Helix Wars (46 page)

She found herself casting covert glances at the Mahkan – Terrell-something, Dan had called it – unable to tell if the alien were in its female or male persona. They looked very much alike whether male or female, apparently: there was a variation in colouration, but the main difference, she’d read, was neurological.

The alien was saying, “To put it crudely, what we have here is a... a terminal interface. The nexus which, millennia ago, the Builders used to access the ‘core,’ or to put it another way, download their virtual personas into the storage cache.”

Maria stared out across the silver nexus, marvelling. She was looking at a Builder artefact that few humans before her had seen.

Gonzalez asked, “And would it be politic to enquire if you, the Mahkan, are in contact with the Builders?”

The alien pulled its lips back, revealing curved incisors, in an expression Maria found impossible to interpret. “That, sir,” the Mahkan replied, “I am in no position to answer.”

“How did you locate this?” Dan gestured to the nexus. “I presume it was originally covered with sand?”

Terrell-something moved its head in a gesture Maria took to be affirmative. “All I can say is that my people have known about it for centuries.”

Dan nodded, and Maria could sense his frustration at the alien’s stonewalling.

One of the humans, a government official, said, “Director, if you and Deputy Gonzalez would care to step into the nexus, my team will show you a few salient features. I’m afraid you will have to leave all electrical equipment such as wrist-coms and players behind...”

Dan looked out across the grid. “Lead the way,” he said, unfastening his wrist-com and passing it to Maria.

She watched as the government official led Dan, Gonzalez, the Mahkan and the others into the grid. They were obliged to high-step over the silver divides between each square, the effect somewhat comical as the group progressed into the middle of the alien artefact.

Maria returned to the medi-dome and made an inventory of the stocked equipment. The dome was air-conditioned, and a small cooler held a supply of food and drink. She found a beer and dragged a folding chair to the entrance. She sat in the shade, staring out across the barren plateau, and watched the tiny figures of the liaison team pick their slow way across the nexus.

She found herself thinking ahead, to the time when she and Dan could set up home together. She was tired of sharing him with a wife who, Dan had told her, no longer showed him the slightest affection. She felt frustrated that now, when she had finally freed herself from Jeff – when the way was clear for her to enjoy an uninterrupted life with Dan – his frigid wife was proving to be such an unreasonable obstacle.

She swore under her breath and took a long swallow of ice-cold beer.

Members of the liaison team moved back and forth along the margin of the grid, kneeling to take measurements and readings with their softscreens. From time to time they called across to each other, and gathered to pore over their screens and compare results. As often was the case when she sat on the sidelines and observed the doings of the team, she felt excluded.

Her wrist-com chimed. She tapped the access stud, wondering who might be calling her now. The chime continued, and only then did she realise that the sound was a semi-tone lower than her own device.

Dan’s wrist-com, on the cooler where she’d left it, flashed an accompaniment to the musical notes.

She was minded to ignore the summons, then thought that it might be from HQ on New Earth.

She crossed to the cooler and picked up the wrist-com.

The display screen flashed the name of the caller: Sabine Lafayette-Stewart.

Her stomach turned as she thumbed the access stud.

The screen flared and a woman’s face stared out at her. She had known that Sabine was a few years older than Dan, but this gaunt, white-haired woman looked about sixty.

“And who might you be?” Sabine asked.

Dry-mouthed, she managed to articulate, “I’m Maria, Dr Maria Ellenopoulis.” She hesitated, then said, “Dan told you about me.”

The woman tilted her head to one side, her expression almost amused. “Told me? About you? Now why should he do that, Dr Ellenopoulis?”

Maria felt dizzy and dropped into the folding chair. She held the wrist-com in a shaking hand and said, “Why are you being so unreasonable?”

The woman blinked. “Unreasonable?” She laughed, shaking her head. “I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about. Now, if you’d kindly hand me over to Daniel...”

“Unreasonable,” Maria said, taking a deep breath, “about us, about me and Dan. Why can’t you just agree to what he wants?”

Sudden, pantomime enlightenment dawned on Sabine’s face. “Ah... so you must be his latest little fling. Now, I must say that he’s chosen well this time: very pretty, and dark, which surprises me. Daniel usually goes for blondes.”

Maria felt as if she were about to faint. She had experienced this once before, this sudden feeling of unreality, of being part of something she was unable, or unwilling, to comprehend: three years ago, when she had seen Ben fall from the tree and break his neck.

“Usually?” she echoed.

“Oh, he must have had a dozen women on the side over the past ten years.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“They normally last a month or two, sometimes a little longer, before the attraction begins to pall. How long have you and Daniel...?”

Maria shook her head and found herself saying, “I... Almost a year.”

“A year?” Sabine said, laughing. “Well, he must be finding you very beddable. Let me guess,” she went on. “Daniel said that he’d told me all about you, am I right? You want him to leave me, and he said that I’d demanded something along the lines of an equal share...? Oh, don’t look so shocked, my dear. He’s played that little game with his women often in the past. I’m familiar with all his tricks.”

“But he loves me...” Maria found herself whispering.

Sabine shook her head. “Of course he’d tell you that. It’s what he tells them all, in order to get what he wants. Dr Ellenopoulis, my husband is not a bad man, just... rapacious, you might say. So don’t be too hard on him.” She smiled, with bitter sweetness. “And if you could tell him that I called, when you see him, my dear...” She cut the connection.

Maria sat staring at the blank screen, the sound of her pulse pounding in her ears.

But Dan had been so convincing when he’d said that Sabine was being a bitch...

She realised that she was crying, tears falling from her cheeks and dripping onto the screen. She flung it across the dome and cuffed the tears from her cheeks.

The bastard,
she thought.
The cheating, lying bastard.

She saw him across the grid, this tall, strong man she thought she’d loved. Her first impulse was to race across the nexus with something heavy in her hand and swing it at his skull.

She heard the sound of an engine and looked up into the searing blue sky. A dark shape was coming in low from the south, and she’d seen sufficient space-going craft to know that this one did not hail from New Earth. As she watched, the ship resolved itself into a long, dark interworld cruiser of Mahkan design.

The ship slowed, banked, and came in to land beside the grid a hundred metres to her left. Led by Dan, the group out on the grid made their hurried way back to the domes.

Maria stood up as if in a trance, at once aware that something major was being played out here with the arrival of the Mahkan, but at the same time concerned only about Dan Stewart’s treachery.

A hatch in the side of the cruiser dilated and half a dozen massive, imposing Mahkan stepped out and crossed to the domes. Dan and the others stood, a picture of collective indecision, at the edge of the grid. Dazed, Maria made her way towards them.

Dan was murmuring to Gonzalez, “Well, I think this answers our doubts about whether our tame Mahkan was acting alone...”

Maria stood before him and said, “You bastard.”

He flinched. “Maria?”

“You lying, cheating bastard!”

He reached out to her, made to take her upper arm. She lashed out, dashing his hand away. “Don’t touch me!”

Beside him, Gonzalez stared at her, wide-eyed.

Dan pleaded, “Maria, not here, okay? Not now. Can’t you see...?” And he gestured helplessly towards the approaching phalanx of Mahkan engineers.

She was about to tell him that she didn’t care what was happening here, but the words caught in her throat.

Out on the grid, something was moving.

Fifty metres away, in the dead centre of the oval nexus, a shape was rising from the silver spars. She stared, unable at first to work out what was happening. It was as if the spars had come together and were rising from the rock, forming the shape of a domed cylinder, a mere framework at first which, as she watched, became a solid structure as tall as the dome tents and three metres wide.

And, just as the thing solidified out there, the Mahkan delegation arrived before the group and halted.

“Daniel Stewart, Director of the Human-Builder Liaison team?” their leader said in halting English.

Dan cleared his throat. “Yes?”

“You and six of your team will come with us.”

Dan said, “Come... where?”

In reply, the Mahkan gestured across the grid to the dome. Maria turned. In the side of the silver dome, an arched hatch had suddenly appeared.

“Where are we going?” Dan asked.

“Follow me,” said the Mahkan, then looked directly at Maria. “Dr Ellenopoulis?” it said.

Her heart jumped.

“You, too, will accompany us. Please, remove your wrist-com.”

Numbed, she did so, and dropped it to the ground.

The Mahkan and two of its aides led the way across the grid, followed by Dan Stewart, Gonzalez, and four others of the liaison team. Maria brought up the rear, stepping over the silver spars to the waiting dome, unable to believe what was happening.

One by one they stepped into the dome. Around the curved interior of the capsule ran a circular bench, and the Mahkan invited the humans to be seated. Ensuring that she was not sitting beside Dan, Maria took a seat.

Instantly, something embraced her from behind, like a pair of comforting, reassuring arms. She looked down and saw that her midriff was encapsulated in a ring of soft, pinkish rubber-like material. A similar, padded rest prevented her head from moving.

The Mahkan said, “In the padding, please find a...” It spoke a word Maria did not catch. She looked down and saw what looked like a pseudopod wriggle from the substance of the padding. “It is advised that you avail yourself of the sedative. The trip will take several hours.”

In a quavering voice, Dan Stewart asked, “Just where the hell are you taking us?”

“We are going to the centre of the Helix,” said the Mahkan. “You are, after all, members of the Human-Builder Liaison Team.”

But why me
, Maria thought?

Beside her, Gonzalez availed himself of the sedative. Within seconds, his eyes closed and his head lolled, supported by the padding.

Maria looked across the circular chamber as the hatch became suddenly, inexplicably solid. She stared at Dan, hating him with an intensity she never knew she possessed.

Suddenly, the pain was too much. She fumbled with her lips for the pseudopod, found it and sucked. The fluid was tasteless. Her vision swam and she slipped into unconsciousness.

2

S
HE WOKE SUDDENLY.

The capsule was motionless The others around her were coming to their senses. She wondered how this simultaneous awakening had been achieved, and why her presence had been required by the Mahkan.

Instinctively she glanced at her wrist to check the time on her wrist-com, then realised that she’d left it back on the surface. A Mahkan saw her and said, “You have been asleep for ten hours, Dr Ellenopoulis.”

Ten hours...

Across the capsule, Dan caught her eyes and smiled. “I tried to remain awake for the duration of the descent, but lasted only a few hours before I gave in.”

She looked away pointedly, ignoring him.

The hatch appeared in the side of the capsule and Maria peered out.

She saw a glimmering white expanse, as pristine as porcelain. Her vision swam, attempting to focus on something out there.

The Mahkan leader gestured for them to exit the capsule and the padding released its grip on them. Maria stood and followed the others from the elevator.

She found herself standing on the surface of a great white plain. It was as if they were in a vast tunnel kilometres wide and illimitable in length, with the perspective diminishing before her and ending in a hazed blur. She looked right and left, and in the distance made out the floor that curved to form the walls of the tunnel.

But if they were standing on the inner surface of a tunnel, then at some point in their descent the capsule must have undergone a half-rotation so that they had come
up
to the surface they were standing upon. Her senses reeled at the thought of it.