by Dan Worth
‘You see, the atoms marked in green exist in this dimension. The ones marked in red exist in hyperspace, the ones marked in blue in subspace. If you look at any one dimension you get a nonsensical pattern like the one you just saw, but put them together and you get a complete structure.’
‘How the hell is that even possible? How can atomic bonds be formed across different spatial dimensions?’
‘Now there you have me. Like the captain of the Arminius said, we need physicists here, not archaeologists.’
‘Well if we can gather enough information about the ship, maybe we can pass it on to the rest of the scientific community. Reynaud, why did you never mention any of this?’
‘Because I wanted to see if you two would come to the same conclusions as myself. I’d suggested the possibility of this ship existing in multiple dimensions to Cox before, but I don’t think he was entirely convinced and he wouldn’t lend me a ship. You two came to the same conclusion independently, so he sat up and listened. Cox is right behind this project, but he’s not a man of science. Sometimes he can be a little hard headed.’
‘Doesn’t Cox trust you?’
‘I don’t know. We’ve known each other for quite some time, but I think he sees me as a means to an end. He tends to scoff at some of my wilder theories, even when they turn out to be true. I think he just wants to recover his prize and claim the glory as quickly as possible and then let us worry about the research later.’
‘Well I thought you were just in this for the book rights.’
Reynaud looked hurt. ‘No, Katherine. I am in this for science, and for the thrill of discovery. But yes, I will produce a work on this so that others can learn of our findings.’
‘Well how about you give in to the thrill of discovery and give me a hand to analyse the surface of this thing, if you can call it that. I figured if we could get some indication of any radiation or the nature of the distortion at low level it might help others understand how this thing works. I’ll need the right tools of course, hell even a geiger counter would help.’
Reynaud nodded. ‘Yes, I think we have the right equipment on site. We have some standard radiation monitors right here, but I think we have some more sophisticated scanners back in the base. I’ll have them brought down here.’ With that he switched channels and began communicating with his underlings.
They had been scrutinising the hyper-dimensional surface of the ship for two hours now. Katherine’s back protested from the weight of the pack she now wore that housed the sensitive scanning equipment that they had requested. Even with the assistance of her suit’s exo-skeleton the pack was still cumbersome and awkward. They had originally been designed for maintenance crews to examine the state of star-ship jump drives, but someone had had the foresight to include them in the dig site’s inventory of equipment. Each pack was crammed full of sensitive equipment, and consequently they were extremely heavy.
It was getting hot inside her suit too. Rivulets of sweat now trickled down her forehead and neck and made her itch. It gave her some satisfaction that Reynaud was labouring with similar discomforts, his usually suave personality having become ever more irritable with every passing moment.
The surface of the ship swam in front of her. The shifting patterns were starting to play tricks with her eyes. She started to imagine that she could see shapes and images in the murky depths. But when she looked closer all she saw were the steadily shifting strings of symbols.
There had been no word from Rekkid. Doubtless he was engrossed in his work. She envied him. She imagined him sitting sedately in a cool room, his dark eyes roaming over successive images of the symbols that she now saw before her. Either that or he’d be roundly cursing his computer. Anything was better than this. They’d tried examining different areas of the ship, from where the bow plunged into the lava, to the tips of the spines around the midsection. Reynaud had even had himself lifted up with one of the cranes that they had on site to take readings from the tail. They’d had very little in the way of results except that the ship emitted a faint, uniform stream of tachyons from every point they’d examined. There also was barely any heat coming from the thing, despite the fact that it was clearly active at some level.
The heat, the weight of the pack and the claustrophobia of the suit were getting to her. Katherine felt like she might pass out. She removed the equipment pack’s straps from around her shoulders, unclipped the attachments to the suit’s exoskeleton and carefully laid the heavy thing on the ground. Then she turned up the cooler in her suit and laid a hand against the ship’s hull to steady herself as her vision swam for a second.
There it was again. Those damn patterns that seemed to come and go in the ship’s hull. She blinked and shook her head to clear it. She looked again. The patterns had formed themselves into a rough approximation of her face. Now she really was starting to lose it, she thought. She keyed her comm. link.
‘Uh, Henri, listen. I think I need a little time out of the suit. The heat’s starting to get to me. I’m going to make my way to that hut where Rekkid is. I really…. ‘
‘HELP ME.’ The voice boomed inside her head like a thunderclap. Stunned, she fell to her knees. ‘HELP ME.’ She struggled to breathe inside the suit. Her vision began to blur. ‘NOW I HAVE OPENED THE DOOR. COME INSIDE AND SET ME FREE.’
Lying prone on the black lava she saw Reynaud’s suited figure lumbering towards her. His voice was calling out to her over the comm. link. Then she passed out.
She awoke to a cool, brightly lit room. Looking around she realised she had been placed on a folding bed. Rekkid and a couple of medical orderlies were standing over her.
‘Hey,’ she said to the Arkari. ‘Where the hell am I?’
‘Back at the base. You gave us a bit of a scare down there, but the medical staff here say that you’re going to be fine. You fainted. You were out for about an hour. What happened out there?’
‘I fainted? What a helpless female in distress I am,’ she snorted. ‘I take it Henri came to my rescue to loosen my corsets?’
‘Regrettably, yes. He’s milking the chivalrous angle for all its worth. I did my best not to throw up in his presence, but… well he did get the medical team out to you in minutes, so I suppose we do owe him some measure of gratitude. What do you remember?’
‘I was… working on the ship. Reynaud and I were trying to get some readings from the surface. I started feeling a little faint and I stopped to rest. Then I… I thought the heat must have been getting to me, because I thought I saw my own face in the patterns in the hull and there was this voice in my head, the same voice from my dream.’
‘I see,’ said Rekkid thoughtfully. ‘Katherine, right at the moment you passed out, the ship… moved.’
‘It what?’
‘The hull shards opened up near the rear of the ship. There now seems to a way into the vessel. My guess is that it wants us to go inside. Cox wants us both on the first team to go inside. If you’re feeling up to it.’
She sat up in the bed and rubbed her eyes. ‘The voice said something about opening the door, so that I could set it free. So yes, I think I had better go. It’s me that it wants.’
‘Are you sure? It could be a trap of some kind. We still have no idea where this ship came from or what its intentions are. The damn thing’s clearly alive. Do you really want to walk into the belly of the beast?’
‘Yes. Yes I do, I think it’s the only way we’re going to get to the bottom of this. Quite frankly, I’m getting a little tired of having my brain scrambled by a star-ship and I’d like some answers.’
‘Alright, well I’ll let Cox know. I’ll tell him you need a couple of hours to get back on your feet.’
‘I’ll be fine…’
‘Well, get a wash and something to eat at least. If you pass out again in Reynaud’s presence I’ll just let him have his wicked way with you.’
‘Alright, alright… Christ Rekkid, sometimes you behave like my father.’
‘Yes,
well. I thought you’d embarrassed yourself enough for one day. Come on, seriously Katherine, I was worried about you. I thought that that thing might have fried your brain or something. I can’t help wondering why it’s so interested in you rather than anyone else here. Ever since we arrived that thing’s been inside your head.’
‘Not just me. Reynaud said that it spoke to him too.’
‘Yes. Now that’s something that I do wonder about.’
They stood once more in the shadow of the ancient vessel. The tail of the ship loomed above Katherine, Rekkid, Reynaud and Cox as they stood, suited, before the entrance that had opened in the rearward portion of the vessel. Several of the dark, crystalline plates had shifted aside to reveal a triangular entrance into the ship near to where the craft emerged from the lava that still concealed the bow section. Cox’s men had cleared the remaining debris from around the base of the vessel and erected a ramp and gangway from the ground to the lip of the entrance. Angled spotlights around it cast feeble beams into the stygian gloom within. Teams of heavily armed marines stood guard on either side of the entrance, their figures bulky in their sealed combat armour, in case anyone tried to gain unauthorised access to the vessel, or indeed, if anything came out.
Above the ship, the pale light of Hadar B pierced a thinner patch in the sulphurous clouds of Rhyolite, harshening the shadows and heightening the effect of the menacing darkness that seemed to be emanating from within the ship’s bowels. The three humans and one Arkari looked at each other a little uneasily.
‘You are sure you want to go through with this Katherine?’ Reynaud asked, a look of concern on his face.
‘Yes, absolutely. I have to know what’s in there,’ she replied resolutely.
‘Same here,’ said Rekkid. ‘Although I feel a little apprehensive about crawling up its arsehole.’
Neither Cox nor Reynaud laughed, although he saw Katherine smirk despite herself. No-one seemed to be much in the mood for jokes. The ship was waiting for them, they could feel it. It was waiting to swallow them.
‘Alright people, listen up,’ said Cox, broadcasting both to the assembled archaeologists and the marines. ‘We are to proceed inside the ship at once. Privates Jones and Stamp, you’re to accompany Professor Cor, Doctor O’Reilly and Doctor Reynaud inside the vessel. Do as they ask of you and protect them if need be. Don’t touch anything unless they tell you to, alright? The rest of you will remain outside with me. I’ll command the mission from here, but I’ll need you all on the ball if this should go wrong or something unexpected happens. Alright Henri, you lead the way when you’re ready.’
‘Great,’ said Rekkid to Katherine over a private channel. ‘Cox stays out here and uses us as guinea pigs. Very noble of him.’
‘Okay. I’m going to move inside the ship,’ said Reynaud over the general channel. ‘Professor Cor, Katherine, after me if you please.’ He began to walk towards the entrance, Katherine and Rekkid following. The two marines, Jones and Stamp, fell in smartly behind them, rail rifles gripped tightly in their gauntleted fists.
The flimsy ramp shook and vibrated to the collective footsteps of the five suited individuals as they walked with as much care as possible in their heavy suits. Reynaud in the lead was the first to step off onto the ship. He placed one foot gingerly on the dark hull material and then another, then he paused to peer down at the soles of his boots that weren’t quite touching the material, yet were still able to grip the indistinct surface.
‘Interesting,’ he commented. ‘The rest of the ship’s surface is almost frictionless. It must be permitting us to step here by allowing friction in this area.’
Katherine could feel the ship inside her mind. It was a presence or pressure she couldn’t ignore. She thought she heard it whispering, calling her inside. Involuntarily she took a step forward towards the gaping entrance, then stopped. Reynaud looked at her quizzically.
‘Everything all right?’ he asked.
‘Sure. Fine,’ she replied. ‘Come on Henri, what are you waiting for?’
‘For our two marines to join us of course.’ He didn’t take his eyes off her. ‘Gentlemen, if you could make sure the safeties are on, on those weapons of yours. I don’t want you jumping at shadows and loosing off a round in there. In such a confined space a stray bullet could be as much a danger to us as any potential enemies. Your laser pistols only, if you please.’
The two men nodded and shouldered their rifles, before removing bulky Navy issue laser pistols from holsters on their belts. Katherine recognised the model; it was the same kind that Steven Harris had taught her to shoot back on Maranos. She still thought about Steven sometimes, even though she hadn’t seen him since those terrible events two years previously. She wondered where he was now; no doubt up to his neck in trouble as always. Hell, he could be anywhere. Haines and Mentith had given him his choice of assignments in the special ops outfit that they had set up to deal with the Shapers, and that had been that. She hoped he was still alive, somewhere.
Rekkid shook her from her from her contemplation.
‘Hey, Katherine. You alright? You looked a little…’
‘Sorry, I was just reminded of something.’
‘Well, come on. We can’t let Reynaud get all the glory. We’d never hear the last of it. Follow me.’
Reynaud was just inside the entrance, almost invisible in the darkness until he turned on his suit lights. The helmet mounted beams washed over the dark reflective surfaces that formed the corridor from a jumble of angles where the shards had pushed apart to form it. The floor led steadily upwards into the belly of the ship.
Katherine, Rekkid and the two marines followed Reynaud’s lead and turned on their lights too, their combined illumination still failing to pierce the absolute darkness beyond a few metres, at the edge of which strange angular shadows danced as the beams shifted with their footsteps.
‘Report,’ said Cox over the comm. channel. ‘What can you see? Anyone?’
‘Not much,’ said Rekkid. ‘It seems pretty similar on the inside as on the outside. It’s just an awful lot darker.’
‘I forgot to ask, Professor,’ Cox continued. ‘How did your research into the languages contained within those patterns go?’
‘I made some headway,’ Rekkid replied. ‘I was correct in my assumption that the smaller patterns were the Progenitor tri-linear script, though it turned out to be a slightly different dialect. The larger patterns are still something of a mystery to me. There doesn’t seem to be any logical arrangement that I can identify, at least not so far.’
‘Read a pattern from the nearest wall, if you can,’ said Cox. ‘Indulge me.’
‘Alright,’ said Rekkid. ‘Let me just get my notes…’ He unclipped a data-pad from his belt and activated it, holding up the glowing screen in front of his faceplate and peering at both it and the shifting patterns on the wall he scrutinised the symbols present there. They all heard his gasp of surprise over the comm.
‘What?’ said Katherine. ‘What is it?’
‘It says….’ said Rekkid and hesitated.
‘What? What does it say?’ Cox demanded.
‘It says ‘Help me, Katherine’ unless I’m very much mistaken.’
There was a pregnant pause.
‘You have got to be fucking kidding me,’ Cox said finally.
‘I’m not making this up Admiral,’ said Rekkid. ‘The words ‘help me’ are clearly visible and the word ‘Katherine’ has been approximated using phonetics. It’s repeated over and over.’
‘Any idea why the ship is trying to talk to you, Dr. O’Reilly?’
‘Not entirely, no,’ she replied. ‘Though it does seem to have taken an undue interest in me since I got here. I gather many of your men have experienced similar occurrences.’
‘Which I dismissed as rumour,’ Cox said firmly.
‘It’s no rumour,’ said Katherine. ‘This ship is able to communicate with people’s minds somehow. It… seems to speak to me more than most though. I beli
eve Doctor Reynaud has had similar experiences.’
‘He did mention it to me. Personally I was rather sceptical. It all sounded a bit… far fetched.’
‘Then how does it know my name, Admiral?’ she replied. ‘This thing is alive, somehow. If it wants my help, maybe we should continue inside and see what it wants?’
‘Alright, but be careful.’
They headed further in, torch-beams sweeping the darkness as they edged carefully up the now steeply sloping corridor. It was utterly dark now. A hundred metres inside, the upwards curve of the corridor obscured the pale meagre light from the entrance. It was a difficult climb into the ship’s innards. One of their beams swept across something dully reflective ahead of them.
‘We found something,’ said Reynaud over the comm. ‘The corridor ends in some sort of metal plate.’
They struggled upwards and onwards. Now they could see the metal surface more clearly. It was slightly curved and pitted with wear. In the alien gloom of the ship’s interior it seemed out of place. Set into the metal panel was an armoured hatch with a small viewport and heavy handles.
‘What the hell?’ said Rekkid. ‘This looks like human technology.’
‘It is,’ said Katherine. ‘Look more closely.’ She shone one of her suit torches at the centre of the door. Partly obscured by grime and half erased by years in space was a name. It was written in the Roman alphabet in stencilled letters ten centimetres high above a faded stars and stripes flag. ‘See,’ she said. ‘It’s the Magellan.’
‘Well what’s it doing here?’ said Rekkid. ‘That ship was lost years ago… oh shit.’
‘Could someone please explain what we’ve just found?’ said Reynaud. ‘This is the remains of a pre-Commonwealth vessel, one of the early exploration vessels, is it not? What is it doing here?’
‘It’s the same ship that I saw in my dream,’ said Katherine. ‘It… it reached the core of the galaxy and it was destroyed by an alien vessel… wait, no, it was swallowed…’
