So they would make the additional flight. “To be honest,” Julie told her, as they approached one of the cylinders floating off the Jenkins’s port bow, “getting down with this thing slung on our belly will be enough of a battle.”
The package was big. A large cylinder more than thirty meters wide, maybe forty-five meters long. Marge had been impressed with Julie’s cool performance as she locked onto the rim, attaching it so that the mouth of the cylinder faced down. Listening to the heavy bang as the clamps engaged, she decided the pilot’s caution was justified.
The unit was equipped with guidance thrusters, which she now jettisoned. The Jenkins could retrieve them later.
They were on the night side, approaching the terminator, chasing the sun. “Not the best planning,” Julie said. “We’ll have to go around once before we start our descent.”
At this point it didn’t matter. Marge sat back to enjoy the ride. The skies were clear and bright. The omega was behind them somewhere, not visible unless they called it up on the scopes. The rising sun picked out a couple of islands and a few drifting clouds.
They were passing through daylight. Marge watched the oceans and landmasses rotating beneath, thinking how green it all was, how lovely, and she began to wonder whether it would draw settlers eventually, people who would argue that the Goompahs only used a small part of the world anyhow, so why not? It occurred to her for the first time that terrestrial governments might eventually find themselves unable to enforce their edicts about interfering with other civilizations. Might not even be able to stop groups of exploiters from seizing distant real estate.
Ah, well. That was a problem for another age.
Behind them, the sun sank below the horizon and they soared through the night. “Starting down in five minutes,” said Julie.
It was okay by Marge.
MOMENTS BEFORE THEY entered the atmosphere, Julie switched on the spike, reducing the gravity drag. Marge noticed that they’d dropped out of orbit earlier than the point where they’d started the other three descents. “Losing weight isn’t the same as losing mass,” Julie explained. “We’re still carrying a load, and we need more space to get down.”
There were a few clouds over the area, and she didn’t see the shoreline until they were directly over it. Then they raced inland, over rolling hills and, finally, the forest. The omega had set, and the eastern sky was beginning to brighten.
Julie eased the vehicle down among the cluster of trees where they’d landed earlier. When her cargo touched the ground she held steady, keeping the weight of the AV3 off it. “Okay, Bill,” she said, “release the package.”
Marge felt it come free.
They continued to hover immediately overhead. “Bill,” Julie said, “peel the wrapper.”
Marge watched the tarp protecting the rainmaker fall away. Grapplers took it up and stored it in the cargo bay.
When it was done, Julie banked off to one side so they could see. The chimney was made of ultralight, highly reflective cloth. It was a flexible mirror, and it was virtually invisible.
And that was it for the night. It was getting too close to sunrise to try to do any more. The next day, when they came back, they would bring the helicopter.
The mood has changed. You can’t really miss it. Everywhere you go at night, Goompahs are looking up over their shoulders at the thing in the sky that won’t go away and gets bigger every day. The sense of something deadly, of something supernatural, coming this way has become a palpable part of everyday life here. The streets aren’t as crowded at night as they used to be. And the Goompahs talk in hushed tones, as if they were afraid the monster overhead might hear them.
It might be that the most disquieting aspect of the thing is that it looks like a squid. The Goompahs are familiar with squids, or with something very like a squid. They’re a delicacy here, as they used to be in some cultures at home. But the Goompahs, like us, are struck by their grasping capabilities, and they, too, find the creatures unsettling. I overheard a group of them today describing an incident that is probably apocryphal, but which they were convinced was true: Someone in a fishing boat was seized by a squid and dragged overboard while his comrades watched, too frightened to assist. Did it really happen? I don’t know. The interesting thing is that the story surfaces just as the time when a celestial squid seems to be coming after the entire Intigo.
Something else has changed: They don’t call it T’Klot anymore. The Hole. It’s become instead T’Elan. The Thing. The Nameless.
— Digger Dunn, Journal
Thursday, December 4
chapter 36
On board the Hawksbill.
Friday, December 5.
KELLIE COLLIER WASN’T comfortable with Dave Collingdale. He never laughed, never eased up. He sat beside her on the bridge, staring at the images of the cloud in stony silence.
“We never took the clouds seriously,” she said finally, trying to start a conversation. “People who think we can just ignore them and they’ll go away should come out here and take a look at one close up.”
“I know.” And he just sat there.
She asked him an innocuous question about the flight out, but that didn’t go well either.
He turned aside every effort to lighten the atmosphere. Ask him how things were going, and he told you the position of the cloud. Ask how he was feeling, and he told you how he was going to enjoy doing it to the cloud.
Doing it to the cloud.
She got the sense that he would have used stronger terminology had she been a male.
But however he might have said it, it carried the clear implication that the cloud was alive.
“I am going to get it,” he said.
Not decoy it.
Not turn it aside.
Get it.
THERE WAS AN industrial-sized projector mounted on the belly of the Hawksbill and a twin unit housed in the shuttle. Hutch, who had apparently thought up this whole idea, had warned her that the Hawksbill was the wrong shape for working around omegas, and she was sorry but they’d needed to pack so much stuff on board there’d been no help for that. Keep your distance, Hutch had said. Watch out.
She intended to.
The jets boiling off the cloud’s surface raced thousands of kilometers ahead of it. The omega was coming in from slightly above the plane of the system, so most of its upper surface was in shadow. She’d arced around and come in from the rear. They were three hundred kilometers above the cloud. The mist stretched to the horizon in all directions. It was quiet, placid, attractive. And there was an illusion, quite compelling, that there was a solid surface just beneath. That one could have walked on it.
“How big is it, Bill?” she asked. “Upper surface area?”
“Eighty-nine billion square kilometers, Kellie.” Seventy-five hundred times the size of the NAU, which combined the old United States and Canada. “This is a good time to launch the monitors.”
“Do it.”
There were six of them, packages of sensors and scopes that would run with the cloud and keep an eye on it.
Collingdale stood behind her, watching, grunting approvingly as the lamps came on, indicating first that the units were away, and then that they had become operational. “Dave,” she said, “we’ll be ready to go in about ten minutes.”
“Okay,” he said. He took his own chair and brought up an image of the shuttle, waiting in the launch bay with its LCYC projector. The LCYC was a duplicate of the one bolted to the ship’s hull.
Dead ahead, slightly blurred by mist, she could see Lookout. There was just the hint of a disk. And the two moons. Permanently suspended in the omega sky, as though they were just rising.
“When this is over,” he said, the tension suddenly gone from his voice, “I’m going to push to get this problem taken care of. If we organize the right people, make some noise in the media, we can get funding and get the research under way.”
“To get rid of these things, you mean?”
&n
bsp; “Of course. Nobody’s serious. But that’s going to change when I get home.” He looked down at the cloudscape.
They were moving faster than the omega, and as she watched they swept out over the horizon, and it fell away. But it was still braking, and the vast jets thrown forward by the action rolled past her.
“Okay, David,” she said. “Let’s line up.”
She took them down among the jets and set the Hawksbill directly in front of the cloud.
“Electrical activity increasing,” said Bill.
She saw some lightning. “That coming out of the main body?” she asked.
“Yes,” said Bill.
“Directed at us?”
“I believe it is random.”
Collingdale got up again and stood by the viewport. Man couldn’t stay still. “It knows we’re here,” he said.
More illumination flickered through the cloud.
She felt chilled. Wished Digger were there.
“It’s okay,” he said soothingly, apparently sensing her disquiet, but not understanding the reason. “We’re going to be fine.” His eyes were hard, and a smile played at the corners of his lips. He’s enjoying this.
“I need you to sit down and belt in, David,” she said. “Maneuver coming up.”
He tapped the viewport as if, yes, everything was indeed under control, and resumed his seat.
She didn’t like being so close to the damned thing. She could very nearly have reached out the airlock and stuck an arm into one of the jets.
“Range approaching 250,” said Bill.
“Match velocity.”
The retros fired. The same technology that provided artificial gravity served to damp the effects of maneuvering. But they still existed, and for about twenty seconds her body pushed against the forward restraints. Then the pressure eased.
“Done,” said Bill.
The problem for Kellie was to find adequate operating space away from the plumes. He waited with studied patience while she did so.
“Bill,” she said, “begin relaying data to Jenkins.” Just in case. Bill confirmed, and she turned to Collingdale. “Dave, we are ready to launch the shuttle.”
THE LCYC PROJECTORS were industrial units with a variety of uses, ranging from entertainment to environmental and architectural planning. They were configured, when used in tandem, to create a larger, more clearly defined image than either could have done alone.
The shuttle left the ship and moved out to a range of seven hundred kilometers, where it assumed a parallel course with the Hawksbill.
“In position,” said Bill.
“Bill,” she said, “take direction from David.”
“Confirmed.”
“Bill,” said David, “start the program.”
The AI, looking about twenty-two, dashing and handsome, appeared near the viewport. He looked out and smiled. “ Program is initiated,” he said.
Midway between the Hawksbill and the shuttle, a giant hedgehog blinked into existence. It looked real. It looked like a piece of intricately carved rock. Gray hard spines rose out of it, and it turned slowly on its axis.
Beautiful.
“How big is it?” Kellie asked.
“Five hundred thirty kilometers diameter.”
“A little bit bigger than the original.”
“Oh, yes. We wanted to be sure the bastard didn’t miss it.”
It glittered in the sunlight, gray and cold. She’d never seen a hologram anywhere close to these dimensions before.
Collingdale smiled at the cloud. “Okay, you son of a bitch,” he said. “Come get it.”
More lightning off to port. They’d wandered too close to a jet. It was a flood, a gusher of mist and dust, streaming past. “At the rate the cloud’s coming apart,” she said, “maybe there won’t be anything left by the time it gets to Lookout.”
“Don’t count on it,” said Collingdale.
Another bolt rippled past. A big one. They both ducked. So did Bill. His image vanished.
Maybe they were drawing the dragon’s attention. “I think we should get started,” she said.
Collingdale nodded. “Yes. I was just savoring the moment.”
Right. She was glad somebody was enjoying it.
“Bill,” Collingdale said, “let’s go left three degrees.”
Bill complied. The Hawksbill, the shuttle, and the virtual hedgehog all turned to port. Images of the cloud played across four screens.
The bridge fell silent, save for the muffled chatter of electronics. Collingdale sat quietly, watching the monitors, calm, almost serene.
Off to starboard, the hedgehog sparkled in sunlight. From somewhere, lightning flickered, touched the image, passed through it.
“It’ll probably take a while,” said Collingdale, “for it to react. To start to turn away.”
She’d become aware of her heartbeat. “Probably.”
The shuttle was an RY2, lots of curves, no sharply drawn lines, nothing to attract the lightning. Only the oversize Hawksbill needed to worry about that. Target of the day. Maybe they should have ridden in the shuttle. Suddenly it struck her that they should have thought things out better. Of course they should be in the shuttle.
Collingdale’s gray eyes drifted toward the overhead.
Digger would have thought of it in a minute. Never ride in the target vehicle, he’d have said.
“Bill?” said Collingdale.
“Nothing yet.”
“Maybe we need to wiggle a little bit,” he said. “Do something to get its attention.”
“Maybe.” Why don’t you lean out the airlock and wave? “Bill,” she said, “down angle three degrees.”
“Complying,” said Bill.
The face of the cloud was torn by fissures and ridges. One dark slice ran jagged like a gaping wound across the length of the thing. Gradually, the cloud was retreating from the center of the screens as the Hawksbill continued to pull away from it.
THEY WAITED SIX hours. The Hawksbill and its shuttle and the virtual hedgehog drew steadily away from the cloud, which continued on course for Lookout. Collingdale’s mood had darkened. He sat smoldering in his seat. When he spoke at all, it was to the omega, calling its attention to the hedgehog. “Don’t you see it, you dumb son of a bitch?”
“Hey, you’re going the wrong way.”
“We’re here. Over here.”
For the most part, though, he watched in stricken silence. Finally, he literally threw himself out of the chair, a dangerous move in the low gravity of a superluminal. “Hell with this,” he said. He brought the AI up onscreen. “Bill, go to the next one.”
The hedgehog vanished. A city appeared in its place. It was on the same order of magnitude.
This was a city unlike any she’d seen, an unearthly place of crystal towers and globes and chess piece symmetry.
“It’s Moonlight,” said Collingdale. “We know the thing’ll go after this one.” He gazed at the omega’s image on the overhead.
But if the omega cared, or even noticed, there was no indication. Collingdale paced the bridge for hours, eyes blazing, his jaw clamped tight. He was talking to the cloud, cajoling it, challenging it, cursing it. And then apologizing to Kellie. “I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s goddam frustrating.” Somewhere he’d picked up a wrench and he stalked about with it gripped in one fist, as if he’d use it on the omega.
Kellie watched.
“Nobody’s afraid of you, you bastard.”
THEY WERE GETTING too far away from the cloud, so she cut the image, took the shuttle back on board, swung around behind the omega, and repeated her earlier maneuver, easing the Hawksbill down directly in its path again.
She also suggested they board the shuttle, and run the operation from there.
“No,” he said. “You go if you want. But the shuttle’s too small. Too much lightning out there. It gets hit once, and it’s over.”
She thought about ordering him to comply. She was, after all, the vessel’s c
aptain. But they were running an operation, and that was his responsibility. His testosterone was involved, and she knew he’d resist, refuse, defy her. The last thing she needed at the moment was a confrontation. She relaunched and repositioned the vehicle, making a great show of it.
“I think it’s a mistake,” she said.
He shook his head. “Let’s just get the job done.”
“Have it your way. We’re ready to go.”
Collingdale stared hard at the navigation screen, on which an image of the shuttle floated. “Bill,” he said, “let’s have the cube.”
A box appeared. It was silver, and someone had added the legend BITE ME on one side. Its dimensions were similar to those of the hedgehog and the city.
But it didn’t matter.
Kellie put down a sandwich and some coffee while they waited. Collingdale wasn’t hungry, thanks. He hadn’t eaten all day.
He ran the cube in a fixed position, and he ran it tumbling. They were pulling away from the cloud again, and Kellie watched while Collingdale changed the colors on the visual, from orange, to blue, to pink.
“I guess,” he said finally, “it knows we’re just showing it pictures.”
“I guess.”
“Okay,” he said, “let’s recall the shuttle. We’ll try the kite.”
“Tomorrow,” she said. “We don’t do anything else until we’ve both had some sleep.”
ARCHIVE
We’ll try again in a few hours, Mary. We have to swing around and get back in position. And it’s the middle of the night, so we’re going to shut down for a while. Stupid damned thing. But we’ll get it yet. If Hutchins is right and it really chases the hedgehogs, it’ll chase the kite.
— David Collingdale to Mary Clank
Friday, December 5
BLACK CAT REPORT
Thanks, Ron. This is Rose Beetem, onboard the Calvin Clyde, now about one week from Lookout. Our latest information is that the omega is still on course to attack the Goompahs in nine days. When it does, the Black Cat will be there, and so will everybody in our audience. We’re hoping the Academy team can do something to distract this monster, but we’ll just have to wait to see.
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