“I'll break it to the geology team,” Salazar replied. “To be honest, I'm not unhappy about that. I'd be upset if someone started slicing chunks out of my ship without warning.”
“Agreed,” Clarke said. He fired a single, quick burst from his thrusters, gliding smoothly over the surface, the strange flashing pattern beneath him, brief glimmers of green and purple. “Any idea what these lights are?”
“Computer can't even get started on that,” Salazar said. “I think the only answers we're going to get today are the ones you bring back for us, Sub-Lieutenant. We're still trying to crunch the data from Monitor, but its going to be days before we have anything from that. Right now we're dependent on you. I hope I don't need to make it clear that you are to take no unnecessary risks.”
“One look at the horizon did that, sir,” Clarke said. Behind him, Mortimer and Garland stepped out, this time going straight to their suit thrusters without suffering the embarrassment he had suffered. The single repeating red light of the beacon drew them closer, and with a puff of gas from his forward thrusters, he brought himself to a stop by its side, leaning down to look at the device. It had been modified, a suit pack bolted to the underside to keep it in position, the fuel all but exhausted.
“TSS Monitor,” he read, the lettering already fading. He carefully reached down to the control panel, and added, “I was really hoping for a big button to push. This is definitely the site, though, and whoever placed it went to pretty extraordinary lengths to make sure that it remained in position.”
“Over there,” Garland said, pointing. “Looks like a control panel. A series of switches.”
Shaking her head, Fox replied, “It can't be that simple.”
“Who said that opening a mile-long airlock had to be complicated?” Clarke said, pushing over to Garland's discovery, a raised platform that pushed above the field on the surface, a series of buttons in sequence, each of them neatly labeled in vaguely recognizable hieroglyphs. “Alamo, are you getting the image from my helmet camera?”
“We are, but I'm not sure that I quite believe it,” Salazar replied. “That's Proto-Indo, right enough, dating back about thirty thousand years.”
“You're saying that our ancestors built this?” Mortimer said in disbelief.
“No, but they might have been here, and they might have managed to work out a way to get inside. Or perhaps they met the original builders.” Clarke looked down at the controls, and asked, “Can we get a translation?”
“Already on it,” Salazar said. “Wait one.”
Clarke looked up, taking in the phenomenal view around him, the endless sea of gray punctuated by the constantly alternating lights.
“I wonder what they are for?” he asked, gesturing at the nearest pattern.
“Who says they have to be for anything in particular?” Mortimer replied. “They're beautiful. Whoever built this place must have had a real sense of aesthetics.”
“John,” Salazar said, slightly stunned. “You know you wanted a big button?”
“I was only joking, sir.”
“I'm not. The middle button on the console, if our translation is correct, will open the doors. The outer doors, anyway. None of the controls seem to have anything to do with the inner hatch, assuming there is one. I'm sending through an updated translation database to your suit computer, so that you can operate independently. Get this clear, Sub-Lieutenant. The decision to proceed is entirely at your discretion, and if you want to pull the plug and head for home at any time, you will have my full and complete support.”
Shaking his head, Clarke replied, “We could wait for weeks gathering every last scrap of sensor data, sir, and probably still end up right where we started from. My intention is to proceed as planned and see what happens next. Let's at least get a good look at the insides of the airlock. I'm trying to picture what that sort of machinery must be like, and I'm failing.” Without another word, he tapped the button, and a beam of light seemed to erupt from the floor as the hatch instantly began to slide open.
Something in the gravity field sent them tumbling, sliding them in all directions, safely clear of the opening hatch. Reaching to his sleeve, he fired a quick blast from his thrusters to arrest his movement, sending him on a slow glide back to the fringes of the hatch. He struggled to return to his feet, finally giving up and sliding on his front across the surface of the sphere, dignity yielding reluctantly to practicality.
“Report, everyone,” he said.
“Embarrassed but alive,” Mortimer replied.
“That goes for me,” Fox said. “In spades, sir.”
“I'm at the edge, Sub-Lieutenant,” Garland said. “You won't believe it. I'm not sure I believe it. It's fully opened, sir, and it goes down forever.”
Sliding over to the side of the paramedic, carefully playing his thrusters to ensure that he didn't abruptly fall into the gap, Clarke looked down the hatch, his helmet reader suggesting a depth of a hundred miles. As though falling into a planet's atmosphere. A biggest surprise awaited him as he looked at his pressure indicators, and he turned to Garland in shock.
“Spaceman, are you reading this?”
“I know, sir. I didn't think you'd believe me if I told you.”
“Report, Clarke,” Salazar pressed.
“This isn't a conventional airlock, sir. I think it's more of a safety mechanism. We should have realized that a normal system wouldn't be necessary. There's atmosphere down there, sir, about fifty miles down, getting denser as it falls. The gravity field must be keeping it attracted to the surface. No surprise that there isn't any outgassing, Captain. This is as near as you are ever going to get to a perfect system.” He reached into his pocket, pulled out a portable sensor, and dropped it down the shaft, the device sending measurements as it fell, finally burning up in the atmosphere below a moment later.
“We're not going to get down there on thrusters, are we,” Mortimer said, moving to the far side. “Even if we didn't have the atmosphere to worry about, there's no chance in hell that we'd survive re-entry.”
Nodding, Clarke said, “I recommend we use the shuttle, sir. She's capable of the descent, even under conditions such as that. What do you say, Midshipman?”
Koslowski instantly replied, “Raring to go, sir. We've got enough fuel to go down and up if we're careful. Based on the sensor data, we won't use too much on the descent. The ascent might be another story, but you could always drop down additional tanks if we needed it.”
Looking around the smooth shaft, Clarke continued, “No sign of the mechanism. It must all be built into the system. Though it doesn't have to be robust.” He paused, then said, “Don't think airlock, sir. Think customs and passport control.”
“Might be truth to that,” Harper said, breaking in. “We're getting data from the interior. Atmosphere is breathable, slightly higher levels of oxygen than on Earth, but a slightly lower pressure as well. It seems to just about even out. You won't need the suits on the surface.”
“Do we have permission to proceed, sir?” Clarke asked.
“With caution, Sub-Lieutenant, and I expect you to abort if there is any sign of trouble. Leave some portable sensors on the surface, just in case.” He paused, then said, “Shuttle Three is already on the way to your location with additional fuel. They'll be able to rescue you if you run into anything unexpected. Good luck.”
“Yes, sir,” Clarke said, looking at Garland with a smile. The paramedic's face was loaded with dread, but he reluctantly nodded as Clarke pushed back to the shuttle, smoothly gliding across the surface of the sphere. This was what he had signed up for, the promise of seeing unknown worlds, strange new races out among the stars. The recruiter had offered him a chance of adventure, and all the nightmares seemed to recede as he allowed himself to settle back and enjoy the ride.
The airlock door was already open, and the four of them tumbled inside, Cla
rke pulling off his suit as soon as he cabin pressurized, making his way up to the cockpit. Koslowski offered him the controls with a wave of her hand, but he shook his head, happy to settle into the co-pilot's seat, bringing up the sensor display.
“Nice and steady, Connie,” he said. “No sudden moves, and don't wait for the order if you think something is wrong. That said, let's do this.”
“Aye, sir,” she replied, a wide smile on her face. She felt it too, the same sense of exhilaration, of exultation. “Thrusters firing, one-tenth power.” The shuttle gently slid across the surface, gliding towards its target, and Clarke strapped himself in, waiting for the lurch. After a moment, it reached the gap between the airlock doors, and the fall began, wing surfaces opening to arrest the descent.
“Parachute ready,” he said, his hands on the controls. “Looks like we might get a free landing out of this. Fuel status?”
“All green,” she replied. “Eighty percent.”
“Good,” he said, as they slid down the shaft, only a brief correction required to bring them down the center axis. The tunnel was opening out, now a dozen miles across and growing fast. There was nothing at the bottom other than more sky, blue and white with clouds that might be hundreds of miles across waiting for them at the end of the journey.
“That's odd,” Koslowski said. “Gravity's dropping.”
“No surprise,” Clarke replied. “I was expecting it. My guess is that it will drop to zero and then reverse. Something's got to be keeping that atmosphere pinned down, and our orientation is about to change.” Looking at the baffled crew, he added, “Don't get the idea I understand any of this. I'm just trying to apply some logic to the situation.”
“Looks like you're right,” Mortimer said. “Zero for a second, and now we're falling faster. Being pulled towards the other side. I've never seen anything like it.”
“Altering orientation,” Koslowski added. “Damn, if we can work out how this artificial gravity field works, it'll change everything. Think of the ships we could build!”
“Let's not get too far ahead of ourselves,” Clarke said. “Watch your heading.”
The tips of the wings began to glow as the heat build-up began. Aside from the walls of the shaft on either side, it might have been a normal re-entry. Their speed rose, then dropped as they slammed into ever-thickening air, warning alerts sounding as the walls continued to recede. To the left, Clarke briefly glimpsed what appeared to be a passage, carved into the hull, but it was gone before he could be sure.
“Ten miles to go,” Koslowski said. “All looks good so far.”
“Alamo, this is Shuttle Two, can you read me?” Clarke asked. He paused, then repeated, “Alamo, this is Shuttle Two, can you read me?”
“Shuttle Two, this is Alamo Actual, reading you loud and clear. We're all cheering you on up here, and getting some great readings from the sensors.”
“Thank you, Alamo. We'll try and give you a good show.”
With a loud report, the shuttle went subsonic, and Koslowski brought the engines up to minimum power, ready for their emergence into the outer sphere. Only a few miles to go, and Clarke tensed up, not sure what he was going to see, only that it would be something that would defy any expectations he might have had. That much, at least, was certain.
“Two miles. Deploy parachute,” Koslowski said, her composure returning.
“Doing it,” Clarke replied, and the carefully packaged compartment at the top of the shuttle opened, releasing a massive parachute, their speed instantly dropping as it unfurled, gently guiding them down. “We'll probably need a burn to take us to the surface on the far side. Be ready. This is going to be a tricky landing.”
“Now he tells me,” Koslowski muttered.
“Getting some wild readings back here,” Mortimer said. “Temperature, pressure, all suitable to life. You could crack open the window and take a breath quite comfortably.”
The shuttle fell through the widening gap, residual velocity sending it hundreds of feet into the air. The brief glimpses of the view that Clarke saw were astonishing, but he didn't have time to enjoy them as the shuttle lurched around, Koslowski firing the engine to rotate the ship and kick it towards the nearest landmass, miles distant.
“Come on, old girl,” she muttered. “Come on.”
With one final shunt, the shuttle settled into position at the edge of a hundred mile cliff, a shaft that seemed to go to nowhere, and Koslowski turned off the engines with a relieved smile, beginning the post-flight checks.
“Fuel is at fifty-two percent, though that gravity field should make leaving a lot easier than arriving. All we'll have to do is jump. Maybe we came in through an exit.” Throwing controls, she added, “The shuttle is clear, sir. All green.”
“Look at it,” Mortimer said, peering out of the cockpit viewscreen. “My God, look at it.”
Outside, the land seemed to endlessly run, the shuttle perched on a grassy plain that could easily be thousands of miles across, lush forests on the perimeter in every direction. It felt as though they were at the bottom of a huge bowl, and all around they could see glimpses of the sphere, vast deserts, sheets of ice, mountain ranges, immense, hundred-thousand-mile oceans, black wastelands.
Up in the sky, the sun was surrounded by crescents of black, slowly creeping towards them as they watched. In the shaded areas, there were pinpoints of light, cities that must be hundreds of miles across to be seen at this range.
“Well,” Clarke said. “We're here. Let's take a look.”
Chapter 7
Salazar looked at the viewscreen, eyes roaming around the image transmitted from the shuttle, transfixed at the wonders unfolding. Standing next to him, Carpenter beamed, looking periodically down at her datapad, scanning the reports coming in from her science team. She placed her hand on his shoulder, and sighed.
“So far we've found fifteen thousand potential points of interest. We could spend a hundred lives and still not reach them all. More than three thousand cities, and those are just the ones we can see. And look at this.” She reached over to his armrest and touched a button, bringing up an ice-covered sea with strange blue lights dancing across it. “Computer can't work it out, but there's a good chance that it's some sort of form of communication. Non-human aliens.” She frowned, then added, “Of course, that sea is three million miles away. Might be a while before we get around to it.”
“The place is littered with signs of civilization,” Foster added. “I'd say that Koslowski's guess that we found an exit, not an entrance, is probably right. Sending supplies down won't be easy, but I think we could come up with a trajectory that would allow unpowered soft landings. Getting back will be child's play. Just drop into the hole and burn for null-grav.”
“Our first priority must be to get Shuttle Three to set up some sort of staging area on the surface. Then we can move the ship closer, and...”
“Wait a minute,” Salazar said, interrupting Carpenter. “Someone down there is playing with induced gravity fields, Lieutenant, and I'm not risking Alamo by getting too close to them. You'll have to content yourselves with shuttles for the moment. More than that, until we get a favorable report from the first team, I'm not sending anyone else inside. Lombardo can wait out on the surface until we get the all-clear. Bowman, what about communications?”
The technician looked up, dazed, then turned a dial, inundating the bridge in the babel of a million conversations at once, gabbled in every language imaginable and a thousand more, a wave of static roaring through the heads of every listener.
“Isolating anything in that mess is going to be a nightmare, sir. Lots of encrypted chatter, signals that I suppose are languages, beacons...” He shook his head, and continued, “I'm having a difficult enough time picking up our own people in all of that, Captain. I've got the computers trying to break it down, but it isn't going to be a quick job. Though I have picked up
snatches of Russian, English some Proto-Indo-derived languages, and what I think is a Neander dialect.”
“Maybe we could install some detectors inside. Over a large enough area, it would make triangulation possible,” Scott suggested.
“We're talking thousands of miles, though,” Francis said.
“In a shuttle, that's a matter of a few hours,” Harper replied.
“Haven't you noticed that, Lieutenant? No sign of any aircraft. No shuttles, nothing.” He gestured at the image, and said, “We're seeing only a small portion of it, and what appears to be an uncivilized region at that, but it still seems rather strange.”
“Our shuttle made it down to the deck well-enough.”
“Sir,” Clarke said, breaking into the conversation from the surface. “We've picked up something interesting. A cluster of ruins, and a shuttle. Triplanetary design, same make as ours. Could be someone from Monitor down on the deck.”
“If there was anyone there, they'd have signaled, surely,” Francis said.
“Unless they were forced to leave it behind. Sir, I'd like permission to go and take a look. It's about six miles away, but we can be there and back in four hours, and it would be a good place to start. I'd rather not move the shuttle, but if the other one is intact, we can bring it back. Salvage the data.” He paused, then added, “We haven't seen any sign of intelligent life in the local vicinity, but a herd of what looked a lot like bison are traveling about ten miles away.”
“Bison?” Francis asked.
“That's what the computer said, sir. I'm just taking its word for it. The grass outside is Terran as well. I suppose we might have stumbled on an area friendly to humans.”
Turning to Salazar, Francis replied, “Sir, I like this less and less by the moment. We don't know what brought Monitor here, and if there are a million different environments down there, stumbling onto one friendly to humanity sounds like the longest of long shots. More than that. If this is an entry point, someone else must have seen it as well. I'd expect it to become the hub of some sort of interstellar civilization.”
Battlecruiser Alamo: Shadows in the Sky Page 6
