Heirs of Earth (16 page)

Thor nodded with apparent satisfaction, but Sol could see the disappointment in her eyes. “What about you, Peter? Anything?”

Alander outlined what they’d considered, but in the end was able to offer little more than the others had.

After he’d finished, Thor sighed and offered a précis on her own findings. “Well, the best I could come up with was a way of anchoring the ship outside the breach. Given the lack of any other ideas, I suggest we go with that. At the very least, it’ll give us a little more time to think.”

“You’re sure we can do this safely?” asked Inari.

Thor nodded in reply. “If we can get close enough to one of the walls,
Eledone
will be able to extend the hull to attach itself to it. The external boundary should be sufficiently malleable to get a grip. If we can do it without using the drives, we probably won’t be detected.”

There was a murmur of consent, but no one spoke. The atmosphere of the ship was grave at best.

“If there are no other suggestions,” said Thor into the quiet, “then I propose we get to work. Time is short, as I’m sure you’re all aware.”

Everyone moved to their stations. Sol felt a terrible sense of futility that she found hard to shake—and if she felt it, then she had little doubt that the others did, too. Even as
Eledone
reported its successful rearrangement of hull boundary material as a rudder to divert its course slightly, aiming for a section of the vein wall a hundred meters ahead of the breach, she couldn’t help but wonder why they were even bothering. In the long run, they didn’t have a clue what to do. What if they couldn’t work it out? Or worse: what if there was
nothing
they could do? She didn’t know what was happening outside the cutter, but she wasn’t about to delude herself into believing that the Starfish had magically halted their advance. For all she knew, they had already descended upon Rasmussen and put paid to yet another human colony.

“I have failed in my first attempt to secure us to the intended point of contact,”
Eledone
reported blandly. “I will try again at the next suitable point.”

The view through the screens spun dizzily as the hole ship tumbled through highly turbulent flows. Even at her highest clock rate, Sol couldn’t tell exactly what was happening, but she hoped and prayed that the alien AI knew what the hell it was doing.

“How much longer to the breach?” asked Gou Mang. Her tone reflected the anxieties of everyone in the cockpit.

“Ninety human meters.” It was Samson who answered her, her eyes never leaving the instruments on the command stalk as the rippling vein wall swept by in a blur.

Up close, the vein looked less like a lumpy, biological construct than a mat of metallic fibers coated in glass.
Eledone
attempted to obtain a grip a second time, but again failed to find purchase.

“Sixty meters,” Samson announced.

Sol sensed a growing urgency to the superheated currents swirling around them as the hole ship rocked and spiraled like a rubber duck caught in a typhoon.

“Thirty meters,” said Samson after a third failed attempt.

“Perhaps we should have had a backup plan before taking the risk,” said Axford wryly. There was more than just an edge of unease in his voice.

“I’m still wide open to suggestions,” said Thor hotly.

All eyes remained glued to the screens as the hole ship readied itself for a fourth and final grab; everyone knew they wouldn’t get a fifth shot at it. If they missed this time,
Eledone
would go tumbling into the breach, and into clear view of the radar ghosts.

There was a wild, disorienting moment during which the information from the screens was completely at odds with what her other senses told her—that she was standing completely at rest inside the cockpit, not tumbling in a sudden jolt of changing momentum.

Then, abruptly, all was still.

Everyone looked around in similar confusion, collectively holding their breath in expectation of something else happening.

“We
did
it?” Inari sounded both surprised and relieved.

The view on the screen rocked for a second, then stabilized.

“I have successfully anchored myself to the vein wall,” announced the hole ship without any hint of satisfaction.

As one, everybody in the cockpit exhaled.

“Five meters from the breach,” said Samson. She laughed, then, in obvious relief.

Sol didn’t want to dwell on how close they’d come to slipping through. “How stable is this location?”

A quick sweep from multiple viewpoints revealed that the edges of the breach weren’t widening in the direction of the hole ship. What caused it was impossible to tell, although Sol assumed it was a side effect of the
human/Yuhl
attack. Structural destabilization would have led to localized disruptions caused by metal fatigue or material failure. Given that the cutter had stopped rotating, such stresses, she presumed, would be significantly reduced.

The breach itself looked like a giant wound in the vein wall, a jagged tear stretching into the distance. Roiling currents swirled around the edges, producing strange eddies in myriad brilliant colors. From their new position, the vein itself looked vast and convoluted, like the inside of a nightmarish conch shell, stretched and distorted as though made of taffy.

“Seems stable enough to me,” said Inari.

Samson shrugged. “I guess we’ll find out soon enough if it’s not.”

“We’re safe for the moment,” said Thor. “That’s the main thing.”

“But what happens now?” asked Gou Mang.

“Now we send out a reconnaissance mission,” said Axford.

Thor turned on him with a scowl, clearly not impressed by him undermining her authority. “And I suppose you’re volunteering for that, Frank?”

He nodded confidently. “The hole ship can split off a single or even a half ship big enough for me to pilot. Just give me navigation capabilities similar to
Eledone
, and I’m sure I can surf my way right through those things and out the other side without any problems whatsoever.”

“And what good would that do?” asked Thor.

“Well, at least we’d know we wouldn’t be stuck here until the end of time, Caryl.”

“How would
we
know that, Frank?” Thor made no attempt to hide her cynicism.

“Because I’d signal you from the far side, of course.”

Thor eyed him steadily for a few moments before shaking her head slowly. “That’s the second time you’ve suggested splitting up from us.”

“What are you saying? That you don’t trust me?”

“Of course we don’t, Frank.”

He snorted a laugh at this. “I can live with your suspicions, as long as you admit that my plan makes sense. Just agree to it and let’s get on with it, can’t we?”

Thor opened her mouth to speak, but Gou Mang got in first.

“It might be too late for that,” she said, pointing at the screen nearest her. “Check out the breach!”

Everyone turned at this to see what Gou Mang was indicating. A white lozenge-shaped object with black stripes had slipped through the breach, effortlessly defying the current. The impression of a zebra fish was strengthened when the thing “faced” them, revealing what looked like an open mouth. As it jerked in surges through the violent eddies, Sol glimpsed a tube through its center, giving it the look of an old aircraft jet engine.

“What the hell is that?” asked Alander.

“I have no idea,” said Gou Mang. “But whatever it is, it seems to be—”

Sol cried out in alarm as, with a surprising surge of speed, the thing lunged, and its central tube opened to engulf them.

* * *

“Jesus Christ!” Alander cried. The hole ship jerked beneath him,
throwing him off balance. He went down on one knee, clutching the wall for support as the zebra fish vessel struck and clung to the outside of
Eledone
like a lamprey.

“What’s it doing?” Samson asked.

“
Eledone,
report!” Thor’s voice called out sharply through the rising babble. Screens flickered, showing numerous views of the attack.

“I have been struck by an unidentified object,” the hole ship replied calmly.

No fucking kidding,
Alander thought. The zebra ship had attached itself to
Eledone’
s hull with its “mouth.” Whatever it was doing, it was causing tiny tremors to run through the hole ship.

‘Have you been breached?” asked Thor.

“I am resisting an attempted incursion.”

“The same as the one that took out the probe?”

“No. This is—” The hole ship faltered. “I am—it—”

“Eledone?”

“We are—”

“
Eledone,
respond, for fuck’s sake!”

Alander could well understand the desperation in Thor’s voice. The mission had started off badly and was getting worse in rapid steps.

The hole ship failed to respond to her command, and for a timeless moment there was no sound at all to be heard in the cockpit. Alander stood up and looked around. The tremors had ceased also.

“It’s too quiet,” whispered Axford, staring up at the ceiling as if in expectation of seeing something there.

“Too quiet by far,” Sol concurred.

Then a new voice issued into the cockpit. Loud and harsh, it caused everyone to wince when it spoke.

“Intruders, explain your presence.”

Thor stiffened. “Who’s speaking? Are you the Starfish?”

“The intruders must explain their presence,” the voice repeated, its pitch and timbre such that Alander could feel it through the floor.

Thor hesitated, uncertainty naked on her face.

“What have we got to lose?” Sol asked. “This is what we came here for.”

“We need to speak to whoever’s in charge,” Thor said, her lips pale. “We have information that we think could be of some use to—”

“There is no ‘in charge,’ “ the voice interrupted emotionlessly. “You are inexplicable; how can such a thing be tolerated?”

“We
must
be tolerated. We have come here to help you. We know where your enemies are hiding.”

“There are no enemies. Your presence is anomalous.”

“The Spinners, the ones who drop the gifts—the ones you’ve been chasing through—”

“There is no chase. You are inexplicable. Can such a thing be—”

“You have to listen to us!” Thor’s voice took on a more desperate tone. “You’re destroying the gifts, and us along with them! If you don’t stop, we’ll all be killed! Our species will become extinct!”

“There is a multitude. The universe does not want for observers.”

“I don’t care about other observers! Right now I only care about
us
! If you continue this way, you’ll be committing genocide. You
must
listen to us. We can give you what you seek!”

The voice fell silent for a time, and Alander waited uneasily for a reply. He could sense a terrible gulf in comprehension between Thor and the alien mind interrogating them—so much so that getting across what they’d come to say seemed almost impossible. And yet...

“Why haven’t they destroyed us?” Samson asked softly, as if worried the alien interrogator might hear her. “And how can they be speaking English? It doesn’t make any sense!”

“Actually, if you assume that
that
,” said Axford, indicating the zebra fish ship on the screens, “is our probe sent back to us, then it actually makes perfect sense.”

Everyone turned to him in confusion, but it was Inari who spoke first.

“The probe? But it was destroyed. We saw it.”

“No, we assumed it had been destroyed because we lost contact with it. But what if it was taken over instead? Analyzed, dissected, rebuilt?”

“My God,” Thor muttered, facing the zebra fish ship on the screen again. “It’s been sent back as a kind of message.”

Axford nodded. “I think that’s a distinct possibility, yes.”

“What kind of message?” asked Gou Mang.

“A warning, perhaps,” said Axford.

“Not necessarily,” said Sol. “It could just be a simple enquiry.”

“Either way,” said Alander, “I’m sure we’ll find out soon enough.”

He stared at the zebra fish ship with renewed interest. Now that Axford had raised the possibility, he could indeed see how the black stripes might be evidence of intrusion through the hole ship’s normally smooth and white hull boundary. It now appeared to him as though a malignant, black worm had burrowed into the probe and distorted it out of shape. Like wires wrapped around the branches of a bonsai tree, the black constrained the white, giving it a new form and function.

“The intruders’ presence is anomalous,” the voice returned. Strangely, Alander couldn’t tell whether it was speaking to them or in reply to an unheard query from elsewhere. This was made even more confusing with its next words: “Their origin is ambiguous; your goals are undermined. There is no reason for your presence.”

“I told you,” said Thor. “We came here to offer you information. We came here to speak to you to try to get you to understand what you’ve been—”

“Speak.” The single word boomed throughout the cockpit. Again Alander wasn’t sure exactly what it meant or to whom it was directed. Was the alien mind inviting Thor to speak, or merely saying the word out loud in an attempt to grasp its meaning?

“But will you
listen
?” asked Thor. “Or have you already made up your mind to destroy us? I don’t want to spend my last minutes pissing into—”

“No continuity exists between here and those that destroy.”

“I think I’m beginning to understand,” said Alander, stepping forward. “It’s saying that it isn’t one of the Starfish.”

“He’s right,” said Axford. “The radar ghosts—or whoever controls them—aren’t the ones we should be talking to. They’re someone else.”

Thor’s frown became exasperation. “You can’t be fucking serious. They’re another alien species?”

“Why not?” said Axford. “Why should the Yuhl and the Praxis be the only aliens the Spinner/Starfish migration have happened upon down the eons?”

Alander nodded. “It’s a possibility, Thor.”

“But you’re not sure?” She studied him closely.

He shook his head. “Not of this, no.”

“There’s also another possibility,” put in Sol. Then louder, for the alien voice, she said, “You’re telling us that you
aren’t
the ones who’ve been destroying our people, right?”