The Dying Light
Page 4
She checked the COE database. Palasian System contained a small Armada refueling base, one communications outpost, one town-sized colony, and a scattered handful of scientific installations, two of which were devoted to studying solar flares and xenoarchaeology. That was all, on eight planets and a large assortment of smaller satellites. Nothing stood out as possessing the sort of equipment the fugitive would have required to build a device capable of hiding an entire system. Of course, not knowing how the device worked made it hard to guess what was required to build it, and even more difficult to work out how to counteract its effect.
Before Roche could take her exploration of the files any further, the ship shuddered violently. She looked up in alarm as the bulkheads around her rattled.
replied the AI.
The Box sounded mildly offended.
said the Box.
The Box said nothing more, perhaps sensing the renewed determination Roche felt—partly a result of the food, partly the refocusing of her attention on the goals they all shared. For the first time in the hours since her rude awakening, she actually felt alert.
When she reached the bridge, Cane occupied exactly the same position he had earlier, watching the expanse of the big screen with his arms folded.
Maii sat not far from him. A strip of white cloth covered her empty sockets, matching the loose shift she wore in preference to Dato Bloc shipsuits. Roche automatically sent a smile her way, and when she saw the Surin return it knew that the ritually blinded girl was using Cane’s eyes for visual input. The only other person available to read was Roche herself—but that would have rendered the smile invisible to the epsense adept.
Aloud, Roche asked: “Any news, Maii?”
She grunted acknowledgment of the fact to herself, then added: “What if the system was camouflaged? Would it be possible for the Sol Wunderkind to block epsense as well?”
Cane looked up. “The whole system?” he said. “Highly unlikely.”
“But it is a possibility.” She turned to face him. “A remote one, I’ll admit—”
“What I meant was,” Cane interrupted her, “if the system is camouflaged, then I doubt my sibling is responsible.”
My sibling... The words made Roche’s skin crawl. Sometimes it was hard to accept that Cane and the Sol Wunderkind that had effectively destroyed Palasian System were of the same breed—possibly even identical in every respect.
“Why not?” she asked.
“Because, tactically speaking, it makes no sense to be confined to a single system. If I were in his shoes, I would want to move on, taking with me only the resources needed to make my task easier at my next destination.” Cane’s shoulders lifted in a smooth and easy shrug, as though he were discussing a poor tactic in a barroom game, not the destruction of a whole system. “Also, to hide in such a manner would be tantamount to admitting defeat. Camouflaged or not, it’s only a matter of time before the system is found—if not by us, then by someone else.”
Roche nodded. “It could be a decoy, then. Something to keep us occupied while he slips away.”
“A lot of effort for little reward. However he did it, if he did it, it must have been enormously energy-expensive.”
“Maybe. But what if—”
Box’s soft, controlled voice cut across her own: “There’s really no point even trying to guess until we have more data, Morgan.”
“Okay, okay.” Roche raised her arms in mock defeat. Sitting in her chair, she faced the main screen to check the status of the ship: it was about to emerge from the short slow-jump that had begun so awkwardly. Maybe when Haid appeared, they could discuss the situation in more detail.
Roche nodded, absorbing that fact without comment.
“Emerging from hyperspace in fifteen seconds,” said Kajic, his voice issuing from the base of the holographic projector. Now that he had no crew to impress, he only occasionally bothered to manifest in physical form.
The ship groaned back into reality as noisily as it had left. Roche held onto the edge of her seat as the floor writhed beneath her, seeming to melt for an instant as space transformed. Somewhere nearby, something clattered. When the ship stabilized, she forced her muscles to relax, then looked around.
“Someone warn me next time,” said Haid from the entrance to the bridge. He held a tray in his new hand and, bending, used his other hand to pick up packages of food that had spilled during the disturbance.
“Klaxons sound automatically prior to every translation,” said the Box.
“Yeah, but who listens to them?” Haid finished piling the meal back onto the tray. “I thought this ship could handle anything.”
“Not quite,” said Kajic. “But close enough.”
Haid’s face lost some of its good humor at the sound of the ex-Dato Bloc captain’s voice.
“Yeah, well,” he said, taking a seat at an empty station. “When the Box summoned me, I thought I’d bring breakfast up here. Hope that’s okay.”
Roche frowned, puzzled. She hadn’t asked the Box to summon anyone. “Box? What’s going on?”
“I have an announcement to make,” the AI said. “The preliminary survey is now complete and, although much of the data remains to be processed, I have one confirmed observation to report. In accordance with your wishes, Morgan, I summoned Haid to ensure that the entire crew was present to hear it.”
Roche didn’t respond immediately. The Box wasn’t normally so considerate of her wishes. It smacked of overcompensation, as though it was courting disapproval elsewhere.
“Continue,” she said after a moment. If it was planning something, then she would have to wait until later to find out what it was.
The Box complied, calling up a number of complicated diagrams on the main screen. “At the heart of the region formerly occupied by Palasian System lies a radiant point-source.”
“A singularity?” Roche broke in. She hadn’t even considered the possibility that the system had been sucked into a black hole.
“No,” said the Box. “The point-source appears to have zero mass and is radiant predominantly in the upper infrared spectrum. I have detected what may be a cloud of primordial gas surrounding the point-source, but will have to make more observations before confirming that suspicion.”
“How close are we?” asked Haid, clearly as disturbed by the thought of a black hole nearby as Roche was, despite the Box’s assurance of their safety.
“Twelve billion kilometers.” The map on the screen highlighted points as the Box spoke. “The next slow-jump will halve that distance.”
“Is that a good idea?” asked Roche.
“All available evidence indicates that the risk of undertaking such a maneuver would be small.”
“The risk for whom?” said Roche. “Yourself or all of us?”
The Box hesitated before snapping: “Both, of course.”
Roche smiled at the Box’s apparent indignation. “Okay,” she said. “Then I can’t see why we shouldn’t do it. As soon as you’re ready—”
Soft but clear, Maii’s words touched Roche’s thoughts—as, she as
sumed, they touched everyone else’s simultaneously.
Roche looked across the bridge, the discussion of the point-source instantly shelved. The Surin’s face was blank, indicating intense concentration, as it had been since the end of the last jump.
“What is it?” Roche asked, leaning closer.
“Describe it,” Roche prodded.
“Are you picking up any thoughts?” Roche pressed.
“Could it be an AI, then, or hidden by a very effective shield?”
The reave’s body sagged.
Roche reached out with a mental hand to touch the Surin’s straining mind and ease her frustration. “It’s okay, Maii. Wait until the next jump. It might be stronger then.”
“ ‘It’ might be the anomaly itself,” suggested Haid.
“Now there’s a possibility I don’t want to consider.” Roche sighed as warning Klaxons began to sound again. “Box, any thoughts on that?”
“None that would not offend.”
The rare joke from the Box elicited a chuckle from Haid, but one that was short-lived. The Box’s sense of humor—usually at the expense of carbon-based life forms or epsense science—only reinforced its uniqueness. Roche also detected a faint hint of annoyance, as though it was peeved that the reave had taken the wind out of its sails, ruining the effect of its big announcement.
Maii emerged from her trance as the ship jumped in accordance with the Box’s wishes. she said, her mental voice clearly audible through the groaning of metal. The slow-jump was easily the most uncomfortable so far.
“That’s something.” Haid folded his arms. “But I’d still feel happier knowing what we were heading for.”
“A black hole doesn’t have to bear us any ill will to be dangerous,” agreed Kajic.
“It is not a black hole,” asserted the Box.
“Famous last words,” muttered the ex-mercenary.
“I agree with Kajic,” said Cane. “Just because it’s a natural phenomenon doesn’t mean it can’t still be deadly.”
“At least we could go in with weapons armed,” added Haid.
“Do it, then.” Roche concurred with the ex-mercenary’s unspoken message: sitting around waiting was only making them more tense. “Cane, work with him.”
“Done.” The two men crossed the bridge to take positions at the weapons station.
“Anything else to report, Box?”
“Some inconclusive findings,” it said.
“Such as?” she persisted, silently cursing the AI’s reticence.
“The steep flexure gradient in this region is suggestive of significant, and recent, spatial trauma.”
Roche’s eyebrows knitted. “That means nothing to me.”
“Space-time has been warped on a massive scale,” the Box translated. “The traumatized region occupies a disc-shaped area roughly seventeen billion kilometers across and two billion kilometers thick. The radiant point-source lies at the heart of this region, although I have been unable as yet to determine whether it is the cause of the flexure or simply another effect. It is conceivable, perhaps even likely, that the point-source and the anomaly are different facets of the same phenomenon. However, more research is required before I can be certain of that.”
“How much more?”
“That depends on the result of this slow-jump,” the Box replied. “We will be jumping to the very edge of what should be Palasian System, not far from the anchor point that was our original destination. It is my conjecture that the degree of flexure will increase sharply at this point.”
“Proving...?”
“Again, I hesitate to speculate until we have concrete data.”
Roche grunted. “How long, then?”
“I estimate fifteen minutes before we arrive at our destination.”
“So soon?”
“As a result of the flexure gradient, our relative velocity is greatly increased. In a sense, the anomaly has been drawing us toward the point-source.”
“It sounds even more like a black hole, now,” said Haid over his shoulder.
“The effect is only relative to real space,” continued the Box. “In hyperspace, we are actually fighting an uphill battle: although our movement in hyperspace corresponds to greater than normal movement in the real universe, it is becoming increasingly difficult to move in hyperspace at all. I have consulted Kajic and arrived at a maximum output rating for the slow-jump drive—a rating which we will not exceed.”
Roche nodded in satisfaction. Even though she didn’t understand how progress could be easier in real-space but more difficult in hyperspace, at least Kajic and the Box were cooperating.
Roche glanced across the bridge. The Surin was frowning once more. “Where?”
“Can you at least tell if it’s mundane?”
The reave looked troubled.
A Sol Wunderkind? Roche wanted to ask, but didn’t. Maii would have said if that were the case. Yet she couldn’t quash the thought: something in hyperspace was pushing them away while in real-space drawing them closer. If not the fugitive, then what?
Roche folded her arms and watched the main screen as the minutes ticked by; the large number of unknowns made her want to scream out in frustration. She needed answers, not possibilities.
Before Roche could acknowledge the truth of the reave’s comment, a low rumble echoed through the ship, beginning at the stern and fading to silence at the distant prow.
“Now what?” asked Roche, looking around in alarm.
“Uh—one moment,” said Kajic.
“We had a flicker of red lights down the port hull,” said Haid, “but they’ve cleared now.”
“A slight disturbance,” said the Box. “Nothing to be concerned about.”
Roche bit her tongue until Kajic delivered his own report.
“No problems with the drive,” said the ex-captain finally. “We must have encountered some sort of turbulence. Possibly a hyperspatial shock wave of some kind.”
“The anomaly again?” said Roche.
“It seems likely.”
“We are nearing the edge of the anomaly,” said the AI. “Obviously there will be some turbulence.”
“Aimed at us, perhaps?” suggested Haid.
“No,” said the Box. “Describing what we are experiencing as a shock wave is peculiarly apt. The turbulence may be caused by the anomaly only in the same way that the presence of a large mass ‘causes’ gravity.”
“Not deliberate then, but symptomatic.” Roche ran a hand restlessly along the arm of her chair. “It’s all the same from this end, isn’t it?”
“Not really,” said the Box. “If we can piece together a pattern to the symptoms, we should be able to deduce the nature of the anomaly that is causing it.”
“Here comes another one,” said Cane, his head cocked, listening.
The groan returned, as gradually as before but noticeably louder when it peaked. Roche, her hands pressed firmly into the chair’s
armrests, felt a faint buzz through her fingertips.
“Could it hurt us, Uri?” she asked.
“Conceivably, yes. The stress is caused by sympathetic vibrations in the hull. So far I have been able to dampen the resonance.”
“Let me know if it gets too bad.”
“I will. If we encounter it again.”
Roche waited anxiously as the ship traveled onward. Barely two minutes later, a third shock wave rolled through the ship, this time accompanied by a sluing sensation to starboard and down, as though the ship were being dragged off course.
“Red lights again,” said Haid.
An instant later, from Cane: “Clear.”
Roche waited on edge for Kajic’s report.
“No damage,” he said finally. “But it was definitely more severe. The closer we get to the anomaly, the stronger they’re becoming.”
“Can we ride them for much longer?”
“If they continue worsening at this rate, no,” said Kajic. “But we’ll come close.”
“Good enough.” Roche swiveled her chair to face the main screen. Only a handful of minutes remained before the slow-jump was due to end. “Pull us out the moment we can’t take it. I’ll leave that decision in your hands.”
“Understood.”
As another groan began to build, Roche again gripped the chair’s armrests, and held on tight. She felt as though a bell were tolling directly behind her head, a bell so large that its vibrations were absorbed by her bones rather than heard. Before it had completely faded, another swelled to take its place.
“Box,” she said, raising her voice above the noise. “If you have any idea at all what that anomaly is, I want to hear it.”
“I now have several theories, Morgan. Which is the correct one, of course, remains to be seen.”
Roche opened her mouth to demand an outline of the various possibilities, but was cut off by a sudden lurch upward. Her stomach dropped, then rose again, into her chest.
“We’re experiencing gravity fluctuations,” said Kajic. “I can only keep us going another fifty seconds.”
Roche studied the main screen, momentarily tempted to call a halt. Their planned arrival point was inching slowly closer. Given a further half-minute, they would almost make it. She decided to trust Kajic’s instincts.