by B. V. Larson
Marvin watched me closely as I stepped to the airlock and the nanite bubble covering the entrance dissolved away, and I stepped inside. It would be a relief to escape Marvin’s probing. He obviously knew something was up.
“Colonel Riggs?”
“What is it now?”
“I still want to go with you. If I promise not to transmit anything, can I go?”
“Go where? Outside the ship? You do that all the time.”
“No-I want to go through the ring, with you.”
I heaved a sigh. How should I handle this one? Evasion wasn’t working out for me this time. Worse, if Marvin had figured it out, others might do the same.
“I can’t take you with me,” I said. “It’s too dangerous. You’ll emit a radio squawk or something and give us away. Even a small amount of propulsion might be noticed. You have heat sinks and your repellers give off a distinct signature.”
“I’ve been working on that.”
I frowned. “You have?”
“Yes, I’ve been watching your preparations, and I understand them. I might even know more about this than you do, Colonel. Recall that I once spent days in a Macro-owned system while they hunted me unsuccessfully.”
“Yeah, and you made a deal with them to sell us out for the privilege of snooping around.”
“That was an error. It will not happen again.”
“Only because the Macros are on to you, and have you marked down in some database as kill-on-sight.”
Marvin’s cameras reshuffled themselves. “Do you want to see my preparations?”
“All right,” I said, becoming curious. “What have you got?”
He scooted into the airlock with me and waited expectantly. His cameras flicked from my face to my hands and back to the wall. Touching the appropriate area would bring up a touch-sensitive radial menu in metallic relief.
“I take it you want to go outside?”
“My auxiliary systems would not fit in the ship.”
I laughed. He had me now, and we both knew it. I wanted to see what he had built for himself. I wondered if he had banked on my curiosity, and if that was part of his scheme. Marvin was always scheming.
I gave up and reached out to touch the outer wall. The wall vanished, and we floated out into space with the escaping gasses. I let it happen, leaving my magnetics off. I had a number of low emission methods to maneuver myself as needed. Behind me, I dragged a garbage-can-sized sensor box, which I’d set to strictly passive mode. I was sure it wasn’t going to send out any pings and give us away. It would only record everything around us.
A more analytical soul might have pointed out that sending a man on this mission-namely me-was not strictly necessary. All I had to do was send a sensor unit with Marvin or even by itself. When it got whatever input it could, it could be programmed to return and allow me to examine the data in relative safety.
But that just wasn’t good enough for me. I felt a place hadn’t truly been explored until a human eye had examined it in person. I’d always been bored by the endless army of roving little robots NASA sent out to roam over Mars or swing around between Jupiter’s moons. The human experience could not be discounted. Moreover, this ring was only a mile or two from my ship. It seemed like a crime to ignore it, to pass up the thrill of that first investigation.
Once I was outside the ship, I didn’t see much other than Socorro’s smoothly curved hull. The yellow sun glared from the surface, blinding me if I looked in that direction. Stretched below was the dark, icy hulk of Hel. It gleamed brightly with reflected frost on the sunward side, while the other half was encased in clinging shadows.
Marvin slid away down Socorro’s hull to the underbelly of the ship. There, something dark and angular was attached to the hull. Marvin conjoined with this mass, and I frowned as I watched it. Was it a suit or a miniature spaceship? I supposed it was a little of both.
“Marvin, I don’t recall giving you permission to build anything like this. I thought we’d clipped your wings. Where did you get these materials?”
Marvin made a hissing sound. I realized after a bemused second he was shushing me. A long, snaking tentacle came out to attach itself to my suit. It was a com-line. The intercom light blinked on my HUD, so I activated it. We were now able to converse suit-to-suit, over a nanite wire, without making any transmissions.
“I feel we should dampen all our emissions from now on, sir,” Marvin said.
“Why?”
“Not everyone will approve of our mission.”
“Since when did this become our mission?”
“The point of pronoun conversion occurred when you gave me permission to accompany you.”
I would have grumbled further, but I knew it was useless. “Okay, so what is that thing you are climbing into?”
“The largest problem I had to solve was one of propulsion,” Marvin explained. “Emissions from any normal form of energy or mass expulsion cause a visible signature.”
“I solved that one myself,” I said.
“How?”
I pulled up a reel with a winding chain of nanites on it. The nanites were organized into a thick, long strand that resembled a quivering hose. “This nanite strand has been trained to operate like an intelligent rope. I plan to attach one end to me, and apply a tiny amount of thrust on this side of the ring. After reeling me out on this tether, it’s programmed to draw me back to this side of the ring after a preset time, or if I give the nanites a signal.”
Marvin made a clicking sound of disapproval. “No, too dangerous.”
“Why’s that?”
“The ring will be activated the entire time you are on the other side, using that plan.”
“Ohhh,” I said, drawing out the sound. I thought hard, and realized he was probably right. The rings normally gave off a blip of power whenever any object passed through them. This wasn’t anything special to worry about, as drifting bits of debris commonly floated through and were transferred to the other side. But if I used my nanite-tether, and stayed on the far side for ten minutes, that would mean the ring would be active for all that time. The Macros might well notice and come to investigate that sort of anomaly.
“Well-maybe you’re right. But you still haven’t explained your solution.”
“Some kind of mass or energy must be expended to reverse course and return. I simply went with the least detectable form of emissions. In this case, frozen ammonia.”
“Frozen ammonia? From the planet surface?”
“Yes.”
“When did you go down there?”
“When you weren’t paying attention.”
I snorted. “All right, so you rigged up some kind of jet that sprays out frozen ammonia, which should look like a natural occurrence. And that pressure is enough to blast you back to this side of the ring?”
“I believe all my calculations are correct.”
I hesitated, mulling it over. His contraption looked like a bobsled. He’d already gotten himself wrapped up in it. “Is there enough gas for two bodies to ride on that thing?”
“In anticipation of this possible situation, I’ve built the system with a second berth.”
I laughed, wondering how I’d gone from being the man with the plan, the man in charge, to hitching a ride on Marvin’s ice-ship. I climbed into the framework of dark tubing and clamped my battle suit’s gauntlets on the railing. “How much thrust does this thing-”
I didn’t finish the sentence. Marvin’s little space-scooter shot away from Socorro’s hull and in moments we were plunging toward the ring. We had to be doing fifty miles an hour before he cut off the frosty blast of pressurized gas that plumed behind us.
“Too fast!” I shouted at him. “Remember, we have to turn around and blast our way back to this side.”
“We are simulating a recent passage of matter through the ring. If we are moving at too slow a rate, and they have radar systems detecting us, we’ll be noticed by the software.”
I reflected on his worry. He
had a point. When you were driving on the highway, doing thirty miles an hour was at least as noticeable as doing ninety.
I didn’t have much more time to protest in any case, because about then we passed through the ring, and everything around us changed.
The first thing I saw was the twin suns. It was impossible not to look at them, as they were quite close and bright, and immediately caught the eye. The two stars were near one another. The larger of the two was a white F class star, slightly bigger and hotter than Sol. Next to it floated a tiny red dwarf. The smaller, dimmer star circled the waist of its bigger sibling, and I detected a gleaming stream of plasma which connected the two.
“Fantastic,” I said. “They are close enough to transfer mass.”
“It would appear so.”
“Any idea how far we are from home, Marvin?”
“That depends. Where would our home be, exactly?”
It was an interesting philosophical question, but I was too entranced with the view to answer him. I kept staring at the two stars, wondering at their beauty. In all likelihood, I was the first human in this region of space and I didn’t want to waste the opportunity to absorb the fresh vista.
I’d been in a triple-stellar system before, the one we figured was Alpha Centauri. But this was my first binary system. Most star systems are multi-star systems, I knew from my recent interest in astronomy. Binary systems alone were more common than single star systems like our own sun.
It was only after a minute of checking out the suns through my shaded visor that tilted my helmet downward to examine readings from my sensor unit. I frowned at what I was seeing. There appeared to be only three large planets. The world closest to the star was the only one that could support a surface temperature that would allow liquid water. I manipulated the controls, focusing in on this planet in the habitable zone. It was a smallish gas giant, circled by a dozen or so moons of various sizes.
Closer to our current locale at the ring, there was a lot of floating debris nearby. Metallic readings of some kind surrounded us.
“Are you getting this data, Marvin? What’s this particulate mass around the ring? Dust?”
“Too large to warrant that classification. Terms such as ‘fragments’ or ‘shrapnel’ would be more accurate.”
“Fragments? Of what?”
“Some form of artificial structure. Nowhere near planetary or even asteroid-sized in volume.”
“You are telling me they are blown-up ships? I don’t see any Macros. Are these fragments what’s left of the Macros? Or have they left the system?”
“Speculation in either direction is possible, but uncertain. Should we apply thrust to the nearest fragment and investigate?”
I considered the option. I didn’t like it, but after all, we’d come here to learn about the place. I didn’t see anything on hand that was immediately threatening.
“All right,” I said, “But try not to leave any traceable signature.”
Marvin applied only a tiny squirt of frozen gasses. We rode this puff forward into the system, and moved off at an angle. The fragment of metal, when we caught up to it, was spinning in our faces. Marvin reached out with a tentacle and caught it. A spark flashed when he made contact.
“Careful,” I said.
“I’ve got it,” he said, handing it back to me.
I placed my gauntlets on the thing and examined it. Burnt, shredded metal. It could be anything, but it didn’t look natural. “Looks like a piece of a ship, all right.”
“Colonel, something is approaching.”
That got my attention. I immediately envisioned a Macro cruiser, somehow alerted to our presence. I swiveled my helmet, but saw nothing other than empty, black space. “Get us out of here, Marvin. Full thrust back through the ring.”
The tiny sled-like vehicle did a slewing U-turn and headed back toward the dark ring. It was so close. With any luck, we’d make it and slip away. I only hoped I hadn’t pushed things too far. After all, if I’d felt the urge to take a look on the far side, why wouldn’t the enemy feel the same way?
We didn’t make it. I knew we were in trouble when the twin suns were suddenly blocked, and no longer shone upon our backs. A huge shadow cast us into instant, impenetrable darkness.
“More thrust, Marvin.”
“We are accelerating at full capacity. Perhaps you should jettison the sensor unit.”
I pursed my lips tightly, muttered a curse, and did as he suggested. I heaved the unit over my shoulder.
We were almost completely within the ring’s center. Soon, we would transfer from this place to somewhere utterly different, and infinitely safer. In my mind, I could hear Sandra scolding me: “You just had to do it, didn’t you, Kyle?”
Then I sensed something. Something large loomed very close behind. I looked back, I couldn’t help it. What I saw made me suck in a breath to shout out loud. But it was too late, even for that.
We didn’t make it to the ring.
— 4
It was a hand. A black, slinky metal hand of a type I was all too familiar with. Made of interlocking segments of rippling metal, it plucked me from the back of Marvin’s scooter. I struggled immediately. It was instinct, of course. My current battle suit design was nothing like the old units. They had exoskeletal strength, independent propulsion and thick armor. I’d not used my propulsion units up until this point, naturally, as I’d wanted to remain unnoticed. But now I knew it didn’t matter. Whoever was out here, whoever had blown ships to fragments in the vicinity of this ring, they were well aware of my intrusion into their space now. All I wanted to do was escape them.
I applied full thrust, but that wasn’t enough. Maybe if the arm hadn’t already had a grip on me, I could have darted out of reach. But now that I was in the grip of a three-fingered nanite arm, I didn’t have anything like the thrust needed to break free. I tried anyway and simultaneously activated my lasers, which were embedded in each arm. I fired back up at the main trunk of the arm itself, as it snaked backward, reeling me in.
A brilliant beam splashed on the metal of the arm. But it wasn’t holding still, and although a gush of vaporized metal was released, it didn’t cut away the arm itself.
Still, I struggled, knowing I was running out of time. I broke radio silence. “Marvin, can you get this thing off me?”
There was no answer. I glanced in his direction, and saw nothing. No scooter, no Marvin. Only a few frosty crystals of exhaust from his strange propulsion system. He’d gone through the point of no return and vanished. He was probably a dozen lightyears away, and unable to hear me. I wasn’t angry with him, he’d done what he could. The scooter had simply gone ahead to the far side. What I did feel, however, was very alone.
I thought about shooting away the fingers that gripped me, but I feared I would burn a hole in my own suit. I decided to try it anyway, but couldn’t get the angle right. The projectors were on my wrists, and with the bulk of the suit, I couldn’t get them turned so they would fire against my own chest and waist region.
I recalled something at the last instant, as the arm drew me up into a region of even more complete darkness: the ship’s maw. I recalled that Sandra had once slashed away one of these fingers with her combat knife. I drew mine now, and it took me two strikes, but I managed to hack away one of the three fingers. About a foot of its length twisted and writhed like a half-severed worm on a sidewalk as it floated away from me.
It was all too little, too late. I experienced the familiar sensation of being swallowed by a huge, hungry creature. Then the starlight shut off, and I knew I’d been consumed.
The arm released me and snaked away through an opening. Familiar nanite walls surrounded me. The arm retreated from my chamber into another, and I darted after it, using my suits propulsion systems.
In this chamber, two doors opened simultaneously. I eyed one, then the other. In the back of one a tiny gleam of white light shone. I froze, remembering.
“The tests,” I said aloud to no
one. But I was certain my hunch was correct. I laughed suddenly, knowing where I was and what was happening.
“You big bastard of a ship,” I whooped. “You scared the living crap out of me.”
It was a test. It was all a test. The ship was a Nano ship, and apparently it was tired of its commander, or whoever had been in charge had died. Now, it was recruiting me for the job. Fortunately, I was very conversant with these tricks and ploys. I’d seen them all before. Hell, I could have written a book about them.
I waltzed through one trick after another. Each time I did so, I expected the ship to address me in some fashion, as Alamo had so long ago. But it didn’t. I opened my external microphones and turned up the gain. All I heard from the ship was some odd sounds-clicks and echoing squeaks. They sounded like something a dolphin would make at the bottom of the sea.
Maybe it wanted me to remove my helmet to talk, but I didn’t want to. I kept it firmly on my head in case the ship did eject me for some reason. Even if I failed a test, at least I wouldn’t die.
It was about the fifth test, by my count, when I met the alien. It was an entirely new life form. Big, but not impossibly so. If I had to estimate, I would say it was about ten feet long and weigh in at around a thousand pounds.
It looked like a crustacean of some kind. A big, bluish-green one. It dripped fluids, and didn’t look to healthy-but who was I to judge? Maybe this barnacle-encrusted sad-sack creature was an Olympic contender wherever it came from.
It approached me gamely enough. There was only one big claw and eight smaller legs instead of six, but I still considered it a lobster. It never had a chance, of course. I pushed away its snapping claw and sat on it. There was gravity in the ship, and I pinned it to the deck, where it scrabbled helplessly.
I almost killed it out of hand, but stopped myself. That’s what the ship wanted. That’s what had to happen, but I couldn’t do it. In fact, the entire situation made me angry.
I flipped up the visor on my helmet, having tested the air with my suits sensors and found it breathable. The atmosphere was humid, dank and made me sweat in my suit almost immediately.