Very true. Millions of years old and it looks like it was polished yesterday. Strange. I'll take a shuttle and be there in twenty minutes. Maybe together we can figure out what it is.
By the time Doc arrived, JJ was back with a couple small beasties. I called them rabbits, but obviously they weren't really rabbits. They were roughly the same size and had that look on their faces that they were eaten by everything else, so they were definitely bunny-like in that regard. The three of us stood over the shallow hole we'd excavated, staring down at the bare metal in the failing light.
“Have you used your probe on it yet?” Toño asked.
Duh! “No, I guess I kind of didn't think about that. I'm out of touch with the exploration business these days.”
He gestured to the surface, like go ahead. I deployed the probe. It fixed evenly over the surface. The readings made absolutely no sense. I downloaded the entire database to Toño.
“I don't know what that means,” he said, scratching his head.
“What?” pressed JJ.
“Well,” Toño began, “it's most odd. The readings indicate this isn't metal. It's more of a plastic, but it also has ceramic characteristics. It also seems to be twelve million years old.”
JJ whistled. I taught him that too, by the way. “But it has to be metal,” he said. “It sure sounds like metal when struck. How could plastic be that tough? That shiny, for that matter?”
“It's clearly alien technology,” I replied. “Who's to say what they're capable of? There's also the melting point. It's around ten thousand degrees Centigrade.”
“Is that a lot?” JJ asked.
“No. It's a lot more than a lot. The highest melting point for materials we've fabricated is maybe five thousand degrees. This stuff would stay solid if set on the surface of the Sun.”
“It's also harder than diamond by a factor of one thousand. There's nothing like that known to science.” Toño was clearly amazed. “This material also does not conduct heat or electricity. Such a thing is unheard of. It's barely conceivable.”
“Sounds like useful stuff,” said JJ.
“Yes,” replied Toño, “but why here? Maybe for a spaceship, but not a shelter.”
“We don't know it's a shelter,” I said.
Toño was slightly annoyed with my assertion. “Of course we do. You saw. The internal structure is divided into rooms on various levels. There are stairs and even rudimentary units of furniture still in a reasonable order. No, this is some form of housing.”
“Hey,” chimed in JJ, “maybe we could live in it? Sounds like a very safe place to be when trouble hits.”
“Yes,” said Toño, “but this particular structure is right smack in the middle of nowhere.” He gestured to the surrounding terrain. “Not very hospitable here.”
“Maybe we could move it down to the flats,” JJ wondered.
“First, we need to see if we can expose it completely. Even then, I suspect it'll weigh too much to move.” Toño clearly like the idea but was uncertain it was feasible.
Over the next few weeks, Toño dedicated himself exclusively to working on the artifact. JJ and I returned to the village and resumed our usual activities. Toño use the shuttle to haul various tools and machines up to the metal structure. He finally rigged a membrane generator to heave massive amounts of dirt and rock off the structure. Within a month, he had it fully exposed. It was a perfect cube of metal-like material. There were no obvious doors or windows. He tried in vain to drill, burn, or blow his way in. Nothing even slightly phased the impassive structure. Rail shot bounced off like he was firing a peashooter at it.
One day, he asked me to come to the site. JJ and I took a shuttle and met him there.
“I have an idea,” he said. “Use the probe. See if that can open the structure.”
“I don't know,” I had to admit. “I've never used it that way. Not sure it's designed to work that way.”
“There's no harm in trying, is there?” Doc was clearly at his wit's end with this box.
“No, I guess not.” I focused on the structure, held my left hand up, and said “open” in my head.
Like it knew exactly what it was doing, the probe split into four groups and planted on the geometric centers of the four walls. Rectangular portals opened from the top down, ending where the box met the ground.
“Well, I'll be,” I mumbled, “never seen it do that. How'd it know where the doors would be?”
Doc was already entering an opening. “I have no idea, but I'll take any break I can get.”
JJ and I hustled in after him. I told the doors to stay open. Not sure if they would, but I didn't fancy the idea of being sealed on the inside forever. Maybe the probe wouldn't work from the inside. Who knew? When I retracted the probe, the portals remained open. Cool!
Exploring the inside of the cube started off well. But, as fate would have it, we figured out basically nothing about the contents or its past inhabitants. Months of study, probing, and attempted dismantling yielded nothing. No organic material lingered, no mechanisms were discovered, and no records, computers, or books were found. No traces of who or what inhabited the cube were discovered. Aside from general assumption about the builder's size and shape, no clues were left. It was like a model home that no one had ever lived in. Everything seemed in place and functional, but there was no life to the unit.
One thing of interest. Toño calculated the mass of the cube to be two hundred thousand tons, about the same as two aircraft carriers. That meant for sure there was no way we could move it. He did, however, ask me to try and lift it with the probe. His reasoning was that the probe was able to open the structure, so it might be made by the same race. If it was, maybe they programmed in weird functionalities. I told him ten times he was crazier than Marshall, but finally, to shut him up, we went to the site and tried it.
At first, I said in my head, lift and set down. Damn. I lifted and set down a two-hundred-thousand-ton cube. I really hated it when Doc was right and I was wrong. Next I said, move one meter to the right. There was clearance on the mini-plateau to safely do so. Darn it all if it didn't up and move exactly one meter to my right. There was to be no living with Toño from then on. The real trick, the one I wasn't too keen on attempting, was to lower the cube to the valley floor. I'd never actually tested how long the probe filaments were, but I couldn't believe they could stretch two kilometers.
Turns out, they couldn't. The farthest I could move the cube was two hundred meters. That meant countless mini-moves down the slope. On my third move of the cube, it couldn't find purchase where I set it down and tumbled like a loose boulder several hundred meters. But, as it was made of such ridiculously strong material, it wasn't in the least damaged. That's when I gave myself permission to have some fun. That, of course, is the opposite of what Toño wanted to do. He hated fun. That made the moving day well worthwhile. I push the cube down the slope until it began rolling. Then I'd catch up to the cube and do it again and again. I made it a point to try and get it to crash down the hill as dramatically as possible. Over a cliff was even better. I had a lot of fun.
The strangest part of using the probe in that manner was that it took no effort on my part. I didn't have to leverage myself or lift in any way. It was like a remote-controlled hoist. Whatever tech went into fabricating my probe was light-years ahead of ours. After a few days, I had the cube in the village. I told the doors to remain open unless I told them to close, which they did. It was like the building knew what I wanted and could understand me. I remarked to Toño that I had a new pet—a pet cube.
As we all anticipated the Uhoor would return sooner or later, the cube was a great defensive position to have handy. With a membrane anchoring it, nothing would be able to hurt us while inside. It turned out that the membrane couldn't even penetrate the metal skin. Toño rigged one so that it included the cube and an anchoring extension, with no laxity that would allow it to be lifted like Shearwater had been. We packed large stores of food and water inside, like a bomb-she
lter. Toño set up an air scrubber for carbon dioxide removal and stored lots of liquid oxygen inside for breathing. We could hold up for months inside, if pressed. The cube could comfortably house a hundred of us, so we even had room to grow into it.
The ultimate problem with castle defense was that a patient enemy could wait the occupants out. A siege was always effective if the guys on the outside were determined enough. The Siege of Harlech Castle in 1468 lasted seven years. In the end, the castle fell. But a fallback position was a nice thing to have in a hostile universe. I just hoped and prayed we'd never have to use it. That's how things work, right? One wishes for how one wants things to go, and that's how they turn out.
FORTY
In a universe of infinite possibilities, some outcomes you expect and some you do not. Some outcomes, however, you never, in your wildest night terrors, realized were even possible. So it was with me. One day Toño sent me a message: Please come to my lab. I'd like you to meet someone.
Okay, unexpected. I'd been present at the birth of nearly everyone currently on Azsuram. The remainder I'd known for years, centuries in Toño's case. Who could I possibly meet? I finished the repair I was working on, cleaned up, and headed for his lab. As I entered, I saw Toño talking casually to a male figure whose back was to me. There were no other adult human males on the planet. Before I could really get started on my internal dialogue as to who the hell he was, the figure slowly turned to face me.
Combined for me were the emotions of stunned disbelief, horror, and the instant desire to choke the life out of my fellow man. Not three paces from me stood the man whose hatred for me equaled my hatred for him. There stood a man more homicidal than Hitler, Stalin, and the leaders of the seven major Crusades, combined. If evil had a personification, I was looking at it. Stuart Marshall, erstwhile president of the USA and certifiably insane lunatic, glanced at me like we were waiting together at a bus station.
I lunged for his throat with both hands.
“No! Wait, Jon.” Toño stepped between Marshall and me. I plowed ahead, driving Toño backward. I would have this man's life, and I would have it now! “Stop,” Toño screamed, “immediately and let me explain.” He slapped me hard across the face.
I looked at Toño, stunned. He was in league with the devil himself? No!
My hesitation allowed Toño to push me farther from Marshall. “I guess this wasn't such a good idea, surprising you like this,” he said as he stared at the floor.
“No, I guess not. How the hell did he—”
“Please listen for a moment and you'll understand everything. Can you do that for me, Jon?”
I wasn't sure. “I'm not sure. Just tell me how he got—”
“I made him, that's how.”
I was already extremely mad. I became a lot more angry after hearing that confession. “I'm listening.”
“Man, I don't think he likes me,” Marshall said. I could only glare at him over Toño's shoulder.
“Remember,” Toño began, “how I told you the current android of Marshall was corrupted by Morbius's incompetency?”
I nodded.
“It occurred to me that the best defense against Marshall might be to sick the real one on him.”
Huh? “Doc, what're you saying? There are thirty things wrong with those nineteen little words.” I waved my hands in the air. “Don't you think you should have checked with me first comes to mind.”
“No.” My, he said that rather categorically. “I'm sorry if that runs against your grain, but no. I have always been in charge of the android program. As a result, it falls to me to set right the malfunction of one of my creations.”
“Please,” Stuart said, “don't talk about me like that when I'm standing right here, son.” Yup, that was Marshall, alright.
“I speak of your corrupted copy, not you. You are the full and accurate copy of the former president.”
“Ah, fellows, when did I leave office?”
“Several years ago, when the Earth was destroyed. According to most constitutional authorities, that's when your term ended.”
“The Earth has been destroyed? Already? No, that's not happening for another couple years.”
I pointed to Stuart and said to Toño, “You didn't do such a good job on this one either.”
“I have yet to bring this copy up to date. This Stuart Marshall is the exact download Morbius used when he botched his attempt to make him an android.”
“Now that I remember. I had to get that creepy dog Morbius to do it because you refused.”
“Yes, and instead of listening to my wise counsel, you forced an idiot to make a defective copy that plagues the human race like a holy curse.”
“I can't be that bad, can I?”
“No,” I responded, “you're worse. Much worse.”
Toño patted Stuart's forearm. “We'll talk at length later.”
So now on top of all my worries, fears, detractors, and would-be assassins, Stuart Marshall was to join my otherwise wonderful colony.
FORTY-ONE
Two figures stood looking out a massive viewport into ice-cold, deep space. The void was dead, except for the light of a trillion stars shining through, reminding them of hope. Their hands were behind their backs as if they stood at ease, on guard. The two had worked closely for a year, during the most trying times possible, but both were unsure if they were friends. Harried comrades in the same foxhole would more accurately describe their bond. One thing was certain. They trusted each other, which was a precious commodity in a universe gone mad.
“Mandy,” as Heath had come to call her, “there's nothing we could have done and nothing we can do now. You know this.”
She stood silent as a boulder for a while, gritting her jaw. “I know this. That doesn't mean I have to like it or accept it.”
“Be reasonable. None of us like it. It's inhumane, sadistic, ethically indefensible, and the list goes on and on. But not accepting it suggests you have an idea how to solve the problem.”
She grew more stone-like and waited longer to answer. “I'm their president, Heath. I'm president to the five million citizens who Marshall kidnapped and is abusing egregiously. If I can't help them, what the hell good am I?”
“Mandy, they're a year away, moving as fast as they can. Marshall is unlikely to pull over and wait for us to catch up. Plus, if we could magically appear to their starboard, what could we do? Wish him into submission?” She chuckled quietly. “Perhaps a duel?” She turned to him and smiled. “We couldn't open fire on them or forcibly board their worldships. We'd be no better than Marshall.”
“Are they better off enslaved than dead?” she replied.
“Please tell me that's a rhetorical question because I'm not touching that one with a ten-meter pole.”
“I knew I made the right choice when I picked you, Heath. You make me smile even at the hardest of times. Just like…” She stiffened and suppressed tears.
Heath set his hand on her shoulder. “I know. We all miss her.”
She smiled in spite of her emotions. “We? You know, I was present during all the debates. You didn't sound too warm and fuzzy with my wife as recently as those.”
“That was a political campaign. All's fair and all that. I respected her and miss her.”
She turned to him and rested her head on his chest. “It's okay if you really didn't, and you don't, but thanks for the kind attempt. I'm still not used to missing Faith.” After a moment, she giggled briefly.
“What? asked Heath.
“I was just thinking we're the first president and vice president to strike this pose.”
“Let's pray powerfully that we are.”
They both laughed. She looked up into his eyes. “And that your wife doesn't view any photos of this tender moment.”
“I'll pray to that, too. More powerfully.”
She placed her head back on his chest, if only for a second. Then she returned to the iron-woman image she was known for. “We could send a couple nearly e
mpty worldships to their destination. By the time the ships arrived, the population would presumably be on land. We could at least offer whoever wanted it a ride back to the main group.”
“Yes,” he agreed, “we could. It's fifteen light-years from here to GB 3. It's eight light-years to LS 2 from here. It would take a worldship five or six hundred years to get there. Do you think the population on LS 2 five centuries from now will want to jump on board a perfect stranger's ship and go on yet another multigenerational voyage? Actually, we wouldn't be strangers. We'd be evil interlopers. Marshall would have twisted the truth and brainwashed them into believing we're quite comparable to the demons in hell.”
The viewing room was silent again. Heath let her be in the privacy of her own thoughts. Finally, he rubbed her shoulder and spoke. “They're gone, Mandy. Gone for good. There's no force in the universe that can change that and no power that can bring them home. If there were, I'd fight to the death to try and change their sad fate. But there isn't. We need to look to our future and pray for theirs.” He dropped his hand.
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“Keeping me focused. Keeping me grounded.”
“Isn't that my job?”
“No,” she smiled as she patted his cheek, “your job is to wait and see if I, too, drop dead.”
FORTY-TWO
Several months after moving the cube to our village, it became mostly a priceless storage shed. Whatever we didn't need at the moment ended up piled in there. I was half-surprised cobwebs didn't start forming in the corners. But there were no spiders on Azsuram. I still had it in the back of my mind that it was our emergency shelter, but I guess I hoped so hard to never need it that I benignly neglected it. I did run into one problem I was yet to solve. With Lily gone for a while, we were down to one AI. Al was housed on Shearwater. If we were confined to the cube for an extended period, we could stay in contact with him, but he wasn't with us. Perhaps our link could be interfered with. We knew so little about the Uhoor that I couldn't rule such a thing out.
The Forever Enemy (The Forever Series Book 2) Page 22
