by Allen Steele
Unspooling a cable from the camera to his helmet, he mounted the unit on his right shoulder and pointed its lens toward the porthole beside him. He swiveled the viewfinder so its eyepiece fit through his helmet’s open faceplate, then peered through it. The image he saw was an indistinct blur. “Getting some glare from the glass,” he murmured. “Can we turn off the inside lights, please?”
Mark reached up to the overhead console, and a moment later the cabin fluorescents went dark. There was hardly any loss in illumination, since the sun was shining brightly through the windows, but the glare immediately vanished. “Thank you,” Sean said. “Ready to patch in, Lieutenant.”
“Very well.” Cayce pushed another button on the com panel, and Sean’s video output was added to Reese’s telemetry. “You’re on.”
Sean pointed the camera out his window again, this time tilting it downward so that he could record what was beneath the lander. He had to refrain from gasping out loud. One of the hexagons lay directly below, and what had once been tiny was now immense. The biopods were enormous cylinders, each a thousand miles long and a hundred miles in diameter, joined together by spherical nodes fifty miles in diameter. Dull grey, they were featureless save for a row of black panels running along their dorsal midsections.
From the lander’s present altitude, Sean couldn’t see the far side of that particular hex; the cavity at its center was big enough to encompass even Coyote’s largest continent. But the fact that he could make out two biopods of the nearest adjacent hexagon was enough to remind him that there were trillions of them, each one the same size.
He apparently wasn’t the only person to be amazed. Through his headset, he heard an unintelligible yet nonetheless astonished babble of voices. Then his mother’s voice came online: “Sean, is that you operating the camera?”
He hesitated. “Yes, it is.”
A pause. “Nice work. We’re impressed.”
“Thank you, Captain,” he said, his tone deliberately cool.
“No, really... This is utterly breathtaking.” A dry chuckle. “And that’s just what we’re seeing on the bridge screen. I can only imagine what it’s like for you.”
Despite himself, a smile stole across Sean’s face. “It is awesome, all right. I—”
“Sean? Corporal Carson, I mean.” The new voice was Tom D’Anguilo’s. “Don’t mean to interrupt, but there’s something down there I’d like to see a little more closely. Can you zoom in toward the center of the hex you’re heading toward?”
“Wilco.” Pointing the camera toward the open middle of the hexagon, he touched the magnification stud. As the viewfinder image grew larger, he saw what had drawn D’Anguilo’s attention. The hexagon’s center wasn’t as empty as it seemed; instead, it appeared to be crisscrossed by cables or wires. From the lander’s altitude, they were so narrow that they became visible only when sunlight touched them from a certain angle. Resembling the strings of a tennis racket, they were tightly strung from one side of the hexagon to the other, making up a dense net where they intercepted one another.
“Structural cables?” Sean peered at them through the eyepiece. “That’s what they look like to me.”
“Could be,” D’Anguilo said, “but... Whoa! Did you see that!”
A shimmering, translucent blue wave had just raced across the cables. Resembling St. Elmo’s fire, it was gone in half a second. It repeated itself a few moments later, but in a different part of the hexagon’s inner perimeter.
“Am I imagining things,” Kyra said, “or did I just see an aurora?”
“Could be,” D’Anguilo said. “I’m picking up faint electric discharge from them. I think they have another purpose besides structural support. Perhaps they’re radiators ...”
“I don’t think so.” Kyra pointed to a false-color image of one of the biopods on her screen. “I’m picking up infrared emissions from those panels on the backs of the pods. If the pods have radiators to shed excess heat, you’d think that’s where they’d be located.”
“She’s right.” It was Rolf Kurtz’s turn to chime in. “The panels are probably radiators. If that’s so, then the cables must have some other function.”
“Maybe they’re magnetically charged,” D’Anguilo said. “The biopods may not have magnetic fields to ward off cosmic radiation the way planets usually do, so the cables perform that function.” He paused. “That’s just a guess, of course.”
“It’s a good one,” Rolf said. “You may be right. But we’re not going to know for sure unless we get a lot closer.”
“I agree.” Cayce hadn’t spoken much until then; apparently he’d just remembered that he was in command of the sortie. “Captain Carson, I’d like to fly through this hexagon and see what’s on the other side. With your permission, of course.”
Andromeda didn’t respond at once. Sean pictured his mother sitting in her chair on the bridge, weighing all the options. “What do you think, Sergeant Dupree?” she asked at last. “Do you think you can make it through without endangering your craft?”
Mark studied the small screen on his center console where the image from Sean’s camera was displayed. “I believe so,” he said after a moment. “The cables appear to be spaced pretty far apart. It’ll be a little tricky, but so long as I match course so that we have the same lateral movement, I should be able to pass between them. I’ll have to get the timing just right, though, and...”
“Yes or no,” Cayce said impatiently. “Can you do it or can’t you?”
“Sure.” Mark was barely able to hide his annoyance. “Piece of cake.”
Sean pursed his lips together. Cayce had bullied Mark into giving an immediate answer. If he knew his friend, though, Mark would have preferred to spend a few more minutes studying the problem before committing himself. But it wasn’t Sean’s place to object, so all he could do was accept the situation and hope for the best.
“Very well, then,” Andromeda said. “But take it easy, and abort at once if you don’t think you can make it.” Another pause, then she added, “I don’t think that I should have to remind you that rescue is going to be very difficult if you run into any problems.”
Sean knew what she meant, and that she’d intended her words more for Cayce than anyone else. Although the Montero was equipped with an EVA pod, the tiny one-man craft was only meant for repair work, not search-and-rescue operations. And since the Montero itself was hard to maneuver in tight situations, any attempt to steer it through that cable-net would be treacherous at best.
“We copy, Montero.” Mark took a deep breath, slowly let it out. “Okay, folks, hold on to your butts. I’m going to take us in.”
One hand on the throttle bar, he carefully inched the yoke forward. Through the cockpit windows, Sean watched as the hexagon hove into view. “I’ll try going through near one of the pods,” Mark said. “The cables don’t seem to be as closely strung together at the edges as they are at the center.”
No one objected. They trusted the pilot to know what he was doing. All the same, Sean couldn’t help but notice that Mark’s lips silently moved as he recited a Sa’Tongian prayer to himself.
The lander was closing in on the cables when they heard from D’Anguilo again. “Can you switch on your wing cams, please? I’d like to get another look at them before you go through.”
Sean knew what he meant. From his seat on the cabin’s starboard side, he wouldn’t be able to supply D’Anguilo with a clear view of the cables until the Reese was actually among them. Mark nodded to Cayce, and the lieutenant reached up to the overhead consoles and pushed a couple of buttons. “Sixty-five miles and approaching,” the pilot said. “We should be going through in another minute or so.”
“Thank you, Sergeant.” D’Anguilo sounded satisfied. Another few moments went by, then he spoke again. “Kyra, I’m picking up something strange. Looks like there are some objects attached to those cables. Can you... ?”
A sudden rush of static blurred his voice, making the rest unintelligi
ble. “Damn,” Cayce muttered as he reached up to the com panel. “Montero, this is Reese, do you copy? We’re getting interference here. Please respond if you...”
Almost as if a switch had been thrown, the static abruptly ceased. But when the comlink became active again, the next voice they heard wasn’t human, but a high-pitched string of clicks and squeals.
“What the hell?” Almost as if stung, Cayce quickly pulled his hand away from the panel. “I don’t...”
“Oh, my God!” Kyra exclaimed. Sean looked at her, saw that her eyes were wide. “I don’t know what they’re saying, but... that’s danui!”
CHAPTER NINE
THE STUNNED SILENCE IN MONTERO’S COMMAND CENTER lasted only a couple of moments. Then Jason spoke up. “I don’t know what they’re saying,” the first officer said, “but it sounds like they’re pissed off.”
Andromeda glanced over her shoulder at Tom D’Anguilo. He shook his head; no, he didn’t understand the danui transmission either. She turned to Anne and gestured for her to patch her into the comlink. Anne tapped a couple of commands into her touch screen, then gave her captain a quick thumbs-up. Andromeda prodded her headset mike.
“This is Captain Andromeda Carson of the Coyote Federation merchant vessel Carlos Montero,” she said. “We’ve received your message, but we do not understand what you’re saying. Please repeat in our own language or that of another Talus race. Over.”
There was no immediate response. The wallscreen displayed three overlapping images. The largest was the view of Hex as seen from Montero’s bow cameras, a vast plain of hexagons stretching as far as the eye could see. At the top right side of the screen was a straight-ahead view of the hexagon that the Reese was approaching as seen through the lander’s wing cameras; on the top left side was Sean’s close-up view of the cables stretched across its center. The last jiggled constantly—her son was having trouble holding the camera—nonetheless, it was the most detailed of the three images.
“Montero, this is Reese.” Cayce’s voice came through her earpiece. “We just received a signal from . . . ”
“I know. We got the same thing.” Andromeda looked at Anne again; the com officer met her gaze, shook her head. “We’ve asked them to repeat what they said in Anglo, but haven’t heard anything yet.”
“Roger.” A pause. “I’d like to continue our approach unless specifically told otherwise.”
“I’m not sure I’d recommend that, Captain.” D’Anguilo turned around in his seat. “Mr. Ressler is right. We may not know what the danui was saying, but the tone suggests that it may be a warning . . .”
“Do you know what an angry danui sounds like?” Andromeda muted her mike as she looked at D’Anguilo again. He didn’t reply, and she went on. “Neither do I. For all we know, it could have been a welcome, or landing instructions, or anything at all. If they want us to stay away, though, they’ve had plenty of chances to tell us before now. And I’m tired of waiting for them to make up their minds.”
D’Anguilo’s expression suggested that he didn’t agree with her, but when Andromeda gave him a chance to make his case, he chose to remain quiet. Some expert you’re turning out to be, she thought as she activated her mike again. “Affirmative, Reese. Continue your present course. Over.”
Crossing her legs, Andromeda returned her attention to the wallscreen. By then, the lander was only a couple of miles from the hexagon, and it was clear that the cables of its inner perimeter were as thick as those of a suspension bridge. Although they reflected the distant sun, the objects attached to them seemed to absorb the light.
“What are those things?” she asked aloud.
Arranged in rows on either side of each cable were large black rectangles, their major axes running parallel to the cables themselves and their ends nearly touching one another. Several hundred feet long, the rectangles were thin, flat surfaces that appeared to be rigged to the cables by slender wires. Although they were slanted inward, no two had exactly the same angle; instead, they seemed to be oriented toward the sun in an almost random order.
“Radiators?” Jason asked. Sitting quietly beside Andromeda, the first officer absently rubbed his lower lip between thumb and forefinger.
“I don’t think so,” Rolf replied. “We spotted radiators already, on the outer surface of the biopods. No point in being redundant for no reason. Those look kinda like . . .” He suddenly snapped his fingers. “Solar collectors!”
“Yeah, that might make sense, but . . .” Jason pointed at the upper-left screen. “Look at the way they’re been rigged. They’re not all facing directly toward the sun. Most are, but some aren’t. And it looks like they’re mounted on gimbals. If those are solarcell arrays, that’s a pretty haphazard way of placing them, don’t you think?”
Rolf scowled at Jason, as if to ask Since when did you become an engineer? From the other side of the compartment, Zeus Brandt chuckled softly. “Now, boys . . .”
Andromeda tapped her mike again. “Sean, can you point your camera straight at one of those big black things and zoom in, please? We’re trying to figure out what they are.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, and again Andromeda bristled at the not-well-disguised sarcasm in her son’s voice.
“We’ll be making a close pass in just a few seconds,” Mark Dupree said. “I think we should be able to give you a good shot then. But”—a moment of hesitation—“judging from what I’m seeing here, I think I’ve got an idea what they are.”
“Love to hear it, Sergeant.” Andromeda smiled. “Someone here thinks they’re photovoltaic arrays, but the jury’s still out.”
“Yes, well . . . they may be that, too. But judging from their shape and size, and the weird way they’re attached to the cables, my first guess is that they’re solar sails.”
Rolf and Jason traded looks; apparently that thought hadn’t occurred to them. “It would make sense,” Rolf said grudgingly. “You’d need some sort of attitude-control system to keep Hex in proper alignment as it rotates. You could mount engines all over the thing, but that would use a lot of energy. If you had a passive system . . .”
“You could use the solar wind instead.” Andromeda nodded. “The magnetic charge attracts it to the cables, then the sails harness it. You’d need a lot of ’em, of course, but I suppose it’s plausible.”
The lander was beginning to make its passage through the hexagon’s center. Andromeda used her fingertips to manipulate a trackball on her lapboard; the image on the upper-left side of the wallscreen expanded, displaying Sean’s close-up view of the nearest cable. The black panels did indeed look very much like the thin polymer of solar sails, but she noticed that they also had the hexagonal patterns of photovoltaic arrays. Perhaps Dupree’s theory was correct; the panels might serve two functions at once. If so, then it was further proof of danui ingenuity . . . as if any more proof were needed.
“Don’t get too close to those panels,” D’Anguilo said, apparently addressing the lander pilot. “You don’t know how . . .”
“I’m getting another transmission!” Anne snapped. “A text message this time . . . in hjadd!”
“Send it over to Tom,” Andromeda said, “and put it up on the screen. Tom, can you translate, please? I want Anne to concentrate on maintaining contact with the lander.”
“I’m on it.” D’Anguilo quickly turned back to his console, where the new message was already appearing on one of his comp screens. A second later, a window appeared at the bottom of the wallscreen, and the message unscrolled in vertical bars upon it:
Andromeda had seen hjadd script before. As always, she considered it to be strangely beautiful, more a work of art than an alien language. She had no idea what it meant, though, but she barely had time to wonder why the danui had sent something in hjadd before D’Anguilo used the translation program to divine its meaning.
“I’ve got an approximate translation,” he said, his voice low, “but you’re not going to like it.”
“Let’s see it,�
� Andromeda said, and a second later several lines of Anglo text appeared beneath the hjadd script:
To human starship: please immediately withdraw your craft from the [center of the hexagon]. It is trespassing upon arsashi territory and poses a hazard to [vital components]. Arsashi inhabitants have noticed its presence and are threatening to [retaliate?/respond with force?]. Please withdraw immediately and await further instructions.
“Oh, hell,” Jason murmured. “This is not good.”
“Tell me about it,” Andromeda said. But the warning seemed to confirm Kyra’s theory that the danui were allowing different races to occupy various hexagons. So this is what they meant when they told us that there was a habitable world in their system, she thought. We assumed that they meant a planet . . . not this!
No time to consider that now. She started to prod her mike before she remembered that the comlink was still active. “Reese, this is Montero. We’ve just translated that message from the danui . . . at least we think it’s the danui . . . and they’re ordering us to withdraw the lander at once. Do you copy?” Not waiting for a reply, she looked at Anne. “Replay that on the same frequency you received the warning. I want the danui to hear it.”
“Already done,” Anne said.
Cayce’s voice came over the comlink. “Montero, this is Reese. We copy, but couldn’t you have told us this fifteen minutes ago? We’re already . . .”
“I know where you are, Lieutenant.” As she spoke, Andromeda intently watched the multiple images on the wallscreen. In the midst of a thicket of cables, the lander was more than halfway through the hexagon’s inner perimeter; it was as if the Reese were a fly finessing its way through a spiderweb. “According to . . . ah, whoever sent that message . . . you’re violating some sort of territorial agreement. You need to . . .”