Authors: Karl Kofoed
As the ship rotated, the ring came into full view. Directly in front of them was the fat black saucer embedded in a massive crystalline structure. Now they could all see that the cubic lattice made up the entire ring system. Perhaps a third of a kilometer thick, it arched in both directions to the planet’s horizon, notched at regular intervals by long stalactite-like pylons pointing toward the planet. To Alex it looked like an enormous glittering necklace of black gemstones.
Johnny manipulated a camera on the lower hull so that it focused solely on the opening. He had the camera pull back slowly, taking in more and more of the surrounding structure. Most of the disk that had contained them was buried in the latticework, as though the crystals had grown around it.
“Fractal geometry!” roared the Professor. “They can fit it to any shape by producing smaller or larger crystals. Do you see?”
Alex looked back and forth at the ring structure on either side of the ship and saw the pattern Johnny was so excited about. Indeed, the spiraling pattern of black crystals was everywhere he looked throughout the ring.
“Movement!” Mary pointed to the window beside her. “Johnny, can you focus your camera on the tip of that thing in the distance that’s pointing toward the planet? There’s something going on there.”
“Yes indeed,” said Johnny gleefully. “I have it!” His camera found the pylon Mary had indicated and followed its length downward toward the tip. Soon the viewscreen showed what Mary’s keen vision had spotted, objects spiraling lazily around the structure like a flock of dark birds.
Alex watched the action on the viewscreen for a moment, then looked out the cockpit window to see if the same activity was present around all the pylons, but they were too far away to see any details. If not for the reflections of the dim light of planet, none of it would have been visible.
“What’s our next move, Commander?” asked Tony nervously. “Can I power up the radar? I wouldn’t mind doing my job, if that’s okay.”
“Radar may be offensive to the aliens, Tony,” answered Johnny. “Frankly, I’d rather have the aliens make the next move.
They brought us here. They must have had a reason.”
“Yeah, maybe they need spare parts for their ring system,” Tony growled sarcastically.
“What do you suggest we do, Tony?” asked the Commander.
“Get the hell out of here.”
“I have no intention of going anywhere, particularly until we contact
Goddard
, Mr. Sciarra.”
“Are you seeing anything in that bubble of yours, Johnny?” asked Alex.
“Ambient radiation, is about all. But it’s serving as an interesting halo to the ring.”
“Why aren’t they paying attention to us?” Tony asked.
“Maybe it was a gesture,” offered Mary. “Brought us here just to show off.”
“We’ve shown them violence,” said the Professor. “Maybe they’re avoiding a confrontation. So far, I’d say their diplomacy has been impeccable. But that’s just a supposition.” He was silent for a moment. “Wait a minute ... there’s a group of objects approaching from the left. Above the ring. Do you see them?”
Mary leaned forward and looked past Alex. “Yes. Three saucers.”
Alex didn’t have any trouble spotting them either. Three large saucers with spherical bulges at their centers were moving slowly toward them. They flew in chevron formation, each one following the ring structure at the same distance. He estimated their course would take them past
Diver
in just a few seconds.
“We’ll know soon if they have anything to do with us.” The Commander’s voice reverberated within the confines of his bubble. “My instruments say they’re bigger than the one we were ...”
No one felt movement. To everyone it appeared that the saucers had stopped when they reached
Diver,
and the ring had suddenly begun moving at high speed, but Johnny and his instruments weren’t fooled. “They’ve caught us,” he shouted.
“Taking us with them!” he added in alarm. “We’re in an intense magnetic field.”
Alex was still gripping the drive stick when they were swept away. Now he sat frozen in his seat, waiting for Johnny to issue instructions. “Any orders, Johnny? Evasive action?”
“No!” boomed the Commander. “I don’t want anyone to change anything. Everybody just hold on.” He sounded out of breath.
“Are you okay, Johnny?” asked Mary.
“Yes, yes. Just excited. This is the first time I’ve gotten any data on how they move. This is great! Here, I’ll put my display on the big screen so you can all see it.”
They looked away from the glittery blur outside to the viewscreen. Against a field of black, a blue torus was wrapped completely around a long tube, a contour map of the ring material.
Diver
was a blip at the exact center of the screen. “See that torus?” said the Commander. “It’s generated by the saucers. It looks like a magnetic ripple or wave traversing the ring. This may be their way of transporting things.”
“We could just be caught,” argued Tony.
Johnny obviously disliked Tony’s tone. “I doubt it.”
“Don’t you want to know if we can break free of it, Commander?” asked Alex.
“Good point, Alex,” answered Johnny. “But I’m convinced we shouldn’t act. At least not at the moment.” He paused for a moment. “But go ahead and swing our nose around, Alex, so we can at least see where we’re headed.”
“Yes, sir!” Alex eased the drive stick to the right. He’d been getting dizzy from watching the blur in front of
Diver’s
cockpit. When the ship faced the direction of movement, he released the stick. “It almost seems like we’re under power,” he muttered to Mary.
Mary Seventeen watched the details of the ring coming toward them at high speed. She looked at Alex and shrugged. “I hope we don’t run into something.”
Diver passed the first notch with the hanging pylon without coming close to it, and before they knew it they were passing another.
“We’re speeding up, Commander,” said Alex.
“Yes, Alex,” he said. “Indeed we are.”
“The saucers are moving closer to us, I think,” offered Mary.
“God, you’re right,” replied Johnny. “And they’re moving quickly.”
Alex could see that there was no chance of a collision, because they were farther away from the ring material than
Diver
, perhaps twice as far. He lost sight of two of them as they shifted position, then one reappeared to his left. “They’re over us now,” said Johnny. “And we’re increasing speed.”
They could all feel the acceleration, but Johnny’s comments were nonetheless appreciated, making it seem as if he had control of the situation.
“Well, we may be going to our doom, Johnny,” said Tony with a shrug. “But at least we’re following protocol.”
Chapter 9
1
For almost an hour
Diver
was carried along the alien ring, borne by the invisible forces generated by the three saucers positioned in a tight group above them.
There still had been no contact with
Goddard
. As time wore on and events didn’t change, the Commander finally raised his bubble. “Perhaps we should refresh ourselves,” he said, looking at his crew with tired eyes. He unbuckled from his chair and floated free toward the rear of the cabin. “But let’s make it quick.”
Everyone followed suit, standing and stretching unused muscles and taking turns at the latrine or the food service panel.
But none of them lingered, and soon they were all back at their stations with food and drinks.
It bothered Alex that they hadn’t even tried to resist the invisible force gripping them, but he agreed with Johnny that resisting the aliens might be risky and threaten their chances for contact. He sat patiently, eating his faux ham sandwich and sipping his squeezer of coffee as he watched the seemingly endless alien structure whiz by.
The maze of crystal latticework that composed the ring was broken every fifty kilometers or so by hanging pylons. Each section of ring and each pylon that hung from it appeared to be exactly the same as all the others. After a while, despite the uncertainty of their fate at the hands of the Lalandians, the repetition became boring to Alex. With his stomach now full, all he could think about was a nap.
“Isn’t the coffee working?” asked Mary, still nibbling at her faux-crab sushi.
Alex yawned and shook his head, then something in the distance caught his eye and he pointed toward the nose of the ship. “Mary, do you see something up ahead, hanging down from the ring?”
Mary leaned forward, looking in the direction Alex pointed. “Yes, it’s another pylon, but it looks a lot bigger than the others.”
Sciarra got out of his seat and peered past Alex’s chair at the cockpit window. “Do you see it, Commander?” he asked without taking his eyes off the window.
“I do.” Johnny touched his console. “Let me see if I get a camera on it.”
It was still too far away for Alex to see the thing clearly, and the light was too dim to reveal more than a shadow. It looked like a gray thread descending from the ring toward the planet.
“I think it’s the elevator,” said Mary Seventeen.
“Let’s wait for a closer look before we start making wild assumptions, Mary,” cautioned the Professor. He quickly found the pylon with one of
Diver’s
cameras and switched the image to the viewscreen above the cockpit windows so everyone could see it.
The large hanging pylon was attached to the ring material, looking like a spiral of gleaming black cubes branching off smoothly like the root of a massive tree. Johnny panned the camera downward toward the planet, following the length of the thing until it was just a spiraling strand that vanished into the dark clouds.
“Does that look like an elevator to you, Mary?” asked the Commander sarcastically.
“Perhaps.”
The dusky world of cloud they’d been orbiting seemed as empty of detail as the surface of Howarth’s Egg. Alex had had ample opportunity to study it during the last hour and found that detail was visible, but so dark and subtle as to be easily ignored. What he noticed now was a familiar pattern to the clouds. Looking farther into the distance, he saw the pattern fan out like vast ripples in a pond. “We’re over the spot!” said Alex. “Of course! They’re building another egg down there.”
“The spot?” said Tony.
“Bubba’s version of Jupiter’s Red Spot,” Johnny offered. “I think Mary’s idea about the elevator is gaining merit.
Perhaps we should name the thing Mary’s Elevator, since she identified it first.”
Mary gave Johnny a coy smile. “What will we call the
other
elevator?”
“Other?” asked Tony. “I see only one.”
“If Mary’s right,” explained the Commander, “then, according to theory, there would have to be another to balance this one.”
“But there’s only one spot,” argued Tony. “Where would the other elevator go?”
“Nowhere,” said Mary. “It’s just for ballast. Right, Johnny?”
“We’ll have to see that to prove it.”
“I wonder if our captors will give us the chance?” said Alex, gazing out the cabin window.
Mary looked at Alex in alarm. “Can you feel that? We’re slowing down.”
“And we’re approaching your space elevator,” said Johnny. “I think the moment of reckoning is upon us.”
Alex looked out the window just as
Diver
and the three saucers suddenly changed course and went into a dive toward the planet’s surface.
“Whooooa,” shouted Johnny, nearly falling from his chair.
2
Diver
and her three attendant saucers were now following a narrowing column of black crystals that hung from the great ring.
They began to accelerate as they fell toward the planet. In what seemed to be only seconds they entered Bubba’s icy haze.
Moments later, they descended into total darkness.
Occasionally a purple glow evidenced distant lightning. During those brief flickers of shadowy light Alex could see the spiraling sawtoothed column stretching before them. It was bigger than he had expected, perhaps two or three hundred meters in width. But again, he couldn’t be sure. He glanced at Mary and wasn’t surprised to see her legs tucked tightly under her, despite the constraints of her well fastened seatbelt. “Afraid, my love?”
Mary nodded. “We may need to turn on the null-gee systems,” she said softly. “If they take us too deep.”
The Commander was back under his virtual dome, but he must have heard Mary. “You’re one step ahead of me, Mary,” said his voice on the PA system. “I was just thinking that.”
“Can’t you feel the gravity?” answered Mary. “I can.”
“Not while we’re in free fall,” remarked Tony, staring unhappily at his console. “But the instruments show we’re slowing,” said Sciarra. “Speed is hard to measure. Relative to the column, we hit three hundred kph. The temperature outside is minus 243 degrees. Atmospheric pressure is 1.3 bars ...”
“How deep are we?” asked Alex.
Sciarra shook his head. “Can’t say.”
“There’s something ahead of us,” said Mary. “I see a glow.”
“Should we switch on the running lights, Johnny?” asked Alex.
“No. But power up and engage the null-gee. Bring them online but don’t use them until I give the order.”
Alex could see the glow now, a colorless light like sunlight behind a cloudy sky. Gradually it brightened, and quite suddenly they entered a clear space. Below them, at the base of the column they’d been following, was an umbrella of light, fanning out in radiating channels as far as the eye could see. Alex looked outside and noticed that the saucers were still with them. “We’ve still got our escort, Johnny,”
“I see them,” said Johnny’s voice on the intercom. “And the magnetic torus is still there, too, although it’s smaller. But it has the same field strength.”
“This must be a new egg, under construction.” Mary lifted her body to see the vista of light. “It’s so beautiful!”
Diver was still pointed downward and slowing as they approached the hub of the great fan of light. At its center was a glowing white sphere, a miniature version of Howarth’s egg. As they neared it, the saucers that had been transporting them suddenly veered off and vanished from sight.
As their speed reduced they could all feel the gravity increasing. Gravity and inertia were now in control of their fall, and it appeared they would crash into the sphere. “Ready with the drive, Alex?” asked the Commander. “My arms are getting heavy.”
“Ready!” Alex gripped the drive stick.
“Null-gee at 50%!” boomed the Commander’s voice.
Alex quickly pushed a lever on his console and felt the light-headedness that accompanied the null-gee system. “Fifty percent!”
“That’s a relief,” quipped Tony with a sigh. “Glad the systems are normal, at least.”
“Ready with the drive, Alex,” said Johnny. “We’re only a kilometer from the globe. I’m not risking a crash.”
“Just say the word.” Alex’s hand trembled as he clenched the stick and he searched the area for an escape vector.
It happened too quickly for anyone aboard
Diver
to react. Three flaps suddenly opened in the giant globe, and
Diver
slipped inside and came to a dead stop.
“What did you do, Alex?” asked Commander Baltadonis.
“Nothing. The null-gee is still at half strength. Engines still in normal range.”
“But we’re weightless,” said Mary. “I feel like we’re in orbit.”
Johnny raised his bubble to the ceiling and sat silent for a moment, looking at the windows. “That looks like sunlight.”
He squinted painfully. “It almost hurts my eyes.”
Light was streaming into
Diver’s
cabin from all sides. Alex instinctively reached for his helmet, put it on, and snapped the visor down. When his eyes could finally penetrate the glare, he began to see details in the surrounding globe. It seemed strangely familiar, but Alex dismissed the thought. Certainly they’d never been here before. He looked at Mary, who regarded him with a look of wonder on her face. “It’s like a crystal palace. Remember the old ones on Jupiter? The white clicker men and their crystal palace?”
“I’ll never forget.” Alex said gazing the window. “You’re not saying ...”
“I don’t know,” Mary said doubtfully.
Neither Tony nor the Professor had voiced a reaction, but it was easy to read their postures, like trapped rats eyeing a cat.
The globe surrounding them seemed to be illuminated by its shell, like Howarth’s egg, but also like the crystalline den of the white clicker men whom they’d encountered briefly on Jupiter. He recalled the harrowing EVA on
Diver’s
hull, when he and Mary had actually been touched by them as they flew close by the ship.
Alex glanced over his shoulder, his hand still holding the stick. “What next, Commander?”
“From all I know about these guys they’re as insubstantial as fluff,” Tony said. “We can break out at any time, I’ll bet.”
Johnny finally spoke. “I wouldn’t be too sure, Tony. They, whoever they are, are exhibiting unbelievable abilities.”
He put on a pair of dark glasses and examined his console. “My instruments show we’re in the middle of an immense toroidal magnetic field. That isn’t weightlessness. We’re being suspended.” He glanced around at the cabin windows. “It looks like everything around here is, too.”
“We should blast out of here. Screw this first contact crap!” Tony stared out the window. “This isn’t good.”
“What are you so afraid of, Tony? We’re encased in polyceramics.” The Professor sounded empathetic rather than challenging. “And all systems are still operating. We don’t need the null-gee, Alex,” he added. “So shut everything down.”
Alex looked around at the Commander. “The engines, too?”
“Of course.”
Alex heard Tony groan in frustration. “Look,” said Sciarra disdainfully. “They have to get materials from somewhere and we’re the heaviest thing in the neighborhood, I’ll bet. For all we know they just want us for scrap.”
The Professor nodded and put a thumb to his chin. “I hadn’t really thought of that.” He looked at Alex and Mary. “So, what’s the consensus? Shall we ‘blast out of here’, as Mr. Sciarra suggests? Remember, we’d probably destroy this thing we’re inside of and perhaps their whole alien construction project as well.”
Tony seemed irate. He twisted in his chair to face Johnny. “You don’t know that.”
“I don’t know that it wouldn’t, Tony.”
Mary put up a hand. “There’s something out there. It’s moving.”
They could see it clearly, a few meters in front of the ship. It looked like a blue spider made of nothing but legs. It had come from behind a sheet of white material, part of the matrix of structural planes that crisscrossed the globe. The creature floated freely into view with another one close behind. Then a third spider appeared. “We’ve definitely got company,” said Mary. “And they look very much alive.” She glanced at Tony. “Shall we commit murder as well as mayhem, Tony?”
“Crikes!”Tony crossed his arms contemptuously. “I give up.”
Alex tried to ignore Tony’s admonitions. He hoped the arrival of the aliens might give the Commander the first contact he longed for.
The Professor left his seat and floated toward the window. “I want to see this without my instruments,” he said, gliding past Mary. He looked over at Tony. “If it makes you feel any better, Mr. Sciarra, you might consider that if the aliens need raw materials, we’re on a planet that abounds with them.”
More of the blue spiders appeared inside the golden globe. Through the dark visor of his helmet Alex could also see more details of the sphere. He guessed it was perhaps a hundred meters in diameter with
Diver
hovering at the exact center.
The spiders, several meters tall, moved slowly around them, clinging to the crystal sheets and rods that seemed to provide support to the sphere.
“I see holes in the sphere walls,” offered Johnny. “I’ll bet they lead to the rest of the array. This must be the command center, if such a thing exists.”
Tony unbuckled his restraints and went to the opposite window. Mary and Alex, with a good view from where they were, remained buckled in their seats.
When Tony reached the window Alex tapped him on the shoulder. “Are you okay?”
Tony gave him a puzzled look and shrugged. “The question is, are WE okay.”
“As long as we’ve got company I think we are,” the Professor offered. “But, Alex, I want you to be ready to power up.”
He looked at Alex and smiled.
Alex took off his helmet and leaned back in his chair. He winced as the flood of light hit his eyes, but soon they adjusted and he could see the creatures moving outside. Their legs were shiny sapphire shafts hinged in three places. Their bodies were small oblong sacks attached to a thick dark stem from which all the legs branched.
As Alex watched one of the spiders pass his window he saw that the legs branched from two places on the stem, one just above the other, like two oddly veined umbrellas. The two sets of legs worked in opposite directions, making it easy for the aliens to walk through the three dimensional structure that filled the globe. The legs had three pronged manipulators, like fingers, at their ends. Alex tried several times to count the legs but every time he tried he lost count at eight or ten.