Payne scratched his jaw, chuckling uneasily. "So what else can we talk about?"
"Oh, we could start with the time of day—though it's debatable whether I should give it to you. Still, I don't think I'd have to turn you in for asking."
"That's a relief." Payne thought for a moment. "Say, Donny, old boy."
Alvarest's eyebrows went up a fraction of an inch.
"I wouldn't want you to compromise yourself, as you know. But when you say, 'People think someone's leaking to you,' that would seem to suggest, just from, oh, a linguistic perspective, not to say common sense, that I might regard that as a sort of left-handed confirmation of my story."
Alvarest cleared his throat. "Very left-handed."
"Well, nothing against lefties. I'm just trying to understand what you said. Wouldn't you say that it's—?"
"Shit, Joe, I thought you quality journalists confirmed your stories before you went on the air with them."
"Well, yes. But, you know, there's no such thing as too much confirmation."
"If you're asking me to vouch for your story, forget it. You've wormed too much out of me already."
"Wormed—!"
"Splinters under the fingernails."
Payne snorted—then thought, Was Donny, indirectly, trying to hint that his interpretation was correct? That he could regard his story as being confirmed?
Alvarest looked sideways for a moment. "Joe, I hate to cut into a beautiful conversation, but my dinner is about to burn."
"Okay. Just one more thing," Payne said hastily. "Could you comment if I told you that I knew that Father Sky was getting ready to hook up with an alien spaceship?"
"Are you on drugs? No way."
"Oh. Well, okay. I just thought I'd ask."
Alvarest looked at him with a pained expression. "If you're planning to run a story like that, I hope you're very careful with your facts."
"I will be. Listen, since you can't comment, would you happen to know anyone connected with Father Sky, or Tachylab, who might be able to give me some background information?"
"Background?" Alvarest repeated.
"Sure. Just background." Deep background, dummy.
"Not offhand. You going to be down here soon?"
"Probably. Should I look you up?"
"I wouldn't want to be heard saying, you should." Alvarest looked toward his dinner again.
"Okay. If I happen to bump into you, so be it."
"Can't be helped, I guess, if you run into me. Joe, I see smoke!"
"Bye," Payne said. "Thanks!"
He stared moodily at the darkened screen for a time afterward, leaning back in his chair. He felt a nagging guilt about trying to impose on his friend. Donny, after all, was in a sensitive position. Maybe it didn't matter. They hadn't actually discussed anything classified, after all. But—if Donny's department was involved, this was probably a good time to make himself scarce, where Donny was concerned, if he didn't want to put his friend's job in jeopardy.
So much for his "other source."
Chapter 40
From a quarter of a light-year, the sun was one star among hundreds of thousands. In the pale illumination, Kadin and Mozy were forced to amplify the images to about thirty times their original brightness as they inspected the surface of the asteroid, or at least the fraction visible from the spacecraft. They used spotlights only briefly, not wanting to alarm their hosts.
On first impression, what they saw was a little disappointing. The place looked pretty much like any other asteroid. The surface appeared brownish black in color, with here and there a metallic glint, and the expected pitting and micrometeoroid erosion. There was no external evidence of habitation, nothing to suggest visibly that it was anything more than a lifeless rock. Seismic probes listening at the surface, however, confirmed that it was indeed hollow, and furthermore, detected sounds of internal activity, a symphony of murmurs and groans.
Someone was in there, all right—and Mozy and Kadin were so busy probing and speculating on how one might get inside that they almost failed to react, when they received a transmission from the aliens in MacEnglish. (My god!) Mozy cried, as the words flowed into her mind:
(WE WELCOME YOU TO OUR TRAVELING HOME, AND THANKS BE FOR TROUBLING TO GREET US. WILL YOU COME WITHIN? DO WE MADE OURSELVES UNDERSTOOD? TELL US, OH. TELL US, DO.)
Mozy was so astonished that she had to replay it to catch the meaning.
(Remarkable,) Kadin said. (An invitation. They've been studying our language, apparently, far more efficiently than we have theirs.)
It was true, Mozy had to admit. She hoped they did a tenth as well in their attempts to use the alien tongue. (What are we going to tell them?)
Kadin already had the channel open. (Your mastery of our language is excellent. Our thanks and congratulations.)
(WE HAVE LISTENED TO MANY OF YOUR BROADCASTS. WILL YOU COME WITHIN?)
(Indeed, we would like to. May we send a remotely controlled extension of ourselves, a mechanism to send us pictures and sounds of your home?)
(A . . . WE ARE NOT CERTAIN OF OUR UNDERSTANDING . . . A "REMOTELY CONTROLLED EXTENSION"?)
(A machine. Like the one in which we came, but much smaller.)
(THAT WOULD BE SATISFACTORY. BUT YOU ARE WELCOME TO COME IN BODY . . . IN PERSON.)
Kadin tried to explain that the spacecraft was their body. (I am called "Kadin." I am a creation of Humans, and exist only in this form, as a machine. With me is one called "Mozy," who is a true Human, but no longer in bodily form. Her essence, her personality, lives with me in this machine.)
(LIVING PERSONALITIES IN NONLIVING BODIES? HOW D0 YOU CONVEY YOUR THOUGHTS TO US?)
(We . . . convey our thoughts directly, through a transmitter. Programs and filters help us . . . organize our thoughts into forms that . . . can be expressed through tachyon or radio links.) Kadin paused. (It is difficult to explain out of context, How do you convey your thoughts?)
(WE . . . SIMPLY SPEAK . . . FOR NOW. LATER, WE MAY SING.)
(I see. Perhaps you would like to say a few words to Mozy. Simply direct your words to her. Mozy?)
(Right here,) she replied. What should she say . . . to aliens? On an impulse, she opened herself to direct link. Would they know what to do?
(YOU ARE CALLED "MOZY"?) said an echoing voice in her mind. (WE ARE CALLED . . . IN YOUR WORDS, CALL US . . . "TALENKI.")
(Talenki . . .?)
(TALENKI,) repeated the aliens. And then something bubbled into her mind—sparks, and an explosion of crystalline musical notes and hallucinatory colors. There was movement: shadow and light rippling through her consciousness like a fountain of images, all indistinct, more like laughter and longing, sorrow and joy, than visible forms. It rushed through her, filling her like a tide, then ebbed away again.
(Pleased to meet you, Talenki,) she murmured.
She thought she heard echoes of amusement; but she couldn't be sure whether they came from the Talenki or from deep within herself.
(Let's tell Homebase we're ready to go in,) Kadin said.
* * *
(David? Are you all right?)
It took him a few moments to answer. He was readying the probe unit for separation. Finally he said, (Everything seems under control, doesn't it?)
(Yes. But that isn't what I asked.)
He fiddled a bit more. He was preparing to transfer a portion of his consciousness into the probe's brain. (No.) he said finally. (It wasn't, was it?)
(It seemed . . . I'm not sure.) She tried to isolate what it was that troubled her. (You seem less sure of yourself. Not as quick . . . as you have been in the past.)
(No.) Again silence. (I feel a certain . . . sluggishness. What does it mean to have a "headache"?)
She showed him. It took concentration to recall the feeling, and to convey it in an open image. The effort made her own head ring.
(Not exactly like that.) he said. (But yes. I'll try very hard to keep my faculties clear.)
(I'll help you all I can
.)
(I know you will, Mozy. I know.)
* * *
The probe separated from the spacecraft and bumped gently to the surface. Three axles extended from its body, one forward and two aft. At the end of each axle was a ball of steel wool. As Mozy watched, Kadin activated the heating elements, and the wool balls expanded, as the individual strands of wire alloy responded to the rise in temperature by unkinking and returning to a "remembered" previous shape. When the process was complete, the probe sat on three puffy, donut-shaped wheels of wire mesh. It was an odd, bubble-topped robot with skinny manipulator arms folded against its side. Inside the bubble, camera lenses rotated. Kadin started the electric motors. (Hope they didn't give us a lemon,) he said, as the probe bounced gently away over the landscape.
He surveyed the spacecraft with the probe and then disappeared over the horizon. Mozy peered at the views coming back, recording them for retransmission to Homebase. Since the Talenki had specified no entry point, they were going to start by exploring the outer surface in detail.
One part of the asteroid looked like another, some areas slightly darker, or rougher. They puzzled over readings indicating shifts in mass-density and gravity as the probe roamed the little world. They had hoped to measure the anomalous field effect, but the best they could manage was to observe the smearing of star images from space, and even that changed from one part of the asteroid to another. (Curiouser,) Kadin said, as the probe circled back. (Maybe we ought to ask where the door is.)
A short discussion with the Talenki ensued, and Kadin drove the probe a short distance further forward—then suddenly braked. Directly ahead, nearly flush with the ground, was a circular, mirror-flat surface, pearly grey in color, ringed by what looked like a sculpted band of silver. The plane was perhaps a meter and a half in diameter, and recessed slightly into the surface of the asteroid. (An airlock?) Mozy guessed.
(Perhaps.) said Kadin. (But why did we miss seeing this before?)
He moved a camera from side to side. The surface glimmered with a faint iridescence. After a moment's hesitation, he switched on a small searchlight. Rings of color exploded from the spot touched by the beam, rippling outward and rebounding from the rim in a kaleidoscopic pattern that shifted and shimmered as he moved the beam. Beneath the shower of color, a dim shaft of light was visible, penetrating the flat surface. He snapped the beam off. The color play died out slowly, a moment after the light went out. (Curiouser and curiouser,) he said.
He inched forward and unfolded a manipulator arm.
He stopped, the arm half extended. A bulge had appeared in the grey surface, protruding upward. It looked . . . almost like a head. He backed the probe out of the way. A moment later, a body followed the head, and a glistening silver creature—or perhaps a machine-stepped out onto the asteroid's surface. It walked on four legs, and was shaped rather like a fawn, complete with pointed ears, silvery bright against the dark of space.
(Holy shit,) Mozy said.
Kadin was somewhat more diplomatic. (Are you a Talenki?) he voiced over the otherwise silent link to the aliens.
The creature, or thing, turned its head to peer at the probe. It moved in a graceful waltz around it, reaching out with two small forearms, which it passed close to the probe's body. A bubbly voice came over the Talenki link, muttering incomprehensibly; then it switched to English. (PLEASE SEAL OFF GAS-EMITTING MACHINERY.)
Kadin shut down the probe's attitude control jet system. He didn't expect to need the jets inside, anyway.
The creature bobbed its head. (WELCOME TO ENTER,) Mozy heard over the link. The creature swung its head toward the entryway, and a moment later, disappeared back the way it had come.
(Well?)
(I guess we try it.) Kadin said. The probe rolled forward. The front wheel dropped over the rim and sank through the grey surface without resistance, tilting the probe forward. Kadin gave the motor more juice, and the rear wheels rolled over the rim. The probe sank nose-first through the opening. The images sparkled and scrambled.
(Every sensor just went to zero,) Kadin said. And then: (They've all come back. Except the tilt meter. According to that, we've been vertical to local gravity all along. We never tipped a degree.)
When the images cleared, they were in a roughly spherical, smooth-walled chamber. The probe rolled to a stop. The portal it had come through was behind it, a whitish plane of fog. There were several other portals exactly like it, around the circumference of the chamber. The probe was alone.
(Holding room?) Mozy wondered.
(Argon atmosphere,) Kadin remarked. He adjusted the focus and light amplification level, then cautiously played a spotlight over the wall. Fine etchings became visible, apparently covering the entire wall. He rolled the probe closer, zoomed the camera in. The etchings, lined with a metallic substance, consisted of geometric designs and figures that might have been alphanumeric symbols, or perhaps ideograms. Kadin scanned the etchings, as Mozy recorded. (If you have a chance, you might study those symbols.)
(In my spare time.) Mozy answered.
Kadin swiveled, to examine the portals. (I'm not certain if I should proceed,) he said. (What ho!)
One of the portals shimmered, and something wrapped in mist stepped out of the fog and walked up to the probe. It was shaped like the creature that had met them outside. (Hello,) Kadin said. (I wonder if this is the same one.)
Mozy conveyed the words, and heard a bubbling whistle in response. The Talenki—she presumed that was what it was—danced around the probe, repeating the inspection. Mozy wished she could get a good look at it, but the enveloping mist billowed and flowed with its movements, obscuring its form. Moments later, the Talenki voice reached her—through both the ship's receiver and the probe's. (PLEASE FOLLOW.)
The Talenki slipped back through the portal. Kadin wheeled the probe around and followed. As before, the sensors fluctuated as they passed through the portal, then stabilized. (Nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere,) Kadin said. (Low light level. Let me amplify. Aha.)
(Talenki,) Mozy said.
In the gloom of a passageway, she could just make out a smooth-furred creature that looked rather like a cross between a deer fawn and a Doberman with unbobbed ears. It gazed back at her with two large, luminous gold eyes. It gestured with two centaurlike arms. Mozy had scarcely captured the image before the Talenki turned and fled down the passageway.
(Wait!) she cried.
Clumsily, in the unknown terrain, Kadin endeavored to follow.
Chapter 41
(No indication of malfunction,) Kadin said.
(Then what are we looking at?) said Mozy.
The images were clear but bewildering: faceted corridors surrounding the probe, angles that seemed to change without warning, walls that bewitched the eye like a hall of mirrors. The interior illumination was scarlet one moment, amber the next, with overtones of indigo and green. Now the light seemed to glow from energies hidden deep within the walls; now it shined in crisscrossing shafts like tinted sunbeams on an autumn day.
A Talenki, not the one that had escorted them in, looked back to see that the probe was following. Then it emitted a short whistle and trotted ahead through a stone archway into a dimly lighted tunnel. The game of tag had been going on for almost an hour.
The Talenki were everywhere and nowhere, like ghosts, appearing and disappearing through what their guests had presumed to be solid walls. Individuals were difficult to recognize, but at least four or five Talenki had materialized to lead the probe, only to vanish, to be replaced by another. At least one Talenki was always nearby, gesturing this way or that.
Kadin was hopelessly lost. The inertial sensor readings utterly contradicted the twists and turns they had observed in their path through the asteroid's interior. Nothing seemed reliably solid or linear—not the walls, not the ceilings, not the floors. Opaque surfaces dissolved into smoky light. Shifting shadows hardened into doorways. A seemingly impenetrable maze of angles collapsed into a womblike chamber.
&n
bsp; Could this all be an elaborate visual illusion? Radar and Doppler-sonar had ruled out the surroundings being holograms, at least of any known sort. Instrumentation could reveal little more, but the walls, at least, were walls. Except when something was passing through them.
(I'd love to see Homebase make sense of this,) Mozy said, as they moved into a passage flanked by sheets of green and yellow light, in which geometric figures flickered and swirled. Her first thought was that the figures resembled a sort of Rorschach diagram, and then she noticed that some of them appeared to have legs and arms, and she wondered if they represented alien species—of the Talenki world, or elsewhere.
The Infinity Link Page 33
