by Ben Bova
He saw the blackened, pitted ground rushing up to meet them.
“Landing sequence initiated,” Aida said. “Landing gear extended.”
Jackson called out, “Brace yourselves!”
Ignatiev felt the ship hit the ground, bounce up, then touch down again as smoothly as any commercial airliner he’d ever flown in.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“We’re down,” Jackson breathed.
A heartfelt sigh of relief from most of the others.
“Everybody okay?”
One by one, each of the excursion crew reported positively.
Jackson nodded inside his helmet, then called, “Aida, is the ship okay?”
No answer.
Five seconds. Six, seven …
Jackson called again, “Aida, please report on the ship’s integrity.”
The AI did not reply.
One of the women yelled, “Aida, answer!”
No response.
Ignatiev felt a surge of panic. Fighting it down, he said, “Something’s cut off our connection.”
“But we need Aida to run the ship!” the man sitting beside Ignatiev wailed. “How’re we going to get off this planet without her?”
Jackson had swiveled his chair around to face the rest of the team. “We have manual controls. I can get the ship up and away.”
Ignatiev thought that Jackson sounded several degrees short of supremely confident.
He spoke up. “There must be some sort of radiation environment here on the surface that’s blocking our communications link.”
Another of the men said, his voice trembling slightly, “Jackson, if you can get us off this cinder block, do it now! Let’s get the hell out of here!”
“Not yet,” Ignatiev countered. “We’re here. We’re all in one piece. Let’s go outside and scout around a bit. That’s what we came for.”
“But if there’s radiation…”
“Our suits will protect us,” Ignatiev said. “We won’t stay outside long. Just a quick look around and then we head back home.”
Their faces showed uncertainty, even outright fear. But Ignatiev prodded, “If you want to stay here in the ship, fine. I’m going outside.”
Jackson said, “Me too. Who else?”
With all the enthusiasm of a man teetering on the edge of a cliff, one by one the others nodded their assent.
“Besides,” Ignatiev encouraged, “the controllers back aboard Intrepid must be sweating their cojones off trying to reestablish contact with us. By the time we get back, Aida will most likely be with us again.”
They didn’t believe that, he saw. And neither did he, really. But it was enough of an excuse to start them unstrapping their safety harnesses and standing up.
They trooped to the ship’s hatch, Ignatiev in the lead now and Jackson rearmost.
“Suit check,” Ignatiev said.
Each of the team tapped on the monitors strapped to their wrists. Each of them reported that their suits were intact and functioning properly.
Ignatiev nodded inside his helmet. “Then here we go.”
He leaned on the stud set into the bulkhead next to the hatch. The metal slid upward slowly and the ladder unfolded. Ignatiev caught himself licking his lips nervously and immediately stopped it. Show confidence, he commanded himself. Don’t let them see any fear, any doubts.
Oh-Four was slightly smaller than Earth, and its surface gravity consequently lighter. Ignatiev trooped down the ladder rather easily, the five others behind him.
He planted his boots on the planet’s surface. And frowned.
Where was the pitted, blackened surface they had seen from orbit? The six of them were standing on a broad, flat, dark surface, as smooth as a landing field. The sky was a pale blue, brightening on the horizon where the orange star was rising to start a new day.
Jackson stated the obvious. “This isn’t anything like what the ship’s sensors showed.”
“No, it’s not,” Ignatiev agreed.
“Radiation level well below the danger line,” said one of the women, looking down at her wrist monitor.
“This planet has an atmosphere!” said another crewman, pointing to the burgeoning dawn.
Ignatiev found himself staring at the ground on which their ship was resting. Flat and wide, in the growing light from the new dawn it appeared to be a darkish gray in color. He could see an edge to it, far in the distance. Beyond it seemed to be greenery … a forest?
Pointing toward the distant foliage, Ignatiev said, “I’m going to find the edge of this field.”
“We should stick together,” Jackson warned.
“Very well, you can come along with me.”
The six of them trooped off toward the straight-line edge of the field.
Straight lines are not natural, Ignatiev told himself. What happened to the craters and slag heaps that we saw from orbit?
“The suits are working well,” said Jackson. In the growing light of the newborn day Ignatiev could see a smile on his mocha-dark face.
Moving to Jackson’s side, Ignatiev pulled a communications cord from the supply pouch on his leg, plugged it into his helmet neck ring, then handed the other end to Jackson. Once the cord linked them, they could speak to each other without using their suit radios. If the others noticed this move for privacy, none of them said anything about it.
I’m their leader, Ignatiev said to himself. I have a right to privacy when I want it.
“Can you really fly the spaceplane back to the Intrepid?” he asked Jackson, almost whispering. “Without Aida?”
Jackson nodded once. “I took a hypno tutorial. I can get the bird off the ground and back into orbit. No sweat. Making rendezvous with Intrepid is a different matter. I’ll need their help.”
Ignatiev nodded back at him. “Once we’re in orbit we’ll probably be beyond whatever it is that’s jamming our communications link. We’ll probably be able to speak with Aida again.”
Jackson pulled in a deep breath. “I sure hope so,” he said. Fervently.
The edge of the field they were walking across seemed at least a mile away. It’s like the horizon, Ignatiev thought. As you approach it, it gets farther away.
His legs ached dully. His mind was a swirl of half-suppressed fears and doubts. ALS is unpredictable, he knew. Sneaky. Don’t hit me now, he half commanded, half pleaded.
He kept on walking, doggedly planting one foot in front of the other. The five others of this team were keeping pace with him, easily.
Keeping pace? Ignatiev scoffed. If they wanted to they could scamper on ahead and leave me here, puffing and throbbing.
There was something near the field’s edge, he saw. A shape, a figure, indistinct at this distance. Ignatiev stared at it. Yes, a figure, standing there near the edge.
He picked up his pace and hurried toward it, the others following. It was a vaguely human shape, he saw. Or is it my imagination, constructing recognizable figures out of vague blobs?
As he got nearer he realized that it wasn’t his imagination. It was a humanlike figure: two legs, two arms, a head with a face smiling at him.
It was Sonya.
CHAPTER NINE
Sonya.
His knees went weak, but the suit’s inner supports kept him from collapsing. Ignatiev blinked, raised his hands to rub his eyes, and banged them into the clear plastic of his helmet.
“Sonya!” he shouted, and started running toward her, his eyes blurring with tears.
She stood there waiting for him, a short, thick-bodied woman exactly like the wife he remembered, smiling at him. “Alex!” she called. And she started moving toward him, arms spread wide.
He rushed to her. “Sonya. My Sonya.”
“Alex. Darling.”
The other five crew members trotted up to them, staring, but Ignatiev didn’t notice them at all. All he could see was his wife.
He wrapped his arms around her, but they went right through the woman’s image as if it were a wisp of smoke.
And then he realized that she wasn’t wearing a space suit, or any protective clothing: nothing but a simple skirt and a patterned blouse that Ignatiev remembered giving her as a birthday present ages ago.
As if she could read his mind, Sonya said, “You don’t need the suit, dearest. The air here is almost exactly like Earth’s. See?” And she pirouetted before him.
Ignatiev goggled at her. It’s impossible, he told himself. Sonya died long ago. I closed her eyes. She’s dead.
His heart chilled to ice.
“You’re not Sonya,” he said.
“But I am, Alex dearest. Every memory, every moment we shared together. I’m here, darling. We can be together again.”
“You’re not Sonya,” he repeated coldly, miserably. “This is some kind of a trick.”
“It’s not a trick. It’s a gift. From the machines. We can be together again.”
Ignatiev took a step backward, away from her. It was the most painful step he had even taken.
“The machines?” he snapped. “Who are they?” Lifting his face to the brightening sky, he shouted, “Show yourselves!”
No response. Sonya’s simulacrum stood before Ignatiev, looking hurt, crushed.
Jackson stepped up to Ignatiev’s side. “Is that…” He pointed with a trembling finger. “… is that your wife?”
“No,” Ignatiev replied, hot anger seething within him. “It’s a trick. An illusion. This whole planet is a deception. The dead and blasted surface—not true. This ersatz copy of my late wife—all an illusion. A cruel hoax.”
Again he raised his face to the sky and cried out, “Show yourselves!”
CHAPTER TEN
No answer. Jackson and the others turned full circles, staring out at the broad, flat surface and the trees beyond. The sky was a brightening blue, with slim wisps of clouds high above. The sun was rising above the distant green hills.
Sonya seemed to waver, like a mirage shimmering in the heat. She changed, metamorphosed into the figure of a man slightly taller than Ignatiev, athletically slim, wearing a silvery uniform with a stiff high collar, dark hair, and a trim little beard, his handsome features set in a grave expression.
Ignatiev stood seething before the man. “And I suppose this appearance is as much of a fraud as the image of my wife.”
The man’s chiseled features eased into a smile. “We are sorry, Professor Ignatiev. We got off on the wrong foot.” Before Ignatiev could reply, he asked, “That is the proper expression, is it not: ‘the wrong foot.’”
“You know that it is,” Ignatiev replied icily.
“We thought it would make our first meeting easier for you if we appeared in the form of someone you knew.”
“Easier,” Ignatiev repeated. Yes, he thought, the image of Sonya burning in his brain. Easier. Like plunging a knife into my chest and twisting it.
“We underestimated the emotional pain it would cause you. We apologize. We do not wish to cause you pain.”
“Who is this ‘we’ you refer to?”
Spreading his arms, the man answered, “The inhabitants of this planet. The units of this civilization. The machines.”
Jackson spoke up, “Then it’s true. Your civilization is composed of mechanical devices—machines.”
The image of the man nodded gravely. “Machines such as you have never seen before. Machines that are much more capable than mere organic creatures, such as yourselves.”
Before anyone could debate that statement, Ignatiev asked, “Are you aware that your planet is in danger of being engulfed in a wave of lethal gamma radiation?”
The man nodded. “In about two hundred of your years.”
“We’ve come to help you survive the death wave,” Jackson said.
Another nod. “Very noble of you, certainly. But totally unnecessary.”
Ignatiev said, “The death wave is destroying everything it touches.”
“Every organic thing,” the man corrected. “We have survived such outbreaks in the past. We will survive this one, too.”
“How can you be sure?” the woman at Jackson’s side asked.
With a sigh, the manlike figure replied, “Allow us to show you our civilization. Once you understand its depth and complexity, you will see that the so-called death wave holds no terror for us.”
“Are you capable of terror?” Ignatiev asked.
The man’s eyes flicked wider momentarily. “Well asked, sir. No, terror and grief and all the emotions that soak your organic brains have no part in our makeup. We are machines, remember.”
“Of course.”
“Will you allow us to show you our culture?”
“Yes!” Jackson blurted.
Ignatiev thought, Step into my parlor, said the spider to the fly. But he said, “Will you allow us to communicate with our ship, up in orbit? They’ll be worried about us.”
“Certainly,” said the man. Then he added, “In time.”
* * *
They walked together back to the shuttlecraft, where Ignatiev and his team went aboard to take off their environmental suits. Ignatiev worried about this move, but decided that he really had no choice. They were the prisoners of these machines, whether the others realized it or not.
Once outside their ship again, Ignatiev asked their host—or captor, “What are you called? How should we address you?”
The man smiled again, perfect teeth gleaming against his deeply tanned skin. “We are all one. We do not have individual identifications. But, to make it easier for you, you may call us the Master Machine.”
“And the view of this world that we saw from orbit?”
Without the slightest embarrassment, the man replied, “A deception, meant to discourage you. Meant to send you away and leave us in peace.”
“Send us away?” one of the crew echoed.
“We have no need of your help. We will survive the coming death wave just as we have survived previous radiation outbursts from the galaxy’s core.”
“But there are other worlds, other civilizations that are in danger of annihilation,” said Ignatiev. “Don’t you want to help them?”
The manlike figure hesitated a couple of heartbeats. Then, “Such noble crusades are for organic creatures like yourselves. We have no need of them. We are not burdened with feelings of guilt or remorse.”
“Or generosity, kindness, responsibility,” Ignatiev growled.
“No. None of that. We exist. We survive. What happens to other species is of no interest to us. That’s why we tried to send you away. We do not want or need your help.”
Jackson said, “But you can’t just stand by and let whole civilizations be wiped out! Not when you have the technology to help them survive!”
The man sighed, then shook his head. “An emotional reaction. We are not burdened by such behavior.”
“Well, we are,” Ignatiev said. “We believe it is our duty to help civilizations threatened by the death wave. In fact, we were told about the death wave by the Predecessors, a machine intelligence like your own. The Predecessors feel responsibility. They have a sense of duty.”
“And where are they now?” the man asked, almost sneering. “Why do they need your help? Because they are dying, they are being driven into extinction because of these atavistic emotions that drag them down into annihilation. We are beyond such foolishness.”
Foolishness, Ignatiev thought. These machine creatures are dangerous.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“I want to speak to my people in the orbiting ship,” Ignatiev said.
Standing before him on the broad, flat, featureless plain, the humanlike figure replied, “We already have. We told them that you landed safely, and we have met you.”
“Truly?”
“Truly. They became very excited, of course. They asked to speak to you specifically. We explained that you will speak to them soon.”
“How soon?” Jackson asked.
Noting the hint of irritation in Jackson’s voice, Ignatiev thought, The boy is
learning.
“We decided to show you a bit of our society before you contact your associates in orbit. Then you’ll have something concrete to tell them.”
Knowing he really had no choice, Ignatiev said, “Very well. Show us.”
“Follow us,” said the machines’ avatar. Its human figure turned and began walking away from the shuttlecraft, which still stood where it had come to rest.
Ignatiev walked beside the image of the man, Jackson on its other side. The four others trooped along behind them.
“Not much to see here,” Jackson said.
“We have no need of scenery or decorations,” said the avatar. It pointed, though, toward the green forest beyond the gray plain’s edge. “If you require panoramic vistas to soothe your sense of well-being, there is the forest. And beyond it, the mountains. Some of them are quite rugged, a challenge to climb.”
“I’m a mountain climber,” one of the others said. Then he amended, “Er, I was, back on Earth. Climbed Mount Everest once.”
The machines’ avatar said, “I’m sure you found it quite exciting.”
Ignatiev heard the condescension in its voice.
Suddenly a black oblong rose from the flat plain, taller than any of them. Double doors set into one side of it slid open silently.
The man pointed. “Our civilization is mostly underground, of course. It’s easier to maintain equilibrium conditions belowground, out of the weather.”
“You don’t control the weather?” Ignatiev jibed.
“Of course we do. But we found eons ago that it is more efficient merely to control it within certain broad parameters than to try to control it in detail, moment by moment.”
“So you have storms, rain, cyclones?”
As he gestured them through the open doors, the avatar answered, “Some storms, yes. And the green plants need rain, of course. But we suppress damaging events such as cyclonic gales and downpours.”
One of the women, a delicate-looking Oriental, asked, “Is the atmosphere here natural, or have you created it yourselves?”