The Negator, page 19
“Colonel Pendance,” she said, and even her voice was different: richer, warmer, but with an undertone that suggested vast and terrible knowledge. “I trust your mission was enlightening.”
He nodded and asked, “What happened to you?”
She frowned as something smoldered in her eyes. Then she smoothed that away. “I awoke the Old Ones. In return, they gave me the flesh I desired.”
Pendance found himself blinking as fear built in his chest. Old Ones? Flesh? What she was saying…? Did the Old Ones create High Polarion clones? Could she have carried ancient DNA all this time—and could the Old Ones have growth accelerators or something that used the DNA?
The Collector kept rubbing his small hands, his usual confidence replaced by obvious unease. When he spoke, his tone held a deference that hadn’t been there before. “The transformation is marvelous.”
Pendance felt the empty spot in his brain begin to throb. He had trouble thinking or speaking, although he said, “The Theron’s crew—”
She laughed, interrupting his words.
“They will find their treasure hunt considerably more challenging than they anticipated,” she said, moving to the viewport, watching the distant ship. “Ancient powers have their own ways of dealing with these upstart trespassers. Once the powers are done, we can move in easily enough.”
On the main screen, the Theron was approaching the dying moon, its crew surely unaware that the ground beneath their feet would soon be very different from what they expected.
“What did you do down there?” the Collector asked quietly.
The High Polarion turned back to them.
“I made a bargain,” she said. “Now we wait to see if this Earthling is as resourceful as his reputation suggests.”
Pendance stared at the main screen, watching the Theron approach the moon, wondering what the next few hours would bring.
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As we approached the gas giant and its dying moon, I stared at the display, trying to figure out how we could explore the crumbling fortress.
“This is impossible,” I said. “Even if we could land, the whole thing might collapse while we’re down there, killing us.”
“Perhaps not impossible,” Bill said. The android had been running calculations during our approach.
“If you have an idea, let’s hear it,” I said.
“I have analyzed the tidal patterns and structural integrity of the remaining lunar mass,” Bill said. “There is a method that could work, though it would require careful timing.”
He indicated a display showing the moon’s orbit and the gas giant’s gravitational field.
“First, we would need to establish a parking orbit with the Theron.” Bill indicated a position about three thousand kilometers above the moon. “That would be beyond the primary debris field and tidal stress zone, but close enough for a descent operation.”
“Okay,” I said, “three thousand kilometers, got it.”
“The Theron has an emergency maintenance pod in cargo bay two,” Bill said. “It’s designed for exterior hull repairs, but it has maneuvering thrusters and is sealed for vacuum operations.”
Alina, who had been listening closely, pulled up the pod’s specifications.
“This region of the moon experiences the least tidal stress during a six-hour window when it faces away from the gas giant,” Bill said, pointing it out. “The fortress entrances are located here. While much of the fortress is exposed and dangerous, parts are still accessible.”
“So we ride the pod down during the quiet time,” I said.
“We ride most of the way down,” Bill said. “At five hundred meters altitude, we exit the pod and use EVA suits with personal maneuvering units for the final approach. This prevents damage to the pod from surface debris and allows for more precise landing near a plausible fortress entrance.”
Gorrax leaned forward. “What about moonquakes?”
“I’ve been studying those,” Bill said. “The seismic activity follows predictable patterns based on the tidal forces. There’s a relative calm period lasting approximately four hours during each rotation. If we time our descent correctly, we should have enough time to enter the fortress, locate the T-suit, and return with it.”
“Should,” I said.
“The Theron will maintain its orbit,” Bill said. “However, if emergency extraction becomes necessary, the ship can execute a powered descent to retrieve us, though this would be quite dangerous.”
I studied his idea.
“It’s too risky,” Alina said.
I looked at her.
“I’d say we have a four out of ten chance of pulling this off,” she said. “Those are bad odds.”
“Agreed,” I said. “But that isn’t quite the question.”
“No?” she said.
“What are the odds of our fighting our way onto the Dreadstar and through its corridors to the stasis chamber?” I asked.
“Maybe three out of ten times,” Bill said.
“If that,” Gorrax said. “They will be waiting for us, locked and loaded.”
I stared at Alina.
She thought about it, finally nodding.
“Four out of ten times is better than three out of ten,” I said.
“Yes,” she said.
I looked around at the others. “It’s a go. Let’s do this.”
Gorrax and Alina readied the maintenance pod. Bill and I checked the EVA suits—heavy-duty models designed for asteroid mining. I could have used my combat suit for this, but the EVA suits were designed for just this kind of mission. I wasn’t sure why we had them along, but we did. They had built-in maneuvering jets and an air supply for eight hours.
I decided to take Bill instead of Alina. He was more durable and should be able to interface directly with the Polarion technology. Yeah, I had the ring, but usually I needed the right access points for that.
Soon enough, I climbed into the bulky EVA suit, feeling like a knight putting on his armor. The suit was roughly two hundred pounds of reinforced fabric, metal, and life support systems. In the moon’s low gravity, it would feel like wearing maybe twenty-five pounds, but it would still be cumbersome.
“Comm check,” Alina said through my helmet speakers.
“Loud and clear,” I said.
“I’ve uploaded various schematics to your HUD,” she said. “Based on Axion’s files, the T-suit should be in a deep storage vault. It should look something like this.”
I had a shot of a big old suit, looking more like an ancient diving suit than anything modern. It had a big metal helmet with a circular antenna over it and some bulky packs on the back. It had heavy boots and pods on the sides. It looked very stiff, more like the old diving suit where a guy had to stay on the ship and crank a wheel to pump down air through a hose.
Once sure I had all the data, Bill and I entered the maintenance pod. It was cramped in here, with basic controls and tiny viewports.
After we strapped in and checked the controls, we signaled the others.
“Launching in T-minus sixty seconds,” Gorrax said over the comm.
I watched through the viewport as the cargo bay depressurized. The bay doors opened, revealing the star field and the looming gas giant.
“Launch,” Gorrax said.
Bill fired the pod’s thrusters, pushing us out of the cargo bay. We drifted from the Theron until Bill judged the distance right. He fired harder, angling us toward the dying moon.
The descent took forty minutes and proved tedious as Bill dodged masses of debris. There were chunks of rock the size of buildings and rotating gravel fields. Massive cracks ran across the moon’s surface like spider webs, looking like a scene from a disaster movie.
“Five hundred meters to the surface,” Bill said. “It is time.”
We unsuited from our seats and Bill depressurized the pod. Soon, the hatch opened. Below us, the surface was a nightmare of sliding rock and venting gases.
Bill gave the signal and we pushed out. We floated down, our pod hanging in its parked location. Despite everything, the moon’s surface seemed to come up too fast.
I followed Bill’s lead, firing my suit thrusters in short bursts.
Instead of heading for moon rock, we aimed at a gaping hole in the fortress. An airlock might have been there once. We landed beyond it as everything trembled, probably due to a moonquake.
I breathed deeply. This was it, a terrible risk, seeming worse now than when we’d talked about it on the ship.
With Bill in the lead, we entered the fortress, our helmet lights cutting through the darkness. We were in a corridor, moving through it. The key was making sure to avoid anything that looked sharp.
Soon, it opened into… I won’t call it a vast chamber. It was much bigger than that. What would be the best way to describe this?
It must have been more than a kilometer across. Inside it, drifting, was a three-dimensional maze: more than a building, maybe a mini-city, if that makes sense. Structures sprouted from it. Some of those structures were spherical, others crystalline, connected by tubes and bridges.
“The fortress seems to have been built around that,” Bill said.
I shook my head. That was crazy.
“I believe the storage areas are there,” Bill said.
“You’re saying the T-suit is there?” I said.
“I am,” Bill said.
“Right,” I said. “Let’s do it then.”
We pushed off, using our thrusters to fly toward the floating structure. At the midpoint, we rotated and reversed our footing. Soon, we landed on what might have been a plaza or a street.
“How do we even find these storage areas?” I said.
“Given normal Polarion patterns,” Bill said, “I believe I will recognize the signs.”
“And if they’re irregular?” I asked.
“I believe you have a saying from Earth.”
“Yes,” I said.
“You’ll be shit out of luck,” Bill said.
“Yeah, thanks, that’s a big help.”
“Is not humor useful at a time like this?”
“Probably less than you think,” I said.
Bill looked around. “There.” He pointed to a structure. “I suggest that will lead us in the correct direction.”
“Go,” I said. “Time’s awasting.”
We pushed off again, sailing through the structural maze. Below us, or was it above, I could see where part of the maze had already been destroyed. The moon’s disintegration had crushed entire districts, leaving twisted metal and shattered crystal.
Another tidal quake hit, stronger this time. A building near us cracked, venting atmosphere that must have been trapped for millennia. Ice crystals sparkled in our lights before dissipating.
Maybe three minutes after that, we reached the structure. The entrance was a hole that could have been a former door or window. We pulled ourselves through, entering a corridor that corkscrewed through the interior.
After five minutes, it opened into a vast laboratory or workshop, filled with partially assembled devices. Some looked like weapons, others like tools, and many were incomprehensible.
“No T-suit,” I said.
“Maybe not,” Bill said. “But this is promising. We are in the right area.”
We moved deeper into the structure, passing chambers. One room contained what looked like frozen lightning, suspended in crystalline containers. Another held row after row of empty pods that might have been… you know, I had no idea.
“There is a problem,” Bill said.
“Just one?” I said.
“The structural integrity appears to decrease the deeper we go.”
“We’re still going down?”
“The storage areas are in that direction.”
I shrugged, four out of ten beat three out of ten, but not by much. Then I shoved off, heading into the darkness.
-46-
Bill and I used our thrusters sparingly, drifting between structures in the low gravity. The only sound was my breathing, since we couldn’t hear the moon shifting around us due to the vacuum.
We landed on what might have been a transit platform: a flat surface jutting from a tower. My boots touched down, and I noticed there was no dust. After all this time, there should have been dust—micrometeorite debris or something. But the surface was clean, almost pristine.
“That’s weird,” I said, running my glove along a railing. “This place should be covered in—”
I stopped. Under my glove, I felt warmth.
“Bill,” I said. “Touch this.”
The android placed his hand on the railing. “The temperature is increasing.”
We both stepped back. The warmth spread from where we’d touched.
“Is something starting up?” I said.
Before Bill could answer, a light flickered in the tower beside us, then another, and another.
“We must have triggered something,” Bill said.
The lights spread like a chain reaction. They didn’t illuminate much, as the maze was too vast for that. But they created pools of pale blue in the darkness.
“I am detecting vibrations,” Bill said.
“I guess that means we’d better hurry,” I said.
“You do not think we should retreat?”
“Not a chance,” I said.
We pushed off from the platform, continuing our descent. Now Bill detected atmosphere being pumped through ancient pipes, with generators trying to come online and mechanical systems running diagnostics.
A wall beside us illuminated from within, revealing a bank of what looked like computers or control systems.
We passed that and entered a chamber that might have been a transportation hub. Tracks ran along the walls and ceiling in multiple directions. As we floated through, one of the pods—a sleek capsule frozen to its rail—jerked forward a few meters, then stopped.
“The temperature increase could be causing differential expansion,” Bill said.
“What?” I said.
“Metal expands at different rates. If this place continued to warm up, the entire maze might start breaking apart.”
As if to punctuate his point, a pipe split, venting a fluid that crystallized, creating a glittering cloud of ice.
“Here,” Bill said, indicating a shaft.
I peered in, the entrance blocked by a massive hatch frozen mid-opening. Our EVA suits would never squeeze through that gap.
“Here what?” I said.
“The storage units are that direction.”
“So what?” I said. “We can’t squeeze through that.”
Bill found a control panel, interfacing with it. After a half minute, he said, “The motor systems are fused. However…” He worked for a time. “I’m rerouting power from another system.”
In my helmet, I raised my eyebrows.
Incredibly, the hatch shuddered. If there had been air, I’m sure metal would have screamed against metal. Silently, the hatch opened another few degrees.
What do you know? That was enough. We squeezed through.
Unfortunately, the shaft beyond had partially collapsed, with structural beams twisted into a maze.
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Follow me,” Bill said.
We slowly navigated the maze, since one wrong move could easily puncture our suits.
Halfway through, my proximity alarm went off. The beam I was passing was moving, slowly, but definitely.
“Move faster,” Bill said. “This section is becoming unstable.”
I began sweating, hurrying and trying to make sure nothing tore a hole in the suit.
“Behind us,” Bill said.
I swiveled around and watched the shaft collapse behind us, sealing the path.
Claustrophobia hit, and I found myself breathing hard. “Now what do we do?”
“We’ll find another way out later,” Bill said.
I hoped the android knew what he was talking about. Maybe a lack of emotions was a bonus while doing this.
Soon, we found a room full of workstations with half-completed projects. Then we passed a cafeteria with tables and chairs arranged as if people had just stepped out.
As we descended, a massive crack appeared in a wall beside us, running from floor to ceiling.
We used the thrusters to hurry away.
Soon, we reached a section that still had partial atmosphere—however that worked. Our suits registered a thin mix of nitrogen and oxygen at low pressure. Bill said it must be leaking from somewhere deeper, perhaps systems automatically trying to re-pressurize sections that had been breached, who knew how long ago?
Three minutes later, we found a huge chamber flooded with coolant. The liquid was thick, almost gelatinous, and our suits registered it as toxic.
“We must go through,” Bill said.
“Why?” I said.
“The chamber is too large to go around, and our time is limited.”
“So that’s it then,” I said.
“No,” Bill said. “We go through. Our suits can handle short-term exposure.”
“Yeah?” I said. “What about our visibility?”
“We’ll have to navigate by inertial guidance.”
I stared at the dark, viscous fluid.
“All right,” I said.
We sealed all our ports, double-checked our thrusters, and prepared to dive into the alien fluid. Somewhere, beyond tons of toxic coolant and failing systems, lay our objective—if we were lucky.
“Are you ready?” Bill asked.
“No,” I said, and pushed off into the dark liquid.
-47-
The toxic coolant engulfed me. My helmet lights penetrated about six inches into the viscous fluid. It was like swimming through molasses and motor oil, except this stuff would eat through my suit if I stayed in it too long.
“Bill, are you still with me?” I said through the comm.
“Affirmative. Maintain heading two-seven-zero degrees relative to entry point.”
I couldn’t see him even though he was supposed to be right beside me. The coolant was too thick and dark.
The resistance made it exhausting. We were making maybe a meter per second, crawling through the toxic soup while my suit’s integrity warnings started to flash.
