Event Horizon (Hellgate) (77 page)

“You can see the change when a guy…?” Travers looked baffled.

“As they become receptive? Yes. Not that I’ve ever see this for myself, but – ask Mark, he’ll explain it. It’s not a secret. The Resalq aren’t embarrassed by their own biology. When they’re receptive, there’s a tendency for the male genitals to fold back into the body cavity, because they’re about to fall dormant for a long, eleven month gestation period. The further they fold back, the more receptive an individual has become.” He drained the beer and dropped the can into the chute. “The hormonal reflex is primeval, it goes back to the dawn of their species. But the primitive reflex is still there. It’s one of the reasons they survived the century or so after the Zunshu killed their homeworlds. Mark himself was born in that time.”

“Prolonged stress makes them breed,” Travers said slowly, as if struck broadside by an epiphany. He chuckled richly and gestured back toward the garden. “It also makes them prickly and short-tempered.”

“The young ones whose hormones are pumping – yes, it does.” Marin shared the moment of humor. “After a certain age, or if they’ve already had two or three young, the hormones don’t pump the same way.”

“You mean, Mark won’t be feeling this?” Travers hazarded.

“Right. He’s too old by centuries to feel any compulsion. He bore three young, of course; two survive. He could still bear again, but only by choice. At his age, he’s much more likely to be the sire, the other half of the partnership.” He shared Travers’s fascination. “It still takes two to dance the old tango, but among the Resalq the roles are reversible.”

“And Tor,” Travers wondered, “doesn’t have any choice in the matter?”

“Of course he does.” Marin glanced at his chrono. “We’d better head for Ops, if we don’t want to miss this. Tor? He can take shots and just turn the hormones right off – if he wants to. But there’s a hefty psychological thump. He won’t
want
to. Academically, he might choose to have the shots. If he’s cranky enough to refuse, Dario will just take the shots to make bloody damned sure he, himself, is temporarily sterile … and not even tell Tor he’s done it, if he has any sense. Keep the boy happy with plenty of healthy sex till we’re out of trouble and home. Then, if they’re still inclined, let nature take its course. Or not,” he added. “Once the stress is off, Tor’s hormones will swing right back to neutral. The imperative will fade away. They’ll have children when and if they choose to, not when nature says they should, or must.”

“Well, damn.” Travers was on the way back to the elevator. “You can start to forget the Resalq are, well, alien.”

“But they’re
very
alien,” Marin said quietly as he thumbed for the lift. “And I always thought the delight was in the difference.”

Operations was already busy, and the navtank was bright with a live graphical display. Lai’a was translating the ten-dimensional datastream of transspace into visuals sensible to the human brain. Marin licked his lips as he looked into it, seeing a roiling, writhing confusion of imagery which he had come to recognize. He knew a gravity tide when he saw it, and a fast-time channel, a slow-time eddy, and the silver-gray shoals of the driftway into which Lai’a was already taking them.

Its voice was serene. “Orion Driftway. I am searching for the precursors to a gate event. Do you wish to transit on the first appropriate event, Captain?”

On the other side of the tank, Vaurien, Jazinsky and Rusch were immersed in the data racing through a wide flatscreen while Mark worked with a handy and Tonio Teniko looked on with unblinking, feverish eyes. His hands were in his pockets, his breathing was rapid and shallow. Marin might have worried about the feral look of him, but Bill Grant was only meters away, taking readings even then. Curtis caught Grant’s attention, and Bill only shrugged. Teniko was as stable as he was ever likely to be.

“I don’t know –
do
we want to take the first gate?” Vaurien referred the question to Mark. “Give me a reason not to.”

“There
is
no reason,” Jazinsky said promptly, “and we don’t have a lot of time to waste. Hard as it is to believe, this really is Orion 359 – and we have a wealth of data from the
Aenestra
. We’re not here to survey star systems! But we can certainly buzz the zone, looking for any signs.” She frowned sidelong at Mark. “Of survivors.”

“The proverbial needle in a haystack.” Mark looked up from his work for only a moment. “I’ve already discussed this with Lai’a. Given a safe transit of the gate, we’ll cruise fast out of the Orion Drift. The
Aenestra
data has already been analyzed. Alexis and Leon went over the study performed by Lai’a, if only to provide the living, flesh and blood perspective.” He set the handy aside now and leaned on the side of the tank, watching the temporal streams dart and writhe like hatchlings in a snake’s nest. “By all accounts, there’s only one system with any potential for survivability for species like ours, in range of the local Drift.

“It was cataloged as Orion 521. Smaller, redder, cooler than the stars we’d prefer, given the choice, but if it had a rocky planet with a breathable atmosphere, right in the sweet spot … well, life forms like ourselves
might
survive in the long term.
If
,” he added, “they could eat the local vegetation, when they got here. And
if
they could manage a slingshot around the black hole, Orion 359 itself, and get themselves onto a reliable vector for 521. And
if
they had enough viable cryogen tanks to make the sublight journey, which would have taken around eight years.” He puffed out his cheeks, shook his head. “In fact, it’s far from impossible.”

“And we know what we’re looking for, and where we’re looking,” Vaurien said thoughtfully.

“Oh, it’s well worth a look,” Mark said with all due caution, “but I’ve warned the others not to get their hopes up. The ifs, ands and buts associated with survivability out here are appalling, even if one had a support ship! With only a number of escape pods … well, it’s not
im
possible.”

“Cryogen tanks,” Travers mused as Vidal, Rabelais and Queneau appeared from the armordoors. “In the pods?”

“Twenty, recessed into the deck of each pod,” Mark affirmed, “under hatches. Powerful maneuvering jets in the tail and bow, super-compressed propellant tanks. A halfway decent generator in the nose, six cubic meters of emergency rations behind a bulkhead in the back. Atmosphere and water recycling plants. If they could manage a slingshot around the black hole, accurately calculate a three-thousand-day flight, and get themselves into cryogen for the duration … then, their challenge would be a hard landing on a cold, dark planet where we know almost nothing of the environment.”

The words were bleak, but Marin had gone on beyond this thinking. “If I were up against this, I’d stay in cryo,” he said quietly. “Even if I made it to the planet, if the environment was so unfriendly, I’d stay tanked.”

“And – what, set up a comm beacon, hope for rescue, sometime?” Travers’s brows arched. “The beacon would bring the Zunshu like blow flies to dead meat.”

“And we,” Vaurien added, “don’t have time to search a whole system for a flock of escape pods that’ll be buried under a thousand years’ worth of detritus.” He gave Mark an apologetic look. “Another time. Assuming we get the resolution we want with the Zunshu, a Resalq crew can come back with Lai’a and spend a year here, if that’s what it takes.”

“All the more reason to be swift on this reconnoitre.” Mark adjusted his combug.

“Or maybe even wake up to yourself and not bother looking at all,” Tonio Teniko’s voice growled from the furthest corner of Operations. “If they’re likely to be tanked, why do this? Send somebody else, when there’s time to waste.”

A pained expression passed across Mark’s face. Marin saw it before he drew a mask over it. His tone was patient, measured, as if he were addressing a dull child. “For the moment, assume the crew of the
Ebrezjim
could get themselves here. It’s highly likely a number of tanks – or pods – would have been damaged en route or upon landing, Tonio, rendering continued cryosleep impossible for a considerable percentage of the crew. Given an environment even marginally appropriate, the company would certainly have chosen to cannibalize tanks and pods and make a survival attempt. If this took place, they or their descendents might still be waiting for retrieval, and desperate for supplies of every kind. And consider this: should the Lai’a expedition suffer defeat in Zunshu space, we won’t be coming back, and it’s likely no one will be following us, perhaps for another millennium. A couple of generators, a field medical facility, an AI, drones, food, raw materials – all this will cost us little, but might make the difference between an isolated colony struggling and failing.”

“If, if, if,” Teniko groaned. “This
might
be, and that
could
be. The truth is, if the crew of the
Ebrezjim
had any bloody sense, they’d cut their losses. Fifty percent of the tanks are damaged, people can’t get back in? Tough shit. You’re still scoring a fifty percent survival rate right there. I’d take the odds.”

As he spoke, Shapiro, Kim, Rodman and Hubler stepped into Ops and were puzzled as Jazinsky said acidly, “Yes, well, not everybody in the universe is a mercenary little snot. A lot of humans would also put the group first … we all come home, or none of us do.”

“That’s a bunch of bullshit,” Teniko began.

“Perhaps it is, but it was human nature ten thousand years before you were born.” Vidal’s voice was a whipcrack. “Mouth
shut
, Tonio, right now. What are you doing here, anyway? You were banned from Ops.”

“I asked him to come and … merely observe,” Mark said with rueful humor. “One thing you can trust Tonio to do. He’ll always play your devil’s advocate. It’s become his principle source of value.”

Teniko’s mouth was opening again, but Vaurien jabbed one dagger-like finger to stop him. “One more syllable, and you’re out of here.” Tonio’s lips sealed, compressed, and he retreated into the corner, hunkered down into a chair. Vaurien turned back to Jazinsky and Vidal. “Lai’a, we’re looking for an event. Take the first one you can find that’s up to specs … you and Doctor Sherratt thrashed out a flightplan?”

“An efficient flightplan,” the AI assured him. “And the early precursors of an event are beginning to show. The transspace drive is cycling for ignition.”

“How long till this event?” Jazinsky wondered.

“Estimating 30 minutes.” Lai’a paused. “I have dropped a comm beacon into a stable part of the driftway. Doctor Sherratt, Doctor Jazinsky, Colonel Rusch, you might be interested to examine data streaming to Tech 4. The next gate beyond the Orion Gate is intermittently visible. It is extremely distant and readings are faint, but useful information might be inferred. Doctor Teniko, if you wish, I can stream the same data to Nav 5.”

Comm 5 was the workstation where Teniko was hunched into a chair, hugging himself. “Do it,” he snarled. “Pardon me for two syllables.”

The data might have been fascinating but Marin could make nothing of it. He gathered by the tank with the rest of the transspace pilots, watching the graphics as the event began to grow. Travers, Queneau and Rodman – the navigation specialists – were transfixed, eager to watch the black hole pull and tease at the gravity wells of two supergiant stars until the e-space membrane began to ruck and twist, building toward the rupture in space-time. Vidal, Marin and Hubler – the pilots – were focused on the way the temporal currents fluctuated, bending and weaving around the growing event while the outfall of the Odyssey Tide seemed to froth and eddy around the shoals of the driftway.

The transspace drive was idling, Lai’a was on station keeping, only waiting for the Orion Gate to open, and as it did Marin could feel the phantom sensations in his hands, wrists, forearms, and a curious sense of weightlessness, as if he might be flying this. The thought hit him hard.
I can do this. I could fly this with my own hands, own eyes and brain.

How often had he heard Vidal say the same words, in the early days when he must almost convince himself that he had been here, done this, before ever he tried to convince people like Jazinsky, Sherratt, Shapiro. They believed now – Marin believed. His belly felt the phantom lurch of momentary zero-gee as Lai’a acquired the freefall channel just off-center of the event, and beyond they could already see the stars of normal space.

Strange stars. The constellations were alien to every human eye, and the Resalq knew them only from the data returned by the
Aenestra
. Even Mark was lost for words as the transspace drive shut down and the conventional Weimann engines ramped up. Lai’a exited the Orion Drift without hesitation, and Marin watched a flatscreen, where the aftscan showed its departure angle. The gate was the twin of any Hellgate event and the stars ahead, which pooled in the navtank like swarming fireflies, were normal stars, identical to those of home.