“All right,” Claire sighed and folded her arms. “Now what?”
“I figure next we’ll get the request for the authorization code.”
Danny had sent them part of the code that would gain them passage into the labyrinth. In the event someone other than Claire and Amelia had stumbled across his message, the code had been incomplete. Danny had told them the rest of it was part of a cryptography game they had played when they were younger. Amelia had sorted it out and completed the code after leaving Planet X, before they went into cryo.
Claire rested her head against the back of her seat. She looked over at her sister.
“So we wait,” she said. She closed her eyes.
She may have fallen asleep, she wasn’t sure. It may have been several minutes, was more likely several hours. Her sister’s calm voice brought her awake.
“Something’s coming in,” said Amelia.
Claire slid around and stood up, moved over to stand behind Amelia. She leaned in and looked at the monitor. Lines of text were quickly scrolling up the screen, so quickly that it was impossible to catch more than a word or series of numbers here and there.
“What’s it doing?” she asked.
“Request,” said Amelia. “Asking for something.”
Claire watched the monitor flicker and a block of data suddenly splash on the screen.
“How does our system know what to—“
“There was a handshake and the labyrinth got permission to look into one of our file systems.”
“How can it do that? It shouldn’t be able to do that.”
“I don’t know,” said Amelia. “But I’m guessing it’s probably a good thing.”
The screen went quiet. After several uncomfortable seconds, another line of text displayed.
“Process complete,” said Amelia.
The monitor went dark then. Claire moved back to her seat and sat down.
“Well?” she asked.
“If we don’t die, I expect next we’ll get the route.”
There was half a minute of heavy silence, and it felt even longer. One of Amelia’s monitors came alive then. She straightened and leaned forward.
“Here it comes,” she said and began swiping at the keypads. She studied the screen.
Claire stretched to look at Amelia’s screen.
“This is it, all right.” Amelia began keying. “I’m sending it to you.”
Claire shifted forward and brought up helm. She worked the keypanel, and after several seconds brought up navigation.
“Our entry point into the labyrinth sphere is a full two days away at current speed,” she said, and continued processing their course into nav. Once entered, she keyed in the final sequence and was about to turn away when something caught her attention. She brought up the leftmost monitor and studied the data displayed.
“What is it?” asked Amelia.
“I’m not sure, but I think we’re being followed.”
“Good guys or bad guys?”
“I’m not getting any details, but whatever it is, it’s closing on us.”
“They gotta be bad guys.”
Claire studied the helm data, finally nodded imperceptibly. “Good guys, bad guys or big, scary rocks, we should enter the labyrinth well ahead of them.”
§
Amelia woke from a sound sleep, rolled slowly over in her bunk and sat up. She pushed her hair back and looked over at Claire. Her sister was sitting at the table, looked to be eating her breakfast.
“Good morning, little sister,” said Claire. She took another bite of breakfast.
“Good morning,” said Amelia. “What has you up so early? You’re never up before me.”
“Today’s the day.”
Amelia stood and started toward the water dispenser. “You’re not worried, are you? It should be a breeze.”
“Not a bit. Looking forward to it. A breeze.”
Amelia filled a cup and leaned back against the counter. “Anything new on whatever’s following us?”
“Getting closer. Still no communications; nothing. I’m not sure it’s manned.”
“Some sort of probe?”
“Probe, ship, weapon.” Claire shrugged. “It’s not any configuration I can identify.”
“Bad guy, then.”
“Who’s to say? We’ve been gone a long time. Technology marches on. It might be one of ours, and just happens to be on the same course as us.”
“But you don’t think so.”
“Not really.” Claire pushed her plate aside and stood up. “Whatever or whoever it is, we’ll be well into the labyrinth before it reaches us.” She swallowed the last of her juice and took her breakfast dishes to the cleaning station. Amelia set her water cup onto the counter beside her sister.
“I gotta get cleaned up.” she started aft.
“Make it quick, Amelia. You don’t want to miss the big finish.”
Once in the cockpit, Claire began making preparations to enter the labyrinth, including calculating speed and trajectory. This would take them through the first leg of the traverse. They were to be provided the course and speed of each leg of the route as they reached the end of each segment.
This meant that Claire would be navigating them through the labyrinth manually.
And that was totally okay with her.
She heard Amelia come into the cockpit and settle into the other seat. Neither said anything as Claire continued the prep work. Amelia brought her own systems up, transferring them from the computer station in the main cabin up to the cockpit. She then leaned back in her seat and waited for Claire to finish.
It took Claire another few minutes, then she too relaxed. She said nothing, laid her head back and gazed outward.
Amelia started to say something, decided it didn’t matter. The sisters spent the morning quietly contemplating what was to come.
It was sometime before lunch when Claire finally sat forward and focused all her attention on the helm.
“We’re in the labyrinth,” she stated calmly.
Amelia was looking out the forward viewport. Not much there. Everything looked the same.
“Really?” she smirked. “And how can you tell?”
“Funny.” Claire was focused on monitoring the helm.
“Sure,” sighed Amelia. “I can do that, sometimes…”
§
They were nearing the end of the first leg of this first segment of the labyrinth. Claire acknowledged Amelia, took the mug her sister offered and set it into the holder without taking a drink.
She was getting ready for the course change. The labyrinth monitoring system that was watching them was fully automated. Removing the human element took out all the guess work, but it also took out the… human element. A human might be able to take into account an innocent misstep. The automated monitoring system watching their every move would not.
Amelia meanwhile had taken to tracking the ship that was following them. It would be entering the labyrinth within minutes, and was following their trajectory exactly.
“Oh, well isn’t that interesting?” she asked.
“I wouldn’t know,” said Claire absently. “Not without a little more info.”
“There’s a second ship following the ship that’s following us.”
Claire had to let that interesting little tidbit go for the moment. She had things to do.
“Initiating course change,” she said. She worked quickly at the keypad, then closely monitored their trajectory. It was a full minute before she visibly relaxed. She took a drink from her mug.
“Is the second ship with the first or going after the first?” she asked.
“I suppose we’ll know in a minute,” said Amelia. She continued to work with and closely monitor the data coming in through the ship’s sensors.
That minute passed, and then another.
“Whoa,” she said suddenly. Their sensors had identified an energy burst coming from what must have been a monitoring platform that was i
nvisible to all sensors. Almost immediately afterward, the first ship following the shuttle disintegrated. It had been there in the sensors, and then it was gone.
Amelia started to explain to Claire what she had seen, then stopped just as suddenly.
Sensors identified weapons’ fire emitted from the second ship, targeting the monitoring platform. The process repeated itself when a second invisible platform immediately took out the second ship.
The shuttle’s sensors quieted then, continuing to monitor the once again peaceful labyrinth.
“Talk to me, Amelia,” said Claire. Something had apparently happened, but her sister hadn’t said anything beyond whoa.
“Well…” Amelia said hesitantly. “We don’t have to worry about being followed. And… our route through the labyrinth does indeed appear to be closing behind us.”
She described the first ship being destroyed, then the second ship destroying the monitoring platform, only to then also be destroyed by a second platform.
Claire thought about that a few moments, then let out a quiet hmmph.
“What hmmph?” asked Amelia.
“I don’t think those ships were trying to get through the labyrinth at all,” said Claire. “I think they were probes looking to take out the weapons platforms, to weaken the labyrinth.”
“Hmmph,” said Amelia. So the probes followed them into the labyrinth, the first probe serving as bait to track the location of one of the invisible platforms, and the second takes it out. “I would say testing defenses, the viability of bait and shoot. If it was just to weaken the labyrinth, they’d be coming in with a whole line of probes.”
“That may be happening soon enough. I hope there are human eyes monitoring all this from somewhere, seeing what they’re up to.”
“Meanwhile, back on the farm,” mumbled Amelia. “Does this change our situation in the slightest?”
“Other than not being followed by bad guys?” asked Claire. “Not a particle.”
§
Amelia sat alone in the cockpit, relaxed, half-turned in her seat with one foot on the lower step of the central console. She could hear her sister down in the main cabin making her lunch.
She was hardly paying attention to the data coming in on the external sensors. The shuttle had passed a number of outposts en route through the labyrinth, all of them abandoned. Some had been located on moons of the planets they passed, others were stations orbiting the moons.
They were now within the inner planets of the Solar System, having crossed the Mars orbit several weeks earlier. Amelia expected to start seeing sensor data of Old Earth in the next ten hours. It would be sketchy at first, but would grow more detailed as they drew nearer the birth world of humanity.
Claire came back into the cockpit, her lunch in hand. She gave a casual glance to her own monitors as she sat down and began eating.
They usually ate at the table in the main cabin, even during these weeks in the labyrinth, but they were traveling a section where they thought it best to maintain a vigil in the cockpit and be ready for anything. During such times, it just felt more comfortable being there.
Claire glanced again at data coming in.
“I was right,” she said, and took another bite of her lunch.
“The space station?” asked Amelia.
“Yep.”
The route they had been given for the final leg of the route through the labyrinth didn’t take them directly to Old Earth. It instead would take them to a large space station several hundred thousand miles from Earth, just inside the orbit of the Earth’s moon.
“You think it’s another security layer?” asked Amelia. She still had one foot on the central console, her head resting against the back of her seat. She was staring out at the dark.
“Maybe,” said Claire. “I just know it’s where we’re headed.”
She continued eating her lunch, gave a nod to Amelia to go get something to eat. Her sister sat up with a loud sigh, stood and headed back into the main cabin.
Unlike her sister, Amelia felt no strong compulsion to return to the cockpit. They spent way too much time forward so far as she was concerned, and she was perfectly content to let Claire keep an eye on things for a while. She settled in at the table to eat.
Barely ten minutes later, Claire was calling her forward.
Claire wouldn’t do that unless it was important.
Amelia returned to the cockpit and slid back into her seat. She noted an indicator light on one of her panels and a flashing row of text on a monitor. “An incoming message,” she said.
Claire looked at her sister without turning her head. “You think maybe that’s why I asked you to come on back?”
Amelia ignored the sarcasm and began pressing keys on the key panel.
“It’s coming from the station,” she said.
“Hmm… then maybe you should answer it.”
“Text only. What is it with these people?” Amelia continued working the keyboard panel. Half a minute later her left monitor scrolled with rows of data and text.
“What’s the word?” asked Claire.
A few more seconds, then, “They bid us welcome,” said Amelia. “After that, it’s all about new trajectory and velocity, and a directive to then prepare to disengage helm and accept tracking system.”
“They’re bringing us in?”
“I’m sending the data over to you,” said Amelia. “Once we’re on trajectory with designated course and speed, they’ll take over.”
Claire studied the data as she began entering calculations into navigation. According to the data, they would hand control over to the station in seven hours, when they would be arriving at the specified coordinates. She had no way of knowing how long it would then take to track them in. They might bring them in at a dead crawl.
She finished entering their new course into the nav system. “Here we go,” she said and swiped a fingertip across the keypad.
Amelia was feeling uncomfortable, but didn’t really know why. After all, in a few weeks, maybe as little as a few days, this decades-long journey would be over. She and Claire would no longer be alone.
Would Danny be there? Was anyone in their family still alive?
Amelia closed her eyes and laid her back. She gave a quiet sigh.
Please be there. Danny, be there…
§
Claire and Amelia stood in their shuttle’s airlock, waiting for the hatch sensors to verify the environment on the other side. They had still had no communication with a live person. The automated docking had gone smoothly enough, but for all they knew, the space station had a population of zero and was open to space. The sisters were dressed in their work coveralls. They would rather not get into EVA suits, but that depended on the readings that came back.
A small panel next to the hatch flickered to life and data splashed on the screen.
Everything came back good. Even the temperature was comfortable.
“That’s a good sign, anyway,” said Claire. She opened the hatch and they stepped into the umbilical tube connecting the shuttle to the station. There was no one waiting for them in the station’s airlock. Claire reached out to her left and pressed the hand panel that closed the hatch behind them.
The clicking sound of the hatch locking drifted into the heavy quiet of the station.
“Well, this is unsettling,” said Amelia. “And eerily familiar.”
“Hopefully no ghosts this time,” said Claire. The ship they had come across so many years ago hadn’t actually had ghosts, but close enough…
“I just want people,” said Amelia. “I want to talk to somebody and have him talk back.”
“Beware what you wish for, little sister.”
“I’ll take my chances,” said Amelia.
The two of them moved deeper into the station. The only sounds they heard were those of the environmental systems working to keep the station habitable. Overhead, lighting bands recessed in the passageway ceiling were set to medium soft and pr
ovided just enough light to push back the shadows.
This part of the station held gear closets, equipment closets, changing rooms, and showers. There was no one in any of them, but unless there was an EVA planned or recently completed, that was to be expected.
They turned down the next passage. It was as dead quiet as the last.
“Hello?” called Claire. That single word was jarring in the silence.
They continued walking, looking into every room they passed. The station was big.
“Claire, I’m really getting a bad feeling about this,” said Amelia.
“Oh, I passed bad feeling way back, sister,” said Claire.
They stepped into a medium-sized mess hall. There were a dozen tables scattered about the room, a long food counter ran along the back wall, and there were water and drink dispensers to the right.
“There’s no one here, Claire,” said Amelia. She worked her way over to the food counter, stepped around behind it. “We have boxes and seal-packs back here. This place is well stocked.”
Claire moved over to a comm station mounted on the wall to their left. She picked up the receiver, keyed in a number that she read from the list hanging beside the cradle. After a few seconds, she tried another; and then another.
No response.
She finally pushed the open mic. “I’m calling anyone in the station. Please respond.” They could hear her voice broadcasting throughout the station. “Anyone in the station. We have two ladies recently arrived from the outer reaches, looking for a little friendly conversation. Anybody here?”
She waited a full ten seconds, looked over at Amelia and set the receiver back in the cradle.
“All right,” she said, one hand still resting on the receiver. “Let’s find the command center.”
The command center was larger than their entire shuttle. There were half a dozen operations console stations, the commander’s station, even a rudimentary helm that allowed the crew to maneuver the station when necessary.
And there was no one there.
Amelia went looking for communications as Claire went to the commander’s station. She sat in the commander’s chair and swung a console around, began typing at the keypad and watched the small monitor. After a minute or more, she pushed the console aside.
Sisters in Space: The Complete Series Page 10