Further: Beyond the Threshold (30 page)

“Only a fractional supply, Captain. Not enough to create a bubble of distorted space, I’m afraid.”

“But you’re able to maneuver a bit in normal space?”

“I have small reaction drives at strategic locations in the outer hull, yes, though their range and use is limited.”

I glanced at the image of the planetary system projected on the walls and ceiling around us. Just to my right, the pulsar rotated, while straight ahead, the planet slowly spun.

“Well, one way or another, we’re going to that planet. I could take a landing party over in the
Compass Rose
,” I said, “but communication between the shuttle and the
Further
would be spotty at best, right?”

“Correct, sir.”

“Are the reaction drives enough to get us there, in that case?”

“Yes,” the
Further
answered, “though just barely. Once in place, we’d have to wait until the power generator cycles for a standard day to make any additional maneuvers.”

“That’s good enough for me. Shall we go?”

The
Further
cocked its head to one side, regarding me with silver eyes. “Sir, might I suggest first sending down additional probes in order to get a better picture of what we might encounter?”

“Come all this way and not get my feet wet? No way,
Further
. I’m seeing this with my own eyes.”

“Oh,” Jida said, sitting upright excitedly. “I haven’t set foot on a completely new planet in
centuries
. Can I come?”

By the time the
Further
had maneuvered into orbit around the pulsar planet, it was all worked out. The landing party—consisting of Maruti, Xerxes, one of the bodies of the Jida emissary, a planetary scientist named Zaslow, an expert in geodynamics named Bin-Ney, and me. Zaslow was some blend of biological and synthetic, his frame that of a natural-born anthropoid, but his sensory organs were replaced with artificial enhancements, his skin with some form of smart matter, and likely more augments and enhancements that weren’t as obvious. Bin-Ney was an anthropoid like me, and I recognized him as one of the Anachronists who’d attended the reception at Aglibol dressed as an ancient killer. Jida shot him angry glances, but he was out of costume, as it were, his skin coded a pale shade of blue, his head completely hairless, wearing a nondescript suit of gray, so she didn’t make an issue of it at the moment.

Arluq got the
Compass Rose
ready for takeoff, and the landing party was outfitted with mantles and wrist-mounted projector cuffs. The projectors were intended for use as general multi-tools, not as weapons, but when everyone gathered in the landing bay, I had my cap gun holstered at my side.

“Captain Stone,” Xerxes said, a puzzled look on his metal features, “we’ll be landing on an uninhabited world in orbit around a dead star. Why could you possibly need to go armed?”

“If I learned anything in the Orbital Patrol, it was that it’s always better to walk into an unknown situation and discover the sidearm you brought along wasn’t needed than walk in unarmed and discover that it was.”

I didn’t know how right I was. If I had, I would have brought a hell of a lot more firepower with me.

The
Further
was forced to adopt a non-geosynchronous orbit, since the planet rotated so slowly that a geostationary orbit would be too far away to remain within the planet’s gravitational sphere of influence, and the ship couldn’t remain stationary with the metric engineering drives, which couldn’t draw on enough power to fire up a bubble of distorted space. The X-ray interference of the pulsar meant that only line-of-sight communication would be possible, so the
Further
would only be in range for brief periods.

“Though the planet is somewhat smaller than Original Earth,” the
Further
explained via interlink as the landing party and I boarded the
Compass Rose
, “it is denser, with roughly the same mass, meaning that gravity at its surface is roughly one standard gravity. We’re currently orbiting at a distance of a few hundred kilometers from the surface, making a complete rotation every ninety and fifty-two hundredths of a minute, by your reckoning, Captain. Communication will be possible only for roughly ten minutes at a time, followed by eighty minutes of silence before communication is regained.”

In other words, once we were on the ground, we’d be on our own for long periods of time. I wasn’t bothered. We were all grown-ups, after all, and could look after ourselves. Besides, what was the worst we’d find down there?

We had no idea.

I brought the
Compass Rose
down to land on a narrow valley, its bottom featureless and flat, surrounded by ridges and promontories on all sides. The ship had a pretty clever subsentient intelligence driving it that was probably smart enough to take off and land without any help from me, but ever since Arluq had shown me the ropes, I’d been aching for a chance to get the ship out and try her for myself.

“OK,” I said, cycling the atmosphere once we’d all climbed inside the airlock, our mantles configured to offer each of us little habitable environments within, all but Xerxes, who could walk out under the light of the dead star as naked as ey did through the corridors of the
Further
. With the air cleared from the lock, no sound traveled, and our voices carried only by interlink. ::Does everyone remember where we parked?::

The others shot me confused looks through the mostly transparent faceplates of their mantles, and I shook my head, the gesture muted by the gently sliding fabric of the mantle, but clear enough to get the point across.

::Never mind. But I’ll have you know, in the twenty-second century, that would have been
hilarious
.::

Crossing the ridge to the north of the landing site, we found ourselves looking out over a field of cairns. They were arranged in low rows, looking like a plantation or a neatly arranged forest.

::It’s just breathtaking, isn’t it?:: said Jida.

I had to agree. We skidded down the scree on the north side of the ridge and approached the near edge of the cairn forest.

::Look!:: Maruti sent. ::They’re laid out in a grid, like a Go board.::

::That’s a pretty damned big game, Maruti,:: I said. ::The towers look to be spaced about three meters apart, and the whole thing must be half a kilometer to a side, at least.::

Xerxes skirted the forest edge to the left, while Bin-Ney and Zaslow hurried ahead, eager to analyze the towers close up. Jida and I approached the nearest of the structures.

::They looked so much smaller on the screen.:: I walked up to the cairn, reaching out to touch its surface. The mantle communicated the texture to my fingers, and I found it was bumpy and irregular, like coral.

::And the robot thinks
these
are just a geological formation?:: Maruti said, coming up to join us.

Each of the cairns stood about twice my height, maybe four meters tall. A slightly darker shade than the surrounding rock, they were wider at the top than the bottom, tapering outward slightly as they rose. Ridges ran along the ground, connecting each cairn to those around it, seemingly made of the same dark-gray material as the cairns themselves.

::I don’t know, Maruti,:: Jida said thoughtfully. ::I’ve seen similar formations in caverns that were the result of nothing more mysterious than dripping water.::

::But laid out with this kind of regularity?:: Maruti waved his arms, indicating the ordered rows of towers. The lines were hardly precise, but they were undeniable. ::And it isn’t as though there’s any water here, Madam Jida.::

::Captain Stone,:: Xerxes called from a hundred or so meters away, approaching the ridgeline to the west. ::I believe I’ve found the mouth of a cave. I think I’ll investigate.::

::Go ahead,:: I answered. ::Over these distances, we should be able to maintain contact with one another even if we’re not in visual range.::

::Oh, that robot isn’t going alone,:: Maruti said, charging after em. ::If anyone’s going to find proof of alien intelligence, it’s going to be
me
.::

The robot and the chimpanzee disappeared one after the other into the cave mouth, and the rest of us continued to the north, moving slowly through the cairn forest.

::Capt…:: crackled a voice in my head, broken with static. ::This…Zel…the
Further
says that we’re about to pass out of…sighted a ship…approaching…::

“Zel, repeat!” I shouted aloud, and then, ::Zel! Can you hear me?::

I turned to Jida, who was just rounding a cairn a dozen or so meters ahead of me.

::Jida,:: I subvocalized. ::Did you make out any of that?::

::Captain…!:: Jida began, raising her arm and pointing at something out of my line of sight, but by the time I realized she was aiming her projector, it was too late. We were under attack.