Last of the Treasure Hunters

by Warren Dean

  "--You'll have to move part of the console aside, Xzaroth,--" she said, "--otherwise you'll never…--"

  "--Quickly Cxza'xza,--" he said, "--there is little time left.--"

  She saw Connor leave his seat on the other side of the flyer, wincing at his own internal hurts. He had to crawl over Xzaroth to get to the hatch and she saw a bright flash of red neon course through the flyer's damaged wing as the Irishman brushed against it involuntarily.

  "--Sorry, Xzaroth…--" Connor seemed about to say something more to the flyer, but instead carried on going until he was at her heels. She wriggled head first through the hatch into the darkness of Seeker's interior. The only light within the tight space was that reflected through the opening and she couldn't see much. She could see even less when Connor followed her inside grunting with pain and effort. She curled herself around the far side of the central console, and Connor did the same on the near side.

  There was very little room left and she looked towards the hatch in consternation, wondering how Xzaroth was going to fit in. But there was no sign of the flyer and, as she watched, the aperture filled with regeneralloy. The substance solidified and the hatch disappeared in a seamless merge with the rest of the survey drone's shell.

  But Xzaroth was still…

  "What's he doing?" she said to Connor. "He tells me to hurry up and then takes his own sweet time."

  Connor coughed weakly, his chest sounding as full of fluid as hers. The transfer into the smaller drone had clearly sapped his strength and exacerbated his pain. He lay on his side as if broken, one arm curled under his head and the other clutching weakly at his ribs. "Christina," he whispered, his voice hoarse, "there isn't enough room in here for all three of us."

  "Don't be silly, we will just have to move…" She fell silent as a horrifying realisation dawned on her. Xzaroth had spent a lot of time working on the survey drone. He knew how limited the space was inside. That was what he had silently conveyed to Connor. That was why he hadn't been concerned about getting through the hatch.

  She knew what the flyer had decided to do.

  "No," she whispered. "He can't."

  "I don't think it's going to make much difference," muttered Connor. His voice gurgled thickly in his throat. She saw his eyes flutter closed as he lost consciousness.

  "--Xzaroth,--" she called, "--please don't do this. We need you – I need you. We can't survive this without you… please.--"

  She wept again, this time tears of fear and frustration.

  The flyer did not reply to her entreaty and for a panic-stricken moment she thought that he was already gone. Then the regeneralloy of Seeker's shell began to fade away and the hellish sea of orange flame became visible again. The brilliance sent daggers of pain through her forehead and she shielded her eyes until they were able to adjust. When they had, she saw that the two drones were still joined together at the hatch.

  Xzaroth remained in his seat, hunched over to one side in pain as he continued to work feverishly at the screens he could reach with his good hand. Although he was barely more than an arm's length away from her, it felt like a million miles.

  "--Xzaroth, please,--" she tried again. "--Open the hatch, we'll work something out.--"

  "--There is no other way,--" he said. "--Now listen closely, Cxza'xza, there are things I must say and there is truly little time left. I have transferred Hunter's air and food generation capabilities to Seeker's systems. Luckily, due to space considerations, we elected to store most of the raw ingredients aboard Seeker rather than Hunter. The supply is limited but it will keep you alive for a time.

  "--It is still possible that Seeker will recall how to extract itself from the black hole. Against that eventuality I have programmed its diagnostics to attempt a solution to the temporal displacement issue. I have also installed an imperative to ensure that its log retains a record of all of our observations. It may stand you, and whoever might come after you, in good stead.--"

  "--I'm not sure if any of that will matter,--" she said miserably. "--My head hurts and I can't breathe properly. And Connor is just as bad.--"

  She reached out and touched him gently. "--He's still breathing but I don't know for how long.--"

  "--Do not despair. It has been my observation that humans are stronger than they look. And you are one of the strongest. You have survived mortal dangers before. Find that strength within you once again. It has not deserted you.--"

  She wept softly. "--What about Elexzath; what am I going to tell her?--"

  "--Elexzath and I both accepted that this might be my last flight. We made whatever peace was needed between us before I left. She will remember rather than mourn me, as is the way of the flyers of Aquasolis.--"

  He tapped away at a screen, uncoupling the two drones. As they began to drift apart, his eyes found hers through the mottled and starred regeneralloy of Hunter's failing shell. She saw the red neon fade from his body, shrinking into a tight ball around the broken bone of his wing. As the red withdrew, it was replaced by the purest sky blue. The light intensified until the flyer shone like a beacon within the orange fire of Hunter's burning shell.

  "--It is my final wish that you do the same, Cxza'xza. Remember me in blue love rather than red sorrow.--"

  "--I will, I promise.--"

  Hunter's fiery death came suddenly, the transit drone and its lone occupant disappearing in an explosion of molten metal, flesh, and bone. The shining creature who had been her mentor, protector, and friend for four hundred years was gone in an instant. Tears flowed freely down her cheeks, mingling with the blood on her chin and dripping onto Seeker's deck. It was no consolation to think that that she would probably be sharing his fate sooner rather than later.

  The force of the detonation, small as it was within the vastness of the black hole's destructive power, struck Seeker and sent the little drone spinning away. She was caught by surprise and the back of her head hammered against the drone's shell.

  The blow was more than her battered brain could endure and, as she slid into oblivion, her last thought was that it might be better if she didn't wake up again.

  SEEKER'S LOG: 2054 AD

  With a barely perceptible thrum of vibration, Seeker's systems powered up.

  The little drone took a few nanoseconds to assimilate a data dump it had received since its last operational interval. It found that, although its mission directives hadn't changed, a number of new system functions were available. It also noted that its diagnostics were running an equation aimed at resolving a space-time anomaly.

  A situational review made it aware of three critical factors. The first was that it was in the grip of an intense gravity field. From deep within the structural memory of its regeneralloy came a recollection of having encountered such a gravity field before. Its log contained no record of the encounter however.

  The second factor was that it was being bombarded with environmental matter which had raised the temperature of its outer shell well above operational limits. Seeker sampled the matter – routine for a survey drone – by allowing its regeneralloy to absorb a tiny portion. It cued an analysis of the sample for processing once its current diagnostics had finished running.

  The third factor was that, contrary to its design parameters, two organic life forms were situated in its systems cavity. A brief infra-radiation scan ascertained that both entities were inert and that their internal systems were on the point of failure. An accurate assessment of their level of sentience was not possible while they were in such a state but, from the size and complexity of their central nervous systems, Seeker provisionally characterised their intelligence as moderately emergent.

  The drone determined that a reduction in external temperature was its primary concern. Until its shell's integrity was assured, all other considerations were irrelevant.

  No solution to the temperature overload was immediately apparent. The drone's mission directives required it to avoid environments too hot for mining operations, so it was not fitted wi
th a sophisticated cooling system. In emergency conditions its regeneralloy would take up the slack by replacing any overheated sections with cooler material from elsewhere within the drone.

  This process was already running at maximum capacity but it was barely holding incineration at bay.

  Seeker had no deployable shields which could insulate it from the onslaught.

  An external scan established that the materials causing the problem were part of a vast cloud from which there was no escape by means of ordinary propulsion.

  And an attempt to cast a portal into normal space was thwarted by the black hole's gravity field. Its warping of space-time invalidated Seeker's calculations, rendering this mode of travel unavailable.

  In the meantime, the continual regeneration of its shell was causing a build-up of heat within the drone. The internal temperature would soon reach the point where it would begin compromising Seeker's systems. Soon there would be insufficient reserves of cooler regeneralloy to resist the external conflagration.

  As an incidental consideration, its organic passengers were not designed to withstand such high temperatures.

  Still no solution presented itself.

  Unable to contemplate capitulation, Seeker sought more data. The space-time equation was still running with no resolution in sight. So the drone discontinued it and instead ran an analysis of the sample it had taken. It took no more than a few moments to identify the material as a gaseous form of the yellow metal. The discovery jogged another memory from within the drone's regeneralloy – it had interacted with this form of the substance before. Again, though, its log contained no record of this.

  Registering no puzzlement, Seeker absorbed more of the yellow gas in order to broaden the spectrum of its analysis. As the gas permeated the drone's shell, it augmented the regeneralloy, enabling it to resist the heat more effectively. Without hesitation, Seeker absorbed even more of the gas, allowing it to blend into the regeneralloy without restriction. The effect was considerable. Within a short time the regeneration process was back within operational limits and the temperature within the drone had fallen to normal levels.

  Without so much as a metaphorical sigh of relief, Seeker focussed on the next threat; the snowballing gravity exerted by the black hole. Having been necessarily preoccupied, the drone had not been in a position to maintain the orbit it had inherited from Hunter and was not far from being drawn into the crushing oblivion of the singularity.

  The problem was that Seeker's propulsion systems did not have the capacity to generate anywhere near the power required to resist the gravity, let alone escape it. At best, it could buy some time by nudging its course into a relatively flat orbit. To do that, it would have to use up most of its power reserves, but necessity decreed that it had no choice. Retaining just enough power to keep its systems functional, it propelled itself sideways until it was circling the singularity in an ever reducing spiral.

  Unable to achieve anything better than that, Seeker moved onto the next priority – the imminent expiry of its organic passengers. Consulting its mission directives, it found no entries dealing with sentient life forms within its systems cavity. The closest match to be had was the stricture against harming such life as far as possible.

  Adapting this directive to present circumstances, Seeker construed a failure to keep its passengers alive as a form of harm. In an attempt to diagnose the cause of their looming demise, it initiated a deeper infra-radiation scan of their internal machinery. It found that the main cause of their distress was that their life-fluids were draining from various rents and contusions. The loss had already caused their central nervous systems to shut down and would soon do the same for their cardio-vascular systems.

  Seeker's principal difficulty was that it had no schematics of the biomechanics of this type of life form to refer to, nor any systems designed to interact with it. Being equipped with neither the knowledge nor the means to attempt a repair, it ought not to waste further resources on its passengers. But logic dictated that there must be some purpose to their presence. The drone's constructors were supremely efficient and it would run contrary to their nature to have installed a redundant feature.

  So Seeker initiated a more in-depth analysis of the results of the infra-radiation scan. The exercise gave it a better understanding of the workings of the life forms but offered no practical utility. For the sake of completeness, it studied their chemical makeup and, by a coincidence it would have found startling had it been capable of such a reaction, it came across traces of a very similar form of the gaseous yellow metal recently absorbed by its regeneralloy.

  The levels found in the smaller life form were far higher than in the larger and, when Seeker looked for further differences between the two, it observed that the age of the smaller was much greater than that of the larger. There being little difference in the relative physical condition of the entities, and nothing else to account for this, Seeker was drawn to conclude that the yellow metal was the agent responsible for this beneficial effect.

  Having thus established that the substance was likely to be good for its passengers, the drone flooded its systems cavity with the yellow gas. At first, the life forms did not respond, their sluggish breathing restricting the volume of gas they were able to ingest. So Seeker increased the density until they were inhaling substantial quantities. Performing another infra-radiation scan, the drone detected an immediate reduction in the severity of their system damage.

  Unfortunately the high concentration of gas supplanted the air mixture the life forms needed for respiration and Seeker quickly perceived that a sustained lack of this mixture would kill them far more quickly than their injuries. For once, a solution was readily at hand; one of the new system functions the drone had noted earlier was primed to produce precisely the right mix of oxygen and nitrogen which would keep them alive.

  After a little trial and error, Seeker set up an automated schedule, infusing its passengers with bursts of gas at short intervals while otherwise maintaining optimal levels of breathable air within its systems cavity. Within a short period of time the entities' failing systems had been regenerated to the point where they were no longer critical.

  Another of the new system functions the drone had been fitted with was designed to provide fuel for the life forms in the form of organic nutrients. These nutrients were in short supply, however, and Seeker calculated that they would not last very long should its passengers be restored to full operational function too soon. In order to keep them alive, it would have to resuscitate them for short periods so that they could feed, and then return them to an inert status.

  Satisfied that it had resolved all critical imperatives, at least for the time being, the drone reverted to its standard mission directives. Principal among those was its obligation to survey potential sources of the yellow metal. That it had stumbled upon an inestimably large source of the substance was abundantly evident. What remained to be established was whether or not it could be mined.

  Setting its scanners to maximum, Seeker observed that the main concentration of gas was clustered around the core of the black hole itself. There it continually switched form from gas to liquid and back again. The mass was trapped by gravity, but an anomalous quirk of its molecular structure prevented it from being crushed into the singularity. Instead, massive tidal forces generated by the constant tension between the pull of gravity and the push of its esoteric chemistry generated massive gas jets which were hurled outwards at irregular intervals.

  It wasn't long before Seeker found itself caught up in one of those jets. The drone's ever decreasing orbit plunged it into a bubble of gas as it was drawn towards and then repelled by the singularity. To buffer itself and its passengers from the violent acceleration, the drone's regeneralloy went into overdrive again. Had it not been for the infused strength of the yellow gas it had absorbed, it would not have survived intact.

  The jet carried Seeker almost eighty percent of the way back to the event horizon. Gravit
y regained the upper hand as the jet ran out of momentum, and Seeker slowed to a standstill. As the drone slowly reversed course, drawn back towards the singularity, it was compelled to conclude that environmental conditions were far too unstable to support mining operations.

  It recorded this observation in its log and then sought to comply with its secondary directive; to move on to the next survey subject on its schedule.

  Ordinarily, this would entail the calculation of a fold-space jump to a location an optimal distance from the subject – not too far away to make the journey through normal space prohibitively time consuming, nor too close to risk an accidental collision with any orbital debris around the subject.

  But Seeker had already established that portal travel was unavailable from its present location. It would have to return to normal space before it could make the necessary jump. Traversing the black hole's enormous gravity field was not going to be a simple process, however, as its propulsion system was not capable of generating the velocity required to achieve such a feat.

  And even if it could, the drone had used up most of its fuel reserves.

  Its regeneralloy was programmed to replenish those reserves by converting suitable environmental materials into fuel. It required no cognitive leap for Seeker to identify the yellow gas as the primary candidate for fuel conversion. It was the only environmental material available, after all. It took no more than a moment for the drone's diagnostics to ascertain that the diversity of its properties made it eminently suitable for use as fuel. The fact that it was available in abundance was a bonus. The drone waited until it encountered another jet and then absorbed even more of the gas.