“Continue sensor scouting. We have our orders,” she said with as much calmness as she could muster. The oblong vu-screen at the front of the bridge showed a scattering of unfamiliar stars. “We must locate the Leviathan. If we can recapture it and its crew, then we must do that. If we cannot recapture the Leviathan and its crew, our priority then is to capture the Earthman known as John Crichton and bring him back to Crais … And if we cannot capture him, then we must destroy him.”
The crew was silent. They knew the importance of orders. Orders kept chaos out. Orders were structure. Orders, particularly orders from a commander as high as Crais, were the stuff of a Peacekeeper soldier’s existence. Whether the crew knew how wild and unusual these orders from Crais were, they gave no indication. Even the fact that they knew that they were beyond the boundaries of Peacekeeper authority did not seem to deter them. Orders, for Peacekeepers, were orders—even unto death.
Again, Captain Sha Sutt saw the asteroid, hovering before them.
Again, she saw first the spangled thrashings of light, glimmering like a shattered spectrum from the pitted rim of the space-rock. The convex oval of the Leviathan heaved into vision—but even then its outlines were shimmering and shivering, about to take leave of solid space/time. Gut fear touched her, but she kept her composure as the magnificent sight glittered—and the words of her commander sounded in her ear.
“Too late for conventional weapons. Use the hellhound—and send Crichton to hell.” The dark mellifluous sound of his words filled her with emotion. The strength, the command of the man—it made her weak even to hear that voice.
“The hellhound! But Crais—sir! We’re not cleared to engage the hellhound. We were en route to System Five for preliminary testing when you called us to join in the attempt to destroy the Leviathan.”
“I know about the testing—and about the hellhound. Only a weapon this powerful can destroy the Leviathan before she evades us once more. Weapons Command will think it fired accidentally. Engage it now!”
“But, sir! That could be suicide…”
“Hurry, Captain! Do you want to be a lapdog of the bureaucrats, or do you want to kill the enemy?”
She knew what Crais would do—even at the risk of destroying his own ship with an untried and dangerous weapon.
“Move into position! Fire the hellhound!” she commanded.
The DarkWind blasted past the asteroid. The Leviathan was already disappearing, its form folding up into raw space. A blast into the boiling energy that enveloped it now might well backfire catastrophically. She watched as the blinding gleam of energy that was the hellhound lit the darkness and streaked toward the Leviathan.
“Excellent—” said Crais.
But by then the comm window was closed, and a trapdoor of the universe had opened.
“Wherever we are, that Leviathan sure isn’t here,” the navigator said, a touch of resigned pessimism in his voice. “And the hellhound is completely unresponsive. Something about the explosion ripped our entire weapons systems wide open. It’s far beyond anything we can fix before returning to home base.”
A fearful lieutenant named Stribben, eyes wide, could not help but quaver: “Something’s wrong. I can feel it.”
Sutt glared at the perpetrator of the gaffe. Some less patient Peacekeeper might have given this fellow Stribben a space-walk. This was no time, however, for extreme discipline. “We do not know what happened. From my internal impressions, however, time is a definite factor. Chronometer reading?”
“Why—you’re right, Captain. A full day and two frac-units have passed since we attacked the Leviathan,” said a startled co-pilot named Dinn. His troubled dark eyes looked up at her. “We’ve moved in time as well as in space. Fortunately, the scanners are picking up the energy-trail of the Leviathan. We seem to be just where it emerged from StarBurst. Only more than a day behind it.”
Sutt mentally scanned options as her eyes flicked along the read-out board. “Not only do we have enough energy, we seem to be entirely revitalized—except for our weapons systems. When the hellhound interacted with the energy from StarBurst, it must have unleashed a force no one could have predicted in the tests. I wonder how—” But now was no time for careful analysis. There were other matters of vital importance to deal with. Their directive, for one thing. Their mission.
“Sensors! If the Leviathan was here, we must be able to follow it. Gamma radiation!”
The sensor tech looked down at the readout. “Yes, Captain. We can follow its path.”
“Excellent!” said the captain. She stood up carefully, unflexing herself. She was an uncommonly tall and slender Sebacean, with a disciplined physique and well-formed muscles. Her dark leather uniform fitted her like an oiled glove, and her eyes glittered with her intelligence and cunning. It was good, she always thought, that those eyes were dark, for dark eyes seldom betrayed weakness. And in part of her, Sha Sutt well knew, there was weakness.
“Plot a course to follow the trail. Calculate the speed of Leviathan and then be sure to exceed it. But there is no immediate hurry. If we are a day and a fraction behind it, then they have no way of knowing we are here, following. Leviathans do not StarBurst often, I think. Particularly when they are under the impression that they are alone.”
“Course plotted,” said the navigator. There was a troubled look on his wizened face, reflected in the expression of the others on the bridge. He added cautiously, “Where were we for over a day?”
Sha Sutt did not care to pursue that question now—with the crew, or in her own mind. They had a ship to destroy.
“That is for the physicists to determine—our job is to track down the Leviathan. I am going back to my cabin for a moment. I shall return directly. Lieutenant Verno, take command. Stay on the trail of the Leviathan. Notify me instantly if there’s any additional sign of the ship. And get the bridge swabbed down, Lieutenant.”
Her movements dignified, she rose from the command seat, gave the shell-shocked crew a final glance, and strode from the bridge and down the corridor, her expression impassive. Only in the lift compartment, with the doors shusshed closed behind her, did she allow herself to fall against the wall and put her hands over her face.
Crais, my commander in all things!
You have sent me in pursuit of my most mortal enemy.
* * *
As they waited to enter the mysterious giant ship, Crichton didn’t know what to expect. Helmeted aliens? Creatures with many heads? He’d seen all that before. He’d been through a lot already—plus the weirdnesses and peculiarities of his crewmates.
Anything could be beyond that door—
Only it wasn’t. The door had pulled open to reveal a hollow cylinder, large enough for a man or a Luxan to enter, and paved with a pebbled walkway. In that cylinder there stood—precisely nobody.
“Nothing!” said Aeryn, frowning, her dark eyebrows lowering. A consternated look crossed those severe but striking features, and her mouth twisted in concern. She lowered her pulse pistol but kept both hands on the grip.
“I wouldn’t say ‘nothing,’” said D’Argo ruminatively. He relaxed his stance ever so slightly, his hands still holding the Qualta Rifle at the ready. “It’s clear what this is.”
Crichton pondered a moment, studying the gap before them.
“It’s some sort of connecting corridor,” he ventured.
The interior of the cylinder showed odd glittering interstices on the ceiling. A strange wind wafted in, warmer than the cool temperatures of Moya, and bearing with it a hint of spices.
“Invaders: nil,” said Aeryn.
“I read: invitation,” said Crichton.
“I proclaim: caution!” said D’Argo.
“What, and just stay here and rot?” said Crichton. He was not only surprised at D’Argo’s response, but also shocked at his own gung-ho eagerness to seek out the unknown. What was he doing? Hadn’t he seen enough movies to know that the door of the sinister mansion always creaks open on its own, and
there are always the undead waiting on the other side?
But would he have come out into space in the first place if he weren’t intrigued by the unknown on the other side of those doors?
“I believe that you have the explorer mindset, John,” said Aeryn. “I preserve the peace. D’Argo survives. Maybe we make an interesting threesome, eh?”
“The Three Musketeers,” said Crichton, almost to himself. “One for all and all for one!”
D’Argo raised an eyebrow and looked both Crichton and Aeryn up and down. “Threesome?” he rumbled. “All for one and one for all? Only if I’m truly desperate!”
With a gingerly step, Crichton peered into the corridor. The air was definitely warmer, with a brief stream of cooling breeze; the sensation was like stepping in front of a porch fan on a warm summer day. The corridor curved around to the right. Crichton looked up; the glittering of the ceiling made it look as if it had been sprinkled with stars. He took another step forward, past the cargo door. He felt more than a little cautious, but as always, action was much better than inaction. Inaction led to such things as death and boredom—and of the two, boredom was really the scariest thing out here. When there was too much boredom, he had other strong feelings. Like desperate loneliness and existential fear.
Standing half in the alien corridor, Crichton hit his comm. “Are you reading this, Zhaan? We’re got what looks like a corridor here—can you get a view of the exterior?”
Zhaan’s voice arose from the comm. “The exterior seems to match the interior, John. A bridge to Entity X. It appears to connect to the alien vessel just at the mid-section.”
Crichton turned to the others. Aeryn had lowered her pulse pistol to her side.
“So what do you say?” said Crichton. “Should we shoot for direct personal contact?”
“We are still getting zero on communication bands,” reported Zhaan. Crichton could visualize her, steady at her station, working her controls with the grace of a ballerina. “I would guess this is as much communication as we’re going to get.”
“The bridge over the River Void,” said Crichton. “It’s a funny way of saying hello, but I guess we won’t get anywhere by refusing to come out and play.” He took a final look at the other two. Their faces were unreadable.
“Just call me Christopher Columbus,” he said. “I’m just hoping I don’t fall off the edge of the world.”
He took a few cautious steps further into the tunnel, craning his neck to try and see around the curve.
He heard footsteps behind him and turned to see both Aeryn and D’Argo keeping pace.
“So who is this Columbus creature?” said D’Argo.
“Let’s just say he sailed the ocean blue.” Crichton grinned, turned back and started for the unknown.
* * *
The tunnel took only a few minutes to traverse. It appeared the tractor beams of the alien ship had managed to dock the two vessels quite close. True, it was a little eerie walking along a bridge over a billion-light-year drop, on their way to a massive silent vessel, but then Crichton had pretty much come to expect that kind of thing on the other side of nowhere. They reached what seemed to be the end of the corridor and stepped through some kind of airlock. It opened into a spacious passageway; as they entered, a door cycled itself closed behind them and gasses hissed. The briefest fragrance of cinnamon sparked with bitter mushrooms and cardamom tea drifted and then faded.
They found themselves in metal corridors that were much more to Crichton’s tech taste than Moya’s organic halls, where he sometimes felt like he was moving through Godzilla’s digestive system. They were conventional squarish passageways with smooth gray walls, bathed in a subdued ambient light. There were no side corridors, which made deciding which direction to go pretty easy.
They travelled with Crichton in front, his pulse pistol at the ready once more. Aeryn walked at his shoulder, one pace behind, every sense alert, her weapon held in front of her. D’Argo kept watch behind them as they walked. Every minute or so they stopped to listen, but the ship was silent. The atmosphere was breathable, even sweet, and once again Crichton thought he caught the faint evocative scent of spices.
“I calculate this passageway runs along the periphery of the ship,” said D’Argo. “We are tracing its circumference.”
“Which leaves the question of what’s in the middle of the ship,” said Crichton.
“What’s this?” said Aeryn. She stopped and, unwilling to take her hands off her pistol, tapped the toe of her boot on the metallic floor. Etched into the surface was a radiant star no bigger than a handprint. When Aeryn lifted her boot, the star faded from view.
“Do that again,” said Crichton.
She touched her foot to the ground and the fine lines of the star appeared on the floor once more, growing in detail and complexity until it sparkled with a faint glimmer. Aeryn stepped back and the star faded to nothingness.
Crichton took a few short deliberate steps around the corridor, staring down at his feet. Nothing but the gray sheen of the corridor. He moved his left foot forward again, and underneath it, very slowly, there blossomed another star.
“I’ve found one,” said D’Argo, pressing his toe into the floor and looking at it with amazement.
Aeryn had moved forward and was now standing on yet another, glittering faintly under her foot.
“Stars,” she said. Somehow they had all begun to whisper. “Nokmadi.”
They exchanged glances.
“Navigators,” said Crichton.
“The people,” said D’Argo, “who have the maps.”
They proceeded cautiously down the passageway, and from time to time another star blossomed faintly under their step. Then the corridor angled to the left and abruptly opened into a larger room. They paused at the doorway, their grip on the weapons tighter.
The chamber looked alike some sort of dining hall. After the eerie alienness of the ship and the passageway, Crichton felt as if he had suddenly been StarBurst light-years away, back to Earth. But what would have been familiar and comforting there was eerie in the vast depths of space.
The walls were panelled in a dark mahogany. A long table set upon an ornately patterned red carpet stretched down the room. Polished wooden chairs stood around the table. Candles in brass candelabras wavered with flames. Gleaming blue-and-white-patterned plates were set at each place along the cream-colored tablecloth, and gleaming silver utensils were set alongside the plates. On each plate was a mound of food: slabs of meat with a layer of gravy, tucked up against stuffing, mashed potatoes and glazed carrots. Steam rose from the food, and the smell gave Crichton the feeling that he had just opened the door to his grandmother’s house back in Kansas.
Crichton found himself salivating. “Hmmm. Maybe it was just as well Rygel didn’t come along.”
“A dining hall, and a meal all ready.” Aeryn touched the edge of a plate with an exploratory finger. “Yes, it’s still hot.”
D’Argo traced his way around the walls, examining the candle sconces and the panelling.
“Hello!” called Crichton. “Anybody here?”
“The modes of human inquiry constantly surprise me,” commented D’Argo.
“We seem to have happened upon a mystery,” observed Aeryn.
“So, food prepared,” said D’Argo. “For us? Nine settings? That would be three per person—quite a feast. Or perhaps the crew of this vessel were interrupted by our arrival before they had a chance to get to dinner.”
“And they’ve disappeared.” Crichton was nodding.
Aeryn looked at him with a perplexed expression. “You look as though this is all familiar to you.”
“It is familiar,” said Crichton, “in an odd kind of way. There’s a counterpart to it in the history of my planet. Something that happened on nineteenth-century Earth. I loved to read about it when I was a child. It was known as the mystery of the Mary Celeste.”
* * *
Zhaan sat calmly and waited.
&nbs
p; She sat upon the bridge, bathed in her blue self, looking up at the screens and yet not quite seeing. She felt more centred now, more ready to peer into the vast emptiness of her true self, with the distractions of space and time set aside. Her brief union with Moya had given her a glimpse of the depths of memory and understanding still to be gleaned. While she was waiting for word from the others, she could search those depths.
The first trick to true concentration, true attunement to the doorways of beyond, was to imagine herself back in the sun and warm soil of home, back in the whirlpool of sensation and growth. These poor all-meat sorts she was travelling with had no idea of the joys and breadth of experience enjoyed by the floral world. Photogasms were the least of the pleasures and sensations. When she meditated, Zhaan would envision herself in her home garden, transfused with chlorophyll and sunlight, rooting into the cool underlayer of the deep dark earth and probing for sweet moisture. The perfume of the aaaakkik flowers, ah! the odor of the winkwort! She could feel her kindred surrounding her, even now, the precious plants she had grown up among and the sweet tangle of growth in her little plot at home.
She closed her eyes to the confusions of material reality and reached out …
There was something out there beyond Moya. Something calculating and assessing. Something … Something beyond the edge of today and yesterday and yet far, far from tomorrow.
Shifting energies …
Yearning and fear …
Hunger and hope …
“Ahoy!”
There was a sharp slap on her cheek. She opened an eye and found herself confronted by Rygel wobbling on his ThroneSled. The plains of transcendent understanding twisted and evaporated away.
“Damnation and tribulation!” she cried, scowling at the loss of the understanding she had felt coming over her.
Ship of Ghosts Page 5
