However, things were different this time round. This time they did not find themselves in a gray, transitional mist, followed by the imposing vault of the archives above them. That place was carved out of rock deep under the surface. Instead, vague and insubstantial shapes came out of the walls of the cargo bay from all directions, and passed as mysteriously into opposite walls.
Celia dodged sideways as one passed near her. The figures began to solidify, and the research team recognized the Rothii forms Roberto had reconstructed from his earlier research in the archive. “Potatoes on stilts,” might not have been the most flattering of phrases, but that was what they were seeing now.
The cargo bay darkened, and buildings formed where the walls used to be. A center of population formed around them, similar to the abandoned Rothii towns on the planet below. The cargo bay brightened, and a fierce sun beat down from the horizon.
Celia guessed it was early morning in the simulation. The walls of the buildings were already shimmering in the heat, yet she felt cool and comfortable. Got to remind myself this is just an illusion, she muttered.
The Rothii as a group were quite imposing. The tall shapes strode by as fast as the best of the research team could run, the long legs taking enormous strides. She wondered if she would ever get used to the sudden changes when the Rothii dropped down to interact with each other, or work a data outlet. Sitting on their feet more than halved their height.
“I knew the archive came to us!” said Andre triumphantly. Whether they had been sent to the archive through the rock of the Plateau, or the archive had created a version of itself in the cargo bay, had always been a contentious issue.
“Yes, it seems so,” said Celia thoughtfully.
The Rothii figures started walking around the research team, instead of through them, which was a great deal less alarming, and Celia assumed the archive was directing this scenario from the database far below. It seemed to be re-creating times when the Rothii still lived on the surface of the planet.
“However,” she continued, “we need to find a way to connect to the archive’s data base if we’re going to ask it the questions we have in mind.”
Roberto took out a processor from his case, and scanned a pattern of odd bumps along the top of the building next to them.
“It’s a language,” he said, as the results showed up on the screen.
“The translation codes must have come through with the last download from the archive. Hard to believe it says anything. It looks more like gravel rash. Apparently it says ‘entry point for primary data base’.”
He paused and pointed at a central arch on the building. “I think we’re supposed to go in there.”
The pattern of bumps overhead did look a lot like a bad attempt to communicate in Braille, Celia had to admit. If Roberto was right they needed to enter through the archway in the middle of the wall, but how would they open the metallic-looking door at the back of the recess?
“Just bowl on in,” said Andre, reading her thoughts. “We’re guests of the sentinel program. It will have prepared everything for us.”
Indeed, the door opened outwards from the center as she approached it. The shiny material rolled up and pressed hard against the sides of the arch as she walked through. How did it do that?
Inside was a simple, square room, much smaller than the dimensions of the building on the outside. “Made for us, I see,” said Celia. The low level of the consoles built into the walls, at a comfortable Human height, confirmed it.
Once they’d set up their recording equipment, and made contact with the database, they began to delve into their individual topics of interest. Some things about the sentinel program were very different this time round, and that was obvious from the very start.
“Hey, it’s not blocking off areas of inquiry,” said Sallyanne after a few minutes.
“Godsdammit, it’s answering everything!” said Andre, who had been frustrated time and again when his research into old centers of civilization across the galaxy had been blocked. They had all, in the past, found the archive to have an agenda of its own, and only parts of the database had been available to them.
“It’s because we passed those tests at Maka’H’Rosh!” exclaimed Jeneen. “The archive thinks we are, um, worthy, I guess, of all the assistance it can give us.”
“You have been chosen to succeed the Rothii,” intoned the raspy voice of the sentinel program. Celia remembered what the archive at Maka’H’Rosh had said when they completed the tasks it set them.
“You have exceeded Rothii expectations,” it had said, in the same dry, breathy voice.
Somehow, most likely by sub-space communication, the other archives had been told to give them every assistance. The faces of the research team lit up, and they looked at each other with a renewed hope. This was going to change everything.
Celia urged them on, and they didn’t need to be told twice.
There was a happy silence as the research team surged through the archive memory banks, sieving out the answers they wanted. They were building up pictures of what had happened in the ancient past, what now was in far locations, and why things had developed across the galaxy the way they had.
The hours flew by, and it was well past the midday break when Celia finally called off her team. Jeneen shook her head, and Sallyanne protested it was much too early. It had seemed to them all that they had sat down at the consoles only minutes before.
All the same, Celia made them take a proper break.
They grumbled, but could see the need to keep their minds fresh. As always, time for a break was also time to share what they had discovered. There was much new data, but few conclusions, until Andre stopped them all in their tracks.
“What would a race develop into if they lived in deep space all the time?” he asked innocently.
“Depends if they had artificial gravity,” said Roberto.
“Assume they didn’t, or chose not to use it,” came the reply.
“Giantism would set in,” said Sallyanne, remembering her species studies of Earth creatures.
“Over time forms get bigger – the original horse was the size of a small dog – and the absence of gravity would only accelerate the process. And without muscles working continuously against bones because of gravity, they wouldn’t need to be so compact.”
Andre smiled, and Sallyanne knew she was getting close to something Andre had discovered.
“You may assume an intelligent civilization with the technology to hybridize at will, and no ethical compunction not to.”
“You’re talking about the Druanii!” said Roberto triumphantly.
“Maybe,” said Andre, “just want to see what you lot can come up with first.”
“Show us, show us!” clamored several voices.
“Oh, all right,” said Andre, making a show of surrendering to their wishes. “Let me set up the 3D file I’ve recorded.”
He tapped in a few commands, then pushed the processor out in front of them. A long, sinuous form came to life in the air before them. It turned a blunt snout toward Andre, and they saw row upon row of dangerous-looking plates behind sharp eyes.
“It’s . . . it’s a dragon,” said Sallyanne, not sure what to think.
“Maybe, but it doesn’t have any legs,” said Andre. “No arms, no tentacles, no opposable thumbs, no opposable anything. It can’t hold a tool, so how does it build machinery, and how does it activate its technology?”
They were silent for a moment.
“It looks like ‘The Great Wurm of Hampstead Heath’, said Andre jovially, and ducked as Jeneen went to clip him across the back of the head.
“Ignore him,” she said, “he takes his historical adventure stories too seriously.”
“M’Lady doth her noble knight dishonor,” said Andre reproachfully, and she slid behind him and put her arms around his neck. Sallyanne looked at Celia, who shook her head ever so slightly. There was a message there – when was she going to do somethi
ng about her own loneliness?
Sallyanne had been missing a level of closeness like that for some time. Celia had her research team, her surrogate family, but Sallyanne operated on a solo, freelance basis. As the two women had become closer, Sallyanne had complained about the lack of someone special in her life.
All Celia had been able to say was, well it’s up to you. Sallyanne made a mental note to make more time to find someone, perhaps when the freighter got back to Prometheus.
CHAPTER 7
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The Druanii dragon-like shape hung in the air before them. It looked impressive from every angle. Alert, capable, even a little scary.
“Is that a Human figure under it for comparison?” said Roberto, pointing to a tiny figure under the Druanii form. Andre nodded.
“Hell’s teeth, the damn thing is huge!” finished Roberto. Celia nodded her agreement.
“Why is it so heavily armored?” asked Jeneen, impressed at the short spikes along its back, and the closely packed plates that covered it elsewhere, ending in sharp little points of their own.
“Cultural message I would say,” responded Sallyanne promptly. “It’s surprising how the deepest unconscious attitudes of the mind are part of everyday life for an intelligent species. They are there for those who look, but not consciously examined by the species itself.”
She seemed to be calculating something in her mind.
“I think the Druanii take a fundamentally defensive posture,” she said, “and the Invardii take an attacking one. This body armor – whether it’s for show or the real thing – is an extension of the Druanii defensive attitude. The excellence of the Druanii shields on the Javelins is another example.
“It may also explain why the Druanii feel an affinity with us. We could be the suppressed assertive side they have difficulty dealing with.”
The others looked at her in bewilderment.
“Do you think like this all the time?” said Andre, finding the reasoning extremely convoluted. “Can’t two races just be friends?”
Sallyanne smiled. “Of course they can, Andre. It’s just that for most things in our lives there is also a little unconscious prodding going on, and it’s a wise person who takes that into consideration.”
“Well, that explains why I’m not one of those wise people then,” said Andre, with a rueful grin. The others laughed.
Celia got them back to work. The database lay open before them, and any information the Alliance could use against the Invardii was a piece of gold.
More excited than any of them could remember ever being, they worked on through the days ahead. Not that far from Ba’H’Roth, in a straight line, if the wondrous ability of star ships was taken for granted, another miracle was taking place.
A giant nuclear accelerator lay buried in an ice field on the second to outermost of the planets in the Alamos system. Earth’s allies, the diminutive Mersa, had built it for the war effort from plans Cordez had given them. With this accelerator, and its production of orscantium for their star ships, the fight against the Invardii could be indefinitely sustained.
Ereth Lawson ran the show. At this precise moment he was tapping the thin, metal scan-meter he held with his other hand. Of course it made no difference to the electronic reading. It was an old habit, going back to when he was very young indeed. His father had insisted he build all his equipment from parts, and the possibility of a loose connection was firmly embedded in the deepest layers of his mind.
He recalled his early years of discovery and experimentation, and realized that was a long time ago. The hand that held the scan-meter was wrinkled with age now, and his hair had been ‘re-seeded’ as they called it these days. He had omitted the stimulants that would have generated a natural hair color again. His short, even covering of coarse hair was pure white.
Yes, he’d come a long way since then. These days he was one of the most experienced technicians the South Am block had, and it had been his skill that made the accelerator possible.
It was carved out of a vast ice field on one of the outermost planets of the Alamos system, and he could feel the deep rumble under his feet as the accelerator worked tirelessly, assembling orscantium atoms in their strange sixteen-pointed configuration from the super-heavy elements mined far beneath the smothering ice.
The ice field, full of crevasses, had been an ideal buffer against the threat of earthquakes, or even asteroids striking through the thin atmosphere. The whole complex was built on a solid platform that ‘floated’ deep in the ice, and the many crevasses around and under it would fold up and absorb the energy of any such disasters. It had been a brilliant piece of off world engineering.
The plain of ice outside the diamond polymer window sparkled prettily today – weak though the effect was – as it caught the light of the far distant sun. Most of the time the surface was hidden behind the howling ice storms that buffeted the planet, or it was lost in a haze of constantly changing color as methane, various halides, and water vapor took turns to out-gas straight off the ice. Some time later they would coalesce back as a rain of wafer-like crystals.
Ereth said something to his Mersa second-in-command, and they discussed the abnormally low temperature reading from the base of the platform. The fine weather was allowing a lot of heat to escape into space, if minus 120 degrees could be called heat, and it was responsible for the low temperatures.
The two of them decided the problem would rectify itself shortly, when bad weather closed in again. They put the problem aside to concentrate on more important things.
Another Mersa came hurrying across to bring Ereth the latest reports on the accelerator’s performance. He read them with a certain amount of satisfaction. Replacing some of the massive electromagnets with superconducting connections to the ice field had reduced power consumption by almost five percent. orscantium absorbed huge amounts of energy in its production, and any saving freed up power that could be used to make more of the stuff.
Ereth looked up and saw his team busy at their stations, with everything in the control room running as it should, and felt a glow of pride. The three accelerators on the outer planets were staffed mainly by Mersa, with a smattering of Humans.
Cordez had said he wanted the bulk of the staff to be Mersa, in recognition of the fact it was their planet, but to maintain the Human element at a certain level. That gave both sides an opportunity to get to know each other better.
Ereth looked up as a flash of light signaled an orscantium-driven ship of some sort coming out of star drive far above the planet. He saw it decelerate quickly toward the accelerator complex. Every transmitter, computer and voice-activated outlet in the complex began to chatter at the same time.
“Ayman Case of Prometheus Javelin two niner four to Alamos accelerator three, named ‘Zeus’. Code alpha red, repeat code alpha red in immediate effect. Evacuate immediately, repeat evacuate immediately.
“Reaper ships congregating at the edge of the system, repeat Reaper ships imminent, evacuate immediately.”
There were more flashes of light, and more Javelins appeared overhead.
Hope they’re going to take it to the Reaper ships, muttered Ereth, who had been something of an agitator in his younger days. He was still ready for a confrontation at short notice.
He hesitated for a moment at the possible loss of his personal equipment, much of which had been gifts, or brought back cherished memories. Then he snapped himself out of it. An alpha code meant take just the clothes he stood up in.
Mouthing words of regret, he galvanized his aged, eighty-something legs into action, and made a respectable dash after the others as they headed for the elevators.
“Move, people, move,” muttered Ayman, looking at the chaos below him on his main screen. His body was already tensing for action as his Javelin squadron took up positions above the complex. The Zeus accelerator had no sub-space messaging capability, and that was an oversight for which the Alliance would now pay dearly.
; The only way to warn the complex of Reaper ships on the way to the system had been to send Javelins, and Ayman’s ship had spent fifteen hours in the gray nothingness of star drive to get there. But at least the squadron had beaten the enemy ships to the system.
It had only been some fine detective work by Comms at Prometheus that had caught the early signs of Reaper ships on the move. The Invardii shipyards had all disgorged their latest warships at precisely the same time. When Comms tracked a number of them to a central point near the Alamos system, it was clear the accelerators were under threat.
Ayman looked across at his navs officer, who caught the movement of his head and looked up. She shook her head briskly. No sign of enemy ships approaching the planet yet.
Below him the first of several ports at the top of the complex slid open. Only a small part of the giant complex was clear of the expanse of ice, and that was where the shuttles were kept. Ayman breathed a sigh of relief – then every alarm on the bridge went off.
Reaper ships materialized above the complex. There had been no warning they were coming, and Ayman swore. This was a trick the Invardii had used before. Somehow they could come out of a star drive jump inside the gravitational field of a planet, without any of the tell-tale signs of space folding ahead of them.
The Javelins veered away, and then looped back to engage the enemy ships individually. Ayman kept an eye on the ports at the top of the complex, and watched the first shuttle emerge into the weak light of the Alamos sun. It fled across the ice plain for the mountains on the horizon.
That was the gathering point for emergency evacuations, a small depot for science teams when they were away from the complex. Somewhere that could supply power and food until help arrived.
The depot had certainly not been built with the idea of an alien invasion in mind, he grimaced, but it was the only safe place for the staff right now. The Javelins couldn’t take on refugees in the middle of a hostile engagement.
More enemy ships arrived, and Ayman realized his squadron was hopelessly outnumbered. The Invardii must have worked out how important the accelerators were to the Alliance, and sent an overwhelming force to destroy the Zeus complex.
Invardii Box Set 2 Page 23