The Engines of God

by Jack McDevitt

  “That’s good,” said Truscott. “Thanks.” She waved them out. They were now alone.

  The shadows and the surface features didn’t seem to change. “It isn’t rotating,” said Sill.

  She nodded. “We’ll think about it later, Harvey.”

  “Everything rotates.” Sill stared. Maybe it was simply very slow.

  Hans Stallworth came in, arms full of harnesses. He was tall, intense, formal. His specialty was electronics, and he always seemed uncomfortable in Truscott’s presence. She thought of him as being superficial, and had been surprised when he offered to stay. “Hello,” he said, with as much elan as he could muster.

  Sill shook his hand. “Good to have you here, Hans.”

  He set the harnesses down, and no one needed to be told to put one on. Truscott removed her belt. “Find something you can use to tie yourself down. We don’t want anyone flying around in here.”

  “Pity we don’t have a serious set of deflectors on this thing,” said Danielle.

  Sill laughed. “It would be like drawing the blinds. Look at that son of a bitch.”

  It filled the screens.

  “Harvey, let’s depressurize the station. All of it.”

  Sill nodded.

  “I wonder,” said Stallworth, “whether we wouldn’t be better off outside.”

  “No.” Truscott secured her harness and activated the field. “Let’s keep as much protection as we can get.”

  Danielle and Stallworth, who had had little experience with the Flickingers, helped each other. Sill swung his harness lazily over his head and dropped it across his shoulders. “Other shuttle’s on the way,” he said.

  “ETA?”

  “About three hours. They should be in plenty of time to pick up survivors.” He inspected their harnesses, announced his approval. “Activate the homers,” he said, and demonstrated how. “If you’re thrown clear, and you’re unconscious, they’ll still get to you.” His fingers moved across the command console. “Commencing depressurization.”

  Stallworth was looking out through a viewport, shading his eyes. “I see it,” he said.

  Truscott followed his gaze but could see nothing. “Confirming original projection,” said Sill, not without a trace of pride. “It’ll hit Blue on the way in, and then impact directly with the hub.”

  Danielle had posted herself at the comm console. “Both APVs are away. Shuttle’s about to launch.”

  “They get everybody?”

  “They’ve got twenty-two. We make twenty-six.” All accounted for.

  “They may not get far enough away,” said Danielle. “We may be safer in here.”

  “Two minutes,” said Sill.

  “Shuttle?”

  Danielle checked the board. “Negative.”

  “What’s holding them up?”

  The officer spoke into a side channel. “They thought somebody else was coming. Ginger says they have room for one more.”

  “Doesn’t matter now,” Truscott said. “Tell her to clear out.” She looked toward Sill. “Seal it up. Close off everything. Power down. Except the lights. Let’s keep the lights on.”

  Electronics died throughout the wheel. Computers went to maintenance modes, monitors blanked, food processors gurgled to a halt, water heaters died.

  “Shuttle away,” said Danielle.

  A star had appeared. Truscott watched it brighten and take shape. It developed ridges and chinks. No craters. Irregular, almost rectangular surface. Club-shaped, she thought.

  Not spinning.

  “Okay,” she said. “Everybody down. The main shock will come through the deck. Lie flat. Use the pillows to protect all vulnerable parts. Tie yourself to something solid.”

  They watched it come.

  Forty seconds.

  It sailed through the sky, bright and lovely in the sunlight. It moved across the viewport, corresponding to the rotation of the outer rim, and disappeared finally to the left.

  Truscott reached deep inside for the old arrogance, her lifelong conviction that things always turn out well if you stay cool and do the things that need to be done. She hoped she looked arrogant. That was what they needed now. That and divine intervention. “Face away from the impact,” she said, pointing where she meant.

  “They need to build these bastards with seat belts.” It was Stallworth. He sounded calm.

  And in that moment, it hit.

  The station shook.

  Someone screamed. They were thrown against pillows and deck.

  But there was no hammer blow. Klaxons did not scream, and the steel bulkheads did not rip. A few alarms sounded: minor damage. And that was all.

  “What happened?” asked Danielle, still holding tight to her chair.

  Sill said: “Damned if I know.”

  “Everybody stay down.” Truscott was taking no chances.

  And, in her earphones, there was a voice from one of the ships: “Where is the goddam thing?”

  Truscott, dazed, was also puzzled by the sound of the strike.

  Bonk.

  13.

  Seapoint. Thursday; 2005 hours.

  “The space station is having a problem.” This was how Janet alerted the people on Wink and at the Temple site to the approach of the torpedo. She broadcast a running description of events and relayed the frantic plain-language calls among the orbiter, the ground stations, and the tugs. To Henry and Sandy Gonzalez, who were in the Seapoint operations center, she also transmitted telescopic views of the object closing on the orbiter. The station, its twin outer wheels rotating placidly, looked flimsy. It was a tense moment. One would have had to pay close attention to detect the overlay of satisfaction in Janet’s voice.

  All work stopped. They watched with morbid fascination.

  “No estimate on mass. But it is closing very fast.”

  “Serves the bastards right,” said Henry.

  And Carson: “Not very competent, are they? Plunked by one of their own rocks.”

  Sandy stood at Henry’s side. “Maybe we’ve got our extension after all,” she said.

  “Is everybody off?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “Can’t be. They’re still talking on the station.”

  Despite their animosity for the terraformers, nobody wanted to see them dead.

  “Is it actually going to hit?” Henry asked Janet.

  “Yes,” she said. “No question.”

  Henry’s next thought was that the Wink should be riding to the rescue. “Where’s Hutch?”

  “With you. She’s on the surface.”

  He noted, and then dismissed, an impression that her reaction was wrong. Not pleased. Not fearful. But righteous.

  “Okay. Contact somebody over there. Explain our situation, and tell them we stand by to assist any way we can. I’ll turn Hutch around and send her back up if it’ll help.”

  Janet hesitated. “Okay. But I doubt they’ll want any help from us.”

  “Offer, anyway.”

  She took a long breath. “I’ll get right on it.”

  Moments later, he had audio contact with Hutch. “What can I do?” she asked innocently.

  “Stand by. We might have a rescue mission for you.” And, to the tunnelers: “It’s closing fast. Just seconds now.”

  Henry watched it race across those last few kilometers, a shining white bullet. It blasted into the space station, and both vanished in an eruption of white spray. “Impact,” he said.

  Sandy let out her breath.

  The picture slowly cleared, while excited voices asked for details. Incredibly, the orbiter was still intact. It had developed a wobble, but it was still turning at the same unhurried pace.

  Ten minutes later, Janet reported back. “They said thanks. But they’re doing fine.”

  Below the sea floor, George and Carson worked with a particle beam to extend their tunnel. They were beneath the outer wall of the military chapel, attempting to chart the best route to the printing press. George was nothing if not co
nservative, and no amount of urging by Henry or anyone else could persuade him to embrace unnecessary risks. Consequently, they installed braces and proceeded with all possible caution. “I’d like to get back down there as much as anybody,” he told Henry. “But common sense is the first priority.”

  George knew the general direction of the printing press. He employed the particle beam with increasing impatience, and he was tired. Shortly they would go back, George to rest, and Carson to relieve Henry at the monitor. Sandy and Richard would take over the digging, and Henry would man the pumps. In fact, he could already see the flash of lights in the tunnel.

  And something else. A reflection, on the silt. Carson picked it up. It was a piece of smooth rock, a tablet, about eight centimeters across, flat on both sides. “It’s got writing on it,” he said. He brushed it, examined it in the lamplight. “Something on the back. An image of some kind. A spear, maybe.”

  He held it up for the camera, and they transmitted pictures back to Seapoint.

  “Hell.” Henry got excited. “Look at it. It’s Linear C.”

  “Bingo,” said George. “Jackpot.” He turned it over and squinted. “What is it?”

  The reverse pictured what appeared to be a long, tapered rod, spade-shaped at one end, heavy and thick at the other. “It’s a sex organ,” said Sandy, with an oblique laugh. “Fully distended and ready for battle.”

  Maggie’s voice came from the ship: “Funny how some things seem to be universals.”

  “Damndest chapel decorations I’ve ever seen,” said Carson. Maybe there was a brothel in the area. “Did the Quraquat have brothels?”

  “Yes,” said Sandy. “And the Noks as well. Seems to be a fixture of the advanced male, regardless of species.”

  The important consideration was that they had another sample of Linear C. And there might be more. While Richard and Sandy took over the tunneling, Carson and George began a search. George had little enthusiasm for the hunt, but Carson seemed tireless. Within an hour, they had recovered a small trove of tablets, and other, mostly undefinable, objects.

  Five of the tablets, including the original, were sexually explicit. Others contained arboreal and sea images, and one depicted a sailing vessel. Several lines of text were engraved on each. They were too worn to make out, but restoration might be possible. One by one, George displayed them to the camera.

  He was about halfway through when Maggie’s voice came on-line. “These are superb, Henry.”

  “Yes,” said Henry. “They are quite good.”

  “Can we go back to that last one?” she asked. The tablet depicted a disembodied, fully erect male member protruding through a wreath. There was also a line of symbols curved around the perimeter. “We know some of these,” she said. “Marvelous.” Nobody made a joke of it.

  George showed them another one. “Good,” breathed Maggie.

  And another.

  “Let’s see that again,” Maggie said. Another sexual theme, straightforward this time: a simple coupling. “We didn’t get a very good picture of the text. Both sides, George. Give us more light.”

  There was a single term atop the amorous pair.

  “What are these things?” asked Carson.

  “Probably decorations,” said Maggie. “Doesn’t matter, for now.” Then she started. “Henry, can you see that? The title term?”

  The word at the top of the tablet was from the inscription at Oz.

  “Damn!” Henry was ecstatic. “Richard, are you there?”

  “I’m a little tied up at the moment.” He was on the beam projector.

  “George, show that one to Dr. Wald.”

  “No question about it.” Maggie bubbled with excitement. “It’s not identical, though. The Oz inscription has an additional character, and the letters are differently formed. But that’s purely stylistic. I’ll be more certain when we can get it cleaned up. Six of the symbols match perfectly. If we don’t have the same word, we should have the same root.”

  “You’re right,” said Richard. “It’s lovely.”

  “I think,” said Sandy, “this building is distinct from the chapel. Frank’s probably right about the brothel. Sex may have been part of the rituals.”

  “Okay.” Richard was speaking to Maggie, and examining the tablet. “What does the word mean?”

  “Sex,” said Maggie. “Or ecstasy.”

  “Where does that leave us?” asked Henry. “This way to a hot time? Is that what the Oz inscription says?”

  Richard shook his head. “It need not have a sexual connotation,” he said.

  “I agree,” said Sandy. “The word could mean love. Or fulfillment. Or release.”

  “Or,” suggested George, “ships that pass in the night.”

  Kosmik Station. Friday; 0030 hours.

  Truscott looked up at the sound. “Come.”

  Sill entered. His eyes were fierce, his lips drawn into a scowl.

  She pushed back from her desk, and swung round to face him. “What have you got?”

  “It wasn’t a snowball.”

  “We already know that.”

  “We’ve retrieved some of it. It was a polymer.”

  She nodded. “It was manufactured,” she said.

  “I don’t see what other conclusion we can draw. And since there’s no one here except the Academy people—”

  Truscott laughed. Not her usual measured chuckle. Her heart was in this one. And, when he only looked on in surprise, she reproached him. “Come on, Sill,” she said, “where’s your sense of humor?”

  He reddened. “I don’t see what’s funny, Melanie. They’ve created a lot of trouble. People could have been killed.”

  “Yes.” Her eyes fell away from him. “They’ve paid us in our own coin, haven’t they?”

  Temple of the Winds. Friday; 0200 hours.

  The tunnel resisted their best efforts. The mud was tougher to deal with than the rock. However much they sucked out, it kept coming back in. Carson, on Richard’s private channel, confessed that it was useless.

  Detonation was eight hours away.

  Too close.

  The base was quiet. Eddie was gone now, banished to Wink, ostensibly because his services were no longer needed, but really because he kept asking Henry to give it up, and to reassign Carson to help move artifacts. Hutch was off again and would rendezvous with the starship in another hour. When she returned, they were all to be waiting at the inlet, bags packed, ready to go. No matter what.

  Richard sat in the operations center. The monitor was a montage of blurred light, slow-moving shadows, tunnel walls. Grunts and epithets and profanity rolled out of the commlink.

  The room was damp and chilly. Technically, he was supposed to stay awake, but conditions had changed: the watch officer was no longer coordinating a wide range of operations. And you had to sleep sometime.

  On impulse, he called Wink’s bridge, where he woke Tommy Loughery. “Is Maggie available?” he asked.

  “She’s right here.”

  He’d expected it. They’d sent up the new tablets—there were thirteen of them—on board Alpha. And she would be waiting for their arrival.

  “Good morning, Richard,” she said. “When are we going to break through down there?”

  “You mean to the press?”

  “What else? It’s getting late.”

  “It’s what I wanted to talk to you about. We may not make it.”

  “That’s not what Henry thinks.”

  “Henry is optimistic. He wants this one, Maggie.”

  “So do I.”

  “You already have a substantial number of samples. With more coming. You’ve seen the new set. What happens if we have to leave with nothing else? Will it be enough?”

  “Maybe.” She looked drained. “The analysis will take time. I just don’t know.” Her dark eyes reflected worry. “It would be a lot easier with the printing press.”

  “If that’s in fact what it is.”

  “That’s what it is.”
<
br />   Richard stared at her. “Can you estimate the odds?” And, when she looked puzzled, he explained. “Of being able to decipher the inscription? With no more samples.”

  “We are pushy tonight, aren’t we?”

  “I’m sorry. This may become, in the morning, life and death.”

  Shadows worked in the corners of her eyes and in the hollows of her temples. “Richard, get the whatever-it-is. Okay? If you really want to help, get it out of there and bring it to me.”

  0600 hours.

  “It’s imminent now. We’re almost there.”

  Richard was exasperated. “Call it off, Henry. Let’s clear out.”

  “She won’t be back for two hours. What’s the point of standing around out on that rock? We’ve still got time. Let’s use it. Have faith.”

  0711 hours.

  Hutch, gliding through the morning light, was not happy. The commlink echoed with the low-powered hum of particle beams, the burble and banging of vacuum pumps. Voices leaked through the clatter:

  This is where it was supposed to be.

  But it isn’t. It’s not here.

  Neither is the wall. The whole goddam chamber dropped. Or rose.

  Why didn’t you take a picture?

  We did. It was here two days ago.

  We thought we could see it. It was the plank. We were looking at the damned plank!

  Maybe we just missed it. Is that possible?

  No.

  And the words that stung her, enraged her, spoken by Henry: Get the scanner over here. Take another look. Let’s find out where it is.

  She activated Richard’s private channel. “You’re out of time.”

  “I know. Just give us a few minutes. Till we find out where the goddamned thing went.”

  “Richard, the creek is about to rise.”

  “Hutch, you have to understand. This isn’t my call. These people know the risk. This is just too important to turn around and walk out on. Come on, you can tough it out.”

  “You’re beginning to sound as crazy as they do,” she snapped. And she broke the link without letting him reply. She switched to Carson, who was waiting in his shuttle at the inlet. “Frank, you got any control over this?”

  “Not much.”

  “Henry’s going to get them all killed.”

  “No. He won’t do that. Whatever else happens, he’ll be out in time. You can trust him.”