Event Horizon (Hellgate)

by Mel Keegan

  “This is a Zunshu computer core,” Mark said slowly, “classic technology from the height of their war effort, and it’s looking after them to the best of its ability, even though it’s almost dead itself.”

  “So, maybe it’s tending an old folks’ home, or an asylum for the deranged, the senile of the species.” Vidal speculated, “while the rest of them left?”

  “Data transmission has commenced,” Lai’a reported. “Estimate 20 minutes to complete transfer of the Zunshu database. Doctor Sherratt, your party may return to the boarding tube. The gundrone can protect the cabling, disconnect and follow in due course.”

  “Sure?” Dario hissed. “Be sure, Lai’a – we might not be able to come back!”

  “I can detect no suspicious activity of life forms or mechanisms within five kilometers of your position,” Lai’a assured him. “There is no activity in the outer system. All defense zones have returned to dormancy. You are at liberty to leave the computer core.” It paused and then asked reflectively, “Would you care to investigate curious sensory data? A 240 meter detour from your return path would afford an invaluable vidfeed for future analysis.”

  They were already moving. “How ‘curious’?” Vidal wanted to know.

  “Anomalous life signatures,” Lai’a seemed to hesitate. “Life signs that are not quite consistent with life signs.”

  Travers groaned. “Goddamn – this place is enough to send you stark, raving mad.”

  “Alien,” Jazinsky said succinctly.

  “There’s an old saying,” Rusch said in amused tones. “What came you to the wilderness to see, a man clothed in fine raiment?”

  “I came to this particular wilderness,” Shapiro said acidly as they made their way back through the corkscrew passage, “to meet my enemy face to face, like honorable life forms, and talk my way to an armistice. Speaking of talking, Lai’a – have you found any point of reference allowing translation of the spoken language … and I know that’s the wrong term!”

  “Not yet, General, but the references will be in the computer core. Allow time for data transfer; also, allow time for analysis. I will inform you, the moment I have sufficient basis to construct a translation algorithm. At that time, you may reasonably open a dialog with the Zunshu.”

  “All right.” Shapiro was between Travers and Marin as they reached the top, or end, of the passage. “I’ll … cultivate patience.”

  “Turn right,” Lai’a told them, “Follow the gallery to the end and take the third ‘door,’ at 15 meters above deck level. It opens into a series of bubble-like vessels, each larger than the last. Your destination is the final vessel, which is also the largest, with a diameter of 80 meters.”

  “Any Zunshu between us and this vessel?” Travers had resisted the impulse to bring his weapons alive, but Marin knew he must be itching to do so.

  “Several Zunshu,” Lai’a reported, “hiding in passages on all sides. If they behave in a manner consistent with all others we have seen, they will withdraw as you approach.”

  “If –?” Vidal echoed.

  “One must allow for individual aberration.” Mark was the first to step through a series of tall, arching columns, and he murmured in reaction as he made his way into what Lai’a had termed a ‘gallery.’

  The compartment was long and narrow, dimly lit, and the few bioluminescent light sources were concentrated around great sweeping abstractions of color and form. Some hugged a wall, others protruded in shapes, structures, that almost made sense to human eyes, but not quite. The forms might have been art, Marin thought, but if they were, they depicted concepts so alien, they were as meaningless as the ideograms of a foreign culture.

  The third ‘door’ yawned, four meters wide and 20 above what Marin had come to think of as the floor, though that floor rippled like frozen waves and sloped up into one of the gallery’s five corners, and down into two others. Nothing about the geometry was Euclidean, familiar, comfortable. The whole party rose into the doorway in a tight knot, with gundrones before and after; and ahead them was the first of the bubble-like vessels.

  Shapes drifted in the shadows. Marin saw fluttering colors, almost kaleidoscopic, purple, green, red, gold. Doorways opened in the top of the bubbles, and in the floor, and the cold blue-green light glittered in the multiple, blinking eyes. Scores of creatures watched, but none moved out to stop the intruders.

  The fourth chamber was the last. It was enormous, and the first of all chambers they had visited to be utterly dark. On the edge of it they stopped, and floodlights flicked on, sending dazzling beams shafting through liquid so pure, so still, it might have been air. Nothing had moved in this vessel for so long, every particle had settled, and Marin’s sensors registered the temperature inside as cold.

  But the chamber was almost filled with objects, perfect spheroids, white, featureless, each smaller than a man’s clenched fist, and they must have numbered in the millions. The floodlights played over them as sensors collected data in scan after scan, and Marin felt his skin prickle.

  It was Jazinsky who said – hushed, harsh – “Take a word of advice, guys. Stay out of there. Do not go inside.”

  “Dangerous?” Travers asked tersely. “They don’t read like weapons, but damnit, nothing in this place makes sense. They could be mines.”

  “Not weapons,” Jazinsky murmured. “I think … shit, Neil, I think you’re in their nursery.”

  “What – eggs?” Mark’s voice was sharp. “A nest?”

  And Rusch: “Angle your floods, Mark, Harrison, your eleven o’clock.”

  Multiple light beams shafted that way and, high above, recessed into the dome-shaped ceiling, was another doorway, wide, dark, filled with innumerable fluttering, effervescing Zunshu, with their anxious gestures and flashes of brilliant color in the rippling side flanges.

  “Don’t go inside,” Jazinsky repeated. “Even the most timid creature will protect its young. Put them to the test, guys, and you’ll be shooting your way out.”

  “Not the best way to begin negotiations toward an armistice,” Shapiro said acerbically. “Lai’a, this explains your anomalous readings. Life signs, but not life … eggs. They’re not quite alive, not yet.”

  “And cold,” Marin added. On an impulse he suggested, “Lai’a, take readings of the water here.”

  A moment for the scan and analysis, and Lai’a told him, “The water here is almost pure. Levels of minerals, including sodium, are so low, a Resalq or human could ingest it without sickness. At this temperature, and in this chemistry, it appears the embryos will not develop. A small percentage of them are dead; analysis of decomposition suggests this chamber has lain undisturbed for several centuries, possibly very much longer.”

  “Damn.” Marin stepped back, and back again. “Stasis, is it? They deposit the eggs in dark, cold, pure water, and they just … wait?”

  “Wait for the conditions that trigger growth.” Mark moved out and away. “Lai’a, is this the only chamber on the platform with these anomalous readings?”

  “No, Doctor. I have detected eight more.” Lai’a paused. “Data transfer will be complete in ten minutes. Data collected from the nest, or nursery, is adequate. Be aware, individual Zunshu have begun to encroach on your position. I recommend you withdraw.”

  “We’re leaving,” Shapiro agreed, already moving. “We can be back at the boarding tube in five minutes.”

  “Time permits,” Lai’a offered, “for a second diversion, if you would care to investigate an energy signature 200 meters directly below you.”

  “If the Zunshu will permit it,” Vidal said sharply. “They’re still encroaching on us? You want weapons cleared and primed?”

  “The Zunshu are withdrawing,” Lai’a said levelly. “They perceived only a threat to their nest. There is no further activity in your area, and nothing between you and the energy signature.”

  “All right, since we’re here.” Mark’s floodlights closed on one of several ‘doors’ set into the floor. “Which w
ay down – and does it go all the way through?”

  “Take the first, the closest,” Lai’a told him. “It forms a helix, with exits on all sides, at all levels. It appears to be a major thoroughfare, and will take you to the chamber where sensors on the gundrones have detected the energy signature. Light levels are adequate in the upper part of the passage, but fall to near darkness close to the end.”

  “Life forms down there?” Travers asked.

  “No Zunshu. Schools of tiny creatures living in beds of plants resembling feathered kelp. I can detect no threat.”

  “But you didn’t detect this energy signature,” Mark said sharply. “It was a gundrone that detected it. Explain.”

  “The energy signature is extremely faint,” Lai’a said simply. “Life forms are readily detected by thermal traces. The source of the energy signature has none.”

  They had dropped in through the ‘door’ with apparent mass set high, and they went down fast. Marin used his hands to push off from the walls as the passage coiled through the helix Lai’a had promised, and his floods intensified as he dropped into dimness, and then darkness. The liquid here was warm, and so dense with nutrients and microorganisms, it seemed a thin fog gathered as he dropped out into a bell-shaped chamber.

  His boots touched down into a soft ooze, and he found himself knee-deep in rippling stems from which feather-like veins waved in eddies raised by the intrusion. Minute creatures scurried away from the lights – he glimpsed shells, pincers, feelers, tentacles, fins, all the functional and familiar mechanisms of life and locomotion, hunting and feeding, arranged in forms that would have made him blink two hours ago.

  “The energy signature is 30 meters to your left,” Lai’a was saying.

  “What kind of signature?” Vidal demanded. “Damnit, Lai’a, this level’s filthy – the cleaners don’t seem to get in here!”

  “Several parts of the structure have fallen into such ruin,” Lai’a agreed. “Some of it is in disuse; much is neglected. I am detecting machinery behind the walls, under the floors, most of which is either dormant or defective. Power levels across the whole structure are uniformly low.”

  “It’s decaying,” Shapiro said quietly. “There’s a small population, vast ‘nests,’ and the hardware is … dilapidated.”

  “That’s putting it mildly,” Mark mused. “Data transfer, Lai’a?”

  “Four minutes to completion,” Lai’a reported. “Captain Vaurien’s hepatic and renal values have normalized. Brain chemistry is satisfactory. Cardiac and pulmonary function are recovering. Neural grafting and bone welds are excellent; edema has been resolved. All nano are deactivating at this time. Transfusions are complete; IV and pure oxygen feed continue. Nerves to the surgical sites have been severed to curtail post-operative pain. Captain Vaurien is under nominal anaesthesia.”

  The AI was still speaking as Marin and Travers followed the lead gundrone around the curve in the chamber, and Marin might have felt his jaw drop. The particulate haze was dense, interrupting the lights, but what they saw was obvious enough. Ooze, slime and plant material had drifted deeply around the spheres set into the end of the compartment, but he knew at once what he was looking at.

  “Stasis chambers,” Dario whispered.

  “Functional – and I’m counting five of them.” Mark ventured closer and laid one armored hand on the surface of the nearest. He gave a low groan, and Marin knew what he must be thinking.

  “The crew of the Ebrezjim,” Travers began. “The ones who made it out – they reported being held in stasis, not in cells. You think …?”

  “A number of our people could still be inside?” Mark’s voice was hoarse. “Oh, it’s possible. It’s very possible.” He shook himself. “It’s just as possible these are stores of perishable food, time sensitive apparatus, patients waiting for critical treatment.” He withdrew the glove and looked back at Dario and Midani. “We can’t know without opening them, and we can’t open them – not now, not here. We managed to open the chamber on Kjorin, because we convinced it to open itself! We don’t have any key or code to open these –”

  “The code should be in the computer core,” Dario rasped. “Lai’a!”

  “Data transfer is complete,” Lai’a said at once. “The gundrone is on its way to rendezvous with you. The vessel containing the computer core is resealed; I have re-enabled the AI, though available power levels are too low for it to come online for 115 minutes.”

  “And we,” Mark said in a voice like crushed velvet, “are coming back to you.”

  “But, Mark,” Dario began, gesturing sharply at the stasis chambers.

  “They’re not going anywhere,” Shapiro said reasonably. “Lai’a knows exactly where they are – and they’re nowhere near the nest. Judging by the state of decay in this part of the platform, the Zunshu don’t get down here, or if they do, it’s to harvest crustaceans from this swamp underfoot. They never lifted a tentacle in interest when we came here. We can come back for the chambers. Lai’a?”

  “Correct, General. I have the coordinates, and the route charted. The stasis chambers appear to be of no interest to the Zunshu. I have not observed these Zunshu interacting with any machinery, anywhere in the structure. They may well be a primitive sub-species, or a lower caste to which machinery might even be proscribed. Analysis of the data return from the computer core has begun. Information will be available shortly.”

  “You know the AI’s language,” Rusch observed.

  “It is the same, with very minor differences, as the language of the control core of the Kjorin stasis chamber,” Lai’a affirmed.

  “We’re on our way.” Mark turned his back on the five stasis chambers which sat in the murk and detritus, utterly forgotten. He drove Dario and Midani ahead of him while the gundrones took point. “Ten minutes, Lai’a. As soon as we’re aboard, seal the hull and withdraw the boarding tube.”

  “Your priority,” Shapiro added, “is to redock the transspace drive and put us in the sensor blind behind either of the two moons we hit on the way in.” He paused. “Then … share data.”

  “Tell us,” Mark Sherratt whispered. “Tell us the Zunshu story.” A story he had waited all his long life to hear.

  Marin’s belly clenched as he fell into step with Travers, back the way they had come, following the navigation plot through the labyrinth. It might have made sense to the Zunshu mind but even Curtis, with the years of Dendra Shemiji training, had to confess that he was hopelessly lost.

  Chapter Nineteen

  He was awake, pillows behind him, the bed raised to a half-sitting position. His eyes were dilated, his skin pale under the spacer’s tan, and Travers thought he had never seen Richard Vaurien so exhausted. So physically frail. The strength on which he had always traded had been sucked out of him – the price of survival. He was off the IV but a small meddrone hovered at his shoulder, monitoring him constantly, ready with, drugs, medical air, nano. Bill Grant was asleep – comatose, Travers thought, face down on the bed at the end of the Infirmary’s single ward, closest to his office. Vaurien’s eyes flickered open as Travers entered but the muscles of his face did not seem to have the energy an expression would have demanded. He was naked under a sheet; the Infirmary was slightly too warm for Travers. The lights were comfortably dim and the loudest sound was the subtle whirr of the drone standing by Vaurien.

  “Hey.” Richard’s voice was a croak.

  “Hey.” Travers approached the bed with all due caution. As he came closer he saw the last faint mottling of bruises from neck to left hand, and around the ribs. “How’re you doing?” He gestured back toward the door. “They wanted to come in, but Barb and me … we said, one at a time. Barb would have been here, but she, uh, they called her to the lab. Lai’a and …” He stopped himself, knowing he was talking for the sake of it. “Richard?”

  “I’m alive,” Vaurien said in an exhausted whisper. “I don’t remember anything, Neil. Nothing. We were taking a hammering … holding our own. Lai’a … a h
it in the starboard bow quarter.” He closed his eyes for a moment, took three, four deep breaths. “Bill said … Ops was hit.”

  “Ops was destroyed,” Travers told him. “A gravity weapon, way too close for comfort – the Zunshulite armor plate twisted, Aragos collapsed for maybe a second. Less, but it was enough. Ops is gone. We’re running Operations out of Physics 2.”

  “Merde.” Richard blinked up at him. “I guess I caught a lick of that gravity.”

  “I guess you did.” Travers reached out, took his right hand, held it. “Did Bill tell you what, uh, what happened?”

  “No.” Vaurien licked his lips.

  “You want a drink?” Travers reached over him for the glass, and held it to his mouth. Richard took several sips before exhaustion sent him back to the bank of pillows. “You should sleep.” Travers set the glass back on the tray table.

  “Tell me.” Vaurien was slurring, and cleared his throat. “For godsakes just tell me what happened. Anyone else hurt?”

  “Yeah.” Travers took his right hand again. The left lay immobile on the bed at his side. “Tor’s in cryogen. Scheduled for surgery in a few hours – internal injuries, bad ones. That’s the end of his hopes for having kids of his own, until he’s had the cloned organs. You know how it works.” He looked away and swallowed hard on a dry throat, wondering where he would find the words.

  “Someone died.” Richard could see the truth. “Who?”

  “We lost two.” Travers felt an acid prickle in his eyes, and scrubbed them away. “Jon Kim just … vanished. He’d have caught a real lash off the gravity weapon, it’d crush him like a bug. The deck warped, buckled up. You were scissored in it. Jon would have been caught in the same gravity surge, and he’s – I don’t know, Richard. Buried under the deck, where the structural members smashed in on themselves. We looked, but there’s no way to get to him, what’s left of him, without drydocking.”