"Maybe they can. Darya, calm down." Rebka grabbed her again, pulled her close, and spoke with his mouth next to her ear. "Did you hear me? Cool off, and think before you jump to conclusions. You've been in communication for about two minutes with something that says it's at least six million years old, and you're willing to take everything it says at face value. What makes you think you understand what it means, or it understands you? Lots of what it said makes no sense—'the ones who fly outside are not true Builders.' That's not information, it's gibberish. More than that, where did it learn to speak our language? How did it even recognize the human shape, if it's been locked away inside Quake for six million years? There were no humans anywhere that long ago."
But the green light was pulsing again, illuminating them and the whole of the domed chamber.
The testing proceeds. The rusty voice spoke again. It comes close to completion . . . close enough to be sure that the modified one is a true human, and acceptable. It is not necessary for you to be here . . .
"Then take us back to the surface," Rebka said.
"No!" Darya moved in front of him. "Hans, if we go back now we may as well never have come here at all. There are so many things we might be able to find out here about the Builders. We may never have as good an opportunity."
You seek the Builders, the creaking voice went on, as though neither human had spoken. I am not a Builder, and I cannot guarantee the result. But if it is your desire to encounter the Builders—
"It is!"
Then, GO.
"No. Darya, will you for God's sake wait a minute! We don't know—"
Rebka's shout was too late. They were standing on the brink of the tunnel as the edge turned suddenly to vapor.
Free-fall!
Rebka looked down to his feet. They were accelerating at a couple of gees along a featureless vertical shaft that ended half a kilometer below them in a darkness so total that the eye rejected its existence.
"What is it?" Rebka heard Darya's despairing cry beside him.
"It's Glister's gravity field—whatever creates it—maybe a . . ." He did not finish the phrase. If they were falling toward the event horizon of a black hole they would know about it soon enough—know it for maybe a millisecond, before tidal differential forces reduced their bodies to component elementary particles.
"Hans!" Darya screamed.
Two hundred meters to go, still accelerating, faster than ever. Maybe a second left. And now the darkness possessed a structure, like a roiling whirlpool of black oil, curling and tumbling onto itself. They were heading into the churning heart of that dark vortex.
Rebka's empty stomach was churning, too.
A fraction of a second to go.
Childhood on Teufel had taught him one thing above all others: there was always a way out of every fix—if you were smart enough.
You just had to think.
Think.
Apparently he was not smart enough. He was still thinking, unproductively, as he dropped into the depths of that writhing blackness.
CHAPTER 14
The unmanned Summer Dreamboat had arrived in one piece and in working order.
That was the good news. The bad news was that it had been touch and go.
Five grazing encounters with Phages had delivered hammer blows to the Dreamboat's hull, one strong enough to dent and puncture the top of the cabin. The repair was not difficult, and Birdie Kelly was already half finished. But the significance of those five near misses was not the damage that they had done. It was what they revealed about the state of the Phages. Steven Graves and E. C. Tally had monitored the ascent of the Dreamboat and were agreed for once: the little ship's survival, even with all collision-avoidance systems active, had been mainly a matter of luck. The Phages were more active than ever, all the way down to the surface of Glister. A descent with accelerations that humans could stand had less than a one-percent chance of success.
The Summer Dreamboat had been moved for repairs into the capacious ore hold of the Incomparable. Graves and Tally were floating free in the air-filled interior, talking and talking.
And watching me work, Birdie thought. Same as usual. The other two were long on talk, but when anything calling for physical effort came along they managed to leave all the doing to him. And they lacked a decent sense of danger. Birdie hated to work with heroes. He had listened to Steven and E. C. Tally casually talk odds of a hundred to one against, and shuddered. Fortunately, Julius Graves seemed to have more rational views.
"Those odds are totally unacceptable," he was saying. "When you and Steven are in agreement, I am forced to listen. We cannot afford to take such a risk."
"May I speak?"
"Which means we have a real problem," Graves continued, ignoring Tally's request. "J'merlia is on Dreyfus-27. Probably deep inside it, since he does not answer our calls. So he can't help. And everyone else is on Glister. And we have no safe way of getting to them." He paused. "Did you say something, E.C.?"
"Steven and I agreed on the probability of survival if the Summer Dreamboat simply makes a direct descent to Glister. Or rather, we disagreed in the third significant digit of the calculated result. But there are other options. It depends on the probability level which one uses to define 'safe.' For example, there is a technique that would raise the probability of a successful landing of the Summer Dreamboat on the surface of Glister to a value in excess of zero-point-eight-four."
"A five-out-of-six chance of getting there in one piece?" Julius Graves glared at Tally. "Why didn't you mention it earlier?"
"For three reasons. First, it came to me only after a review of analogous situations, of other places and times. That review was completed only thirty seconds ago. Second, the technique should provide a safe landing, but the odds of a safe subsequent ascent are incalculable without additional data concerning the surface of Glister. And third, the procedure would probably lead to the loss of a valuable asset: the Incomparable."
"Commissioner Kelly." Graves turned to Birdie. "The Incomparable is the property of the government of Dobelle. As the representative of the government, how would you view its possible loss?"
Birdie had finished the patch on the Dreamboat's hull and burned his thumb doing it. He pushed himself off and glared around the Incomparable's hold as he floated up to grab a support beam at Tally's side.
"It's a filthy barrel of rust and rot, it stinks like a dead ponker, and it should have been thrown on the scrap heap fifty years ago. If I never see it again, that's too soon."
Tally was frowning at him. "Am I to take it, then, that you would sanction the potential loss of the Incomparable?"
"In one word, matey, yes."
"Then if I may speak, I will outline the technique. It is something that can be found in the older parts of the data banks. In old times, when human individuals wished to accomplish an objective that certain other guarding entities sought to prevent, they often employed a method known as creating a diversion . . ."
Agreement in principle did not guarantee agreement in practice. E. C. Tally and Steven Graves had argued endlessly about the best method. Should the Incomparable be sent in well ahead of the Dreamboat, passing through the periphery of the cloud of orbiting Phages and seeking to draw them away from Glister? Or was it better to fly the old ore freighter on a trajectory that would impact Glister, and take the Dreamboat in not far behind, relying on its being ignored in the presence of the freighter's larger and more tempting target?
Tally and Steven Graves had finally agreed on one thing—that they had insufficient data.
"Since there is not enough information to make a reasoned choice," Tally said apologetically to Birdie Kelly, "the only thing I can suggest is that we resort to aleatoric procedure."
"What's 'aleatoric' mean, when it's at home?" Birdie was reaching into his jacket pocket.
"An aleatoric procedure is one that contains chance and random elements."
"Why, that's just the way I was thinking myself." Birdie p
roduced a deck of cards and shuffled it expertly. He held it out to Tally. "Pick a card, E.C., any card. Red, and the ships fly a long way apart from each other. Black, and we tuck ourselves up the old Incomparable's tailpipe."
Tally selected a card from the spread and turned it over. "It is black." He had stared in great curiosity when Birdie shuffled the deck. "What you did just then—it was difficult to see, but is it designed to randomize the sequence?"
"You might say that." Birdie gave E. C. Tally a thoughtful glance. "Didn't you ever play cards?"
"Never."
"If we get out of this alive, why don't I teach you?"
"Thank you. That would be informative."
"And don't you worry," Birdie patted Tally on the shoulder. "We won't be playing for high stakes. At first."
"That could have been us." Julius Graves was staring straight up. "Not a comforting thought."
They had finally decided that since the Dreamboat needed time and maneuvering space to land on Glister, it would be a mistake to have the Incomparable fly in all the way to the surface. Instead, the bigger ship had been programmed to zoom down to ten kilometers and then veer away from the planetoid, with luck luring the cloud of attacking Phages with it.
As the Dreamboat increased the power level of its drive for the last hundred-meter deceleration to the surface, the Incomparable could be seen skirting the northern horizon of Glister. The old ship was at the center of a dense cluster of marauding Phages. Already it had sustained a dozen direct hits. The drive was still flaring, but Phage maws had gouged great chunks from the body of the freighter. About twenty Phages clung to the flanks of the Incomparable, like dogs worrying an old bull.
"They'll be back," Julius Graves went on. "The way they're going, they'll have swallowed the freighter completely in another half hour. And Phages don't get indigestion, or lose their appetite, no matter what they ingest."
Birdie had chosen an approach trajectory to bring them no more than fifty meters from the Have-It-All, on the side of the ship away from Kallik's field inhibitor. There had been no time to examine that installation during their descent, and would not have been even if the Dreamboat's evasive movements from a handful of isolated Phages had been smooth enough to permit it. Now they had to hurry over to the inhibitor and decide what to do before any Phages returned to harass them.
The two men and the embodied computer had their suits set to full opacity. Kallik, Darya Lang, and Hans Rebka had certainly been able to breathe the atmosphere; and just as certainly, they had disappeared from the surface of Glister. Their vanishing and failure to reappear was unlikely to be the result of Glister's air—but it could be. As E. C. Tally pointed out, quoting from the most ancient part of the data banks, "Taking a calculated risk, sir, does not oblige one to act rashly."
While Graves and Tally went on to the site of the field inhibitor, Birdie took a quick look inside the Have-It-All. He headed first for the control room. The ship was untouched, ready to fly within a few seconds of giving the command. That gave Birdie his first warm feeling for quite a while. He patted the control console and hurried back outside.
He had half expected to see the surface of Glister littered with crashed Phages, but there were only two crumpled remains in sight. Did they lose interest if no organic life-forms were present? That was a new thought—though not an encouraging one, to an organic life-form.
Birdie followed the stretched cable from the Have-It-All's stanchion to the place where Graves and E. C. Tally were standing. Tally had his hand on the line, close to the point where it disappeared into the gray surface, and he was tugging on it vigorously. As Birdie came up to them Tally released the cable, reached down, and pushed his hand easily into the slate-colored plane.
"Observe," he said. "The field inhibitor is still operating, with near-perfect field cancellation. The surface offers negligible resistance to the penetration of my hand, and at this point it must, I think, be a weakly secured gaseous form. But the cable itself offers considerable resistance to its own withdrawal. We conclude that it must be secured at its lower end, within the interior of Glister."
"In other words," Graves said, "it's tied to something."
Now that he was close enough, Birdie could see that the surface for a radius of a few meters around the field inhibitor appeared slightly indistinct. And the legs of the inhibitor equipment stood not on Glister, but buried a few centimeters in that hazy gray.
"So who shall be first?" Graves asked.
"First for what?" But Birdie knew the answer to that question before he asked it. The one thing that made no sense was to come all the way here, run the gauntlet through that belt of aggressive Phages, and then sit and wait for the same Phages to come back and dive-bomb them. The only way to go was down, into that gray horridness.
Tally had taken hold of the cable without waiting for discussion. "It is possible that I will be unable to return messages to you through the suit communications system," he said calmly. "However, when I reach a point where it is appropriate for another to descend, I will strike the cable—thus." He hit it with the palm of his suited hand. "Feel for the vibration."
He pushed his feet over the edge and swung hand-over-hand down the cable. His body disappeared easily into a gray opacity. When only his head showed above the smoky surface he paused.
"It occurs to me that my words leave the required action for some possible future situation inadequately defined. A contingency may arise in which I become unable to strike the cable in the manner that I described. If I do not signal in a reasonable time, say, one thousand seconds, you should assume that contingency."
"Don't worry your head about that," Birdie said. "We'll assume it."
"That is satisfactory." E. C. Tally disappeared completely. A second later his head popped up again from the gray haze. "May I ask, if I do not signal in one thousand seconds, what action you propose to take?"
Birdie stared off to the horizon. The hulk of the Incomparable had vanished—devoured, or flown far away, he could not tell. There was a cloud of glittering motes visible in the same direction. The same Phages, probably, sensing motion on the surface of Glister and coming back for another go at it.
Except that these Phages were not interested in the surface of Glister. They wanted to have a go at humans. At him.
"I don't know what action we'll take, E.C.," Birdie said. "But don't be surprised if it happens before you count out your thousand seconds."
The cable went down ten meters through gray obscurity, then emerged into a spherical region with another gray floor and a ceiling above it that glowed with cold orange light.
Birdie clung to the line, high up near the ceiling, and peered downward.
It was a long drop—a horrid long drop, for somebody from a planet where the buildings were never more than a couple of stories high; and there was no sign of E. C. Tally down there. But the cable went on, straight downward, into the floor.
Birdie slightly relaxed the grip of his hands and knees and continued his controlled descent. When he came to the part of the second floor where the line ran through, that surface proved just as insubstantial as the first one. The field inhibitor had been focused downward, and for all Birdie knew, its effect went right through Glister and out the other side. He allowed himself to drop on through. Somewhere above him, Julius Graves was waiting for his signal, as he had waited for E. C Tally's. But this was no time to give it, suspended in midair.
The gray fog filled his nose and mouth, passing through his supposedly sealed suit as though it did not exist. The gas was thin, tasteless, and odorless, and it did not interfere with Birdie's breathing. In another ten meters he was through that and dropping again toward a spherical surface.
This level was more promising. There were structures and partitions and webs, dividing the space into giant, oddly-shaped rooms. Birdie was coming down into one of the bigger open areas. He released the line with his crossed legs, let go with his hands, and dropped the last few feet. The gravity w
as more than he had realized. He landed heavily and flopped backward to a sitting position. Before he stood up he took a quick look around.
Dull gray walls. A jumble of nets and unconnected support lines on the floor, right by his side. He was sitting on a length of flexible netting, springy enough to be a bed. The cable he had come down ran off to the right, to a descending ramp that became part of a brightly lit tunnel.
Off on that right side—he stopped, stared, and stared again. On that right side, close to the entry to the downward ramp, was E. C. Tally.
And crouched next to him, eight legs splayed, was J'merlia.
Birdie scrambled to his feet. The Lo'tfian was supposed to be hundreds of thousands of kilometers away, on Dreyfus-27. What was he doing here?
Birdie jerked at the line he was holding, to send a signal back to Graves that it was safe to descend, and hurried across to the other two.
"You were right about messages, E.C.," he said. "I assume you tried to send something through your suit communicator, but we didn't hear a thing."
"Nor I from you. The surface is presumably impervious to electromagnetic signals, though it permits material objects to pass through with no difficulty." E. C. Tally gestured to J'merlia. "It is not necessary for you to introduce the two of us, Commissioner Kelly. We have already done that. Although J'merlia and I never met before, I recognized the Lo'tfian form from stored records."
"That's as may be. But what's he doing here? Why aren't you over on Dreyfus, J'merlia, the way Captain Rebka's messages said you would be?"
"I beg forgiveness for that act. I came to Glister to seek the masters, Atvar H'sial and Louis Nenda, and also the Hymenopt Kallik. But when I was on the surface, I was forced to seek refuge in the interior from the attack of Phages. The ship that I had arrived in, the Summer Dreamboat, took off from the surface and left me helpless."
"Sorry, J'merlia, that was our doing—we needed it to come down in. But you were a bit ambitious, wouldn't you say, looking for Nenda and H'sial and Kallik? Seeing as how we've all no idea where any one of them is. You'd have been better off staying on Dreyfus, out of harm's way. Phages are bad news."
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