Phasewave

by David Gill

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  'So we chose quarters next to each other, unpacked, and the nightmare began.' Tears sprang to Jenna's eyes and she turned her face away.

  'I'm sorry,' said Declan. 'Why don't we take a break until morning? I think we both could use some sleep.'

  Jenna brushed the tears aside and faced Declan. 'You do want to hear all this, don't you?'

  'Of course, but I'm really struggling to stay awake. I'd rather take it up again when we're both feeling more alert.'

  For the first time Jenna noticed Declan's half-closed eyes, red rimmed with fatigue. 'I guess you're right,' she said. 'Let's start again tomorrow.'

  Having bid Jenna good night, Declan returned to his room and was once again confronted by the worn cases stacked on the floor. He opened the first case and briefly examined its contents before deciding to leave them as they were until he was established at the next venue. Declan undressed painfully and slowly, each aching joint a personal reminder of the unfamiliar Vennican gravity, until he was once again confronted by the reflection of his battered body in the mirror, causing him to wonder what Gil had been thinking when he had asked if the stay on Scion had been worthwhile. He had ended up with no friends and no life worth talking about; his career had been sacrificed for the sake of what he was now beginning to perceive as being a colossal indulgence, and only a scarred and hideous reminder of his former self stared back at him from the glass to remind him of the error of his ways.

  The pain continued to tighten its hold until Declan was forced to take one of the drugs he carried with him and afterwards, whilst waiting for it to take effect, he lay naked on the bed and gave in to his mental turmoil, allowing the seething whirlpool of his mind to wander as it wished. Images appeared of Scion, the second largest man-made structure ever built in space, followed by the first, formative picture of Bouron, a barren, dust-covered planet. Countless, small, unconnected pieces of the picture floated at random, each of which was destined to eventually make up a tiny portion of the whole scene. Buildings sprang from the ground, surrounded by the distinctive structures of the Phasewave transceivers, protruding through the dust like the gaping maws of hideous wild animals, thrusting skyward as if to snap at the circling satellites overhead. Bits of the picture floated and moved and relocated but, stationary in the centre of the frame, there remained the figure of a lone woman with dark, searching eyes.

  Declan eventually fell into a fitful sleep where he rose and fell on a tide of fleeting dreams until the scene changed and he found himself back in familiar territory, drifting free in a sea of translucent green water, sinking slowly into unseen depths where unrecognizable shapes moved in the gloom below and the tips of man-made spires clawed upwards towards the pale light. The moving flow accelerated, effortlessly sucking him ever deeper and a loud, pulsing sound filled his ears. The force contained him in its grip until it curled around an unseen bend and hung above the yawning mouth of a vast, black subterranean cavern, poised to drag him down into the growling maelstrom on a long, final journey. Suddenly a high pitched cry cut through the churning noise - Jenna was calling to him!

  Declan jerked awake, disorientated and unable to recognize his surroundings. He lay shivering on the bed until he remembered where he was and then went and sat under a shower until its heat melted the cold inside his body. The crisis was over for the time being, but Declan knew it would return the next night and each night after that, as it always did. After a while he turned off the soothing spray of water, dried himself and returned to bed where he slept, undisturbed, for the remainder of the night.

  Blinds swung gently in a soft breeze against an open window, allowing the morning sun to throw straight, horizontal shadows across the room in flickering pulses, but no matter how closely Declan studied the outline depicted on the living room wall he was unable to work out where the artificial light was coming from. Standing there at that moment he found it difficult to believe that he was buried deep under the centre of Kalmis instead of outside in open countryside.

  'It's effective, isn't it?'

  Declan spun round, startled to hear the sound of a voice.

  'Sorry, I didn't mean to make you jump,' said Jenna.

  'I thought I was on my own.' Declan gestured at the wall. 'This is like the real thing.'

  'It gets boring after a while,' said Jenna. 'You're up early. Did you have a bad night?'

  'I managed to get some sleep.' Declan saw from the shadows on Jenna's face that she too had not slept well. 'Do you want to eat? There's food next door.'

  'Not yet, I'll stick with the coffee.'

  Declan poured them both a drink. He felt slightly detached, but the aches and pains in his joints had eased somewhat, allowing him a little peace. He handed a cup to Jenna and followed her into the living room.

  'Do you want to start now?' he asked.

  'If it's okay by you,' said Jenna, 'I'd like to get this over with as quickly as possible. I worry all the time that I'm forgetting things. Which reminds me, I'd like to ask a favour. I draw a lot and haven't been allowed any drawing materials since I came here. Can you get me some paper, pencils, pens, materials like that?'

  'I'll see what I can do. What do you draw?'

  'I can draw practically anything, but I usually draw from memory. Later on I will do some illustrations for you.' She took her seat again. 'Last night I was telling you what happened after we landed on Bouron.'

  'What did you find when you searched the base?'

  'Nothing at all. We went through it from top to bottom, room by room. We turned the place upside down, but it was exactly as Birne had said, you would have thought that the previous crew had just left and were expected back at any time. There were no signs of a planned departure: no log entries, no system shut-downs, absolutely nothing.'

  'Did you check for signs of contamination?'

  'Birne was very thorough. He tested the atmosphere inside the base, but there were no organic compounds in the air and the recycler filters were clean. The carbon dioxide levels were down and there were no traces of human occupation. We were all convinced that the missing crew was nowhere around.'

  'And the logs?' asked Declan. 'Did they reveal anything?'

  'The logs only contained routine entries. The last one had been made three months before we landed, and nothing had been recorded since. The whole thing was inexplicable.'

  'After you searched the base, what was your personal opinion about the missing crew?'

  'I assumed that they must have been taken off by ship, but none had been near Bouron at the time of the last log entry. It was the only explanation I could think of, but it didn't tie in with the fact that they had left their belongings behind.'

  'Perhaps they'd been in a hurry to leave,' said Declan.

  'But we know that wasn't the case.'

  'Don't get ahead of me,' warned Declan. 'I need you to relate events in the order in which they occurred; I have to work on the same information that was available to you.'

  'Sure,' said Jenna. A thin frown line creased her brow as she tried to concentrate. 'After the search we checked the data logs and confirmed from the satellite trackers that the last ship to visit the base had been the Amar's landing craft on the supply run, three months before the crew disappeared. We could establish that for a fact because each time a ship passes through the safety lane it moves the satellites slightly. The ground-based trackers monitor any unplanned movements and reposition the satellites back onto station. Whenever they move a satellite they automatically submit a report which is recorded in the control room data log.'

  'Would it have been possible for anything to have approached the base from a different direction?'

  'No. Two contra-rotating rings of satellites give complete coverage of the visual horizon during the planet's daily cycle. It would be impossible for anything to penetrate the inner ring without affecting at least several of them. The safety lane is constantly moving; it repositions backwards and forwards each day
according to the planet's rotation, always following the line of least resistance through the satellites.'

  Declan allowed Jenna's words to sink in. 'So you carried out a full search and found nothing out of the ordinary. What then was the first unusual event you encountered?'

  'It started with the skimmers,' said Jenna.

  'Explain please.'

  'The dust layer on the surface of Bouron is too deep to support body weight for more than a short time, which means that skimmers are the only practical means of transport outside the base. They are two-man scooters, air-cushion vehicles, nothing sophisticated, but the four belonging to the base were all unusable. They were actually worn out, which was surprising because, apart from the reactors, the only units sited outside the base complex were the four tracker stations and they rarely required attention. We had to repair one of the skimmers before we could go to Tracker South.'

  'I've missed something,' said Declan. 'Go back a stage - what happened to make you want to visit the tracker station?'

  'One of them had stopped sending,' said Jenna, 'and then we found the tracks on the line-scan.'

  'Tell me about the line-scan.'

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  Chapter Three

  'Something's happened to Tracker South,' said Jenna.

  Brant walked across the control room and looked over Jenna's shoulder at the read-out on the screen.

  'It hasn't submitted a status report for four months,' said Jenna. 'That means it stopped sending one month before the crew disappeared, although there's nothing in the log about it.'

  'Are the others still sending?' Brant asked.

  'They check out okay,' said Jenna. 'Well, if that's the only malfunction I'm not complaining. Is there anything on your side?'

  'For some reason Unit Nine is off-line. I'm pretty sure the crew would have recorded a Phasewave malfunction if it had occurred while they were still here, so it must have failed after they had left. I'll take a look at it later. In the meantime Unit Eleven has taken over its load and Unit Twelve is spare.'

  'It might have been knocked out by a lightning strike,' said Jenna. 'I was watching a storm last night and saw a strike hit the ground near the base.'

  Brant looked through the window to where the empty plain stretched away under a cold, pale sky. It was an uninspiring scene, but one he would be seeing a lot of over the next year. 'So, apart from those two unserviceabilities, everything is fully functional. Let's hope it stays that way.'

  Jenna joined him at the window. 'What do you think happened? Do you think they're out there lying under the dust?'

  'People don't just vanish without trace,' said Brant. 'The only explanation I can come up with is that they must have left on another ship which went undetected by the trackers, but I've no idea why they would have wanted to do so.'

  'Aren't you worried about finding the bodies?'

  'We've searched everywhere we intend to go during the next year and found no trace of them. That suits me fine; I'm more than happy to leave it at that.'

  'So you think the decision to stay was the right one?'

  Brant studied Jenna's reflection in the window while he considered her words. She was tiny, her waist the thickness of one of his thighs. Only her dark, striking eyes hinted at an inner strength. He found the thought of their being together for the next year slightly disturbing. 'I've got used to the idea,' he said.

  'I know it sounds mean,' said Jenna, 'but I wouldn't have enjoyed Vance's company on my own. I'm glad you stayed.'

  Brant saw Jenna's eyes mirrored in the window lock onto his and looked away. 'You haven't told me what you think happened.'

  'Like you, I think that the most likely explanation is that the crew left by ship, although the trackers recorded no satellite corrections after the Amar's last visit.'

  'Maybe it was a small landing craft,' Brant suggested. 'The trackers can't always be one hundred per cent reliable, and we've already established that at the time of the crew's disappearance at least one of the four was unserviceable.'

  'But all four trackers detected the supply drop when the Amar visited two months before Tracker South failed, and the remaining three logged the Giran's landing craft when it brought us down. In any case, why would the crew leave their personal belongings behind if they knew they were going to be taken off Bouron?'

  'Search me,' said Brant. 'If it didn't happen that way, the only thing I can think of is that they must have gone insane.'

  'If they were suffering from space sickness they would have left signs of irrational behaviour behind. We've found nothing. The trackers ...'

  'Forget the trackers,' interrupted Brant. 'Look, the crew aren't here, so they must have gone somewhere else, that's all there is to it.'

  Jenna started to pursue the subject, then changed her mind, unwilling to provoke an argument, at least not until she had more information to work on. She decided to try another approach. 'I want to go through the logs with Vance, maybe he's missed something.'

  'You're wasting your time,' said Brant. 'Listen, there's something you need to know. You'd have found out eventually anyway, but Vance isn't well, he's only come here to save up the money to buy an artificial heart. He told me he's got a couple of years at most unless he gets his heart seen to, so I don't think he'll be able to take much in the way of excitement. I thought I would warn you.'

  'How did he get through the medical checks before he came?' Jenna asked.

  'He bribed the doctor,' said Brant. 'Don't look so shocked, it's been done before.'

  'So that's why he was keen for me to stay with him.'

  You're learning,' said Brant. 'Anyway, it's too late now to change anything.'

  The new information at least served to confirm Jenna's suspicions about Vance. 'Why didn't you tell me this on the way out?'

  'Would it have made any difference?'

  'It might have.'

  'Until Birne broke the news about the missing crew there was no need to,' said Brant. 'Remember, I was the one who didn't want to stay, I was the one who tried to persuade you to go back to Vennica. It was your decision to side with Vance.'

  'Okay, okay, so it's my fault. What made you change your mind?'

  'Give me a break. I couldn't leave you here alone with Vance. What kind of a person do you think I am?'

  Jenna could not think of a reply. She looked down at her console and automatically continued to trawl through the data logs while she tried to accept what Brant had said. Had Brant really stayed behind just because of her? It was now obvious to her that Vance had known all along what the outcome of his plan would be, and somehow she had managed to misread both men's intentions. Through her own lack of awareness she had introduced another unwanted complication into her life - it was something at which she was becoming an expert.

  'What's that?' asked Brant.

  Jenna found herself staring, unseeing, at an aerial picture of the base area on Bouron. She pulled it up onto a larger screen for closer examination. 'These must be the scans taken by the Giran, the ones Birne left for us.' She ran through a selection of scans showing aerial surveys taken with pictorial, thermal and radar imaging.

  Something on an oblique line-scan caught Brant's attention. 'Hold it there. What made those marks?'

  Jenna looked to where Brant was pointing. Numerous faint lines linking the base complex to a small building situated over a kilometre away appeared on the screen. 'They're tracks of some sort.'

  'There are lots of them. Nobody could walk that distance through the dust, so they can't be footprints. They can only have been made by skimmers.'

  Jenna magnified the image on the screen. 'There must be over a hundred tracks between the two buildings. Why do they all lead to one place, and why have they shown up only on this particular map?'

  'This is a radar section, so the tracks are probably lying below the surface layer of dust,' said Brant. 'These look like old tracks, which could explain why they don't show up on the pictorial scans.'<
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  'We need to find out what's so special about that particular building.' Jenna ran off a hard copy of the scan and walked round the room holding it up to each window in turn until she located the building in question. In the distance a small white dome with its own complicated aerial display perched on a low rise in the ground.

  'That's a satellite tracker.' Brant looked at the site plan on the wall which identified all visible objects around the base. 'It's Tracker South - the one that stopped sending.'

  'There's a coincidence. I wonder why so many journeys to that tracker were necessary.'

  'They may have tried to fix it,' said Brant, 'but there's nothing in the log about any repairs being carried out.'

  A disturbing thought lodged in Jenna's mind. Had the tracker got anything to do with the missing crew? 'I presume Birne and Ingo went inside the trackers during their first search.'

  'They were down here for three days and told me that they had searched all the installations.'

  'These scans were taken on the day we landed,' said Jenna. 'There don't appear to be any recent skimmer tracks leading to Tracker South, so it looks like they couldn't have searched outside the base.'

  'To visit all four trackers they would probably have taken the landing craft, which wouldn't have left any traces. We should be able to tell when the skimmers were last used from the charging states of their power units.'

  'We need to know why all those journeys were necessary. How old are these trails anyway? Would they show up under the dust if they were three months old?'

  'I think they probably would. What are you thinking?'

  'I think we should take a look at that building,' said Jenna.

  'Not until we've first cleared it with Vance.'