The Year's Best SF 25 # 2007

by Gardner Dozois (ed)

  The lander shuddered as she gave the braking jets another shot. She forced herself to relax while they bled off airspeed, the craft bucking in the thick atmosphere. Falling more than gliding, Jenine split her attention between the instruments and the view outside the narrow window. Already, the Wall dominated the view, its stark angles framed by Saturn, the gas giant a monstrous rubber ball cut neatly in half by shadow.

  “Can you see the ship?” Tsing asked.

  “Yeah.” Jenine could just make out a tiny, silver speck against the rust-brown terrain. “I’ve got ’em on visual.”

  She fired the thrusters again, slowed to a drifting hover and extended the landing gear. The radar showed them forty meters above the surface. Thirty meters. Gently, she eased back the throttle. Twenty meters.

  Without warning, they struck. Jenine’s head struck the low ceiling. “What the hell?”

  The lander bounced, struck again and threatened to tip over. Moving on instinct, she chopped the thrust and let the craft settle ingloriously to the surface. A dozen alarms screamed inside the cockpit. She cut them off, made a fast inspection of the board to confirm they were still in one piece, then shut down the engines completely. Sweat trickled off her forehead as she thumbed the intercom.

  “Sorry about the landing, fellas. The radar must have gone wonky on me.”

  “Never mind that,” Tsing said. “Are you sure you set us down next to the right ship?”

  “Of course I’m sure. It’s the only one besides us on the planet. Why?”

  “Look out the side window.”

  She did. Annoyance changed to incredibility, and then to a cold, gripping fear. The ship she had tracked from orbit, the same ship that had glowed with the full heat of landing only seconds before, lay tipped on its nose gear, a rusted hulk half buried in the methane snow. Jenine stared at it, unbelieving.

  The pot-hunter’s ship looked as if it had been here for centuries.

  Nine years.

  Absently, Jenine fingered the hem of her jacket sleeve, the cuff worn and tattered as herself. She smiled at the thought. When was the last time she had gone on vacation, provided you could call two weeks on the UN research station on Iapetus a vacation. Still, it beat the hell out of Titan Control, the cramped, overcrowded orbiter and its wartime mind-set more than most people could stand for a single tour, let alone three of them.

  “Stop it,” she chided herself. Her voice echoed in her headset. Lately, Jenine had found her mind dwelling on the choices she had made, the opportunities lost. It was a bad sign, another indication that it was time to go home. She snorted. As if she could still call Earth home.

  To distract herself, Jenine looked out the narrow window at the frigid, primordial atmosphere. Snow flurries danced, swirling in the floodlights that bathed the area. She watched as four figures, each in a different color E-suit, spread out around the crippled ship. Paul Tsing, wearing a dark blue suit with a white helmet, stopped at the base of the craft’s extended landing ramp and looked up into the darkened airlock.

  “Any sign of the pot-hunters?” she asked over the comm.

  “Negative. Not a damn thing. Unless they have a safe room inside, this ship is cold. Deep cold. I doubt anyone has been here for years.” Even Tsing’s normal calm seemed stretched to the limit. “Are you certain we couldn’t have missed their landing site?”

  “Not a chance.” Jenine had already played back the landing records. The ship was the only craft beside their own sitting on Titan’s ice-choked surface. “Could it have been dead in orbit and came down on autopilot?”

  “Doubt it.” Tsing’s breath cut in and out of the circuit. The man was nervous. “We’re going inside. Let Control know, will you?”

  “Okay. Be careful.”

  “We will.”

  Jenine watched a moment longer, then flipped over to the surface-to-orbit frequency. “Titan Control, Four-eight November, come in.” She waited, but heard only static in her earphones. She tried again. “Titan Control, this is landing craft Four-eight November, come in.”

  The frequency remained empty, silent but for the irregular hiss and pop of lightning. A cold shudder ran down her back. In a system as active as Saturn’s, communication problems were hardly uncommon, the background radiation at times so intense it could distort the strongest signal. But, in the dozens of drops she had made, she had never spent this long out of contact with the orbiting facility. Then again, she never set down this close to the Wall before.

  The Wall. Her gaze drifted to the dark rampart half a kilometer off their nose. The massive structure was so tall she had to crane around until her nose nearly touched the window to see the top of it. Hundreds of tiny, rectangular portals dotted its face, spaced at seemingly random intervals along its length, the far ends so distant they stretched to either horizon until they were lost in the mist. Small wonder dozens of automated probes had passed it off as a geologic feature. Not until a manned mission arrived did anyone realize the thing was an artifact. Within hours, the powers that be had set the greatest discovery in archeological history off-limits until jurisdiction was established.

  Jenine snorted in disgust. That had been a decade ago, and still the UN argued over who had the right to set foot inside first. It had seemed a good place to escape a failed marriage and stalled career, to volunteer for a tour guarding the structure which had, by all evidence done perfectly well on its own for more than half a million years. Now, in retrospect, she could hardly imagine she had ever been that naive. Her eyes began to sting, and she realized she hadn’t blinked once as she stared at the Wall. She shook herself out of the dark reverie and reached for the transmit switch.

  “Paul? What do you have inside?”

  “Just what we thought.” Tsing’s voice crackled, the ship’s hull hampering his signal. “This puppy has been down a long time. Not a drop of power in the system. No sign of crew. Oh, crap …”

  “What’s wrong?” Jenine tensed, instantly alert. Booby traps were the greatest threat any patrol faced. Few of the high-tech pirates that periodically attempted to break the prohibition would risk a physical fight, but nearly all of them were willing to leave a surprise or two aboard their ships for anyone who came poking around. “Talk to me, Paul. What’s wrong?”

  “We’re okay.” He sounded out of breath, clearly shaken. “I was wrong about that crew, that’s all. The pilot is still aboard.”

  “Alive?”

  “Neg on that. She’s inside her suit, but frozen solid. Looks like the body’s been here for ages. And you’re not going to like this part. The suit is a GenDyn Six.”

  “You’re kidding?” Jenine’s eyebrows furrowed together. The General Dynamics Mark Six was standard issue for UN troops assigned to deep space missions and not available to the public. She glanced over her shoulder at the locker where her own suit hung ready should she need it, then turned once more to the window. “Must be stolen. Can you see the ID patch?”

  “Stand by. We’re checking now.”

  Jenine waited, her heartbeat practically the only sound other than computer fans and the soft moan of wind around the hull. She zipped her jacket tighter against the chill in the cabin. Impatient for news, her hand moved toward the transmit switch when Tsing’s voice returned.

  “We’ve got an ident.” Another long pause.

  “And?”

  “Jenine …” Tsing’s voice sounded small, as if he was fighting the urge to vomit. “According to the patch, the corpse sitting in this chair is you.”

  They faced each other across the fold-down table in the passenger compartment. Out of his suit, Paul Tsing was a short man, with a thick shock of black hair and boyish eyes that belied the deep wrinkles carved around them. Normally, he was a rock. But not today. His face was pale, almost waxen, and like his three teammates, the scent of cold sweat hung around him.

  “There’s a rational explanation,” Jenine said. She looked around the cramped chamber. None of the others would meet her gaze. Two of them, Morrissy
and Kvass, were new replacements. The fourth inspector was a dour, pinched-faced man named Bruner who had been transferred up from Jupiter two years earlier, no doubt a reprimand for something. Only two ways, she thought glumly, to wind up at Titan. Volunteer or screw up. She took a sip from her coffee bulb, then continued, uncomfortable with the silence.

  “The suit was stolen, that’s all. There must be dozens of Mark Sixes unaccounted for.”

  “Fine,” Tsing said quietly. “What about the ID patch?”

  “Someone hacked my records. It happens.”

  “Maybe.” Tsing took a drink, scowled, then pushed his own coffee aside. “We’ll know more once we get the DNA back from the tissue we cored.”

  “Christ, you don’t think it’s me in that suit, do you?” Jenine’s eyes widened in mock horror. Nervous laughter spread around the table. Even Bruner managed a weak grin. “Come on, guys. There’s a logical explanation. We just have to find it.”

  Tsing’s eyes locked on hers. “You weren’t over there.”

  A low rumble coursed through the hull, strong enough to feel through the padded benches. The sound built into an undulating wail, then faded. One of the newbies, Kvass, practically jumped out of skin.

  “What was that?”

  “The thing that goes bump in the night.” Jenine motioned him to sit back down. “It’s just our fuel still bleeding off the methane into the main tank. You’ll get used to it after a while.”

  “How long until the tanks are full enough to break ground?” Bruner asked, practically the first thing he had said since returning from the pot-hunter’s ship.

  “Three hours, maybe four.” Jenine shrugged. “It doesn’t really matter. We won’t have a launch window for seventeen hours. And that’s only if I can reestablish commo. I don’t like the idea of launching blind.”

  “Any idea what’s wrong with the radio?” Tsing asked.

  Again, Jenine shrugged. “I think it’s background noise. I’m running a full diagnostic now, but it takes a while.”

  “Well, then …” Tsing spread his hands. “We’ve got a few hours to kill. Might as well get some rack time.”

  “What about the intruders, sir?” Morrissy asked. He sounded so young Jenine had to stifle a grin. “Shouldn’t we do something about them?”

  “We are.” Tsing sank back onto his narrow couch. “In case you haven’t noticed, there are only two ships in walking range. One of them is dead, and we’re sitting in the other one. They’re stranded without us. When they knock on our airlock, we’ll arrest them. Until then, I’m going to get some sleep.”

  Frost built on the inner surface of the window. Despite the heaters, it was cold inside the cockpit. Jenine wrapped her arms around herself. The muted snores from the passenger cabin were somehow reassuring, a human touch on an indifferent world.

  No, she reminded herself. Titan was not indifferent. It was dead. A void, smog-shrouded chunk of ice and rock whirling about a gas giant so far from the sun it might as well have been in interstellar space. Almost against her will, she turned to the narrow window and stared at the enormous structure outside.

  “It’s still hard to believe, isn’t it?”

  Startled, Jenine spun around in her chair. Tsing stood in the narrow doorway, a blanket wrapped around his shoulders. He glanced at the empty copilot’s chair.

  “Mind if I sit down?” He eased into the high-backed seat. “Why here? Of all the places in the solar system, why would any race build something like that here?”

  “A message, maybe?” She shrugged. “They wanted to see if we became a space-faring race and left it as a marker.”

  “You know, I’ve never bought that explanation.” His eyes traveled down the length of the enigmatic artifact. Titan was still on the sunward side of Saturn, but the feeble light that penetrated the haze revealed few details. “If they really were interested in our technological advances there are better ways to do it than this.”

  “All right, then, maybe the aliens landed here for the same reason we do. Titan’s a perfect refuel point.”

  Tsing nodded thoughtfully. “That makes sense. But, it still doesn’t explain our friends out there.”

  He tipped his head toward the other ship. Floodlights from the lander bathed it in a bright pool of light, accentuating the sharp angles. Unlike most pot-hunters, who relied on stealth technology, this ship had simply blazed in-system along a standard approach path, almost as if they didn’t care if they were spotted. Methane snow flitted back and forth in the wind before finally falling to ground. Skeptical as she was, Jenine couldn’t help but notice how deep the accumulations around the machine were. If she hadn’t seen it land, she would have sworn it had been sitting in the same spot for decades.

  “How long has it been?” Tsing asked.

  “Nearly five hours.” She knew what the question meant. Whoever the pot-hunters were, they couldn’t have been this long from their ship without carrying spare oxygen and batteries, and if they were using thrust-packs, which seemed likely given the lack of footprints, their range would be limited. Six hours, seven at the most, she estimated, before the crew had to return or die of asphyxia. Unless, of course, they were already as dead as the frozen corpse they had discovered. A cold thought hammered against her, and she swung around to face Tsing.

  “What if this is a decoy? What if there never was a crew, and that ship was just sent down to distract us while the real potters land somewhere else?”

  “I thought of that,” he admitted. “Seems like an awful lot of trouble to go to.”

  “Given what a single artifact from inside the Wall would be worth …” She let her voice trail off.

  The creases around his eyes deepened. After a moment, he changed the subject. “Any luck with the commo?”

  “No. I’ve ran the diagnostics twice and can’t find a damn thing. Has to be outside interference. I’m running a new scan on the tracking dish now, but …” Suddenly, she paused. Something out the corner of her eye struck her wrong, and she leaned closer to the window. “What the hell?”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “The ship’s gone.” Shaken, Jenine looked again. To her amazement, the derelict was back, snow swirling around its hull. She shivered. “Wonderful. Now my eyes are playing tricks on me.”

  “Never mind that,” Tsing said, an urgent tone in his voice. He pointed toward the Wall. “Look up near the top tier of portals. Our friends are back.”

  High above the red-hued snowdrifts, barely visible through the haze, a light glowed in one of the rectangular openings. Even as they watched, it brightened, then faded, as if someone holding a lamp had turned to face them then quickly swung away. Eyes locked on the wall, Jenine asked, “What now?”

  “Now?” Tsing stood up. “I wake up the guys and suit up. Looks like we finally get to see what’s inside that son of a bitch.”

  Time slipped to a crawl. Jenine sat alone inside the lander and watched the team march across the barren expanse toward the Wall. By regulation, she had donned her excursion suit, the stiff, bright green fabric uncomfortably snug around her chest and waist. She hated this part, the waiting, the feeling of utter uselessness while the rest of the team took on the real risk. Protocols had been in place for years, contingencies by which a team might actually enter the Wall should the structure be at risk. Under perfect circumstances they would have been in constant contact with the orbiter before such a decision was made, but with the commo down and clear evidence that someone had already penetrated the Wall, Tsing had made the only real choice he could.

  Jenine shifted in the padded chair and tried to get comfortable. The waiting tore at her, the sensation that she was little more than a glorified chauffeur. Too much time on her hands, too much time to think. Think about why she stayed out here, and why she was reluctant to go back to Earth. So many missed opportunities, all the bright promise of her life dwindled to this odd little corner of the solar system. She had been running from herself so long she sometimes wondered
if she could ever catch up.

  The speaker crackled. “Are you reading us all right?” Tsing sounded slightly out of breath.

  “Roger that.” She glanced at the center screen, now split into four separate views, one for each of the team members. “A-V and telemetry all five by five. You got any tracks yet?”

  “Nothing.”

  Jenine leaned closer to the screen. She couldn’t imagine how the pot-hunters had entered the Wall without disturbing the snow around it. Even with thrust-packs there should have been marks. Nothing about this mission made sense, and not for the first time since they landed she felt the fear twisting within her stomach. She tried again unsuccessfully to contact the orbiter, then let her eyes drift back to the center screen. Already, details from the Wall were visible, the surface a mottled, pitted gray, cracked and worn by the harsh environment. If she had expected something high-tech she was disappointed. The material looked like any of hundreds of terrestrial ruins.

  A dark rectangle hove into view, the nearest of the portals on screen as Tsing’s helmet lamp played across the opening, revealing a narrow hallway within. “Here we go.” No mistaking the tension in his voice.

  “Roger that,” Jenine replied, her own voice barely a whisper. Like most of humanity, she had seen the old footage relayed back by the robot probes the initial teams had sent inside. Rough, skittering images of twisting, intertwined passages and stairwells, most so steep the probes had been unable to ascend. No artifacts had been found, no inscriptions or murals, nothing to indicate who or what had left the enormous monument. She tensed as Tsing’s camera view darkened, then stabilized once he ducked under the lintel.

  “Do you see anything?” she asked.

  “Not much. It’s pretty tight in here. Barely enough room to squeeze by. Lots of snow piled up … damn it!”