Enigma (38 page)

“Whatever it is, we’ll be right on top of it in about six minutes,” Ryttn announced. “It’s crossing right in front of us—angle to our bow of about thirty-five degrees.”

Thackery appeared at that moment at the top of the climb-way, still bearing the dishevelment of sleep. “What’s up?”

“We’re about to overrun an object of planetary mass with a space velocity of .6c.”

There was only a moment to weigh the options;
Munin
and the mystery object were moving too quickly for long deliberation. “Navcon, let’s get out of the craze,” Thackery said, settling in at his station.

“We’ll be by her before we regain our senses,” Ryttn warned.

Thackery shook his head. “Maximum braking—fifty-degree slope. Let’s rattle the dishes.”

“But the safety restrictions limit us to thirty degrees—” the tech at the gravigation console protested. “Do it,” Shinault said. “I altered the controller at A-Cyg. We won’t lose the drive.”

The tech’s face was ashen, but he turned back to his console and began the procedure that would bring
Munin
back into normal space. The astrographer and comtech stared at each other in disbelief, all their doubts about Thackery brought to the forefront. Only Shinault seemed sanguine about stressing
Munin
’s drive with maximum flux.

“All stations, alert for high-G transition,” Shinault announced over the shipnet. “One minute.”

Throughout
Munin
, crew members scrambled to find comfortable positions to be in when the nearly doubled gravity induced by the AVLO braking hit. Those who were close enough to do so crawled into their bunks.

“Begin braking,” the gravigator said without enthusiasm, and almost immediately the whine of the inductors jumped an octave.
Munin
shuddered, a new and unpleasant sensation, and then settled down into a harmonic vibration which would have been strong enough to make limp fingers dance on a countertop, except that the increase in G-force which came with it precluded such gymnastics. Aft, the drive’s dissipators crackled as they bled off the energies racing through the coils of the core.

The noise from the climbway shaft and the shaking went on for nearly five minutes. To Thackery, thinking of their enigmatic quarry, and the bridge crew, thinking of
Munin
’s ancient drive coils, the time seemed much longer.

Then finally, blessedly, space reappeared. “You can back her off to thirty degrees now,” Thackery said, and the gravigator gratefully complied.

Radar, laser ranging and communication, telescanners, and Kleine transceivers all looked toward the unknown object. The energies they captured carried back confirmation that Thackery’s first instinct had been right.

“Regular profile—no rotation—comes up almost like a ship.” The astrographer stopped, puzzled. “It’s accelerating—very high delta vee. Crossing our bow now. Sweet life, it is a ship!”

“On the window,” Thackery snapped, and the telecamera view came up on the central bridge display. The other ship was a point of light, skimming across the star field a hundred thousand klicks ahead of
Munin
.

For a moment, Thackery locked his eyes on the dancing, indistinct image as his mind raced.
D’shanna—FC—which are you?
Then he saw what most of the others had already seen, the only real information which could be gleaned from the display: that the image had the hourglass profile of a survey ship.

“What the hell is another Surveyor doing out here?” Thackery expostulated. “What’s their transponder identification?”

“It’s probably
Lynx
,” Shinault said. “She could be out here by now.”

“Or it could be Higuchi in
Hillary
. He may have learned at 16 Herculis what we did at Wenlock.” Thackery made a growling sound deep in his throat. “Goddamnit, if they beat us to Talitha—see if you can figure out where they’re coming from.”

“No transponder identification,” the comtech reported.

That was a puzzling development, since every Service vessel used its Kleine to continually relay position information to the Flight Office.

“With that apparent mass, it has to be running under AVLO drive—which means it has to be one of ours,” Thackery said, and gestured at the screen. “Can’t you give me something better?”

“Not at this distance.”

“There’s no hull markings on survey ships anyway,” Shinault reminded them. “About all we could tell is what series she belongs to.”

Thackery nodded. “Navcon, let’s go after her. A thousand klicks isn’t too close.”

“If I can,” said Ryttn.

“What?”

“Her acceleration profile—it’s steeper than an L-series drive. Fifty-seven degrees.”

“Maybe it’s a robot probe, with the AVLO-M,” said a new voice. Thackery twisted in his chair to see Koi emerging from the climbway.

“Amy—I’m glad you’re here.”

“I’d have been here sooner, but it’s a little hard to negotiate the climbway in two G’s.”

“Things have been a little hectic up here.”

“Is that your excuse for risking everyone’s life?”

“The best intercept was to drop down as quickly as possible. If we’d kept to the Flight Office limits we’d have been hours getting back to them. And the way they’re accelerating, we might not have gotten back to them at all. And I wanted to get our scanning capacity back as quickly as possible.”

Koi studied the telecamera view and the superimposed navigational plot. “Can’t we catch it?”

“That may depend on whether it wants to be caught.”

“I have a new delta vee,” Ryttn sang out at that moment. “Her acceleration curve is flattening out.” Koi pursed her lips. “Looks like she wants to be caught.”

As the minutes slipped by,
Munin
first matched the trajectory of the mystery ship, then began to slowly narrow the gap between them. The two vessels raced on in tandem for more than an hour with
Munin
shouting entreaties and the other vessel answering with silence.

“Why wouldn’t they be responding?” Thackery wondered aloud. Koi shook her head. “No transponder, no radio, no Kleine—it’s hard to believe they could all be out.”

“Can’t you give us something sharper?” Thackery called across to the comtech.

The comtech threw up his hands. “I can correct for blueshift, but I can’t correct for the smearing of the image, even with computer-guided optics,” he said apologetically. “A survey ship moving at these velocities isn’t exactly the ideal telecamera platform. If you want better resolution, you’ll either have to get much closer or talk them into slowing down.”

“New delta vee,” called Ryttn. “She’s starting to decelerate.”

“Let’s do the same. Bring us up alongside, in parallel,” Thackery directed.

With painful slowness, the telecamera view gained focus and detail. As it did, the bridge crew saw that the ship that grew to fill the display might have been
Munin
’s twin—the double bell of the field radiators fore and aft, the rounded bulges of lifepods protruding from the hull amidships, the seams of the gig bay.

“Pioneer class,” Shinault muttered.

“No—look at the open gridwork at the lip of the drive radiators,” Koi said. “Pioneer-class Surveyors didn’t have that. That’s a Pathfinder-class ship.”

“There
are
no other Pathfinders,” Shinault protested. “
Munin s
the only one.”

Both women were right, so the argument ended there, in impasse. The celestial pas de deux ended with the ships crawling to a stop a mere thousand kilometres apart, their hulls reflecting red starlight from an M-class giant less than half a light-year away.

“Still nothing?” Thackery asked the comtech. “Nothing the whole length of the electromagnetic spectrum,” was the answer. “Not even infrared. She’s stone cold.” At that, Thackery’s expression turned grim. “Gravigation, take us over top of her. Dead amidships, and close.”

As
Munin
turned toward the other ship and began its deliberate approach, the angle of view changed with painful slowness. The only indicator of their progress was when, by degrees, one set of lifepods disappeared out of view on the lower side, while the second set came into view on the upper side.

Only when
Munin
drew closer and moved to pass over the motionless vessel did the angle change more and more rapidly, bringing into view the far side of the ship and a sight that sent a chill through everyone who saw it. For the hull of
Munin
’s companion was torn open from above the bridge to the drive core below D deck, the edges of the aluminum honeycomb skin curled back like paper in a fire. A dark maze of twisted metal was all that remained of the upper decks exposed by the wound. Once that sight impressed itself on the stunned surveyors on
Munin
, there was no longer any question about their companion’s identity.

“My God,” Ryttn said, rising from her chair on unsteady legs. “It’s
Dove!
”

For a long minute after Ryttn’s pronouncement, no one spoke. The words froze them in place, staring at the screen as though to force the dissonant evidence to either vanish or harmonize. Ryttn brought folded hands to her mouth as though praying, and her eyes showed the fear they had heard in her voice.

Shinault frowned, and her gaze flashed angry challenge.

Koi’s face was slack with shock, as though her mind were too fully occupied with constructing an explanation to trouble itself to animate her features. Nunn was radiant with wonder, and wore a hint of a foolish, delighted smile. Thackery bit at his lower lip, his heart full, his eyes brimming. Shinault was the first to find her voice. “That’s crazy. Her drive was destroyed—how can she maneuver?”

“We saw her maneuver, therefore the drive wasn’t destroyed,” Koi corrected. “The damage must have been repairable. Communications are still out—”

Then suddenly everyone was talking at once.

“Repairable? Look at her—”

“There’s nothing left of the bridge—”

“The ship can be run from the survey lab—”

“There must still be at least some crew aboard, downship, in the lower decks—”

“No,” Thackery said sharply. “You’re not thinking clearly. We’ve made three crazes since we heard about
Dove
. It’s been more than fifty years since the accident.”

“Someone has to be aboard,” Ryttn insisted. “Yes,” Thackery said. “Someone. But not a Service crew. Something else.”

Koi stared at him uncomprehendingly, and Thackery answered the stare with a tight smile. “Elena, hold station with
Dove,
five hundred metres away and facing the damage,” he said, then toggled the shipnet. “Barbrice, to the dress-out compartment, ASAP.”

As the page echoed back up the climbway to the bridge Thackery pushed back the mike wand and stood. A moment later he was gone, the climbway vibrating from descent. He was halfway downship before what he had said penetrated to Koi’s consciousness.

“No!” she cried out in sudden anguish. “No, you can’t!”

Mueller was already in the dress-out compartment when Thackery reached it. “I’m going across to
Dove
,” he said, opening one of the storage bins. “I’ll need an E-5, helmet camera, light pack, and maneuvering unit.”

“Yes, Commander,” Mueller said, turning away and opening the equipment rack.

By the time Koi arrived with Guerrieri in tow, Thackery had donned the white double-layer E-S suit, and Mueller had the rest of the components laid out and waiting for him.

“Thack, how about letting me go on this one?” Guerrieri asked. “Your skin’s too valuable, hey?”

“No,” Thackery said curtly.

“Thack—you know the EVA Protocols specify pair work.”

“No.”

“Merritt—please,” Koi said. “There’s something very wrong about that ship being here. Don’t go.”

“Did you tell him about
Dove?
” he asked with a nod toward Guerrieri.

“Yes—”

“Then you’ve forfeited the right to ask that of me.”

Koi’s eyes flashed anger. “Damn it, Thack, this isn’t a schoolyard fight over who makes the rules. Don’t you realize that if something happens over there, there’s nothing we can do to help you?”

“Do you think it’s an accident that
Dove
intercepted us, that we’ve been diverted from Talitha? Don’t you realize? It’s me they want. Ever since the Drull warned me about them, they’ve been trying to stop me. They’re waiting for me. I won’t disappoint them.”

With a sudden movement, Koi looked away, as though avoiding the sight of him.

He took his helmet from Mueller, tucked it under his arm, and took a step toward Koi. “I have to do this, Amy,” he said plaintively. “If I don’t, then the last ten years don’t make any sense at all. I have to do it.”

“Why?” she demanded. “Who are you trying to impress this time? Who do you think expects this? Andra, or Sebright, or Z’lin Ton Drull? You don’t owe them—”

“No,” he said softly. “This time, it’s for me.”

When he and Mueller were gone, down into the gig bay to the small personnel airlock, there was silence in the dress-out compartment.

“They have a stronger hold on him than I do,” Koi said finally. “I guess I always knew that.”

“He’ll be all right,” Guerrieri said, touching her arm solicitously. “Sure,” she said bravely. “But would you suit up anyway, and stand by here? In case—” Guerrieri nodded his agreement. “Amy—I don’t understand.”

“What?”

“Why you wanted to stop him. We were wrong, Amy, and he was right. Nothing else can explain why that ship is out there.”

She cast her gaze downward. “Because I’m afraid,” she said softly. “Because I’m afraid he’s right, and because I don’t know what’s waiting for him. Nothing more or less than that.” She hesitated a moment, then headed for the climbway. “I’ll be on the bridge.”

The video from Thackery’s helmet camera shared the bridge display with the output from
Munin
’s own electronic eyes. From one point of view, Thackery was a solitary white figure growing smaller and smaller as it jetted away; from the other,
Dove
was a dark, ominous metal corpse looming up ever larger against the backdrop of stars.

“Switching on spots,” Thackery said, and two overlapping circles of light pierced the gloom inside
Dove
’s hull. Only a single bridge station, dark and inert, and a few square metres of the flooring remained. Below it, somewhat more of B deck was intact, though the damage extended down through the systems corridor to the operations decks and the vicinity of the chive.

Exposed throughout were the hidden places of the ship, those known only to those who had built her: the conduits and cabling secreted into bulkheads, the plumbing and the gravity gridwork underlying the floors, the anonymous electronics packages nestled wherever space had allowed and function had demanded. Integument, axon, sinew, and skeleton were rent alike. It was a disturbing sight, far more disturbing than the simple news of
Dove
’s fate had been, for it drove home the reality that
Munin
’s crew were themselves living inside a fragile machine.

“There’s no way she held any atmosphere after this happened,” Thackery said, directing his spots toward the center of the ship. ‘The inner cylinder was breached along with the rest.” He drifted in closer, and added, “I think I can get to the climbway through B deck.”

The white figure disappeared from
Munin
’s view, and the attention of the spectators shifted to the relay from Thackery’s camera. They watched as he gave the ragged metal at the edge of the damaged area a wide berth, then reached out for an exposed conduit and began to move himself inside from one improvised handhold to the next.

“
Dove
’s moving again!” Ryttn cried out suddenly.

The briefest glance at the display provided confirmation.

“Thack, get out,” Koi radioed frantically.

“Too late,” came the answer. “I’m too far in. Better come along.”

“Thack!”

“Sorry.”

“Navcon!” Koi barked. “Keep us alongside.”

Ashen, Ryttn looked back at her. “We can’t run with her. I don’t know how she does it, but she’s got a fifty-seven degree gradient.”

“Then do the best you can, goddamnit. Maximum slope. She let us catch her once,” Koi said, unaware of how tightly she was clenching the armrests of her seat. “Oh, Thack—”

Picking his way along one of the radial corridors to the climbway, Thackery looked down through the twisted metal to the far end, and his breath caught in his throat. Twenty metres downship, in the long enclosed tunnel between Operations and Survey, one of the drive access panels had been either removed or torn away. A pale light from the opening played over the ladder rungs and the opposite wall.

“Are you still monitoring me, Amy?” he called.

“Voice and video. Thack—we can’t stay with you. We’re already a hundred klicks behind.”

“What’s the range on a suit transmitter?”

“About a thousand klicks. The signal is already weaker.”

“I’m going downship, while we’re still in touch,” he said, and reached for a rung. “I love you, Thack,” she said with despair. “I love you, too,” he said, and started down. As he descended the last few rungs to where he could look through the access panel, Thackery’s heart was in his throat. It was a struggle to force himself to look through the panel. When he finally did so, he saw that the core was enveloped in a soft blue glow that danced and clung like jellied fire. Even where three of the coils were missing, the light conformed to the shape of what should have been there, forming an unbroken band around the rim of the drive core.

“Do you see it?” he demanded of his audience. “Do you see it?”

“Yes, Thack,” came Koi’s voice. “We see it. It looks a little like St. Elmo’s fire.”

“I’m going to go inside.”

The expected protest did not come, and Thackery clambered awkwardly through an opening which had been intended for a maintenance tech in coveralls rather than an E-suited visitor. Once inside, he could see that the blue glow enveloped the entire drive core, forming a complete circle. He also saw that the glow was not static but dynamic—he perceived it racing across the surface of the coils just as currents had once raced inside them.

“Is Gwen there? Can this be what’s making her move?”

“Here, Commander. Yes, it would have to be,” the exec said. “But don’t ask me what it is. I don’t do metaphysics.”

“Could it be something residual—spontaneous?”

“No, sir. No drive damaged like that should run at all, much less more efficiently than it did before the accident. If your D’shanna are doing that, then they’re magicians. Commander—I don’t want to presume, but if I were you I’d get out of the core. If that field is the source of the energy that’s driving
Dove
, I wouldn’t want to predict what’d happen if you came in contact with it.”

“I think I’ll take that suggestion,” Thackery said. “There’s no one here, anyway.”

But as Thackery turned to go, a tongue of jellied blue fire grew out toward him from the gap between coil 17 and coil 21 like an amoebic pseudopod. Deep in its substance appeared ghostly schlieren, like embedded threads of energy.

“Get the hell out of there,” Koi shouted in his ear, half order and half plea.

But Thackery was paralyzed by childish wonder. There were colors in the pseudopod too, scarlet and canary and rust, whorls of inner light made pale by the blue glow in which they were embedded.

Like Jupiter—

“No!” Koi screamed as Thackery reached out a gloved hand toward the projection. The instant they touched, the light raced up his arm, enveloping him in its substance, spreading across his torso and down his legs, crawling across his faceplate. Koi screamed again as the display screen on
Munin
showed nothing but blue, but the sound died in Thackery’s ears as the blue light and the ship around him both disappeared.

He was surrounded by currents of color, each different from the next in hue, in density, in brightness, in scent, in sound, in taste, all senses confused, all sensations mixing immiscibly in great swirls and whorls, both distant and near, both surrounding him and enveloping his—

His—

His body did not exist. He regarded the place he seemed to occupy and found nothing. He opened his mouth but heard no sound. He brought his hand to his face, but his eyes saw nothing, his hand found nothing to touch.

=You are locked into the patterns of your material existence. Release them. Reach out to me and I will show you. Reach out to me and I will help you.

The knowledge that he was not alone sent Thackery twisting and jerking in a frantic effort to find his enemy. But there was nothing to push against, nothing to push with, and his most energetic contortions created not the least disturbance in the ebb and flow of the currents around him.

=You have been here before—you have been here before—do not be afraid—you have been here before. I have bound you to the spindle.

There was no climactic event, no clear moment of transition, but presently calm and reverie washed over Thackery, and his struggles ceased. He saw that there was order in the currents, and great energy. And he became aware of his companion as a complex resonance hovering nearby.

–You are D’shanna.

Thackery saw the thought enter the flux as a pattern, weakly formed but of clear meaning. Strangely, it had been stripped of the emotional overlay which he had thought integral to the concept. It was a label, not an accusation.

The answer came in the same wise, childishly simple and achingly complete. = I know and answer to that name, though it is not a part of me.

–What do you call yourself?

=We know each other in other ways.

–Others…– The incomplete thought was barely an outline, and vanished almost the moment released. Thackery reached out past his companion and saw a hundred resonances, a thousand, ten thousand, in the infinite expanse of his new universe.

–I have never been here before.

=You have. Once before I brought you across. Once before I bound you to the spindle. The memory of it has driven you to seek it again. But it was nowhere in your matter-matrix to find. Only here.

–Why me? Why did you choose me?

=You must stop. You must stop.= The patterns were bright and insistent. =I cannot do it. You must stop them.

In the pattern of the thought Thackery saw its meaning: the survey ships turning back, retreating from the frontier. –You destroyed four civilizations.

=I did not know that would happen. I saw only their yearning and that their yearning would carry them to danger. I meant only to fill their need. I meant only to protect you.

–That’s not true.

=A false thought will not form long enough to be perceived. A false pattern is destroyed by its own dissonance. You know this already. You thought us the destroyers, but you know now that it is not so, because you could not make it part of our namepattern.

Thackery could not argue; the very substance of the spindle enforced the truth of the being’s response. –Then what danger? Why did you bring me here?