* * *
He had been arguing with a lieutenant manning an astrophysics console. “Did you check your numbers?” he asked.
“Three times,” Lieutenant Boucher informed him, sounding hurt by the question. “I can run a new check if you’ll let me swing an auxiliary array back toward Earth for an accurate observation.”
“Do it.” Williams had no time for fragile sensibilities or bruised egos. Two gravities of constant acceleration for twelve hours and then a like decel period should have dropped them neatly into orbit around the planet. So Darcie’s announcement only four hours into deceleration that the gas giant was not near as large as they’d thought, but in fact was approaching fast, made for a large discrepancy. Three million kilometers, even by the incredible distances covered by spaceflight, was not a rounding error.
“Confirmed,” she finally said. “Distance to Earth, based on direct observation, eighteen million four hundred sixty-two thousand kilometers. And change.”
Drake called Williams on the link. “Our flight profile is just as clear, Major. Taking into account velocity and time, we’ve covered only fifteen million klicks.”
Nystolov frowned. “Numbers do not lie. Someone is wrong.”
No time to fight it out now, thought Randall Williams. “What would it take to make orbit?” he asked Drake.
Paul Drake shook his head on the small video screen. “It would take several hours of hard decel and then a new approach path. Do we have six hours or better?”
They could have, Williams knew, the desire to make good on the original plan warring with his desire to continue on to the asteroid. In any other situation, he might have ordered a return trip to Earth in order to verify the anomaly. But this was not just any situation. “Bring us by close as you can, Captain. Coordinate with Lieutenant Boucher and head us on out to the asteroid. We will make all readings we can during the single pass.”
With only video imagers pointing back toward Earth and on toward the system’s solar body, Williams almost missed the changes. They were subtle at first, the barest fluctuation in the Maw’s outline. The instruments warned him, catching his trained eye from one monitor. When he noticed an arm reach deeper into the Inner Circle, he shouted for an immediate shift of all instrumentation.
“The Eye, it’s altering. Get the sensors realigned now!”
The planet was forgotten as the best imagers on the Icarus refocused toward the solar body. It pulsed in brightness, waving thick tendrils around as if alive. Lieutenant Boucher called out readings of increased gamma radiation, akin to the actions of solar flares. And anyone could see on the screens that light intensity was greater than before.
Several of the Maw’s arms lengthened until Williams could only guess at the extent of their embrace. Two hundred million kilometers? Five hundred? There were planets in the Inner Ring, they knew that. What of them? One arm continued to extend. Could it be reaching out from the Central Ring? They still had no firm grasp of the Maw’s size or distance, only the minimum expected based on two hundred years of data observing their old sun. Williams had a sinking feeling that none of the old rules would apply here.
“There is no shift in temperature,” Brygan Nystolov announced quietly.
“What do you mean?” Williams asked. “We have a surge in radiation.” For all the strangeness of the Maelstrom, basic physics remained basic physics. Didn’t it? But Nystolov was a Mars explorer. With the red planet’s thin excuse for an atmosphere, solar radiation had to be watched closely. He would not make such a declaration without evidence.
Williams walked over to Nystolov’s station and looked at the numbers. Illumination was up, and the radiation graph spiked heavily on gamma counts. “That sensor cannot be functioning,” Williams said. “Switch to another unit.”
“I already have. All read same.”
Williams switched them over himself, checking each one. Then he bent over a different console and checked them all again. That sinking feeling came over him again.
“You can’t divorce heat from radiation,” he argued. “It isn’t possible.” He tried to prove it, but the outcome never changed. It was while doing that, switching between the Icarus’s various sensing devices, that he caught the first telltale signs of a new anomaly. A small mass, almost in line between the Icarus and the Maw. He swept it with active sensors, and was rewarded with a reading and a weak pulse of energy back. Then another. A series of pulses.
“There’s something else out there,” he announced. And he thought he knew what it was.
* * *
Williams had guessed right. That initial, weak pulse was the largest of the three crystalline formations, reacting to his active sweep in the same way the smaller crystal forest on Luna had to their radio comms. It still pulsed steady, low-amplitude transmissions of the same frequency as the first formation. The other two remained dead, which puzzled Williams. He would have guessed that the pulses from one would trigger the others. He mentally filed that away as another in the growing list of mysteries to solve. He stared at the Maw, its physical activity becoming less comprehensible. Mysteries enough to keep him busy for the rest of his life, if it came to that.
“What do you think?” he asked his two companions.
Drake was quick to answer. “I don’t like the idea of bringing any of that crystal aboard the Icarus.”
Of course not. Williams had not forgotten Drake’s initial reaction to the crystalline forest on Luna. “Would you like to register any particular objection?” he asked.
Drake stared at the screen, then said simply, “I don’t trust it.”
“We’ll need more than instinct here, Captain Drake. Brygan?”
The bearlike Neo-Soviet took even longer than Paul Drake to answer. “I think I agree with Captain Drake,” he said at last. “Still too many unknowns about crystals.” Then he shrugged. “And these are moving on path near parallel to Terra. Recovery operations would be easy to accomplish at later date, while access to asteroid is only temporary.”
Williams thought this response was out of character for Nystolov. It showed too much caution, not enough curiosity—even if his logic regarding accessibility of the various sites made good sense. Paul Drake did not react at all to the support thrown him by Nystolov. And neither of his companions had made particular note of the thickness of the smaller formation.
Williams now wondered if he might be able to recover large pieces from beneath the ruined landscape on Luna where Nystolov’s ship had smashed the first formation. Most of it had shattered from the impact, but the team hadn’t excavated more than ten meters before their departure.
He frowned, considering Nystolov’s argument. He knew it wouldn’t change his mind, but it still deserved consideration. In the end, he decided that the crystalline formations were the one phenomenon that had so far responded to proper scientific investigation. Apply test, recover consistent data. Some properties eluded him, but enough clues pointed him in the right direction that he was sure to discover their meaning. It was a mystery he stood a good chance of solving.
“I think I will insist on this, Captain Drake. I want to recover a sample while we have the chance.” That certainly was true in most respects, but like Brygan Nystolov, Williams didn’t have to name all his reasons.
* * *
Brygan Nystolov counted it a minor victory that he was included in the EVA party sent out to recover a large portion of the crystalline formation. He’d been sure that Paul Drake would override Williams’s consent, especially when he learned that Drake himself would lead the team. It was only after the captain had Brygan tested on null-gravity maneuvers that he welcomed him to the team.
The null-grav competence came from years of experience in light-gravity operations, owing to the simple fact that Neo-Soviet spacecraft were not equipped with artificial gravity, as were Union vessels. Any spaceflight tended to require a great deal of zero-gravity time, unless they involved the high-velocity accel and decel runs that the Union exploration
units seemed to enjoy so much.
Nystolov still had a hard time adjusting to the strange spacescape. Hardly any stars, though here in space one could make out more of the nontwinkling lights reflecting off the planets of the Maelstrom. And from inside the Styx Nebula, he saw its icy blue field spread over a large portion of the Terra-side heavens like some frozen cosmic storm waiting to be thawed and unleashed on the unsuspecting planets.
The space-walking crew swam out on long tethers that connected to the Icarus. The ship had moved in above the larger crystalline formation, matching its plane and helping to shield the walkers from the still-high radiation count. They moved about on tiny jets of air, then fastened on to the crystalline latticework and clambered to positions to begin cutting and hammering away.
Williams had wanted them to cut into the smallest of the three formations. Nystolov had calmly argued for the largest one, which was already pulsing out a signal. His reasons were easily put forward. The smallest formation was the only one Williams might hope eventually to capture and take back to Luna intact—though Nystolov hoped that did not happen. Also, by working on the active formation, they could study the effect of physical damage on the signal degradation, if any.
Williams had liked that idea, always one to go for maximum effect from minimal testing. It had appealed to Drake as well, though Nystolov guessed that had more to do with the man’s discomfort over an active formation than a conscious decision.
Brygan Nystolov had held back from the expedition leaders his true reason for wanting to destroy the larger formation. The fact that he had an idea what these crystalline formations were.
The final clue had been seeing the three crystalline formations traveling along parallel tracks in what could only be termed a triangular configuration. No relative rotation between them. Silent, as no doubt the crystal forest on Luna had been before he smashed it. And then that weak pulse which started in a formation whenever subject to energy patterns that suggested a strong power source or modulated communications. It all spoke of a designed purpose.
It spoke of intelligence.
And that worried him.
“This is Captain Drake,” he heard over the comms. “All units report in their progress.” Drake’s voice came in tinny and distant through the transmission. Almost like a distant echo came Williams reporting a surge in the formation’s pulse.
Drake came on again. “You still with us, Nystolov?”
“At work, Captain Drake.” And then some. Whenever possible, Brygan reached into the deep latticework and smashed as much crystal as he could. The shards spilling out around his position might look a bit odd next to the more precise work of the Union force, but then the Union judged the Neo-Soviets crude by their standards anyway. It was a risk worth taking.
He wanted that transmission stopped.
He knew Randall Williams would not spot the danger. Partly he could take credit for that. By trying to avoid the suspicion that he had any paramilitary background, he had continually tried to divert the major from the military implications of their investigations. Besides that he was sure Williams was being driven to distraction by the bizarre nature of the Maelstrom, which bothered even Brygan. Faced with a seemingly impossible phenomenon, Williams buried himself in the details of observation and experimentation.
These formations screamed of military function. Brygan knew Williams would ignore that in his pursuit of the scientific method. Drake, being a military man, might have seen it, if only he’d had more scientific curiosity. Again, it was a matter of being too focused on one side of the equation.
And now Brygan Nystolov was trapped in his own lie. If he tried to draw attention to military matters, he risked discovery. He didn’t like withholding his suspicions, but he had to keep his secret if he wanted to maintain his cover story. So far the Union had accepted him, and had accepted him with full status as a staff member.
He didn’t know if he owed them anything, if keeping silent was justified. If they hadn’t scavenged the data from Sputnik-23, they wouldn’t even be in this area of space. But then, he wouldn’t either, gathering information he could share with the Neo-Soviet High Command. And that was his ultimate purpose here, wasn’t it?
He’d never forgotten the day General Leonov interviewed the Mental, but his indignation had taken a backseat to the growing crisis of Terra’s induction to the Maelstrom. Now he had to ask himself just how deep did those feelings of outrage run? Deep enough to question his purpose with Union forces, that much was certain.
While pulling himself out of a hole he had carved, Brygan suddenly noticed flaws in his tether in a number of places. A strange half-melted look. He tested the strength and found it adequate, but he still wasn’t satisfied. He tried rubbing the spots on the edge of some nearby crystals, but they didn’t cut.
He held the tether, thinking. It looked as though something had cut or nicked it. It was possible he just hadn’t noticed it till now, but it was second nature for him to inspect his equipment. He looked at his tether again and found a new weakened spot where he had rested it against the edge without rubbing.
A cold sweat gripped Brygan. He found a fresh stretch and held it unmoving against an edge, double-checking the process. After thirty seconds he found it eaten half through. Now he checked his space suit, what he could see of it. Fortunately, they’d let him bring his own from the Kolyma, and by removing some insulation and reworking the air recyclers he had better range of motion than anyone in the average Union suit. Now he found several half-melted spots creasing his knees and shins, across his waist and chest, and over his arms. He had sealed chambers protecting a loss of atmosphere from a limb, but if his torso had lost pressure he would have died a quick and silent death.
Silent!
“All units report in saechas—at once!” he ordered, bypassing Paul Drake as he rushed to avert a possible catastrophe.
Whether from the urgency in his own voice, or their conditioning to respond, the Union force checked in by numbers. Three and Eight dropped from the rolls.
“Nystolov! What are you playing at?” Drake sounded distressed, though there was no way of saying whether because of Brygan’s assumption of a command role or his men’s following it.
“Three and Eight?” Brygan called. Silence. “You’ve lost two men, Captain. Everyone get away from the crystals. Saechas! Now!” He positioned himself on the flat facets of a large crystal growth, angling around to leap back for the Icarus.
“I’m loose! Help, Captain Drake!”
Finding the flailing man was not difficult. He tumbled around in a bizarre, twisting motion over the formation, venting a mist of crystals into space, the mist coming either from his suit or the container he used to power his movements. The man could still talk—and so still breathe—but the fact that he couldn’t move told Brygan that the crystals had cut into his propulsion system. Several of his comrades leapt out for him, trying to catch him before he was lost beyond the range of their tethers.
Brygan leapt as well. That the man was Union military did not matter. His life had been devoted to scouting out dangers such as these, and in a manner timely enough to prevent losses. But he was used to having some advance time to check out an area, not working in the midst of others. He should have broadcast a warning before examining his own suit.
The man continued to tumble and scream for help. The transmission did not rob him of his panic, and light washed over the white suit as he slipped out of the Icarus’s shadow. Brygan was farther away and watched as first one man, then another was pulled up short by their tethers.
Drake cursed, and Brygan slapped his disconnect as he reached the end of his tether and flew free into space. He didn’t bother to calculate his own chances. He’d damn himself before allowing another man to lose his life when it might have been prevented.
Jetting forward on small bursts from his suit, Brygan reached the flailing man, who now drifted dead in space—his propulsion reserve spent. Brygan grabbed him and hauled him
around to look into his face. The man was alive and still jabbering in panic, though he calmed at another’s touch and fell into a heavy-breathing silence when he was finally able to look at the reflective bowl of Brygan’s helmet. Brygan grabbed the man’s cut tether, and using longer bursts from his system, arrested their flight and moved them slowly back into the Icarus’s shadow.
Drake remained out at the very end of his own tether, holding position with his thrusters. He grabbed both men and ordered them hauled back to the vessel. In the airlock, the rescued man was quick to peel off his suit and regain the safety of the interior ship. It left Brygan and Drake alone for a moment, staring at each other with helmets removed and held under arms.
“That was fast thinking, Brygan Vassilyevich. Thank you,” Drake said, then went to check on his man.
Brygan tried to dismiss the pleasure he felt at Drake’s using the familiar form of address. He was still riding an adrenaline surge and counting himself fortunate to have saved the lives he did. Yet, the respect the captain had shown him felt good. This simple recognition of a job well-done was something he’d never been given back on Mars.
It wasn’t until much later that he wondered when exactly he had told anyone his middle name.
21
* * *
T he plan had been straightforward. Small units of Vanguard and Union infantry pulled the Sleeper’s symbiot army in several different directions, leaving it protected by a small number of offense-capable creatures. At a spot where a wide draw split off from the main canyon, the Sleeper would continue to follow the Kotuy River up into Gory Putorana or would detour into the dry canyons to the west. Several Neo-Soviet and Union squads waited there. When the creature turned, the off-side squads would hit it and try to confuse it while the others came in close.
That was the monstrous creature’s weakness, small units coming in close. Armored vehicles it could deal with by generating a limited-range electromagnetic pulse. Large battle lines as well, relying on its monstrous size and at times spitting small quantities of plasma. But small numbers of infantry and support specialties, there it tended to rely on its symbiot force. The trick was to see if enough small units could work in close enough to do the damage necessary to kill the thing. Colonel Romilsky thought so, and Sainz had backed her. Even Rebecca Howard had signed on to the plan when she learned that the bulk of the Union force would guard the draw, and so would be the likely diversionary attack force rather than the up-close frontal assault.
Into the Maelstrom Page 18