"Impossible," said Hu. "Iris is too cold for any conceivable life form. Even if we presuppose complex lipids dissolved in methane . . . well, that might work on a surface-stabilized version of Neptune, but Iris is too cold."
They walked along peeking into the hexagons until they came upon one that still had an occupant. They were silent, looking it over. Whatever it was, it almost filled the capsule, a six-sided, bronze-colored body that tapered to a graceful, gemlike point on the end they could see.
"Let's get it out of there," said Krzakwa .
They pulled the thing out of its cavity and let it fall gently to the floor, not failing to notice that the force field was quite willing to grasp it. The object was three meters long, a littlemore than half of which was the six-sided body. The other end tapered slightly, then evolved into a banded cylinder a little over one meter long. The inner end had eight articulated arms, each possessed of two fingers. Inside the ring that these formed were eight projections, much like the ones that sprouted from the end of an ancient vacuum tube—and they were obviously intended to mate with the sockets in the capsule. Finally, the thing ended in a short, hollow, flexible hose.
"What do you suppose?" said Sealock. "A robot? Maybe something like the work-units we use?" Hu squatted and put her suit sensors to the end of the jointed, hoselike apparatus. "There are chemical traces in side it," she said, "mostly CH4."
They looked at it for a while longer, then, completely frustrated, decided to press on, walking toward the aft part of the ship. Sealock turned around and took a last look at the thing. "You know," he said, "I know that shape from somewhere. I wonder ..." He shook his head in irritation.
While the bulk of Aello's mass stood between the colonists and the Artifact site, there would be no transmission of data for another four hours, at which time the imperceptible but headlong pace of the moons about their small primary would bring the sub-Iridean hemisphere of Aello into view. The broadcast from Polaris had shown the alien vessel being unearthed from the Aellan globe and relayed remote telemetry from the thing. But as soon as the ship started its landing they had been cut off. The six remaining colony-bound people were strewn across the floor of the central room, Beth paired with John and Harmon with Vana. As the enormity of what they had seen faded into the past, they looked at each other, still shaken. Harmon pressed close to Vana, trying to take solace in her presence. Aksiniaabruptly popped up, flinging her hands over her head to project herself into an artful somersault, continuing like a star-shaped Frisbee just above the floor until she gracefully landed by the far wall. " Wheee!" Her breath came suddenly in a series of short bursts. "This is . . . just like . . .every God damn ess -fiction story . . . ever written. Except it's really happening! I think I'm going to pop!" She feverishly combed her hand through her loose curly brown hair.
"Calm down, Ax," said Beth. "I admit that I feel a little like jumping around myself. But you're getting ca—"
"Stop trying to make her act differently," said John suddenly. "I know you have a revulsion to behavior you see as 'drugged,' but she has a right to react any way she chooses. In a way, her reaction is more appropriate than us just coolly discussing it."
Aksiniawas nonplused. "Don't 'discuss' me! You know, you're all a bunch of deadheads. If I don't hang around with you that much it's because of that. You all walk around as if you saw the world through layers of gauze. I get more emotion reading Herodotus than trying to relate to any of you."
"You should try the Illimitor World, Ax," said Vana. "It's different—no, we're different there."
"Fucking fairyland," muttered Harmon.
"That's what I'm trying to point out," said Ax, now suddenly cool. "This is as much of an adventure as anything you could dream up. But does anybody laugh, cry, or even jump up and down? No." She pushed off from the wall and settled slowly to stand on the floor. "I'm going to my room. I'll be back in three hours and forty minutes."
When she was gone, John smiled stiffly. "Defense, anyone?" Four faintly embarrassed grins were the only reply. "Beth? Sorry. Shall we make rapport then?"
"Sure."
"We'll be back in a couple of hours," John said to no one in particular. "If Aello disappears or anything like that, break in. Otherwise please don't."
With John and Beth unconscious to the world, and Aksinia fled, even the momentous discovery of the Aellan Artifact couldn't mask the tension that existed among Harmon, Vana, and Demogorgon. The latter smiled quickly at the two others but remained silent.
"Well," said Harmon, standing, "I'm going to check the mail." This was a function he had assumed for himself; dailyhe reviewed the messages that had been tightbeamed to them from the various comsat stations. It was a way he could be useful. And a way to forget . . .
Prynnesettled into a chair and accessed the stored data. Though not particularly interested in the usual assortment of advertisements, legal briefs, and occasional personal messages that came through from the Solar worlds, Demogorgon found himself listening in on the playback. After all, he told himself, this is a historic date. Even the mundane took on an edge of importance. And besides—there were hours to kill before he could find out if Brendan was all right.
Halfway through the messages there was a notice of real import, not without ominous implications for their present situation. It seemed that Cornwell had purchased an asteroid some years earlier and had put it off limits to mining and colonization. Demogorgon remembered John mentioning it to the group some time before—since the asteroids were quickly being consumed by the voracious needs of mankind, he had bought it as a kind of nature preserve, partially at Beth's insistence. 508 Princetonia , it was called; just a chunk of carbonaceous material 140 kilometers in diameter. It had now been confiscated by the Pansolar Bureau of Asteroid Management. They had credited Cornwell's accounts with the amount of his original investment plus four percent for appreciation. The off-world arm of the Terran government was flexing its muscles. In any case, it was unlikely that the Artifact would remain in their possession once the Union found out about it.
Hours later it was time for Polaris to be wheeled over Aello's horizon by the rotation of the little moon. They all gathered back in the central room's pit. Jana's chip photorecorder was directed at the spot at which they expected the ship to appear. In their minds they saw the uneven white limb of Aello, a welter of craters, small and large, reduced to lines by foreshortening. The resolution of the telescope was such that they would easily be able to see the alien vessel, and perhaps even Polaris. But the debris kicked up from the excavation was still swarming in orbit around the satellite, and this might obscure the tiny human craft.
The moment came; and nothing. An irregular cliff wall was evident on the horizon now, but that was all. "Of course!" said Beth. "It's in a crater—we'll have to wait a little longer." Finally the dark shape of the Artifact was fully revealed to them, nestled at the bottom of the obscenely huge crater. They established contact with Polaris easily, and it replayed a mental rerun of the entry of the exploration party into the huge portal. But when the circle had irised shut, the contact with the others was cut. In present time all they could do was play the camera over the linear blue bulk of the thing. Demogorgon spoke for them all: "We may never know what's happened." He shut his eyes for a moment, keeping his face as cold and still as he could, then turned and walked away.
After some time of travel, both on and off the transport matrix, the four explorers found themselves near the aft end of the alien spacecraft. Here the density of mysterious shapes and incomprehensible devices gradually thinned out, until they were in an open cylindrical area that ended in a flat wall. The floor was a nest of transparent tubes, interconnected with several heavy machines that looked suspiciously like turbo-pumps.
Surveying the scene, Sealock finally turned to Krzakwa and said, "What do you think? Engine room?" The Selenite nodded slowly. "This is the logical place for it." Hu laughed softly. "At least, if you're using our logic." True, thought Sealock, a lit
tle surprised that it hadn't occurred to him. This could be the main living quarters. Still . . .
The largest of the hoses led two by two through the rear bulkhead of the ship, and below each set was a dark circle, centering on a white dot. When she pointed them out, Methol said, "If these are like the others we've seen, maybe they're inspection ports."
"Could be. Let's find out." They walked over to the central one and Sealock friction-punched the mark. As expected, the thing irised open, revealing a dimly lit tunnel. They stoodback for a moment, then, without another word, went in. It led aft only a short distance, then emerged into another large chamber. Here there were three huge cylinders mounted up against a curving surface that appeared to be the outer skin of the spacecraft.
Krzakwatook one look at them and burst out laughing.
"Absolutely," said Sealock. "Perfectly ordinary rocket engines."
"A little huge, maybe, but nothing new."
"So it isn't a starship. . . ." Methol's voice mirrored her disappointment.
"I think we knew that already," said Krzakwa .
They spent a few minutes confirming their analysis, then began to look around again. On the floor nearby they found another portal and opened it. Below them was a wide corridor flanked by curving walls. There were more transparent hoses leading up into the ceiling.
"Now what?"
Sealock looked meditatively at the walls for a while, then said, "Whatever these things may be, we should just go on assuming that this thing is set up human-technology style. If that is the case, then these can be nothing but the fuel tanks. Jana, run me up a line so we can coordinate our scanners." The woman did as she was bid and they switched on. After a few seconds the man smirked and said,
"Well, well. Lithium hydride in a carbon-crystal matrix." He deaccessed the device and unlinked from Hu.
" Hyloxso," said Krzakwa . "Swell."
"Not quite, but . . . close enough," said Methol. "If this isn't a starship, how did it get here?"
"Maybe it is," said Hu. "Reaction engines could be the best form of propulsion available. That would bode ill for the future of interstellar travel, but it may be true."
"Why build a starship with wings?" That was from Krzakwa .
"Why build a lander this big?" demanded Sealock.
Hu sighed. "Two concepts: either they were from Iris, which I find difficult to accept, or there was once a mother ship."
Sealock laughed harshly. "A rather, um, large mother ship."
"Well, I know one thing," said Methol. " LiHwould give a much higher specific impulse than Hyloxso , and that carbon-crystal matrix probably means the stuff doesn't have to be power stabilized. The patent on an idea like that would be worth a lot of money...."
As they began walking toward the forward end of the ship, the walls of the corridor gradually closed in, until they found themselves having to move in single file. Before they had gone far Sealock, who was in the lead, came to a sudden stop.
"What is it?" Hu, next in line, couldn't see past his bulk.
"I don't know. The character of the surface changes here. It looks almost . . . slick." He took a tentative step forward and abruptly fell down, his legs scissoring apart as he dropped.
"Shit!" He grunted with pain and tried to roll over, moving forward in the tunnel as he did so. He failed to get up, pawing ridiculously at the floor, and began to slide slowly away from the others, gradually accelerating.
Methol crowded past Hu and launched herself after him. She tried to crouch like a skater but fell to a sitting position nonetheless. With her higher initial impulse, she quickly caught up with Sealock and, together, they began to recede.
Hu knelt and touched the beginning of the shininess. "It seems to be a frictionless surface," she said. Krzakwalooked over her at the others, who seemed quite far away now, and said, "That's interesting, but I think we'd better go after them. I don't think it would do to get separated in here."
"Agreed." She braced herself, pushed hard with her feet, and sailed off on her hands and knees. The Selenite let her get a safe distance ahead, then crouched down and, with a movement common to low-g wrestlers, launched himself forward, electing an upright, seated mode of travel. They accelerated fairly quickly along the declivity of their inertial frame and Krzakwa found himself thinking, This is sort of fun. He imagined a sort of giant amusement park on the Moon, with the tunnel twisted into a giant slide . . . andtransparent. Suspended above the surface somehow. His lips worked into a wry smile. It was the kind of brief dream he'd had often as a child—but the Lunar authorities had never been interested in anything that might be characterized as "fun." One day, perhaps, that government might be overthrown by a furious rabble of amusement-starved hedonists, but until then they would still be gray men, living somberly and industriously beneath the lusterless gray stone. It was one of the many reasons behind his decision to leave. Noble ideals were all very well, in their place, but fun . . .
"Hey, I think we're coming to the end of it," said Sealock. "The floor's about to . . ." He and Methol suddenly went tumbling as friction grabbed at them. Hu curled herself into a ball and halted much more gracefully. When his turn came, Krzakwa tensed his leg muscles and simply slid to a stop on the seat of his suit.
They stood up and looked around. It was another almost featureless chamber, but this one had an open hatch overhead, and they could see much brighter light shining down on them.
"Careless," said Methol. "Somebody forgot to shut the door when they left. No wonder they got their ship stuck inside an ice moon."
Sealock nodded at that and, with vague surprise, found himself understanding the urge to make these sorts of inane statements. He was beginning to feel strong surges of unreality, as if prowling about this huge structure were depriving him of some capacity for rational thought. Fragmenting . . . One at a time, they jumped up at the hole, which caught them and pulled them through to rest on the far wall. The room in which they found themselves was not featureless. If anything, it contained too many details. Though not large, it had bristles erupting from almost every surface, with no regard for a preferential orientation. It almost looked as if some misbegotten moss had spread across the walls of the room and erected its sporophytes , up, down, and from both sides. It was a forest of poles of varying heights, and even pole was surmounted by a different-sized globe. The globes were stippled like golf balls, marked by the little nodes they'dcome to recognize as controls and thought of as "buttons." The only empty area was the small section on which they had landed.
Sealock stepped up to the nearest of the poles and took its globe between his gloved hands, peering at it closely. A moment later he shrugged and began tapping the buttons on it at random.
"We're going to get killed at this yet," murmured Krzakwa .
"So what?" Hu picked a globe of her own and began prodding it with a finger. The Selenite watched them, feeling very strange, and thought, There's something wrong with us. Maybe we shouldn't be out here on our own.
KHAAAAAAAHHHH.
Suddenly their heads filled with a crash of static, white noise tuned to a deep F-sharp. It seemed to blank their perceptions and lock their muscles into an almost tetanus-like rigidity. Whatever it was reached through the control elements of their suits, right into their brains, and began activating the various centers . . . senses and ideas swirled in flux.
They were immersed in a deep, deep blue sea.
Kinesthetic suspension, in an unending void.
Cool currents flowed across their exoskeletons, their rigid, hinged exteriors. Though they had no eyes, a hard squid swam into view, jetting along point foremost. Anophagomotorapparatus ...
Though it had no mouth it spoke to them.
Baajood, it said. Baajood and awaah .
Little bubbles of gray-green oil broke on their armless, legless cephalothoraxes. Somehow the bubbles were meaning incarnate, and they saw the lifting body ship move through a series of animation frames as it detached from something that was
much larger.
"Oh, God," the squid shattered, burbling their names one by one. The sea turned black.
"Where the fuck are we?" gasped Krzakwa .
"Shut up!" screamed Sealock, agony trailing along his nerve fibers. Then, quieter, "I'm trying to regain control."
Silence, sore-kara, "Ahhh, help me, Tem." They could feel the water spilling from beneath his lids.
"What?"
"Push,God damn you!"
Krzakwapushed.
And the black sea burst into flame, licked up red around their bodies, and burned away. They were still standing in the control room, in the clearing among the sporophytes , of course, but everything had changed. Where this world had been a maze of interwoven mysteries, now there was an overlay of functionality. This was the control room for the entire ship, and the globes were the heart of the vast communication network that linked virtually every function in it.
"Well . . ." began Hu.
"Look," said Methol. "What happened to the control nodes?" They looked around them and saw that the globes were now quite featureless. In their new, incomplete knowledge they understood that this could only mean something extremely bad, a malfunction wrought by some near-total failure of the system. Suddenly the portal through which they had entered began to shut, but it only closed halfway, then fell open, a relaxing sphincter, opening at the moment of death. The light seemed to grow dimmer, then dimmer still.
Krzakwafancied he could hear the sounds of machinery, gradually slowing down. " Ummm. I think we'd better get out of here."
They ran.
Animals and plants usually die one cell at a time, in an orderly sequence. An explosion may blow them apart, a fire may burn them up fast, but the standard is one cell at a time, in a logical progression. The cells of consciousness are usually the first to go. The heart stops, the brain blacks out and turns to a nasty soup, and the man is dead, but it's quite a while before the last ATP cycle turns over and grinds to ahalt. The chemical reactions in his intestines go on to equilibrium.
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