Infinite Reef (5 page)

A few more vehicles arrived with more men and guns. Almost simultaneously Alex’s wrist bracelet came alive. “
Status
check
,” it said, then fell silent. But he hardly noticed; his attention was on the black sphere.

“Whatcha’ make of it, lad?” asked Wysor.

“I was going to ask you, sir,” replied Alex. The Captain was still examining the far wall of the cylinder. Looking past the glaring lights of the core column, Alex could see a plume of gray smoke. “Did it punch through from space?”

“That’s th’ word.” The Captain looked at Alex and then at the black sphere, still seated implacably in the crater of its own making. “We’ve been shot.”

“Shot.” Alex studied the glassy black object. The Captain’s statement made him see it with new eyes. He compared it mentally to every bullet or bomb image he’d ever seen, but despite its ominous entrance the thing looked benign, almost beautiful.

Someone ran up to Alex from behind. He recognized the light rhythmic steps of his wife seconds before Mary’s arms wrapped around him. “Oh ... I was looking everywhere ...” she breathed into his helmeted ear. “Can you hear me in there?”

Mary tapped her knuckles on his faceplate. “Why are you all wearing those? Are we being gassed?”

The Captain managed to scare up another helmet for Mary. Like Alex, once properly suited, she found the experience less than claustrophobic. “These helmets are amazing,” she said.

Alex faced Mary and hugged her. “Your dolphin friends said ...” But Mary grabbed the Captain’s arm and began asking questions about the sphere, full of curiosity and excitement.

Only a few more minutes transpired before Stubbs and an entourage of officials arrived at the scene. By then Alex and Mary had been told what had happened.

It had come out of nowhere, unseen by
Goddard’s
sensors. An oblong jet black object had hit the ship at a relatively low speed. The impact was barely felt and did no damage, but then the object fired a black projectile through the hull. There was 20 no loss of air because the original object remained fixed to the hull providing a perfect, if ugly, seal. Stubbs told Alex and Mary that it looked like a blob of engine grease flattened against the hull.

Inside the ship, the damage was more difficult to assess. Reports were coming in to Stubbs and Captain Wysor level by level and room by room. So far few casualties had been reported, none of them fatalities.

If that wasn’t miracle enough, the projectile had curved in its flight across the inside of the cylinder, apparently avoiding the inner column. All in all, Stubbs reluctantly admitted as he assessed the crater, the damage to
Goddard
had been minimal.

What disturbed him was that the thing had expertly penetrated a hull built to repel meteors. After all, polyceramic plating was the material credited with making space travel possible.

Stubbs made a complete circuit of the crater with his staff. Alex and Mary, invited along, were silent the whole time, listening to others’ sometimes panicky dialogue. Listening closely to all comments, the Commander remained mute.

“Are these helmets necessary?” asked someone.

“They’re precautionary,” said Stubbs, almost angrily. “In other words, protecting you.”

Seeing through the headgear was not, at the moment, a benefit, Alex thought as he looked at Stubbs’ furrowed brow. The Commander was moving with calm and grace, hardly reminiscent of the person who’d been, until recently, confined to a wheelchair. Observing Stubbs in action, Alex decided it was pure zeal that was driving the man, and even healing him. It was clear to Alex, if not Mary, that he had found his calling.

It was agreed, after some discussion, that the object could be a probe, and since it might be examining the interior of the
Goddard
it would be best for everyone to leave the area. As Stubbs issued the order everyone prepared to leave.

Alex had been walking next to Wysor. When they reached the cart, Alex became conscious of Mary. “You’re quiet all of a sudden, love.” When she didn’t answer he looked around. Mary was still at the rim of the crater, facing the orb and holding her helmet loosely at her side.

Alex ran toward her, horrified. “Dingers, Mary. What do you think you’re doing?” But she didn’t seem to hear. She stood still as a post, staring at the sphere.

When he reached her side she glanced at him. “I’m coming. Just give me a minute, Alex.”

“To do what?” Alex gazed down at the sphere. There was no detail on its black glassy surface, nor any indication that it had been damaged by its impact. Feeling encumbered by his helmet, he took it off, then stepped away from Mary. At the same moment two blue suited guards reached them. “I’m sorry, you two,” one said. “The Commander insists ...”

“Let a sensor do her work for a minute, gents,” said Alex, holding up a defiant hand. “Give us sixty seconds.”

The guard looked back at Commander Stubbs, who was waiting next to the cart speaking into his wrist receiver. Alex saw Stubbs nod as he spoke. The guard listened a moment longer to his own receiver, then faced Alex and Mary again. This time he switched on the weapon. For a second Alex thought the guards were going to threaten him, but the guard aimed his weapon at the sphere. “The Commander says okay, but make it quick,” he said tersely.

Mary shook her head. “It doesn’t help to threaten that thing.”

“Orders, ma’am,” said the guard.

“Then I’m done here,” Mary said angrily. She turned away from the crater and walked stiffly back to the car with Alex and the guards following. When they reached the cart Stubbs drew her aside. They spoke briefly, then returned to the group.

Alex was already in the cart and Mary slid into the seat beside him. As they headed toward the command center, Alex looked at her questioningly. She shrugged but said nothing. They rode in silence until they reached the center.

Stubbs ordered the driver to take the cart around to the rear of the building.

“We can park at the front, sir,” advised the driver.

“Do what I said,” ordered the Commander. “If that thing is watching, it might have identified us all as leaders. It’s a possibility, at least. I don’t want it to see where we go.”

Johnny Baltadonis was seated in the front of the cart, between the driver and Stubbs. He nodded approvingly when Stubbs gave his order. “Good idea,” he said, glancing back at the crater. Facing Mary, Johnny smiled. “Did you feel anything?”

“Pressured,” she said, not returning his smile. She glanced at Stubbs. “Some of us have different agendas.”

“Like safety of my crew,” said Stubbs. “There’s plenty of time to meditate, Mary. Now we have to assume the worst.

Wouldn’t you agree?”

Mary frowned. “I can sense things, sir.” Her voice was so artificially sweet that it gave Alex the creeps. “If it is a probe, then it would be most active at the outset of its mission. Isn’t that right?” Stubbs took a deep breath, but didn’t reply. The cart reached the rear of the command center and Stubbs stepped out. Without comment he went directly into the building, followed by the guards.

When Alex and Mary got inside the Commander was at his station talking to Captain Wysor. Johnny stayed with Alex and Mary, ushering them to their usual place in the lounge at the rear of the control room. Without comment, he returned to his own console.

Alex sat down on the white foam sofa next to his wife, feeling helpless, but he knew that there was no point in mentioning it.

Mary turned to him and smiled. “It isn’t a demotion for them to put us here, you know,” she said, almost whispering.

Alex chuckled. “Don’t tell me. You’re going to say look at the bright side, at least we’re near the food.”

Mary frowned. “No, I wasn’t.”

The control room was a blur of activity around the figures of Stubbs and the Captain. Alex didn’t envy them. They had to make some quick and difficult decisions. What lay buried in a crater a few meters away might mean the potential destruction of the
Goddard
. He wondered if any of them could have envisioned an alien object inside the ship, let alone in the heart of the biosphere. On the other hand, the thing might also be completely benign, just some exotic piece of inert space debris.

Meanwhile the residue on the outer hull was being examined, and pictures of it were now displayed on the large screen at the far side of the control room. The view was from a stationary location, probably a remote cam similar to the one sitting on Howarth’s egg. Alex surveyed the other screens in the control room and saw no evidence of the image they had watched for so long, although he did notice that one fairly prominent screen was filled with static. “You know, Mary,” he said with alarm.

“I think they lost contact with that probe on the egg.”

Mary’s eyes were already on the blank screen. “You may be right.”

Alex wondered if anyone else had noticed. After all, the staff did have more immediate problems. He considered asking Johnny about the sonde, but decided to let events take their course. “Geebrew?” he asked Mary.

She looked at him blankly. “Bed would be better. There we can watch what’s going on and ask questions of the computer.” A twinkle of light glinted in Mary’s eyes. “And we can fuck!”

Alex smiled, almost blushing. “I think we’re under orders. Geebrew? Coffee?”

“Tea,” she said glumly. “Callisto black.”

Alex remembered what the dolphins had said about Mary. She seemed fine, but the memory of his conversation rekindled his concern. He resolved to keep his mouth shut about it for the moment and raise the question when the right time came. Besides, the dolphin hadn’t indicated that her condition was serious. Alex got up and punched in their order on the refreshment panel: one geebrew, one Callisto black for the lady.

5
After an hour – much of it filled with shouts and occasional hysteria – the control room settled down. Stubbs lorded over it all red faced and exhausted, yet he managed to bring calm to the group.

The big screen that had been filled with static now had a closeup view of the celebrated black sphere. Several crewmen had bravely set up lights on the crater’s edge to illuminate the object. Attached to them, Alex surmised, were sensors of all kinds. He hoped they’d soon have a handle on the nature of thing that had planted itself in the heart of their ship. In the meantime, every wrist receiver aboard had given its owner the personalized message that the ship was now under martial law, although they used the more popular term Red Alert.

Mary was sipping her second cup of tea, lemon spice this time, when Professor Baltadonis left his place next to the Commander and returned to the lounge area. He went directly to the drink dispenser before joining Alex and Mary.

Alex stood to greet him and offered his hand. “They’ve had you hopping, Professor. What’s our status?”

“It might as well be a black hole,” said Johnny. “Nothing is coming from it. Nothing.”

“Just a melted ball of glass, do you think?” asked Alex, sitting down next to Mary. The Professor shook his head as he moved a chair closer to the two of them and sat down. He set his drink on the spindly table next to him. Alex noted that it was bright red, the mandatory color for stronger beverages. He smiled. “Everyone’s drinking voodoos. It must be in the air.” He glanced at Mary, but she didn’t return his grin.

Mary leaned forward, looking past Alex to see Johnny. “What were you saying about the sphere?”

Johnny picked up his drink. “I needed something a bit stronger than plain old geebrew,” he said almost proudly. He looked at Mary. “Quite honestly, Mary, we are clueless. As far as speculation, your guess is as good as mine. I suspect even better, right now. Did you feel anything coming from it?”

Mary shrugged. “Like it wasn’t there. All I felt was cold.”

Johnny pondered Mary’s words, stroking his short whiskered chin. “Well, we’ve seen no power drains anywhere, except for the severed lines when it hit. What do you mean?”

“If it’s not radiating anything, then it’s absorbing. I’m guessing it’s a probe.”

“We’re all been thinking that, I bet,” offered Alex, looking about the room.

Mary began to chew on a fingernail as she thought, her eyes focused on the control room screen. “What happened to the sonde?” she asked. “Last time we were in here everyone was looking at the hole in the egg.”

“The transmission just stopped,” answered Johnny, curling his brow doubtfully. “Maybe a short somewhere.”

“What’s your speculation, Johnny?” asked Alex.

Johnny nodded. “I think Mary Seventeen is 100% correct. It’s almost poetic. We poke a hole in their world and then they do the same to us. Sonde for sonde.”

“So it seems.” Mary leaned back in her seat and heaved a sigh. “Johnny, why can’t Alex and I go home? We’ll be in the bubble or the com room. We’re as available to you there as we are here.”

“We’re locked down,” said Johnny with a shrug. “The control room, that is.”

“We can go underground,” Mary said, almost pleading.

Johnny blinked. “I was thinking of that, as a matter of fact.”

“Well?” Mary looked innocent, but Alex knew she had read his mind.

“I can’t say, Mary. It’s Stubbs’ call.” Johnny leaned back in his chair. “Are you sure you sensed nothing coming from that sphere? If you can talk to clicker men ... well, when I saw you standing next to it, I hoped you might be getting something from it. So did Stubbs. That’s why he let you stay there for a moment, despite the fact that he can’t afford to lose you. You’re a valuable asset to this crew, Mary Seventeen. I hope you know that.” Johnny gulped down the last of his red Voodoo as if punctuating his statement.

Mary scrutinized the Professor. “Did I say I talked to the clicker men?”

Johnny’s confident eyes never left the control room screen, looming in the distance. On it the sphere, implacable and mysterious. “No you didn’t, my dear. I was speaking metaphorically. But there was some level of communication, isn’t that right?”

Mary stood up. “Professor, I’ve been trying to communicate with these aliens all during the rescue mission and when I stood next to that thing, that is until our esteemed Commander had his soldiers drag me away. I told you what I thought. Now, I just want to get out of here.”