KARKOSKI. WE HAVE A TRAIL AT THESE COORDINATES. DON’T BE LATE.
He pressed send, then leaned back. “Well,” he said. “Let’s not keep everyone waiting.” He clicked his own comm. “Captain to Tyche. Captain to Tyche. Helm is clear for jump. Confirm readiness.”
Grace’s voice came first. The voice he most wanted to hear. “Assessor ready, Tyche.”
Hope: “Hope is ready to fly, Cap.”
Kohl’s voice, cheerful through the alcohol, came last. “I don’t think I’ve jumped drunk before. I’ll let you know what it’s like.”
Nate turned to El. “Helm, you have control.”
“Aye, Captain,” said El. Nate felt the grumble of the Tyche’s Endless Drive. The holo stage shifted from pure delta-v to Endless math, plots, charts, and entry points. The fusion drives were working hard, the pressure of thrust like a foot on his chest. “Burn is good, 3Gs. Negative space bow wave forming. All hands, bow wave is stable. Route is green. In three.” The countdown started on the holo stage, a big 3 hanging between them. “Two.” The number shifted to a big 2, this time flashing. “One,” said El. “Jumping.”
Space in front of the window stretched, pulled, and Nate felt—
The presence of his crew, all the souls under his care. Not running towards a war, but running to save their race. His skin, tight and loose at the same time. His arm and leg, metal but whole, a part of him. And the pure thrill of acceleration, impossible, unbelievable acceleration. He couldn’t feel it. He was it. He was everything. He was the universe.
Stars stretched, made points of light that streaked past the Tyche’s cockpit.
They jumped.
CHAPTER FIVE
GRACE HAD A shoulder against the airlock sill between the ready room and the flight deck. Nate and El were in the flight deck, doing their flying-the-ship thing. They were focused on delta-v, orbital entry, and trying not to make the ship fall apart as they entered the atmosphere. Which meant they were ignoring a salient point: the atmosphere they were entering was burned. Not a lot of anything out there that wasn’t a poison. Lots of carbon, like the universe’s worst global warming problem. Grace didn’t need instruments to see that: she needed her eyes. Because the planet underneath them was a uniform brown-gray color. No green. No blue. None of the tones that said life is here. All the shades were necrotic, the uniform muddy texture of something that had been dead a long, long time.
The holo stage was charting a course into the gravity well, a signal coming from down there. Lifeless it might be now, but it had had life once. Something had come here, dropped a beacon, and then gone. Whether they’d been shucked out of their planet by evil space insects or this had never been their planet was something the Tyche needed to find out. Also they needed to find out who ‘they’ was.
“I’m not seeing anything alive down there,” said El, her voice thoughtful, almost distracted.
“If it’s alien, we might not notice it as life,” said Nate.
“No lights, nothing that looks like machines. Couple sandstorms,” said El, pointing at the holo stage. “That sucker there is a mean one.”
“We going to be okay to land?”
“We’re in a starship,” said El. “We can land just about anywhere we like.”
“It’s just that you get jumpy when we fly into bad situations,” said Nate.
“Bad situations involve people shooting at us,” said El. “Or dropping rocks on us from orbit. This is none of those things. What we’ve got here is a planet, third from a sun in an unremarkable system. Nothing here. No satellites in orbit. Nothing made of metal anywhere around us. Just a spitball spinning around a star. It’s cold, it’s miserable, and I’ll bet there’s no beer down there.”
“At least it’s not raining,” said Grace. That earned her a glance. “The bright side is that there’s nothing with a mind down there either. Not that I can … feel.” Not the hissing of the Ezeroc’s mind-speech, or the emotional torrent of humans. Just … nothing. A few weeks ago, she’d have struggled to pick a single person out of a crowd, or follow someone at a distance of more than a klick. But with some coaching from Chad and his team, her talents were coming along. Range for one. Insulation for another, because having range just meant more noise unless you could shut it out. They’d taught her mantras of a sort to keep her mind to herself.
She still couldn’t read thoughts. That was okay — those assholes couldn’t read emotions. There wasn’t a rulebook, but Grace felt it was like the difference between arms and legs. Both useful, but for different purposes. Tricky to run a marathon on your arms. Tricky to open a beer with your feet.
“You sure?” said Nate.
“No,” said Grace. “But I’m as sure as we’ll get.” She tapped the side of her head. “I’m the best esper for a hundred light years in any direction.” There. She’d said it. Esper. Owning what you were was a part of the journey. Chad had told her that as they’d sat alone with cups of tea between them. You can’t learn to be something you deny. Be complete.
Good advice. Grace was used to being whatever it took to survive. Liar, thief, stowaway. Her eyes moved to Nate. Lover. Not all things she had to become were bad. Some were very, very good.
“Okay then,” said Nate. “That’s good enough for me.”
“Me too,” said Hope’s voice, over the comm. “I can’t wait to see what it is.”
“Hell no,” said Nate. “You’re staying with the ship. It’s dangerous out there, Hope.”
“How do you know?”
“What?”
“That it’s dangerous. There’s a sandstorm and no life. How bad can it be? Besides, if you find alien tech, are you going to be able to do anything with it?”
“Uh—”
“Exactly,” she said, the comm clicking off.
“One day, we’ll get some privacy,” said Nate, looking up.
“I don’t know,” said Grace. “It’s like having a helpful angel always watching.”
“A helpful annoying angel,” said El, but with a smile. “Let’s get the skids down and we can argue more when we’re in suits.” She turned to Nate. “Just FYI. You’re not winning this argument.”
“Are you staying with the ship?” he said.
“Of course,” said El. “I don’t want to get my boots dirty. They’re new. But you kids have fun.”
• • •
Sand swirled around the open cargo bay doors. Grace had her helmet on, sword at her back, letting her mind range ahead. She wasn’t getting anything. Nothing with a recognizable brain was out there. Not a dog. Not a cat. Not a gnat. Nothing but sand and wind and freezing, poisonous air.
“Well, shit,” said Kohl over the comm. He was in his power armor, big gun slung on its mounts at his back. “It looked better in the brochure.”
Hope jumped over the sill of the cargo bay doors, turning to face them. “Come on. We’ve got a whole alien race to discover.”
“Hope, this could just be … another Republic site,” said Nate. “Encrypted comms. You know the drill.”
“No,” said Hope. “There was nothing human in that signal. Encrypted comms look a certain way. They’re usually a wrapped packet that … never mind. It wasn’t us, Cap.” She turned, rig in place, sandstorm swallowing her as she walked ahead.
Grace jumped down from the Tyche. While there was probably nothing here that would kill them, the universe was a bad and nasty place. It wouldn’t do for their Engineer to get killed, right after she’d just had her first four hours’ sleep in two weeks. While there might not be any life here, there could be sinkholes, or hell, sharp rocks. Hope had a curious mind, and curiosity could get you killed in a hundred unpleasant ways.
As her boots hit sand, Grace thought: I am the second human to ever put boots on this rock. Hope being the first. Then she thought: This sand is just like any other sand. It might be on the shores of a foreign land, but it’s just tiny rocks. She bent over, sifting some through her gloves. It was whisked away by the storm, stre
aming away to be lost in the flow of a million other pieces of particulate. Grace stood, her HUD showing her Hope’s position ahead of her. She leaned into the wind and set off after her friend.
El had set the Tyche down close to the beacon. Electromagnetic radiation coming from the ground. Nothing as obvious as a dish, nothing made by human hands for human eyes. Just drifts of sand, big hills of it. And underneath it, the signal. That signal would have to have been strong to broadcast out over space once upon a time to make the march a hundred light years to humanity. The attenuation of distance alone was a thing to consider, although a lot could have happened in a hundred years. The signal wasn’t that strong anymore, not according to the Tyche. Weak now, an older power source run down by time. And, no doubt, a huge amount of sand over the top of whatever passed as an alien transmitter.
“Hey,” said Hope. “I’ve got something.”
Something turned out to be more sand. Or that’s what it looked like at first. Grace’s footsteps — crunch, crunch as she walked, the sand dragging the energy from her, starving her stride of purpose — brought Grace closer to a big hill. Or sand drift. Or … something, like Hope said. A big shadow emerging from the storm in front of them. “I would bet,” said Nate, coming up behind her, his voice clear over the comm, “that there is a building. Under all the sand.”
“Like I said, Cap,” said Hope. “I’ve found something. Over here.” She was beckoning them over. Grace trudged towards Hope, the structure’s shadow taking on form and substance, a big construct rearing out of the sand around it. It was pyramidal in shape, or the view that Grace had made it look that way — could be round at the back end for all she knew. There was a huge aperture in the side facing them, filled with sand. Hope was sliding down the slope into the pyramid’s interior.
Hell. It looked like fun. Grace sat herself down and drifted along after Hope, feeling the rush of sand under her suit, fingers trailing through the material as she slid. The rush was over too soon, her boots crunching as the sand gave way to a stone floor. The pyramid’s roof was lost high above them, the interior dark. Her suit lights didn’t reach the top.
“Hey,” said Kohl. “Maybe I should go first. In case there’s something heavy that needs lifting.” He’d made the bottom of the sand drift, and his plasma cannon was out on its mounts. He was swinging it around like he was looking for something to shoot, which — based on his fear/fear/uncertainty — was almost a hundred percent what was going on.
“No one’s been here in a long time,” said Hope. “Nobody’s home. Nothing to shoot, Kohl.” But she wasn’t being harsh. She almost sounded … delighted. “There’s just a signal. The signal.”
“What’s it saying, Hope?” said Kohl.
“Beats me,” she said. “Ain’t it cool?”
Grace was walking, looking up, trying to find where the end of her lights might just hit something up there, when Nate’s hand grabbed her elbow. She paused, one foot raised. He nodded down, and she looked where her foot was poised over an opening in the ground. Perfectly circular, despite the sand dusted around the lip, and a perfect drop to broken bones or death. “Thanks,” she said.
“Hey,” he said. “Of course. Just try not to die when I’m not around, yeah?”
“What are you guys talking about?” said Hope, coming over. “Oh. Hey. Cool.”
“Is everything cool?” said Grace.
“For the moment,” said Hope. “You found the way in.”
“It’s a hole in the ground,” said Kohl. “No elevator. Stairs. How do you know it’s not an accident?”
“It’s a perfect accident,” said Hope, kneeling down next to the edge. Her rig articulated a limb out, green light lazing to touch the sides of the circle. “Let’s see. It’s, uh, yeah. A perfect circle.”
“I can see that,” said Nate.
“No,” said Hope. “You see a round thing in the ground. I’m telling you, this is a perfect circle. Oh, there’s burring around the edges—”
“Hope?” said Nate.
“Sure. Right, so the sides? The burring damage. I don’t know. Might have been the sand.”
“Hope.”
“Okay. Anyway, it’s not just a circle. It’s a perfect circle. Radius 2 meters. Exactly 2. Meters. With our machines? Our tech? Yeah, we could do a circle like this with a lot of practice and a little swearing. If you were the kind of person who swore,” she said, looking at Kohl, “but also with the intelligence to make a perfect circle. And how would it be meters? Our units of measurement? Feels like a big coincidence.”
“Uh,” said Kohl. “What?”
“I’m saying it’s no accident,” said Hope. “It’s perfect. Anyway, it goes down.”
“But,” said Kohl, point at the hole, “no elevator.”
“Oh,” said Hope, “it’s a gravity lift.”
“A what now?” said Nate. “Like an Endless Drive? Negative space field?”
“C’mon, Cap,” said Hope. “How would I know?”
“But—”
“Use your imagination,” she said, standing up. “Alien pyramid. Hole in the ground going to a cool place. No obvious way in or out. But there’s like a missing piece, right? A thing that used to be here,” and she gestured with both hands, the rig’s claw joining in, “is no longer here. Must have been a gravity lift.”
Grace grinned. Hope’s enthusiasm was … downright infectious. Not just because of the joy/joy/discovery/joy she was getting from the Engineer, like she was in the universe’s biggest amusement park, but for the sheer size of the smile splitting the young woman’s face, visible through her visor. “So we go in, is what you’re saying,” she said.
“Well, hey,” said Nate. “I—”
“This isn’t captaining stuff,” said Hope. “This is Engineering stuff.”
“I reckon we need to go in,” said Kohl, “if only because it’ll make the comm channel nice and quiet.”
“I’m not sure that’s a certainty,” said Grace. “But I think it sounds … cool.”
“I know, right?” said Hope. She looked down. “Radius two, diameter is four… Drop looks like the same as the diameter. Good news is there’s a sand pile here. We can just kind of slip on in.” And with that, she swung herself into the darkness below, the lights on her rig dropping like a glowing snowflake.
Grace realized she still had a grin on her face. Nate’s face mirrored it. “C’mon, lover,” she said. “Let’s go play.”
• • •
The base of the sand pile — four meters, as Hope had said — was just a floor. No spikes, alien death traps, or obvious machines. The walls, still stone, were marred by a circular portal in the wall. It had no blockage, just an opening leading down a … tunnel. Corridor? Tunnel? It was smooth to Grace’s touch, machined out of the rock with no obvious flaws. The … tunnel … was round, not square like a human construct.
“I’m going to call this a tunnel,” said Grace. “I can’t find another word for it and it’s doing my head in.”
“Yeah,” agreed Kohl. “Why’s it so round?” He stepped inside, his feet firm and solid on it. “It’s weird to stand on a floor that slopes up.”
“Aliens,” said Hope.
“You … okay,” said Kohl. “I know you’re smarter than me, Hope.”
“I was just—”
“Because you’re an Engineer,” he said. “But when you say ‘aliens’ like it’s an explanation, I figure on you missing a few steps there for those of us at the back of the class.”
“Okay,” said Hope. She was agitating from foot to foot, eager to head on off. “Look, life on Earth is familiar to us all because it’s like us. A lot of it has a skeleton, so it’s balanced around the middle. Legs. Walking. With me?”
“What about running?” said Kohl, his eyes narrowing through his visor.
“If you like,” said Hope.
“I don’t like to run,” said Kohl. “Rhinos don’t run.”
“You’re saying,” said Grace, “that these t
hings might not have legs. Don’t need a flat surface to walk on?”
“Exactly,” said Hope. She looked at Kohl. “See?”
There was a grumble without words over the comm, and Kohl turned to walk down the corridor. Tunnel. Tunnel thing. Grace shook her head. She took a look at Nate. “Actual aliens,” she said.
“Yeah, and they don’t want to kill us,” said Nate.
“To be fair, they might all be dead,” said Grace.
“There’s a thought,” said Nate. He set off after Kohl.
Hope looked at Grace. “This is cool, Grace. I’m … I’m glad you’re here too.” Joy/joy/joy.
“Me too, Hope,” said Grace. “C’mon. Let’s see what’s in this sand wonderland you’ve found.”
• • •
The tunnel was straight, their lights bouncing off the sides as they continued down. There was an end ahead, lights reflecting at them off a wall. They hit a junction with the circular tunnel leading off in a Y pattern. “Left or right?” said Grace.
“Signal’s coming from the right,” said Hope.
“Yeah, but there’s something moving down there,” said Kohl, pointing to the left.
They all turned down the left leg of the Y. Nothing.
“You sure?”
Kohl’s plasma cannon didn’t waver. “I look like the practical joker type to you?”
“Not really,” said Nate.
“Something moved,” said Grace. “I can see it too. Right at the edge of the light.”
“That’s not creepy at all,” said Nate.
“It’s mechanical,” said Grace.
“How do you know?” said Hope. “I can’t tell.”
“No brain,” said Grace. She tapped her helmet. “Nothing coming in over the ol’ esper channel.”
“Okay,” said Nate. “Hope? You’re with me. Let’s find the signal. Grace? Kohl? Guard our six. Find out what that is. If it’s alien robots, I don’t want to be bottled up in here with them at our backs.”
“I want to see the robot,” said Hope.
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