by B. V. Larson
I looked around the interior, frowning. I sucked in a breath and was about to bellow at them—but I paused. They weren’t like me, and I had to remember that. I’d been rebuilt by Marvin’s devilish brews of trained Microbes. I’d been given seven baths in his stinking mud puddles, and as a result, I was stronger than anyone I’d ever met.
“All right,” I said. “None of you can stand, is that right?”
“No, sir. Sorry, sir.”
“It’s okay. Give me the bomb.”
The specialist looked at me in surprise. “Sir? You aren’t going alone, are you?”
“Nah,” I said. “There’s probably a few in the other ship that can come with me.”
At that, the specialist made a mighty effort. He was a muscular man. I could see that through his faceplate. His neck looked as thick as his skull.
He managed to stand briefly. I was proud of him and dared to hope I wouldn’t have to walk on this mission alone.
But it wasn’t to be. He listed toward the starboard side of the ship and then overcompensated with a lurching heave to the left. I reached out to catch him but wasn’t fast enough. He went down on his ass, and I could tell he hit hard. The gravity was so great that once you started falling, you went down as if you’d been hit with a club.
“Stay down!” I shouted.
For a second, he didn’t answer, and I thought he might have been knocked unconscious. But then he spoke.
“I got dizzy,” he said. “I lost it. I feel like I was hit by a truck.”
“That’s ten-Gs plus a little gravy you’re struggling against,” I told him.
“I—my HUD says I cracked my spine, Colonel. Sorry.”
“No problem. It will heal. Just take it easy.”
“How is it that you can walk and talk, Colonel?” he asked me.
I loomed over him smiling into his faceplate.
“I cheat,” I said.
Then I took the bomb and left him. I didn’t bother checking on the second group of marines in the other ship. It was hopeless, and I didn’t have any more time to waste.
The bomb was in a square case, and it bumped against my knees as I walked. This unbalancing effect almost scrubbed the entire mission. I had a hard time walking with it. Each step, I found myself staggering and swaying like a drunk. At last, I figured out a way to carry it. I had a nanite cable from the ship detach itself and wrap around my neck and shoulders. Using this expedient, I placed the bomb on my back. It rode on top of my generator, and I prayed the housing could take the weight.
I set off at a steady, laborious pace. My suit heaved and groaned. I had to use anti-grav repellers just to stay upright when I went over rough terrain. I couldn’t afford to overuse them, however. The power consumption was alarming enough as it was. I had only hours to go before I ran out of juice entirely.
The dome wasn’t far off, but it felt like miles. The gravity was so extreme, my body felt as if I was sagging, folding into myself. My muscles hung from my bones as if they wanted to fall off like overripe fruit. Each breath required a focused effort, and every step was an individual exercise. At first, I had to take breaks. Every ten to twenty steps, I had to stop and put my hands on my knees putting my head level with my heart. This let me think more clearly.
Internally, my body made adjustments after ten minutes or so passed. Maybe it was the work of the nanites or the microbes—I wasn’t really sure. But I could walk almost normally, albeit in slow-motion.
I figured that my body, with the armor, had to weigh around ten thousand pounds. Without the exoskeleton inside my suit, I would be helpless. As it was, the suit groaned and creaked. The power meter was going down with alarming speed, as well. Normally, these suits could keep you going for two or three days if you didn’t fire the laser much. But with the tremendous new load of weight, I doubted it was going to last more than two or three hours.
Deciding my armor was too heavy, I shed the outer plates. The exoskeleton beneath was exposed, an interior layer of red and black materials that crawled with nanites. I felt like I could breathe again.
I considered going back and gathering my marines, having them shed their battle armor as I’d done, but I passed on the idea. There was no guarantee they could function under the heavy Gs even without armor, and if that was the case I was just wasting time.
More importantly, without our armor we weren’t really going to able to fight. My mission now was one of getting in and out as fast as possible. Hopefully, this could be done without being detected and overrun by enemy machines. Bringing more men to carry the bomb would only take more time and increase the odds of being found and slaughtered.
The exoskeleton was more protective than a simple nanocloth suit, but much lighter than full armor plating, with my burden eased I pressed ahead as fast as I could travel.
I reached the dome in time and marched slowly inside. The experience of passing through the dome wall wasn’t unfamiliar to me. It was strangely quiet and blank inside the shell-like field itself, like walking through a velvety snowstorm at night. I could only hear my labored breathing, the hissing and clicking of my suit, and a few alarms beeping because we were now out of contact with the ship and the directional sensors weren’t operating.
I trudged steadily, blinded by the energy field. I counted steps and became concerned after I’d taken ten and still hadn’t reached the quiet interior of the dome. Was I lost? Was the interior filled with yet more force fields?
Not knowing the answers, I pushed away the questions and kept going. I’d reasoned that since the dome covered a larger area it must also be thicker, and I’d been right. When I’d gone three times as far as I’d ever had to go to cross a Macro dome, I reached the interior at last.
I stepped into a quiet, inner world. It was enclosed above by a perfectly smooth surface like milky glass. Inside, the dim landscape stretched away in an arc in front of me. Miles of land were enclosed.
The horrid gravity was the sole constant of my existence as I kept walking. I wanted to rest, but I knew I didn’t have much time. About a half-mile in, I found an obstacle. It was a vertical wall that curved away in both directions.
I frowned. Why would the Macros build a wall inside here? Then, I thought I knew the genius of it. On a normal world, a wall meant nothing to a Star Force marine in his full kit. I could fly over it, climb it or burn my way through it, but not here in this high-gravity environment. Here, I would have to use too much power to damage the wall, and I weighed too much to climb or fly over it.
Given no choice, I began walking around the wall. It curved, just as the dome did. The surface of it looked strange to me as if I’d seen this mottled dark stone before. Not knowing why, I kept going.
I knew this might be the end of my mission. If the wall went all the way around, I guessed I could set off the bomb on the outside of it, but I wanted to be sure I got the factories. If it had an entrance, it might be guarded by enemy machines, and they were sure to discover me at the gates. Maybe that’s why I hadn’t seen the machines yet, and I hadn’t been detected. They hadn’t covered this zone outside their wall because they didn’t need to.
When I finally reached the end of the wall, I was struck by a new mystery. The end wasn’t smooth or natural-looking. It was a crumbling, broken ruin. Even more surprising for something the Macros had built, it just stopped, and the land was open afterward for as far as my eyes could see.
I walked around this broken endpoint of the wall and examined the curved interior. It appeared to mirror the surface I’d seen from the outside.
That material…it still looked familiar to me. I stared at the wall frowning and dared to flip on my suit-lights and run the beams over it.
I shook myself and pressed onward. I was sure I’d be discovered soon. Now wasn’t the time to become distracted. I promised myself I’d send an exploration team down here later if we won this battle—if we didn’t, the answers to these riddles didn’t matter anyway.
When I’d reached wh
at I thought might be the center of the area enclosed by the semi-circular wall, I found the Macro factories. There wasn’t just one but several of them. I counted eight in sight. They were hulking shapes that built everything the Macros produced. These factories were their mothers, their hive queens.
I looked, but didn’t see any Macro workers around. I wondered briefly what was feeding the factories and what they were producing. But I soon realized I didn’t care. The workers were busy elsewhere, and while they were away, I was going to destroy their queens.
I unlimbered the bomb I’d dragged all this way. It wasn’t an incredibly powerful warhead. Compared to the gravity-based blockbuster Marvin had used to breach this dead system’s ring, the bomb was tiny. But it should be enough. Inside the enclosed space under this massive dome, nothing would survive. Nothing of flesh or metal could withstand the energy that would be released.
The timer blinked at me with yellow numerals. How long should I allow for escape? I wanted to give myself a chance, but I didn’t want the Macros to get the time they needed to drag it away once discovered. I spun the dial and set it with fifteen minutes to go. Then I armed it, clicked four rocker switches—and the bomb was live.
-29-
I straightened and took a quick look around. There was movement in the dark, back the way I’d come. I decided to push ahead rather than to retrace my steps. It would take longer to get back to Andoria that way, but it would be a more direct pathway out of the dome than trying to circle around the strange, crescent-shaped wall again.
The landscape became blacker and turned into fine silt that covered me like powder. It was like walking on a grittier version of coffee grounds.
Marching across the dusty center of the enclosed space, I found something I didn’t expect. It was the other side of the wall, and it was broken, just as the first section had been.
All at once, I realized what I was looking at. It wasn’t a wall at all. The Macros hadn’t built this—they’d found it and set up camp all around it.
The half-buried, circular walls I was standing in the midst of formed a ring. It couldn’t be anything else. That mottled stone-like surface…I’d seen it before when encountering the rings that knit together our star systems.
The only difference was the state of this ring. It was broken. There was only half of it in sight. Perhaps the other half was buried under my boots.
My mind filled with questions as I trudged across the barren, gritty land. Why had the Macros built here over this broken ring? How had the ring been destroyed? Why had it been it destroyed, and who had done this amazing feat?
I couldn’t answer any of those questions, but I could infer a few things from my discovery. This broken ring was the reason why the Ancients had never come back to our portion of the universe for thousands of years. Not even the Blues had known what had happened, but it was clear to me now. The interstellar highway had been derailed right here.
I tried to push these thoughts and questions away. If the Blues didn’t know the answers, who else could? They were impossible unknowns. Mysteries that humanity would probably never figure out—if we survived at all.
But I found I couldn’t stop thinking about the broken ring. As I neared the edge of the dome, I hesitated. I kept staring at the hulking form of the damaged structure, and I realized the machines themselves might know.
Maybe they could be convinced to tell me what they knew…
There is something about living in a universe full of unknown terrors that works on a man’s mind over time. In the past, we’d had questions about our origins, naturally enough. But those questions had seemed philosophical and remote. In my time, there were actual beings around that could be spoken with. These beings knew the real truth, and I often suspected that if we knew it as well our odds of surviving as a species would be much higher.
Standing at the base of a glassy, milk-white wall of force I broke radio silence on sudden impulse and transmitted on a channel I hadn’t used for long years. I attempted to contact Macro Command using my suit’s brainbox as a translator.
The Macros weren’t like us. They were different not only in their physiology, but also in their group organization. Humans tended to operate as solo minds linked in a mutually accepted social hierarchy. In Star Force for example, we’d selected commanders, and the rest followed the orders of the leaders.
The Macros were different in this respect. In a way, they were quite egalitarian. They merged their minds effectively when decisions had to be made. Their pooled intellect was greater than the capacity of any single individual, and they made their decisions collectively. Every machine linked into a network and part of its CPU was dedicated to group decision-making. Individually, the machines weren’t very bright. But when they all shared the load, they became smarter particularly in a centralized location like this with many machines about. The more of them that were involved, the smarter local Macro Command became.
There was an elegant simplicity to their way of thinking that appealed to me. They never argued because they shared the same singular mind. When a decision was made, it was made because the entire group-mind was in agreement concerning the best course of action. Right or wrong, they at least all worked together in unison. In comparison, commanding humans was like herding cats.
When I contacted Macro Command, I was really broadcasting to every Macro in the area. This meant they would know where I was and attempt to destroy me. But I figured “what the hell”, since after I destroyed their dome, they were going to be pretty pissed-off and hunting for me anyway.
I wouldn’t have taken the risk if the bomb hadn’t already been set. Part of my excuse involved the bomb, in fact. If they were looking for me, they would be less likely to notice the device ticking in their midst. If I didn’t make it out, well, at least I’d dealt them a hard blow. Hopefully, it was a fatal one.
I opened the channel and broadcast my message. “Macro Command, this is Colonel Kyle Riggs. I’m requesting an open dialog channel with you. We have things to discuss.”
I waited for several seconds, but there was no response. This wasn’t really surprising. Often in the past, the Macros had ignored my requests for a dialog. They didn’t like talking unless it was their idea to do so.
“Macro Command, talk to me. I have an offer to make.”
Silence. My radio crackled, but that was all. I’d hoped to pique their curiosity, but it didn’t work. They weren’t going to make this easy on me.
I put my gauntlet against the dome wall. I knew that once I walked into it, any transmissions from the machines would be lost.
“I demand that you communicate, Macro Command. Here is the nature of my offer: survival. If I win this conflict, I will not destroy you utterly. I’ll capture and set aside specimens and blueprints for your race. Your future existence will thus be ensured.”
Ten more seconds of silence followed. I almost gave up after that. The dome was right there, shimmering and blue-white. All I had to do was step into its glowing surface.
“Don’t you understand the value of what I’m offering?” I demanded. “I might win this war. If I do, I’ll destroy you utterly unless you talk to me right now.”
More silence. I opened my mouth to curse them and taken a step closer to the dome when they finally responded.
“Request denied,” said an odd voice in my helmet.
I smiled. I’d gotten them to talk. Despite their obvious disinterest, they had to have some interest, or they wouldn’t have bothered to respond at all.
“I’m not making a request,” I said. “I’m offering you a deal a material exchange.”
“Your offer is invalid. You will not win this conflict. You will be destroyed.”
“You’re probably right,” I said. “But certainly there must be a one percent chance I will win in the end. If you talk to me now, you have insurance. Win or lose, you won’t be wiped from the universe. Come on, you haven’t even heard the details yet.”
There was a lo
ng pause. I figured they’d gotten bored and hung up the phone by the time they came on again sounding thoughtful.
“We know what you are offering. The ruse is obvious. You wish to survive as a species and will demand a guarantee of survival from us when the inevitable comes. But you will not wrest any such deals from us. You will not be spared when the final moment arrives.”
Macro Command’s words annoyed me, but I struggled not to make threats or boasts in return. I had them on the line now. They wouldn’t be talking if they weren’t interested.
“You misunderstand the nature of my offer. I want no guarantees from you. I only want information.”
“We will not compromise our fleets by revealing—”
“That’s not the nature of the information I wish to exchange. I only want to know about the ring, the broken ring I found on the surface of this dead sun.”
Another long delay followed while they mulled this over. I looked around, studying my computer and my environment. The bomb was due to go off within a few minutes, and I thought certain of the blackest shadows around me had shifted subtly. That might just be an effect of this odd environment, but I couldn’t be certain. They could be talking just to delay, preparing to spring a trap on me. Just keep old Riggs talking long enough to get a fix on his location then deploy machines to deal with him.
“We agree to your exchange,” they said at last.
I grinned inside my helmet.
“All right then, here are my questions. Who built these rings?”
There was no response. I waited for ten long seconds, checking my chronometer. Then I remembered Macros didn’t like questions. They tended to ignore them utterly.
“Macro Command,” I said, using a stern voice. I suspected the significance of my tone was probably lost on them, but I went with it anyway. “I demand that you comply with our agreement and tell me what you know of the origin of the damaged alien artifact we call a ‘ring’ I found under your dome.”
“The ring is a transportation device. It is damaged.”
