Deepsix

by Jack McDevitt

  “The place is a treasure trove,” said Drummond, watching from his shuttle. “It’s a pity there isn’t time to get a decent look at it.”

  They were lucky, Marcel reflected, that they’d seen anything. Scholars, he suspected, would be poring over the visual record for years.

  Beekman appeared unexpectedly at his side. He’d been avoiding eye contact with Marcel since their conversation. “You know,” he said, trying to pretend nothing had happened between them, “there’ll be some major changes at the top when all this gets back. Gomez will go.”

  “You think so?” asked Marcel. Irene Gomez had been the Academy’s director for more than ten years.

  “She was part of the crowd that made the decision to pull out after the Nightingale fiasco. Now we’re looking at this. And it’s all going to be lost. This stuff’s been going out from that character at Universal, what’s his name?”

  “Canyon.”

  “Canyon. Right. They’ll get it back home day after tomorrow. The board of governors will call an emergency meeting. I’ll bet Gomez is gone by the end of next week. And her department heads with her.”

  He looked pleased at the prospect. Marcel had no connection with the director and had never even seen her in person. But he knew she did not command the respect or the loyalty of Academy people. Of course, he thought, neither would Beekman if it ever got out he’d wanted to abandon the ground party.

  “Invaluable stuff,” Beekman said. His tone gave him away: Even if we lose the people, maybe it will have been worth it.

  Lori’s voice broke in: “Preliminary maneuvers are complete. We are on course.”

  They found a portrait in one of the cubicles.

  It was mounted on a wall, hidden behind a layer of dust, but when Hutch peeled it away and wiped a cloth over it, the images came clear.

  Two of the crickets were pictured on either side of a hawk, which must have been three times their size. It was difficult to be sure about scale because the hawk was visible only from the breast up.

  The crickets wore the placid expressions of philosophers. They were draped in cowls, one hooded, one bareheaded. The skulls appeared to be hairless, and she saw no indication of eyebrows. Despite the prejudice induced by her knowledge of the technological limitations of their society, Hutch read intelligence in their faces.

  The otherwise fearsome appearance of the hawk was diminished by the staff it carried. Its only concession to clothing was a dark ribbon tied around one shoulder. The chest was broad, and it owned a crest that stood proudly erect. It dwarfed its companions. Yet that they were companions was impossible to doubt.

  The thing had a predator’s eyes and fangs and fur where Hutch might have expected to see feathers. She was struck by the composure manifested by the crickets, who might easily have been gobbled down by such a creature.

  There was something else.

  “What?” asked Nightingale.

  She couldn’t make up her mind about the sex of the two crickets. But the hawk? “I think it’s a female,” she said.

  Nightingale sighed. “How can you possibly tell?”

  “I don’t know, Randy.” She tried to analyze her reaction. “Something in its eyes, maybe.”

  Nightingale reached for the picture and was pleased to see that it lifted from its mount. It was too big to put in his pack, so he simply carried it.

  They had by then mapped much of the ground level of the structure. The elevator to the orbiting station had been located on the eastern side, at the juncture of north-south and east-west concourses. The upper levels, judging by their scale, seemed to have been given over to the hawks. It seemed that the crickets used only the ground floor.

  It was getting dark when they got to the north side. Here they were cautious because this was the part of the structure that, according to Marcel, jutted out over the edge of the mountain.

  They came to a collapsed ramp and looked down into a lobby at another portrait. Hutch used her vine, against his protests, to descend and retrieve it. It was a full-length image of a hawk.

  It had no wings.

  “That figures,” said Nightingale. “It’s too big to fly.”

  “Even if it had big wings?”

  Nightingale laughed, but he kept it down. “Really big wings,” he said. “Something as massive as we are, like that thing apparently was, would never be able to get off the ground under its own power.”

  “Maybe it comes from a world where the gravity is light.”

  They both spoke consistently in hushed voices, as if anything at normal decibels would be inappropriate. To remind them, when either got too loud, the sound echoed back.

  “That’s possible,” Nightingale said. “But the gravity would have to be very light. And if that were the case, I don’t think these creatures would have been at all comfortable on Maleiva III. No, I doubt there’s anything avian about these things. I’d bet neither they nor their ancestors ever flew. The hawk resemblance simply gets us thinking that way.”

  Hutch knew that Kellie would want to take a look at all this, and they’d been inside now for a long time. “Time to start back,” she said.

  Nightingale looked pained. He would have gone on forever, if he’d been permitted. “Why don’t we hold up just for a few seconds?” Off the northern concourse, twin ramps led down one level. “Let’s take a quick look downstairs, then we can go back.”

  “Two minutes,” she said.

  They descended and found another broad passageway whose walls were covered with inscriptions in the six languages. Sometimes, instead of just a few words, there were whole sections of twenty lines or more devoted to each group of symbols. “This would be just what they need,” she said. “We translated one of the languages of Quraqua with a lot less than this.” It was an exciting prospect, but the wall would have to be cleaned and restored before it would be of much use. She used the microscan to get as much as she could, knowing that they were losing most of it.

  There were other inscriptions. These were short, usually only two- or three-word groups. Hutch recognized the characters from the uppermost line on the artifact they’d found at the site of the hovercraft.

  She tried to imagine the concourse when it was alive.

  They came to a series of wide doorways, all on the right-hand side. Each opened into a chamber about four meters wide. The rooms were devoid of any kind of furniture.

  She poked her head in, saw nothing, and went to the next one.

  There were eight of them, of identical dimensions. Hutch looked in each, hoping to be surprised. They had low ceilings. Designed for the crickets.

  At last they stood together in the eighth room, at the end of the passageway. There were no artifacts, no inscriptions, nothing. Just bare rooms. “Let’s go,” she said.

  She started out, and the room moved. It was a momentary quiver, as if a pulse had gone through the building.

  Quake, she thought.

  Something began to grind in the walls. The room lurched.

  “Get out, Randy!” She bolted for the exit. A door was already sliding, banging, clanking down out of the overhead. Nightingale froze, and she turned back. And then it was too late. She pulled up, and her chance was gone. The door chunked to a stop, a hand’s width off the floor, and then crashed down onto the dirt. It cut off the light, and Hutch found herself crouching in the dark. She turned on her wristlamp.

  “This is not good,” said Nightingale.

  The grinding in the walls got louder. The floor inched up. And fell back.

  Mira’s voice broke over the circuit: “What happened?”

  “Don’t know. Stand by.”

  Nightingale aimed his laser at the door and thumbed the switch. A white beam licked out, and the gray surface began to blacken. Then the floor dropped abruptly. Startled, he lost control of the laser and swept the room with it before dropping it. As designed, the thing automatically snapped off.

  The room fell. Stopped. Slipped down a few meters.

&nbs
p; “My God,” said Nightingale. “What’s going on?”

  “Another elevator. A working one, looks like.”

  The chamber crunched down again. Marcel was on the circuit now. “What’s happening? What’s your situation?”

  Canyon was still there, but aside from a word of encouragement, he kept mercifully quiet. They continued to bump, vibrate, and drop.

  “On my way,” said Kellie.

  “No. Stay with the lander.”

  “I can’t help from here.”

  “I don’t think there’s much you can do over here either.”

  Nightingale looked panicked. Probably like herself.

  Something rattled beneath the floor.

  The ceiling was too low for either of them to stand straight. They picked a corner of the room and retreated into it.

  The grinding eased off, but the elevator continued its erratic descent. She used her laser to finish the job Nightingale had started, cutting a substantial piece out of the door. It was dark outside, and the fog was thick as ever. But the glow of her lamp revealed no wall. Instead she saw only a gridwork of struts and beams.

  “What do we do?” asked Nightingale.

  She widened the hole, making it big enough that they could get out if the opportunity offered. “It’ll have sharp edges, though,” she cautioned him. “Be ready to go if we get the chance.”

  The ride continued. Nightingale came over, looked out, but was careful not to get too close. There was still nothing to see except the gridwork, moving sporadically past as they continued down.

  “I think we’re in the basement somewhere,” she said. And then, moments later: “I can see daylight below.”

  The elevator rattled and shook, and there were squeals and shrieks in the floor and ceiling. Suddenly a void opened. The mist was gone, and they were dropping through bright day.

  “Where the hell are we?” demanded Nightingale.

  She looked down the side of a sheer gray wall that fell forever toward green hills. “This is how the crickets got up to the skyhook.”

  Nightingale peered out and trembled. “You don’t think we’re going all the way to the bottom, do you?”

  “That would be my guess. Unless their technology isn’t too good. If that’s the case, we might stop partway down and be expected to switch to another elevator.”

  It was hard to determine whether Nightingale thought that would be good news or not. There were a few clouds below them and others out on the horizon. Nightingale steeled himself, looked down, and gasped. “My God,” he said.

  “Stay away from it.” She pulled him back.

  Kellie heard it. “I don’t care what you say,” she said. “We’re going to saddle up and come over there.”

  “No point. You can’t reach us. Wait until we see how this plays out. I want you to be ready in case we need you in a hurry.”

  “Okay.” She sighed. “Keep the channel open.”

  The banging and grinding subsided somewhat, and the ride smoothed out, became more constant, less bone-rattling, as if the machinery was becoming unlimbered.

  They slowed, accelerated again, and jerked finally to a halt.

  She looked down at a river valley so far below it made her head ache. They were, she realized, on the north face of the mountain, the section that appeared to have been artificially carved.

  “What are we going to do?” breathed Nightingale. “We’re stuck here.”

  The elevator trembled.

  “Quake, I think,” she said.

  “That’s what we need.” He looked at her, his eyes full of fear. “Hutch, we need help.”

  “You’ve a talent for understatement, Randy.”

  “Can you give us a description,” asked Kellie, “of where you are?”

  She told her, and added “Pretty high up. I guess we’re going to need air-to-air.”

  “Okay. Sit tight. We’re on our way.”

  “How do you mean, ‘air-to-air’?” asked Nightingale privately. “That doesn’t mean what I think it does, does it?”

  “Unless you want to try climbing down.” Above them she could see the framework of girders, crossbeams, and diagonals, the grid within which the elevator rode. The rear of the elevator was fitted against the face of the mountain. They were about fifty meters down. The cliff, as best she could see, was lined with shelves and outcroppings and even a few trees, but it would under no circumstances provide a means to scramble back up to safety.

  “Can they really get us out of here?” asked Nightingale.

  “It’s lemon pie,” she said.

  The comment did nothing to alleviate his state of mind. “How?”

  “Just ferry us out. Sit tight until she gets here.”

  He looked down, and she watched the little color that was left drain out of his face. The elevator dropped again, slightly, probably no more than a few centimeters. He gasped and turned a terror-stricken face toward her. “Best to stay away from it,” she said.

  “What are we going to do? Jump?”

  “Something like that, Randy. But you’ll be tethered, so you can’t fall.”

  He shook his head. “Hutch, I don’t think I can do it.”

  “Sure you can. No matter what, we can’t stay here.”

  She could see that he felt humiliated as well as frightened.

  They began descending again, slowly and steadily. “We’re getting there,” he said. “If we’re patient, maybe everything’ll be okay.”

  She said nothing, but simply sat down and waited for the lander to appear.

  “What’s holding the elevator up?” Marcel asked.

  “The cable, I guess,” said Hutch. She heard the welcome rumble of jets.

  “That’s a negative,” said Kellie. “We do not see a cable.”

  Marcel made a worried noise. “Are you sure?”

  “Yep. No cable.”

  “Then,” pursued Marcel, “it must be a different kind of system from the one we use. Maybe they don’t use cables. Maybe they glide up and down some sort of magnetic rail.”

  “I don’t think so,” said Kellie. “It has a cable mount on top.”

  “You sure?” asked Hutch.

  “There’s a couple meters of cable dangling from it.”

  XXXII

  Everybody complains about the weather, and we have the technology now to do something about it, should we choose to. But we don’t. The fact is, we need bad weather. A day at the beach is much more enjoyable if we know that somebody, somewhere, is getting rained on.

  —GREGORY MACALLISTER, “Reflections,” Collected Essays

  Hours to breakup (est): 27

  Abel Kinder watched the numbers rippling across his screens. Off-the-chart high-pressure front moving down into the Nirvana Ocean to collide with extreme low pressure along the eastern coastline of Transitoria. Tornadoes spawning inland. Hurricanes boiling across waters normally too cold to support hurricane activity.

  He punched Marcel’s button.

  “What do you have, Abel?” the captain asked.

  “More heavy weather. When do we make the pickup?”

  “Nineteen hours and change.”

  “I don’t suppose you can speed it up.”

  “Negative. The schedule’s out of our control. How heavy?”

  “Extremely. I’ve never seen these kinds of readings before. Tell them to expect wind and rain. Especially wind.”

  “How much?”

  “A lot.”

  Tom Scolari and Cleo, who had watched the asteroid rise into the night with such unabashed pleasure, were taken afterward to the Zwick. It was a small, boxy ship, bristling with antennas. UNIVERSAL NEWS was emblazoned on its hull.

  Janet informed him that they were assigned to the onboard Outsider team. “There’s another job coming up in about seven hours. Until then, you can relax.”

  They were taken in charge by a short, unobtrusive man who might have been a librarian, and a tall willowy blonde with the manner of an aristocrat pretending
to be a commoner. “Name’s Jack Kingsbury,” he said. “I’m the ship’s welder.” He managed a grin.

  The woman was Emma Constantine. “It’s good to have you on board,” she said, with affected interest. “You people have been doing an extraordinary job.” She had perfect diction.

  “You’re the rest of the team, I assume,” Scolari said.

  Emma wasn’t. “I’m August Canyon’s producer.” She inspected them. “You two have a change of clothes with you? Damn, I don’t understand that. They promised they’d see that you had some fresh clothes.”

  “Who promised?” asked Cleo before Scolari could react.

  “My contact on Wendy. We wanted to do an interview. Live. But you both look a trifle mussed. Let me see if we can get something that fits.”

  Marcel had lost contact with the ground party. He sat disconsolately on the Star’s bridge while Lori tried to raise Tess through the electrical storms that now blanketed the atmosphere.

  The Star’s working spaces were far more luxurious than Marcel’s cramped command area on Wendy. The bridge had leather panels, soft-glo lighting, full-wall flexscreens, and a captain’s chair that would have looked good at the C.O. Club.

  He understood why this was so: On the Star, the bridge was part of the tour. It was the only operational part of the great ship that the passengers actually saw, so power and opulence were de rigueur. Only when they commenced the final series of course adjustments would the visits be halted.

  Nicholson irritated Marcel. It was hard to say why. The man was friendly enough. Having reached the decision to assist, he never failed to respond quickly and effectively to the needs of the operation. He did what he could to make Marcel and his people comfortable, and he went out of his way to tolerate Beekman, who was capable of occasional flashes of arrogance. It might have been that he tried too hard to live up to his image of what a starship captain should be. He talked as if he, Marcel, and Beekman operated on a higher plane than everyone else. He was quick to criticize, quick to suggest that the mission would have more chance of success if only they had more people on board like themselves.