by CK Burch
Straub shook his head, violently. ″I won't tell you what I see.″ Then he stepped forward and kept his voice so low that Markov almost couldn't hear him. ″Eject this thing now. Just do it. Tybalt should have known better, we should know better, and I hate saying this but we need to jettison it now. Whatever is on the other side of that, whatever made this, will do us no good. Please.″
First Collins. Now Straub. What the hell did they see? What could make them both disregard a human life in such an easy way?
He shook his head. ″Time is running out, Doctor.″
Straub sighed, nodded, and turned to join Collins and Laguardia. All three of them stood at the base of the object, staring up into its depths. If Straub and Collins saw something that made them want to blow the damn thing out of the airlock, what was Laguardia seeing? How would she react? How would any of them react after going through?
No time to dwell. It was time to move.
″Twenty minutes,″ Markov shouted out. ″Mark that time! We'll be waiting!″
He realized that no one had questioned what would happen after that twenty minute mark. Perhaps they had guessed; perhaps not. It was too late to bring up. Because really, once that twenty minute mark was past, the artifact would have to go, rescue party returned or no. So, was this a wise course of action, then? Risking the loss of four lives instead of just one? There was still time. He could change his mind now, tell them to come back, tell them no, Doctor Tybalt should have known better, and they should jettison the artifact now, now, while there's still time and it isn't too late. Get rid of it now. Get rid of it now.
He shook his head. One life mattered. At least, it mattered for the next twenty minutes.
Markov waited until the three had stepped into and through the artifact surface. Then he turned to Decker and Wilcox and said, ″If the artifact regains its composition, fire up the plasma simulator like Straub showed you. If they don't come back out in twenty minutes, call my comm.″
Decker and Wilcox nodded. They directed the other four white jumpsuits in the bay to where they were needed and the ship's scientists stood watch.
Markov left the cargo bay. Mac was busy. Laguardia and Collins were with Straub. Udeh was hopefully sedated. There was time now in these twenty minutes to find Fleur and speak with her. He needed to speak with her, if only to clear a few things up. He sighed. What a crazy fucking time this had been.
***
CHAPTER XI.
When he stepped through the artifact's surface, he felt it grip and wrap around him the same way he remembered Kerrick's vagina had, and Straub had nearly thrown up in his helmet right then. It didn't just open up and accept him, it sucked him in, hungrily, pulling him into pitch black nothingness. Standing before it, he'd wondered what would pass by them inside, stars or planets perhaps, but no, nothing, just pitch blackness for a split second and then as his foot landed to complete his step, it landed on solid rocky ground and he was through.
The landscape before them was barren and crusted, black with beams of weak amber light piercing through in fissures. It rolled and moved slightly like the surface of bubbling oatmeal. What struck Straub instantly was the sensation that the firmament beneath him had been liquid at some point, had only cooled and cracked and burnt over time. This wasn't a sub-brown dwarf; yes, the ethane meter was high, but there were no pools of ethane in sight. Only rolling hills, reminding him of the Oregon plains, no vegetation, mostly flat out to the horizon. Above them, the darkness of space was clear and crisp with no haze to block the brightness of the stars. They shone through in crystalline diamond sparkles, hues of white and purple and full spectrums. Straub had never seen anything like it. He was familiar with most star charts within a certain range, but this eluded him.
Down at his feet was the atmospheric sounding bolt that Tybalt had shot through, the head of it still blinking, still connected to the cable on the other end in the cargo bay. He turned and saw Collins and Laguardia beside him, both looking around with as much awe as he had. A doppelganger of the artifact on the Icarus stood behind the group, chipped and cracked in the same places, formed like a speartip arrowhead at the top. Strange. A quick glance around showed him multiple artifacts, all the same color and size, lined across the plains. They seemed to be arranged in concentric circles, growing smaller towards the horizon, what he assumed was east. The compass on the HES held no bearing and could find no magnetic north. The land in that direction rolled up higher into a hill, then looked like it would dip low again.
He saw Doctor Tybalt some twenty yards away, hopskipping madly towards the point where it looked like the circles came together. She was just at the lowest point of the hill where it began to rise. He tuned his HES to her frequency and shouted, ″Doctor! Doctor Tybalt!″
She immediately stopped in her tracks, hopping a bit. The gravity here really was like the Moon, low but enough to keep them on the ground. She waved high and wide with both arms. ″I didn't think you'd follow me so quickly!″ she said. She sounded excited. No, ecstatic. ″Who did you bring with you?″
″Commander Collins and Sergeant Laguardia,″ Straub said. He thought about going to Tybalt, then stopped. He turned to Collins. ″Do you have a marker? A beacon or something? Something that transmits.″
Collins grabbed a small box-shaped object from her magbelt. ″A rescue beacon. What for?″
Straub took the beacon and kneeled next to the bolt, where he attached the box to the head of it. A small light on the beacon began to flash blue and white and the signal registered on his HES display. ″So we know which one to come back to.″ He nodded at the two and they all started hopskipping in Tybalt's direction. ″The captain ordered us to come through and bring you back,″ he called to her. He wasn't about to mention ejecting the artifact. What if she resisted? Straub wasn't about to fuck around with two officers wielding pulse rifles, but Tybalt was on an obsessive streak. She actually might be trouble. And then what?
″How did you contact him so fast? Did he just walk in as I left? How on earth did those two get suits on so fast?″ Tybalt sounded puzzled.
″You've been gone fifteen minutes, that's long enough.″ Straub was glad the officers were letting him do the talking. Please let it stay that way, he thought.
″Fifteen minutes? Straub – are they carrying rifles?″
They all came to a halt where Tybalt was standing. The display on her helmet captured her confusion perfectly and Straub became aware of the first sensation of defensiveness coming up in Tybalt's system. She'd looked like this every time anyone had been against the artifact coming aboard, or had spoken of getting rid of it, and goddammit if she wasn't about to put up a fight now. Her body language was already tensing up. He could tell despite the suit she was wearing. Fuck, he thought. ″Doctor, I called the captain the minute you came here, he called the commander and the sergeant, and we just came through. We need to head back, and we need to head back now.″
″Why?″ There it was. She nodded at Laguardia. ″Why are you carrying heavy weapons? Afraid of something going to come out and bite you?″
″These aren't heavy weapons,″ Laguardia said. Her voice was tinged with annoyance. ″And from what it looks like, the only thing out here with a little bite is you, and it would take a lot more than you to get me riled up.″ Only that sounded false and hollow; the sergeant was already clearly riled up, like she wanted to fight, like she'd been expecting, no, hoping for a fight. Straub swallowed hard and wondered what the hell he was going to do to prevent blood from being shed. Something about this place, dwarf star or planet or whatever, was exaggerating the affects of the radiation. Jesus, maybe it was the source of the radiation, and the artifact was merely a transponder. That idea made him shiver a little bit, and the want to leave this place became more powerful.
Tybalt took a step back. ″What if I'm not ready to leave yet?″
Straub held out his hands. ″Doctor – ″
″We're taking you back with us,″ Laguardia cut in, holding
the muzzle of her rifle not quite to bear, but close, too fucking close. Straub became aware and afraid of the grenade launcher on her weapon. ″That's what's going to happen.″
Collins reached over and gently pushed the rifle lower to the ground. ″Will you cool down?″
Straub silently thanked her, and tried again. ″Doctor, we don't have time for this. The artifact's radiation has grown stronger – ″ A lie, but believe it, please believe it, please. ″ – and it's beginning to affect life support and other important systems. We have to jettison the artifact or everyone on the ship will be in immediate danger. It's imperative that we leave within the next twenty minutes.″
Tybalt took him in. Could she tell that he was lying? He begged God, Jesus, Allah, and every other god in between that Laguardia would just shut the fuck up and say nothing, say nothing please goddammit, just let him do the talking. The tension was worse than it had been on the ship before the dive. Tybalt looked like she was ready to run, but to where? Her feet were planted for takeoff. Fuck, she was going to try it, try to run, he could see her ankles twisting to move, ready, here we go, oh fuck Laguardia is going to shoot, here we go, she's going to –
″Okay,″ Tybalt said, but she did turn, only she didn't bolt or try to run. She just turned back in the direction she had been going to walk up the hill, and continued. ″If we have twenty minutes then I'm going to use ten and have a look around. You can fucking shoot me in the goddamn back if you'd like. I'm going to see what's over the hill.″
Straub exhaled a little too loudly and realized that he'd been holding his breath. He looked over at the officers. Laguardia looked pissed and Collins nonplussed, but the commander shrugged and said, ″What the fuck, right? We give her ten minutes and we go back. No harm, no foul. No weapons fired. Why the fuck not?″ She stared down Laguardia until the sergeant nodded and held her rifle at the ready, but not aimed anywhere in particular. Thank god.
″Okay,″ Straub said. He called after Tybalt. ″Okay! We're coming with you, though!″
They trundled after the doctor, following in her footsteps. The ground crackled and crunched but there was no imprint left from their boots. Straub avoided the amber fissures, but wondered what was below. Was this just a thin shell over a fusion core? A sub-brown dwarf lacked the elements to create fusion, and yet the light below suggested more than the simple heat a dwarf exuded at its core, so he was utterly confused.
″Doctor!″ he shouted. ″What do you think of these fissures?″
″Looks like this used to be a star of some kind,″ she replied, further up ahead and making good headway. ″Not a dwarf, but I'm sure you've come to that conclusion. It looks like it never reached a critical mass, or if it did, it somehow cooled down enough to form an outer crust-like surface but retain enough energy to provide heat and light radiation. Which is highly improbable.″
″Improbable, yes, but given the evidence it seems likely. How the hell could it happen? Any theories?″
″The core itself must have winked and lost a hell of a lot of energy in a relatively short amount of time, then regained it somehow. Theoretically speaking a crust would form out of particles in the star's gravitational field if that did happen, but I can't think of an event significant enough that could suck away that much radiation from a core without incurring a supernova.″
As he passed by one of the fissures he looked down and received the impression that the fissure reached down some distance. How far? Now he wanted to investigate, found himself drawn deeper into the mystery of this world, what it was, how it came to be, the black obsidian monuments that potentially led to other worlds and places as well. He looked around as they mounted the hill. Aside from the artifacts, he saw large, man-sized black mounds littering his field of vision, shapeless and inert. It looked like a strange, alien graveyard. The image of the artifacts as headstones was far more chilling than it needed to be, and quickly dispelled his scientific mind's curiosity.
Tybalt reached the apex before they did. ″Holy shit,″ she whispered.
″What?″ Straub asked. He quickened his pace; he'd fallen behind the women while looking around. Fucking suit. He hated the damn thing, tried to get his bearings. ″What is it?″ he called again, and then came to the crest himself and stood next to the other three and looked down.
Holy shit.
The hill dipped lower than he'd thought, going down in a soft decline for what looked like a mile. It was a pit of sorts, the hill creating a wall around the inner part, and all along the decline were more artifacts, but in the center of the pit rose a massive stalk. That was all he could think of it as, a stalk. It wavered slightly, maybe two hundred feet tall, wet and cyclopean. It was alive; there was no doubt to that. The stalk expanded and contracted slowly, moving upward from the base to the uppermost part, which seemed to be a covering for something beneath the meatloaf-colored skin of it. Specks of white and glazed orange permeated the brick-red thing. Straub gagged. The image of the artifact, pulsing and moving as though it were an egg sac, now took on a new meaning. Near the middle of the stalk he saw layers of black scales, bulging outward and clinging to it, not a part of the mass itself, but something parasitic looking. An infection? Fuck. The base of the stalk was a large, fungoid mass that extended outward in numerous tentacles, each one reaching outward and sunk deep into the surface of the artifacts surrounding it. The tentacles pulsed as though they were sucking something out of the artifacts – energy perhaps, who knew – and Straub had the very clear realization that the artifacts weren't artifacts at all: they were seeds, planted in places where this thing might be able to reach through and find sustenance and derive energy. It reached through the voids of each artifact and drank deep.
He looked at the base. The fungoid mass looked like it was rooted into the crust below. Shafts of amber, brighter here, reached up and illuminated the stalk. There, too, it pulsed and moved in suckling motions, like a turkey baster, a sponge.
He thought of the reaction needed to make the artifact on the Icarus come to life.
The Sun.
″Doctor,″ he said weakly, ″are you – do you realize – ″
She nodded, but she couldn't take her eyes away from the stalk before them. It was maddening. Straub could barely take his eyes away from it himself, but he had to. ″We have to get out of here,″ he said.
″No shit,″ Laguardia whispered.
″No, really,″ Straub said. ″We have to get out of here.″
″Oh my god,″ Tybalt said weakly, her voice hitching. ″Oh sweet Jesus, what have we done?″
″What's going on?″ Collins asked. ″What's she talking about?″
″We have to get out of here now.″ Straub reached forward and took Tybalt by the arm, a little rougher than he meant to, but she came anyway and this was no time for dicking around. Holy fuck, this thing, holy fuck if he was right –
″What,″ Collins said, blocking his way, ″is going on? Besides that huge fuck of a thing looking like God's abortion?″
″Oh sweet Jesus, I'm so sorry,″ Tybalt said. Her mind was gone. She was beginning to babble on now, bursts of tears and sobs escaping her lips. She was going to panic. Straub thrust her towards Laguardia, who took the doctor by the arm and looked at Straub curiously.
″If I'm thinking what she's thinking, and I hope to Christ we're wrong, that thing down there is a star-eater of some kind, and the artifacts we've seen all over this place are portals for it to feed through.″ He risked a look back at the stalk; now it felt even more menacing than before, the fungus base rooted down, down into the core of this world. They were on a star. It was providing the main nutrition for the stalk and it was reaching out to other stars for more so it didn't deplete this one. The intelligence involved with such an effort was staggering. The complications of it happening without the use of technology, of which he saw none, implied terrible things that he didn't want to think of. To think that the artifact had almost fallen into the Sun...god, he didn't want to think about that e
ither. They couldn't jettison the artifact until they were well away from the Sun. Well fucking away from it.
″You're shitting me,″ Collins said. She looked at the thing in the pit with her jaw open. ″Okay. Okay, we're leaving.″
Straub was about to start down the hill when Laguardia said, ″What the fuck is it doing now?″
He turned back. The vacuum of space mercifully made the visage a silent one; he wasn't sure if he could handle hearing what it sounded like. At the tip of the stalk, the bulge began to pull backwards and a bud came out, like the head of a penis from foreskin. The bud split into three massive petals, flapping open and closed. Straub saw rows of teeth even from this distance and he wondered just how big the fucking thing really was. He didn't want to know. Then the petals closed and slapped together restlessly. It just yawned, he thought.
Then the whole of the stalk began to sway back and forth, a little harder and then a little harder still, until the head twisted back and forth and the stalk shook like a wet dog, releasing the black scales from its midsection. They fell in slow motion with the low gravity, bouncing upon the crust of the star, and then at once began moving across the plain. They were tiny dots from this range, but they were moving fast, too goddamn fast, and Straub wondered what they were.
Then he realized that they were headed this way.