to stop him. The results could be catastrophic.”
“I’d love to, but I need your help. Are you going to come out now?”
“I will try.”
I stepped well back from the window. A moment later, Marvin popped through. At least it looked like Marvin, but he was only about knee-high.
-18-
I stared at the dog-sized robot that had exited the window in front of me. “Marvin, did you reproduce, or did you shrink yourself?”
The mini-Marvin looked around, cameras craning in all directions. “By your question and the apparent dimensions of my surroundings it seems I have been reduced in size. However, internal sensors confirm my mass is unchanged.”
“That’s weird, but I don’t really care. It’s your neural circuitry I need most.”
“My mind remains intact.” Marvin said. He waved his mini-tentacles. “However, I will need assistance in departing the area.
I could see what he meant. With tentacles only a few feet long, climbing would be difficult. “Okay, I’ll carry you.” I reached down to pick him up, but he barely budged. My suit’s servos whined, I staggered and was forced to let go of him.
“I still mass more than three tons,” he said.
“Fine.” I detached my line and clipped it onto Marvin. “Haul away, Kwon.” Once Marvin was on the roof of the cube, Kwon pulled me up to join them. From there it was just a short jaunt to Greyhound. For a moment I had visions of the ship going missing in this crazy place, but no, we found it where it was supposed to be.
Seeing Greyhound reminded me of something. “Marvin, what’s the menu item ‘Cloak’ on Greyhound’s menu do?”
“It was just a placeholder for a project I’m working on. It’s not operational—yet.”
“Damn. Seems like it would be useful.”
“Agreed.”
Kwon lowered Marvin first, then me, finally jumping down himself with a massive clang of metal on metal. Inside the ship, Marvin swarmed ahead.
“Oh, Marvin,” I said, “I forgot to tell you—”
“What have you done to my vessel?” Marvin asked, scuttling toward us among the machinery.
“I installed a new brain. I needed it to help run the ship.”
“The ship operates more efficiently when I run it myself.”
“You weren’t available,” I pointed out. “Don’t subsume this brain in your own neural circuits, either. Greyhound needs to be usable by someone other than you, and that means leaving it with a working brainbox. You’ll have to do like the rest of us and find a way to get along with your new crewmember.”
Marvin’s body language brightened. “Yes. An excellent idea. It can be my first crewmember.”
“She, Marvin. Ships are always she. At least, human ships are.”
Kwon snorted. “Hey Marvin, she can be your girlfriend! You said you wanted to have kids!” Kwon laughed with huffing bursts of sound.
“Your analogy fails in many ways, Sergeant Major Kwon,” Marvin replied. “However, I will comply with your orders, Captain Riggs.”
“Thank you, Captain Marvin,” I said, trying to keep him in a good mood. “Now can we get our asses off this metal world and back to Valiant?”
We lifted on fusion engines, our hot blast affecting the stardust of the surface not in the least.
“Marvin,” I asked on the way, “did the Ancients snatch you off Greyhound?”
“Why do you ask?”
“We found a camera and tentacle end severed cleanly, as if something got most but not all of you.”
“That seems like a logical explanation.”
“You don’t know how you got into the maze again?”
“No.”
“You’re a lot of help.”
“I am well aware of my abilities. I have no theory as to how they achieved my abduction, but I can suggest why they would attempt it. I believe the Ancients were so impressed with me they decided to investigate my structure in detail.”
I gave up on Marvin for the moment. A short hour later we docked with Valiant.
“Marvin,” I said, “your top priority is to figure out how to break the ship loose from whatever is holding her. Use some of that alien tech I know you salvaged from the Square if you have to, but coordinate with Sakura before you try anything drastic. She’s the ranking officer. Kwon and I are taking a pinnace down and going after Sokolov. We’ll leave Greyhound here so you can get reacquainted with her.”
“Yes, Captain Riggs.” Marvin saluted me with a mini-tentacle and then scurried back into his ship while we boarded Valiant.
We snapped our armor into power-racks to top off our charges, and I left Kwon there in the armory with orders to assemble all the gear he thought we’d need. Then I went to find Sakura.
She and Adrienne had a cutting laser set up on the deck next to Valiant’s spinal I-beam. Marks on it delineated a section about ten feet long.
“Hold off on cutting that out,” I told the ladies as I strolled onto the engineering deck with a smug smile. “We got Marvin back, and he’s going to work on breaking Valiant loose. Keep this—” I gestured at their gear “—as a backup plan. Give him as long as you can. Chief Sakura, you’re senior so you’re in command in my absence. Oh, and by the way, Marvin’s been miniaturized.”
The two women looked at me like I’d grown an extra head.
“Miniaturized?” Adrienne asked.
“Yeah. No time to explain. Kwon and I are taking a pinnace down to find Sokolov.”
Sakura pressed her lips together, but I couldn’t tell if her expression meant disapproval or worry. Adrienne stepped forward to hug me, a pleasant surprise. I tried to kiss her, but she turned her cheek to my lips and then broke the clinch.
“Take care of yourself,” she said as she stepped back.
“You too, honey,” I replied, playing the good guy as much as I could. Hell, I was a good guy, but right now in her eyes I was guilty until proven innocent. I turned on my heel and hurried down to the armory.
I was surprised to find Marvin there messing with our armor. “I am installing an RQTEA in both of your suits,” he said before I could ask.
“A quantum radio?”
“Why must you always give things nicknames?”
“Because they’re easier to remember and say. Besides, I hate acronyms.”
“Then why did you join the military?”
“Touché. Can you install one of these on Valiant?”
“Easily.”
“Then do it.”
Marvin swarmed all over our suits like a metal octopus, his tentacles moving faster than my eyes could follow. “I am also installing dimensional stabilizers to fend off the worst effects of the maze. Their operation is really quite interesting. By—”
“Yeah, thanks, but save the tech-speak for Hoon. And put that lobster to work, too.”
“Of course. He’s very competent and agreeable for a biotic.”
“Hoon? Agreeable?” I laughed. “You guys BFFs now?”
“I will tell you when I have a chance to reference your idiom. In any case, as long as you stay in your armor you should be anchored to our time and space.” Marvin finished in a few minutes and then scurried off without a goodbye.
I turned to Kwon. “Okay, big man. Let’s go confront Captain Bligh.”
“I thought it was Sokolov?”
I should have known not to make literary references when Kwon was around. “Never mind. Suit up.”
“Shouldn’t we get the Ra
ptors out of hibernation and take them along? Just in case?”
“How do you think Gunny Taksin and the rest of your marines will react if we show up trying to make our case by force?”
“They’ll damn well do what I say. What you say, I mean, sir.”
“Then we don’t need alien troops to back us up.”
“Hmm. Okay.”
I led the way to the launch bay, and we boarded the remaining pinnace. Fortunately the boat’s cockpit was made to take someone in armor if necessary.
“Welcome, Captain Riggs,” the boat said as I maneuvered behind the controls.
“Hello, pinnace. Prep for immediate launch. Once clear of Valiant, disable routine use of repellers and all gravity control unless I authorize it.”
“Options set.”
The little brain slid us smoothly out of the launch bay. Once we were far enough away, I took over the manual controls and aimed us at the location of the other pinnace, which was grounded partway around the golden planet. The flight was a bit rough with no repellers or grav-plates to smooth the bumps, but Kwon seemed to enjoy the old-school feel. “Just like an orbital combat drop,” he whooped as he jounced on flexed knees.
“Glad you’re having fun.” When we got near the surface, I could see the other pinnace grounded and standing on its tail like an old-fashioned rocket ship. Hansen had probably piloted them in as I had using engines and thrusters alone.
I wrestled the ship down letting the brainbox control the last fifty feet as I was afraid I’d damage the landing gear, or worse, the engine nozzles. This boat wasn’t really made to land this way. Normally it grounded on its skids, rather like an old-fashioned helicopter or airplane.
Climbing down the auxiliary ladder, I looked around, and then jumped to the ground.
“Got a puzzle now,” I said to Kwon as he lowered a bundle of gear on a line. I pointed. “Three windows.”
“Maybe check the other pinnace for a clue,” Kwon said.
“A clue, huh? Is this a detective story?”
“No shit, Sherlock.” Kwon laughed.