Enigma: A Far From Home Novel (9 page)

“The air is cool, but old. Stale. It smells like a tomb in here.”

“Doctor, I’d prefer it if you didn’t take such risks,” Jessica said. “The air could have been poisonous for all you knew…”

He didn’t seem to hear her as he filled his lungs with ancient air. And minutes later, once they’d made sure that Dr. Gentry was not about to drop down dead, they all followed suit.

Even the Captain.

* * *

“So there must be a way of getting down,” Jessica said.

“Over here!” Lieutenant Jackson called. They all walked to his location at the edge of the platform. He knelt on the floor, examining a wide circle embossed on the decking. “What d’you suppose this is?”

Jessica got down on her knee and ran her hand over the marking there. Immediately, at the touch of her fingertips, the same glowing symbols they’d observed on the airlocks appeared. She looked up at the Lieutenant. “There’s our answer, Jackson.”

“Aye,” he said and watched as the Captain activated all of the symbols in turn. The two of them stepped back as the circle of metal rose from the decking in a round column until it stood over them at a height of three metres or more.

“Wow.”

It was featureless save for a hexagonal embossed area on its front face, and it had risen from the floor without a sound.

Dr. Gentry stepped forward, pressed his hand against it. The hexagon showed itself to be a door, and swung inward. Within the column were dim lights.

“What is it?” Rayne asked.

“An elevator,” Gentry said. “I’d bet my hat on it.”

“Well, there’s only one way to find out,” Jessica said. She was first to step inside. “After all, they must have had some way of getting down there. Shall we?”

26.

C-1, or the habitat as some of them came to refer to it, was a bleak and somewhat boring landscape. Entirely devoid not only of life signs, but imaginative design.

“It’s as if an entire world has been built, purely to function,” Dr. Gentry said. “Designed, and made, for purpose. No flair. No spedazzle!”

“No colour,” Jessica said.

“Exactly,” Gentry agreed. “Completely dull and utilitarian. I’ve never seen anything like it. Even on a starship, or a starbase, there is some whimsical feature. Some part of its design that links it to the designer. However, here I find nothing extraneous.”

“Fan out into your teams,” Jessica ordered. “And I want one member of each team with a firearm at the ready. We still don’t know what we’re dealing with.”

They broke up and spread out. She instructed them to rejoin by the elevator one hour later and to remain in contact the whole time.

“A surprise may present itself at any time,” she warned them. But Jessica King had no cause for concern. There would be no surprises yet. C-1 was a habitat built for thousands of inhabitants – but not one of the teams found any evidence of present, or former, occupation.

For all intents and purposes, the
Enigma
looked brand new inside. Which then posed the obvious question: If no-one had ever lived here, who had it been built for? Was it still, all these years later, awaiting its crew?

The
Enigma
was a miracle of engineering, and must have taken untold resources to construct. And yet… here it was, abandoned.

Who had been meant to live there, and why hadn’t they yet? Why was the
Enigma
, a lifeless world all its own, left to orbit a similarly dead planet?

It didn’t make sense.

27.

Captain’s Personal Journal

External log

Standard Ship Time

It’s been several hours since we reached the centrifuge. And as noted before, from what we observed of the
Enigma
‘s outer hull, there would appear to be three separate sections. The vessel’s constant spin creates a perfect one gee environment, with the inner walls of the centrifuge for the ground. There is air, but it is old, stale. And there is some kind of weather system in here, too, that’s just starting to develop.

The
Enigma
is a world in a barrel.

Moments after entering the habitat we’ve dubbed C-1, it was as if someone flicked a switch. Almost certainly an autonomous action – unless there really is something, or someone, watching. The lights came on. They protrude from a series of rods at the far end of this centrifuge, and give the equivalent of sunlight. The temperature rose from below freezing to a comfortable level within an hour. Considering the fact the
Enigma
has been dormant for a thousand years, it’s quite incredible.

As for C-1 itself? Well, there is no plant life for a start. It was definitely intended as a living area, and could probably have a hundred thousand people living in it at any one time. So far, we’ve not spotted any sign of current habitation. There is a kind of rough, stone-like material on the deck. And what can only be described as houses, constructed from thin sheets of metal. They seem intended to house no more than two people at a time, and given the number of them I’d say that’s probably about right. There are narrow roads running through them, and we noted several areas that seem to be intended as supply sites – these structures are much larger than the others.

Doctor Gentry suggested they could be religious sites, too.

Who knows?

I’ve ordered Team Two to remain here in C-1 and monitor any changes they find. The weather system in here could become significantly more active as the temperature continues to rise. I’ve also left a standing order that one of them remain armed at all times. Even if their weapon isn’t out the whole time, someone on each team needs a gun handy. We can’t be sure the
Enigma
is completely devoid of occupants. There are the other sections of the ship to explore yet. And you never know. Maybe I’m just an optimist, but a Namarian might just pop his or her head out at any time to say hello.

Surely, in the annals of space exploration, far stranger things have happened . . .

28.

Jessica did not relish the thought of a twenty kilometre stroll across C-1’s bare, monochromatic landscape. Nor were Gary Belcher, Dana Oriz, Olivia Rayne or Selena Walker.

Lieutenant Jackson, on the other hand, seemed to relish the thought of some good physical exercise.

I’m doing well on these new meds,
Jessica thought.
But Christ, I don’t want to push it
.

A hike across the whole length of C-1 was not a bucket list objective for her, not yet. Sure, that kind of activity would hopefully be a drop in the ocean for her soon enough, but for now it was out of the question. Her legs wouldn’t take it, and the others knew that to be the case. Her medical situation was no secret to the crew of the
Defiant
.

Luckily they were all spared a long walk – much to Jackson’s disappointment. It just so happened that the
Enigma
not only had elevators to carry passengers from the airlocks to the cylinder surface, but also a kind of tram system. There were four of them, spaced around the circumference of C-1, and each seemed to head in the same direction, a kind of tunnel that, apparently, led into C-2 and beyond.

The trams were cylinders themselves, though the way you mounted and dismounted from them very much reminded Jessica of the trams she’d seen in old San Francisco years before. Though those restored antiques couldn’t have held a torch against these svelte creations. They were attached to the
Enigma
by an impossibly thin track, and they had a short series of steps leading from the platform to the cylinder itself. Apart from their base, they were entirely constructed of tinted glass.

“An elegant design,” Dr. Oriz noted as she climbed aboard. She helped Olivia Rayne up.

“More than you’d expect from a race of conquerors,” Belcher said. “I’m impressed.”

“Shall we?” Jessica asked. She eyed the few controls at the front of the craft. A series of three buttons, and below them a kind of touch pad. She pressed the pad first, and the doors to the tram whispered shut. “Thought so.”

She then pressed the middle button, guessing that each signified a third of the cylinder. They had to be in the first one now, seeing as they were at the very front of the ship. The cylindrical tram began to move, steadily gaining speed – though without any real sense of motion. The craft seemed to glide on thin air as it tore across the minimalist terrain of C-1 and bore them steadily toward the tunnel ahead.

“Fascinating,” Selena Walker said.

They passed beneath the structure at the other end of C-1, the supports holding the massive suns. Jessica glanced up through the transparent canopy, in awe of the sheer size and scope of the
Enigma
in almost every way.

It reminded her of the pyramids and sphinxes of Egypt, back on Earth. The way those giant stone monoliths had been left, the calling card of a once great people.

The
Enigma
seemed to be like that. A technological achievement unsurpassed by anything they’d ever seen. Just the sheer scope of the
Enigma
made her head hurt. As they entered the darkness of the tunnel, she had to wonder once more about the purpose of the giant ship. The notion that it might be a gigantic Trojan horse had occurred to her more than once. With the tram speeding them to C-2, an as-yet unseen section of the ship, she was glad for the firearm on her hip, if only for the comfort of knowing it was there.

29.

Soft lighting filled the cabin of the tram as it travelled in the darkness of the tunnel.

“So we can simply move from C-1 to C-2 without having to operate an airlock,” Olivia Rayne said. “Makes things a bit easier.”

“Well, I’d imagine this tunnel can be sealed off from the rest of the ship when necessary,” Belcher said.

“I agree. After all, the cylinder’s in three sections. It’d make sense to have them capable of being independent from one another,” Jessica said.

“Yes,” Belcher agreed. “Though I wonder why they’d take that approach.”

“What do you mean?” Olivia asked.

The engineer sat forward. “Why compromise the integrity of the vessel by doing that? The Namar must have had a reason, but I can’t for the life of me think what it could be.”

Jessica contacted
Defiant
. “Captain here. We’re en route to C-2 and should be there in a few minutes. Stay in contact with Team Two.”

“Understood Captain.”

“We’ll update you on our progress,” Jessica told the officer on the other end. She didn’t recognise the voice. “Has there been any change in the
Enigma
since we’ve come aboard?”

“None whatsoever, Captain.”

“Readings?”

“No transmissions,”
the officer told her.
“And we are holding our position relative to the
Enigma
, velocity and vector unchanged from before.”

“Very well. Keep me updated. Captain out.”

She glanced across at Dr. Oriz, who was watching her intently.

“Were you expecting our intrusion to wake the beast, Captain?” she asked.

Jessica smiled. “Something like that.”

“I don’t think we’re that lucky,” Dana said. “For all intents and purposes, the
Enigma
seems dead. It’s just been out here far too long.”

“Are you saying we’re in some kind of . . . tomb?” Rayne asked.

Dana sighed. “I believe so.”

Captain King looked away, unconvinced. Something told her there would be answers to come. A gut instinct, and that she trusted above all else.

“Well, we’ll soon see,” she told them.

30.

Team Two chose a square kilometre of the habitat in C-1 to explore, but they did not split up. Commander Chang instead opted for the three of them to remain together, lest a surprise present itself.

And of course there was the issue of the weather…

“Feel that wind?” Chang asked.

Peter Davies nodded. “Yeah, I felt it pick up a moment ago. Odd.”

“Where’s it coming from, do you think? Some kind of air system?” Chang asked him.

“This habitat is heating up,” Dr. Gentry explained. “And as it continues to reach optimum temperature, the air in here is going to get all stirred up.”

“I see. Hence the wind. The ground is getting warmer, making the air rise,” Chang said.

“Yes. Exactly. We’ll likely see quite the storm in here soon,” Gentry said in a matter-of-fact tone of voice. “Something reminiscent of the tropics, I’d imagine. I love a good storm, myself.”

Chang hit her comm. “
Defiant
, are you listening to this?”

“Yes. We hear you.”

“We will notify you if we are about to find shelter. This may cause disruption to our comm. systems, and inhibit contact with you.”

“Copy that, Commander,” the reply came.

“Chang out,” she said and closed the channel. Chang turned to the other two. “Let’s see what we can find before the weather picks up.”

“We should consider one of these buildings as a suitable shelter,” Davies said. “They look strong enough.”

Dr. Gentry held up his hands in a defenceless gesture. “I’m not saying this storm will last long. Maybe an hour. It won’t take much time for the weather system in here to settle. For all we know, the
Enigma
has systems that will deal with it.”

“True,” Chang said. “They’ve certainly thought of everything else.”

Peter Davies stood, regarding one of the larger structures they’d noted were situated here and there throughout the habitat. “So, you think these might be some kind of religious sites, Doctor?”

Dr. Gentry came to stand nearby and looked up at the big metal box. “Could be. My line of thought was that we have not seen any sign of vegetation. No agricultural area. Hell, not even a hydroponics site. This habitat is as sterile as any I’ve ever seen.”