by Allen Steele
“Oh, hell, no!” Martin started to rise from his seat. “Captain, it’s…”
Emily caught a last glimpse of the command center as a white-hot burst of light surged through the windows. She had the impression of Simone—sweet, soft-spoken Simone Monet—throwing her hands across her face as she fell back in her seat, screaming in terror as she was blinded.
Then the screen went blank as an earsplitting screech came through Emily’s headset.
An instant later, a false dawn rose upon Spindrift.
Raising her head, Emily stared through the cockpit windows at the miniature supernova that blossomed into existence above the dark horizon. It briefly illuminated distant hills, then quickly faded, snuffed out by the interstellar vacuum.
The Galileo was gone.
Emily didn’t know how long she sat in the cockpit, trembling with a chill that cut straight to the bone. Even when she shut her eyes, the retinal afterimage remained, just as horrible as the first time she saw it. At some point, she raised a hand to her headset, intending to say what she thought should be said—Do you copy, Galileo? This is Maria Celeste, please respond—but when she touched her mike, all that came from her throat was a dry rasp.
Get a grip, a small voice said to her from the depths of her consciousness. There’s nothing you can do for them. You’ve got to move on.
But I can’t. Tears slipped from the corners of her eyes; she squeezed them tight and let her head fall back against the seat. All those people…Arkady, Nick, Toni, Simone…my crewmates, my friends, they’re all dead…
Yes, they’re dead. The voice was solemn, not without remorse yet nonetheless pragmatic. Do you want to join them?
“Yes,” she whispered. “I mean, I…”
No, you don’t. The voice became stern. You know why? Because you’ve got three more lives depending on you, and if you let them down, then Ted and those other two guys are going to die, too…
“But we’re all…we’re…”
Going to die anyway? Maybe, but you’re still breathing, aren’t you? So suck it in, open your eyes, and do whatever it takes to keep yourself and the others alive.
Emily opened her mouth, filled her lungs with air, slowly let it out. She did it again and again until she finally managed to stop shaking. A little calmer, she opened her eyes and ran the back of her hand across her face, wiping away the tears as best she could.
“All right, Emcee,” she murmured. “You’ve had your panic attack. Now let’s see about getting out of this pretty little fix you’re in.”
First priority was survival. Standing up on legs that still felt unsteady, she hobbled over to the life-support panel above the copilot’s seat and checked the readout. Enough air left for another 152 hours at normal rate of consumption for four people; ditto for water, so long as the recycling system remained operational. Eventually shortages would become a problem, but she deliberately pushed what would happen six days from now to the back of her mind. She’d have to worry about that later.
The nuclear batteries were good for an almost indefinite period—in theory, at least a century—but that was at levels of minimal energy consumption. So it made sense to shut down all nonessential systems, and switch the rest to low-power mode. As a first step, she lowered the thermostat to 18.3°C and made a note to herself to put on a warm-up jacket before too long. The rest would come once she consulted her checklist and made decisions as to what systems were or were not necessary.
All right, so she would live, or at least for another six days or so. Second priority was security. Something up there had destroyed her ship. Although Emily had little doubt that Galileo’s own nuclear torpedo was the primary cause—the explosion had occurred too soon after Lawrence had ordered its launch to be mere coincidence—it only stood to reason that the alien vessel had something to do with it. Which meant that she was dealing with a possible—no, make that a probable—adversary.
She had no idea what their capabilities were, but she had to consider the fact that it might be able to locate the Maria Celeste. Realizing this, she swore under her breath, then reached up to an overhead panel and hastily switched off the floodlights, followed by the red and green formation lights. As an afterthought, she turned down the interior lights, leaving the cockpit and aft section dark save for the wan glow of the comp screens and emergency lamps. There was nothing she could do about emissions from the shuttle’s radiators or its carbon-dioxide vents; with any luck, though, they would be masked by those from Spindrift itself. Thank heavens she’d moved the shuttle closer to the crater.
Which led to her third, but no less important, priority: the three men on the surface. Or rather, beneath the surface. Once again, Emily gazed through the cockpit windows at the nearby crater, its outer wall discernible only as blackness rising against the star-flecked horizon. Ted probably had no clue as to what had just happened; if he had, she would’ve heard from him already. As it stood, though, she had no way of making contact with him, at least until the outer hatch opened again.
Not only that, she suddenly realized, but it was also possible that any radio transmissions on the surface might be picked up from orbit. If something out there was searching for them, then any attempt to reach the survey team could lead the aliens straight to her. She dared not take that risk.
So now she faced an immediate decision. She could suit up, leave Maria, climb over the crater wall, and enter the hatch the others had found. Perhaps even make the perilous descent down the ramp, even though she had little idea of what lay at the bottom of the entrance shaft. Or she could remain where she was, to mind the fort—which, metaphor aside, was exactly what the shuttle had become—and wait for the survey team to reappear.
Every impulse told her to go after them. She didn’t want to be left alone, not after this. Standing up again, she started to head aft, where the suit lockers and airlock lay, only to stop before she was halfway across the cockpit. Ted had given her orders to remain aboard, no matter what. She’s our lifeline, he’d said. Without her, we’re not going home.
“Oh, God,” she murmured, shutting her eyes and rubbing her temples with her fingers. “Don’t do this to me.”
Don’t panic. Once more, the small, calm voice returned. You won’t help Ted if you lose your wits. Just do what he told you to do, and you’ll be fine.
She let out her breath, forced herself to sit down again. However much she hated to do so, she’d have to wait, alone and in the dark, if only for a little while longer.
In whatever lonely place her love now walked, he’d have to walk without her.
SIXTEEN
JANUARY 9, 2291—SPINDRIFT
The staircase they’d found in the control room was steeper than the one leading down from the entrance hatch, its platelike risers more narrow. At least it wasn’t suspended within an empty shaft, though, but instead spiraled down through solid rock. Yet the walls didn’t light up as they’d done before; although random-patterned grooves had been cut into the stone, for some reason they remained dark after the three men entered the stairway.
That alone made Harker more wary than before. It was as if whoever had designed Spindrift had deliberately made it more difficult for someone to explore its lower levels. Or perhaps there was another reason why this part of the underground should remain unlit. Either way, he was beginning to think that it might be better to quit while they were ahead and instead begin retracing their steps to the surface. But he didn’t want to have another quarrel with Ramirez, and Cruz was equally insistent that they see what lay beneath the control room, or whatever it was.
That wasn’t all, though, was it? Admit it, he said to himself. You want to find out what’s down here just as much as they do. Turn back now, and you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.
So, against his better judgment, he allowed Cruz to lead the way down the staircase. The geologist took his time, careful to look where he put his feet before he took each step, bracing his hands against the curved walls on either side
of them. With Ramirez bringing up the rear, they slowly made their way down the stairs, the beams of their helmet lamps dancing ahead of them.
They’d descended less than thirty meters before the staircase abruptly ended in yet another circular hatch. By then, they’d all become accustomed to operating the control panels that lay to the right of the portals; this time, though, there was no place for two of them to stand while the third person opened the door. Another weird difference. Until then, everything had become relatively familiar, almost repetitious. And now this…
But that wasn’t enough reason to make them retreat, so Harker remained on the stairs, with Ramirez just behind him, while Cruz simultaneously depressed the four buttons. Again, the door’s pie wedges split apart. With a faint grinding noise, they receded into the walls, and before them lay…
Darkness. An expanse of fathomless black void, with nothing on the other side that their helmet lamps could reach. The only thing visible was the floor on the other side of the hatch—once again, covered with the same irregular mosaic that they’d found earlier—and even that seemed to come to a sudden end less than three meters away. Beyond its edge lay only empty space.
“I don’t get it,” Cruz said, standing just outside the hatch. “There’s nothing here but…nothing.”
“The globe showed that this leads to some sort of shaft.” Ramirez peered over Harker’s shoulder to see what they were seeing. “I think we’re looking at it. If my guess is correct, we should be at the top.”
The chill that ran up Harker’s back was becoming more than he could handle. “All right, gentlemen,” he said, “enough is enough. We’re heading back.”
“Like hell.” Cruz’s voice was sharp with excitement. “Sorry, but I’m not giving up until I find out what this is all about.”
“Jorge, wait!” Harker snapped. “Don’t…!” He raised his hand, but before Harker could stop him, Cruz stepped through the hatch.
Harker had no choice but to follow him. Stepping off the bottom riser, he went through the hatch after Cruz. The geologist was only a couple of meters ahead. He’d come to a halt near the visible edge of the floor, and was bending forward slightly as if to look down at something.
“Oh, my God,” he murmured, taking another step forward. “I don’t believe…”
Harker couldn’t tell exactly what happened next. Perhaps the toe of Jorge’s boot snagged against the edge of the raised plates on the floor’s mosaic surface, causing him to stumble. Whatever the reason, Cruz abruptly lost his balance, started to pitch forward.
He yelled as he instinctively raised his hands as if to catch himself. But there was no protective rail for him to fall against; the four-legged denizens of Spindrift were apparently so surefooted that they had no need for that sort of thing. For a moment, his arms pinwheeled as he helplessly flailed at emptiness.
And then Cruz toppled over the edge into darkness.
“Jorge!” Harker started to rush after him. “Jorge…!”
“Stop!” Ramirez grabbed him from behind, pulled him back before he could commit the same mistake. Yet this couldn’t prevent Harker from hearing Cruz’s scream within his headset, a high-pitched cry of pure terror that seemed to last forever.
“Jorge!” Harker fought against Ramirez, struggling to pull free. “Oh, Christ, Jorge…!”
From somewhere far below, he caught the flash of Cruz’s helmet lamps, briefly reflecting off the shaft walls, before fading from sight.
“Jorge!” he shouted again.
The scream should have ended. Instead, it went on, and on, and on, a horrible, desperate cry that didn’t end until Harker heard an abrupt, sickening crunch within his headset. The light vanished, and he heard only silence.
“Jorge!” He started to lurch forward. “Oh, my God, no! Jorge…!”
“Stop it!” Ramirez shook him roughly, not letting him go. “There’s nothing you can do! He’s gone!”
Tears stung the corners of his eyes; Harker reached up to wipe them away, only to rediscover the faceplate in the way of his hand. His breath came as ragged gasps that burned his lungs; acidic bile rose within his throat, and he was barely able to choke it back down. Ramirez gently released him, allowing him to fall to his hands and knees; Harker slumped there for a couple of minutes, struggling to regain control of himself.
At long last, he clambered to his feet and, with great caution, approached the place where Cruz had fallen. He saw what Cruz had glimpsed in his last moments of life: a vast pit, apparently bottomless, that yawned open beyond the platform upon which he and Ramirez were standing. At least sixty meters across, the light from his helmet lamps barely reached the other side.
With trembling hands, Harker pulled out a lightstick. Breaking it, he tossed it over the side. The stick fell past level upon level upon level of ramps that spiraled downward, each without a protective railing of any kind, that gradually funneled down toward an invisible floor that lay hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of meters below them. Or at least so it seemed; the stick disappeared from view before reaching bottom.
What the hell was this place? Pulling out a flashlight, he aimed its beam straight ahead. Along the walls of the pit, evenly spaced from one another, lozenge-shaped blisters reflected its glow. There seemed to be thousands—no, tens of thousands—of them. Almost as if this was…
A hive. That was the only description that came to mind. An enormous hive, as seen from the inside.
“Look at it,” Ramirez murmured, quiet awe in his voice. “The sheer scale of engineering…it’s magnificent.”
“Magnificent?” Something in the way Ramirez spoke turned Harker’s grief to anger. “We just lost a man, for the love of…” A sudden thought occurred to him. “We’ve got to find him. Even if he’d dead, we need to…”
“Are you crazy?” Ramirez stared at him. “You see how deep this goes…maybe even to the core itself. No way we can reach him…not with the time we have left, at least.”
Like it or not, Ramirez was right. A quick glance at his helmet’s heads-up display told Harker that they had little more than four hours of air left in their suits. “Yeah, okay,” he muttered, slowly letting out his breath. “Nothing we can do for him now.” He turned toward the hatch behind them. “Better head back…”
“Not so fast.” Ramirez pointed toward to the left; at the end of the platform lay the top of the ramp they’d seen a moment ago. “This pit must have been built for some reason. We should try to figure out what it is.”
“Jared…” Harker beg an, but Ramirez was already walking down the ramp, his helmet lamps illuminating the rock wall on its left side. Harker quickly broke another lightstick and placed it on the floor beside the stairway hatch, then followed him, careful to avoid getting close to the ramp’s unprotected edge. “We don’t have time for this. There’s nothing we can find that’ll make any…”
“I don’t agree…and I think I just found it.” Ahead of him, Ramirez came to a halt. His lamps revealed one of the ovoid bulges Harker had glimpsed earlier. “Come look at this,” he added, his voice dropping to a near whisper. “Tell me you’re seeing what I’m seeing.”
Harker cautiously walked down the ramp until he stopped beside him. The blister was nearly three meters in height, and seemed to grow out from the wall itself like an obscene tumor. Composed of some transparent substance, it appeared to be filled with a thick, reddish orange liquid; tiny lights glowed from panels on either side of it. And suspended within the cell…
At first glance, he thought it was an enormous insect. Two meters in height, almost delicate in form, its elongated head resembled that of a cricket or a locust, with two bulbous, lidless eyes—no, there were at least two more, arranged on either side of its slender skull—that seemed to peer back at him from above a narrow snout. The creature’s head, which rested on top of a long, thin neck, was tucked in toward its thorax, which appeared to be plated with a chitinous exoskeleton.
“Biostasis of some sort…look, see?” Ramirez
pulled out a flashlight, aimed it into the cell. Rubbery tubes ran from the bottom of the creature’s snout to the cell’s inner casing. “A respirator, much like we have aboard Galileo. Their bodily functions have been slowed down, but they’re still breathing, with carbon dioxide vented to the surface. The fluid…”
“Right. Sure.” Harker was paying more attention to the rest of the alien. Four arms, double-jointed and in two distinct sets—the ones on top slightly longer than the ones beneath them—were folded together across the alien’s chest. He wasn’t surprised to see that each arm ended in a three-fingered claw. Below the lower set of arms, the creature’s thorax tapered to a narrow waist, then expanded once more to form a thick abdomen, shaped somewhat like a chili pepper, that was curled upward and inward. The creature was floating within the cell, weightlessly suspended by the dense fluid, much as he himself had been during Galileo’s long journey to this place.
“Quadrupedal stance…see?” Ramirez aimed his light at the two sets of legs that curled inward from the alien’s thorax. “Notice how the forelegs are backward-jointed, while the hind legs are forward-jointed? That would give them great stability.” He glanced back at the edge of the ramp. “No wonder they don’t need guardrails. The floors and stairways are designed for four legs, not two.”
Harker said nothing. Despite everything they’d seen so far, he’d half expected Spindrift’s builders to be humanlike enough for him to be able to relate to them. This damned thing was a monstrosity, a horror wrenched from his worst nightmare, so far beyond his imagination that he couldn’t help but regard it with revulsion. Looking away from the cell, he saw another cell just like this one. Only a few meters away was another, and another, and another, and another…
“How many of them are there?” he asked, even though he already knew the answer.
“Thousands?” Ramirez shined his light down the ramp. “Hundreds of thousands? And from what we saw on the globe, this is just one pit…there are seven more just like it.” A nervous laugh. “There may be millions of them down here. Asleep for who knows how long.”
