A Star Wheeled Sky

by Brad R Torgersen

  “Thousands upon thousands,” Lady Oswight said, snapping Wyo out of his reverie.

  “Beg pardon?” Wyo asked.

  “You could have put many thousands of people in here, and had plenty of room left over.”

  “It’s an ark,” Zoam Kalbi said plainly. “I’ve studied what we know about the arks which settled the Waywork, and this wreck more or less matches what we know about the originals. They were titanic, because they had to survive centuries traveling between the stars. Practically worlds unto themselves, albeit on a small scale compared to the rest of the cosmos. Obviously the crew—inhabitants?—of this particular ark were attracted to Uxmal by the friendly climate. This world is ripe for seeding with Earth life.”

  “So why didn’t they do it?” Wyo asked.

  Everyone slowly looked across the tops of the ruined brick buildings of the town to the pristine shape of the pyramid. The tacit assumption being that whatever had happened, the pyramid was a huge part of it.

  “Any hint of a signal from the other drop modules?” Wyo asked.

  “Negative,” Captain Fazal replied, as some of his people began to join them, while taking their crates up the steps in four- and six-man groups. Once they got a crate to the top, they went back down single file, and brought another up. And then another. And so on, and so forth. Eventually, there was a tidy stack of boxed ammunition, food, and equipment, surrounded on one side by a crescent of people who simply stared at the vastness of the beached ark’s interior—hollowed out, over time, by the former inhabitants.

  “How about Captain Loper, and the starliners?” Wyo suggested.

  “We’ve tried three times to raise them,” Captain Fazal said. “But no luck with that, either. It’s not jamming like I’d expect from Nautilan countermeasures. They’re just…sir, it’s like they’re not there.”

  Wyo swept his hand over his face in frustration.

  “Keep trying at regular intervals,” he said. “Meanwhile, take a look, and tell us where you want to set up your defensive perimeter.”

  Captain Fazal used his mechanized binoculars to survey the interior of the wreck, then the town beyond, and the huge ribs which dominated the sky at that range. He suggested keeping the group close to the set of stairs, since they were a funnel point for any enemy trying to come up from the ground. Meanwhile, the interior was a warren of partially dismantled compartments which offered an almost endless number of places in which to hide, or from which to shoot. Fazal theorized as to the possible approaches which might be taken from the town itself, and made hand motions indicating where he wanted his TGO perimeter teams to uncrate their squad weapons, and set up watch.

  Lady Oswight, meanwhile, demanded to be able to seek out the source of the ark’s transmission.

  “It’ll be growing dark soon,” Wyo said. “We should wait until morning. Besides, none of us has had anything to eat for the better part of a day. Let’s get properly camped, allow Captain Fazal to ensure your safety, Lady, and then we can plan for tomorrow.”

  “Maybe you’re right,” she said, her shoulders sagging. Then she put her hand to her mouth, and yawned. “I feel like my bones are gaining more weight by the second.”

  “Aye,” Axabrast agreed, his face showing genuine fatigue, for the first time since Wyo had met the man. “The mind is willing, lad, but the body is weak.”

  For the rest of their daylight time, they set about securing their position, setting up two stoves for heating prepackaged rations, and getting ready to bed down for the night. Unlike their time aboard ship, which was spent in gee hammocks, they’d now be sleeping on hard ground—albeit supported by a thin layer of foam on the bottoms of their sleeping bags.

  “Weather?” Zoam Kalbi said at one point.

  “What about it?” Axabrast said as he gently stirred a tiny self-contained helping of stew over the hot coils of a stove.

  “We have no idea what the patterns on this planet are like. Constellar’s capital is known to occasionally have very violent storms, especially along the margins between water and land.”

  “Not like we can do much about it,” Axabrast said. “If a storm comes, lad, we can’t exactly fly away, now, can we?”

  “He may be right,” Wyo said. “We landed in clear air. But that won’t last forever. My father used to tell me about a vacation we took—when I was too young to remember—on the Constellar capital. He said we were out on an isthmus, enjoying one of the capital’s many waterside resorts, and a squall came up.”

  “A squall?” Lady Oswight said. “What’s that?”

  “A kind of sudden, violent weather event,” Wyo replied. “Again, I was just a baby when it happened, but my father said he feared for our lives until it was over. The resort suffered a lot of damage. And there were deaths.”

  “Hard to say where we might ride out a thing like that,” Captain Fazal said. “There’s nothing in the way of natural shelter here. The land is fairly flat. The wreck itself offers the only protection, and that’s assuming the superstructure—what remains of it—is still strong enough to stand against major storms.”

  “It’s held this long,” Axabrast grunted. “It’ll hold a night longer.”

  And that seemed to resolve the matter, though Wyo admitted to himself that Kalbi had unsettled him even more than he was already unsettled—by their general predicament. He crawled into his bag, Captain Fazal promising to wake Wyo for the second half of the night watch, still nursing an icy nugget of ill feeling behind his ribs.

  When the wind kicked up ferociously three hours later, Kalbi’s words seemed viciously premonitory. Behind the wind came slashing rain the likes of which none of them had ever experienced before. The droplets of water were fat, and hit with stinging force. Nobody could hear themselves yelling over both the wind and the crashing sound of the waves on the beach below. The ark itself seemed to take on an acoustic amplification affect, broadcasting the moaning of the wind—through the ribs—and the roar of the ocean too. So that Wyo had to literally scream into the ear of the person standing next to him.

  “We can’t stay out in this!” he said to Captain Fazal, who’d hurriedly pulled his security teams back from the perimeter.

  “But where else is there to go?” the captain shouted back.

  They each had waterproof hand lanterns which swayed on waterproof rope handles. The rain pelting down around them came by the bucket. Sleeping bags, open crates, the stoves, everything was getting drenched. Including the people themselves. Wyo shivered, both from cold, and from fear.

  Lady Oswight and her majordomo were way ahead of the rest. Two lanterns were already weaving farther into the ark’s interior. Wyo shouted after them, waving his hands up and down, but could get no response. He got back in Captain Fazal’s ear and roared, “You see to your troops! I’ll go after the Lady!”

  Wyo thought he saw Zoam Kalbi huddled miserably beneath a waterproof tarp—wrapped like an old woman’s shawl.

  Wyo went as quickly as he could, in the wake of the Lady Oswight. His steps had become slippery, as water pooling on the surface made footing treacherous. Where exactly those two were going was impossible to say. Wyo guessed that they were simply heading in any direction which seemed to offer temporary respite from the fury of the atmosphere. When he finally caught up with them, he screamed, “We have to stay together as a group!”

  “She’s panicked!” Axabrast bellowed. “Wouldn’t heed me when I called for her to stop!”

  Lady Oswight brushed past both of them, and continued to stumble farther into the wreck.

  “My Lady!” Axabrast screamed after her—the roaring of the wind, combined with the crashing of the sea, making for a dreadful midnight symphony around them all.

  Wyo pursued, and quickly realized Axabrast wasn’t directly behind him. He turned to see the old man lying face-first in a puddle of water. He rolled over and tried to get onto his hands and knees. When he held up his lamp, he pointed a finger directly behind Wyo, who turned and saw Lady Oswight�
�s lamp going crazily into the half-deconstructed interior of the ark. She was climbing over, or ducking under, everything in her path. And getting farther and farther away with every second.

  For an instant, the two men met each other’s gaze. Elvin was hurt. He couldn’t get up, and merely nodded his head at the lieutenant commander. Then Wyo was running after Lady Oswight, trying desperately to avoid slipping. The erratic light from her lantern was all he could see, and his zipsuit squeaked and sloshed with water as he stayed on her trail. Eventually he realized they were getting into parts of the ark which were almost recognizable. Flashes from storm lightning revealed hatchways and corridors.

  Suddenly, Lady Oswight’s lantern went out. Maybe fifty meters ahead.

  Wyo sprinted the distance to try to get to her—or where he thought he’d seen her—then realized his feet were kicking uselessly in midair. The drop-off had been unexpected. He yelped with fright, and felt himself falling, before he thumped into smooth, angled metal, and was suddenly being carried down and away. Water gushed around him, and he sat up, realizing he was being carried through the interior of a huge pipe. His lantern showed very little, except for the walls of the pipe rushing past, and several times he yelped again as further drop-offs left his stomach in his throat.

  Until finally, Wyo plunged down at least five meters into a pool which seemed to have no bottom. Swimming lessons—from long ago—kicked in, and Wyo kicked for the surface. He broke through, gasping, and brought his lamp out of the water, while treading with his free arm. A torrent plummeted from overhead into what appeared to be a cavern, though the walls appeared to be almost as smooth as the pipe through which Wyo had just traveled. He spotted the second lantern bobbing at the cavern’s far end, though he couldn’t see Lady Oswight.

  Wyo took the handle of the lantern in his teeth, and swam for all he was worth. In short order, he had the Lady’s lantern in hand, and was calling her name with as much breath as he could manage. She was nowhere he could see.

  A moment of futile anger swept through him, and he began slamming both lanterns down into the water at his waist—over and over again—while he bellowed Lady Oswight’s name into the din of the waterfall.

  Her rushing hands almost knocked Wyo over. She came at him through the waist-high water with such force—fingers clawing for balance—he had to wrap his arms around her to contain her terror. She was sobbing, with hair matted across her face and neck, while she shook intensely from both the cold and the adrenaline pumping through her veins.

  “I’ve got you,” Wyo said into her ear, though not shouting his words this time. “Hang on tight. We’ve got to find a way out of here. Just don’t let go.”

  And she didn’t. She couldn’t say anything, but she allowed herself to be led through the darkness, arms wrapped around his chest, as Wyo held both of their lanterns over his head, trying to find some way out.

  Eventually he discovered what appeared to be a metal ladder—the rungs rusty, but solid—and he urged Garsina to climb. She numbly went up, but so slowly that Wyo was afraid she might lose her strength and fall. He came up behind her, pushing her buttocks with a gentle shoulder, until she rolled off the top of the ladder onto what felt like a dry ledge at the ladder’s top. Wyo came up alongside her, and took her lantern out of his teeth, setting it down next to her face. Her eyes were wide with fear, and she had bitten her lip. Blood trailed from the wound.

  “You and me both,” he muttered, and collapsed onto the ledge next to her.

  Like the ladder itself, the ledge was metal. And seemed to disappear into dry darkness, away from the echoing drumbeat of the waterfall behind them.

  But Wyo didn’t have the strength to go farther. He simply cupped Garsina’s quivering body to himself, wrapped his arms tightly around her arms—which were already coiled across her chest—and closed his eyes.

  The noise of the waterfall got farther and farther away, until it was no noise at all.

  Chapter 34

  “We don’t dare send down an aerospace plane in the storm,” General Ekk said, as he pointed to the orbital visuals displayed on Golsubril Vex’s wall-sized flatscreen. Once again, she was entertaining an audience in her quarters aboard the Alliance. They had arrived in orbit about the target world, with no further surprises from the Constellar ships they were chasing. But unlike the starliners, who had gravity-assisted toward the big jovian at the system’s center, Alliance and her two sister destroyers were staying put. Vex had no interest in civilian ships, except as ancillary prizes to be taken later. For now, her attention was on the planet itself. Specifically, the images of the pyramid her ship had passed over, just prior to the cloud front occluding Alliance’s view.

  “How long?” Vex asked.

  “Difficult to say,” General Ekk said. “The weather could last hours or days. I don’t have much experience with such things, to tell you the truth. But analysis estimates that wind speed and shear factor are too dangerous for a landing at this time. Though, we think we may have picked up signs that several Constellar drop modules came down at random points over the land mass.”

  “Ground operations,” Vex said. “Do they pose a threat to our landing as well?”

  “Not at that distance. I think our Constellar friends had some problems during deceleration. They were coming in extraordinarily fast when their parent starliners cut them loose. Much faster than any competent Nautilan commander would allow for a similar exercise. They all overshot the target as a result. In some cases, by a hundred kilometers or more.”

  “All? Are we sure?”

  “Analysis indicated that the starliners each carried nine drop modules. In order to execute their deceleration maneuver, some of those drop modules had to have been cannibalized for their retro thruster, which would then augment the pods on the modules which were dropped. Tricky business, I say. Too tricky for Constellar, given the results. So, once the weather clears, I think we can proceed to the surface without expecting too much in the way of resistance. Perhaps no resistance at all? Except, there is one odd thing.”

  “Oh?” Vex said, using her grip slippers to hold herself steady in front of the flatscreen, while her arms were crossed over her chest.

  “The repetitive transmission, it’s stopped.”

  “You mean, the transmission in the strange human language?” she asked.

  “Yes, Madam Kosmarch. About ten minutes ago. We don’t think it’s the storm, although the storm was causing a degree of interference—radio being radio.”

  “We have to assume that something—or someone—is alert to our arrival,” Vex said, her fingertips tapping thoughtfully at her biceps. She didn’t believe in a coincidence at this juncture.

  “That’s the most probable answer, yes,” Ekk said. His posture in front of the kosmarch remaining ramrod proper, with his palms linked behind the small of his back.

  “Prior to the storm, did you see or detect anything which might endanger a landing?”

  “We arrived in orbit directly on top of the storm, Madam, so it’s difficult to say for sure. We only caught a glimpse of the target—that pyramid—before darkness and clouds blocked the way. Once things are clear, and we get some daylight, I think we can do a proper orbital survey, prior to dispatching our expedition.”

  “How are preparations?” she asked.

  “Going well,” Ekk said, and switched the flatscreen’s view to his own data table which showed variously colored readiness levels for the different types of stores, people, and equipment which would be going to the surface—along with Alliance’s single aerospace plane. The sleek hypersonic ship could hold twenty people, plus the two pilots in the nose. Capable of atmospheric entry, vertical takeoff and landing, as well as a return to space, the aerospace plane was a marvel of modern Nautilan design. Such craft had been in use around the Waywork for a long time, but unlike the bulky clippers—designed to operate with little or no atmosphere—the aerospace plane was built to work in only a few, very specific places in the Waywor
k. One of them being Nautilan’s capital, to which Kosmarch Vex returned from time to time.

  This time, though, the craft was being fitted out for rougher operations. The landing gear—built to handle smooth tarmacs—had been replaced with a more robust, bulkier set of splayed-foot touchdown pads, which would not sink into whatever surface the plane found upon landing. Also, the plane’s ordinarily vacant missile cradle had been outfitted with a dozen guided rockets of various explosive yields. And the cargo bay had been stuffed with a variety of arms, consumables, and equipment, while the luxurious passenger cabin would be inhabited by Nautilan shock troops wearing full armor, and carrying Nautilan battle rifles.

  If there was to be resistance, Vex and her cohort would be ready.

  Though Ekk himself would not be joining them.

  It had been an argument of some duration. The general being quite adamant that he intended to accompany the kosmarch to the surface. But he was old, not much good in a tactical firefight, and unlike Colonel Jun—the expedition’s resident Waymaker expert—possessed no specific knowledge which might prove valuable once the kosmarch had entered the pyramid itself. Because that was her intent. She wasn’t much interested in the Constellar forces which had landed ahead of them, nor even in the huge, partially dismantled spacecraft which sat on the beach not far from the pyramid. Those humans who’d come to this place in the past had obviously had a specific interest in the pyramid. Which appeared for all intents and purposes to be alien—not because of the shape, as much as because of the fact that the pyramid had resisted both time and the elements, where the little cluster of dwellings between the wreck and the pyramid had not.

  Colonel Jun seemed convinced that the pyramid was a Waymaker artifact, and couldn’t help drawing comparisons to the many ancient pyramids known to have existed on Earth prior to Earth’s destruction. Was there a connection? Polyhedrons of that style were among the classic shapes of geometry. Any advanced alien civilization would discover and use them early, just as humans had. They were clean, stable, and symmetrical. Aspects which appealed to Vex’s own sensibilities. But did this tantalizing congruence of the practical, and the aesthetic, possess real meaning?