by Mike Freeman
“Very well. Let's talk about the surface deployment.”
Tyburn escorted Darkwood to the exit.
A couple of minutes later, Ekker walked back to join them. Darkwood looked distastefully at Ekker as he strode away.
“I need to go.”
Tyburn watched Ekker as he approached.
“We good?”
“Yeah.”
Tyburn raised an eyebrow. Ekker sharpened up.
“Yes, Sir.”
Tyburn nodded. He switched to cast as they watched Darkwood leave.
> Darkwood suspects.
> The ORC?
> No, but something. He saw the scanner.
> He'll do what you tell him.
> He hasn't got the nerve to do differently. Industrialists are all the same.
> And if he's not?
Tyburn looked ambivalent.
> Well if you're not with us, Ekker...
Ekker’s eyes brightened and he grinned like a hyena.
58.
Weaver saw Darkwood re-enter the room as they completed their fourth hour of intense development. It was going well; extremely well, all things considered. The Plash ideograms and formalisms were logically organized – the representations of complex concepts frequently fused the symbols of simpler concepts, which gave them an edge in interpreting both the ideograms and their interrelationships. They had identified and translated a considerable set of physics equations and the Plash version of the periodic table. As a result, Touvenay had been able to identify symbols for concepts such as ‘force’ and ‘velocity’ that had unlocked fragments of language elsewhere.
Darkwood shook his head, bemused, as he inspected one of the screens.
“A whole tower of puzzles.”
Weaver smiled. Darkwood had been drawn to the tower image that they’d all been playing with. She wandered over and studied the image alongside him as the others drifted round.
The ‘Puzzle Tower’ displayed row after row of sequences. On each row were a series of cells, each containing a transformation of the preceding cells according to an implicit governing relationship. Toward the end of each row, blank cells were interspersed into the sequence – hence the puzzle. The first few rows were limited to strictly numerical sequences and simple to solve. The following rows were increasingly difficult and then, as the rows progressed downward, the elements of the sequences became equations and the transformations required to solve the sequences grew extraordinarily complex. Incredibly, the rows of sequences carried on all the way down to the base of the tower, twelve hundred meters below.
Weaver smiled.
“There are thousands of lines; we can get down almost a hundred.”
Kemensky shook his head.
“I don’t see the point.”
Fournier glanced sideways at Kemensky. His tone was playful.
“I suppose that tells us who is stuck on line seventy.”
Kemensky's face lit up.
“Ahh.”
Weaver smiled.
“Seventy one.”
Touvenay’s eyes narrowed. He pointed at a pillar set into the wall of the puzzle tower that ran its full height.
“Are those symbols on the column part of the sequences?”
Weaver shook her head.
“Not that we can see. We think they might be signifiers of some kind – designations of difficulty, if you will.”
Touvenay walked over and pointed at the map screen by the Colosseum.
“Look at this.”
Weaver moved after Touvenay, her curiosity piqued. She studied where Touvenay was pointing.
“Ahh.”
In various places, including the location where Touvenay proposed that there was a vault under the Colosseum, there were symbols identical to those on the puzzle tower’s signifier column.
Weaver tapped one of the symbols on the map.
“So the symbols denote puzzles, perhaps access puzzles? And the symbol from the signifier column indicates their difficulty?”
Kemensky nodded as he looked back and forth.
“Access levels...”
Touvenay peered at the symbol.
“So this vault under the Colosseum has an access difficulty equivalent to... the eightieth row of the puzzle tower?”
Weaver nodded excitedly as she noted the correspondence.
“Oh yes!”
There was delighted laughter at this apparent breakthrough. Weaver tried to imagine what it would mean in practice.
“I wonder what that will mean if we go there?”
Fournier pointed to an ideogram adjacent to the symbol denoting the access puzzle signifier.
“That's the question, and let's not ignore the accompanying power level.”
Darkwood looked interested.
“The what?”
Weaver frowned at the additional piece of information in the ideogram.
“The puzzle signifier isn’t the only piece of information in each ideogram; it’s accompanied by a scalar value whose symbology corresponds strongly with some of the energy and power representations we’ve found.”
Darkwood leaned forward.
“Is it the power of what’s inside?”
Weaver ran her tongue along her lip as she thought about it.
““I don’t think so. It appears to be associated more with the puzzle than anything else.”
Darkwood looked confused.
“The access puzzle has a difficulty and a power?”
Weaver shrugged.
“We don’t know.”
Touvenay wrinkled his nose.
“Remember that our mappings may be entirely spurious, and by virtue of where we are in the process will certainly have significant errors.”
Darkwood nodded. He stepped back, his face filling with awe as he drank in the images of the towers.
“Do any of you wonder why this is here? Why they would do this?”
A smile played across Weaver’s lips.
“I think I know.”
Darkwood’s eyes sparkled.
“Do you think they were expecting visitors?”
“You think they wanted to make it easy for us?” Kemensky said.
Weaver shook her head.
“No.”
“Go on,” Touvenay said.
Weaver struggled to suppress a grin.
“I think...” She paused for a moment, checking her assumptions. “I think it’s a school.”
There was silence as they considered this.
“Mmm.”
“Gosh.”
Kemensky frowned. He pointed at the adjacent tower image.
“But then why would the simplest things always appear at the top?”
Weaver grinned from ear to ear. She couldn’t help it.
“Ah ha.”
Fournier brightened. Weaver nodded at him. Kemensky’s brow furrowed. Darkwood’s face lit up.
“Because they can fly!”
Touvenay tipped his head to one side, sampling this thought.
“And as they grow, they get larger and heavier,” Touvenay speculated.
“And lazier?” Darkwood said.
There was laughter.
Touvenay looked thoughtful.
“If they even have the concept of laziness.”
Weaver felt a rush of wonder.
“This is extraordinary. We’re so privileged to see this.”
“Maybe it's our destiny,” Darkwood said, which was so brutally unscientific that it almost derailed the mood.
Touvenay gestured at the images around them.
“Can you imagine the rubbish that humanity would fill our walls with? The alien visitors would turn up and all our holy books would be written on the walls. And they’d just...”
“Fly away?” Weaver said.
There was more laughter. Fournier’s tone was gentle as he spoke in mild rebuke.
“Perhaps they would find our religious writings as inspirational as many of us do. Maybe they’re relig
ious as well.”
Touvenay stiffened.
“Well, we were evolving away from religion, relatively, until the Dem arrived.”
Weaver quickly interjected before Fournier could respond.
“Let's not get side tracked here.”
Touvenay turned back to the map, musing thoughtfully.
“There’s something in this vault beneath the Colosseum that seems to indicate it's a universal equation solution, or a dynamic equation key, or... an index of some kind. The way it's signified, I think it might be some kind of... assistance with allocating meaning. Like a key or a dictionary.”
Weaver raised an eyebrow.
“Or a library?”
“A library under the Colosseum?” Kemensky said.
Touvenay turned with a smile.
“Ah.”
59.
Havoc entered the Hub Hab just as Jafari came in through the far side. Jafari held out his hand as they met.
“I found six relay transmitters.”
Havoc raised his eyebrows in surprise.
“Six. You only found them now?”
What a pointless question, Havoc thought, as the words left his mouth.
Jafari nodded.
“I think they only started transmitting recently.”
“As we get closer to Plash.”
“The thing is,” Jafari said, “unless they were sending a lot of data...”
Havoc frowned down at the collection of surveillance devices.
“There is more than one agent on board.”
Jafari nodded.
“Nightmare.”
Yamamoto came in, her expression serious. But then, Havoc thought, Yamamoto was like every ship captain in history. She always looked serious.
Yamamoto came to a halt beside them.
“I've just found Hwan.”
“Where was she?” Jafari asked.
“Just off our stern. By now, about thirty kilometers behind us.”
Jafari’s mouth fell open.
“What?!”
“At first I thought her body was debris that had slipped off disc four. I think she opened the lock and stepped out. The lock was activated from inside so it must have been voluntary. She'd disabled her comms as well.”
Jafari looked horrified.
“You think she did it to herself?”
“The system audit trail confirms it. The shame of her confession, it must have been too much. Or her contamination.”
Havoc considered this.
“Any footage?”
Yamamoto nodded.
“She walks up and steps out.”
“Hmm.”
Jafari looked uncertain.
“I thought she seemed alright.”
Havoc thought about the breakdowns he'd witnessed.
“Some people crumble in inches. Others stay strong until they fall apart. We need more information. I would treat it as suspicious for now. Does Tyburn know?”
Yamamoto nodded.
“He's investigating now.”
Havoc noticed Jafari looking at him oddly. He looked back. Jafari pointed at the wall.
“Shall I... you know...”
Havoc turned and looked at Marsac on the tribute wall.
Revelation
60.
It waited. It waited well.
It didn't mind waiting. It had no concept of boredom. It was stimulated by the presence of prey and there were none.
It was what it was. A perfect killer.
It didn't resemble an evolved being. Evolution clutters a species with a host of redundant features to deal with bygone challenges. Humans share eighty five percent of their DNA with mice. You could call humans mice without tails, except, of course, that humans still carry the DNA for a tail. Prior to birth every standard human fetus grows lanugo hair – a downy fur coat – before shedding and then digesting it. It's just another pointless evolutionary cul-de-sac. In that sense the creature was unnatural. There was not a single unnecessary constituent of its being. It had been perfectly designed and manufactured to achieve its purpose.
And that purpose was killing.
More precisely, species elimination.
It waited.
61.
Havoc checked the configuration of a static defense station while the disc five hangar bustled with activity around him.
Jafari jogged past Havoc. He was twice as busy with Hwan gone. Tyburn had been adamant Hwan's death was suicide and not another security lapse. Others had been quick to agree. Wishful thinking, Havoc thought. For himself, he wondered why someone would travel all the way across the ship to step out of a lock. Tyburn speculated that Hwan had gone there to think. Whatever the truth of it, Hwan had joined Marsac on the tribute wall. There was no memorial, though – there wasn’t time.
Chaucer moped on the far side of the hangar, morbid and withdrawn. It might be hytelline withdrawal or maybe Chaucer was shocked by the realization of what he'd done to Brennen. Havoc hadn't said anything about it. Chaucer would stay on the Intrepid to look after Leveque, who after Hwan’s 'suicide' was now confined to her cabin.
Havoc glanced up as Whittenhorn, Yamamoto and Tyburn approached him. Havoc was to oversee security on the surface while Tyburn supervised from the Intrepid. Havoc thought either Tyburn had a lot of confidence in him or he thought he was expendable. Maybe both. Certainly, the ‘disposable’ argument would have carried a lot of weight with Whittenhorn.
“Thirty minutes until the Colosseum comes into the shadow side,” Yamamoto said.
Tyburn gestured at Havoc’s kit.
“Ready to go?”
Havoc nodded.
“Save for final checks. What about the other ships?”
“They’re less than twenty four hours from launching,” Yamamoto said.
There was a subtle vibration through the hangar deck. Yamamoto turned to their Acting Commander.
“Disc six is clear.”
Whittenhorn nodded.
“Good. We'll move over shortly.”
Whittenhorn and his newly willing assistants, the lawyers Bergeron and Humberstone, were going to move over to disc six to supervise surface operations. In the meantime Bergeron and Humberstone had, and Havoc was still grappling with this, posted him a formal notification of their pending legal action on shipnet without saying anything to his face. He looked across at the two lawyers as they struggled into their exploration suits. Abbott caught Havoc’s eye and, with a wide smile, he drew a finger across his throat. From your hand to God's ear, Havoc thought.
Havoc picked up the static defense station and carried it to the rear of the shuttle. Novosa sat cross-legged under the shuttle fuselage with her eyes closed. Havoc smiled.
“Last minute practice?”
Novosa kept her eyes closed.
“Meditation.”
“If you meet the Buddha, kill him.”
Novosa spoke serenely with her eyes still shut.
“No stunts planned this time?”
Havoc put down the static defense station.
“Not this time. But a plan is only a plan.”
“Meaning?”
“It's only a successful mission if you come back, Novosa.”
Novosa smiled.
“Coming back is nice.”
“Yeah well hopefully the drones will take the hits.”
He was referring to the guardians at the pyramid. Novosa opened her eyes.
“You can’t eat hope for dinner, Havoc. I think we should just take them out.”
Havoc looked equivocal.
“Assuming we can.”
Novosa aimed along her finger and pulled an imaginary trigger.
“Bite off more than you can chew, then chew it.”
Havoc laughed.
“Says the girl in the armored citadel.”
“How else can a girl be in eight places at once?”
Havoc laughed again.
“Apparently destroying the guardians is a failure of diplomacy.
At least, our Ambassador thinks so.”
“Hence the ban on vaporizing the guardians from space?”
“Right.”
Novosa didn’t look impressed.
“I say diplomacy failed when it blew apart our drones.”
Havoc nodded with feeling.
“Your human shield agrees with you.”
Novosa smiled as she looked past Havoc.
“What a mess.”
There was no malice in Novosa’s voice. Havoc turned to see what she was looking at.
Havoc had insisted on a minimum specification of exploration suit for everyone who planned to exit the shuttle. He and the military types had hard points attached to their skeletons, but most of the other crew didn't or didn't have enough so they wore a harness inside their suit to position them correctly while their suit’s shockgel molded to them. Havoc turned to see Weaver standing in an ill-adjusted and hence ill-fitting harness. He noted a string of beginners' mistakes; over-tightening in one area preventing proper tension in another.
Weaver turned to them at Novosa’s comment. She shook her head and lifted her hands. She didn't look embarrassed, just bemused.
“How should I know?”
Havoc walked forward. Weaver would be wearing the suit for hours and it mattered.
“Do you mind?”
Weaver looked at him expressionless, then shook her head to say, no, go ahead.
~ ~ ~
Weaver felt a flutter of trepidation as Havoc walked toward her.
He reached for her, grabbed her waist strap and cinched it tight. She was a little startled as he slid his hands inside it to check the fit. She was standing slightly away from him and he used the waist strap to pull her closer.
He knelt down in front of her and held her in place with the waist strap while he pushed her feet wider apart with his free hand. He reached between her legs, drew through the thigh straps and set about tensioning them correctly. He moved his hands around her thighs deftly and purposefully, working the straps up into place before checking them.
Weaver stared at him with her mouth slightly open, not saying anything. She bit her lip as she flushed. Luckily Havoc didn't notice as he brusquely positioned her harness. Havoc placed one hand on each of her hips and, eyes level with her pelvis, he checked the alignment. He nodded with satisfaction and stood up.
