Trinity

by Patrick Morgan

  Katherine was suddenly aware that the interior lights had been dimmed. She wondered whether Roy or someone else had dimmed them, or whether it had been ROOT himself. She felt a mild sense of tension in the group.

  ‘No, I don’t think so, ROOT,’ she said, then forced a laugh. ‘I think it’s time we got moving, don’t you?’

  The tension eased and was quickly replaced by palpable excitement as everyone broke off to take their stations. GVX was about to come fully to life for the first time.

  ‘Cranking for dual start,’ said Roy Jacobs across the cockpit from Katherine as she settled into her seat. ‘Kills removed.’

  The bark of the V10s sounded around them, settling instantly to a deep purr. The accompaniment of reciprocating pistons, the whir of crankshafts, cams and gears, together with the roar of combustion, made the hairs on Katherine’s neck stand on end. Seeing the satisfied look on Jacobs’ face, she was sure he felt the same sensation. It was a feeling she didn’t ever want to get used to.

  ‘I’m going to release the torque converter lockout clutches now,’ said Jacobs.

  ‘I’ll keep her throttled down,’ said Katherine, as he flicked a bank of switches with a single motion.

  Looking down, Katherine could see a hive of activity below her as ant-like technicians decoupled the umbilical and other pipework. A moment later there was a rapid succession of cracks and the grinding of metal on metal, as the hangar doors began to slide open.

  ‘Torque converters are locked in – you have drive. Moment of truth,’ said Jacobs, taking a sideways glance at Katherine.

  ‘Moment of truth,’ she repeated and took a deep breath. ‘Can I have a final systems check please Jayce?’

  ‘All systems nominal,’ came the quick, assured reply.

  ‘Myra? ROOT’s looking stable?’

  ‘Everything’s looking normal,’ said Myra with obvious excitement, belying her professional manner. ‘Hang on, I’m seeing an output spike…’

  Without warning the twin V10s throttled up and GVX pitched noticeably forward then rearward, as if squatting. Jacobs looked to Katherine in alarm. Katherine had her splints pushed hard into the stops in an attempt to throttle down, but with no effect. There was a sudden lurch as the foremost pair of wheels lifted clean off the ground before reconnecting with a violent slapping sound. Less than a moment later the same happened from further back, then again and again. Below them, Katherine could see technicians scattering in alarm as the wave of lifting wheels ran back up the chassis, each pair slapping down on the painted floor.

  ‘It’s the platform control, it’s going wild,’ shouted Jacobs in desperation. He flicked switches left and right but with no apparent result. ‘I can’t get control of it.’

  ‘ROOT’s input and output signals are off the scale, Katherine,’ said Myra in desperation. ‘You’ve got to do something.’

  Katherine began flicking switches herself, in a frantic effort to shut down as many systems as she could. Then she paused, realisation dawning on her that all she was doing was replicating what Jacobs had already done. There was no reason to expect a different outcome.

  Jacobs saw her hesitation and looked at her directly. ‘What is it?’ he said. The lurching had ceased, although the wheels were still raising and lowering with that same horrible slapping sound.

  Katherine sat back and calmly said, ‘ROOT, I think you should stop that, please.’

  Without warning, calm was restored. The V10s settled into a smooth idle and Myra’s shaky voice confirmed ROOT’s output signals were settling within normal limits.

  It took a few moments for Katherine’s heartrates to slow. ‘ROOT, what was that about?’

  ‘My apologies, Katherine. It’s been a very long time since I’ve been given control of any extension of my chassis. I didn’t mean to alarm you. Some recalibration was required. You might say I got a little carried away.’

  ‘Yes, you could definitely say that. Please give us some warning if you need to do it again.’

  ‘You have my word, Katherine. I don’t believe it will be necessary. Recalibration is now complete.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said breathlessly, before leaning forward and flicking switches back into the on position. Taking her lead, Jacobs did the same.

  ‘Okay, let’s try again. Everyone ready?’

  They were. Calm had seemingly reasserted itself on the ground as well. The SVA personnel could hear her and would accept her judgement on whether or not to proceed. Don Hoffer stood in front of them giving a clear thumbs up.

  Katherine focused intently on the space beyond the hangar doors. Under the dark sky now pregnant with rain, a concrete roadway led out in the direction of the dry grasslands east of Skala. That’s where they would go first, a place to test the capability of this enormous engineering masterpiece. She drew in a breath and held it a moment, releasing just as she pulled the splints towards her to throttle up. The V10s filled their exhausts, the inlet trumpets dropping to keep the incoming pressure waves in tune. With astonishing smoothness, GVX began to move.

  028: Trials

  The Grasslands, East of Skala

  For Katherine, the joy of driving GVX was almost indescribable. Its speed and ride quality eclipsed anything she had ever experienced. Its vast weight helped, of course, but the way the suspension geometry worked in harmony with the springs and dampers was astonishing. And then there was that sound. At speed, the V10s sang. Put under load, they howled like the banshees of the bards’ ancient myths. She felt she could drown in it.

  ‘How’s your systems analysis going, ROOT?’ asked Jacobs, who had already struck up a surprising rapport with the Intercessor. Katherine supposed they spoke the same language in terms of engineering and, despite the crazed manner of his first interactions with GVX, ROOT had quickly settled into an efficient working partnership with the engineer.

  ‘I’ve been tweaking a few of the control systems, Roy, but essentially they work very well. The feedback loop on the steering control is a little oversensitive and gets into a dither from time to time but I’m rewriting that code for you as we speak.’

  Brendan Scott, who, at a loose end, had made his way forward to the cockpit door, asked, ‘How far to the trial area?’

  ‘About another ten kilometres,’ said Katherine.

  She was concentrating hard despite relying on Jayce Baker to alert her to any anomalies. Jayce and Myra had taken up station next to each other in the main hold. Although their conversation was muted, Katherine could still hear them over the cockpit speakers discussing the various systems they were monitoring. She could tell by their tone that each found the other’s job interesting and, for Myra, this was a rare if not unique opportunity to show off.

  ‘What are you grinning at?’ asked Jacobs, who was grinning a little himself.

  ‘Just pleased the crew are getting along. I wasn’t sure Myra really wanted to be dropped in at the deep end after everything she’s been through this past few shifts, but she seems to be taking to it well.’

  ‘She’s good?’ asked Jacobs.

  ‘Yes, she’s very good,’ said Katherine. ‘I don’t know her terribly well, but her record is exemplary and she dealt with HEX’s disappearance in a level manner.’ She hastened to qualify this. ‘She was clearly scared out of her skin – I mean, it’s a very big deal – but she kept her head.’

  ‘That’s good to know,’ said Jacobs, reassured.

  ‘Who’s going to be driving once we’re commissioned?’ asked Scott, trying to make light of something that clearly weighed heavily on his mind and those of the rest of the crew.

  ‘Unclear at the moment,’ said Katherine. ‘There are a couple of drivers doing sim work. We’ll have to cross that bridge when we come to it.’

  ‘What about a co-driver?’ asked Scott.

  Katherine was about to repeat her last answer but Jacobs interrupted. ‘That’ll be me,’ he said, twisting backwards to look at Scott evenly. ‘I volunteered last shift and got the okay from Or
chard and Councillor Falla.’

  Katherine looked across at him wide-eyed.

  ‘What?’ said Jacobs. ‘You don’t approve?’

  ‘I do,’ she stuttered. ‘I just didn’t expect it, that’s all.’

  ‘I used to do a lot of test driving, if you recall. Less recently, but I figure given where GVX is going I might be of some use if I tag along.’

  ‘You’re being modest, Roy,’ she said seriously. ‘You’ll be a huge asset. I just didn’t expect you’d want to be trekking into Ayon, that’s all.’

  ‘What about a GA?’ asked Scott.

  ‘I’ve been trying to get Trish Asher,’ said Katherine.

  ‘What’s a GA?’ Jacobs asked Scott, noting the impressed look he wore.

  ‘General Assistant,’ the medic replied. ‘A GA is the person that keeps the rest of us alive out on the ice. Normally, these expeditions are put on to get the scientists out into the field. Most of these people are really bright, but you wouldn’t let them tie their shoelaces unsupervised. No offence, Councillor Kane…’

  ‘None taken,’ said Katherine, whose tone implied she couldn’t agree more.

  ‘A GA’s someone who’s spent a lot of time out in Ayon. They can practically smell the ice, tell how thick it is by colour and spot a snowed-in crevasse from half a kilometre away. I’ve been out with Trish a few times, she’s a good choice. Actually I’d rank her as one of the best, but don’t tell her that.’

  ‘She certainly takes no prisoners,’ said Katherine with a knowing smile.

  Scott gave a gruff laugh and turned to head back into the galley.

  ‘Do we really know where we’re going?’ asked Jacobs, once he was out of earshot.

  ‘In truth I don’t know,’ said Katherine. ‘ROOT seems to think we’re heading somewhere very deep in Ayon.’

  ‘Almost certainly that’s where HEX has travelled,’ interjected ROOT, reminding both of them that no conversation was private.

  ‘Why do you think that?’ asked Jacobs.

  ‘I just know, Roy,’ said ROOT in an almost whimsical tone.

  ‘I’ve tried to get more out of him, but he won’t elaborate,’ said Katherine, a little huffily. They both fell silent, allowing the sounds of the outside world to wash over them. The further east they travelled, the lower the sun and the darker the sky. The wind had picked up, running through the increasing green wash of grassland in a relentless flowing hiss.

  *

  Reaching the proving grounds, Katherine turned left into a wide area of undulating dry earth before pushing her splints forward, quelling the twin V10s. GVX obediently came to a smooth halt, Katherine feeling the mechanical strain as its momentum was arrested. She had an affinity for those sensations and had occasionally wondered why she seemed to be more in tune with them than some of her contemporaries. Her father had once told her she had a gift for driving, one of his rare compliments that came back to her now.

  ‘Do you remember the programme?’ she asked Jacobs, already knowing the answer.

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ he replied.

  ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Hold on, everybody.’

  The V10s roared again as she throttled up and the hulking vehicle accelerated smoothly from a standstill out towards a series of mounds before it. She took to the smaller slopes first, sometimes head-on, sometimes at an angle, to assess GVX’s roll characteristics.

  ‘I love this thing,’ she said, and gave Jacobs a broad grin.

  ‘I can tell,’ he replied, marvelling at her dexterity. ‘You certainly handle it well.’

  ‘It’s a pussycat,’ she said, heading towards the next set of rocks.

  ‘We should simulate some system failures as soon as you’re comfortable,’ Jacobs said, all business again.

  ‘Okay, that’s fine, what first?’

  ‘Pneumatics?’

  She frowned but kept her eyes forward. ‘Won’t that result in a catastrophic engine failure? If there are no valve springs won’t the valves just hit the pistons?’

  ‘Nope,’ he said, without further explanation.

  She stole a glance at him to check he was serious, which he seemed to be. ‘Okay, then.’

  Jacobs cycled through menus on the control screen, and punched in a series of commands. There was a momentary metallic ring from the V10s before they suddenly dropped power.

  ‘Critical loss of pneumatic pressure,’ said Jayce Baker in a firm but calm voice over the intercom. Katherine had to restrain herself from initiating a complete Pack shutdown.

  ‘Thank you, Jayce, I’ll bring it back online in a couple of turns,’ said Jacobs. He looked at Katherine and began to explain. ‘The engines have gone into a torque-limiting mode – that’s the loss of power. What’s unique about the system in our Pack is that the bottom of the chamber is a separate, sprung part. We call it a Thomason Plate.’

  ‘So, with air pressure the steel spring is redundant?’

  ‘Yeah, that’s right,’ he said and swiped in another set of commands.

  The momentary ringing sounded again as the plates were pushed back to the bottom of the chambers by the building air pressure.

  ‘That’s really clever, Roy,’ she said, admiration clear in her voice.

  ‘Yeah, well, the guy that came up with it is pretty clever.’

  ‘So what next?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh, I’ve got a pretty long list.’ Jacobs smiled.

  They ran through it over the next few revolutions. Most concerned ancillary-systems testing and temperature control, with which ROOT had some input. They began to work as a group, finding small problems and sorting them out or noting them down to address back at SVA. By the time the list was exhausted Katherine was reaching her endurance limit.

  ‘You want to drive back?’ she asked Jacobs.

  ‘You bet,’ he said and she switched control over to him.

  They returned to SVA at a steady sixty kilometres per rotation, Skala eventually coming into view beyond the drier grass of the city’s outlying fields. They headed for the hangar, its doors still wide open, with the tiny but unmistakable figure of Don Hoffer standing at their centre. Even from a distance, Katherine could sense the pride in his posture.

  Jacobs throttled down and turned GVX around to reverse it back into its berth. He left the V10s to idle for a moment then initiated a shutdown. The tink-tink of contracting metal came clear over the speakers from behind them.

  ‘I don’t think that could have gone much better,’ he said. ‘There isn’t anything we can’t fix in under a full shift.’

  ‘It’s great,’ she agreed sincerely. ‘Well done everyone, it’s been a privilege working with you.’ There was a momentary, if restrained applause from the hold. ‘Myra, I guess we should decouple ROOT.’

  Katherine levered herself up and out of the driver’s chair. It was awkward with the splints, and more so now, with her body half asleep after so long in one position. Standing and waiting for the blood to return to her legs, she ran her fingers through her hair and rubbed her eyes.

  ‘Katherine,’ said ROOT unexpectedly. ‘I have a small problem.’

  Katherine furrowed her brow. ‘A problem?’

  ‘My internal locks appear to have jammed. I’ve not used them in, well, a very long time, and they simply won’t release.’

  Katherine sighed. It was the only real hiccup of the shift so she took it as well as she could.

  ‘I’ll get someone to dismantle the bulkhead to get you out,’ she said.

  From beside her Jacobs said, ‘You know, I’m not sure you can do that.’

  She looked at him, confused. ‘I’ll speak to John. I’m sure there is some way we can get ROOT out. Let’s not worry about it for now. ROOT, you’re staying where you are. I’ll get you removed once we’re organised.’

  ‘Thank you, Katherine,’ ROOT said with no indication of concern. But there was an inflection in his tone she didn’t recognise and, if she were honest about it, she didn’t quite trust. She pushed the feeling to one si
de and made her way back into the galley, then, alongside the rest of the crew, into the hangar, to the general jubilation of designers, engineers and technicians.

  029: Revelation

  Ayon Research Facility, Eastern District, Skala City

  The return journey from Mal-Kas was a troubled one. Having dropped their gear with a predictably unhelpful Farkus, JT and Ira said their farewells to a worried-looking Beth. Whether she was concerned for their physical condition or the shared look of horror both were attempting to conceal, neither could be sure. Both feared they had seen or heard enough to warrant someone, not least Bill Connor, to want them kept quiet, and were relieved as the facility disappeared from sight as they drove away.

  It had been about a rotation before Ira felt comfortable enough to talk. With each passing kilometre his fear had given way to a simmering anger which kept an ever-wary JT on edge. The experience of meeting Connor and their suspicions of what he was guarding had without doubt brought them closer. But the infrequent stabs of pain JT still felt served as a constant reminder of what had occurred in the slums.

  Both men had tried to form plausible explanations for Connor’s presence, the knife, the blood and the scream, but it always came back to the same thing. He was guarding and hurting, if not murdering, a group of people whose origins it didn’t take a giant leap of faith to guess at. Why he was doing this, however, remained a mystery. Ira was understandably keen to return to the Landlord’s Arms to see if the ‘Three’, as he referred to them, could make any sense of it. JT, remembering O’Brien’s allusion to his attempts to get an agent into the mines, felt they might learn more from him. Reluctantly, Ira agreed to go this route first on condition they return to Gygath together so that there was corroboration of the story.

  Feeling a need to press on, JT drove, while Ira slept fitfully beside him. By the time the northern suburbs of Skala appeared on the horizon, JT had made up his mind to head directly for T24 in the hope that Evelyn Tudor would be there. If she wasn’t, he would have to make a more clandestine approach, or wait. Waiting seemed like the worst possible option, not least because Ira would likely use any delay as justification for heading directly into the slums. As it turned out, they were in luck.