by E. C. Tubb
The heart? Had she mentioned the heart? And the teeth? The spleen? The incredible pancreas?
And had she discovered why the creature had died?
Questions, always questions, and her head ached and her stump hurt and she was sticky with sweat. Before her eyes the tape spun with a soundless determination then, as her thumb slipped off the button, came to a halt.
Later—she would finish the report later. Now all she wanted to do was to lie and rest and close her eyes and let darkness enfold her with its anodyne of sleep.
Oliver Roache sucked in his breath and said, “Got it!”
“Success?” Carter was standing just behind him, a powerful light in his hand, the beam aimed at the smooth hemisphere of the ovoid which had been found beneath the table. The furnishing itself had been moved to one side, low stumps remaining where the legs had been cut away. The oddly shaped chairs had been stacked to one end of the hollow space. “Have you managed to shift it?”
“Not yet, but I think I know how it can be done.” Roache, squatting, pointed a stubby finger. “See that seam? Those studs? That indentation? My guess is that this unit was assembled and locked to form a solid module. If it broke down it was to be replaced.”
“In space?”
“Yes, if Victor is correct. But if it broke down in space there would be no point in replacement or repair—the crew would be dead.” Roache gnawed at his bottom lip, frowning. “Which alters things a little. No repairs could be intended so the thing was never designed to be dismantled. But it had to enclose valuable fuel and it certainly had to be assembled. Now, if we can determine the reverse order then we should be able to take it apart.”
He leaned closer, spatulate fingers caressing the enigmatic construct, the flesh relaying information to his mind; tactile impressions which stimulated his trained skills. A machine, any machine designed to perform a function, had to present a solvable puzzle. Parts had to intermesh or be set in a special relationship. Once given the initial clue an engineer should be able to extrapolate from known function to inevitable design.
A threaded bolt meant a matching nut, a male union an accompanying female socket, a gear belonged to another cogged wheel, a wire had two terminals, an axis spoke of a revolving shaft.
Simple items when compared to what he now examined but the basic principles remained the same. A machine was the product of intelligence. It had to be built and assembled. A different intelligence, if of high enough calibre, could emulate what the other had done. And, as an engineer, Roache had no equal.
Carter handed the light to an assistant and moved away to examine the enigmatic items found on the table and now placed to one side. Cups, perhaps? Glasses, plates, eating utensils—but they did not give the impression of such things. A bowl held a universal shape and, while any flat surface would serve as a plate, a vase could only follow certain lines. Playthings, then? The elements of some game of baffling complexity? Or had they been the sacred relics and furnishings of some unguessable ceremony?
Leaving them he moved on to stand looking up at the sweep of the roof, noting the unblemished smoothness of the surrounding stone. A curtain of luminosity, if Victor was correct, was all that had stood between the crew of this vessel and the dangers of space. A skein of light, invisible forces made discernible by added impurities, enclosing those within. But how had they plotted their course? How had they observed external conditions?
And the living quarters—as far as he could see the upper hemisphere was open and had never had partitions. Had they all eaten and slept and lived together without ever feeling the need of privacy?
Carter moved on. Behind him Roache and his team crouched over the engine, little clicks and tapping coming from applied tools. The lights made a cone of brilliance which accentuated the edging shadows and threw enigmatic bulks into deeper mystery.
The console-like construction—had it been the controls? That flat, coffin-like thing, a means of preparing food? Had light come from the discolored patches on the floor? Or air? Or darkness to ease the glare of the shield?
Where had they bathed?
Puzzles which could take a century to answer if answers ever be found. In the meantime they could only guess and hope their guesses were correct and then build on those speculations to create a larger structure. Like archaeology, in a way, he thought. A scrap of a broken pot, a shred of leather, a bone, and from such scant evidence a culture was born. But what did they really know of the past? What could they ever hope to learn from this alien mystery?
A grunt came from Roache then words snapped in impatient anger.
“Watch that damned light! Mind that extension. That camera ready? Take a snap.”
Lights steadying, moved to steady again as the shutter clicked to record the ovoid and what the engineer had found. Carter took a step towards the group, then halted. Roache would not welcome an interruption at this time. His hand touched the surface of the flat, coffin-like object, the fingers trailing along the rim set around the upper edge. It had been checked and photographed but still waited closer inspection. On an impulse he dropped to his knees and looked along the edge towards the group clustered about the ovoid. The lights were bright and narrowed his eyes, the glare revealing a slight imperfection in the line just below a point on the rim.
An indentation so shallow as to be invisible to a direct examination. One into which he set his finger and pushed.
The upper surface of the box opened with a sigh.
Carter staggered back, coughing, eyes stinging from the released cloud of noxious vapor. Through tears which ran down his cheeks he looked into the open box seeing a naked, nacreous shape, a figure undoubtedly female which collapsed to dust on which, where folded hands had rested, a vial of lambent substance was held in a container of delicate filagree.
C H A P T E R
Twenty-Five
On the screen the stars were a frosting of silver marred by an ugly smear. One which was black and round yet fuzzed at the rim as if the eye was reluctant to concentrate or the stars surrounding it blinked to vanish to blink again.
“The event horizon,” said Morrow. “The thing which makes it impossible for us ever to look inside.”
And if they could they would see nothing for no light mass or radiation could ever escape from the black hole. In that, at least, this alien universe followed familiar laws of physics.
As, apparently, did the suns.
Once, some time ago now, a star had died. It had been a large star but its fuel had been exhausted and it had followed the cycle of its kind. Once the internal temperature had failed to emit enough radiation to keep the outer shell from falling towards the inner core it had collapsed. Atom had piled on atom, the entire mass compressed into a ball of neutronium and, condensing, it had passed the Schwarzchild radius. Within it gravity had become so strong that nothing could escape. Nothing at all.
And the black hole which remained was a threat to anything approaching its massive gravity well.
“Soon now. Commander,” said Morrow, quietly. “Velocity has accelerated.”
Has—had, the event he witnessed now had already happened and the probe long since vanished into the maw waiting it. Light still took time to travel and the instrument which had been released from Carter’s Eagle had travelled a long way.
“Sandra?”
“All instruments recording,” she reported. “Full sensor scan.”
Details which would probably tell them nothing but which must be obtained. And some information they had already gained; data which verified previous estimates and facts which could not be avoided.
Koenig felt himself tense as the black smear grew larger. In imagination he sat at the controls of an Eagle plunging towards the black hole. But this time he would know there could be no escape. He could do nothing but sit and wait as the thing grew larger, as his velocity increased, as the shimmering edge of the event horizon came closer . . . closer . . . Until?
Nothing!
He bl
inked as the screen went dark, feeling the dampness of sweat on face and neck, conscious of the tension of his hands, the fingers which had driven their nails into the palm. It had seemed so real. He had felt the fear and helplessness, the dread of the unknown. To be swallowed, crushed, smeared over the tiny ball of super-dense matter. Or, if as was propounded such a ball could not exist, then to enter the strange realm of no-space it must have created. To become a part of the space-time singularity which broke the laws of physics and permitted anything to happen. Anything—including the reversal of time, the creation of monsters, the duplication of living things. A region in which anything could occur with equal probability.
A zone of madness.
Kano said, “Position recorded, Commander. Some slight increase in size since the last observation and, of course, we’re much closer.”
“As predicted?”
“No. The hole must have moved.”
And could move again. Could such a thing be attracted by mass as a mouse be attracted to cheese? A bad analogy, the hole was no mouse but a ravening wolf hunting defenceless sheep. Would the Moon provide an alluring bait?
Fantasies, but in this region too many things considered impossible had occurred. Looking at the frost of stars Koenig felt again the same frustration he had known as a boy when, ignorant and eager to help, he had offered to scoop up fallen mercury in a jar. Only after a long time had those watching shown him how it must be done—and who was to show them here?
Kano added, guessing his thoughts, “As yet we are in no immediate danger, Commander. If things remain stable we’ll miss it by a comfortable margin. And, of course, if it should move again it could move away from us.”
A hope he nursed as he left Main Mission and made his way to Bergman’s laboratory. The professor was busy, his bench filled with flasks and vials, powdered substances heaped on small dishes. Assistants stood before him.
“Dougal, you take the powder from the tunnel-seam and run it through analysis. Chan, you run a check on the mineral found at the point Haggai struck just before the quake. Mbtomo and Pelym, I want a complete report on the dust gathered from the lower section of the cavern-ship. There could be minute traces of unfamiliar metals so be extremely precise.”
“Yes, Professor.” Mbtomo, a new-adult, was conscious of his responsibility. “Shall we make a spectroscopic examination?”
“Of course, but later. I shall be using the instrument myself.” He slid from his stool as Koenig approached. “Trouble, John?”
“Why should you think that?”
“Whenever you look the way you do now there’s always trouble of some kind. What is it? The probe?”
“Yes. It reached the black hole.”
“And vanished, naturally.” The high forehead creased in a frown. “But so soon?”
“The hole has moved.” Koenig drew in his breath and released it in a sigh. “Maybe I’m worried about nothing, but I don’t like that thing sitting up there watching us like a cat watching a mouse. Not when I’m the mouse.”
“If it moved once it could move again and the chances are against it moving towards us. Now, John, I want to show you something odd.”
“Which is?”
“I’ll show you on the spectroscope.”
Koenig narrowed his eyes as the pattern was projected on a screen, noting the spread of color, the spectrum scored with lines of varying thickness, some bunched close, others set widely apart.
“Xetal?”
“Yes. This is what we found in the abandoned lair. Now look at this.”
“You’ve made a mistake, Victor—or am I suppose to look at the same thing twice?”
“The same thing, John?”
“Well, isn’t it?”
“Yes and no.” Bergman busied himself with the spectroscope, then turned to an ordinary projector. “I’ve had these slides made for purpose of comparison. Now watch and tell me what you think.”
Color painted the wall, twin bands each scored with dark lines. They rested one above the other, the lines coinciding.
“The same,” said Koenig. “Or, no—the bottom one seems a little different.”
“An impurity. But aside from that?”
“They match. Both are xetal.”
“But they didn’t come from the same source.” Bergman switched off the projector. “One came from the abandoned lair and the other, the one with the impurity, came from the cavern-ship. Alan found it in this.”
Koenig took the vial Bergman handed to him, the delicate filagree in which it had been held. The work was superb, the strands as fine as hair, each smoothly polished and without flaw. Examining it he listened to how it had been found.
“A burial,” he said when Bergman had finished. “A female laid to rest and an item of value deposited with her. But why?”
“Not why, John, how? How did that alien metal get into a coffin sealed in a vessel which must have been buried in rock for at least a half million years?”
Carter sneezed and said, “It’s nothing. Bob, just a tickle in the nostrils. I wouldn’t have reported it but you fanatics insist on a total examination for every little ache and pain.”
An exaggeration but Mathias made no comment as he used an ophthalmoscope to peer into each eye. The temperature, he knew, was a little higher than normal, the skin betraying some slight feverishness. The nasal membranes were swollen and, he guessed, the pilot had a headache though he hadn’t reported it.
“What is it, Bob? A cold?”
“On Alpha?”
“One of those microbes you figured beaten could have reared up for another go.” Carter sneezed again as Mathias lowered the ophthalmoscope. “That damned coffin! I must have breathed in a litre of dust when that body collapsed. Well, give me a couple of tablets and I’ll be on my way.”
“No tablets, Alan.”
“A shot, then.”
“No shots, either. And no arguments. I want you in for observation and examination.” He added, firmly, “I mean it, Alan.”
“Yes, yes I guess you do.” Carter lifted a hand to his temple. “Well, in that case, you might as well give me something for my head. It’s damned near killing me.”
Helena frowned as she heard the news. “Alan? Bob, are you sure?”
“No, Helena, I’m not, It could be something caused by membrane-irritation and will clear itself up in a couple of days. It could even be a cold as he suggested remote though that possibility is. But I didn’t want to take a chance. I put him in isolation with the rest.”
“The seventh,” she murmured. “All with the same initial symptoms. I want a complete series of tests; blood, lymphatic fluids, the visceral pleura, the—”
“I know what to do, Helena.”
“Yes, Bob, of course. I’m sorry. I—”
“You’ve known Alan a long time.”
“We’ve all known him a long time and we all owe him a lot. But it isn’t just that.” She looked down at her hands and saw them closed into fists, the knuckles white with strain. A symbolic gesture—hands clenched into instruments of battle against the unknown. But, in this case, the unknown wasn’t totally a stranger. Its face, at least, was familiar. The mask of a grinning skull.
Mathias said, quietly, “If what we both think is possible then we’d better have a total-contact restriction.”
“You’ve introduced full isolation procedure?”
“Yes, but we need more.”
“And we’ll get it.” Helena dropped her hand to her belt and lifted her commlock. “Get me the Commander. John? You’d better come to Medical right away.”
“An emergency?” His face looked at her from the screen.
“Just get here, John. And hurry!”
She met him at the door and he glanced at the thing in her hand, the thin, transparent envelope which would totally enclose him from head to foot. An air-pack at the belt and a stiffened diaphragm provided for speech and atmosphere.
“As bad as that, Helena?”
“We c
an’t be sure as yet but I want to take no chances.” She was wearing a similar protection. “This could be serious, John.”
A warning emphasized when, dressed in the envelope, he followed her into the isolation area. It was a section designed for just such an emergency. Each room was separate, the entire installation sealed, the air-pressure kept lower than that outside. Access was by air-lock and the inner atmosphere and was kept circulating through antiseptic fluids.
Carter was in bed, apparatus set up around his body, the band of a sleep-inducer on his head. His eyes were closed and he breathed in the shallow rhythm of natural sleep. An electroencephalograph recorded his brain-waves.
“The initial stage,” she said as Koenig paused to look at the pilot. “We’re running tests now to determine what could be wrong.”
“You intend to keep him asleep?”
“Why not? He’d only get bored lying there awake. Anyway, sleep relaxes the body and is about the best natural healer we know.” Her voice changed. “A pity it can’t help Doctor Kikkido.”
The woman was dying.
She lay, burning with fever, still and silent by virtue of induced sleep, her body a battle-ground for ravaging invaders. The skin held a febrile blush, the lips were puffed and cracked, hair had fallen from the scalp to lie on the pillow. Her cheeks were bloated and the balls of her eyes, distended, rested like swollen balloons beneath their lids.
Koenig looked at her hands. They lay on the cover beside her, the knuckles cracked, seeping a pale ooze, the nails an ugly brown.
“The first,” said Helena. “She was found in her office, sprawled on the desk, unconscious and in high fever. She hasn’t spoken coherently since. We drugged her, managed to gain her awareness, but her mouth and tongue had been affected and she could only babble. When she tried to write none of it made sense.”
