"Bal-ah-gee," she repeated softly.
They rose, and Hugh moved her to the door, so that Balaji would not see her as she dressed. Then he touched the monitor. "Hello, Bal-ah-gee," he said. "What's up?"
"Hugh, I am very worried. Mary is not responding to her monitor or to my repeated poundings on her door. Can you ask The Nine to open—"
Mary stepped in next to Hugh and, thus, into Balaji's field of vision. "Hi, Balaji," she said, and then sheepishly smiled.
"Oh, there you are—Oh! Oh my! This is what it appears to be, is it not?"
"We're just having a chat," Mary said, then placed both her arms around Hugh and snuggled her head into his shoulder with a contented smile.
"I am so pleased for the two of you! I knew I was correct!" He went on, "You two were made for each other. Oh, my—I am sorry, I'll ring off now." The monitor reverted to a plain metal panel.
"What must he think?" Hugh asked.
Mary turned to Hugh and whispered, "I don't care."
****
Later that day, everyone met in front of the hatch where they had originally entered, now referred to as 'the front door'. Hugh was carrying an oddly-shaped rifle. Only a little more than a meter in length, it was obviously designed for a smaller hand.
"It seems The Nine have acquiesced to my request for a weapon. All I can tell you is that its target acquisition method was made for a different sort of eye, so I will have to use Kentucky windage to aim this thing. It has a range of about sixty meters and The Nine have limited it to five shots, because Dr. Whitmore has but five shots. Regardless, we are this much better protected now."
"I hate all this," Mary said. "We were the hunted, and now Joe, Martha, and perhaps, Bob, are dead. Now, we are hunting Stan."
"Mary, I told you I intend to save you. If this is what it takes so be it. Besides, The Nine understand that their chance of going home depends on our survival. We have to go out into this base, so they have provided us a means to defend ourselves.
"The Nine have shown me where several small components we will require are to be found. Half-way between this cavern and another identical to it is a power relay station. In it are several containers of spare parts for the power coupler and counter-gravity assembly, which are exactly what is needed to repair a part of Zellat 43's propulsion system. We are to gather the required parts from this station and move them to the ship."
"How does it work, Hugh? What drives the spacecraft?" Larry asked.
"There are two separate methods. One is for intersystem flight, among and between planets within a solar system. It is accomplished by means of gravity manipulation. It seems they long ago discovered the equation that governs gravity, something that has long eluded humanity.
"For travel between systems, or even galaxies they bend space and time. At this point, I become lost, because they send me the equations that govern this method of travel, and it is far beyond my ability to comprehend."
"Hm," Balaji said, "sounds like a gravity warping, magnetic propulsion device. NASA experimented with one based on Burkhard Heim's quantum theory back in the early part of the century."
"Okay, Doc, sounds like you know more about it than I do."
"Not really. I picked that up doing some light recreational reading."
"Wow, you must be the life of a party."
"Indeed. You should see me dance."
"You should see Hugh dance," Mary said with a smile.
****
Despite Hugh's new alien weapon Larry and Balaji remained 'armed'. Balaji kept the pipe and Larry took up Hugh's old spear. Staying close together, they set out to retrieve the parts they needed. Hugh was in the lead, then Mary and Balaji, with Larry bringing up the rear. They returned to the long, wide corridor with the tracked floor that connected the two separate facilities. Their trek to the power relay station was uneventful.
The door into the station was nothing special. Hugh thought it looked like all the others. Upon entering this door, the lights beyond illuminated. The room was large, easily sixty meters in depth and thirty wide. The place was filled with the oddest-looking machines Hugh had ever seen; modern, and even fantastic in their design. Some of these apparatus were mounted on the floor while others hung from above. One particularly massive contraption jutted out into the room from the wall. All of this equipment was very much alive and operational. As Hugh led them on a serpentine route through the room, they saw the occasional control panel. Now and then, they were witness to bolts of electricity arcing through the air, and coronal discharges. The room smelled of ozone, and the hair on their bodies stood up.
"Is this where they generate their power?" Larry asked.
"No," Hugh replied, "this is just a relay station."
"I've been an electrician all my adult life, and I've never seen anything like this. I don't see anything I could describe as transfer switches, breakers, disconnects, transformers,electrical bus bar systems, power distribution systems, insulators, or even high voltage wires."
At the far end of the room, they found the storage boxes. Inside were strange components made of unknown materials, and though unfamiliar to them,the components were mostly smaller than a breadbox.
Hugh went through and selected only the parts required, putting the heaviest items in his pack and distributing the rest of the treasures to the others.
The return trip was passing quietly until they reached the end of the large corridor. From somewhere far off in the dark, they heard laughing. It echoed and reverberated through the hallways and corridors. They all froze.
After a moment, the laughing ceased. They waited silently for several minutes, but no further noise was heard.
"Whitmore," Larry muttered.
Quietly, Hugh said, "Keep moving."
Upon returning to Hotel Insularum, Hugh had The Nine close the door at the end of the 'T' intersection, and they proceeded to the front door, where they set their heavy packs down. From here, they all gathered in Hugh's room for a meeting.
"It's not like we didn't suspect he was still alive," Larry noted.
"What do we do now?" Balaji asked. Just as he did the E-COM Mary had brought from the dome crackled to life on the default frequency.
The voice was weak and hushed. "Hello, can anyone hear me?"
"Oh, my God," Mary gasped. "It's Bob!"
Hugh grabbed the E-COM. "Bob, this is Hugh."
"Hugh, you've got to help me, he's gone mad."
"Bob, we have to know where you are."
"I don't know. It's dark...the floor is wet and cold and—"
"Bob!"
"I have to go!" The E-COM went dead.
"He's holding Bob hostage!" Mary said.
"I thought for sure he was dead after all this time," Larry said.
"We have to rescue him," Balaji said, "Hugh?"
Hugh was sitting very erect, staring into nothingness. His eyes did not alter as he spoke. "The Nine have shown me all the possible sites that fit Bob's description of his location.
"How many are there?" Mary asked.
"Eight-thousand-four-hundred-sixty-eight."
"Damn, Hugh, it'll take months to search for him," Larry pointed out.
"I'm open to all ideas," Hugh offered.
Everyone became silent. A moment passed then Hugh spoke again, "The Nine said they will maintain the vigil around the clock, Pixie will search the identified areas, and they suggest we begin work on Zellat 43."
The group all agreed that this was the only real solution. With heavy hearts, they returned to their packs. Hugh slung his pack over one shoulder and carried his weapon at the ready. He escorted everyone outside to Zellat 43. Hugh's head was on a swivel, his eyes scanned all about as they walked out of the facility and toward the spacecraft.
The huge disk sat on four small, thin legs that Hugh thought insufficient to support the weight of the craft. Each appeared to be a thin wedge from the bottom of the hull that had simply folded down.
As Hugh and his companions
approached it, the bottom of the ship lit up. At the bottom, right in front of them, a rectangular opening about two and a half meters wide and almost four long appeared and extended from the outer edge in toward the center. From the base of the opening came a ramp that seemed to form from the material of the bottom of the ship. It extended out beyond the hull several meters, making it easy for them to ascend the ramp. As they started up the ramp, Huge noticed the ship's interior lights illuminate.
At the base of the ramp, Hugh bid the others wait as he ascended and entered into an arched corridor which branched to the left and right, not unlike the corridors in the lunar domes of JILL. The ship appeared to be empty, so Hugh waved the others up. Standing in the rounded corridor was similar to standing inside a tube. The surfaces were smooth and seamless. The floors were made of the same material they had grown accustomed to seeing throughout the alien facility. The ship's interior walls glowed with a soft bluish illumination throughout.
Again, they were surprised to see no instrumentality. However, considering the job they were being asked to perform, they knew they would soon learn a great deal about the workings of this craft.
They entered and followed Hugh as he turned to the left, passing a number of small rooms with open doors. The rooms were little more than closets, and empty. They had traversed about one third of the diameter when they came upon a connecting passage. It was identical to the corridor they were traversing, and perpendicular to it. It was a short, connecting passage to another identical corridor deeper inside the ship but with a smaller circumference.
"Here," Hugh said. "We put our packs down here."
They set their packs down as they gawked about. Hugh had assumed that far-away look which indicated he was communicating with The Nine. "We are to go now in this direction." Hugh turned to the right. Again, they walked about a third of the circumference when they came to a round door. This one seemed, by its construction, to be reinforced. There was no obvious mechanism that operated the door, though it opened as they approached. Apparently, The Nine controlled passage through this portal. Beyond, they could only see total darkness.
Chapter 27
They entered and the lights slowly illuminated. They found themselves inside of a spherical chamber some six meters in diameter. It seemed to be made of the same purplish gray metal they had seen in the 'brain' room. They were standing on a disk with a short railing around it seemingly attached to the side of the sphere right by the door. In the center was a chair formed of a clear material and obviously made for one of the diminutive aliens.
As Hugh approached the seat he said, "Okay." No doubt he was talking to The Nine. He then sat in the chair. "I am advised that the rest of you need to hold on to the chair." A moment later, there came a mild jerk to the platform, and it began to slowly move toward the center of the sphere. Looking down, they could see a track along the bottom, so the disk the chair sat upon was moving on an arm, and not floating as it seemed to be.
Once in the center, the lights dimmed slowly until they were in total darkness. Stars appeared on the walls of the sphere, and then the solar system appeared directly in front of them. "A planetarium?" Balaji asked.
"More than that, Doc," Hugh said.
The image of the solar system looked like an illustration from a children's book, only infinitely more detailed. There were all eight planets and Pluto, the asteroids and the eight dwarf planets, all with their orbits indicated. It appeared they were moving toward the planets. Passing Jupiter, they could see its moons and their orbits. Next, they passed Mars and her two moons. Ahead lay Earth, a beautiful blue world with patches of green and tan overlaid with white strands of cloud.
The animation slowed down as they appeared to fly over the top of Earth, and just beyond was the Moon. As they neared it, they seemed to gather speed until suddenly their speed dramatically decreased. Clearly, they were falling toward Mare Insularum, and coming into view just west of the huge crater Copernicus and immediately north of Hortensius sat JILL.
Balaji suddenly pointed and said, "These images appear to be in real time! Look! There is the fissure through which dome forty-five vanished. Do you see how badly JILL is damaged? Hugh, you were right, they will not be able to look for us for months!"
The image continued to hurtle toward the Moon's surface with no indication of stopping. At the point of impact, everyone let out a gasp and recoiled, forgetting they were sitting motionless just outside the alien facility. Now, all around them, rock flashed past as if they were burrowing into the Moon. Then there was light all around. Their speed slowed to a snail's pace. They were descending vertically.
****
Mary looked over the edge of the platform. The alien facility was just below, and they were directly above Zellat 43. Mary was joined by the others at the short rail looking down where they could see the ship and the ramp extending out from beneath it. As they grew closer, their own foot prints in the dust leading from the facility to Zellat 43 were clearly visible.
The image settled exactly on the spot the craft occupied. They were now looking at the inside of the cavern as if through a window inside Zellat 43. Mary elbowed Balaji and he followed her gaze toward their rear. It was like looking into a mirror. There they all stood, as if seen from a position a few meters in front of Hugh; Mary and Balaji looking to the rear. Balaji looked to the front and Mary observed his movement in real time.
Everyone stood in amazed silence. Then Mary cleared her throat and asked, "Hugh, will they show us where they are from?"
"I'll ask."
The room went dark as the image around them faded. A new image appeared. The ship was in orbit around the Earth. Then, their angle changed, as if the ship had spun around. Now, they were looking out into space.
"That constellation," Mary said, pointing. "It's Orion."
Zellat 43 burst forward with a speed that was impossible. Hugh looked over his shoulder and the others followed his example. They watched as the Earth quickly became a pinprick in the distance. Shortly, the sun was nothing but one of billions of stars behind them. Ahead, another star grew to become a Sun. Hugh said, "That's Proxima Centauri or Alpha Centauri C. Not that I'm an astronomer, The Nine are feeding me info."
Then, like Sol, Alpha Centauri C also vanished behind them.
"We're past Orion's Arm, now heading for the edge of the Milky Way," Hugh announced as they seemed to fly out of the field of stars. Their vantage point rotated again so they were looking to their rear. There they saw a giant pinwheel consisting of billions of stars. "Our own galaxy, the Milky Way," Hugh went on. "One hundred thousand light years wide."
They rotated back to their original forward point of view, when off to the left, they could see two loose clouds, one larger than the other.
"What are those?" Larry asked.
"Those are the two Magellanic Clouds or Nubeculae Magellani. They are irregular dwarf galaxies in orbit around our Milky Way," Hugh informed them.
Next, to the right, they could see another spiraling galaxy. "Andromeda," Hugh announced. Then the ship seemed to shift away from it and ahead, rushing to fill their vision, a beautiful pinwheel galaxy. "Here is Triangulum, the third largest galaxy in what we call the local group. We are in what we call the Virgo super cluster. It is an irregular super cluster that contains the Local Group. Over a hundred galaxy groups and clusters are located within its diameter of thirty-three megaparsecs, or one hundred and ten million light-years."
Ahead, there was only darkness, the true void of space, no stars, nothing.
"We are now entering what on Earth is called the northern local super void," Hugh said, "a vast region of deep space separating galaxy groups. There are millions of these voids known to the people of The Nine. This void's center is located sixty-one megaparsecs away from our solar system and it is one hundred four megaparsecs in diameter across its narrowest width."
At this point they could see, faintly, ahead of them a cluster of galaxies; behind that cluster, space seemed darke
r. "Before us is the Norma super cluster of galaxies," Hugh said in that ethereal voice again. "Out there, millions of light-years beyond, is what we on Earth call the 'the great attractor'. On Earth it is believed that in there is a great, unseen mass that all the galaxies in the visible universe are being drawn into. This is not so. Millions of parsecs farther on is what Earth science calls the Sharpley Super Cluster. It is there that the behemoth concentration of mass lies."
The ship seemed to have selected one galaxy in particular out of all those they could see in the Norma super cluster. It began plummeting toward that one glowing pinwheel at a speed attainable only in simulations. The ship approached the great, swirling disk of stars and gas at its side so that it appeared to be a great, hazy, glowing line with a huge, bright ball at its center. They plunged into it past clouds of gas and dust. Again their 'sky' filled with stars. Zellat 43 seemed to bank hard to the right. It was clear they were now focusing on a single star. Hugh spoke again, his voice deeper and more distant, "This is our home star, Gulvainian Twa Vulktarie."
They got close enough that the star appeared now as a sun. In the sky around it were the orbits of five worlds, depicted just as their own solar system had been. The ship slowed to a stop above the second planet from the star. It closely resembled earth, land masses, oceans, and clouds. There were two tiny moons.
Huge spoke again, "Home. Delmadia."
"It's beautiful," Mary whispered.
The image faded and the lights came up slowly so their eyes could adjust. They all stood there; mute, in the blank, empty sphere.
The platform slowly moved back toward the door.
"This little trip was a computer generated simulation just to provide us an appreciation of how far away they are. The real voyage looks nothing like this. They don't travel in a straight line—point A to point B. Rather, they cause A and B to meet at C," Hugh explained.
"What exactly is this chamber used for?" Mary asked.
Dark Moon Rising Page 20
