The Dead Sun (Star Force Series) (26 page)

I unlimbered the bomb I’d dragged all this way. It wasn’t an incredibly powerful warhead. Compared to the gravity-based blockbuster Marvin had used to breach this dead system’s ring, the bomb was tiny. But it should be enough. Inside the enclosed space under this massive dome, nothing would survive. Nothing of flesh or metal could withstand the energy that would be released.

The timer blinked at me with yellow numerals. How long should I allow for escape? I wanted to give myself a chance, but I didn’t want the Macros to get the time they needed to drag it away once discovered. I spun the dial and set it with fifteen minutes to go. Then I armed it, clicked four rocker switches—and the bomb was live.

-29-

I straightened and took a quick look around. There was movement in the dark, back the way I’d come. I decided to push ahead rather than to retrace my steps. It would take longer to get back to
Andoria
that way, but it would be a more direct pathway out of the dome than trying to circle around the strange, crescent-shaped wall again.

The landscape became blacker and turned into fine silt that covered me like powder. It was like walking on a grittier version of coffee grounds.

Marching across the dusty center of the enclosed space, I found something I didn’t expect. It was the other side of the wall, and it was broken, just as the first section had been.

All at once, I realized what I was looking at. It wasn’t a wall at all. The Macros hadn’t built this—they’d found it and set up camp all around it.

The half-buried, circular walls I was standing in the midst of formed a ring. It couldn’t be anything else. That mottled stone-like surface…I’d seen it before when encountering the rings that knit together our star systems.

The only difference was the state of this ring. It was broken. There was only half of it in sight. Perhaps the other half was buried under my boots.

My mind filled with questions as I trudged across the barren, gritty land. Why had the Macros built here over this broken ring? How had the ring been destroyed?
Why
had it been it destroyed, and who had done this amazing feat?

I couldn’t answer any of those questions, but I could infer a few things from my discovery. This broken ring was the reason why the Ancients had never come back to our portion of the universe for thousands of years. Not even the Blues had known what had happened, but it was clear to me now. The interstellar highway had been derailed right here.

I tried to push these thoughts and questions away. If the Blues didn’t know the answers, who else could? They were impossible unknowns. Mysteries that humanity would probably never figure out—if we survived at all.

But I found I couldn’t stop thinking about the broken ring. As I neared the edge of the dome, I hesitated. I kept staring at the hulking form of the damaged structure, and I realized the machines themselves might know.

Maybe they could be convinced to tell me what they knew…

There is something about living in a universe full of unknown terrors that works on a man’s mind over time. In the past, we’d had questions about our origins, naturally enough. But those questions had seemed philosophical and remote. In my time, there were actual beings around that could be spoken with. These beings knew the real truth, and I often suspected that if we knew it as well our odds of surviving as a species would be much higher.

Standing at the base of a glassy, milk-white wall of force I broke radio silence on sudden impulse and transmitted on a channel I hadn’t used for long years. I attempted to contact Macro Command using my suit’s brainbox as a translator.

The Macros weren’t like us. They were different not only in their physiology, but also in their group organization. Humans tended to operate as solo minds linked in a mutually accepted social hierarchy. In Star Force for example, we’d selected commanders, and the rest followed the orders of the leaders.

The Macros were different in this respect. In a way, they were quite egalitarian. They merged their minds effectively when decisions had to be made. Their pooled intellect was greater than the capacity of any single individual, and they made their decisions collectively. Every machine linked into a network and part of its CPU was dedicated to group decision-making. Individually, the machines weren’t very bright. But when they all shared the load, they became smarter particularly in a centralized location like this with many machines about. The more of them that were involved, the smarter local Macro Command became.

There was an elegant simplicity to their way of thinking that appealed to me. They never argued because they shared the same singular mind. When a decision was made, it was made because the entire group-mind was in agreement concerning the best course of action. Right or wrong, they at least all worked together in unison. In comparison, commanding humans was like herding cats.

When I contacted Macro Command, I was really broadcasting to every Macro in the area. This meant they would know where I was and attempt to destroy me. But I figured “what the hell”, since after I destroyed their dome, they were going to be pretty pissed-off and hunting for me anyway.

I wouldn’t have taken the risk if the bomb hadn’t already been set. Part of my excuse involved the bomb, in fact. If they were looking for me, they would be less likely to notice the device ticking in their midst. If I didn’t make it out, well, at least I’d dealt them a hard blow. Hopefully, it was a fatal one.

I opened the channel and broadcast my message. “Macro Command, this is Colonel Kyle Riggs. I’m requesting an open dialog channel with you. We have things to discuss.”

I waited for several seconds, but there was no response. This wasn’t really surprising. Often in the past, the Macros had ignored my requests for a dialog. They didn’t like talking unless it was their idea to do so.

“Macro Command, talk to me. I have an offer to make.”

Silence. My radio crackled, but that was all. I’d hoped to pique their curiosity, but it didn’t work. They weren’t going to make this easy on me.

I put my gauntlet against the dome wall. I knew that once I walked into it, any transmissions from the machines would be lost.

“I demand that you communicate, Macro Command. Here is the nature of my offer: survival. If I win this conflict, I will not destroy you utterly. I’ll capture and set aside specimens and blueprints for your race. Your future existence will thus be ensured.”

Ten more seconds of silence followed. I almost gave up after that. The dome was right there, shimmering and blue-white. All I had to do was step into its glowing surface.

“Don’t you understand the value of what I’m offering?” I demanded. “I might win this war. If I do, I’ll destroy you utterly unless you talk to me right now.”

More silence. I opened my mouth to curse them and taken a step closer to the dome when they finally responded.

“
Request denied,”
said an odd voice in my helmet.

I smiled. I’d gotten them to talk. Despite their obvious disinterest, they had to have some interest, or they wouldn’t have bothered to respond at all.

“I’m not making a request,” I said. “I’m offering you a deal a material exchange.”

“You
r offer is invalid. You will not win this conflict. You will be destroyed.”

“You’re probably right,” I said. “But certainly there must be a one percent chance I will win in the end. If you talk to me now, you have insurance. Win or lose, you won’t be wiped from the universe. Come on, you haven’t even heard the details yet.”

There was a long pause. I figured they’d gotten bored and hung up the phone by the time they came on again sounding thoughtful.

“We know what you are offering. The ruse is obvious. You wish to survive as a species and
will demand a guarantee of survival from us when the inevitable comes. But you will not wrest any such deals from us. You will not be spared when the final moment arrives.”

Macro Command’s words annoyed me, but I struggled not to make threats or boasts in return. I had them on the line now. They wouldn’t be talking if they weren’t interested.

“You misunderstand the nature of my offer. I want no guarantees from you. I only want information.”

“We will not compromise our fleets by revealing—”

“That’s not the nature of the information I wish to exchange. I only want to know about the ring, the broken ring I found on the surface of this dead sun.”

Another long delay followed while they mulled this over. I looked around, studying my computer and my environment. The bomb was due to go off within a few minutes, and I thought certain of the blackest shadows around me had shifted subtly. That might just be an effect of this odd environment, but I couldn’t be certain. They could be talking just to delay, preparing to spring a trap on me. Just keep old Riggs talking long enough to get a fix on his location then deploy machines to deal with him.

“We agree to your exchange,”
they said at last.

I grinned inside my helmet.

“All right then, here are my questions. Who built these rings?”

There was no response. I waited for ten long seconds, checking my chronometer. Then I remembered Macros didn’t like questions. They tended to ignore them utterly.

“Macro Command,” I said, using a stern voice. I suspected the significance of my tone was probably lost on them, but I went with it anyway. “I demand that you comply with our agreement and tell me what you know of the origin of the damaged alien artifact we call a ‘ring’ I found under your dome.”

“The ring is a transportation device. It is damaged.”

I sighed. “I know that. Who built it? Damn…” I realized I’d asked a question.

“Tell me who built the ring,” I said.

“The ring was created by powerful beings that are unknown to us. We’ve never encountered them and have no measurements by which to judge them. We suspect they’re inorganic in nature.”

I frowned. “Inorganic meaning they’re machines…that’s great. Tell me why you believe this to be the case.”

“Artificial constructs are superior forms of self-mobile creatures. As these beings are clearly superior to all other known civilizations, we’ve reasoned them to be inorganic.”

I chuckled. The Macros always had been stuck-up bastards.

“All right, let’s just say you have no idea who built them. Tell me how the ring was destroyed.”

“It appears to have collided with the central star in the system. The resulting release of energy was sufficient to damage both the ring and the star system itself.”

I looked around me, startled by this concept. Could it be true? Falling into a burning star—I could imagine that breaking the ring. Even if it was built of stardust, it had to be damaged by experiencing such rough treatment. Gravity, heat, radiation. If anything could destroy a ring, falling into a star would do it.

But that wasn’t the part that surprised me. The other concept they’d put forward was even more alarming to me. Could the destruction of a ring be so cataclysmic that it could snuff out a star? More than that, it seemed to have caused the star to go nova in an unusual way, leaving burnt husks of planets orbiting the rotten core.

I wasn’t sure how the Macros had come to this conclusion, but to me it wasn’t worth the effort of playing ‘twenty-demands’ to get the information out of them. It was believable enough without confirmation. It made too much sense. Marvin had destroyed the surface of a moon to make small, relatively unimpressive devices of this kind. A ring of the size required to transport physical objects over vast distances had to require enormous amounts of mass and energy to create.

I wondered when this star had shined its last light upon the planets that circled it. Were these burnt hulks once green, jewel-like worlds? Had they teemed with life, even perhaps an extinct species of civilized beings?

Frowning, I moved on to my next question—framed as a demand, naturally.

“Macro Command, tell me what would be required to create a ring. Tell me how the Ancients did it.”

“Reference unclear: Ancients.”

“We call the unknown beings that created the rings in the first place ‘Ancients’.”

“Understood. We cannot report precisely. However, in any star system the only source of power capable of enabling the process would be the star itself. And the only available mass would be the planets.”

I narrowed my eyes, nodding. It was obvious, when I thought about it. They had to be right. When Marvin had built his mini-ring, he’d used the star Loki to power his efforts and he’d stripped the crust off a planet-sized moon to feed the furnace he’d built.

I thought about my home system. From what I’d learned between the Blues and the Macros, I was beginning to get a picture in my mind. About a hundred thousand years ago, the Ancients had reached the Solar System. It was near the end of the chain, in fact, along this branch of their interstellar highway. They’d only made one more connection past Sol, the one that reached the blue giant.

At that time on Earth, the most recent glacial period had started. We’d been locked in an Ice Age that lasted many thousands of years. Could it have been caused by a dimming of our sun’s output? Could they have damaged our sun or drained it to create their highway of rings?

The idea was shocking. My thoughts drifted to consider what the local source of mass might have been. The answer in that case was equally disturbing. I knew that the asteroid belt in our home system had once been a large planet that had been broken up by an unknown disaster. It felt odd to think I might have stumbled upon such critical details of our own star system’s history, way out here.

I looked up at the stars and the dead system around me. Could it be that this system had been the brightest star in the heavens of old Earth? Had my ancestors in the hunter-gatherer days looked up and seen a single star that was more brilliant than any of the others riding across the sky every night, so bright it was like a second moon?