Labyrinth of Night

by Allen Steele

  They heard a familiar grinding sound in their headphones, picked up by the armor’s exterior mike. Everyone looked up. ‘The door’s closing,’ Moberly said. ‘There it goes.’ The TV image on the monitor screen shifted sharply as Moberly turned around, now showing the door to the corridor quickly shutting itself. Moberly lurched forward a step, but the door was sealed before he could reach it.

  Everyone in the module took a deep breath. Although it had been anticipated that the new room would reseal itself once Moberly was inside, there was still a palpable sense of foreboding. Hal was obviously keeping his own fear under tight rein—the professional cool of a scientist-explorer, typical of a man who had hung a framed picture of Sir Richard Burton above his bunk—but the people at the other end of his comlink were at the edge of their nerves.

  They remembered what had happened to Valery Bronstein…and they were all too aware of the solitary grave that lay on the small hill behind the base.

  Still, Kawakami thought, it’s not going to do Hal any good if we begin to panic. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘It knows he’s in there.’ His fingers found the keypad in his lap and punched in two digits. Arthur Johnson and Miho Sasaki, the American and Japanese co-leaders of the expedition, were on standby in the corridor outside C4-20. ‘Team Lima-Two, do you copy?’

  ‘We’re here, Shin-ichi.’ Arthur Johnson’s voice was stressed. ‘The door just shut. What’s going on in there?’

  Kawakami was about to answer when another sound overrode the comlink: not static, not the usual crackle of electromagnetic interference from the Pyramid. Something formed and rhythmic, as natural and yet unexpected as a coyote howl in the midnight desert. ‘Listen,’ Isralilova said. ‘Do you hear that!’

  ‘Shh!’ Kawakami hissed. Music. Formless and random, even grating, but undeniably it was music, lifting from the alien caverns like the sullen riffs of a subway jazz player, as if an avant-garde musician were lurking somewhere inside the chamber. Weird, yet somehow appropriate…and nonetheless threatening.

  ‘Are you getting this?’ Hal Moberly quietly asked.

  Kawakami glanced at the CD-ROM deck above his console. ‘We’re recording it, yes, Hal,’ he replied. ‘Stand by. Wait for our next signal.’

  The team’s senior scientist had no doubt what the sounds signified. In some way, this was the Labyrinth’s final test. Yet this was something entirely new. Before now, everything beneath Pyramid C-4 had related to equations and common sense. How can anyone ask a piece of music, alien or otherwise, to explain itself as an obvious statement?

  Kawakami looked at Verduin. The other scientist met his gaze, glanced back at his console, then silently shook his head. Instinctively, they both knew the hard truth, although neither of them had the courage to openly speak it.

  Hal Moberly was not going to emerge from C4-20 alive. And there wasn’t a damned thing they could do about it…

  Waterville, New Hampshire: August 31, 1730 EST, 2029

  The Blackhawk was an older helicopter, on the verge of retirement but still in use by the government for low-profile odd jobs. Its military markings had been removed, so it was appropriate for flying Dick Jessup from central Massachusetts to Waterville Valley. When Jessup had asked why he simply could not drive to the concert site, the copter pilot had grinned. ‘I don’t think you want to do that, sir,’ Lieutenant Orr had replied.

  Now, after a one-hour jaunt from Worcester Municipal Airport to the resort town, Jessup could see why. Traffic was backed up for miles on the highways leading into Waterville Valley, tucked in the foothills of the White Mountains. An estimated crowd of seventy thousand music-lovers surrounded the huge outdoor stage of the New England Bluegrass and Jazz Festival. Orr circled the vast sprawl of people, tents and cars before setting the Blackhawk down on a packed-earth landing pad inside the fenced backstage area. A couple of roadies dashed out to meet Jessup as he climbed out, then backed off, confused that the helicopter’s lone passenger was not a performer. One of them made a call on his wristphone and a few minutes later the stage manager stalked over, convinced that Jessup was a high-rolling gatecrasher. It took a few minutes for Jessup to settle the dispute; it was not until the stage manager made a phone call to the promoter and verified that Jessup was there as an invited guest that he calmed down. Jessup was relieved; he did not want to produce his government ID, which would have ended the dispute more quickly but would also have raised some uncomfortable questions.

  On the other hand, the stage manager seemed irritated that he couldn’t have Jessup arrested by the security guards. ‘Just get that bird of yours out of here,’ he snapped, pointing at the Blackhawk. ‘We’ve still got people flying into this place.’

  ‘Okay,’ Jessup replied. ‘Can you tell me where Ben Cassidy is?’

  ‘He’s onstage. You can talk to him when his set is over. Now get your chopper out of here.’

  Jessup waved to Orr and gave him the thumbs-up, and the pilot pointed at his watch and lifted two fingers. Two hours. That was sufficient time. Jessup nodded, and the Blackhawk lifted back up into the clear August sky. Jessup turned back to the stage manager, but he was already walking off to harangue someone else. Jessup wondered if he ever listened to the concerts he ramrodded, or if he was merely in this business because it gave him an excuse to be a jerk.

  Jessup found his way to the stage and walked up the stairs to a small area between a stack of equipment boxes and a table covered with folded rally towels and bottles of mineral water. Roadies and various hangers-on moved back and forth around him; he felt out of place, wearing his beige business suit and tie, among the jeans and T-shirts which were the uniform for this Labor Day weekend gathering. Too much like a government official on official government business. People shied away from him as if he were an IRS agent there to audit the gate receipts. Jessup was sure that, if he were to identify himself as a NASA administrator, it would not make any difference. Not with anti-space sentiments growing as they were now…

  He turned his attention to the lone figure on the stage, a burly man sitting on a wooden stool with his back turned to Jessup. Ben Cassidy was performing solo, as usual, with no backup band. He was a middle-aged man—balding, beard turning white, the creased and heavy-browed face of a longshoreman turned itinerant musician—plainly dressed in baggy dungarees with shirt sleeves rolled up above his elbows, hunched over the keys and digital fretboard of a Yamaha electronic guitar.

  It seemed impossible to Jessup that one person could entertain the vast ocean of faces that lapped at the shoreline of the stage, that his music would be drowned in the tide of humanity. Yet, as Cassidy played, Jessup found himself empathetically melding with the current: the crowd, the mid-afternoon heat, and above all else the music which flowed from Cassidy’s guitar. He was coming out of a blues number—Jessup, who had briefly been a blues fan in his college days, vaguely recognized it as Muddy Waters’ My Dog Can’t Bark, My Cat Can’t Scratch—and was gliding into free-form improvisation.

  As Jessup listened, be became increasingly fascinated. At first it seemed as if Cassidy was simply dog-paddling, thrashing without direction on the same couple of chords. Then he added a keyboard solo to the bass refrain and began holding a dialogue between the two sets of chords, shifting back and forth like an actor singlehandedly conducting a conversation between two characters. When it seemed impossible that Cassidy could carry this on much longer, the musician added a third refrain, a lilting lead guitar riff which joined into the mesh of notes. The crowd near the stage, mesmerized by this performance, shouted and applauded their approval but Cassidy, huddled over his instrument, face almost pressed against it, did not look up, nor even seem to notice that he had an audience.

  Jessup, listening and watching, suddenly realized why he had been sent to recruit Cassidy. He had heard the tapes of Hal Moberly’s encounter with Room C4-20. Jessup had wondered if Arthur Johnson was losing his mind when he suggested Cassidy’s name; it seemed improbable that the scientist would want anyone for Cydonia
Base other than another scientist. Now, hearing Cassidy’s guitar, Jessup understood. His improvisational style was disturbingly similar to the music of Room C4-20.

  Jessup’s right hand moved involuntarily toward the inside pocket of his suitcoat before he stopped himself. The folded message inside would wait until he met Cassidy backstage after his gig. Abruptly, Jessup hated himself. He had studied Cassidy’s record, knew that the musician had been a draftee during Gulf War II. No one should be conscripted twice.

  No choice, though. The final puzzle of the Labyrinth had to be solved, at any or all costs.

  Cassidy ended his instrumental piece and, as the crowd went wild, he stood up for a moment to take a quick, solemn bow and reflexively scoot his stool back a couple of inches. As he did so, he glanced behind him and saw Jessup standing in the wings. Their eyes met and locked for an instant. Jessup caught the cool, appraising glare, the downturned mouth within the beard. Then Cassidy turned his attention back to his guitar and his audience.

  He pensively warmed up with a couple of notes, then edged into his next number. Jessup recognized the song immediately as Uncle Sam Blues.

  Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral, Florida: October 4, 0800 EST, 2029

  The unmanned cargo shuttle Constellation was an old bird, the last of her breed. Built in the early 2000s to ferry the final components of the first-generation Freedom Station into orbit, she was the last of the Rockwell ‘Delta Clippers’ to be rolled out to the launch pad. Her sister vessels were now on display in the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, the KSC visitors’ center on the other side of the Cape, and the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville.

  The Constellation was still flying, though, partly because no one at the Cape had the heart to put the last of the Delta Clippers out to pasture. The second-generation McDonnell-Douglas ‘Big Dummies’ were more efficient workhorses, but they were mostly owned and operated by Skycorp and other space companies. Although NASA flew third-generation SSTO spaceplanes for most orbital missions, there was still a need for the Constellation’s more capacious cargo hold. But everyone at the Cape knew that the Constellation was near the end of her days; at twenty-nine, she was a grand old dame who was tired of hauling freight. In another year or so she would be taken off the flight-line, her innards cannibalized for any re-usable parts and her empty hull shellacked and mounted on a concrete parapet at another NASA facility, posing for tourist snapshots and collecting bird droppings on her fuselage. Nobody lives forever.

  Tomorrow morning, though, she would be flying again. Ten days earlier, the Constellation had been rolled out to Pad 2-A near the northern end of the Cape for the loading of her cargo and the pre-launch checkout. Her cargo was not explicitly listed in any of the manifests, nor was its orbital destination being disclosed. Flight 29A-NM was a classified military mission for the United States Navy, so even its exact launch-time was traditionally kept secret from the public under longstanding Department of Defense guidelines. Security was tight at Pad 2-A for this launch.

  An elevator glided up the core of the Rotating Service Structure and stopped at the fourth level; the hard-hatted pad technician in the cage with August Nash pulled back the metal-grate door and stood aside.

  ‘Right through there, Colonel Meredith,’ he said deferentially. ‘Do you want me to wait until you’re through with your inspection?’

  ‘No,’ Nash said. ‘Thank you again, ah…’ he pushed back his horn-rimmed glasses and allowed his gaze to drop to the ID badge pinned to the pad-rat’s white jumpsuit: Robillard, J. E. ‘…John,’ he finished. ‘I’ll take the stairs down when I’m finished here. Just leave a jeep behind for me, if you would.’

  ‘Very good, sir,’ Robillard said. Nash nodded and was about to step out when the technician stopped him. ‘Sorry, sir. Your hood…?’

  Right. The white nylon hood that hung from the back of Nash’s head-to-toe whiteroom jumpsuit. Nash silently cursed himself; a small mistake like this could blow his cover. The jumpsuit was to keep dust from contaminating the pristine environment of the RSS whiteroom. A real Air Force colonel would know better than to enter this area without drawing the hood over his head.

  ‘Of course,’ he murmured. ‘Sorry.’ He pulled the hood over the Air Force cap that covered his grey-dyed hair. His fake eyeglasses, with their utterly useless lenses, slipped down the bridge of his nose and almost fell off; he caught them with the gloved tip of his forefinger and pushed them back, then closed his neck flap along its Velcro seal. Stepping off the elevator, he turned and waved to J. E. Robillard. ‘Be seeing you.’

  ‘Sure thing, Colonel.’ The pad-rat waved back agreeably as he pulled the grate shut with his left hand. As the elevator began to drone back down through the swing-away service tower, Nash turned and gently pushed through the translucent flap of the heavy plastic membrane which isolated the whiteroom.

  Cold air, pumped outward to maintain positive-pressure on this side of the membrane, brushed against his face. After the high-eighties scorch of the launch pad outside the RSS, it was a welcome chill. Just ahead was an open, mansized steel hatch: Side 4 Door, read the sign on the door. No Smoking. As if anyone in their right mind would dare strike a match this close to over one million pounds of liquid oxygen and hydrogen contained in the shuttle booster. Nash stepped through the hatch, and in front of him lay the objective of his assignment.

  The long, vertical maw of the Constellation’s cargo bay loomed before him, nestled up to the airtight confines of the RSS white-room. The Level 4 access platform had been extended from the tower until it stopped just inside the open bay doors; here, all was white and reflective silver, dust-free and so immaculately clean that a germ would die of starvation. And there, securely fastened to a pallet within the cargo bay, were two large pill-shaped objects, each wrapped in gold Mylar film.

  A cargo technician, similarly robed in a white jumpsuit, knelt at the edge of the service platform, studying a datapad in his hands. He looked over his shoulder at Nash as he came through the hatch; the obvious question was unspoken, but plain on his face. ‘Colonel Joel Meredith,’ Nash said briskly. ‘USAF Space Command.’ As if he had every right to be here…which, in the sense of the lie, he did. He nodded toward the twin gold saucers. ‘How’re you doing today?’

  ‘Fine, sir,’ An uncertain pause. ‘Just fine.’

  ‘Those are the birds?’

  The cargo tech, a middle-aged black man with a trim beard, didn’t take his eyes from Nash’s face. ‘Uh-huh,’ he said noncommittally. He gently folded the datapad. ‘They’re the ones.’

  The cargo tech seemed to be paying a little too much attention to his guest. Nash ignored him, although he felt the man’s eyes running across his face, looking closely at his ID badge. Nash took a couple of steps closer, looking up and down at the payload compartment.

  Despite the bulk of the insulation, he could tell that the two objects nestled within the Constellation’s cargo bay were aeroshells. Yet they weren’t the same size aeroshell normally used by OTVs which aerobraked in Earth’s atmosphere before rendezvousing with Freedom Station or one of the other low-orbit space stations; these were smaller, very similar to the fuselages of Martian landers. And while there were a score of off-white stencils on the Mylar wrap, locating fuel and electrical ports, there was nothing which explicitly identified them as military spacecraft. But if his Intelligence briefing had been correct…

  ‘When did you shave off the mustache, Colonel?’ the technician asked.

  ‘Hmmm?’ Nash glanced at the other man’s ID badge—Humes, T. S.—and immediately returned his attention to the Constellation as if to ignore the tech’s question. Yet the nervous twinge he’d felt from the moment he had first seen the technician was still there.

  ‘When I last saw you, you had a mustache,’ Humes persisted. He hesitated, and added, ‘Four months ago.’

  ‘Oh, that was a while ago,’ Nash drawled. ‘Got tired of the soup-strainer, that’s all.’

  The compa
ny’s file photo of Air Force Colonel Joel K. Meredith had shown him to be clean-shaven, otherwise Nash would have cultivated a mustache to match, since he had been given the assignment to penetrate Pad 2-A three weeks ago. But Meredith’s photo was a relatively old one, taken at least six months earlier. Although Meredith seldom visited the Cape, his last pre-launch inspection had been exactly four months ago. It was possible that Humes remembered him because of a mustache he might have grown since the file photo had been taken.

  Sure, people can grow and shave mustaches in a period of four months. Even without one, though, Nash looked enough like Meredith to pass inspection; temporary exodermic alterations by the mug-doctors at Security Associates had matched his face to that of the Colonel’s. The real Colonel Joel K. Meredith was conveniently taking a vacation in the Smoky Mountains with his family; surveillance reports had placed him only yesterday at his summer home just outside Gatlinburg, Tennessee. Although Nash’s phony face and bogus credentials had been sufficient to get him into KSC and out to Pad 2-A for a last-minute inspection, he was aware that it would take only a few well-placed phone calls to completely blow his disguise.

  So far, nothing had occurred to raise anyone’s doubts. But if someone became suspicious, even for a second…

  ‘Uh-huh.’ Humes stood up and, in an all-too-casual manner, ran his gloved hands down his thighs to straighten out the wrinkles in his jumpsuit. ‘Well, if you’ll excuse me a minute, Colonel…’

  ‘Coffee break?’ Nash asked. Humes quickly nodded, his sudden grin obviously faked. ‘Sure. Go right ahead.’

  Nash continued to peer closely at the aeroshells, allowing Humes to ease past him. There was a phone on the wall behind them; Nash let the technician get halfway to it before he whirled and, curling in his knuckles, slammed the heel of his right hand into Humes’ neck just below his left ear.