by T. R. Harris
Adam blinked several times.
“It means Lila was trapped outside our space and unable to interact physically with her abductors, or anything else. The Aris were also inside such void areas, making them impervious to any weapons, if any could have been brought against them. There was nothing you could have done to prevent the abduction.”
“That’s good to know, but I haven’t been feeling guilty,” Adam said. “If Lila couldn’t prevent her kidnapping, I’m pretty sure I couldn’t either. So what now? Do you have any idea how to counter their dimensional intercourse shields, or whatever you call them?”
“I do, at least in a preliminary stage. J’nae and I will work on the details as we make our way to the Aris hiding place.”
“So there is hope?” Trimen asked.
Panur nodded. “Yes…at least against this weapon of the Aris. It’s impossible to tell what else we’ll encounter once contact is made.”
Adam sighed. “Let’s worry about that later. Right now, I’d like to sleep off the rest of this weariness. I think I deserve it.”
“Deserve…why would you think that?” Panur asked. “All you did was sit there while I did all the work.”
Adam didn’t reply. Instead he took a last sip of the tea and set the cup on the stand next to the bed. Then he rolled over and rudely closed his eyes. “Be gone, all you scary alien apparitions,” he chanted. “I can have nightmares on my own without your help.”
He fell into a deep sleep moments later, but it was a different kind of sleep. He was aware of the room and the others in it, as they reluctantly left the cabin. His body rested, but his mind remained active.
Honestly, Adam was curious if any of Panur’s genius had rubbed off on him, but all he noticed was this strange duality of sleep and consciousness. Normally, the mind rested with the body, creating abstract dreams that helped make sense of the day’s activities. He couldn’t call this strange awareness a dream—it was too real. He was sure it was just the shock his mind had experienced with the addition of billions of alien brain cells merging with his—and then being withdrawn. His own feeble intelligence was trying to sort it out, creating this quasi-wakefulness, even as his body slept comfortably.
With some effort, Adam convinced his mind that it was time to rest. He began to lose the starkness of vision and awareness, feeling his mental eyelids flutter shut. He hoped this awkward conflict wouldn’t last. He had enough on his mind as it was.
“A dimensional interphasing effect,” J’nae said with awe. “That would involve a time-shift interference at the quantum level.”
The two mutants—Panur and J’nae—were in the common area of the ship, while Trimen piloted the vessel and Adam slept. Immediately upon hearing the phrase—as relayed by Lila—both mutants understood the concept and the implications. They even had a rudimentary understanding of how it could be accomplished. Often it wasn’t the creation of a great invention that was revolutionary, but rather the vision that brought it to the fore. Knowing such a thing was possible now unlocked the genius of the mutants. If they could reproduce the effect, then they should be able to devise a means of countering it.
“Panur…did you hear me?”
“Yes…a quantum interference.”
“Are you all right?”
Panur looked up at his towering creation. “Yes, I’m fine. I suspect, however, that the mind meld may have been more draining on me than first suspected. I believe I’ll go aft and take in an energy infusion from the generators. That should cure me of my lethargy.”
“Yes, please do. I have never seen you like this before,” J’nae pointed out.
Panur disappeared down the spine corridor to the engine room. J’nae watched him go, her mind racing at a speed only immortal mutant geniuses were capable of. The mind meld had indeed impacted her creator, dulling his senses and the quickness of his thoughts. It was possible his incredible mind was simply fatigued by the complexity of the procedure. However, it was also possible that merging with such a primitive mind could have damaged Panur’s. In one way, that would be unfortunate; in another, advantageous.
J’nae would have to temper her reactions or else Panur may notice. Her plans were coming into focus, and this latest escapade only increased her confidence. Panur—her creator—would bear watching. He must not know…not until it was time.
71
Four days later The Najmah Fayd slowed as it entered a dead star system. Long range sensors surveyed the region and displayed a graphic on the main viewscreen.
“There’s the brown dwarf remnant of the Aris star,” Panur pointed out. “And there—the third planet—is the charred remains of their homeworld.” The line of planets continued outward, very similar to that of the Solar System. There had once been five rocky inner worlds and six outer gas giants. The two planets closest to the brown dwarf looked more like moons, having had most of their outer crust blown off as the star expanded, before receding to its present size. The gas giants had lived on—for a while—until their own internal heat gave out. Without even the minuscule contribution of solar radiation from the distance star, they turned cold, their gases now compressed into dense atmospheres, as the lack of outward radiating heat was easily overcome by the effects of gravity.
The system was dead and had been for nearly two billion years.
“There is another world above the ecliptic,” J’nae pointed out, “quite distant from the star remnant but of comparable size to the Aris homeworld.”
“I am not picking up a visual on the planet,” Trimen reported from his station. “A planet producing such a gravity-well should be visible to our instruments.”
“I believe the anomaly has just warranted our investigation,” Panur announced. “Please set the appropriate course, Mr. Cain. I believe we are very close now to our destination.”
It wasn’t so much the presence of the gravity signature that stood out, as the lack of any substantial object at the location. The readings were that of a normal size planet, yet from this distance, nothing was visible. But as they drew closer, something did appear. It was a large asteroid, approximately seven hundred miles in diameter with a strange, almost solid-looking ring around it, visible only from reflections of distance stars off the shiny surface. An object that small could not produce the gravity of an Earth-size world, not without help.
Panur was studying the readouts at his computer station. “There’s a gravity generator located at the core of the object, surrounded by a solid ball of metal, more than likely iron, or an alloy of iron, such as steel.”
J’nae was at another station. “The exterior is showing rock of assorted variety and density.”
“As would be expected,” Panur said. “I suspect over time the station has become encrusted with layers of rogue material drawn to the gravity source. This coating has provided a convincing camouflage, if one discounted the effects of gravity.”
“So this is it?” Adam asked the mutants. “This is the hiding place of the Aris?”
“It’s definitely an artificial structure,” Panur confirmed. “And a generator capable of creating a gravity field for such a large area indicates advanced technology. I would say we have indeed reached our destination.”
“I detect no signs of exterior radiation or detection sources,” Trimen said from his station.
“I would not rely too much on your instruments,” Panur said. “Undoubtedly the Aris know we’re here. Their world could not have survived all this time without some kind of detection and defensive system.”
The Najmah Fayd was about a million miles out from the object when they first noticed the three glowing lines running vertically in the space before them. Adam shifted course slightly, and the lines changed with them, effectively blocking their approach to the anomaly.
“That looks like some kind of defensive shield,” he said to the room. “Not sure if I’m willing to test it.”
“The lines appear to be areas of space-time disruption,” J’nae reported.
“They are similar to the interphase spheres you witnessed before, only on a much larger scale. There is only a single panel, yet it is maintaining its position relative to us.”
“So how do we get through?” Adam asked.
“By going around it,” Panur answered. He was at the nav console. He set to work on the keypad and a moment later turned to Adam. “I’ve plotted a very short trans-dimensional jump to an area beyond the shield. We’ll transit to another universe then instantly reenter this one at our predetermined location. The course is already entered into your piloting computer. You may engage.”
“I hope this works,” Adam said, turning to his controls. “This thing has survived for three billion years, so I’m assuming their defenses work.”
He triggered the dimensional jump.
The view outside changed to the greenish glow of a universe shift before only moments later resolving back to the familiar space of the Milky Way. There had been no sensation of movement, but move they did. The asteroid/planet of the Aris was now only a few thousand miles below, with the three bands of bluish-white light having vanished. Without an outside threat detected, the shield had been turned off.
Now all they had to contend with were any planetside defenses.
From his new vantage point, Adam could see that the large, shiny ring around the planet was artificial in its own right. It was solid and made of metal. It was also about five thousand miles in diameter and with a constant width of sixty-two miles. Adam rotated through the various exterior camera views, studying the massive object.
“It has to have a purpose,” he observed.
“Undoubtedly,” Panur said. “It’s giving off a magnetic field. It could serve as a deflector for damaging cosmic rays, the same as magnetic fields around traditional planets with molten cores. Over the time this facility has been operating, it would have been bombarded by lethal doses many times over, even without being close to an active star. There would also have been gamma ray bursts over this time period which could have been harmful to the occupants. Very ingenious of the Aris.”
Adam turned the cameras on the surface of the asteroid, zooming in for a better look. It was as J’nae had said. Over time, any rogue lump of material in the area had been slowly drawn to the gravity source, where it was deposited on the exterior of the metal ball surrounding the gravity generators. This lightly-packed crust had built up until it was over a hundred miles thick in some places. In others, it was only half a mile or so, which allowed Adam to spot sections of the inner globe through crevasses in the rock. The supporting structure wasn’t solid, but rather a matrix of huge girders and beams measuring a half-mile in width by several miles long. It was an amazing feat of engineering, dwarfing anything Adam had seen before, even the huge Colony ships of the Klin. In fact, a hundred such vessels could easily fit within the interior of the globe created by the Aris.
“The world of the Aris would be within this grid-work,” Panur announced. “The gravity at that distance from the generators would be that of their homeworld.”
“We must set the ship down on the surface somewhere, since we no longer have a shuttle to make the trip,” Trimen pointed out. “Finding a safe landing area could be problematic.”
“The smoothest areas are where the crust is the thickest,” J’nae said. “That will hinder our access to the interior. We must either find—or clear—an area near the thinner sections.”
“We could use the gravity-well from the Najmah Fayd to form a landing zone,” Adam offered.
“Excellent idea,” Panur exclaimed with a smile. “Let us proceed. As I said before, the Aris know we’re here, so let’s not keep them waiting.”
The boulders, fragments and dust that had accumulated on the surface of the huge metal grid over three billion years gave way easily to the effects of the ship’s gravity-well. Adam made several passes, each time attracting great swathes of material before speeding away and cutting the well. The rock rained back to the surface in great eruptions, looking like a strafing run over enemy territory. Soon a section of surface was cleared all the way to the metal framework large enough for the Najmah Fayd to land and giving the team direct access to the metal shell of the Aris hiding place.
There was an atmosphere with an almost Earth-like chemistry and pressure, held in place by the massive gravity generators only a few hundred miles below the surface. Creating artificial gravity wasn’t unusual, just not for an object this huge. The Aris resting place was like a spaceship seven hundred miles in diameter.
Adam and Trimen strapped MK-47’s to their waists, with Adam adding an M-101 Human assault rifle and a MOLLI pack with extra ammo and other gear he might need. He found it amusing that he was stocking up with conventional weaponry to go up against creatures billions of years old. It didn’t matter; he felt better being geared up than not.
Panur and J’nae did nothing special, except give each member of the party a small box about the size of a cigarette pack. “Place these on your bodies somewhere. If I’m right, they should be able to negate the interphase affect when activated.”
Adam placed the box in a utility pocket on the right thigh of his fatigues. Panur placed his in a small pocket of the khaki jumpsuit he wore.
“If you’re right?” Adam asked. “You’re not sure these will work?”
“There was no way to test them without recreating the interphase affect, which I could not aboard the ship, but I have confidence they should work.” Panur surveyed Adam’s weapons pack and smiled. “You’re willing to carry such a heavy load knowing it would be ineffective against the Aris?”
“It’s a Human thing,” Adam replied. “You can never have too much firepower.”
Panur shrugged before leading the team off the ship and into the artificial atmosphere of the huge Aris space station. Adam found the air to be fresh and slightly intoxicating after the staleness of the Najmah Fayd. He stood on a steel platform, appearing to be a solid floor beneath his feet and extending below the mountains of loose rock rising up around them. He knew it was an illusion. The floor was just one face of the miles-long girders that made up the geodesic globe surrounding the gravity generators.
From above, the team had spotted an edge to the plate which they could access the interior, but without finding stairs or elevators, they had some climbing to do.
“Wouldn’t it be preferable to let the Aris come to us?” Trimen queried.
Panur began to lead them toward where he knew the edge of the plate was located. “From what we know of the Aris, they are curious creatures. I would assume most of our journey will be a test and observed by the Aris. They will make their presence known when it is to their advantage. In the meantime, I am quite anxious to explore this fascinating station. It is the most incredible construct I’ve ever encountered.”
“I concur,” said Trimen. “Yet we are not on a mission of discovery or exploration. We are on a mission of rescue.”
“Agreed and getting to know the lay of the land is always advisable, my friend,” Panur said.
They made their way through gaps in the huge boulders until they reached the edge of this particular girder. Fifty feet away was another, with smaller structural members joining the major beams together. Huge rocks filled in the voids, keeping larger surface material from falling into the interior.
Panur gazed over the edge. About five hundred feet below was a metal screen, with most of its surface covered in finer rocky material. He looked left and right for a way down but found none.
“J’nae and I can jump, but I’m afraid the distance is too great even for you, Adam, and definitely beyond the capacity of Trimen to survive. So I suggest you each climb on our backs and let us carry you down to the next level.”
Adam moved toward Panur before Trimen could react. His past experience with the former Sol-Kor queen made hopping on her back not an option. She may be on his side now, but the memories of when she wasn’t were still th
ere.
The drop to the next level of the structure was thrilling, to say the least. The station’s gravity was very close to Juirean standard, so they fell at an alarming rate. The thick framework of the structure was obvious as it blurred past, with Adam gripping the gray mutant around the neck and squeezing with all his might. He knew he couldn’t hurt Panur, but in a way, it still gave him a sense of satisfaction having his arms wrapped around the scrawny neck of the alien, strangling him.
Panur extended his legs for the landing and then pulled them back in, absorbing the force of the landing. It was smooth and uneventful, much to Adam’s relief. He released the mutant and stepped down onto loose rock resting on the top of the metal screen. There were larger rocks around, those that had fallen through the framework above, but other than that, this level was much more open and relatively debris free.
Adam looked off into the distance. With a structure seven hundred miles in diameter, he couldn’t notice the curvature of the globe from where he stood. The surface ran off in all directions, appearing like a flat landscape littered with rock. Thousands of columns rose to the level above, supporting the myriad of triangular sections that made up the outer surface of the artificial world. Adam was standing in what appeared to be an impossibly large room with a ceiling and a floor yet extending to the range of his eyesight. He was awed by the grandeur and scale. Light was everywhere yet came from no visible source.
“Where to next?” Trimen asked. His voice conveyed the same sense of wonder Adam was experiencing.
“There appear to be trails in the debris,” J’nae pointed out. “Most lead toward that stanchion to the right.”
The paths in the dust and smaller rock were obvious, yet they were very narrow, not like that traveled by creatures such as man. This got Adam wondering what mobile defenses the Aris might employ against anyone making it this far? Would they be passive or active, living or robotic?
