by Allen Steele
“He’s in the observation center, helping Dr. Rauchle analyze the data we’ve received from the probes. I’ll pass along your regards when I see them.”
“Of course,” Harker said dryly. “I’m sure the rest of the science team will be interested to learn what else we find, once we return to the site. We should be able to transmit exact data to you once we conduct a more thorough—”
“I’m afraid you won’t be able to do that, Commander. I want you to return to Galileo, as soon as possible.”
“Bastard.” Ramirez glared at Cole’s image on the screen. “I told you so.”
Clasping his hand around his mike, Harker turned to glare at him. “Shut up!” he whispered. Then he unclasped the wand. “Sorry, Captain. Lost you for a second there. Did you say that you want us to return to the ship?”
“Affirmative, Maria Celeste.” Lawrence glanced up at Cole, as if seeking approval. Cole nodded, and Lawrence turned away again. “Wrap up what you’re doing and prepare to come home.”
“I don’t understand, sir,” Harker said. “Why do you want us to do that?”
On-screen, they watched Lawrence cup his mike as Cole bent forward once more. In the foreground, Arkady glanced at the camera; a brief frown and a furtive shake of his head, then he looked away. Cole stepped back from Lawrence, and the captain uncupped his mike again.
“Your group has done as much as it can down there,” Lawrence said. “I’ve just conferred with Dr. Rauchle, and he’d like to bring down another group to continue the investigation. They’ll need to have you along, of course, in order to lead them to the site, but we think it’s wise to have your people step aside and let the rest of the science team have a look at what you’ve found.”
“He’s lying.” Ramirez was barely able to contain his anger. “Son of a bitch. You know he’s lying.”
Harker shot him a warning look. “Umm…yes, sir, that makes sense.” Ramirez started to protest, but Harker held up a hand. “However, we still need to go EVA one more time. We left our equipment at the site, and we ought to retrieve it. Dr. Ramirez informs me that the CO2 vent could become active again at any time, and another discharge might bury it beneath new ice.”
Ramirez felt Emily’s hand on his arm, gently pushing him aside. Taking her place in the pilot’s seat, she quickly typed commands into her keyboard, then silently gestured for Harker to study the data that appeared on her screen. Harker peered closely at the comp, then gave her a knowing wink. “Ms. Collins has just informed me that given the elements of Galileo’s new orbit, our next available launch window won’t open until oh three hundred tomorrow. That’s nine and a half hours from now, by our reckoning. Do you copy?”
Lawrence bent forward slightly to address Simone. The helm officer listened, nodded, then typed something into her keyboard. A moment passed while Lawrence studied the display on his lapboard. Cole moved around to stare over his shoulder; he appeared to say something to the captain. A brief nod, then Lawrence sat up straight again.
“Roger that, Maria Celeste,” he said. “You’re go for a second EVA. But we need to have you launch by oh four hundred tomorrow at the latest, and don’t conduct any more investigation of the site than necessary. Do you copy?”
“Affirmative, Galileo. Thank you. Maria Celeste over.” Harker prodded his mike once more, then let out his breath. “Nice work, Emcee,” he murmured, laying a fond hand upon her shoulder. “You certainly pulled a fast one there.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Aghast, Ramirez stared at both of them. “Don’t you see what happened? Your captain just pulled the plug on…”
“I know what he just did.” Yanking off his headset, Harker glared at him. “You might bother to thank me. If that’s not too much trouble, that is…”
“Thank you?” Ramirez felt his face grow warm. “You could have told him…”
“What?” Emily removed her headset. “That we could have launched in five minutes? Or that the equipment you left behind can always be recovered later, even if there’s another vent discharge?” Shoving him aside, she stormed down the aisle. “Ted just put himself on the line for you. You could be a little more grateful.”
“She lied. So did I.” Harker rubbed his eyelids his fingertips. “At the very least, we stretched the truth. In any event, we just bought us another eight hours…nine if we count the opening of the next launch window for rendezvous with Galileo.”
“But the ship comes around every…what? Three hours? Four?”
“True.” Harker favored him with a wry smile. “But it takes a while for us to repack all that equipment and haul it back here, doesn’t it? I’m sure there are going to be one or two inconvenient delays. These things take time, don’t you know?”
“Time enough for us to return to the site, see if we can open that hatch.” Cruz slurped the rest of his coffee, crumpled the foam cup in his hand. “They did us a favor, Jared. I think we owe ’em one.”
Ramirez let out his breath. “I’m sorry. You’re right. Thanks, both of you.” Harker nodded, however reluctantly; Emily said nothing as she slipped another cartridge into the coffeemaker. “But what I don’t understand is why…”
“They want to recall us?” Harker sat down in the copilot’s seat, stared out the cockpit window. “I can’t figure that either. Not after what we’ve found. Doesn’t make any sense.”
“I know.” Cruz leaned against the back of a seat. “Sir Peter’s trying to claim the credit for himself. If he and Rauchle open the hatch, make the first exploration of the interior…”
“No.” Ramirez shook his head. “That doesn’t work. Rauchle’s the team leader, remember? That means he’ll get his name listed at the head of the final report.” He considered this for another moment. “And Sir Peter doesn’t need to come down here. In fact, this isn’t his area of expertise. You and me…we’re the guys who know about this sort of thing, not him and Toby.”
“Besides, it wasn’t Toby who suggested that we should be withdrawn,” Cruz added. “It was Cole…we saw that on camera.”
“You got a point.” Emily poured water into the coffeemaker’s tank. “But he didn’t put himself forward as being a member of the next landing party.”
“So why would Cole do this?” Ramirez shook his head. “Believe me, I know him. His idea of exploration is sneaking into the women’s dorm.” The others laughed out loud, and he found himself grinning at his own joke. “All right, maybe he’d take that sort of risk, but anything more dangerous than that…”
“Then why…?” Emily began.
“I don’t know about the rest of you,” Harker said, “but I’m not about to look a gift horse in the mouth.” He stood up, moved toward the aft section. “One hour, gentlemen. Grab a nap, use the facilities, do whatever you need to do. Then we’re back on the clock.”
“And what do you want us to do then?” Ramirez asked.
“See if your theory is correct, what else?” A sly grin. “If anyone’s going to make the find of the century, then it’s going to be us.”
“All right,” Ramirez said. “Let’s see if we can open this thing.”
Bending down to the hatch, he extended his right hand to one of the plates. Curling his ring and little fingers, he inserted his remaining digits within the oval holes.
He tried to turn the plate clockwise, but it remained inert. When he exerted pressure in the opposite direction, though, it moved ever so slightly. Yet as hard as he tugged, he couldn’t rotate the plate more than a couple of millimeters. “I felt it give,” he said, looking up at Harker and Cruz, “but it seems to be stuck on something.”
“But it moved,” Harker said. “I saw that, too. Let me give it a try.” Shuffling over to the adjacent flange, he inserted the fingers of his right hand into the holes of its plate. Ramirez heard him grunt as he tried to twist the plate counterclockwise, but after a couple of seconds he gave up. “You’re right. It turns just a little way, then freezes up.”
“My turn.” Cruz be
nt down to the third flange, opposite the ones Ramirez and Harker had just tested, and poked his own fingers into the holes of its plate. “I’m not getting it to…oh, wait, there it goes. Just a little bit, though.” Then he looked up at the other two men. “Hang on a sec. Did you guys turn right or left?”
“To the left,” Harker said. “Counterclockwise. Same as he did.”
“Mine turned clockwise.” Cruz moved over to the fourth flange, tested it. “This one turns to the right, too. No more than an inch or so, then it stops cold.”
Standing erect, Ramirez studied the orientation of the hatch in relation to its surroundings. As he suspected, the two flanges he and Harker had tried to open lay in the direction of the crater’s center, toward the carbon-dioxide and radiator vents, while the flanges Cruz had tested were in the direction of the crater walls. He shut his eyes for a moment, trying to conjure a mental picture. A creature has emerged from the hatch to inspect Spindrift’s outer surface…
“Jared?” Harker’s voice broke his concentration. “What are you…?”
“Hush. Let me think.” The creature—no, not a creature; a thinking, rational being—has shut the hatch behind it. A wise precaution, if this is an entrance to the interior. It does whatever it needs to do on the surface, then returns to the hatch. So how does it get back inside, if it’s alone? If it has four hands…
“Jorge, come over here.” Ramirez opened his eyes. “Stand where I am now. Ted, stay where you are.”
“What are you…?” Cruz began.
“Just do as I say, all right?” Stepping away from the hatch, he walked around to where Cruz stood. Jorge hesitated, then walked over to join Harker.
“You got an idea?” Harker asked.
“Maybe. Just follow my lead.” Once they traded places, Ramirez got down on his knees, then reached out with both arms until his hands were able to touch the two adjacent flanges. To his relief, he was still able to insert his fingers firmly within the holes of their respective plates. “Put your fingers in those holes and get a firm grip, but don’t try to move them until I tell you. Understand?”
“What the devil are you guys doing out there?” Emily’s voice came through his headset. “If this is some sort of…”
“I think I know what he has in mind.” Harker got down on his knees, and Cruz did the same. “You think you can handle both of them at the same time?”
Ramirez glanced up at him. Harker had caught on. “Maybe. If it doesn’t work, we can always get Emcee…Emily, I mean…to suit up and join us.”
“She stays aboard the shuttle, no matter what.” Harker looked at Cruz. “Ready?”
“Sure, but I still don’t know what…”
“On the count of three,” Ramirez said, “I want both of you to turn your plates counterclockwise, to the left. I’m going to turn mine clockwise, to the right. Understood?”
“Got it,” Harker said. “On three.”
“All right, then.” Ramirez wiggled his thumbs and fingers as far he could within the holes, making sure that he had a good grip. One last glance to make sure that Harker and Cruz had done the same, then he counted down. “Three…two…one and pull!”
He twisted both plates to the right, trying hard to make it a swift, simultaneous motion. For an instant, his hands met the same resistance as before, and he thought he’d failed. Then, all at once, there was a sense of movement beneath his palms, as if tumblers within the door of an old-style bank vault were being released, and the plates revolved freely.
“They’re going!” Cruz yelled. “They’re…!”
The wedge-shaped panels began to slide apart.
“It’s opening!” Harker snapped. “It’s…!”
A silent blast of escaping residual atmosphere fogged his helmet faceplate. Startled, Ramirez fell back, his vision obscured.
“Ted!” Emily’s voice, now frightened. “What’s going on out there?”
Ramirez raised his hand to his helmet, scraped away the frost, then crawled forward on hands and knees to see what he’d done.
“Oh my…” Cruz murmured.
The hatch had disappeared, its segments retracted into the ground.
“We’re okay,” Harker said. “Just got a scare, that’s all.” The first officer clambered to his feet. “We’ve opened the hatch, and we’ve found…”
He stopped, apparently at loss for words. Feeling his heart pounding against his ribs, Ramirez managed to stand up. Feeling as if he was at the edge of the precipice, he cautiously approached the pit and looked down.
For an instant, he saw nothing save for a hole in the ground: a deep and seemingly bottomless shaft, dark as the sky above them. Then light began to glimmer along its walls—random patterns of dim luminescence, like veins of radiant copper and silver—that gradually rose in intensity, revealing a curved, ramplike structure that led downward into the depths.
“I’ll be damned.” Ramirez felt laughter rising within his chest. “It’s a staircase…a spiral staircase.”
“He’s right.” Cruz’s voice was choked with awe. “If I didn’t see it, I wouldn’t have believed it.”
Ramirez tore his gaze from the shaft, looked up at the other two men. “Gentlemen—” he said, bowing slightly as he extended an arm toward the open hatch “—the way is clear. Let’s go make history.”
PART FOUR:
The World, the Flesh, and the Devil
THIRTEEN
JANUARY 8, 2291—SPINDRIFT
The ramp leading underground was like none they’d ever seen before. Peering down through the open hatch, they saw that it wasn’t as smooth as they had first thought, but appeared instead to be comprised of thin metallic plates, no two exactly alike, that overlapped one another like roof shingles. Although the overall structure resembled a spiral staircase, it was difficult to see how anyone—or anything—could safely use it. The plates were sleek and unevenly distributed, and seemed to grow straight out of the shaft walls, with no other visible means of support. Nor was there a guardrail to prevent one from falling down the empty well that yawned within its center.
One close look at the ramp, and Harker knew that they’d need to rig a safety line before they made their descent. They still had a fifty-meter coil of rope among their supplies, though, and when he aimed a pocket light down the staircase well, he caught a glimpse of a floor no more than thirty meters away. So he hammered a piton into the ground seven meters from the hatch, where there was no underlying metal surface, and once he fed the end of the rope through its loop and tied it off, he wrapped the other end around his chest and shoulders. He’d make the initial descent, and once he reached the bottom of the shaft, he’d unwrap his end of the rope and have Ramirez pull it back up. The other two would descend the same way; Ramirez next, then Cruz. The process would be time-consuming, but he dared not take any chances. And besides, with the rope in place, at least they’d have an easy way to ascend the shaft once they were ready to return to the surface.
All that was left, then, was deciding what to carry with them. Opening the last of the cases they’d brought with them from the shuttle, they divided up the equipment—flashlights and lightsticks, a med kit, hand tools, spare batteries and patches for their suits—and tucked it away within the cargo pockets of their overgarments. However, the LRC was too large for them to disassemble and carry down the shaft. Although they had no way of knowing how far their suit radios would continue to transmit once they were underground, and Emily was reluctant to lose contact with the team, in the end they decided that it was a risk they’d just have to take. Otherwise their exploration would be limited to radio range, which might well be no farther than the bottom of the shaft.
“All right, I think we’re ready.” Harker yanked twice on the rope, making sure that it was secure, then glanced at the others. “If I run into any trouble…”
“We’ll haul you back up.” Cruz patted his shoulder. “Good luck.”
“Please be careful.” There was an anxious quaver in Emily’
s voice. “Don’t take any unnecessary chances.”
Harker smiled at this. Everything they’d done so far was an unnecessary chance. “Wilco,” he said. “See you soon.” He took a deep breath, then took the first step through the hatch. Extending his arms to maintain his balance and watching where he put his feet, he slowly began to make his way down the ramp.
Although the plates appeared to be unstable, he was surprised to find that they were as solid as rock. Nor were they as slippery as they appeared; the soles of his boots had as much traction as he needed. Yet their uneven shapes and apparently random placement made them treacherous; he had to pause before taking each step to find another shingle large enough for him to plant his feet.
The hatch was designed to be opened by a creature with four hands. What did the ramp tell them about their means of mobility? No doubt Ramirez will have something to say about this, Harker thought. At least he didn’t have to depend on his helmet lamps; the illumination provided by the radiant, veinlike crevices within the rock walls gave all the light he needed. And I’m sure he’ll have a theory about this, too…
“You’re going to love this place, Jared,” he said. “It’s just as weird as you are.”
Cruz laughed out loud. “Thank you, Commander,” Ramirez replied. “I’m glad to know that it wasn’t designed by humans. Then I’d be worried.”
That remark almost stopped him. Wonder what he meant by that? He put it out of his mind. He was almost halfway down the ramp. Focus, man. Focus…
Twenty meters…twenty-five…thirty…and suddenly, he found himself at the bottom. Looking around, he thought for a moment that he’d reached a dead end. Then he looked beneath the final curve of the ramp and caught sight of another circular hatch, identical to the one above except that it was vertical and fitted into the wall.
“All right, I’ve reached the bottom, and I think I’ve found the front door.” Rocking back on his haunches, he turned his helmet faceplate upward. Far above, he could see Ramirez and Cruz, peering down at him. “You guys ready?”