by Chris Walley
“Gateman Lessis,” she ordered, “you can return to your station.” But as the man started to move away, Vero stretched out his hand to block him. “Don’t rule anything out,” he said in a voice so low that Merral barely caught his words.
“Captain,” Vero inquired in a voice that was both firm and gentle, “that image on the screen is a simulation. Can we look at the Gate directly?” Merral looked up at his friend, surprised at the determination on his face.
She frowned. “Optically? Yes, we have a scope linked to it. But the navigation simulation mode is much more appropriate.”
“Of course,” came the polite response. “But can we see the Gate? On screen? For just a minute?”
Captain Bennett stroked a bronzed cheek. “Give them two minutes, Gateman, and then send them back down. It’s too late after that anyway.” She smiled distantly at them and then turned back to her console.
As she sat down, Mikhael Lessis touched the datasheet and the image changed to one of a black, star-strewn sky in which a blurry graphite gray mass hung. It shuddered slightly, came into focus, and then slowly expanded to fill the screen.
“We are still over a thousand kilometers away, so there is some vibration.” The Gateman’s voice was matter-of-fact.
Merral stared at the smooth metal surfaces, trying to grasp the size of the structure. Only the tiny yellow marks on its dully gleaming surface that indicated the access points for visiting service vessels gave any idea of the vastness of the construction. He could see the sutures between the segments where, long ago, the Gate had been put together, and the brilliant green lights, now rapidly flashing to signify their imminent entry. Then he stared wonderingly into the still, eerie blackness at the heart of the hexagon. There was something awesome about the structure, with its palpable size and its aura of vast age. If we had idolatry, Merral thought, in a strange mental aside, men and women might worship such a thing.
“Seems all right to me,” commented the Gateman, looking at Vero. “You see, Gates never fail. Because we can’t have them fail, we don’t allow them to fail.” The tone was of total cool confidence. “That’s what Gate engineering is about. Perfect reliability.”
Merral found his attitude exasperating, but reminded himself that this young man had seen neither the falsified images of Maya Knella nor the horrid monstrosities they had met at Carson’s Sill. This man believes that the impossible does not happen. We know now that it can.
Vero nodded thoughtfully. “Of course, only God is perfectly reliable,” he answered as he scrutinized the immense mass of metal.
“I was meaning in human terms,” came the defensive response.
Merral couldn’t see Vero’s expression, as it was fixed on the screen, but he knew that he had found nothing untoward.
Vero, biting his lip, gestured at the image. “I’d like to look at each segment. Please, one by one. Just briefly.” There seemed to be an unshaken determination in his voice, and despite his own dejection, Merral felt admiration for his friend’s attitude in the face of defeat. He felt he could only hope that Perena—if the message had indeed come from her—was somehow wrong.
The Gateman shrugged. “One,” he said in a flat tone and tapped the datasheet.
The screen filled with a smooth, almost glassy, gray surface broken by a few minor debris impact marks and faded yellow and red markings and lettering. The thought occurred to Merral that there was less aging than he would expect for a three-thousand-year-old structure.
“Two.”
Another surface appeared at a different orientation, but with similar features. Merral realized they were going clockwise.
“Three.”
The image switched again, but other than the angle and subtle differences of marking, it might have been the same segment as the previous two.
“Four.”
Now the alignment of the segment was back to that of the first one. Nothing again, thought Merral with a mounting feeling of inevitability. Nor will there be on the rest. It looks as if, for good or evil, we are going through the Gate. The numbers on the bottom of the screen showed him that that would now be in under twelve minutes.
He began to wonder how easy it was going to be to return to his seat in the crew section with the acceleration now building up below them.
Captain Bennett was turning toward them with a frown. Their time was up.
“Five.” Another segment, exactly the same. Just like—
A fine line of intense electric blue light writhed round the edge of the image.
“Stop!” Vero’s shout turned all eyes to the screen.
Merral was aware of the Gateman staring open-mouthed and of Captain Bennett turning round sharply to the image.
Another line of iridescent blue arced crazily over the smooth, still, and ancient surface of the Gate. Merral felt that there was somehow something shocking about it, as if he was seeing an act of violation or even desecration.
There was a rising murmuring around the control room.
“Gateman!” snapped Captain Bennett, rising stiff-backed from her seat, apparently transfixed by the image. “Did you see that?”
“Yes . . . Captain.” The Gateman’s tone was one of utter stupefaction. Merral observed in a strange, detached way that he was seeing yet another person realize that the boundary between the possible and the impossible was now being penetrated.
The Gateman continued to gape at the screen as more lines of blue curved round the surface. “There’s another. And another. It’s some sort of electrical discharge. . . .”
“So it seems,” returned the captain almost brusquely. “Can you assure me it’s harmless, Gateman?”
“Harmless? I have no data on that. . . . I really don’t know, Captain.” His eyes flicked nervously down to his datasheet. “But the Gate signals indicate plainly that it has no malfunctions.” The confidence was oozing away now.
“My eyes, Gateman, tell me otherwise.” Captain Bennett’s voice was icy and determined. “Helm Officer, take us clear of the Gate. Minimum deviation. Mr. Lessis here will want some detailed images as we fly past, I’m sure. Say about a hundred kilometers away to be safe. And then plot us a course back to the Gate Station.”
She turned sharply round on her heels, her face a mask of disbelief. “Gateman, find out what the verdict is from Gate Control. And tell them I want to know why they didn’t tell us there was a problem.”
As Gateman Lessis, his face pale and his eyes wide, turned away to talk into his datasheet, the captain swung back to her own console.
Merral felt a gentle change in the ship’s direction, and moments later the captain’s words were echoing around the cabin. “Captain Bennett here to all crew and passengers. I regret to tell you we have identified—” there was the briefest of pauses— “an apparent technical anomaly at the Farholme Gate and are returning to the Gate Station. In the meantime, I urge you to stay in your couches. Hopefully, we can reschedule our journey within a few hours. Thank you.”
She turned and briefly gazed at Vero and Merral with puzzled and unhappy eyes before swiveling back to look at her readouts. Merral found the idea that they were going back to the Gate Station something that gave him both relief and concern. A moment later Gateman Lessis walked over to the captain with a nervous face. “Captain, they are looking into it. But they assure me that the Gate monitor systems are still giving perfect readouts. On my insistence they are going to switch to visual themselves.”
“Perfect readouts in spite of problems?” Vero had leaned over toward Merral. “I’ve heard that before,” he murmured.
There was another flicker of blue light on the screen, and Vero stepped forward and tapped the shoulder of the Gateman. “Excuse me, do you have any model for what’s going on there?”
Mikhael gave Vero a worried look. “No, not at all. I don’t know. It’s not normal at all. Of course. It’s against everything I’ve ever heard of or been taught. The diagnostics aren’t telling us anything.” He looked up at t
he screen. “I mean . . . No, there goes another discharge.”
He rubbed his bloodless face as if unable to believe what he was seeing, and Merral felt a twinge of sympathy for him.
“Crazy.” His tone was almost one of outrage. “There must be a major overload on some circuitry. It just doesn’t make sense.” He clenched his fists in frustration. “The Gate’s internal monitor should have switched to backup circuits before this even happened. Straight away. And told us. But at this rate we will have a Class Two failure.”
Vero peered at him. “A Class Two failure? What would happen to any ship going into it?” Merral noted an urgency in Vero’s questioning.
“The Below-Space link is severed and you go straight out the other side. Harmless but embarrassing.” His face wore an expression of total perplexity. “And also almost unheard of. A Class Two failure has happened only twice ever in a production Gate.” Gateman Lessis nodded to himself thoughtfully, as if the words had gone some way to giving him reassurance. “And both of those were, what, ten millennia or more ago. As there are nearly two thousand Gates and on average they are five thousand years old, that is one Class Two failure per five million working years.” He looked at Vero, a veneer of confidence trying to reestablish itself. “Approximately.”
“Of course. Impressive.” Vero glanced at the screen. “Forgive me. But what about a Class Three failure? What happens there?” There was an intensity in the question that grabbed Merral’s attention. Vero has sensed something that I have not, he realized. He is not content to simply go back to the Gate Station.
“Most odd. Damping doesn’t appear to be taking place.” The Gateman was looking at the screen. “But it should be. Sorry, Class Three failure? There the ship hits the Gate. We’ve never been able to create that in remotely realistic simulations.”
“At ten thousand kilometers an hour?” Merral asked in alarm, wondering if that was the peril that Perena had alluded to. It certainly sounded as if it would fit in that category.
“Yes, or thereabouts,” the Gateman answered in vaguely dismissive tones. “But it’s just impossible.”
Mikhael suddenly tapped a corner of his datasheet. The visual image of the entire Gate now appeared on the wallscreen. It was larger than it had been and crisper.
We must be nearer, Merral decided.
There was a flicker of blue tracery on the segment at the top of the hexagon; then another echoed it along the bottom segment.
“That was on Five and Two, Gateman Lessis,” said the Captain sharply.
“Yes. It isn’t being damped. But it should be.” There was now a note of bewilderment in the voice.
“What should be is no longer the issue,” the captain retorted gently.
“On segments One and Four now as well, Captain,” called up a voice from below. Merral stared at the screen, seeing faint moving coils of blue light around most of the Gate.
Vero cleared his throat. “Sorry to interrupt, Gateman, but is there a Class Four failure?”
His body rigid, the Gateman stayed staring at the screen as if glued to it. He shook his head. “No, not in the real world.” His tone denied any possibility, however slight.
Merral saw Vero shake his head in frustration. Then he seemed to breathe in deeply and took a step toward the man. “Look, Gateman Lessis, you have already admitted that this is impossible.” Exasperation was thick in his voice. “What is a Class Four failure?”
The Gateman continued to gape at the screen and just shook his head again. “It’s hypothetical. Every level of fail-safe mechanism would have to be overruled.”
Merral saw that the countdown on the corner of the screen had scrolled down to nine minutes. Suddenly, Vero reached out a hand, grabbed the Gateman’s shoulder, and turned him round so that they were face-to-face. “What is a Class Four failure?” he shouted.
The captain stepped forward to separate them, anger flooding her face. “Sir, whoever you really are, this is my ship.” In her voice, consternation and anger were mixed. “This is an outrage. . . .”
To his surprise, Merral found that he had stepped forward to meet her so that there was a strange cross-shaped symmetry with the four of them. As if this were a dance. His eyes locked with hers.
“And so, Captain, is that!” Merral snapped, pointing at the screen.
Over the entire hexagon a wreath of faint moving blue lines now hung, as if someone was scribbling frantically over it with a blue pen. The Captain glared at him with a look of indignation, then flung a glance back at the screen. The glance, however, seemed to become locked into a stare. Merral followed her gaze. The image showed a foreshortened Gate with the hexagon distorted and the top of the upper segment now visible. The captain opened her mouth slowly, but her curt words, when they came, were not to either Merral or Vero.
“Gateman Lessis, I order you to give this man this information. What is a Class Four failure?”
The Gateman swallowed. “In theory, Captain, gravitational instability builds up. Cycles and pulses between segments. And ultimately the Gate . . . blows up.”
For a moment, the concept seemed so outlandish that Merral refused to accept what was being said and found himself sympathizing with Lessis’s reluctance to mention it. A Gate, this Gate—their Gate—was something permanent, fixed, fundamental to existence. For it to “blow up” was as meaningless as talking about the angles of a circle.
Beyond his unsettling thoughts, Merral was aware of a brief moment of intense silence among them. For a fraction of second, he saw the captain, barely an arm’s length away, turn to him with her brown eyes wide in a strange and terrible surmise.
“Captain . . . ,” he heard Vero say, “I think—”
But he had no need to say anything because the captain was already running back to her desk and issuing a flurry of orders in tones that demanded instant obedience.
“Helm Officer! Maximum deviation and speed without compromising hull integrity. I want us to be at least a thousand kilometers away. And facing away from the Gate to minimize radiation effects.”
There was a crisp acknowledgement and she took a brief breath. Merral, reeling at the concept of the Gate being destroyed and all its implications, felt the hull vibrate as power was applied. “Comms!” she snapped. “Emergency alert to Gate Station, Isterrane, and all ships that the Gate is going to blow up. Possibly within minutes. Repeat it. Have all ships and stations go to minimum radiation exposure profile. Crews to shelters. Use the solar flare drill, but make sure they realize that it’s the Gate, not the sun, that is the problem. Have all rescue services on alert.”
Merral noticed that on the wallscreen the perspective on the Gate was already changing as the ship’s path began to curve upward. A sheath of blue flickering light was embracing the whole structure now, and as he watched, he saw the light had begun to pulse.
Around him an urgent wailing siren sounded. “Passengers and crew, alert. This is Captain Bennett.” The voice was strained. “A possibility of a major Gate incident has emerged and we are accelerating out of the way at high g. Remain in your couches and strap yourselves in. Internal hull barriers will be automatically extruded shortly to provide airtight segments.” There was a pause. “I would value your prayers.”
For a second, a brief, intense, and awed silence seemed to fall over the cabin, only to be swept away in a wave of activity.
The Gateman looked up from examining his datasheet. “Captain, the Gate readouts now seem to reflect reality and—”
“About time,” she interjected.
“—the Gate is in trouble. Serious trouble.” Merral felt that the breathless and awed voice was barely recognizable as that of Gateman Lessis.
The whole ship was vibrating softly now, and every so often sharp little shudders shook the frame. Merral found a support bar and held on to it. They were almost directly above the Gate now, the entrance hidden by the upper segment. Blue pulsing flickers of light were embracing the entire frame.
Captain Bennett
seemed to notice it. “Helm Officer! Give us everything you can. Even if you do bend the hull. We need to be farther away.”
She looked around the cabin. “Crew,” she called out, “everyone take a seat and strap yourselves in. Created gravity may be unsustainable shortly.”
Then, pale-complexioned but still very plainly in command of herself, she turned to Merral and Vero. “There are seats there.” She gestured to the rear wall. “Oh . . .” A thought seemed to strike her and there was the briefest flicker of a smile on the wan face. “If we don’t make it, my genuine apologies. To you both.”
Vero, stepping back to the seat, bowed. “Apologies accepted.”
Moments later, as Merral was belting himself into the seat, the vibration reached a new pitch of intensity. This is a dream, he told himself desperately, a hallucination, an artifact of the ship’s computer. After all, the Gate exists and the Gate must exist. Without the Gate . . .
Merral was conscious of the wall behind him vibrating. On the wallscreen he saw that they were still looking down on the top of the Gate, surrounded in its blue haze. But he had no idea how close they were. On the bottom of the shaking image he saw the now meaningless timing numbers reach zero and then begin to run down from 10:32. The time we would have taken between the Gates. He prayed that, even now, the endless backup circuits and fail-safe switches within the Gate would snap into operation.
They must. The Gates were the Assembly.
There was a tinkling chime and over the mounting rumble of noise a machine voice announced, “Created gravity termination five seconds away.”
There was the sound of frantic activity as seats were adjusted and equipment secured, and then Merral was aware of an invisible something pushing on his chest and legs. His arms felt heavy and his head touched the soft pad on the wall behind him. There were thuds and bangs all around the cabin as unsecured objects slid around. The image shuddered and went out of focus. There was a cry of pain from somewhere.
The vibration seemed to multiply, growing louder and deeper and occurring at more frequencies. Over it were now transposed various rumbles, creaks, and groans. Orders were being shouted. The screen image came back into focus slowly, a furious blurred squall of a thousand blue lines that pulsed inward and outward like some great slow heartbeat.