Timepiece

by Brian N Ball

  Obligingly, the computer offered to play them back.

  Henry Sokutu listened, but again he was dissatisfied.

  “Evaluation?” offered the machine.

  “No,” said Henry Sokutu. “Mind, it's not that I don’t trust you, but this is a job for the human mind.”

  The computer felt a protest to be necessary. It gave a warning and deferential bronchitic cough:

  “Advice: keep off the Planet. Basic governor system circumvented. Too much to be investigated for talents and experience of team. Planet afflicted with gravitational palsy!”

  It was becoming altogether too confidential, decided Henry Sokutu. Before he switched it to “monitor”, however, it had one further comment:

  “Planet of danger! One has to admire the intrepidity of humans,” it said directly to the old man. “Courage is one of—”

  “You get beyond yourself !” said Henry Sokutu.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The minute bulk of the hastily-rigged landing vessel sent a pulpy shock through the three people strapped in their cushioned niches. Without thought, they set up the tests.

  “Air good,” said Suzanne.

  “Plenty of plant-life,” said Garvin. ‘Interesting. No animals. Insects and bugs,” he added.

  Del shot off the geological drills in a shower of sparks. One of the two suns burst through yellow clouds, and they watched it for a moment. The timeless moment of sunrise. Del was surprised to feel the girl near him; she took his hand and pressed it hard against her soft breasts. The blood throbbed below his hand. Garvin looked shocked, prissy almost.

  “Test programmes,” he reminded them, and the moment was gone. He was already reeling off figures from the circling probes. The first reports from the burrowing drills confirmed what he said. “We re on a cube, gravitationally speaking,” he said. “If this were a cubic body in shape,” he grinned, “we’d be near a comer.”

  “How long can we stand it?” asked Del.

  “Days.” said Garvin. “That right, Suzanne?”

  She shook her head. “I worked out the minimum and maximum lengths of time we can stay on the basis of the readings in gravitational changes we’ve had so far. One, two days. Thats all. Exposure to the field variables could destroy our internal electrical systems.”

  “Field imbalance,” said Garvin. “In our heads!” “Here’s something else,” said Del.

  Readings were coming through the small computer they had installed. It hiccoughed:

  “Drills confirm theory. Cores are residual white dwarf material. Field variation caused. Local perturbations to be expected—”

  “What’s that?” said Del.

  “Only what I expected,” said Garvin. “There’s a big overlap on these fields. There has to be a certain amount of field flux at the confluence of fields.”

  “—in immediate area.”

  “Here,” said Del.

  “Almost anywhere,” agreed Garvin. "Look, Del,” he said patiently. “Let’s get on. So you’re in charge, and you’ll be good in emergencies, but let’s do it the way we planned?”

  “Fine,” said Del.

  “Associated propagational disturbances fit in pattern suggested. Probability: hollow sighted is source of energy distribution.”

  “Garv?” said Del.

  “It means we have to look there,” said Garvin. ‘If the fields are somehow centred on the hollow, there has to be a good reason. So we look there.”

  “Have we long enough to cover it?” said Suzanne. “And will the ship stand up to it?” said Del. “We’ll find out,” said Garvin. “It might mean travelling on foot to spare the ship.”

  They looked out at the new world. Around them tall grotesque shrubs waved leguminous fronds; bare red rocks showed in the distance, black-streaked with ore; overhead, graceful whorls of cloud drifted randomly. The sun advanced across the sky to meet another, paler sun. “Over there,” said the girl.

  "The bushes!” said Del.

  A ripple of ten-foot high growth. And without another sign, the waving fronds coalesced: blues and greens shrank inwards, patterns shimmered in the hot sun: the shrubs were suddenly half their size, more massive, but smaller, less bulky, but now solid.

  "Adaptation to a local field,” said Garvin. "We must be in an inconstant zone, maybe where a number of fields overlap.”

  "Nothing to do with our own force-fields?” said Del.

  "No. Were not putting out much power. Enough to counteract the Planet's fields. We're just adapting as the plants out there are doing.” Garvin pointed to the power levels pulsing quietly, and watched by the eager green-bronze robot. "We can adapt to anything that's been registered so far.”

  "I wonder how Henry feels,” said the girl. "Missing all this.” She looked out at the landscape. "He wanted to come. That talk of fear—he didn't mean it.”

  “He's more useful out of the way,” said Garvin. “All the checks run?” he asked.

  “No,” said Del. "A few virus forms to look at”

  "We could use the deep-space suits,” said Garvin.

  “No,” said Del. “Well wait See what the computer makes of the plant-life samples.”

  "The adaptation?” said Suzanne.

  "Yes.”

  Garvin punched out a programme and the machine responded at once:

  "Notable adaptation of molecular architecture. Molecules of plant cell walls usually long and thin. Sample analysed shows chains of thin molecules with coil capability.”

  "Like a spring!” said Garvin. “The molecules simply spring together.” He allowed the machine to continue:

  “Interlocked chains make Mobius strips,” it reported. “Same apparatus in rudimentary form in further

  samples.” There was a pause. “Virus report?” it suggested.

  “There’s nothing to stop us going out now,” said Garvin, when the report was complete.

  “Let’s go,” said Del

  “Possibility of animal forms cannot be discounted—” said the computer, but Garvin was already snapping off instruments; Del watched him reduce the force-screen levels, and for a moment he was aware of the flash of a squat green-bronze shape moving at a fantastic speed. Then all movement became one.

  The colossal drag gripped them all in a brain-wrenching instant of agony; the computer solemnly intoned “Emergency!”; bodies crashed, metal squealed and instruments shattered with an appalling noise; and there was a single wild scream. It was the girl’s terror that gave Del the slight edge. He fought unconsciousness for a second: long enough to drive his hand out, to stretch a hand that felt like a mountain; long enough to force cliff-like fingers near the rudimentary emergency switch. And then to encounter cold hard plastic blocking the way. And then into despair.

  There was a dream in the few moments of unconsciousness: in it, Garvin and the girl. Garvin billowing away into the distance, an unreal and gross figure. And the girl—who was she?

  Time passed. Del groped out of the dream and heard the unfamiliar hum of engines. He opened his eyes and saw the glow of force-screens.

  Garvin was groaning. The girl murmured in pain. Del raised himself on a tom shoulder from amongst the debris of the console. The robot lay upturned, a mass of machinery around it.

  "Garv? Suzanne?” he said.

  Garvin groaned. “What was it?” he asked.

  “Hurt?” said Del.

  “Back. My back.”

  Del got to his feet painfully and stepped across the wreckage. Suzanne was breathing through cut lips. Blood seeped slowly from a tom cheek.

  “How bad?” Del said, turning to Garvin.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Dell” said the girl. She held her arms up to him.

  “What a mess!” said Garvin. The girl tried to pull Del down to her. For a moment he held her face.

  “What happened?” she said. Then she too took in the sight of shattered machinery and tangled equipment.

  “Charlie Five,” said Del. “He got to the emergency
switch.” He pointed to the handle by the wreck of the robot. It was twisted by the power of Charlie Five’s desperate lunge. “I reached for it, but Charlie was there first.”

  “Damage?” said Garvin from the floor.

  Del looked round. “The main drive’s working. It’s putting out plenty of power to keep up the screens.” But the computer console was a mass of rubble; the memory banks were delicate shining shards of useless metal; and the automatic repair gear had not attempted to begin the work of disentangling the wreckage. “The ship!” he said. “There’d have been an automatic alert!” He scrambled to the console: “Henry Sokutu should have been in touch.” The powerful contact systems were somewhere beneath the rubble.

  “But what did it?” said Garvin. “It was much more than a local perturbation.”

  “We’ve no way of telling,” said Del. “Not until we can contact the ship. Let me see your back.”

  “Spare rockets,” said Garvin. “We’ve a few orbital rockets for seismic survey repeaters. Easy, Dell” he yelled as Del pushed bones aside.

  “Nothing broken,” said Del. “And Suzanne’s only cut. Looks as though you’ll be strapped up the whole time we’re here. Can you move?”

  Garvin cautiously raised himself. “A wrench,” he said.

  "Strap him up whilst I look through this mess. Ill find out what we've got left.” The girl detained him:

  "Your shoulder. Thats a bad cut.”

  “Later,” said Del. He moved forward, impelled by the sense of urgency which danger always called up. “When you've finished with Garvin, check on stores, the deep-space suits, survey equipment,” he told the girl.

  He moved away and realized that something was stirring in the wreckage. Charlie Five lumbered to an upright position on clumsy bearings. For a moment, Del had the ridiculous idea that the robot was about to put a metal protruberance to his carapace and ask what had happened. But robots don't think, he told himself. They act on orders.

  ‘The orbital rockets,” he told it. “Check them. Cannibalize the guidance systems and the repeater units. Get a radio rigged.” The robot clanked away, scattering wreckage in its eagerness.

  Del looked at the housings around the bulk of the main drive. They were distorted, but the instrumentation inbuilt had not suffered; a steady purr of noise and a gentle flicker of needles across the primitive dials showed that the engine was functioning normally. They had power: power to move off the Planet, power to withstand its gravitational vagaries. "Provided they're not too frequent,” Del said aloud. “Garvin!” he called.

  “Coming,” said the battered figure.

  “The power unit's fine. Now let me hear how you read this situation.”

  Whilst the girl dressed his shoulder, Garvin explained. It could be a complete field reversal: the whole reorientation of the Planet’s magnetic fields. It wasn't unusual to find evidence that pointed to the complete north-south field changing to south-north;

  on this strange world, the effects of complementary field redistribution would be calamitous. There might be folding of rock strata, colossal atmosphere disturbance, intense subsurface activity. “But without data—” Garvin shrugged.
  “We rely almost completely on machines,” said Suzanne. “Is there nothing we can do?”

  “Survive,” said Del. “Get back to the ship.” “Without going any further!” said Suzanne.

  “What do you suggest?” said Garvin. “Walk out and stroll around? Hit on the explanation first time?” He was trying to provoke the girl, Del saw. “We’re blind, in a metal can! We daren’t move the ship from here except to attempt to get into orbit! How far do you think we can walk in the day or two we can remain here?”

  “Tomorrow,” Del broke in. “Tomorrow we look.” 2For what/" sneered Garvin. Del saw that pain was contorting his face.

  “Take it easy, Garv,” he said. “I’d like you along—” “Me! I’ll have to stay, whilst you two blunder around looking-for what? A chunk of time?”

  “Why not now?” breathed the girl. “Now, Del!” “We’ll take a chance tomorrow,” Del said. ‘We’re all hurt. The ship needs to be examined. You checked the equipment?” he interrupted sharply.

  “The suits. Two wrecked. One usable,” she said. “The survey equipment’s gone too. We’ll have to go lightweight.”

  “That settles it,” said Del. “We need rest. The ship wants a check-over. And above all we must have information”

  Garvin sighed. He groaned aloud as he reached for

  a folder of charts. “Here’s the main changes in gravity we’ve recorded to the incident. I can’t tell whether we’ve been through a local imbalance or a central one. Feed this stuff into the main computer and it might make some sense. My guess is that a concentration of heavy particles set up a shock wave, maybe triggered off by our landing here.”

  “By us!” exclaimed the girl. “You still think we’re being watched”

  “Monitored,” said Garvin. “Let’s say simply that our presence here has been noted.”

  There was a claustrophobic sense of danger in the wrecked cabin. Del shook off the strong feeling of apprehension, of close and pressing peril. He told Suzanne to prepare Garvin’s information for onward transmission.

  “Radio,” suggested a voice behind him. Del had not heard the approach of Charlie Five.

  “Try it, Suzanne,” said Del. “Charlie, set it up for her.” He turned to Garvin: “Go on,” he said. “Guess again.”

  “No.” Garvin slumped in a pain-twisted heap. “Your guess is as good as mine. Just as good.”

  “Garv, you have to tell me,” said Del. He looked at the rebellious young face, arrogance and contempt showing briefly between spasms of pain. Del wondered about Garvin at that moment. He had the look of a fanatic.

  “Something walking out of eternity,” said Garvin, calm at last. “Something walking out of another Universe—the shadow of a shape you couldn’t conceivably imagine. Walking over my grave.”

  Del barely restrained a smile. How badly had Garvin been hurt? He thought he saw the hurt eyes of a youth.

  “You think what?”

  “Something big. Some living thing. Something big

  enough to smash us aside and send the whole complex of gravitational fields crazy.”

  “A monster!” Del couldn’t help exclaiming.

  “Laugh if you have to.”

  “These things don’t happen—” Del stopped almost as soon as he had begun. He had been about to say that there weren’t any monsters, that nothing had been sighted, nothing recorded on the fantastically accurate instruments aboard the circling deep-space vessel. Suzanne spoke then:

  “Del! I’m going crazy or Charlie Five is! See this!” She pointed to the heap of glittering parts that the robot had put together.

  “Radio?” said Charlie Five tentatively.

  “All it gets is star static!”

  Charlie Five had scooped up bits of machinery and welded them into a complex mass. Del identified bits from the wrecked deep-space suits, from orbital rockets, and from the shattered computer.

  “Junk!” said Garvin. He reached out for the robot*s inspection unit. “Scrambled,” he said. He flipped the switch and the green-bronze shape became oddly inert. “You know what this means?” he said.

  “We make the radio ourselves,” said Del.

  “More than that,” Garvin went on. “With the automatic repair gear smashed, we have to use the manual outfits. And they’re geared to the kind of power the robots have. And their speed. We’re down to human muscle,” he laughed. “Yours, Del.”

  Gradually, their armour was being stripped away. Their contact with the Thomas Cook was lost; their own vessel had been smashed; and now their principal source of labor was a write-off. The
robot was useless, a heap of uncoordinated electronic parts.

  “You two sleep,” said Del. “I can get a radio rigged. I’ll recheck the drive and the screens.”

  Garvin put up no objections, but the girl wanted to help.

  "One of us has to be awake all the time,” Del told her. “1*11 give you a couple of hours, then you can do some work.”

  Soon the two were asleep, and Del began the long, slow drudgery of matching parts, dismantling wrecked machinery, inspecting field generators, cannibalizing the suits; the small whine of a drill made the sleepers turn and mutter; the unfamiliar explosions of a cutter brought them to half-consciousness; Garvin awoke once, and Del saw him staring out into the semi-darkness.

  Del looked out too. The suns had gone, and a small satellite reflected some light onto a grey landscape of cold hills and soft, flowing shapes. “Get some rest,” Del said. Soon, Garvin too slept.

  Del worked on. He knew he had endurance.

  Chapter Sixteen

  . Early grey-red light flooded the cabin. Del was still working. The girl spoke behind him:

  "I wanted you last night.” She passed her hand across his cheek. *111 get you some food. Did you sleep?”

  “This came first,” Del said, curiously light-hearted. The girl had a tonic effect, as if the physical contact with her smooth skin gave him strength. As he spoke, the primitive contraption he had been testing burst into irate life, high-pitched querulous chatter interspersed with bursts of background radio noises. “Yes, coffee,” he said. “With whisky.” He controlled the noise. “It had to happen here,” he told her. “You and me.”

  The girl whispered softly into his ear: low lewd ideas, the Planet and its possibilities. Del felt the fatigue slipping away,

  “Delvaney!” bellowed Henry Sokutu’s voice. “Curse you, answer me!” There was a howl of sheer fury: “Delvaney! Garvin! Suzanne! Are you safe? Unharmed? Curse these inconsequential buffoons! Will you answer me! You can’t be—”

  “Did you spot it?” said Garvin behind Del “Henry, what caused it?”