Parker's Folly (40 page)

Through the openings could be seen large rooms filled with egg shaped objects of many different sizes, the smaller ones lining the walls of the rooms in neat rows, the larger ones standing alone in supporting stands upon the floor. “What the hell are those things, Lieutenant?” asked the Gunny, giving voice to the question they all wanted to ask.

“Damned if I know, Gunny. Dr. Saito, do you have an opinion?”

“It is hard to tell without better sensor equipment, but I think those may be storage vessels for the antimatter we seek. Of course they might also be the eggs of the aliens who built this structure.”

Great! We have discovered either a fuel dump or an alien nursery. “Is there some way to tell the difference, Dr. Saito?”

“Oh yes, if I can place a quantum Hall effect detector on one of them I should be able to detect the presence of antimatter, more precisely the containment field keeping it in place.”

“OK, that means we go inside. Everyone take cover back against the shaft wall. Gunny, would you do the honors?”

“Right. Kwan, get up here and provide cover.” PFC Kwan had been bringing up the rear of the formation as it advanced. He quickly jogged to the edge of the first door and assumed a kneeling position, weapon at the ready. “OK Davis, move through the door slowly. I'm right behind you.”

Two Can moved out in front of the door and gingerly stepped over the threshold. Once fully inside he halted—nothing changed, nothing moved, there were no signs that he had been noticed. Next the Gunny crossed the threshold, drawing up next to the nervous PFC. “OK Two Can, move over to one of the big eggs in the middle.”

“Yes, Gunny. But if some alien bug thing jumps out and tries to wrap itself around my faceplate, promise me you'll blast it.” Davis half meant the remark as a joke but now everyone was even more on edge, fearing an outbreak of ravaging alien hatchlings.

“Just go touch the fuckin' egg,” the Gunny prodded, adding some humor of her own. “If anything grabs you, keep it busy 'til the rest of us get out of here.” The Marines knew that they didn't leave their own behind, and the Gunny was old school Marine Corps.

PFC Davis approached the nearest large egg and after an instant's hesitation reached out and laid a gauntleted hand on top its smooth surface. Again, nothing happened.

The rest of the party cautiously moved into the egg storage room and Dr. Saito moved toward Davis' egg with a hockey-puck shaped instrument in his hand. He gently moved Two Can aside and placed the black puck on the surface of the egg. Like a doctor with a stethoscope, Yuki move the instrument to several different locations, pausing as if listening at each.

Stepping back, the physicist stuffed the instrument back into a pouch on his suit. Turning to the others he happily reported his findings. “I am quite certain that these objects are in fact, antimatter storage devices. The different sizes probably are used by different sized ships or other mechanisms. How much each egg contains I cannot tell.”

Once the explorers stepped into the egg room it was obvious that it was one big room with three long doors opening onto the pathway outside. As Yuki finished delivering his analysis of the large egg, there was movement at the far end of the chamber. The Marines immediately shouldered their weapons and stepped away from the others for a clearer field of fire. “Hold your fire!” yelled Lt. Curtis, who also moved forward, shielding the others and raising her rail gun.

Along the far wall, a low moving object with a multitude of legs emerged, turned and started along the back wall toward the earthlings. “Don't shoot it unless it attacks us!” For the second time, Gretchen was making contact with aliens. For the second time, contact was being made over the barrel of a gun.

This was not how she had envisioned exploring the galaxy would be. Half way down the back wall, the centipede like creature stopped, then reared up like a cobra preparing to strike.

The boarding party had been gone for almost an hour and the mood on the bridge was tense. Susan was monitoring the communication channels and keeping watch through the optical sensors. The two Marines left to guard the core door could be seen walking around. Every 15 minutes or so they would call in. Unfortunately, the last time Cpl Sizemore reported being out of contact with both Lt. Curtis' and Lt. Bear's parties.

On board the ship, everyone had followed the movement of Lt. Curtis' party through the long passageway and marveled at the view of the satellite's central shaft. But as the expedition moved up the spiral ramp reception began breaking up and was soon lost. Dr. Gupta suggested that the metallic shell of the satellite was blocking the signal. That would explain why the signal from Lt. Bear's squad also faded as they worked their way around the outside of the central stem.

“If we don't get a status report from the squads the next time Cpl. Sizemore calls in I want to send Washington through the tunnel,” the Captain told Susan. This was the worst part of being in command—not sending people in harm's way, but the waiting that follows. “Hopefully he will be able to reach Lt. Curtis' party on the inside of the core.”

The bridge was down to a skeleton crew, with just Bobby and Billy Ray on the helm and Susan watching the sensors on the navigator's console. Jo Jo was aft keeping a watch on the ship's reactor and engines, which were still producing the alien probe's radiation signature. There weren't any problems so far, but the recently promoted Chief Engineer wanted to be close by if full power was needed.

Rajiv had Freddy Adams with him doing science stuff, so the Captain had pressed Melissa and Jolene into service as gunners on the X-ray batteries. It was fortunate that the ship's offensive weapons all operated like video games, most anyone under 30 was able to work the controls after a few runs through the simulator. Still, the Captain toyed with the idea of calling Hitch and Jacobs back inside to help run the weapons systems.

That's what Captain's do
, Jack chided himself,
put a plan in place and spend the rest of their time second guessing themselves. What was it that Patton once said? Never take the council of your fears. Well, he also said never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do, and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.
Somehow, the butterflies in Jack's stomach were not reassured.

“What are the skinny legged bastards doing now?” Bear growled. His helmet display showed the same scene as JT's, captured by the fiber-optic camera. The centipede thing pulled up in front of the open hatch on the alien craft. Two spiders emerged from inside the probe carrying an egg shaped object between them.

About the size of a soccer ball at its blunt end, the spiders carefully lowered the egg onto the back of the centipede. It grasped the egg with a number of its many legs and, as the spiders stepped away, reversed direction and headed rapidly back the way it came. JT was as puzzled as Bear. “What the hell was that egg thing? They were sure careful with it, maybe it was an alien?”

“It didn't look like anything alive to me,” Bear countered. “That's hard vacuum out there, and the temperature is cold enough to freeze air.”

“Maybe it's a shell and the alien is inside,” ventured LCpl Feldman.

“If it is, they're little fuckers,” Bear grunted.

“Uh, Lieutenant?” LCpl Reagan was still trying to overcome his fear of Bear. It isn't everyday that you find yourself being led by a Lieutenant who mauled you a little over a week ago. Nonetheless, Reagan had a high mechanical aptitude—an almost intuitive understanding of machines and devices—and his gearhead passions were getting the better of him. “Lieutenant, I think they are swapping out the probe's fuel cell.”

Bear considered this suggestion for a few seconds. “What makes you say that, Reagan?”

“Well, Sir. Notice how carefully the spiders carried the egg? They were obviously afraid to drop it. From what happened to the probe we shot, I would be afraid of breaking it's fuel cell too. And didn't the ship's computer say that this place could be a refueling station?”

“So you're saying they are swapping out fuel containers, like changing out propane cylinders?” JT asked the young Marine. “That makes as much sense as anything else around this place.”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Good thinking, Reagan,” Bear rumbled, he had been reading up on how to motivate humans. It seems that they really enjoy being complimented. Bears were much more basic: you either won a fight or you lost, you ate or were eaten, no compliments needed. He could not ever recall telling a seal, “My but you taste good.” He didn't think it would make the seal taste any better and it sure as hell wouldn't mean anything to the dead pinniped. No matter, you travel in the company of monkeys you gotta think like a monkey.

While Bear was reflecting on the differences between men and bears, JT was pondering the implications of Reagan's idea. The centipede thing seemed to be in quite a hurry as it hauled the presumably empty fuel cell away. And the spiders were now just standing there, outside the open hatch. It was like they were waiting for the centipede to return with a new egg, and soon. “Bear, I think we will find out if Reagan's idea is correct shortly.”

“Yeah, JT? What makes you say that?”

“The way those spiders are just waiting around the open hatch, like the job isn't done and they expect something else to happen.”

Bear considered this remark. Humans were definitely smarter about technological matters, but there was nothing wrong with Bear's reasoning ability. “If they are refueling that probe ship, that means it is probably getting ready to depart. I don't think we want that to happen.”

Every human in the egg room remained frozen in place as the centipede creature laid its upper body against the wall holding the orderly ranks of antimatter eggs. Finding one to its liking, the multilegged automaton insinuated its flat head underneath one of the smaller eggs. With a sinuous ripple of many multijointed legs, the chosen egg was lifted from its resting place and passed down the creature's flat body, eventually coming to rest at the crook of its back.

Having harvested the bounty it sought, the multilegged creature moved away from the shelf. The portion of its body that had rested vertically against the shelf flowed downward onto the floor as the centipede moved rapidly back toward the entrance. Bearing the small egg on its back like a sacred idol held aloft by the arms of its supplicants, the creature departed, destination unknown.

With the departure of the centipede thing Gretchen realized that they couldn't just stand around waiting to be discovered. And they were out of contact with the Captain.
OK, first step is to find out what the others think.
“Dr. Saito, you are fairly sure that these eggs are actually antimatter containers?”

“Yes, Lieutenant. The amount of energy contained in one of these eggs could be immense. A single kilogram of antimatter combined with a kilo of matter would produce an explosion of about 43 megatons.”

“And those big eggs could hold ten, twenty times that much,” added the Gunny, ending with a low whistle. “That is one egg you do not want to drop!”

“And would you say, Dr. Saito, that humanity might find having a quantity of antimatter useful? For research and such.”

“Most definitely. We have only ever been able to create microscopic amounts of antimatter on Earth. Not that we should store such a supply on Earth itself.”

“We can worry about the logistics later. Right now we need to reestablish contact with the ship. Gunny, we need a volunteer to go back down the ramp and stand in the tunnel opening to provide a comm relay to the ship.”

“Lieutenant,” Ivan interrupted. “Let me go. I am quite surefooted in a spacesuit and this way I might contribute something to the mission.”

Now what's he up to,
was Gretchen's first thought. But she could see no harm in him acting as the relay. “OK, Colonel. You're on. Stay in radio contact and call as soon as you can raise the ship.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant,” the Russian said as he turned and bounded rapidly back the path they had come. The Gunny leaned closer to Lt. Curtis and said, over the short range suit-to-suit link, “What's with the Ruskie, Lieutenant?” The unspoken question being, is it wise to trust Ivan at all.

“He's unarmed and the worst he can do is bug out back to the ship—that or get himself killed.”

* * * * *

“Parker's Folly, this is Col. Kondratov. Do you read me?” Ivan was standing in the center of the passageway entrance leading back to the landing dock. This was the last area they had been in reliable contact with the ship. Ivan's thoughts were racing, how could he turn this situation to his advantage? It was definitely intolerable for these arrogant Americans to return to Earth with a hold full of antimatter. It would shift the global balance of power—but what to do?

“Go ahead Colonel, this is Captain Sutton. We were getting a bit worried back here.”

“We are all fine, Captain. We have discovered a large cache of what Dr. Saito thinks are antimatter containers. Lt. Curtis asked me to come back to the inside tunnel entrance to act as a comm relay.” Ivan turned the second frequency net back on. “Lt. Curtis, this is Kondratov. I am in contact with the ship...”

* * * * *

After a brief conversation with the Captain and Dr. Gupta, it was decided to send the Chief with a hover sled to haul some of the antimatter eggs back to the ship. At the same time the Chief would bring a load of shaped demolition charges to destroy the remaining alien hoard.

“Captain, it would be helpful if you could send a couple more hands to aid in placing the charges. Turns out that this heavy armor reduces manual dexterity to practically nothing.”

“I'll see what we can do, Lieutenant. Anything else we can do for you?”

“No, Captain. Sir, have you heard from Lt. Bear's party?”

“That's a negative. I'm hoping they'll check in soon. We will let you know when the sled embarks.”