It was also discovered that any of the irises could be opened from the inside with a thought, similar to how one operated the transit tubes. From that point on, the stream of personnel on and off the giant alien ship was constant. Teams worked in rotating shifts, composed of everyone aboard the Shackleton except for a skeleton crew of three who watched from outside. That crew included Mason Shen who finally allowed himself to get some sleep, only to immediately return to the communications puzzle the next morning.
There were never fewer than five people aboard Zebra-One at any one time, including Marcus Donovan and Commander Faulkland, who each felt compelled to stay following their first incursion. They claimed to be quarantining themselves to avoid infecting the rest of the crew, but no one much believed them. In truth, each man was in his own way enamored with the strange alien vessel, and it would have taken a platoon of marines to drag them away.
Exploration began in a handful of key areas. They were all hollow cavities detected during the years of scanning, which the Gypsies deemed most likely to hold important systems. The team targeted the smallest ones first, and each cavity offered wonders stranger and more perplexing than the last. There was a great vaulted arcade with a ceiling lit in every color of the rainbow and columns curved like a ribcage. There was a dank cavern full of organic structures that looked like fruiting fungi, and a branching network on the lower decks that was best described as a swamp. One of the most mystifying was a perfectly circular room with concentric rings of clear water set in the floor. Professor Caldwell suspected the room might have had religious significance to the natives, but it was more a hunch than anything. No one else had a better idea.
There were also areas that were less mysterious. They discovered several large cell-like networks of rooms that were undoubtedly living quarters, each complete with its own sleep area and not-unfamiliar waste collector. The quarters were clustered around evenly spaced dining halls, while small recreational parks were always nearby.
Much of the forward fifth of the craft was full of rod-shaped structures connected in series, starting very large and getting progressively smaller and more numerous as they approached the bow, all focused on the huge cavity at the front of the vessel. Debates erupted over the purpose of that cavity, with many hoping it was a scientific array, but quietly suspecting it was a weapon.
Late on the second day, a few teams started to examine the secondary hull, which was two-thirds the length of Zebra-One’s main hull and attached by five thick struts. Unlike the primary, the secondary hull was streamlined and mainly hollow, devoted almost entirely to a series of interconnected chambers. Each one housed different kinds of machinery, including a legion of segmented manipulator arms attached to gargantuan support rings. All of that equipment, alien as it may have been, bore a striking resemblance to construction equipment back on Earth. Unless the expedition missed their mark, the secondary hull was a factory complex. The largest factory ever seen, in fact. The only question remaining was what it was supposed to build.
On the morning of the third day aboard Zebra-One, Marcus Donovan decided it was finally time to take a look at her heart. Back on the Copernicus Observatory, it was the discovery of a network of veins connected to that organ that convinced him and Rao that the vessel was biological. Now that he was aboard, he’d seen the sheaths that contained the thick, fibrous veins, but it was anyone’s guess what was inside the heart itself.
The structure was the size of four skyscrapers bundled together, and it lay at the center of the primary hull. Marcus was sure that it was the main power generator, and he absolutely had to know how it worked.
Faulkland volunteered to join him, which surprised no one; the two had become inseparable since they came aboard. Rao also came along, being twice as eager as the others to learn how the aliens generated power.
They ate a quick breakfast, looked over the old scans to get a fresh image of their destination in mind, then each of them pictured the heart and was flung through the endless maze of corridors. The entire journey of five kilometers took only a dozen seconds, and undoubtedly imparted them with enough momentum to splash them against a wall like water balloons. Marcus would’ve preferred not to think about that, but just couldn’t stop himself.
At the other end, the artificial gravity gently lowered him back down to one of the raised octagonal landing pads. Identical pads existed at every corridor entrance. Much like everything else on the ship, no one knew whether they were decorative or served some particular purpose.
Faulkland followed a moment later. He floated down beside Marcus, followed by Rao who was shaking with adrenaline and had his eyes closed. Considering the fact that Rao usually had to be sedated before orbital launches, merely closing his eyes was a significant step in the right direction.
Marcus had expected the heart to already be lit when he arrived, since it was ostensibly powering every other light on the ship, but no such luck. In fact, it took longer for the room to react to human presence than any other they’d explored. When the walls finally began to glow, in a cool blue rather than the warm amber of elsewhere, they found themselves in a small cul-de-sac with no obvious opening apart from the one they’d come through.
“Think she’s screwing with us?” Faulkland asked as he, like the other two, slowly scanned their surroundings.
“I dunno. I hope not,” Marcus said. The vessel hadn’t been anything but accommodating so far. He might even go so far as to call it obedient, but was careful to keep a tight lid on thoughts like that. Just in case.
Rao drew the probe from his shoulder and started to take readings. “Maybe the generator is dangerous. Radioactive. Do you think she would reroute us away from something potentially lethal?”
“That’s not a bad thought,” Marcus said, taking a few cautious steps forward. “But then where did she take us? It seems strange having a corridor lead to a dead-end like this.”
Faulkland laughed. “Wouldn’t be the first strange thing, now would it?”
“I guess not,” Marcus said. It didn’t add up, though. A dead-end wouldn’t just be strange. It would be pointless, and he had trouble believing there was a single millimeter of anything pointless aboard. “No. I think it’s an ante-chamber. She wants to make sure we’re serious.”
Marcus stepped forward and took a good look at the wall in front of him. The room looked unfinished, like someone had just given up and stopped. It was an ante-chamber. It just had to be.
He closed his eyes and imagined the wall opening, just as he’d done with countless others. Nothing. He kept at it, concentrating on all the small details, envisioning them turning to liquid and sliding away.
There was a noise like bubbling tar. Success.
Marcus opened his eyes, and before him was the strange heart of Zebra-One. “Come on,” he said.
He stepped forward onto a platform that hung over a great dark abyss, and his two companions followed a couple steps behind. A moment later, the pale blue light grew and revealed the depths of the huge structure, a cylindrical room extending five-hundred meters into the distance, criss-crossed and covered with slender catwalks whose surfaces all faced toward the center. Marcus couldn’t discern which way was supposed to be down, and he started to suspect there was more than one ‘down’ in that room. The view was dizzying.
The catwalks radiated out from a massive apparatus in the center of the chamber, itself suspended on a great spindle that spanned from one end of the chamber to the other. Marcus had no doubt that the apparatus was the generator, the source of all power on the vessel.
Pale blue glowing cable-veins in every diameter imaginable were connected to it, and branched throughout the room like overgrown cobwebs. The light of the room and the cable-veins alike gently throbbed in the same one-two one-two pattern that could be heard everywhere inside Zebra-One.
The generator itself was encased in a bone-like framework of iridescent struts that made it difficult to discern the shapes within. All Marcus could tell from
the platform was that something inside was glowing brightly and rotating, causing the bone struts to cast shifting shadows across the rest of the room.
“Should we take a closer look?” Faulkland asked. He sounded cautious. Marcus assumed that if cowboy Faulkland sounded cautious, any normal person should be pants-wettingly terrified.
The shafts of lights cast out from the generator were bright but not blinding. Would it be hot? Could it be radioactive? Marcus honestly didn’t know whether they should continue on. “Rao?”
“I’m not detecting anything dangerous. It’s your call, Marc.”
He looked left and right, tracing the path of the symmetrical walkways that led in towards the machine. “Seems to me that being reckless has gotten us this far. Be a shame to stop now.”
“That’s the spirit,” Faulkland said, and gave him a firm slap on the back. A glance to his other side revealed a nervous smile inside of Rao’s helmet.
Since both routes to the generator looked identical, Marcus mentally flipped a coin, motioned to the left, and the three of them began their march. The first stretch of catwalk was perfectly flat and they crossed it quickly, but after about thirty meters it twisted so that its surface was at a perfect right-angle. Their first steps onto the twisted section were apprehensive, but they soon realized the walkway’s surface was always down, no matter how it contorted.
Marcus found the process disorienting, like being trapped inside of an Escher painting, and the vertigo forced him to watch the floor under his feet while he walked. At some of the more extreme changes in orientation, he had to fight the impulse to jump from one surface to the next. Rooms like this one would certainly take some getting used to.
It took them twenty minutes to reach the innermost cage of walkways, which were oriented so that the generator apparatus was three meters “above” them. Marcus didn’t look up from his feet until they were on top of the generator… or below it, or beside it maybe. Prepositions were failing him. When he did finally take a look, he was instantly overcome with awe.
Within the bone framework were five devices arrayed in a series, one intact, and four others that had been shattered like light bulbs. The complete device was like nothing Marcus had ever seen before, with a design that interwove flesh and technology into a single hybrid whole.
It had two distinct components: a clear outer casing and a strange collection of organs contained within. The casing was a rounded-off pentagon ten meters in diameter and six meters deep, made of a glass-like transparent material. Each corner held a dense bundle of ducts and unfamiliar machinery, and was connected to the others by a thin metallic band that traced the device’s perimeter. That band was covered in geometric shapes which glowed in every hue, and looked as if they might be controls or readouts.
The interior was dominated by a muscle-like circular organ that was roughly textured, and bore a striking resemblance to the iris of an eye. A hazel eye, rust colored toward the center and shifting to luminous green at the edges. It was suspended in the middle of the casing by five bundles of twisting, woven vines that seemed organic near the iris-ring, but grew progressively mechanical as they approached their mount points.
The most fantastic part was the small, whirling willow-wisp that floated in the hollow of the iris. It was the source of the bright blue light, and was surrounded by glittering particles that turned from white to gold as they raced out, danced and faded like champagne bubbles. Marcus had no idea what it was, but even after a lifetime of staring through telescopes at the wonders of the universe, the willow-wisp was easily the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.
The device, or perhaps the willow-wisp, made a sound like voices singing in chorus, arranged in perfect fifths, wandering slowly up and down an octave. It was as beautiful as the sight, and together they created an overwhelming feeling of tranquility.
The three men were completely spellbound. They stood there staring in slack-jawed wonder for untold minutes, silent for fear of accidentally disturbing the peace.
Marcus broke from his trance and finally spoke. “I’m going to touch it,” he said. He heard his own words, but they sounded like someone else. It sounded like something Faulkland would say.
He reached up toward the framework and the ship’s artificial gravity simultaneously released him into the air. He wasn’t sure if that was his own doing or not. He crossed the space ever so slowly, then came to the framework and grabbed on. It quivered under his touch. He climbed from one bone-like strut to another until he found an opening large enough to squeeze through, and then he climbed inside.
The willow-wisp at the center of the device was even more beautiful as he approached. The glittering particles that rushed away from it flocked together like birds, weaving in and between scarcely visible tides of fluid light.
Marcus reached out and gently put his hand against the clear casing. As he did so, the willow-wisp dimmed and the particles swirled back toward the center of it. It retracted like a flower at night.
“What’s going on, Doctor?” Faulkland asked.
“I don’t know,” he said. As the last word left his mouth, the light returned, blinding, bright and fierce, accompanied by a deep roar and throbbing waves of pressure. Marcus felt like he was suddenly standing in front of an industrial spot-light, or maybe an oncoming train.
Then all hell broke lose.
Chapter 15:
Evermore
The generator’s outburst washed over Marcus and slammed him into the framework. He tried to shield his eyes from the light to no avail, and blinded, he somehow managed to climb through an opening in the cage and emerge on the other side.
Marcus didn’t know what was happening, but he knew it was his fault. He’d just woken a sleeping bear, and an old fashioned mauling was on its way.
It took him several seconds to regain his sight, and he found himself back on the catwalk with Rao and Faulkland. The generator’s outburst only lasted a moment, after which it settled back down to a level still brighter and more active than when they found it, accompanied by a new, dreadful and furious song. The lights throughout the room were dimming and changing color. They turned blood red.
Reports started to stream in from all over the vessel.
“Anyone else hear that? Like an animal screaming.”
”…everything is convulsing…”
“It’s all going batshit.”
Marcus couldn’t separate all the voices in his communicator. There were too many people yammering at once.
The walls of the room began to writhe.
”…irises appear to be seizing…”
“What the hell is this?”
All the lights in the chamber went out completely, and then began to strobe. From the reports, they were doing the same all over the ship.
“Base to Donovan, we’re seeing a lot of activity out here. The vessel is changing color, and all the sediment has broken free.”
Rao shook his head, his eyes wide. “We oughta get out, Marc.”
Marcus never had a chance to make the decision; it was made for him. All three men were simultaneously lifted from the catwalk and flung towards the corridor they had come from. They all screamed, and more screams crackled over the comm channel.
The ship began to scream as well.
Surrounded by the ship’s screeching, plaintive cry, Marcus accelerated down the blood red tunnel,. He hurtled faster and faster through twisting tubes, and the walls became a blur. He was moving so fast that the tunnel lost its shape, all the detail gone except for the strobing lights and the swiftly approaching darkness.
“Base to Donovan, come in! It’s moving! Donovan?!”
Marcus was about to die. His remains would be liquified, totally beyond identification. He’d always hoped to face his demise with class, but instead he was frothing at the mouth and screaming like a child.
Then he saw the light at the end of the tunnel. Before he could decide what to say to his maker, the light engulfed him and it was over
.
His arms were crossed in front of his face as if they could possibly stop whatever was coming, and he was twitching like a broken servo. As he lowered his arms, it took him a second to realize he was, in fact, still alive.
He was floating a couple meters above a landing platform in a stark white room. There were four other corridors with their own platforms, and in front of each were clusters of his staff in shiny white pressure suits, hanging in place like fruit in gelatin.
“Base to Expedition? Anyone?”
Gravity kicked in and everyone dropped to the floor.
“We’re okay, Mason,” Marcus said as he dusted himself off. His breathing was ragged and the words came out stilted. He slowly climbed to his feet, and saw the rest doing the same. “We’re all okay.”
The room, stark white and glistening like ivory, was one they hadn’t explored yet. It was broken into three tiers, each lower than the last and connected by ramps with molded hand-rails. The domed ceiling above was circled by a string of pill-shaped lights which blazed a bluish white.
Marcus and his people were on the highest level, where the five tunnels and their landing platforms were located. Other than the platforms and the dazed crewmen standing on them, all three tiers were empty as a sound stage.
Zebra-One’s screaming could still be heard, but it was muffled as if this room were somehow insulated from the rest of the ship. Marcus had a strong sense of safety, although it might have just been in contrast with the terrifying journey that brought him there. “I think she took us here to protect us,” he said.
Mason Shen’s voice came back. “Good to hear ya, sir. With all the screaming… well, I thought the duty roster was going to be a lot shorter. Zebra-One’s still going crazy, so we’ve pulled the Shackleton back to a safe distance.”
Stars Rain Down (Biotech Legacy) Page 10