He paused a moment, to let the seriousness of his words sink in, and then activated the viewscreen. A series of security warnings scrolled up before them. Silence continued his introduction. "You're about to see a recording of the last log entry from Zero Zero's scientific Base, made by Base Commander Jorgensson. She downloaded it into a security buoy and blasted it into high orbit, just before everything went to hell." He paused again, remembering another time like this. Then, it had been he and Investigator Frost, studying the last words from Unseeli's Base Thirteen. But then, a lot of Silence's career seemed to consist of cleaning up after other people's messes. The recording began, and he decided he didn't really have anything more worth saying anyway.
The viewscreen filled with the head and shoulders of Base Commander Jorgensson. She was a pleasant enough looking woman in her early thirties, her generous mouth set in a grim line. She wore her long dark hair in a single functional braid, draped over her left shoulder. The camera pulled back to show her seated before a desk littered with scattered papers. A hand disrupter lay within easy reach. It looked large and clumsy, compared to the modern-day model. Somebody had taken a shot at the Commander. There was a large scorch mark, darkened with dried blood, on her left side, and there were beads of sweat on her forehead. In the background, alarm sirens blared over and over, drowned out now and again by deafening screams and howls and raised voices that didn't sound entirely human. Jorgensson looked round sharply as something heavy slammed against the door from outside, but the security seals held. She turned back, staring out of the viewscreen with determination and desperate control.
"Last report from Base Omega, Zero Zero. Security has been breached. The Base is contaminated. Nanotech has spread beyond the Base, and out into the planet's ecosystem. God knows what it will do there. It's all Marlowe's fault. Damn him. He was in overall charge of the scientific team. Impeccable record. But while everyone else was working on the official experiments, he had his own, very unofficial, experiments going on. He had this dream of becoming superhuman, of having the nanos make him over into something far beyond human limitations. He exposed himself to his own specially coded nanos, and unfortunately they didn't kill him. We have no idea of what he's become. He disappeared from the Base several hours ago. From what we can understand of his notes, he coded the nanos to rework him from the DNA up, and programmed them for open-ended evolution. He then either released them into the Base, or they escaped. They were programmed to multiply endlessly, using any and all available matter for base material. People inside the Base have been… changing. They don't look like superhumans to me.
"I've raised the Base force shield, so no one else can leave. I don't trust what people are becoming. There's been a lot of killing. Physical transformations. Strange shapes in the corridors. There are monsters and nightmares running loose in the Base, and nothing seems to stop them. Every Quarantine we set up is breached almost immediately. The nanos are everywhere. They're in me too. I can feel them moving; changing things. So that leaves me only one option. I'm going to download this log into a buoy at the starport, and then launch it by remote control. It's far enough away from the Base that it should still be uncontaminated. And now I'm going to hit the Base's self-destruct, and blow us all to hell. Damn you, Marlowe. This is Base Commander Ingrid Jorgensson, signing off."
The viewscreen went blank. Morrell nodded approvingly. "Brave woman. Captain; I know it's been centuries, but the first question that occurs to me is… could Marlowe, or whatever he eventually became, still be down there on Zero Zero somewhere? A man full of nanos programmed to eternally repair him could last a long, long time. Theoretically."
"Everything's theoretical where nanos are concerned," said Silence. "Finding Marlowe could give us all the answers we need; assuming he's still able to understand the questions. But I don't think we should count on finding him. We don't know what's been happening on the planet's surface. After centuries of nano-tech running loose, endlessly multiplying, there's no telling what we'll encounter. At one end of the scale, we might find a whole world gone into meltdown, like the people with the nano plague. At the other end…"
"Yes?" said Barren.
"You heard the Commander," said Morrell. "Strange shapes. Monsters. Nightmares."
"Don't frighten the boy too much," said Silence. "We'll be taking every precaution. A pinnace will take us down to the planet's surface, protected by full energy shields. We will be equipped with personal full-body force shields, and then dropped onto the surface from the pinnace. It will then return to high orbit, well away from the Dauntless, just in case, and stay there until we send for it. Full-body shields use up a lot of power, very quickly. We'll have a maximum of four hours, and then the shields will collapse. So we'd better not still be on Zero Zero when that happens."
"Four hours is very short, even for just an information run. Captain," said Carrion. "Are you proposing several visits?"
"Depends what we find on the first one," said Silence. "And whether we survive finding it."
"Couldn't we improve our odds by wearing hard suits?" said Barron.
The others looked at him pityingly. "The nanos were programmed to interact with all matter they encountered," said the esper Morrell. "A hard suit would be just another snack to them."
Barron flushed, and hastily regrouped. "What about the Shub and Hadenman forces? I mean, their ships are deserted, so the crews must be dirtside somewhere."
"Whatever's left of them by now," said Morrell. He cracked his knuckles loudly. Everyone else jumped in his seat, and then tried to look as if he hadn't. The esper continued smoothly. "They may have had force shields when they went down, but the power must have run out by now. They must have been exposed to the nanotech."
"We can't know that for sure," said Silence. "Shub and Hadenman tech is more advanced than ours."
"I'm still concerned with that bastard Marlowe," said Morrell. "What he might have become, after centuries of change."
"Nanos coded for open-ended evolution," said Silence thoughtfully. "I wonder what you would find at evolution's end, for Humanity?"
"You should know if anyone, Captain," said Carrion. "You're further along that road than the rest of us."
Morrell cut in smoothly while Silence was still glaring at Carrion. "Assuming Marlowe is still around, in whatever shape or form, what are our orders, Captain? Do we try and apprehend him?"
"What would be the point?" said Silence. "We daren't risk taking him offplanet, for fear of spreading the nanos he's carrying. Sure, we could isolate him behind a series of force shields, but all it would take is one power outage, one slipup in security, and the whole ship would be contaminated. If the Empire even suspected the nanos might have got loose, we'd never be allowed to land again. Hell, they'd probably shoot us on sight, just in case. I would. No; if we find him, he stays on Zero Zero. And I don't want you trying to read his mind either, Morrell. After all this time, who knows what his thoughts might have mutated into. You go in, and you might not come out again."
Morrell sniffed. "You're no fun anymore, you know that? What's the point of going down there if we don't take a few risks?"
"This from the man who preferred to mutilate himself rather than join the landing party," said Silence. "We will only be taking calculated risks, Morrell. You don't do one damn thing down there without my express permission, in advance. Is that clear?"
"So clear it's positively dazzling, Captain. Be making me wear a bib next."
"What was that?"
"Nothing, Captain. Just clearing my throat."
"All right," said Silence. "End of preliminary briefing. Morrell; since you're so keen to be up and going, you get to check out the pinnace and make sure it's ready for the drop. And take Barron with you; I want him familiarized with all the systems, just in case he has to pilot the ship back."
Morrell and Barron rose to their feet. Barron saluted Silence. "I won't let you down, Captain."
They left together. Silence waited till
the door had shut behind them, and then looked at Carrion. "That boy is too keen to be real. Odds are he'll take the first chance he gets downbelow to shoot you in the back."
"I don't think so, Captain. He's had any number of opportunities to try and kill me since his first attempt, and he has if anything been conspicuous in his absence from the rest of the crew's silent disapproval."
"But do you trust him?"
"I don't trust any human these days, Captain."
"Let's change the subject," said Silence tiredly.
"As you wish."
"The Ashrai; are they still with you? We're a long way from their home world."
"Of course they're still with me. They're dead. They can be anywhere they want. Sometimes simultaneously. Apparently death is very liberating."
Silence stirred uneasily in his chair. "I wish you'd stop calling them that. They're not really dead. They can't be."
"You should know, Captain. You murdered them."
"How do you think the Ashrai will react to visiting another dead world? Will they still come to your aid, if needed?"
"Unknown. They don't always manifest when I call them, even at the best of times. They're not my pets. But I don't think they'd allow me to come to harm, if they could prevent it."
"Are you sure of that?"
"No, Captain. You destroyed the only surety I ever had in my life."
"Will you stop that! It was all a long time ago! I thought you'd forgiven me."
"It isn't my place to forgive you. I survived."
Silence sighed, quietly, looking at the floor. "We were friends once, Sean."
"Yes, we were. But that was a long time ago, and neither of us is the man he was then. For what it's worth… I don't hate you anymore. I don't hate anyone. And perhaps only people who've been through the things we've suffered can ever really understand each other." Carrion paused, looking impassively at Silence. "I know why I'm here, John. Investigator Frost died, but you still needed someone at your side, someone you could depend on. Someone who'd understand the more than human thing you're becoming. Who better than an old friend, who isn't entirely human either? But that was then, this is now. And I'm not Frost. You have my support, Captain. Settle for that."
Silence shook his head slowly. "I'm sure other people don't have conversations like this."
The pinnace plunged down through the unusually calm atmosphere of Zero Zero, protected by the most powerful energy shields the ship's engines could produce. The pilot took them down fast. He'd already gone out of his way to make it very clear to his passengers that he didn't intend to spend one second longer in the nano-contaminated atmosphere than he absolutely had to. He had also prayed loudly to several gods, and kept taking one hand away from the controls to cross himself, or touch the Joan The Wad good-luck charm hanging above him. Silence would have hit him if he'd been close enough, if only for being so damned obvious about it. As it was, Silence clung grimly to a nearby stanchion with both hands, and wished the trip down didn't feel quite so much like riding a crashing elevator. The esper Klaus Morrell sat beside him, face perfectly composed, eyes calm and far away. Silence was convinced the esper was only doing it to spite him.
Carrion and Barron sat opposite Silence, both lost in their own thoughts. Wrapped in his black cloak, the former Investigator looked more like a bird of ill omen than usual. His power lance lay casually across his lap; the long staff of polished bone that was so powerful a weapon its very ownership was a death sentence throughout the Empire. Unless you were Carrion, and the Empire needed you. Barren sat quietly beside him, nervously checking his various bits of equipment over and over again. This was his first landing party, and he was determined not to screw up through lack of preparation. Silence certainly gave him marks for effort.
They were heading for the original site of Base Omega, or at least the place where it used to be before Commander Jorgensson blew it to hell. Probably wouldn't be much left of it after all this time, but as it was the location of the original nano outbreak, there might still be a clue or two left behind. It was a long shot, but then, that was typical of the mission. The whole pinnace shook suddenly as the pilot slammed on the brakes. They must be close to their destination. There were no external views from the craft, because the pinnace's sensors couldn't pierce the extra strong energy shields, so the pilot had to fly by following centuries-old maps, and a certain amount of dead reckoning. The pilot was not at all happy about this, and had said so loudly. Several times. The pinnace continued to slow. Silence could hear the pilot cursing continually under his breath. The ship finally slowed to a halt, and the pilot turned around in his crash webbing to look back at his passengers.
"Right. This is it. Everybody out. Hope you enjoyed the ride and thanks for getting most of it in the sick bags. Anything you need, take it with you now, because I'm not coming back again till I have to." He hit the lock release on his control panels, and the inner airlock door cycled open. "Right. This is how we're going to do it, just like we practiced. You all go into the lock. I shut the inner door and open the outer. You power up your individual shields, pray, and then jump. Your personal shields are programmed to phase you through the outer shields without me having to lower them. Theoretically. No one's ever tried this before. If it doesn't work, feel free to come back and complain through a spirit board. Don't you just love being pioneers? Knew I should have held out for danger money."
"How far is the drop to the ground?" said Silence.
"Good question, Captain," said the pilot. "Wish I had a good answer for you. If the ground is still where it's supposed to be, we should be hovering some two or three feet above it. But since this is the world where nanos rule, God alone knows what you're dropping into. Still, your shields should protect you. From most things. Anything more I can do to cheer you up?"
"Yeah," said Silence. "You can keep your ears open in orbit, and come and get us the hell out of here the minute I call you."
He led his team into the airlock, and the inner door cycled shut behind them. It was fairly cramped with all four of them crowded into the confined space, but Silence still felt unhappy at the thought of leaving it. He looked at the outer door. Part of him wanted it to open so he could get on with the mission, and part of him hoped it would seize up or malfunction, so he wouldn't have to do this. There'd never been much that really scared him, even before the Maze made him strong and fast and bloody hard to kill, but nanos… invisible tiny machines that could eat you up or transform you into anything at all… something you had no way of fighting… now that was spooky. But when the outer door finally cycled open. Silence was the first one out of the airlock, dropping into the unknown, leading by example. Because he was the Captain, and that was his job.
The pinnace force shields shimmered below him like the inside of a soap bubble, and then he was plunging through them and out the other side, and a bright light blinded him. By the time he'd realized it was just bright sunshine, his feet had already impacted against hard ground, and he had to fight to avoid falling on his ass. It really had been only a drop of a few feet after all. The others landed beside him, and Silence squinted up into the bright sky to watch the pinnace racing for the safety of open space above the atmosphere. He watched till it was safely out of sight, and then turned to check that his people were all right. He was reassured to see the faint shimmering of air around them that meant their full body shields were working. And only then did he turn to look at the world he'd landed on… and realized why the others were so quiet.
Everything looked normal. In fact, everything looked extremely normal. The landing party was standing on a grassy plain that stretched away for miles before them. The sun was shining brightly in a perfectly normal blue sky, and large white everyday clouds drifted lazily by overhead. The only strange thing was how utterly quiet it was. Not a sound anywhere, of animal or insect, nor even the faintest whisper of a breeze. Morrell turned to look at Silence.
"Are we in the right place, Captain? Hell, are we ev
en on the right planet? There shouldn't be anything like this on a rock like Zero Zero."
"Oh, I think we can safely assume we've come to the right place," said Carrion. "Everyone turn slowly and look behind yourself."
They all turned and looked, and there was Base Omega, rising up before them pristine and untouched. There was no trace of any damage, and the security force screen that should have isolated it from the rest of Zero Zero wasn't operating. The front doors stood open, but there were no signs of life, or any sound at all from within.
"This is decidedly spooky," said Barren. "I don't know what I expected to find down here, but this sure as hell isn't it. The Commander said she was going to blow the place up."
"Every indication was that she had," said Silence. "The reports were quite clear. Every system in Base Omega went offline at once, and there hasn't been a signal of any kind from here since."
"So what's this in front of us?" said Morrell waspishly.
"You're the esper," said Silence. "You tell me."
Morrell nodded stiffly, and stared fiercely at the Base, as though he could make it disappear through sheer willpower. His frown deepened as he reached out with his mind. "Well; it's not an illusion, or a telepathic broadcast. It has a physical existence. But I'm not picking up any life signs inside."
"Widen your scan," said Silence. "Is there anyone, anywhere near here?"
Morrell closed his eyes, and concentrated. "I'm picking up… something. But I can't make any sense of it. There's certainly nothing human in the vicinity, and no trace of intelligent life for as far as I can scan. No lesser creatures either. Not even insects in the air or in the ground. But I'm getting… something. It's like a muttering, or a chant, or a song. But it's coming from everywhere at once… and it moves so fast." Morrell opened his eyes and looked at Silence. "Captain; I've no idea what I'm picking up here. I've never encountered anything like it."
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