A Memory in the Black (The New Aeneid Cycle)

by Michael G. Munz

  Marette refused to believe that it was hopeless. After all, they had managed to interface with the computer in the first place. They were not powerless. They were not stupid. They could learn. She would not accept that the data was useless. Lost lives must count for something!

  ESA had disappeared—and by all indications killed—the hackers to keep their secrets. The news reached her via an AoA communiqué, and Marette had nearly destroyed her quarters upon reading it. The hackers had posed no real threat. Their deaths were senseless! Needless! Wrong! Marc's survival was the one thing that let her rebottle her rage enough to face her ESA comrades with a cool exterior that belied nothing of her knowledge of events of which she was not supposed to know.

  But she refused to let it be for nothing. If she could not wring some modicum of meaning from the data personally, she could at least refuse to back off from those who could.

  It was five days after Namura's death that they deciphered the map.

  Though not the Rosetta Stone for which they had hoped, it did reveal something of the interior of the structure. Pathways, hallways, chambers—all appeared to be detailed, quantitatively if not qualitatively. Of special interest was an immense, centrally located chamber adjacent to the few areas they had previously entered. They soon tried to gain access to it via the black material's touch interface, working under the watch of mini-turrets and Geiger cannons to protect against the security drones that once killed an entire team. Coded sequences and symbols found in the captured data were brought to bear, but to no avail. There were no appreciable results for nearly a day.

  It was then that they'd heard the rumbling. It lasted twenty seconds, something distantly faint yet still felt against the boots of everyone within the structure. Then it stopped as abruptly as it started, with no indication of its cause. No change was apparent in any of the explored chambers. No security drones appeared. No other sounds were heard.

  It was a mystery that remained unsolved until a seismic scan near a still-buried end of the ship revealed a change. A wedge-shaped hatch had folded out from the structure and pushed soil away as it opened.

  They had a new point of entry.

  Marette descended the ladder that rose up the wall of the three-meter tunnel they had carved out to reach the opened section. The ship's hatch, folded upward, now formed the ceiling of a horizontal passage through the loose soil, beneath which a seven-meter walk led to the ship's new opening. Reaching the bottom, she checked the data recorder on her suit's computer, unsure if it would even function properly. Electromagnetic interference in the immediate area prevented communication with the surface, a fact discovered when they had sent the remote inside. It had rolled halfway down the passage when they promptly lost contact.

  Marette called ahead to the tech in the suit just ahead of her. "Can you read me, Officer?"

  "That's an affirmative, Chief. Looks like we're in a bubble. I can't raise the complex." Chief Petty Officer Levy stopped at the opening, turned, and pointed inside. "There's the remote. Looks like a dead end in there, ma'am."

  Marette advanced to stand beside him near the edge of the opening. The slate grey of the outer hull continued inside. It formed a smooth, conical passage uncovered by the black material save for a small, rectangular space on the curve of the left wall.

  It was the first time they had encountered an area without the material, and Marette wondered at the significance of its near absence here. The tunnel itself led only to a dead end formed by a grid of openings each barely large enough for a flattened hand to pass through. Midway down the tunnel sat the remote.

  "Might some sort of venting system," Levy said. It was an assessment with which Marette found herself in agreement. Did that have to do with the lack of black material? They had found no non-lunar debris outside the tunnel. If it was a venting system, then what had it vented?

  "See what you can do with that panel," she ordered, and then turned to another tech waiting at the base of the surface ladder. She gave him a hand signal to indicate that they were going inside, and he relayed it in turn up to the surface. Limited by space, only Marette and Levy would be entering for the moment. Ordinarily, Marette would be safely outside, directing the entry team from there, but the blackout made that impossible.

  In some small part, she was thankful for that. Nearly every life lost in this venture was taken while she was safely elsewhere, observing. Directing. It was how it should be, she knew, how it must be in a chain of command. Her duty as one of the Agents of Aeneas further underscored her need to remain safe. Yet shouldn't she shoulder the same risks as those she commanded? The blackout gave her the excuse she needed to satisfy that. Whatever would be found in that tunnel, the AoA would need a representative. This time she could not do that from outside.

  The day was coming when the AoA would take over the site completely. Perhaps whatever they found here would be vital enough to bring that day sooner.

  She followed Levy down the tunnel to the square of black material.

  "The panel seems dead, Chief." Levy slid his hand over the blackness with the light touch that would normally activate the interface. "It's not responding."

  Marette shifted the weight of the recoilless rifle she carried and turned her attention to the vent holes. "Keep trying. We have not seen one so small before. Possibly it works in a new fashion."

  "They've never been picky about lighting up wherever we've touched—oh!"

  Marette turned. A transparent panel was folding away from where it sat previously unnoticed atop the midnight surface. The cover became perpendicular to the wall, then slid itself inside as the black material swelled forward a fraction of a centimeter. "I pressed harder. It just started moving, like a catch release. Protective covering, maybe?"

  "To protect from whatever it is that is vented here," Marette finished. They had discovered early on that the material was sensitive to radiation. The cover disappeared into the wall completely. "I want an analysis of that cover plate if we get another chance."

  "Yes, ma'am. The interface seems normal now, though there's a few symbols here I don't recognize."

  "Let the new ones alone for now. See if it will accept any of our opening sequences."

  She waited as Levy accessed menus and submenus that they only half understood. It stood to reason in Marette's mind that an access panel in such a place outside any vessel could grant passage to the interior. She only hoped that it would be triggered by one of the previously discovered sequences.

  The first few Levy tried were useless, lacking each time for a key symbol to touch. Marette eyed the vents once more. If it were her design, venting anything dangerous would be impossible when the panel was being accessed. But who knew if whatever creatures built the ship were subject to the same vulnerabilities? She stood with the rifle trained on the vents, aware of how useless the weapon would probably be against anything likely to issue from them.

  "I think I may have something, Chief."

  Levy's voice brought her attention back to the panel as he touched a symbol. For a moment, the borders of the panel flashed violet. Seconds later, the tunnel hatch swung down, sweeping fallen debris into the tunnel and sealing them inside. With suit lights shining dimly against the interior, they both waited and tried to prepare for what might occur next.

  Marette became aware of a faint hissing. "Check your readings. Is that atmosphere?" Her weapon remained firmly pointed toward the vents.

  "Affirmative. All the same, I'd prefer to keep my helmet on, long as we might be standing in an exhaust vent. Nearly standard pressure. . . now."

  The surface they were standing on moved. The entire tunnel was rotating to uncover a seamless opening beside the panel. Marette turned her weapon on it as both she and Levy shifted their footing against the tunnel's motion. When it finally stopped, they were staring at a rectangular hatchway that led a short distance into a small compartment. Marette crept forward, able to make out a shaft leading from the compartment down into the ship. They held th
ere at her order, weapons trained on the shaft and waiting to see what might rise up to greet them. Nothing came, but the fact remained: they were cut off from the surface.

  "Officer," she said finally, "can you reopen the outer hatch?"

  "I'd right better try."

  "Excuséz moi?"

  "Do my best, ma'am."

  Levy returned his attention to the panel as Marette tried contacting the surface. "Omicron, this is Clarion, do you receive? Clarion to Omicron Complex, respond please." There was little reason to believe that the interference would be gone with the closing of the tunnel, but it was worth checking. She waited a moment in silence before abandoning the possibility.

  Beside her, Levy worked at the symbols on the panel, slowly navigating alien submenus, when it abruptly went blank. He tapped it experimentally. "Well what the hell."

  "What did you do?"

  "Not a thing. Nothing that should just shut it off."

  "We have found no sequence to shut it off, Officer. Did you use a new one?"

  "No, ma'am. I tried the one that rotated the tunnel, then I tried the one that we think opened this section in the first place. Midway through, it just. . ." He motioned demonstrably to the screen, and then tapped it a few more times. "Bugger doesn't want to come back."

  Doesn't want to?

  Marette inched closer to the shaft and peered down. Unremarkable but for rungs that jutted out from the side, it dropped a good ten meters into another chamber. Descending the shaft was an option. Holding back for those outside to figure out how to reopen the hatch was another. She frowned. The idea of Levy and her moving alone through the ship did not appeal. Remaining trapped inside and waiting for rescue, while arguably safer, did not appeal, either. And there was the additional possibility of some unknown substance venting through the chamber with its next opening.

  "Officer," she said, "we are going in."

  They began their descent. Rung by rung, they lowered themselves, suits barely clearing the diameter of the walls around them. Levy led the way, as per procedure. Marette came after, regretting her decision to follow that procedure with every other step and trying to ready herself for the next disaster that might befall them.

  The spacing of the rungs felt too close together, perhaps designed for a creature of slightly smaller stature. To her relief, they reached the bottom without incident and found themselves in a narrow passage. Like nearly everywhere else, the walls were coated in black. They reflected the suit lights at eerie angles. The passage was grim, empty, and deathly silent.

  "Ma'am?"

  "Officer?"

  "Suppose we can get the lads back at the complex to work on figuring the code for the lights in here soon?"

  Marette smiled in spite of herself. "So noted, Officer. Can you locate our position on the map?" She waited as he checked his screen. The passage led forward several meters and disappeared around the corner. There was no sign of movement.

  "Based on where we estimated the hatch, I think so."

  "I want the shortest route to the explored areas. The fewer doors we must open, the better."

  "Aye, ma'am. There ought to be a chamber up around that corner. If we can get in there, there's another hallway branching off it that's our best bet."

  "D'accord. Let us try." She checked her suit readout to verify Paragon's air still showed as breathable, then unsealed her helmet and slid the faceplate away. "Depressurize your suit. We should conserve air."

  Levy acknowledged and obeyed. They began their walk through the dark.

  Their footfalls sounded lightly, their impacts absorbed by the black material along the deck. As they neared the corner they became aware of a dim, bluish light ahead. Rounding the corner carefully, their searchlights played across the depth of a new chamber.

  They stood on the left side of a narrow balcony that ran the width of the room. A low wall formed the balcony's railing, atop which was a broad, angled surface that, like much of the room, was covered in the black material. The angled surface was at a height that—while perhaps a little low—gave the impression of being some sort of control console. Compounding this impression was the presence of a small, glowing oval, the source of the bluish light, which sat waiting for them in the console's center.

  Though the light was the first thing that caught Marette's attention, the chamber's lower level soon drew her interest. It stretched beyond the balcony level a likely twenty meters to the rear of the chamber. Five strange domes protruded from the lower level's floor. Coated in the black material, they loosely surrounded a slightly larger, squat object in the center. Nearly two meters tall and five meters wide, the object resembled nothing upon first glance so much as a great four-legged spider. Slate grey metal jutted with odd geometric protuberances shaped the object, and though the rest of the chamber remained uniformly coated in the black material, only a single thin strip of each boxy "leg" displayed the stuff.

  In the center of the object sat what first appeared to be a large, thick disk, though once Marette trained her light on it, she saw it to be shaped instead like a great cut diamond. Though the base had the dark metal sheen of the legs surrounding it, her searchlight glinted off of the flat top to show a surface of deepest green.

  "This is. . . amazing. . ." Levy whispered. "What is it?"

  They stood a while longer atop the balcony, taking in the sight while the blue light pulsed. For nearly a year Marette had been involved in this operation. The awe, the initial spirit-testing revelation that another civilization existed somewhere amongst the stars had gradually faded under the everyday pressures that she faced, overshadowed by the deaths that resulted. Up to that moment, all Paragon had afforded of itself was a distant sense of something hidden behind uniform black hallways and abstract computer systems. But there, in the previously unseen size and features of the chamber, the reminder of what they were standing in brought a return of that faded awe.

  "People died for this," she whispered.

  "Chief?"

  Marette shook off the awe again. They were still trapped. She ran her light along the perimeter of the room, across the far end where the chamber's ceiling sloped into a downward curvature that reached the floor, and then back along the vertical sidewalls up to the opposite corner of the balcony. "I do not see any exits."

  Levy followed her light with his and then checked his screen. "There ought to be one along the far wall up near us."

  Marette nodded. Most of the passages they had found were hidden beneath the black material and revealed themselves only when the proper sequence was activated. She looked back to the object at the center of the room, then to the pulsing blue oval. No, they should find a way out first. They needed to secure their position. The oval continued to pulse. Why was it doing that? What had they found?

  Later. "See if you can open the door."

  Marette followed Levy to the opposite corner of the balcony where the door should be and then turned back to keep watch on the chamber. She could not let her awe blind her to the dangers and her responsibility to Levy. Previous encounters with the security drones had come silently and with little preamble.

  Yet there were no drones. There was nothing to confront but pulsing blue light, the large, hunched object, and its cadre of black domes.

  "Chief, I can't get a response. I can't even bring up the interface." Levy pushed his hand against several places on the wall to show her. The black material remained inactive. "Nothing."

  Marette tried her own touch on the adjoining wall but received the same lack of result. "Keep trying until you find an area that works."

  "What about. . .?" Levy nodded toward the flashing oval. "Could be it activates the section."

  "It may, oui. It may not. Check the walls first, Officer."

  Levy did so, making his way across the rear of the chamber balcony and thoroughly testing the surface while Marette covered him. Nowhere did his touch have an effect. He tried along the slanted paneling on the balcony railing and swept the entire surface sa
ve for the immediate area around the flashing. Again, there was no response.

  "Down below?" he asked.

  Marette frowned and eyed the lifeless black domes with suspicion. "What do you scan down there?"

  "Very faint energy readings, but nothing hazardous. None that I can tell from here, at least. That crystal in the center, it's definitely not something I've seen before."

  "Whatever that is, I would guess it is for something greater than opening a simple door." What was it?

  She returned her attention to the blue pulsing. Barely larger than the circumference of a human hand, it begged to be tried, yet the more she considered such a course of action, the more wrong it seemed. Or was it simply the pervasive mental image of each dome opening to release a drone? She stepped closer. "There are no other exits indicated? Nothing on the lower level?"

  "No, ma'am."

  That was it, then. Better to take action than fall victim to indecision. She motioned toward the oval. "I am going to try this. Make yourself ready."

  With a nod, Levy slung his sensor equipment and readied his weapon. Though research on the salvaged drones had helped ESA to improve a defense against the killing machines, there was only so much the two of them could do against them on their own. One drone at a time they might stand against. Five they could not. With a final glance at the waiting hemispheres below, she pressed her hand to the blue.

  The result was immediate. Across the panel, lighted symbols bloomed in a glowing symphony of color along the previously black space. The symbols and readouts continued across the walls in the lower section, lighting fully before falling to a more subdued state. The black domes themselves came to life moments later. As symbols began to ring their lower sections, Marette watched the black material atop each begin to peel back. Her breathing quickened and her fingers tensed on the trigger as a long cylindrical object rose out of the top of each dome. The objects started to pulse in sequence, emitting flashes of clean, white light that grew more and more rapid until they blurred into a constant, brilliant glow.