“We could make a run for it,” said George.
Hutch’s hand touched his shoulder. “You wanted to say hello, George. This is your chance.”
A glow appeared on the floor about fifty meters ahead. George watched a round yellow lamp glide into the intersection. It was mounted on front of a vehicle. He pushed back and tried to melt into the wall.
“Nobody move,” said Hutch.
He was able to make out a single wheel and something that undulated above the light. A tentacle, he thought, and his blood froze.
“What’s happening?” asked Nick. Hutch was kneeling beside him, keeping him still.
The vehicle stopped in the middle of the passageway, and the lamp turned slowly in their direction, blinding him.
He thought he saw a squid on a bike.
Hutch produced the cutter.
George stared into the light. The thing turned slowly and advanced in their direction.
The moment, at long last, had come.
Gathering his courage, George stepped forward. Hutch’s voice rang in his ears, telling him to take it slowly. No sudden moves.
He shielded his eyes with one hand and raised the other. “Hello,” he said, pointlessely. Unless the thing was listening to his frequency, it could not hear him. Nevertheless he pressed on: “We were passing by when we saw your ship.”
The vehicle was a three-wheeler, one in front, two behind, with a pair of tentacles mounted where the handlebars would be. The headlight also seemed to be on a tentacle. The vehicle moved to within a couple of paces, and stopped, facing them.
George held his ground.
One of the tentacles touched him. He thought it looked polished, smooth, but segmented. The appendage looped smoothly around one arm. George wanted to jerk away from it, but he resisted the impulse. He heard Nick say something. Nick was sitting up, watching.
The tentacle was tipped by a small rectangular connector with three flexible digits.
“We’re friends,” he said, feeling dumb. Was anybody recording this for posterity?
Someone behind him, obviously thinking the same thing, laughed. In that moment, the tension evaporated.
“We’ve tried not to do any damage.”
The tentacle released him and went through a graceful series of swirls and loops.
“Nick fell into the hole back there. But fortunately he wasn’t hurt.” You should mark them.
Both appendages withdrew into the handlebar. Then the light swung away and the device started up again and trundled past. He noticed a stack of black boxes piled on a platform in the rear. A kind of saddle was mounted midsection. In case someone wanted to ride?
It continued to the intersection and turned right.
“SO WHAT DO we do now?” Alyx looked at George, and George looked at the image of the chindi, still gliding serenely above the roiling clouds.
They were in mission control. “We go back and try again,” said George.
Tor and Nick looked at each other. Nick was on a crutch. His leg was bound so he couldn’t move it. “He’s right,” said Tor. “We’re doing pretty well. We have a good idea what the chindi is about, and they don’t seem to be hostile.”
“They don’t even seem to be interested,” said Hutch.
“If it’s a scientific survey vessel,” said Nick, “how could that be?”
Nobody knew. “Hutch said earlier that it might be automated,” said Tor. “Maybe it is. Maybe there’s really nobody over there.”
George was chewing on a piece of pineapple. “That’s hard to believe.”
“If this is some sort of ongoing, long-range mission,” said Hutch, “which is what it’s beginning to look like, running it with an AI and an army of robots might be the only way to go.”
“The problem with going back over there,” she added, “is that we still can’t predict when it might take off. If it does, and we’ve got people on board, we could lose them.”
“That’s a risk I think we’re willing to take at this point,” said Nick.
George shook his head. “Not you, Nick.”
“What do you mean, Not me? I can get around.”
“I don’t think any of you ought to go back,” said Hutch. “You’re just asking for trouble.” But she could see they were determined to go. It looked as if the major danger was past. No people-eaters to worry about. “But George is right.” She looked at Nick. “If the chindi starts to move, we’ll have to clear everyone off in a hurry. There’ll be less chance of survival if you’re there.”
Nick stared back at her. But he knew she was right. And it was hard for him to get angry with Hutch. So he just sat back and looked unhappy.
George was obviously trying to weigh the risk. “This would be a lot easier if we had an idea how much longer they might be here. Hutch, are you sure there’s no way to guess?”
“Not without knowing how big their tanks are. Or how long they’ve been at it already.”
“Look,” said Tor, “suppose it did take off with some of us on it, what course of action have we? You said earlier we’d be able to follow it, right?”
“I said maybe.”
“Okay. So there’s a chance. How confident are you?”
“Depends on the technology. If they do things differently from the way we do, it could be a problem.”
“But if it uses Hazeltine technology, and it jumped, you could follow it to its target, and take us off there. If worse came to worst.”
“Maybe. We’d probably have no trouble finding the destination. But if it’s a long jump, you could run out of air before you got there. If it’s a short jump, we still have to find you within the confines of an entire solar system. It’s by no means a lock.”
“The air tanks,” Alyx reminded them, “only have a six-hour supply. That’s almost no margin at all.”
“I know,” said George. “But we can substantially improve that margin.”
“I’ve been thinking about that, too,” said Tor. “The whole business of having to run outside every few hours for a fresh pair of tanks would slow us down in any case.”
“And,” Alyx said to George, “your suggestion is…”
George raised both arms, a cleric revealing the divine truth. “Tor’s pocket dome.”
“My thought exactly.” Tor was beaming. “We set it up over there and use it as a base. It gives us the opportunity to penetrate deeper into the ship. And we can move it from place to place as we go.”
Hutch made a rumbling sound in her throat. “Tor, the dome has its limits.”
“What limits? It recycles the air. It can go forever. As long as we don’t put too many people inside.”
“It needs power cells.”
“Once every few days. I have two cells. They’ll give us six days each. When one goes down, I’ll send it over for recharge.”
“Well,” said Alyx, “you could put a transmitter on the hull. That way, if it took off, you’d be able to find it in the target system.”
“That’s what we’ll do,” said Tor.
“Wait.” Hutch was sitting in front of a glass of lime juice and a lunch that she hadn’t yet touched. “You’re assuming whatever jump it makes will be to a system close by. But suppose it heads for the Cybele Nebula. We’d need eighteen days to find you. At a minimum. Anything like that happens, and you’re dead.”
George shook his head. She was worrying for no reason. “If we judge by the positioning of the stealths, the flights have all been relatively local.”
“What about acceleration?” asked Alyx. “Won’t you get banged around if the thing takes off?”
“That’s a point I hadn’t thought of,” said Tor. “Acceleration. If it does go, the people inside might not survive.”
“You’re probably okay on that score,” said Hutch. “They have artificial gravity, which means they probably also have some form of damping field.”
“What’s that?” asked Alyx.
“We have one, too. It negates inertia. Most
of it, anyhow. Keeps you from getting thrown around when we accelerate or make a hard right.
“That doesn’t mean, by the way, if the thing starts to move while you’re over there, that you shouldn’t get your back to a wall or something, okay?”
“Hutch?” Bill’s voice. They all turned to look at the wallscreen, but no image appeared.
“Yes, Bill.”
“The damage to the outer hatch on the chindi is repairing itself.” A picture blinked on. “It’s gradually filling in.”
“Nanotech again,” said Tor.
Alyx looked as if she were trying to make up her mind about something. “Hutch,” she said, “we know there’s a degree of risk. But I think what we’re trying to say is that we’re willing to accept that. Now why don’t we move on and figure out what we do next?”
That took George by surprise. “I didn’t think,” he said, “that you wanted anything to do with the chindi.”
She colored slightly. “I didn’t much like sitting by myself while you guys took all the risks.”
“Look,” said Tor. “Let’s set up over there for forty-eight hours. Then we’ll pull everybody out. And that’ll be the end.”
“No matter what?” asked Hutch.
“No matter what.” He grinned at her. “Unless by then we’ve established relations with the crew and we have an invitation to dinner.”
“Forty-eight hours,” said Hutch. She held out the cutter. “If you’re to have any chance of getting picked up when the trouble starts—and it will start—I’m going to have to stay with the Memphis.”
“Okay.”
“But I don’t want to be left wondering what’s going on in the chindi. We’ll use Alyx’s idea and put a transmitter at the exit hatch. And we’ll add a relay. That should make local communication a little easier.”
ALYX CHECKED HER tether. She was in the middle between Tor and George. They were all down on the rocky skin of the chindi, looking up at Hutch, who was watching them through the windscreen.
The cargo hatch opened and they unloaded the pocket dome, air tanks, two power cells, and a few days’ supply of food and water. When they’d finished, they waved, Hutch waved back, wished them good luck, and lifted off. Alyx watched the lander turn and move in the direction of the Memphis, which looked very small and very far away.
Alyx had never dreamed when she set out on this mission that it might actually come to something. The Society had always been more of a social organization than anything else. They’d sent people out to look at places where sightings had occurred, but everyone understood it was a game, it was a fantasy they all indulged. This trip had gone off-Earth, but she’d still thought of it as a party, as a break in her routine, a vacation with a few old friends. Yet here she was standing on the hull of an alien vessel. She was frightened. But she also felt more excited than she had at any time in the last ten years.
She didn’t wholeheartedly support Tor’s idea to set up a base. She’d have been satisfied to come over and put her head inside just so she could say she’d been here. Been part of the team that went on board the chindi. Carried the transmitter. She knew what that would be worth in publicity when she got home. But more important, she knew how it would make her feel about herself.
Tor was carrying the pocket dome, George had the compressed air tanks and some water containers, and Alyx was carrying the food. Even though there was no gravity on the outside, the packages were clumsy, and Alyx lost her grip at one point and had to watch while a parcel of frozen sandwiches drifted away.
George led them across the surface, the regolith, whatever one would call the rocky exterior of a starship. They walked between the ridges that bordered either side of the hollow, and stopped before the hatch. As Bill had warned them, it was sealed.
There was no evidence whatever that a hole had been cut through the hatch only the day before.
George handed the cutter to Tor, who patiently sliced another opening. He lifted the piece out and let it drift away. While they waited for the heated rock to cool, Alyx took the transmitter out of her vest and secured it just outside the hatch.
“Try not to go around too many bends down there,” said Hutch, from the lander. “They smother the signal.”
“Okay.”
“One more thing. If this thing does start to move, it might not seem like a lot of acceleration inside. But out on the hull, there’ll be no stat field.”
“No what?” asked George.
“Stat field. Anti-inertia. To keep you from getting thrown around when the thing takes off. What I’m trying to tell you is that if it goes, things might seem okay inside, as if you’re not moving very fast, but if you try to come out through the hole, it could rip your head off. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“So if things start to happen, don’t come out unless I tell you to. Everybody understand?”
They all understood. Alyx started wondering if she’d made another mistake.
“Good luck,” said Hutch.
Chapter 25
Beyond the golden peak
Runs the river of all the world;
Its banks, awash with cities,
Its bottom littered with bones….
— AHMED KILBRAHN, RITES OF PASSAGE, 2188
TOR WENT FIRST, enjoying the sudden grab that gravity made at him as he climbed onto the ladder and started down. Actually it was a potentially dangerous moment because the gravity field extended out of the ship, through the section of door they’d removed. An unwary visitor, expecting to feel nothing but zero gee until he actually passed through the hatch, could get a swift surprise, followed by a long fall to the floor.
Alyx had been warned, and she placed her feet carefully onto the top rungs. George stayed on the surface, handing down equipment, food stores, and water tanks, until they had everything. Then he turned, waved at the distant Memphis, and descended into the tunnel.
They couldn’t handle all the equipment in a single load so they left the food and water stores and some of the gear in the passageway below the exit hatch, and moved out.
Tor showed her the werewolf. Even though she knew it was coming, her pulse ran up a few notches. “Looks intelligent,” he pointed out.
From what she’d heard, she expected a horrific manifestation. Instead she was looking at a wolf in evening clothes. She giggled and Tor looked annoyed. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I can’t help it. It’s a lovely outfit, though.”
Tor explained how they had come on it completely unaware, and it was pretty unsettling when you just wander into it in the dark, no advance warning, you just don’t know what you’re up against.
“I know exactly what you mean,” she said.
They took her to the other chambers of interest and came at last to the gravity tube, The Ditch, as George had designated it on the chart he was making. The cable they’d used to haul Hutch and Nick up still dangled into the pit.
“She really jumped in there?” she asked.
Tor nodded.
She approached and looked down. “That’s a woman worth having.” She smiled at George. “You fall in, you’re on your own.” And speaking of the captain, this seemed like a good time to try the relay. She opened the link. “Hutch, you there? Can you hear me?”
“Loud and clear, Alyx.”
“Okay, we’re at the pit. Proceeding which way, George?”
“Turning right,” he said.
She relayed the information. But before they left, she took a handkerchief out of her vest, unfolded it, and lobbed it into the shaft. Unopposed by air, even at a half gee, it dropped like a rock.
“What are you doing?” demanded George.
“I wanted to see it work.” She checked the time.
Tor grinned, and George looked discomfited. “We should have some respect for this place.” He looked with great disapproval into the shaft. “That is almost vandalism.”
It took one minute four seconds. The handkerchief reappeared and dropped back into the darkness.
“Incredible,” she said.
They moved into unknown territory, resisting the temptation to open doors until they had penetrated deeply enough to establish their base. They would do that, they decided, in one of the empty chambers, out of the way of anything patrolling the corridors. The signal began to fade, and Alyx planted the second of four relay devices she’d brought, reestablishing contact.
THEY WERE ABOUT a kilometer from the exit hatch when they stopped, looked into an empty chamber, and selected it as their base. They chose a spot off to one side so they wouldn’t be immediately visible to anything looking casually through the door.
Tor released the clips on the pack, they connected the nozzles from the air tanks, and Alyx stood back while the dome inflated.
They installed the life-support gear, seated a power cell, leaving the spare in its storage compartment, and turned the lights on. “Looks good,” said Alyx. In fact it looked absolutely inviting. They set the thermostat at a comfortable room temperature. The heater came on and began pumping warm air into the space.
Alyx knew that all the evidence so far indicated that whoever was running the chindi was inclined to ignore them, but she still felt safer inside the dome, not that it could have kept out any serious threat, but because it was part of a familiar world.
When they were finished they turned off the lights—there was no point wasting power—went back to the exit hatch, and collected their food and water, their sleeping pads, and a few other pieces of equipment. They paused at the Ditch to wait for Alyx’s handkerchief to reappear. Within a few seconds it did.
The conversation consisted mostly of the same remarks over and over, how empty the place was, how big it was, how there must be a control area somewhere. A captain’s bridge. A command center. Alyx was thinking how much energy it must take to get the chindi moving, to lift it out of orbit, or to stop it once it got started. She would have liked a chance to see the engines, but it would probably take weeks to find them.
They returned to the dome, buttoned up, and killed their e-suits. They stored their food, got the drinking water into the dispenser, and put the plumbing on-line.
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