The Swarm (36 page)

“Roger,” said Victor. “We are ready to detach.”

Arjuna's voice crackled over the radio. “Detaching. Be safe.”

Victor felt the brief grinding of metal as the anchor clips released their grip, and then the quickship was free. Imala used the retros to steer them clear of the Gagak and orient the quickship toward 2030CT. Then she lightly engaged the thrusters. They accelerated for only a few seconds, and then Imala killed the engines, letting inertia take over. It was best if they approached at a slow velocity without outputting any heat. There was no way of knowing what collision-avoidance system the Formics had employed, if any. It would be an anticlimactic shame for them to go to all this trouble only to be obliterated on approach.

When they were within ten kilometers Imala tapped the forward retros and slowed the quickship to a negligible speed. It took them over four hours to drift the remaining distance. As they approached, the asteroid grew larger in their view, and the sheer size of it began to sink in. It was more than twice the size of the scout ship, and even though Victor had known that all along, it was only now that he truly grasped the implausibility of the shell around the rock. No, not a shell, more like a cocoon. And certainly bigger than the rock itself. Up close it looked like a giant alien egg of dark caramel glass. It dwarfed the quickship. Victor felt like an insect approaching a boulder. How could he possibly reconnoiter something so large?

“How did they build this, Imala? Where did this material come from?”

“No one's shooting at us,” said Imala. “That's all I'm worried about at the moment. Now what?”

“I'd love for us to circle this thing and see it from every angle, but that would only increase our chances of being seen. Just keep heading in, not on a collision but a flyby. I'll jump when I can, and you pull back with the quickship. You've got my camera feed. When I'm ready for extraction, I'll hold up an open hand to my face. Then I'll leap out through the canopy hole. Wait until I'm a distance away to come get me.”

“I don't like you drifting through space, untethered,” said Imala. “Supposing I can't find you. Or what if your tracker breaks or malfunctions? You'll drift off into oblivion.”

“You'll find me,” Victor said. “I'm not worried about that.”

He secured a few extra canisters of oxygen to the back of his suit, disconnected his audio cable, grabbed the spear Magoosa had made him, gave Imala a thumbs-up, and then climbed up out of the quickship, clinging to its side. He looped the spear's strap over his head and across his back, and then crawled to the front of the vehicle. He bent low, gripping the bar at the quickship's nose like a giant metal hood ornament. Ahead of him the cocoon continued to grow larger and larger in his view. He couldn't miss. If he leaped now he'd hit it certainly. And yet he hesitated. He would be flying without a tether, completely unanchored, utterly exposed. It was lunacy. Why had he thought this a good idea? He suddenly felt grateful for the armor, and yet it felt insufficient.

The quickship had far more mass than he did, but even so, the force of his leap would push the quickship off course some, and his leap would not be as strong as it would be if the quickship were anchored. He needed to leap now. The longer he delayed the closer Imala would be to the asteroid, and the harder it would be for her to maneuver safely away.

And yet he hesitated. The Formics had cut the pilot open and reached up inside him. It had happened to thousands of people all over China. The Formics had done it again and again. Reaching, searching, pulling back empty hands, covered in blood.

He should have leaped already. He was putting Imala in danger. She would collide with the cocoon. He was putting the whole crew in danger.

He jumped.

The nose of the quickship was pushed away from him, and the power of his leap was much less than he had expected. Physics was against him. He had hoped to close the distance quickly, but he was moving only slightly faster than he had been before perched on the nose of the ship. It was for the best, he realized. Too fast, and he would bounce off the cocoon. He blinked a command and brought Imala's feed up on his HUD. Could she steer safely away or had he waited too long? He couldn't tell. All he could see from her feed was the cockpit controls.

The surface of the cocoon was approaching. Victor still couldn't tell how hard the surface was, but it appeared to have some density. It wasn't buoyant like a balloon, but was it as thin as brittle glass? Would he shatter it and break through? No, it would have to have some durability or micrometeorites would rip it to shreds.

He blinked a command, and the ice crampons in the toe of his boots snapped out. He blinked another command, and the spikes in his gauntlet protruded. He had built them for ice, but they would work just as well here. He brought his arms up, pulled his boots back. The surface of the cocoon rushed up to meet him. He suddenly realized he was moving too fast after all; he'd ricochet off, he'd spin away.

He hit the surface and slammed his arms down and kicked forward with his boots, which was easy since inertia threw them forward anyway. The spikes and crampons sunk into the surface and held firm. It was hard, but pliable. Like honey left to sit out for several weeks.

He turned and looked back behind him, searching in the Black for the quickship. He felt momentarily panicked because he couldn't see it, but no, there it was, far beneath him, just a speck in a sea of black. He would have missed it completely if he'd not looked for it, which made him feel better; perhaps the Formics hadn't seen it either. And more importantly, Imala was clear.

Yet, now he was even more nervous about making the jump once he finished. If jumping to an asteroid he couldn't miss had frozen him with fear, how could he jump out into nothing?

He buried that thought and turned back to the matter in front of him. The cocoon. The IF would study every frame of this vid, and so every moment he spent here was a chance to gather and relay precious information.

He pulled one of his gauntlets free, leaving three deep impressions of the spikes in the substance. “The surface is durable,” he said, giving the vid narration. “Hard, but not indestructible. Like a resin.” He took a risk and turned on his helmet light, keeping it at its lowest setting. He wasn't sure if the light would be visible from the other side, but he had to take that chance so that his camera could see the surface clearly. With the light, the filaments in the resin became clearly visible, as they had for the probe, which had zoomed in and taken several shots. “The filaments are narrow, maybe half the width of my finger. They crisscross back and forth inside the resin randomly, giving the structure shape.” He ran a hand across the surface. “Surprisingly smooth surface. Not tacky in the slightest, as I thought it might be. The membranes between the filaments feel less durable than the filaments do. When I apply pressure, I can feel it give a little, though I don't know that I could push through. I'm not very secure where I am right now, so I don't feel comfortable pushing any harder. The material could be semitranslucent. But I can't see—”

He stopped suddenly. “Wait a minute. The holes that I made with my gauntlet spikes just a moment ago when I landed are gone.” He looked around, shining the light in a wider circle, searching for them in case he was remembering wrong he had made them. “I'm sure of it. The holes were somewhere around here, but there is no trace of them. The surface of the cocoon is completely smooth again. It can heal itself.” He brought his gauntlet spikes down again and then retracted them from the cocoon, leaving fresh impressions. Then he focused on the spot and came in close with the cameras and watched as the holes filled in and were smooth again.

How? Nanotech?

He reached to the pouch at his hip and retracted a pocketknife. The blade snapped up and locked into place, and Victor gently pushed the blade down into the resin. The blade was only a few inches long, but he felt the tip of it poke through almost immediately. The resin was less than an inch thick. He slowly sliced downward a few inches, cutting relatively easily through the resin and filaments. He pulled the blade out and pushed a button to retract the blade; then he pulled a small air gauge from the pouch and held it in his hand as he pushed it through the hole.

The gauge reading appeared a moment later on his HUD, and Victor felt his body tense. “Air inside the cocoon is roughly seventy percent hydrogen, twenty percent oxygen.”

“Which means it's extremely volatile,” said Imala. “You're sitting on a bomb. I'm coming to get you.”

He retracted his hand with the air gauge just as the cut in the resin began to heal itself and seal up again. Once they were clear they could blow the installation. It would be easy. A single shot with a high-powered laser, and the cocoon would go up like the
Hindenburg
. But if they destroyed it, what would they learn?

“Wait, Imala.”

“Wait, nothing, Vico. I am coming for you.” Her voice was angry as he knew it would be.

“Let's think about this for a second,” he said.

“There is nothing to think about, Vico. You can't go inside. It's combustible. One little spark, and you're toast. The whole thing would detonate. I'm coming for you.” She was practically shouting.

“Think about the Formic scout ship, Imala. We blew a hole through that and filled it with radiation, killing everything inside. All the plants, the other creatures, most of the equipment and tech, we destroyed it all. We could have learned so much from that.”

“We did what needed to be done to end the war, Vico. This isn't some science expedition you're on. This is your life. I am ordering you to stay outside.”

“Yes, but is that what the Polemarch wants?”

“To hell with what the Polemarch wants, Vico. He doesn't care about you, about us. I do.”

“Think objectively, Imala. He ordered me to do reconnaissance. If there are three thousand of these asteroids, we need to know what's going on inside them.”

“There are other people who can do this, Vico. There are other asteroids that can be explored. Let the IF figure this out.”

“We
are
the IF, Imala. And right now we're their only option.”

He took out his blade and made another cut, long and steady and over a meter long.

Imala's voice was quiet now, almost desperate. “I'm asking you, Vico. Please. If you love me…”

“But that's why I have to, Imala.”

He muted her volume and made a second cut at a right angle, making an L shape with the blade and creating a flap big enough for him to pull himself through. The flap pushed outward, indicating that gas was pouring out of the hole.

Moving quickly, but being careful not to generate a spark, Victor stowed the knife in his pouch, gripped the delicate edge of the resin with both hands where he had made the cut, and gingerly pulled himself headfirst into the hole. Air rushed outward, like the opened end of a deflating balloon, pushing strong and forcing him back. Victor fought against it, gripping the resin tighter, and for a terrified moment he feared that the resin would break in his hands and launch him into space away from the cocoon. But to his surprise the resin held. The material, whatever it was, proved stronger than he had expected.

He got the top half of his body inside, and then it was easy because he folded at the waist and mostly got out of the current of rushing air. He pulled his legs in and twisted his body so that he was now flush against the inner wall. He could still feel the tug of air around him, but it was not as strong as it was directly in front of the hole. Reaching up with one hand, he gripped the loose flap of resin, and pulled it down so that it was flush with the cocoon surface again. Air continued to push out, but slowly the cut in the resin began to heal itself. The gaps in the resin filled with new membranous material as if it were growing out of thin air, as if some unseen zipper was pulling it together. Victor watched it closely, trying to identify how the seemingly magical process occurred, but even up close he couldn't see how it was done. Whatever power it was, it was stronger than the rush of air, and in moments, both cuts were gone. The inner wall was a smooth flat surface again, and Victor found himself in absolute darkness.

He rotated his body and faced inward toward the surface of the asteroid. He couldn't see anything. Somewhere below was the surface, but he had no idea how far away it was. Four meters? Forty? He couldn't even make out shadows or shapes.

He unmuted his radio and heard Imala frantically calling his name.

“I'm here,” he said, interrupting her. “I'm inside.”

“Why weren't you answering?”

“I muted you so I could concentrate. When we get back to the Gagak you can give me a stern lecture. For now we have a job to do.”

She said nothing for a moment. “I'm not getting a visual from your cam.”

“Because there isn't a visual. It's completely dark. I'm going to risk a light.”

Before Imala could object, he switched on two lights mounted on his wrists. The bright tight beams shined on the surface of the asteroid roughly seven meters below him. It was a rugged, iceless, porous rock with dozens of tunnel entrances all over its surface. The tunnels were not perfectly round and cylindrical—like a laser or a drill bit would dig. They were oval or misshapen slightly—as if someone without any sense of symmetry had tried to make them round but failed. Nor did the tunnels go straight down into the rock. They turned and twisted and even crossed one another randomly before disappearing into the darkness. They had the appearance of natural formations, like porous sea coral or osteoporotic bone, but that was impossible. These tunnels had been dug. Victor could not imagine how it had been done, but there was no other explanation. Stranger still, many of the tunnels were no wider than his head—far too small for even a Formic to fit into. And yet, like the others, they snaked downward in a way that no machine would ever dig.