by Mel Keegan
The days had dragged for Travers and Marin, since they had little to occupy them. They flew the transspace simulator twelve times, and Travers permitted himself a certain grim satisfaction: they had survived ten flights, all consecutive. In the last 30 hours in simulation they had actually flown transspace rather than going along for the ride and relying on luck. Vidal was satisfied. No authority existed to qualify a transspace pilot; no certificate or license could be awarded, but two days before Lai’a dropped into the driftway just short of the Zunshu Gate, Vidal signed them off with a handshake, a smile of approbation. They would continue to work in simulation, but Vidal’s satisfaction meant more to Travers than any certificate.
Otherwise the hours were interminable between the Gojin Drift and the Zunshu Gate, and Marin was sometimes so deeply immersed in the Resalq meditation techniques, he was oblivious to Neil’s presence. Vidal alternated between work in and on the simulator and assisting Hubler and Rodman to prep the Harlequin to fight. Left to himself, Travers returned to source.
He went over his weapons and armor with minute attention to detail; he worked his body with little care for mercy and took his minor strains to Bill Grant, who designed nano specifically for him and forewent comment as he injected it for the third time in four days.
Nights were sleepless, but Travers had no desire for drugs. Marin watched him with wide, dark eyes, knowing. The passage was 140 hours, and if these were the last hours a man would spend in this life, how foolish would he be to sacrifice them to drugged sleep? He and Curtis lay together in the dark, seldom speaking, each lost in the memories of a lifetime; and more than once Travers thought, what a damned short lifetime it had been, at least for several of the humans aboard, though everything, every pivot point of his own life seemed to have brought him to this time, this place. Marin would have said the same.
As Lai’a monitored the Drift storm it needed they were in the garden, making a last minute test of the Arago generators and inertial stabilizers, while at intervals the AI spoke softly over the comm, reporting the progress of the event. It was only waiting for Vaurien and Mark Sherratt to commit to the transit.
High overhead, meshed Arago screens shimmered, fluoresced, giving the ceiling bulkheads a blue color, eerily like a summer sky. Travers stood between dwarf apple trees, orange shrubs, canes growing raspberries and snow peas, and the armor felt very odd on his limbs in a place where the air was fragrant with the scent of blossom and a rainbow danced in the water jets as the afternoon shower began. Gantry drones moved soundlessly overhead, drawing his eyes, and above the scores of lamps the bulkheads were barely visible, lost in the illusion of a summer-blue haze of powerful repulsion shields.
The garden was double sealed, triple screened, with its own generators and inertial stabilizers. Aside from the computer core housing Joss, it was the most secure place in the habitation module, and knowing the reason for this did nothing to reassure Travers. Vaurien, Shapiro and Mark Sherratt had taken apart every skerrick of data the Ebrezjim would yield, and their silence spoke more eloquently than anything they had said.
The Ebrezjim data was just enough to tell them a battle might be won; and far too little to tell them how to win it. Lai’a would enter Zunshu space not quite blind, but the danger was so real, Vaurien and Sherratt had embraced the concept that Lai’a might win the battle – even the war – and yet not be bound for home. If it had a weak link, it was the transspace drive. Without the drive, Elarne was closed, and the Deep Sky was unspeakably distant.
Every resource they possessed was double-sealed, screened to the limit of available power. The arboretum was so fragile, so delicate, like a tiny, precious bubble of a green, terrestrial environment which smelt and tasted of home.
Helmet in his hands, Marin was talking to Operations even then. “We’re all secure here, Richard. Transit at your discretion.”
Every human and Resalq should be in armor by now, and Jon Kim was making the rounds by comm, calling the roll with the command, ‘helmets on,’ as soon as each member of this motley company had answered.
With a grimace, Travers locked the helmet over his own head and acknowledged the squadron of butterflies patrolling his belly. He took a last look around the garden before he stepped out, and when Marin joined him, he sealed the compartment. Aragos wove over the inside of the airlock; inertial stabilizers came online. Inside, the massive gantry drones and tiny beebots worked on under counterfeit yellow sunlight and blue sky; roses budded, citrus ripened, vegetables sprouted much faster than they would at home.
Outside, red warning lights blinked everywhere. The habitation module was blowing down to zero pressure. A breeze Travers could not feel whisked across the armor as the air was pumped back into storage, and his helmet instruments reported partial pressure, and then vacuum.
Over the comm Vaurien sounded breathy with ‘helmet voice.’ “Armordoors will be sealing in two minutes. Get where you want to be, people … Neil, Curtis, come right up to Ops. Harrison, you want to be here?”
And Shapiro: “You think I want to miss this?”
“Move it, Alexis,” Jazinsky called. “We’re buttoning up soon.”
“On my way,” Rusch responded with the slight breathiness over the audio pickup that told Travers she was already moving.
He was making his way back toward a service elevator designed for drones, which would only barely accommodate two hardsuits at one time. Marin squeezed in beside him and as the lift went up Neil listened to the loop. The Sherratts were reporting the labs powered down; Grant had locked the Infirmary down so tight, not even a coffee cup would fall. Even Teniko was coherent, rational, and Grant himself would remain in the Infirmary, watching the whole ‘show,’ as he called it, in a big threedee.
“I’m still trying to get my head around it,” Travers whispered. “Where we are.”
“Zunshu Gate,” Marin said in the same murmur. “When’s the last time you had shaking chills, with sheer bloody dread?”
The chills had run through Travers fast and left him. Now it was the faint nausea of ‘virgin panic’ assaulting him as he and Marin stepped into Ops – where the air pressure was zero, the power was running on minimum, nine out of ten displays were dark, and every figure wore Zunshulite hardsuits inside which individuals were identifiable only by the name stencilled on the helmet.
The navtank was blue-gray with the muted hues of the driftway, but the event Jazinsky had been monitoring all afternoon had begun to writhe and dance, with the expanding-balloon effect on the surface of the e-space layer. Lai’a was driving toward it under full thrust while two clocks counted down, one to the moment of transit, one to the deadline point, beyond which transit could not be aborted. Ahead of them, right on time, the event tore open, ripped e-space apart, burst space and warped time –
Zunshu Gate. Zunshu Gate. The words played over and over in Travers’s mind as the second clock counted through zero, and he took a breath, held it as Lai’a said, “Committed to transit. Four. Three. Over the threshold. One. Transit complete. Normal space: hyper-Weimann shutdown. Weimann drive online. Standby.”
The breath Travers had been holding barked from his throat in a cough as the stars of mundane, ordinary, three dimensional space winked on in the navtank. But these were deceptive. They were the stars of Zunshu space, and Travers felt the weirdest sensation coursing the length of his spine like a static discharge.
The Ops room was quiet. Only Jazinsky, Rusch and Mark Sherratt were working, and then, only to please themselves. Lai’a was doing the same work faster and equally efficiently. The deep scan platform began to run as it exited the event, and with a heavy vibration in the deck the Weimann engines surged up to overrun, rushing the ship out of the Drift.
It would take some time to analyze the deep scan, Travers knew. Impatience was futile and he bit his tongue, not wanting to be the first one to say it. Where the hell are we? In the end it was Jon Kim who could not contain his eagerness, or dread, any longer.
“
So, where is this place?” he asked in a hoarse, hushed tone.
“We’re waiting for Lai’a to match observable objects with its database,” Shapiro said with a calm Travers envied. “A little longer, Jon. Remember, anything we recognize will be incredibly faint due to distance, and everything we ever knew will be framed in a infinitesimal part of this sky.”
“I know all that, Harry, but –” Kim broke off as red enunciators winked on in the close tracking monitors. He might have demanded to know what they meant, but Lai’a spoke before him.
“Identifying Zunshu probes. Tracking 22 matching the profiles of known weapons.”
“What about a swarm?” Jazinsky rasped. “A minefield?”
“There is no minefield on this exit road from the Drift,” Lai’a said emphatically. “There are 22 weapons … all offline.”
“Offline?” Vaurien echoed. “Scan again.”
“Offline,” Lai’a repeated. “There is no mistake, Captain. Viable Zunshu weapons abound. They are simply dormant.”
“Which could make a kind of sense,” Mark said tersely. “Why have active weapons in your own home system –”
“We do,” Jazinsky said quickly, “to defend ourselves!”
“The Zunshu,” Vidal growled, “don’t seem to feel the need.”
“Yes, they do.” Vaurien’s helmet turned toward Vidal, Travers, Marin, who were at opposite end of the navtank. “The weapons are out here, Mick. They’re just inactive.”
“Waiting to come online,” Marin guessed. “Lai’a, are they getting a clear look at your engine signature?”
The AI was just as emphatic. “I have shown them the transspace drive and the hyper-Weimann sterntubes. They remain offline, Colonel Marin. Scan results suggest wide-scale malfunction. Additionally, I am identifying hundreds of fragments of wreckage, varying in size between three meters and one half meter.”
“Wreckage?” Vidal’s voice was sharp. “Lai’a, is there any fallout, anything to suggest a battle was fought here?”
“Nothing,” Lai’a responded. “I estimate the wreckage is extremely old. It is possible it was ejected by a Drift event. Hellgate is notorious for creating such debris.”
“But the Zunshu don’t get caught in gravity storms,” Dario Sherratt whispered. “At least, we never saw them get caught before. Mark?”
“Never,” Mark agreed. “Is it possible this is a … a junkyard? Could this be a weapons testing range? Or a wasteland where they dump weapons that malfunctioned?”
“Any speculation is valid, Doctor,” Lai’a said calmly. “No data is available to support any conclusion. The Zunshu weapons continue to lie dormant. I have exited the Drift and deep scan is continuing. As yet I have found no matches with known astronomical database objects.”
“Damn,” Rusch said softly, “so long to find something we know?”
Lai’a was unperturbed. “We are doubtlessly a very great distance from the Gojin Drift, Colonel Rusch. It is probable the Deep Sky is occluded by the nebulosity and super-luminous stars of the Zunshu Drift. I have set a vector to circumnavigate it until my deep scan platform can image the far sky. Data will be available shortly.” It paused for several moments, and in the same level tone announced, “The comm sky is quiet.”
“It’s … what, now?” Jazinsky demanded as she, Dario and Tor turned their attention to the flatscreen of Comm 2, where little information was displaying.
“Comm is at particularly low intensity,” Lai’a said patiently. “Signals are concentrated in the bands normally reserved for drone command frequencies. I am receiving no signals consistent with public broadcast issuing from any world in this region.”
For some moments Operations was so quiet, a knife could have cut the silence before Vidal exploded, “That’s fucking impossible! You’re telling me the civilization that’s been busting our asses isn’t even trading signals between ships and home, or colony to colony? No data conduit?”
“Nothing, Colonel Vidal,” Lai’a repeated. “The comm sky is quiet on any band I can receive; and I can receive Resalq boosted comm which uses the lower layers of e-space. The Zunshu are known to fire signals through transspace; and I have received such signals while inside Elarne. However, those signals are merely drone command channels. No transspace public broadcast is identifiable.”
“This is … wrong.” Alexis Rusch turned her back on the navtank and began to pace between the threedee halo and the flatscreens where the datastream raced like a blue-green torrent. “This goes against everything we know about sophisticated civilizations.”
“Thought we knew,” Jazinsky corrected. “It’s a mistake to judge anybody else by our own practices, Lex. Maybe the Zunshu just don’t transmit. Maybe they cable everything at home, like the survivors back at Orion 359. And they could use e-space drone couriers between ships and worlds – it’d be faster than transmitting.”
Rusch took a deep breath and turned back to the navtank, where the region was forming up with greater and greater detail as Lai’a continued its deep scan. As Travers watched, a series of new icons appeared and Lai’a announced,
“I have located four objects which appear to be platforms, probably science or observational installations, in all ways equivalent to Oberon. Do you wish to investigate?”
“Dangerous.” Vaurien’s tone was bleak. “Have they seen you, Lai’a?”
“It is difficult to be certain,” Lai’a said in an almost musing tone. “I had expected to be sensor-painted at this time, with a high probability that weapons would have target-locked me, or would already have been launched. I am registering no such sensors, Captain. The Zunshu installations may be aware of my presence via passive monitoring – for example, instruments keying on the fallout from the transspace drive – but I certainly have not been actively scanned.”
Vidal demanded hoarsely, “No weapons acquisition?” He swore softly over the comm. “Richard, this is – this is too weird.”
“Is it possible …” Travers’s mind was racing. “Could they have developed some kind of sensors we don’t even register? Some targeting system we just don’t see?”
“Possible,” Lai’a admitted, “but highly unlikely. I am aware of every radiation band from sub-audible sound waves to emanations in the higher bands of transspace. There is no sensor signal I would not detect. And yet I have located four installations which can only be Zunshu, and they appear to be entirely passive.”
Electricity seemed to crackle across the Ops room, and Vaurien turned to Mark Sherratt now. “Your decision, Mark. This one’s way beyond anything I’m qualified to call. Are these Zunshu objects passive, or are we like a bunch of bugs crawling on the outside of a landmine that’s about to explode?”
The question was barbed and Mark did not take it lightly. He drew together with Dario, Tor and Midani Kulich, and it was Kulich who said, “Never been seeing nothing like.”
“Never been flying nowhere like in Zunshu space,” Tor muttered in Kulich’s odd wording. “Damnit, Mark, what is this?”
“I don’t know,” Mask said honestly. “But I’ll have to agree with Lai’a. There’s no such thing as an active sensor that doesn’t put out a ping and read a pingback, and there’s no frequency Lai’a can’t read.” He paused, breathing audibly over the comm pickup. “I’d be lying if I said I knew what’s going on with those installations … but they’re not scanning us. They’re not acquiring Lai’a as a target.”
“And there’s an old, old saying,” Ernst Rabelais added. “Let sleeping dragons lie. Don’t go poking ’em with no sharp sticks, and maybe they’ll just stay right where they are. Lai’a, how close are they?”
“Between five and 15 light minutes,” Lai’a reported. “They cannot launch a weapon with any element of surprise. Even Zunshu gravity weapons would be clearly visible, were they to launch. However, no such devices have been deployed.”
Marin was pacing, light-footed in the armor with his apparent mass set to only fifty kilos. “Gatekeepers? They observe
… they report. They sit there, passive as any twig on a tree, and call home with the news of intruders dropping out of the Drift.”
The idea was interesting. “Lai’a, are they transmitting?” Vaurien asked.
“No, Captain, not on any band I can detect. And I am monitoring all bands we know the Zunshu utilize.”
“Still your call, Mark,” Vaurien said bleakly.
For one more moment Mark hesitated. “Sleeping dragons,” he said in quiet, level tones. “If they’re gatekeepers, and if they’re using a frequency we can’t detect – which, by the way, is incredibly unlikely – then we also have no element of surprise. The Zunshu will know we’re coming.”
“Well, shit,” Vidal muttered, “we always knew they’d hear us banging on their front door.”
“All right.” Mark’s armored figure stepped closer to the navtank. “Lai’a, bypass the platforms. Continue to monitor them for any transmission.”
Roark Hubler and Asako Rodman were standing well back, till now content to be spectators. It was Hubler who asked in a harsh tone Travers remembered from the Omaru blockade, “You don’t want to target ’em and blow ’em away, while they’re easy, sitting targets? Take care of the bastards now, and we won’t have to run through ’em on the way out.”
It was a soldier’s tactic, but Travers was aware of deep misgivings. “Unprovoked attack … it could be the very thing they’re waiting for, Roark. We hit a bunch of passive, possibly civilian science platforms, and maybe ten thousand nasty little devices hidden in the Drift come online.”
“Remember Colonel Carvalho?” Rodman sounded disgusted. “Brought a battle group into Jagreth space, and the first thing he did was total the comm beacon transmitting the keep-out signal.”
“We might not be wanting to shoot the gatekeepers,” Vaurien said slowly. “All right – go on by, Lai’a. In your own time. If they start to transmit when we put ourselves between them and their home base, don’t keep it to yourself.”