Erebus

by Ralph Kern

  Just inside the top of the spike nestled the containers and umbilicals that made up the Eston Mons facility. Its spiderlike configuration was spread through what appeared to have been the original habitable sections of the artifact.

  “Indeed it does work. In fact, it’s remarkably well preserved, even considering the environment. But then, you knew that from back home. After all, that’s why you’re here, isn’t it? To watch the big moment?”

  Drayton leaned forward, the spinning hologram making her eyes gleam. “That’s exactly why I’m here.”

  ***

  Together, they walked through the long, pressurized umbilical tubes, which connected the far-flung cargo pallets that made up the Eston Mons facility. The clear plastic allowed her to see the epic scale of the artifact. Its corridors, galleries, and rooms were massive. The maintenance crew had spent a long time putting up flood-lights, but still there were swathes of the sections humans hadn’t populated that were dark, such was the scale. It was obvious that the place hadn’t been constructed by human hands. The architecture was too strange. The corridors looked like they were ribbed and gothic, full of strange buttresses and alcoves.

  Before long, they arrived at the forward operating cabin, nestled inside the part of the artifact that had really captured their interest.

  “It took us a long time to learn the basics of the operating system,” Delaney said, his breath emerging as a cloud in the chill, dark room illuminated only by the instruments and computer displays. “The AI we brought for the task had a hard time interfacing with it, but once it did, it was remarkably easy to manipulate.”

  “It surprises me that they didn’t have tighter software security, whoever they were,” Drayton murmured as she looked through the window at the towering machine hunkered at the center of a mile-wide chamber.

  “We know nothing about them, full stop. Maybe security wasn’t an issue. Maybe they had a utopian vision. Maybe they were all insect-like drones. In fact, considering the architecture of the place, that’s the leading theory at the moment. This place bears more of a resemblance to an inverted termite mound than anything human. But still, we know nothing firm about them, not even what they looked like. There’s no personal information on the systems we’ve breached, no cultural artifacts at all throughout the explored sections—nothing. Either they simply didn’t have them or it’s all been cleared away.”

  “None of the reports mentioned bodies?” Drayton asked.

  Delaney shook his head. “Again, no signs. There is some residual organic matter, but it could be their equivalent of black mold. As far as I’ve been informed, none of the bio-reformers at any of the research labs has had any luck at all with forensic reconstruction.”

  “That’s what I hear, too.” Drayton was confident that was indeed the truth. Everything about this project was need to know, and she needed to know it all to give a full report to her employer…her true employer.

  “Thank you for your candor, if indeed you are being candid.” The smile on Delaney’s face was wry. He walked over to the technicians, who sat chattering indecipherably to one another in their own technobabble.

  “At least your guys have figured out the important stuff,” Drayton called over to him.

  “Maybe, but without context—”

  “Al, just switch the damn machine on.”

  ***

  Hours dragged by before the techs were ready. Despite what she was about to witness, she had to admit, this part was pretty damn dull.

  Finally one of the techs called out to Delaney, “Sir, we’re ready to go on your mark.”

  Drayton started awake, the boredom and fatigue washing out of her system in an instant. She stood up and walked to the window to watch an epic moment on this epic machine. Through her feet, she felt a vibration. Here, the artifact was shaped like an old Chinese pagoda, right in the center of the room. Leading into the pagoda at its base was a gaping black hole that a skyliner could fly through. It could have hidden anything within.

  “By all means.” Delaney waved his hand for them to proceed.

  More chatter came from the techs. Drayton saw the probe ease forward on spiderlike legs. The ingenious device had an arachnid-like appearance. It could deploy small servitor drones and had a sample-return module situated at the rear like an arachnid’s abdomen. Because no one knew what to expect, the drone was engineered to cope with just about any environment imaginable.

  The probe crawled up the ramp to the machine and into the gateway. Sickly green lights pulsed down rhythmically along the flank of the Pagoda, getting faster and faster until they blurred into a solid line. Then the pulses stopped.

  The probe had disappeared.

  “It worked.” Delaney looked at Drayton, jubilance on his face. “It fucking worked!”

  The techs high-fived each other as giddy as school children. Drayton smiled. Her boss would be very interested in this. The alien artifact was, as they suspected, a gateway.

  And it actually worked.

  ***

  “Shit,” I said, rather unoriginally, as I came to the end of Dayton’s briefing package.

  “Shit, indeed,” Vance agreed, a deeply contemplative look on her face.

  When Endeavour had returned from Tau Ceti all those years ago, there had been a massive resurgence in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. That had inevitably faded when nothing had been found. But Red Star had found something—and in Earth’s own backyard.

  CHAPTER 27

  CONCORDE

  “I’m not saying you don’t get fucking results,” I snarled, leaning over the table looking Cheng straight in his slightly glowing eyes. “What I’m questioning is your bloody methods. You may not have realized this, but it’s my job to stop that kind of shit from happening.”

  “Last time I checked, The Hague had no authority over MSS methods, or me for that matter,” Cheng growled.

  “Task force agreements state that if we managed to find someone, they are to be heard at The Hague tribunal. I don’t want to find myself next to them in the defendant’s dock for torturing information out of anyone,” I replied. I was fuming. Call me old-fashioned, but I had the firm opinion that torture was a no go, even the “soft kinds” Cheng had employed.

  “Boys, calm down,” Vance interjected. I could tell she was forcing the soothing tone into her speech. “Look, both of you have a point. We need that information, but we can’t go unilaterally ripping it out of anyone, if for no other reason than it might invalidate any evidence we glean.”

  I sat back in my chair at the campus HQ, trying my hardest not to look like a sullen teenager. Cheng regarded me coldly for a moment before letting his customary twinkle sneak back into his eyes. This was a man who would do what it took and be able to sleep soundly afterward.

  “Guys,” Frampton nervously interjected, “we still have the small matter of an alien facility, which looks like it’s a damn gateway. Can you argue about methods later?”

  Yes, we did have an alien facility, and I imagined we would indeed argue about it later. For the moment, I filed my anger.

  The “incident” was looking like someone had decided to blow up the damn moon to destroy the artifact—which led to the question of why. It was easily the most important discovery since the development of our own gateways. Drayton didn’t look like she had a clue past being sent there to watch the probe being deployed into the pagoda. If it worked anything like gateways and gateships, then that probe was still on its way to wherever it was going. We needed to find out who wanted the artifact gone and why.

  “I take it Han Xin’s had no luck picking through Io’s rubble?” I asked, putting aside Cheng’s and my ethical debate, a little reluctantly, for the moment. As soon as we had watched Drayton’s download, we had reassigned the other explorer ship we had in the Jupiter system to examine the debris of the moon for any surviving wreckage from the artifact.

  “None,” Frampton said sadly. I bet the fellow would have loved to have gotten hi
s paws on it. “Magellan came in on almost the exact opposite side of the moon to the Eston Mons facility. When the ship blew through, it obliterated that whole region. It could be that was the intention in the first place.”

  We had reviewed every piece of information that Drayton had sent us. We found no suggestion of any destination for where the probe might be heading and no cultural information about whoever built it. Nothing.

  “So, what are we going to do about this?” Cheng said, regarding the spinning hologram of the alien spike driven into the heart of Io.

  “Not to sound cliché, but people have killed for this,” I said. “We have to go one way or the other. Full disclosure on open channels or…”

  “Or we wait to see what we actually have here,” Vance finished.

  We all looked at each other; I could practically see the cogs whirring. Some of them were undoubtedly considering how they could keep the information for their own governments. The silence was getting pretty awkward—like a kind of verbal Mexican stand-off, every person waiting to see what the others had to say.

  “So,” I buckled, “has anyone ever seen anything like this before?”

  “No.” Frampton seemed as relieved to break the impasse as I was. “Or at least to our knowledge.” Vance rolled her eyes but let him continue. “I mean, of course, there were the Tau Ceti reports from the Endeavour mission that suggested that there may once have been some kind of advanced technological civilization there, but nothing physical was ever found, just hints in the geological processes of the planet.”

  “And rumor has it that the same crew is currently exploring another star system that may have extant intelligence,” Sihota said. “Although, that information has mostly been garnered through scuttlebutt. Attempts to corroborate suggest that the life they found may be intelligent but not advanced.”

  “So not ancient aliens capable of building an interstellar gateway, then,” I said rhetorically. “Maybe we should ask Frain what his take on all this is.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Vance said.

  At that moment, a group-link request appeared. It was Cerise. “Hello. Does anyone know a Connie Miles?”

  Wearily, we looked at each other. Connie Miles was a news correspondent and famously incisive talking head for Earth-Wide News. In other words, trouble. With a dubious tone, I said, “Hi, Cerise. Yeah, I’ve heard of her. What does she want?”

  “She’s requesting an interview with the investigation team.”

  “Give her my compliments, but tell her we’re a little busy right now,” I replied.

  “I thought you would say that and already told her you were.” She smiled. Damn that smile.

  “And?” I asked.

  “She said she has authority from the Jupiter Alliance press office. They’ve told her she can have access for some questions.”

  I looked around the room. Just about everyone’s eyes were rolling.

  “Can you run the request through the JAS press office again, please? Seriously, we’re not in the right place now for this.”

  “Layton, even Voice Patrice has spoken on the Linked Consensus for the need to have some information coming out of the investigation teams. The decision has been made,” Cerise announced firmly.

  “Okay. I’ll get back to you in five.” I closed down the link. “I guess the damn media was going to catch up with us eventually.”

  “Yeah.” Vance’s tone was uncharacteristically pensive. “Looks like we’re going to have to throw someone to the wolves.”

  “Well-volunteered, Vance.” I grinned.

  “Ha. I don’t think so, Trent. My bosses wouldn’t take kindly to me appearing in the news.”

  “Cheng?”

  “Same deal, I’m afraid.”

  “Sihota?” I knew my voice was taking on a slightly pleading tone.

  “So far, I’ve just been the designated driver,” he shrugged. “They will just request another interview if they’re not satisfied.”

  “Come on, Dexter.” I smiled in my most winning way. “Big moment to appear on VR?”

  “He definitely isn’t,” Vance cut in just as Frampton opened his mouth. He closed it again with a disappointed look on his face. “Stop trying to worm out of it. You know you’re the only one of our team who can do it. Us spooky types aren’t going to, that’s for damn sure.”

  “Great.”

  CHAPTER 28

  CONCORDE

  “Relax, Inspector, I’m not going to throw you any lowballs.” Connie was seated across from me, trying to be reassuring. Unfortunately for me, I still had the feeling I was a mouse being played with by a cat.

  We were in the university’s small VR studio where presumably the students put together presentations. I was sitting on a chair in the center of small round stage, surrounded by cameras, microphones, and the other claptrap needed to create a VR holo talk show.

  “Look, I really need to get back to work soon. Can we please get this over with?” I was squirming in my seat. Truth be told, it wasn’t just that I didn’t want to do the interview; I considered it a waste of time. I could be putting Frain through the ringer.

  “Sure.” She glanced at a timer counting down on the wall to her left. “We’ll be going live in thirty seconds. Have you had a chance to go over your question sheet?”

  “What question sheet?” I asked, confused.

  “The one I sent to your HUDmail.”

  Goddamn it! I quickly opened up my mailbox and saw nothing of the sort in there. I tried to keep on top of my HUDmail, but I was falling behind with all the work going on. Still… “I didn’t get any emails from you…” I trailed off. I remembered I had been spammed by loads of emails from Earth-Wide News after subscribing to their newsletter years ago and assigned them to my autoblock. I just had time to open up my junk folder on my HUD where I saw a closed envelope icon blinking in my field of view from Connie Miles, EWN. Great.

  “It’s too late now. Don’t worry. There’s nothing too complicated in there. Five seconds.”

  I watched as the counter went to zero. I straightened myself up and crossed my legs, trying to appear relaxed and confident.

  “Good evening. This is Connie Miles from EWN with a live report from Jupiter space,” she said smoothly in a stage voice that was richer and more cultured than her norm. “I’m currently in the Io incident investigation team’s headquarters at Concorde University. With me tonight is Inspector Layton Trent, formerly of The Hague War Crimes Investigation division, now attached to the system task force. Thank you for taking the time to be interviewed tonight.”

  “That’s my pleasure, Connie.” I smiled falsely at her.

  “As you are undoubtedly more aware of than most, a lot of people are concerned about what has been dubbed the Io Incident. An attack of this kind, and we are clear from the Magellan recordings that it was an attack, is completely unprecedented. Can you tell us the current state of your investigation?”

  “We arrived a few days ago, and we’re already making some significant strides, Connie,” I said, trying to sound a hell of a lot more comfortable than I felt. “The primary focus of our investigation to this point has been interviewing the survivors from Io and the Magellan—”

  “And can you tell me what these ‘significant strides’ are?” she interrupted.

  “I’m sure you’ll understand that, for operational reasons, I can’t. It’s too early in the investigation to let out any sensitive information that we have, but the people back home and in space can rest assured that we are making progress.” What the hell was the point in me being here? She must know that I couldn’t tell her jack!

  “Completely understood, Inspector. Something I’m sure we’re all very interested to know, though, is, Why Io?”

  “There are a number of theories on that one,” not that I’m going to be able to tell you any of the leading ones at the moment. And no way was I going to talk about whatever the hell had been down there. “All of which are just that, theories. I don’t th
ink it would be helpful for me to discuss any of them at the moment.”

  “Are there any leading ideas about who has done this?”

  “Connie, I’m not going to name names or organizations that may have responsibility in this incident. It’s too early. It would be irresponsible of me to start rumors before all the facts are in. What I will say is that the JAS has agreed that The Hague will have jurisdiction in trialing any defendants, whether it is the work of individuals or a group.”

  “And if it were to be a nation-state?” The reporter leaned forward, a wolfish look in her eyes.

  “Well, that is why we have representatives of many countries on the teams. Resolving that question would be one for governments, not the judiciary.”

  “I’m sure you understand the thrust of the question, Inspector. If a nation were responsible, what actions would be taken against them?”

  I was beginning to get an inkling of EWN’s editorial agenda; Connie was pursuing it doggedly. I knew what she wanted to hear, but I’d be damned if I was going to actually say it. “Connie, the primary focus for my team is finding those responsible.”

  “Would punitive action would be taken? Do you think we could be looking at the first strike in a war?” she asked, not giving me any time to fully answer the first question.

  “I’m afraid that is a little beyond my pay grade,” I said as firmly as I could, trying not to stare daggers at the reporter.

  “Sources indicate,” she said, moving on smoothly, “that you currently have several people in custody. Can you tell us anything about their involvement?”

  How the hell did she know that? Things were a little too leaky in the docking port and on campus for my taste, but it wasn’t as if we could extraordinarily rendition people around Jupiter space.