by Allen Steele
“Has to be what?” Harker came over to join him. “Y’know, we’re not going to get very far if you don’t tell us what you’re thinking.”
“Assume that I’m right, and Spindrift is a spacecraft…”
“You’ve won that argument.” Cruz had raised his camera again and was using it to take pictures of the couch and the consoles. “That’s pretty much a given.”
“Very well, then assume that I’m also correct in believing that this is some sort of control center.” Ramirez pointed at the sphere. “If that’s so, and given the size of this asteroid, wouldn’t it make sense to have some means of displaying vital functions anywhere within the ship? A three-dimensional model of some sort?”
“I’m having trouble with that idea.” Harker gazed at the sphere. “Look, I agree with the general concept, but this looks nothing like what we’ve seen from orbit. It’s all smooth…no surface features.”
“This may control that somehow.” Ramirez looked back down at the ring. As with the console he had examined earlier, the buttons had no obvious function; their inscriptions stood for something, of course, but were meaningless to human eyes. He was tempted to push buttons at random—some stroke of luck might cause him to enter the correct combination—yet he resisted the impulse to stab away at them blindly. “Look for a pattern. Something that stands out…”
“A pattern?” Harker was dubious. “Jared, this place was designed by aliens. I don’t…”
“Try to pretend you’re one of them.” Ramirez slowly walked around the ring, letting the beams of his helmet lamps drift across the console. “You’re the first officer of a starship, aren’t you? Try to put yourself in the mind of someone like you, but not exactly like you. You’ve got four hands, four feet…”
“This one’s different.” Unnoticed by either of them, Cruz had walked around to the other side of the sphere. “It’s round, and pretty large.”
Ramirez went over to join him. As he indicated, one of the buttons formed a perfect circle. Larger than the others around it, it was positioned in the center of that section of the ring. Reaching forward, he pushed it.
Harker gasped, and Ramirez looked up to see that the sphere had suddenly become transparent.
Where there had once been an opaque, featureless surface were now layers of some crystalline substance, illuminated by whisker-fine threads of light that revealed the details within its depths. At first he thought it was a holographic projection, until he realized that what he was seeing wasn’t an illusion formed by focused light but instead the result of an infinitely precise arrangement of fiber-optic filaments suspended within an immense globe.
“It’s beautiful,” Harker whispered, clearly awestruck.
It was, indeed: a mammoth sculpture rendered by inhuman hands. Yet it wasn’t simply an object to be adored, but rather a tool with a clear and definite purpose. The sphere’s outermost shell, tinged reddish brown and riddled with craters and low hills, duplicated the pockmarked surface of Spindrift.
“Is this what I think it is?” Cruz asked.
“If you’re thinking it represents Spindrift,” Ramirez replied, “then I’d say you’re absolutely correct.”
“A three-dimensional map.” Harker slowly walked around the sphere, staring at it with fascination. “It’s like this entire thing has been hollowed out.”
“That should be obvious by now, shouldn’t it?” Ramirez paid little attention to him. He’d spotted the locations of the vent craters, arranged in a vertical band that encircled the sphere from north to south. One of them, located almost precisely at the equator, glowed a little more brightly than the rest; beneath the surface, an orange line descended about a centimeter before it intercepted a horizontal line that traced upward, to the north, until it took a slight bend to the east and stopped at a red spot.
“This must be where we came in,” he said, pointing to the glowing crater and the lines beneath it. “See, here’s the route we took down here…”
“Damn,” Cruz murmured, looking at it more closely. “You’re right.” He glanced at Ramirez. “This thing must have been tracking our movements ever since we came down here. I don’t like that very much.”
Ramirez didn’t reply, but he had to agree. Even if Spindrift was a relic of some sort, its instrumentation was less dormant than he’d previously suspected. And if this asteroid—this ship—was aware that intruders were aboard…
“Bugger that.” Harker was on the opposite side of the globe. “Look at this over here.”
Ramirez looked at what had caught Harker’s attention. Beneath the immense equatorial crater they had seen from orbit, a caldera funneled deep within the sphere until it ended in an enormous, red-tinted cylinder. Surrounding it were vast, ovoid cavities, tinted blue-green, with tiny threadlike lines leading to a yellow sphere nestled at the globe’s center. The entire structure took up half of the interior, and was separated from the other half by a thick, reddish brown band he believed to represent solid rock.
“Probably the engine,” Ramirez said. “Fusion, most likely…those blue areas around it may be fuel tanks, with the reactor located at the core.”
Harker tore his eyes away from the globe. “Since when did you earn a degree in engineering?”
“To move something this big, you’d have to turn half of it into a colossal engine. Only makes sense.” He returned his attention to the entrance crater and the levels below it. “Right now, though, I’m less interested in its propulsion system than in what it’s supposed to be moving.”
“For Christ’s sakes, guys.” Cruz slowly walked around the globe, taking pictures from every angle. “You’ve found something like this, and you’re going to stand around and argue?”
“You’re right.” Harker moved back to where Ramirez stood. “We need to take this one step at a time.” He pointed to the glowing lines. “All right, so that’s where we are now. Where do we go from here?”
Ramirez said nothing as he peered into the globe’s crystal interior. Beneath the point where their underground route came to an end, there appeared to be a deep shaft, tinted aquamarine, that led almost all the way down to the asteroid’s core. Similar shafts lay at fixed locations beneath the other vents. Fanning out from the core, they were separated from one another by dense areas of reddish brown rock. Taking a few steps to the right, he saw that these vertical shafts formed a pinwheel shape, like a ferris wheel hollowed out within Spindrift’s mantle.
“There’s something just below us,” he said, pointing to the globe. “It goes down pretty deep, and there’s seven more just like it, each beneath one of the vent craters.” He looked at Harker. “I’d say they’re what we’re looking for.”
“You’re sure of this?” Harker gazed first at the globe, then at the closed hatch on the other side of the room. “You think that’s the way down?”
“Makes sense that it would be.” Ramirez stepped back from the ring, turned his helmet lamps upon the hatch. “We’ve got another hour and a half before your deadline. We can spend it poking around here, or we can see if my guess is correct.” He paused. “You’re in charge, of course. Your decision.”
For a moment, Harker seemed reluctant. Ramirez knew that he was faced with a tough choice: play it safe, or take a chance. He waited, preparing himself to engage in another debate, and finally Harker let out his breath.
“All right, we’ll take a quick look…but that’s as far as we go.” He turned to Cruz. “You agree?”
“Turn back now, after all this?” A short laugh from Cruz as he put away his camera. “Let me at it. I’ll tear the door open with my teeth if I have to.”
Ramirez found himself smiling. “Don’t think you’ll need to go that far. It probably opens just the same way.”
To no one’s surprise, he was correct. The panel to the right of the hatch operated exactly like the ones they’d found before; the near-simultaneous depression of four buttons caused the quadrant of wedge-shaped flanges to split apart and retract into t
he walls. Once again their helmet lamps revealed a spiral stairwell, this one steeper than the one before, leading down into the darkness.
This time, though, they didn’t have a rope. Harker was reluctant to make a descent without a safety line, yet he agreed with Ramirez and Cruz that they’d have to take a chance. Now that they knew what to expect, the stairs shouldn’t be too hard to handle, so long as they were careful.
Cruz insisted upon going first. “Hey, I’m tired of being the last guy down,” he said. “You two are getting all the fun.” Harker was hesitant, but the geologist remained adamant, so he finally agreed to let Cruz lead the way.
That was a fatal error.
FIFTEEN
JANUARY 9, 2291—EAS MARIA CELESTE
Four…three…two…one…
Counting down the seconds, Emily watched the chronometer as it changed from 11:59:59 to 00:00:00. Midnight, at least by shiptime; another day had come to Spindrift. Not that she perceived any difference; beyond the cockpit windows, the asteroid’s coal black surface remained as bleak and lightless as before. No telling how long it had been since the last time this tiny world had experienced a sunrise. Centuries? Millennia?
Who gives a damn? She stared out the windows from where she sat in the pilot’s seat. She restlessly crossed her legs, ignoring the ebook she’d been trying to read for the last few hours. This place can rot for all I care…when am I going to hear from Ted again?
Emily glanced at the mission clock, located on the panel beneath the chronometer. Two sets of digits were displayed; one read 16:39:22—the hours, minutes, and seconds that had elapsed since the Maria Celeste had departed from Galileo, and the other read 03:20:24—the amount of time that had gone by since Ted, Jared, and Jorge left the shuttle for their second EVA. She told herself that she shouldn’t be so nervous—after all, they still had four hours and forty minutes of air left in their suits—yet the fact remained that it had been nearly two and a half hours since she’d lost contact with the team, and she had no idea why the loss-of-signal event had lasted so long.
“Damn it, Ted…don’t do this to me!” In frustration, she threw the datapad at the center window. It made a dull clunk as it bounced off the thick pane and landed, as fate would have it, in the copilot’s seat, where Ted had been sitting only a little while ago. Emily stared at it for a minute, absently nibbling at her fingernails before she realized what she was doing and self-consciously removed her hand from her mouth. She’d never wanted to admit to herself that she was in love with him, that their relationship was more than a sly affair between shipmates. Yet now that he was gone…
What the hell’s going on down there? Once again, she reviewed everything she’d heard over the comlink. They’d managed to open the hatch, found a ramp leading into a deep shaft. They’d descended down it, using a safety line Ted had rigged on the surface. At the bottom of the hatch, they’d discovered what seemed to be alien footprints, along with another hatch with some sort of control panel next to it. Ramirez was trying to figure out how it worked…
And then, silence.
It wasn’t quiet up here, though. The Mare Crisium Opera’s performance of Glass’s Einstein on the Beach, which she’d put on in an attempt to soothe her nerves, had become irritatingly metronomic. She slapped it off, then, on sudden impulse, bolted from her seat and stalked down the aisle to the aft cabin. Her first thought was to brew another cup of coffee—as if she hadn’t had enough already—but instead she found herself standing in front of an unopened suit locker, contemplating the helmet strapped to the rack above it. In ten minutes, she could suit up, depressurize the airlock, go outside…
No. Ted’s orders were strict. By no means was she to leave Maria. Even if there was an emergency, she was supposed to remain aboard and report back to Galileo. It was Captain Lawrence’s decision whether to order a rescue mission; if that were to happen, her prime responsibility as shuttle pilot would be to facilitate the recovery effort.
Emily glanced again at the chronometer—00:06:21. Galileo should be in range, its new orbit once again bringing it above the local horizon. Ted would probably be infuriated with her, of course—after all, Lawrence had told him that he and the others could go EVA again only to retrieve their equipment—but the situation had become critical. Like it or not, she needed to inform the captain that the team had gone missing.
She was halfway back down the aisle, though, when carrier-wave static crackled through her headset. A brief, electronic warble, then she heard Arkady’s voice: “…to Maria Celeste, do you copy?…Repeat, Galileo to Maria Celeste, do you copy…?”
Emily nudged her mike wand. “Galileo, this is Maria Celeste. Good to hear from you. I was just about to…”
A sudden squeal, as if something was interfering with the communication channel. Beneath this, she made out Arkady’s voice: “…respond…unusual…are you…?”
What the hell? Taking her seat again, Emily reached up to the com panel and boosted the gain. “Copy, Galileo. Reception is faint. Raise your signal, please. I can barely hear you.”
Another sharp squeal, then fuzz. Unintelligible voices, some not belonging to Arkady. A loud, abrupt snap, like a twig being broken, followed by a prolonged hiss. Then Arkady’s voice came through again, muted yet distinct. “Maria Celeste, this is Galileo. If you can hear me, please respond.”
“We read you, Galileo.” Emily clasped the headset against her ears, then reached up to raise the volume as high as she could. “Is there a problem up there?”
“Affirmative.” Arkady sounded tense. “Going visual. I’ll keep this channel open until you’ve opened the secondary channel.”
“Copy that.” Emily frowned as she bent forward to switch on the screen. Until now, they’d kept the second comlink channel a secret; if Arkady was speaking of it openly, then there had to be something he felt she needed to see.
For a few moments, the screen revealed nothing but snow. The interference had returned. Arkady said something indistinct; in the background, she could make out voices shouting to one another. For a second, she thought she heard Lawrence—“…aft thrusters…!”—before the rest was lost within the cacophony.
Then the screen cleared, and she saw Arkady in extreme close-up. Although his face was grossly distorted by the fish-eye lens, there was no trace of his characteristic humor; she was startled to see fear in his eyes.
“Are you getting this?” he asked. Without waiting for a response, he disappeared from sight, and then she had an unimpeded view of Galileo’s command center.
Lawrence had risen from his seat. Grasping the side of his chair for support, he yelled at Simone—“Back away! Back away!”—who was hunched over the helm console as if struggling for control. Emily caught a glimpse of Antonia rushing toward the camera; she blocked the view for a moment as she stopped at Arkady’s station—“Try another frequency! Try to get through!’—then Lawrence turned to shout at her—“Get back to your station, damn it!”—and she disappeared.
“Arkady…” Emily tried to remain calm, even though it was obvious that havoc was breaking loose up there. “Arkady, what’s going on?”
No response, although she could hear his voice as if he was addressing someone else on another channel: “This is the EASS Galileo …repeat, this is the EASS Galileo. We’re a…we’re a ship from Earth, engaged in peaceful scientific exploration…”
Who’s he trying to talk to? Emily saw Cole move toward Lawrence. He grabbed the captain’s arm, started to say something, but Lawrence angrily shoved him aside and continued to yell at Simone, his words incoherent amid the chaos that gripped the bridge.
“Rusic, answer me!” Emily shouted. “What the hell’s going on?”
An instant of static, then Arkady’s voice came back online: “I’m trying to…hold on…”
A window opened at the upper right quadrant of the screen: a probe’s-eye view through one of Jerry’s cameras, probably the same as the flight crew had on their screens at this very instant. In th
e background, she could make out the silver ring of the starbridge, yet that wasn’t what caught her attention, but instead the shape that loomed before it.
An alien starship.
The moment she saw it, Emily knew what it was. Streamlined, almost aquatic in form, the vessel was unquestionably extraterrestrial in origin. Within the front of its tapered bow, light gleamed from dozens of slitted portholes, while an orange radiance was emitted from bulges along its flanks. Although it was nearly impossible to put any sense of scale to the thing, nonetheless she had the impression that it was as large as the Galileo, if not larger.
On the left side of the screen, Rauchle came into view. Stepping around Cole, he shouted at Lawrence: “Don’t fire! For God’s sake, don’t fire until we…!”
The captain waved him off, then turned to the right, where Martin sat at his console. “Mr. Cohen, arm the warhead! Ready torpedo for launch on my command!”
“Ship continuing approach!” This from Antonia. “No reply to…!”
“Warhead armed, sir!” Martin’s gaze was fixed upon the screens above his station. “Torpedo ready for launch!”
Oh, Christ, no! “Arkady, stop him!” Emily yelled. “You’ve got to…”
Rauchle grabbed Lawrence by the shoulder. “Stop! You don’t have to…!”
Lawrence pushed him aside. “Mr. Cohen! Launch!”
“Aye, sir!” Martin stabbed at a switch on his panel. “Torpedo away!”
“Oh, no…” Emily shook her head in disbelief. “Oh, no…God, no. Arkady, tell me this isn’t…”
“You goddamn fool!” Cole came at Lawrence again. He grabbed the captain by his shoulders, flung him into his seat. “We could have…!”
“Range to target, ninety-five kilometers.” Martin’s voice was oddly calm, almost as if he was reciting a math equation. “Ninety kilometers…eighty-five…”
“Abort!” Rauchle turned to yell at Cohen. “Abort, damn you! Abort!”
“Receiving transmission!” Arkady snapped. “I…
