Beast

by Patrick McClafferty

  Solomon was lucky. Floating in space with no suit was bad enough, but the thruster in question mounted on the outer edge of a cold-sleep ring was a simple unbolt-and-substitute operation, and he had the unit replaced in under thirty minutes. Glancing at the cold-sleep ring from the outside, he realized just how lucky they had been. Several strikes had come heartbreakingly close to penetrating the chambers below. On entry to the ship, he found that he was shaking with the exertion and lack of air, and his head was pounding. His improved form seemed to have limits, after all.

  Elora was waiting for him when he returned to the central lounge. “I’ve changed my mind,” she said in a snippy voice, as if daring him to make a comment. “Giuseppe… my so-called father would have wanted me to at least try and help.”

  “Giuseppe is your father in all the important ways that matter, Elora,” Solomon said softly, touching her arm.

  Her smile was wan. “What do I do now?” she asked, a little catch in her voice.

  Solomon took out a small multi-tool from the tool bag and used the sharp blade to make a small cut in the pad of Elora’s right thumb. In a moment, blood had welled up to a bright-red drop. Holding his cupped palm nearby, he tried something he’d never tried before. He willed one of the shadows within him out. Nothing happened for some time, and then his hand began to fill with an oily black shadow. He moved closer to Elora, and at a few centimeters’ distance, the dark creature jumped the gap to Elora’s hand. She flinched, jerking her hand away from his.

  She glared at the offended thumb and wiped the blood off on her pants. “I don’t feel anything… wait…” Her face went white. “God! It hurts!” she gasped with wide, scared eyes. “Ohhh, Solomon, the burning is going up my arm into…” She began to jerk and spasm uncontrollably.

  Solomon wrapped his arm around her. In an instant, he could feel the calming influence of his own shadowy creature sooth and quiet Elora.

  “It’s going to be all right, Elora,” he murmured, wrapping his other arm around her. “It may take a couple of days to get your feet on the ground with the shadow thing. It’s okay, really.” He could feel the weight of her head upon his shoulder and smell her fresh botanical shampoo when her auburn hair brushed softly against his cheek. Glancing at her, he saw that she was smiling.

  Ohhh, this is very nice. She purred. For a moment, Solomon couldn’t tell whether he was hearing Elora with his ears or with something deeper.

  Her emerald eyes whipped to his face. “You heard that?” she said aloud.

  Solomon smiled and stood back, reluctantly unwrapping his arms from the lithe young woman. “I heard that,” he admitted. “This telepathy cropping up disturbs me, though. I’m afraid it’s new ground for the both of us.”

  “What do I do now?” she asked in a small voice.

  Solomon chuckled. “Get some sleep. It has been a long day for me, and I’m tired.”

  That’s really too bad, came distinctly from Elora, and Solomon’s head whipped around in surprise to stare at the young woman. “You stay out of my thoughts, dammit,” she growled. “A girl has a right to her own privacy.”

  “I wasn’t peeping, Elora. You were broadcasting like an old-fashioned radio station.”

  The young woman’s cheeks reddened. “I think I’ll go to bed, too,” she finally said.

  The following morning, Elora drifted into the central module and stopped. Floating, she sniffed the air. “Coffee?”

  Solomon grinned at her from a nearby counter. “Yup. Gibbs helped me set up a microgravity coffee brewer that was located in the bottom of a storage cabinet. It actually puts out a good cup of joe.”

  Elora gave the Rube Goldberg apparatus a doubtful look before she squeezed out a tube of coffee with cream and sugar already added. She took a small sip and winced. “You, Mr. Solomon Draxx, have been living by yourself for far too long if you consider this stuff good coffee. It should be used as a battery cleaner.” She took another small sip, winced, swallowed.

  “Mr. Draxx, Miss Fontaine, if you would please take a seat,” Gibbs said. “We are approaching close enough to the second whole alien vessel for some visual images of our target.” Both coffee tubes floated away unnoticed as the two stared at the image in the screen.

  “That sucker is bigger than I thought,” Solomon whispered.

  “My instruments tell me that there is an opening on the far side of the vessel, which may be the hangar you seek. Power seems to be working in the forward areas, and there is an atmosphere of some sort, where sensors indicate at least some oxygen is available. The major damage appears to be from a central strike, probably to the control room or computer core, and one strike to engineering that destroyed one engine entirely and damaged two others. From the accumulation of dust and detritus on the hull, I would judge that this battle occurred close to a half million of your years ago. Their power systems must be incredible to have functioned for so long.” There was something akin to awe in the AI’s voice.

  Closer inspection showed that the ship had a strange alien look, as though it didn’t belong in this sector of the galaxy at all. The front end tapered to a dull point, and the front half of the ship was covered with what Solomon could only describe as thick petals or leaves of some sort, but perhaps that was only a design idiosyncrasy. The appurtenant structures, which resembled the pinching mandibles of some great beetle, were probably defensive armor of some sort. Solomon stared, studying the deep pocks from weapons strikes that peppered the hull. What he had initially thought were antennae were actually towers every bit as thick as the central hull of the Lost Horizon, protruding from the central fuselage of the ship, arching forward like talons. Solomon couldn’t begin to fathom their purpose. Six thick irregularly shaped cylinders ringed the second half of the ship, extending out beyond the stern of the vessel by fifty meters. He guessed that they were a drive of some sort, although one of the six appeared to have been sheared off at the base. As they drifted nearer, Solomon noted that the two adjacent engines had suffered major damage and numerous holes had been torn through the tough material of the engine side. The entire ship, from bow to stern was a sinister olive drab color. No windows or running lights were lit, although he could see hundreds of ports strung out beneath the sheltering leaves of the main ship, with more dotting the sides of the tall inexplicable towers. Like the hull leaves, the towers were torn and ripped from the weapon strikes. He found Elora clutching his arm.

  “That is the ship you were talking about?” she whispered, her eyes huge and luminous. “I’m not sure I want to go in that thing.”

  “You really don’t have a choice, my dear.” He smiled to take the bite out of the words. “I will not see you die on this wreck.” He looked at the ceiling. “How are we doing, Gibbs?”

  “Very well, sir. I have discovered what appears to be a hangar on the other side of the ship. Since it is within the front half, it should still have power. Shall I continue, Solomon?”

  “Proceed with docking maneuver, Gibbs.”

  “Proceeding, Captain Draxx.”

  Elora shot him an askance look which he shrugged off. His eyes were riveted on the screen.

  It took three hours of slow careful maneuvering to reach the open hangar door, and Solomon could do nothing but gape at the image in the monitor. The space in the side of the alien ship could have easily held a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier… sideways. Gibbs eased the bulky unwieldy craft with a delicate touch until they were fifty meters from the front of the hangar. Open to space, the front of the hangar seemed to shiver with a life of its own, like heat ripples on a hot desert. The Lost Horizon shuddered and turned its truncated nose toward the opening.

  “That’s about far enough,” Solomon said, worried. “Let’s talk about how you are going to park us in that… thing.”

  “I’m sorry, Solomon, but I cannot comply. This ship appears to have been snared in a magnetic web, and we are about to be drawn inside. I would advise that you sit down. The ride might be a little bumpy.”

>   Solomon and Elora had just planted their butts on the couch when a sudden bright light flooded into the compartment from the large port and they had gravity. Unsecured items throughout the compartments fell to the floor with a cacophonous clatter, and structural members groaned as the starship that had never been designed for gravity suddenly experienced the unexpected pull. The loudest of the crashes came from the microgravity coffee maker hitting the deck and shattering into a million pieces. Elora just smiled sweetly. They sat there for several long moments in silence, before Gibbs broke their reverie.

  “If my readings are correct, the gravity is 10.00985 meters per second squared , or a little more than Terran normal, while the air in the hangar is an acceptable mix of oxygen, nitrogen, and trace gasses, if somewhat chilly at ten degrees Celsius.” Gibbs, Solomon noted, seemed flustered. “It appears that the entire Lost Horizon is being held in a suspensor field of some sort.” There was a long pause. “As you look around in the hangar, will you please keep your eyes open for a data port of some sort? I may be able to get a ship status.”

  Solomon frowned. “Isn’t that a little dangerous?”

  The AI actually snorted a laugh. “So the man says as he prepares to debark into an unknown starship without as much as an accredited EVA suit.”

  Talk about low tech, Solomon grumbled to himself as he slid down the rope to the deck forty meters below. He was more than thankful for the high-power floodlights that Gibbs had activated to help him on his way. The single floodlight shining on the Lost Horizon from the alien ship wasn’t a big help. The engineer’s headband and mic that he wore let him have a two-way conversation with Gibbs. His boots hit the deck with a clunk.

  “Touchdown,” he murmured dryly. “Beginning initial sweep.” He set out toward the nearest wall with a brisk stride. His hand light fell on a delta winged, seventeen meter long shape clamped to the far wall of the hangar, then another and another. “I’ve found what looks like small transatmospheric craft, Gibbs. Two appear to be fighters of some sort, and the third a transport the size of the Terran space shuttle. Could we use them to reach Shangri-La?”

  There was silence as Gibbs studied the images Solomon was transmitting.

  “I’m sorry, Solomon, but the motive power in those craft has long since expired. It’s a shame, really, because there is a small pinnace stored on the far side of the hangar that could hold you and all the members of the Fontaine family.”

  Solomon sighed then stopped as his sight came to rest on a control console set in the rear of the hangar bay. He quickened his pace. “Is this what you were looking for in a data terminal?” His hand light illuminated dials, gauges, and a plethora of screens and keyboards bearing a strange language. On one side of a large screen sat a cluster of holes of varying shapes and sizes. Although he’d worked with state-of-the-art military equipment, what any of the controls in front of him actually did was a mystery.

  The thump in the silent hangar made Solomon jump.

  “Sorry,” Gibbs said quietly. “I asked Miss Fontaine to drop a universal interface cable for you to use to plug me in to the ship’s computer. I know that interfacing this way is low tech, but it’s fast.”

  Solomon grabbed the black cable from the Lost Horizon and dragged it over to the console. Attached to the end of the cable was a universal connector that looked somewhat like an octopus with fat nubs on the ends of its tentacles, the nubs being every computer connector imaginable. The very last one was a small star-shaped plug that fit, with a little wiggling and some judicious shaving with his pocketknife, one of the waiting holes.

  “There you go, Gibbs. I’ll do a complete circuit of the hangar before I return.”

  “That is a sound plan, Solomon. It may take me some time to even say hello to this alien system. It is an alien language, after all.”

  Somewhat later Solomon was standing at the bottom of the rope, contemplating the long climb back up and into the ship when the deck trembled under his feet. The lights suddenly came on in the hangar, washing away the shadows.

  “Oh, dear!” Gibbs said. “Captain, you should get up here. We have a problem, I believe.”

  Solomon began to climb, but the gravity pulling him back to the deck suddenly dropped by eighty percent. He went up the rope, hand over hand, like Tarzan.

  “Was that you who diddled with the gravity, Gibbs?” Solomon asked, reeling in the rope that had given him access to the deck. He closed the outer airlock door as much as he could without severing the data cable, and only then breathed easier. “Well?”

  “Yes and no, sir. I managed to establish two-way communication with the ship, only to have all of the semisentient subordinate systems turn the entire operation of the ship over to me.”

  “They mutinied?” Solomon asked in horror.

  “Not quite, Solomon. The secondary systems simply voted me as their central AI on the ship. Their original AI had been destroyed.”

  “They were just sitting there, waiting to trap another poor sucker into fixing their problems.”

  “Approximately, sir. Computer systems are very patient.”

  “So, do you have any idea what you are to do?” Solomon asked gently.

  “Not a clue, Captain.” There was a long pause. “It appears that they now recognize you as the Captain of this vessel and Miss Fontaine as your second-in-command.”

  Solomon cursed. If it’s not one thing, it’s another.

  “I believe in sharing the wealth,” Gibbs continued. “What are your orders, Captain?”

  Solomon knew that the AI was laughing at him. He thought for a moment. “I’m sure that a ship of this size and complexity has a fleet of self-repair drones. Have they even attempted to fix the ship?”

  “The self-repair systems were the first to fail when the central AI was destroyed. The crew had no backup to replace their central computer, so they had no choice but to abandon ship.”

  Solomon winced. “That’s a hell of a way to go.” He sighed. “Have you found anything unexpected yet?”

  “Yes, sir, in the medical files. The creature inhabiting you and Miss Fontaine is called a Kiniseri Construct. The creature was created at great expense for space travelers and Black Navy personnel by the predecessors of the Adaari, perhaps a million Terran years ago.”

  “Black Navy?” Solomon’s mind staggered from the thought of races sailing the stars while humans still dwelled in trees. “What’s that?”

  “Back on Terra, personnel assigned to military space duty were considered to be in the Black Navy, as opposed to Blue Water or wet Navies, because that is where they operated… in the black of space. To continue, the race that built and manned this vessel were called the Adaari, and they explored much of this arm of the galaxy. At the end, after millennia of more or less peaceful exploration, they met an aggressive spacefaring race expanding outward from the core worlds. The battles between the Adaari and the Bleeth were many and bloody, and what you see around us is the final remains of both fleets. The Adaari fought long and hard to keep the Bleeth from discovering that the remains of the Adaari civilization had already fled.”

  Solomon’s eyes widened in understanding. “They landed on Mars,” he hissed. Beside him, Elora looked stunned.

  “Mars, yes,” Gibbs continued, “but also Terra and one or two other worlds even farther outward from the galactic core. It seems that the Adaari were the origin of your species.”

  Solomon frowned. “Why aren’t there any Constructs on Terra, like there are on Mars?”

  “There probably were at first,” Gibbs began, “but the Constructs aren’t immortal without either a body or a dark cave in a dry climate. It seems that if the latter is present and in the right conditions, the Constructs can actually reproduce asexually. The climate, along with the flora and fauna, on Terra is rather inimical for their extended survival.”

  “What was that you were saying about Constructs?” Elora muttered, clambering into the small airlock chamber with Solomon and starting to coil the rope.r />
  “If the Kiniseri Construct finds or is installed in a suitable host, it will do it’s best to keep said adventurer alive as long as possible. The original designers found this parameter quite cost effective. A trained crewman on a spacecraft could serve in that capacity for dozens if not hundreds of years. The longest known pairing was slightly over three thousand years, and that pairing only ended when the crewman in question was shot by an irate husband.”

  Even Elora laughed at that one. “It gives a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘until death do us part,’ doesn’t it?” Her eyes slid to Solomon.

  He rolled his eyes dramatically but addressed Gibbs. “Okay, if you are in control now, I suggest you put all possible drones to work repairing this ship. Afterward, I should find some manuals and begin studying up on this monster, and if you can, find out about recharging the pinnace. From what I saw as we approached, I don’t believe this crate is capable of landing.”

  “That is an excellent idea, sir, on both counts. According to the data network, there is no such thing as repair drones aboard this ship, but rather programmable repair nanites, so if you should see something looking like a gray fog flowing across the floor, it is probably the nanites off to fix something.”

  Elora looked into the air. “What is the name of this ship, Gibbs? Did you get that much from their data banks?”

  The silence stretched for several long moments. “The name of this ship is, or will be, the Lost Horizon, Miss Fontaine, and you will have to trust me when I tell you that the Adaari had a naming protocol for every situation, including this one. The name of the derelict vessel was changed to that of the rescuing vessel as soon as the mass of the smaller ship was incorporated into the larger ship. Now, I suggest that the two of you get a good night’s sleep. Tomorrow will be a very busy day, I fear.”

  Solomon looked around the small crew mess on the Lost Horizon. “And where do you propose that we sleep, Gibbs?” “Our microgravity hammocks won’t do us any good.”

  “Why, Captain!” The AI sounded affronted. “You will sleep in the quarters I have prepared for you and Miss Fontaine aboard the new Lost Horizon. The interconnected suites are quite nice, actually. Don’t let the ship name confuse you. By tomorrow there will be only one Lost Horizon.”