Collected Short Fiction, page 639
Ketzler jumped when I touched his shoulder.
“How’s it going?” I ignored his nervous response. “Think it’s peaking out?”
“Not yet, sir.” His glasses were pushed crooked on his haggard face, and they magnified his bloodshot eyes. “It’s the worst it has ever been—and still getting wilder. The gravitic drift has got me worried, sir.”
He pushed a button that lit a curving row of bright yellow dots on the chart. The dots were numbered. Each one showed a charted past position of Nowhere Near. They marked the trail the drifting station had followed, always closer to that creature’s belly.
“It’s sucking us right in.” He looked at me cross-eyed through the sweat-smeared glasses. “Even with our position-rockets going full thrust. We can’t control the drift, sir.”
“We’ve done all we can,” I assured him. “If something does happen, I’ll be at dinner—”
Uneasily, he licked his dry lips.
“Before you go, sir, we’ve a couple of things to report. That new iron asteroid we picked up north of Nowhere—it’s gone again!”
He pointed to a red dot on the chart.
“Another thing, sir—before you go to dinner.” I heard a dull echo of reproach in his hollow voice. “The laser monitors have just picked up what seems to be a distress signal from that same direction. No intelligible message, but we got what I think is part of the name of a ship. I think it was something Quest.”
4 THE ENEMY MACHINE
IN SPITE of such disquieting developments, I tried to carry an air of hearty confidence. Of course the anomaly was dangerous, I reminded Ketzler. Its dangers were our business at Nowhere Near, and we were attending to them.
However tired or frightened or resentful, the duty crews were still at work. Our undamaged instruments were still following what went on. The computer was still plotting. The position rockets were fighting at full thrust to keep us out of Nowhere.
We could do no more.
Even if Habibula’s unlikely tale was true, even if the Quasar Quest was fighting for her life against the half-known forces in the anomaly, there was no help we could give. Our lean resources were fully committed. If the cosmic menace of the anomaly had been ignored or underestimated, if our needs had been neglected, the errors had not been ours. We could not correct them now.
Even to myself, I dared not admit that we were near a very desperate extremity. Shrugging off Ketzler’s anxious question, I advised him to get some rest and went on to keep my date with Lilith Adams and Giles Habibula.
She had changed her severe white uniform for something blue and sheer, though she still wore that ugly, red-eyed skull. Even at full-G, her motion had the flowing grace of flight. She smiled and took my hand. Her touch lit rockets in me.
“Captain Ulnar, you are very kind.”
Her warm voice gave me a giddy feeling that the terrible disturbance of the anomaly had already swallowed me. She was walking at my side, alluring in that translucent blue, yet somehow out of reach. Excitingly near and real, she was yet somehow wrapped in that untouchable aloofness that I could not understand.
“Giles has gone on to the mess hall for a snack before our tour,” she said. “Can we pick him up there?”
A pang of jealous speculation stabbed me. If their queer tale was even partly true, if old Habibula was actually recovering his lost youth, it struck me that such a girl as Lilith Adams might be a more important part of the experiment than all his precious wine and caviar.
We found him in the mess hall. Still appallingly unmilitary in the same blazing yellow sweater and the same shapeless fatigue pants, he was sitting at a table with our one remaining free companion, a plump redhead named Gina Lorth. They had split a bottle of his wine. He was acting younger than his age and as free as the companion.
“Ready, Giles?”
Showing no concern about the companion, Lilith had spoken in that cool tone of unconscious but absolute command that told me she was far more than nurse or playmate. Giles Habibula lurched to his feet, almost upsetting the startled redhead. Suddenly he was sober. His awed respect assured me that Lilith’s unknown role in this affair was something more than to prove his recovered youth.
“For sweet life’s sake!” he wheezed. “Don’t shock me so.”
“Come along, Giles. Captain Ulnar is going to show us over the station.”
With a sad glance at the wine left in the bottle, he gave it to Gina and came puffing after us.
“Lil’s precious serum!” His flat, bright, rock-colored eyes squinted at me craftily. “It’s giving back my youth, but at a fearful cost. Gnawing hunger and desperate thirst—and a yen I haven’t felt for fifty mortal years!”
I showed them Nowhere Near.
The station was a lean doughnut of inflated plastic and steel, just thick enough for rooms on both sides of a two-level corridor. It ringed a thousand-foot hall of interstellar ice—frozen water and methane and ammonia—that would have been a comet if it had ever drifted close enough to a star.
That spinning doughnut made the rim of a half-mile wheel. The spokes were plastic tubes that held power lines and supply ducts and elevator shafts. The hubs were thick cylinders that projected from the poles of the ice asteroid. An inner slice of each cylinder, spinning slower than the spokes, was pierced for the valves that let ships enter the air docks. The outside end of each hub, driven with a counter-spin that kept it at null-G, held its telescopes and laser dome motionless with respect to the stars.
Old Habibula appeared to enjoy the tour. His affection for machines seemed genuine. He lingered fondly about the atomic power plant shielded deep in the ice. He wanted to see the biosynthetic batteries that recycled our water and restored our air and produced the most of our food. He admired our intricate research gear. Somewhat to my surprise, he even seemed to understand it.
“One question, Captain,” he wheezed at me. “You’re showing us a lot of lovely machines, modern as tomorrow. What I can’t quite see is the prehistoric design of the station itself. Why this spinning ring with its clumsy imitation of gravity, when you could have used gravitic inductors?”
“Because of the anomaly,” I told him. “Space is different here—nobody knows precisely how or why. Gravitic and electric and optical devices don’t work well—you know what happened to the space-drive on Scabbard’s ship.”
His earth-colored eyes blinked apprehensively.
“What is this mortal anomaly?”
“A spot in space where the common laws of nature don’t quite fit,” I said. “If you want the history of it—”
“Let that wait till dinner, Giles,” Lilith put in gently. “I’d like to see the station first.”
She still puzzled me. Though she didn’t claim to love machines, she seemed at home with them. Her quiet question showed a keen brain, I thought, and a surprising technological background.
We were just entering the observation dome at the north hub of the station, where the night of space came into the station itself, drowning the faint red glow of the instrument lights in icy midnight.
We were in zero-G there, and I handed old Habibula and the girl little hand-jets. Both knew how to use them. Leaving Habibula admiring the gloomy forest of bulky instruments bolted to the inside wall, Lilith soared easily away toward the vast invisible curve of the transite dome that looked out toward Nowhere.
“Captain Ulnar,” she called. “Come with me.”
Soft and clear, her voice held that odd tone of sure command. Surprised at myself, I followed her silently. She had paused above the looming instruments, trim and small and perplexing against the vaster riddle of the anomaly.
For a few moments she drifted there, looking out at the dust and mist of stars and the universal dark. Looking past her toward galactic north, I could see where a few stars were slightly blurred and reddened. Even that took a practised eye. The fearful shape of Nowhere revealed itself only to our special instruments. Yet something gave me a sudden queer feeling that she knew more about it than I did.
“Tell me something, Captain.” She turned quickly to me, her face grave and lovely in the cold starlight. “What is the atomic composition of this dome?”
When I told her that it was a transite casting, it turned out she knew not only what transite was made of—she knew that the process of manufacture had been changed three times since that remarkable synthetic was first invented. She began to ask for precise technical specifications: date of manufacture, isotope analysis, index of refraction, density and curvature and thickness.
Though such questions seemed trivial to me, her manner was deadly serious. Young then, I still had an excellent head for numbers. I had prepared myself carefully for the duties of that first command, and I was able to tell her promptly what she wanted to know.
“Thank you, Captain.” Her lean, pleased smile set my head to spinning like the station. “Now we’d like to hear all about Nowhere.”
As the hand-jets carried us in retreat from Nowhere and the star-frosted spatial night, back to the faint red glow of the instruments and the drifting bulk of old Habibula, I felt more than ever troubled by the riddle of our visitors. Though I was finding new facts, they fitted no pattern that I could understand.
“We’ve heard rumors about this anomaly,” Lilith was saying. “It seems to be a dreadful thing—”
“I ain’t afraid of it,” old Habibula puffed. “Not since I’ve seen all these fine machines. You can trust my judgment. I’ve a sense for danger, that has cost me mortal dear. And I ain’t afraid of Nowhere.”
We were on our way back to the ring. Leaving the fan-jets in the rack, we caught D-grips on a moving cable. It lifted us through a cavernous hollow. It swung us above the dim-lit tanks and tangled pipes of the catalytic plant that converted the frozen gases of the asteroid into fuel for nuclear rockets and drinking water for us. It carried us flying above the massive metal bulge of the control drum, toward the main elevator.
“Far and away, I’m the oldest veteran of the Legion,” old Habibula boasted. “In the bad old times, I’ve seen wicked perils that would blind your blessed eyes. I fought the mortal Medusae and the evil Cometeers and the monstrous Basilisk. But precious peace has come to the human system now. My trusty sense of danger finds no feel of peril here. I’ll put my faith in these machines—
The penetrating whine of my lapel intercom interrupted him.
“Captain Ulnar!” Hoarse excitement rasped in Ketzler’s voice. “We’ve just got another fragmentary call from that ship in distress. The Quasar Quest. Commander Ken Star. And listen to this, sir!”
Old Habibula and Lilith were flying ahead of me, clinging to the D-grips. When Ketzler paused, I heard the girl catch her breath, heard the old soldier’s wailing exclamation.
“They’re under attack, sir!” Raw fear rasped in Ketzler’s voice. “Something has followed them out of the anomaly. Some kind of enemy machine. A hundred times as big as the ship. Star says he’s disabled. He says the thing is gaining on him.
“The last few words were interrupted, sir. But I interpret them to mean that Star has been forced to abandon ship.” Ketzler’s voice lifted toward the jagged brink of panic. “I thought you’d want to know at once, sir. What shall we do, sir?
“What shall we do?”
5 THE IMPOSSIBLE ROCKS
FOR A MOMENT I was busy with Ketzler. My first impulse was to reprimand him for that indiscreet intercom broadcast, which surely would damage station morale. Considering his extreme agitation, however, I let that wait.
“Perhaps the message is a hoax.” I spoke with more conviction than I felt. “In any case, our duty is to carry on. Keep monitoring everything. Keep our guns manned. Keep me informed.”
“Yes, sir.” His voice sounded very lonely. “We’ll carry on, sir.”
Lilith Adams was flying upward two yards ahead of me through that shadowy space inside the ice asteroid. She swung on the D-grip to look back. Dimly lit from below, her face seemed gaunt and lovely and hurt.
“Captain Ulnar, you’ve got to do something.” Her low voice was queerly, coldly calm. “We’ve got to help Commander Star.”
“We’re doing all we can,” I told her. “After all, the station is not a battleship. We can’t run away. With only two obsolete proton guns, we can’t put up much of a fight. With all communication out, we can’t even call for aid.
“If Commander Star is really under attack from an enemy machine—”
A quavering wail came from old Habibula. His hands had slipped off the D-grip. Jerking convulsively in the flame-colored sweater, his body went sailing away through that dim cavern, whirling like a living satellite toward the far silver sphere of a rocket-fuel tank.
“Help him, Captain.” The girl’s voice tightened with concern. “He isn’t used to enemy machines.”
I triggered my hand-jet to overhaul him and tow him back to the cable. His pink skin had faded white, and I could feel his body trembling. He clutched the D-grip frantically.
“Don’t speak of such machines!” His voice was a shrill, shallow piping. “But never think that I’m afraid. I’ve met and conquered dangers far more deadly than any space anomaly. It’s simply—simply—simply—”
Clinging to the D-grip, he panted and shook.
“It’s simply that I’m weak with mortal hunger and a thirst that won’t let go! I’m the hapless guinea pig, remember, for this desperate immortality experiment. Lilith’s precious serum has been turning back the years, but it gives me a fearful appetite.”
“We’re on our way to dinner now.”
From the cable stage, the elevator lifted us out to the full-G ring. We found the mess hall dark and empty, but old Habibula observed with a sick, pink grin that its faithful machines were ready to serve us. Greedily, he punched the computer for three full meals. While he was busy, Lilith beckoned me aside.
“Captain—” Her hushed voice was gravely hesitant. “Aren’t we interfering with more important duty? At a time like this, shouldn’t you be in direct command?”
I couldn’t tell her that she and old Habibula presented a problem as strange and dangerous as the anomaly itself.
“Perhaps you don’t realize just how desperate this crisis is,” I told her carefully. “One wrong move could touch off panic. As things stand, the men are still on duty. Ketzler is a fine young officer. He needs a chance to prove himself.”
Her tawny eyes looked hard at me.
“Good enough, I guess.” She moved toward the table where Habibula sat waiting for his food. “If you’re really free, tell us about the anomaly.” Her face seemed oddly urgent. “Every fact you can!”
“The first pioneers got here about thirty years ago,” I said. “They found this snowball and a little swarm of stranger rocks. Iron masses two or three miles across—a harder alloy than the nickel-iron of common meteors, and richly veined with more valuable metals.”
“I’ve read reports about them.” Leaning over the little table, golden lights playing in her reddish hair, Lilith was listening as intently as if those queer asteroids were somehow as supremely important to her as they had become to me. “How many are there?”
“That’s part of the puzzle,” I told her. “Even the number is anomalous. The Legion survey ship that made the first chart found five iron asteroids and three snowballs like this one. When the miners got here, four years later, they found only two snowballs, but six iron asteriods.”
“So the survey team had made a mistake?”
“Not likely. The miners had simply found the anomaly. They didn’t stay to watch it. The iron alloys were too tough for their drills—and then something happened to a loaded ore barge.”
Giles Habibula started.
“What’s that?” His mud-colored eyes rolled toward me. “What happened to the blessed barge?”
“That’s part of the problem. It was a powerless ship, launched from one of those rocks with its load of metal and a miner’s family aboard. It sent back a queer laserphone message—something about the stars turning red. It never got to port, and no trace was found.”
“Mortal me—”
His gasping voice was interrupted by the arrival of three steaming cups of algae broth and three hot brown yeastcakes. He fell to eating, as eagerly as if the machines had served his own costly caviar.
“Captain, please go on.” Lilith was oddly intense. “About the number of these asteroids—”
“Five more years had passed before another colony of miners settled here,” I said. “They found only one ice asteroid—the one we’re on. But, at the time of their arrival, they charted nine iron asteroids.”
Giles Habibula peered anxiously up at me, and hungrily back at his food.
“These miners had brought improved atomic drills. They carved into those hard alloys and some of them struck rich pockets of platinum and gold. Space traders came. Even the men on this ice asteroid made fortunes selling water and rocket fuel and synthetic food. They built the original station. A roaring little metropolis—while it lasted.”
Giles Habibula had stopped eating. He sat staring at me, a sick pallor on his round baby-face and a gray glaze dulling his rust-colored eyes.
“So?” Lilith whispered quickly. “And—?”
“They were building an industrial complex on Lodestone—as they called the largest iron asteroid. A barge terminal. A big atomic smelter. Shops for building and repairing mining machinery. A laserphone center for the whole swarm of rocks.
“Then something happened.”
“Whup?” Old Habibula spoke thickly around the unchewed yeastcake in his mouth, spraying crumbs. “Gulp?”
“The laser beams were broken. All communication with the asteroid was cut off. An oxygen tanker had been dropping to land at the smelter. Its crew reported that the asteroid had reddened, flickered, and disappeared.”
