Exploration (11 page)

Ben smiled at Cat. A D'lralu smiling was a horrifying sight. Cat burst out laughing. Lacidem wrapped her trunk around her neck in confusion. Her ears were unusually large and almost hid the Modos nestled on her shoulders.

"OK," the doctor said. "Something is funny. My studies indicate a similar appreciation of humor between our various species. Clearly though, I have missed something that you two are finding humorous."

Cat held her hand palm up and instructed her construction nanites to fabricate another lamp. The device appeared at first like a molten puddle of quicksilver in her hand which undulated and roiled into a flat disk that exactly resembled the five other units. Cat tapped the top and the device began to illuminate.

The doctor's trunk went slack and she fell silent.

Cat explained. "My body is filled with several different types of artificial microscopic machines we call nanites. They function to repair and augment the normal operations of my body, but they can also repair and construct based on a directed need. Given the raw materials and a template, my nanites can build virtually anything."

"You could do this... always? You were never our prisoner," she said in awe.

"No, I was not; but it was critical that you believed I was," Cat agreed with a gentle smile.

"We scanned you. I conducted your medical assessment myself."

Cat smiled again, warmly. "You were most thorough, but I have an embedded AI that can monitor a situation and actively feed your sensors values that you would expect to find while cloaking those you don't."

Finally accepting that Cat was, as they had always suspected, much more than she seemed; the doctor waved a Bearephant hand about the room.  "But you discovered something. If not these lamps, then what?"

Cat pointed to the marginally lit console.

The Modos doctor looked at the softly illuminated red lights. "Not your work?"

"No."

"Whose then?"

"That," Cat said softly, "is the question of the day."

The furniture was just the first of several items to brush by the crippled
Honey Dipper
over the course of the next several hours. Honey directed the automated repair systems to focus on sensors an
d—
because of an abundance of hydrocarbons in the are
a—
a new body for herself. The body grew out of the surface of the navigation console where her head was in less than two minutes. Honey's new body was in a folded and crouched position when the organic fabrication was done. She rolled nimbly off the surface and onto the floor into a standing position. She stretched both arms and her legs, standing at one point on her tippy-toes. The feeling was luxurious.

She saw Ricky take notice and then proceed to blush a deep red that started at the back of his neck and worked its way forward to envelop his face. He quickly turned away. She chuckled to herself so as not to offend him and donned her cream-colored jump suit.

"Sensors are coming back online soon." she said while zipping up the front.

"Is it safe to turn around?" Ricky said with just a slight tremble in his voice.

"Do you think I'm dangerous?"

"Absolutely!" Ricky answered while turning to face her.

She gave him a coy smile and a wink. "You do know how to say the nicest things to a lady, Cap'n"

"The sensors?"

Honey reconfigured the navigational console to bring up a 3D holographic display. "They are auto-calibrating now. I should be able to bring up something any second now... DAMN!"

The newly activated display showed a horrific sight. Hundreds of thousands of pieces of twisted shards of metal drifted in an ever-expanding sphere centered on their current location. That wasn't the source of Honey's expletive, however. Less than a kilometer away was one of the Modos cruisers that had been part of the original attack fleet.  It was heading straight for them.

"I take it we are not cloaked?" Ricky asked.

"Dearest, we are lucky to be airtight, much less cloaked."

"Are there any other energy signatures in the area they could be heading for?"

"Nary a one, Cap'n. They are most certainly coming to have a look-see at us."

"OK, if we can't hide let's at least appear to be something we are not. Can you fake a systems failure
?…
a power loss or something?"

The light's immediately began to flicker and then went out. A second later they came back on at half intensity and continued to flicker sporadically. 

"Good job."

"Nothin' to it. I was having to work hard just to keep things go'i
n’
. Faking a failure is really just a matter of let'n go of the reins."

"If we have ship-to-ship comms start broadcasting a general distress beacon. Claim we are survivors on a disabled and unarmed GCP prototype research shuttle." He shifted on the supply boxes he had started to use as a seat.  "We want them to take both us and wha
t’
s left of the
Honey Dipper
onboard."

"In other words you want me to make us look tempting without looking like I'm trying to make us look tempting."

"Exactly," said Ricky as leaned back in his makeshift chair.  "The key is going to be finding a way to keep them from separating us."  

***

Cat scanned the now well-lit nexus room. Ken and the engineering team from the
Bluefin
had cleared the corridors and run a series of power lines from the pinnace parked at the entrance of the ancient facility. In addition, Ken had used his ship's fabricators to construct four very serviceable electric carts that could carry six people plus equipment with efficiency.  

The Modos engineers were beside themselves in excitement when they saw what Ken's replicators were capable of. The Modos had 3D printing capability, but it was comparatively slow and limited to homogenous materials. The ability to create fully functioning machines and electronics out of complex material
s—
and to do it quickl
y—
was a complete novelty.

Captain Running Stream looked like a kid who got to open his Christmas presents early. He kept glancing at Cat when he thought she was not paying attention. For the most part those looks preceded a covert smile.

"So," the captain of the
Bluefin
said as he exhaled deeply from his trunk. "You call these things caramel apples?"

Cat turned to look at him. Earlier Ken had been demonstrating the flexibility of the replicators. This included a demonstration of fabricating foodstuffs. Commander Ben had insisted that chocolate be among the items demonstrated. It turned out the Bearephant palate was not suited for chocolate. While they enjoyed the sweetness, the excessive presence of flavonoids, which for them was very sour, destroyed the taste. Ben was initially unwilling to have further dealings with a race that disliked chocolate, until Cat explained he would no longer need to compete with them for it. Interested in exploring the Bearephant palate further, Ken had created a series of samples ranging from popcorn to caramel apples. It was this last that the Modos captain had taken a real liking to. Apparently the flavonoids in the skin of the apple complemented the natural tartness of the apple in a way that didn't happen with the chocolate.

"It would seem we have much to learn from each other," the captain continued.

"Indeed," Cat agreed. "I would also hope we learn more about the builders of this underground base."

"I'd like to see if we can't get to that other side of the central chasm before we start working our way down to the lower levels." Running Stream finished his apple complete with stem, core, and stick. Apparently the Bearephants were used to chewing woody twigs and viewed throwing those parts away as a waste of good food.

"Agreed," Cat said. "Ben's scouting team just reported that the last of the ring corridors is collapsed. If we are going to get to that side we are going to have to create a bridge of some sort for most of you."

"Most of you?" Running Stream said inquisitively.

"It's only a couple hundred meters. We've got plenty of head room. I'm pretty sure I can jump it."

Running Stream looked at her pensively for several seconds. "We really need to take the time to discuss your 'enhancements' at some point. I suppose I should be grateful you didn't commandeer my ship. I'm not sure I would have been able to stop you."

Cat returned his pensive look. Finally she spoke honestly. "Captain, if you had given me any indication that you were going to treat your captives harshly I might well have. True, you held people against their will; but you always treated your captives with respect and seemed genuinely concerned for their welfare."                    

The Bearephant tilted his head in acknowledgement. "Before we go to the effort of building an extensive bridge to the other side perhaps it might be worth taking a quick peak. Since you seem to be uniquely qualified, would you care to take that peak?"

"Why, I would be delighted 'mon Capi-ton,'" Cat said with an expansive bow and flourish of her hand.

The Bearephant rocked back and forth in laughter.

Cat signaled Ken via her internal commlink. He arrived a few minutes later with a length of high-tensile cable as well as a length of ultra-thin guide rope. She took the end of the rope and tied it about her waist. It would serve two purposes. Should she fail to make the jump for any reason, they would be able to pull her back up. Second, when she got to the other side she would be able to use the guide rope to pull the stronger cable across. Once it was across they would be able to rig a suspended trolley-car for traversing the chasm.

"OK... Wish me luck," Cat said with a quick smile.

"Luck," Ken said.

"Good hunting," Running Stream added.

Cat took a deep breath and raced forward as quickly as her Heshe enhanced muscles would carry her. When she reached the edge of the opening, she bunched her legs and jumped. Her internal AI knew to the precise foot-pound how much energy her legs could produce and modulated their output so that her jump carried her precisely to the other side. She landed with a shoulder roll that effectively dissipated the excess energy. When she stood she heard the men on the other side begin to clap. She executed a perfect bow.

The guide rope was easily tied off on a piece of equipment whose original purpose was lost, along with the race that had built it. She pulled the cable they would use for the trolley across the intervening chasm.   Once it was across she used her nanite systems to fuse it to the floor with a bond far superior to the best weld.

It was then that Cat began to take a serious look at her surroundings. There was something markedly different about this side of the nexus. There was more equipment present and it seemed to be in better shape. Things had been scattered haphazardly on the side they had first begun to explore. This was not the case on this side. Machines were arrayed in smart lines. Cables connected many of them. Wire-mesh hammocks were erected in front of many of the control consoles. They were eerily familiar and Cat got a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach.

"Captain. You will want to get that trolley we were talking about set up as soon as possible. I suspect you will not like what you find on this side, but I think you need to see it none the less."

"What did you find Admiral?"

"The answer to a lot of questions, and very possibly a very different story to share with your children."

***

Captain Jason Ruck was furious. He had spent the last thirty minutes arguing with a group of admirals. This type of activity was not good for one's career, but argue he did. The best minds in the Coalition had been burning the midnight oil looking for a way to find and rescue the GCP's newest Admiral. In the end it was one of the WhimPy platforms that provided what may be an answer.

WhimPy-101 was a brilliant intellect. It was one of the new generation of Heshe defensive weapons platforms. Based on a WhimPy-23 template but heavily modified to meet the specific goals of the Galactic Coalition of Planets, it had a tremendous capacity for compassion and curiosity. Its Heshe origins endowed it with a fundamental respect for all life and an absolute drive to be ethical.

101 had worked out a set of plausible hyperfold calculations that should make a transdimentional hyperfold jump possible. Data collected from the jump point near Sagittarius A provided critical clues. Theoretically the turbulence caused by entering a hyperfield so close to an event horizon, especially one as large as SaA, would tear a ship apart. 101 had worked out a set of exceptions. One was to enter the jump point from a vector along the magnetic poles created by the spin associated with black holes. This was problematic in that these vectors tended to be occupied by polar jets which were streams of matter ejected at near relativistic speeds.  These jets were caused by an interaction of matter being pulled into the accretion disc and the actual rotation on the disc. The only way to eliminate the danger posed by these energetic plasma streams was to eliminate the material falling into the accretion disc, a task currently beyond their capabilities.

101 had determined a second possibility. Based on the recorded observations received from the two pinnaces that had accompanied the Modos slaver, 101 had determined the slaver had erected a rotating hyperfield shield that was an exact multiple of the gravity wave frequency in that region of space. In addition the ship had entered the interface between the event horizon and the primary hyperfield at an angle of exactly 54.74 degrees. Chemists familiar with solid state nuclear magnetic resonance had long known the mathematical significance of this angle. It seemed the Modos did as well.