Burnt Ice (15 page)

He was starving when he woke up
after such a long sleep, and was delighted to find a large meal of roast meat,
vegetables and Yorkshire pudding, dripping in beef gravy, waiting for him in
the mess.

‘Jan, you really are a doll.
Thank you. This is delicious!’

As he was mopping up the last of
the gravy, the boss arrived with a pot of tea and a couple of the overlarge
cups he favoured.

‘Great work as always thanks,
Marko. Bad news is we have absolutely no idea what that ship, or at least the
remains of it, is. We can’t get a handle on what it’s made of. The higher the magnification,
the more interesting it gets. Totally new. Driving Lotus nuts. We’ve recovered
staggering amounts of data from the Octopoid Library. Lotus believes that it
contains tens of thousands of years of data not just from the octopoids, but
from a number of other races as well. She says that it would even take the AIs
many years to digest. Now, the really intriguing part is the smaller ship. We
think there may be someone, or something, in hibernation aboard it. Yup, ready
for another go? I know how much you like sleep, eh!’

‘OK, but I need to take a dump
first.’

Fritz, at his work station
surrounded by screens, was comparing time delayed images of the artefact. He
joined the conversation, saying, ‘Boss, I think that this derelict is aware of
us.’

‘How’s that, Fritz?’

‘Well, you know how you asked me
to take a high-res drone to look it over? Yeah, well I found a set of what
appear to be hatchway controls near where that small ship is. Shows the same
configuration as the hatch mechanism where Marko went in. Thing is, I didn’t
think that those controls were there when we first looked over that area. I
verified this after looking at our original images.’

‘Interesting! OK, keep looking,
and when Marko is ready, open up the hatch again please.’

~ * ~

Seven

A
few hours later, a suited-up Fritz and the tech drone had opened a large
hatchway in the side of the artefact, so Marko had immediate access to the
hangar with the smaller ship in it.

With all weapons trained on it,
Marko was once again on ICE, looking at the ship. He checked the engine
compartment that had had panels ripped off it and saw obvious damage to the
engines inside.

‘Boss, this is human in origin.
Well, I think it is. Some stuff I recognise, but a great deal I don’t. Maybe
Gjomvik? Or something even more exotic. New generation Ranger, maybe?’

‘Don’t know, Marko. Nothing comes
up on any of the data files as being a known type. Go with the protocols.’

Marko rapped on the side of the
craft and kept looking for the entrance hatch. Half an hour later he was trying
to gain access through the damaged engine area, but was having no joy.

‘Marko,’ said Fritz. ‘There is
gravitational shift occurring inside the craft. Something is moving around in
there.’

Marko pounded on the craft’s
exterior again with his armoured fist, feeling only a dull vibration on its
surface through his gauntlet. He backed off, waiting for any response. A square
seamline appeared in its surface. The surface became translucent, giving it the
appearance of a camera lens. It watched Marko, then disappeared after a few
moments. The surface was totally opaque again. Then a message, in lots of
different human languages, began scrolling down the surface of the hull. It
continued scrolling until he tapped on the common language of the crew. The
lens then reappeared.

A deep, booming voice sounded in
all their earpieces.

‘Hello. I am called Veg. I am a
Type AE human. Please advise what you are, so we can establish common ground.’

‘This is Captain Michael Longbow
of the Administration. We are augmented, military — Type AM humans. If you are
indeed a Type AE, you are a very long way from home, sir.’

‘So it would seem, captain, so it
would seem. But then again, this is what we are augmented for.’

‘But if you can communicate with
us by radio, why did you not do so before?’

‘Sorry. I was asleep. Your
knocking on the hull woke me. We have been here for some time, waiting.’

‘There is more than one of you?’

‘Just me and my wife, Stephine.’

‘Interesting; our instruments
show only one occupant.’

‘Your instruments are wrong.’

‘You can see us, Veg. Can you
show us images of the interior of your craft?’

‘I have opened the data stream
from all the cameras inside and outside our craft. Sample as much as you wish.
I have also enabled access to the data stream for your AIs to interrogate it
and take control of the cameras. Examine away.’

On one side of Marko’s HUD live
images appeared, including one of himself. He toggled through them until he
found the individual who called himself Veg. Given that the craft was some five
metres tall and eight across, with an overall length of thirty-five metres, Veg
was a very big guy: huge, bear-like, dressed in simple attire, and well over
two metres tall. He was craggy, but had a jovial look to him. The woman
standing beside him was also very tall and utterly, utterly beautiful. The kind
of beautiful that brought out the very best in people — and the very worst.
Marko was immediately, deeply, in lust with her, though she was a good head
taller than him. He thought, Hell, if she asked me into the shower with her, I
would very gladly carry a beer crate to stand on. I have no pride when it comes
to such things.

‘My greetings to you all. I am
Stephine. I assume that we will now exchange species typing information to show
that we are what we say we are? You do have an STI unit with you? Please
observe the panel now being made visible beside the lens and load all your data
in your STI, according to Administration protocols 15-85-B, then place the unit
against the panel. Thank you, captain. We are now observing you, as well.’

One of the drones returned to the
lander, came back ten minutes later with
Basalt’s
STI unit and gave it
to Marko. He placed his right hand deep inside the case. Once the seal had
activated against his wrist, the armoured glove peeled back and allowed a blood
sample to be taken. The glove then resealed and the wrist seal relaxed. He
placed the unit up against the craft’s hull, over their unit, and the
information was exchanged.

‘Veg and Stephine, this is Lotus,
AI to
Basalt.
It would seem that we are all what we say we are. There is
some most interesting information from you both, but it is within acceptable
humanity boundaries. You are also carrying long-life nanotech in your blood. I
would like to discuss the purchase of that tech. We are also most intrigued as
to how you come to be in this situation. Finally, your craft is not familiar to
us.’

‘Pleased to be acquainted with
you, Lotus. Data stream on the way. Suffice to say you are all familiar with
the Gjomvik Corporations? We are part of an exploration group to find one of
the fabled alien libraries. When we departed from Nova Australia, some
one-point-two standard years ago, this craft was their latest technology. We
are probably presumed lost after battling a type 3K wandering urchin.’

Marko shuddered. He hated
urchins, remembering the results of some of their attacks in the system where
he grew up as a child.

‘Our mother ship was also damaged
during the encounter,’ said Veg. ‘I fear that they may not have made it back to
the human SI. We were able to make sufficient repairs to make it back to the
library and subsequently to this abandoned craft, to shelter here and wait. As
you can see in the data we could happily have waited a very long time. I note
that from our analysis of your blood data that you are not a biological threat
to us. You find the same of us?’

‘You are correct, Veg,’ Lotus
said. ‘Your data correlates with ours. Our intelligence also confirms that a
Gjomvik expedition did take place in that time period from Nova Australia. I am
deeply sorry to report that they did not make it back. Not yet anyway I have
conferred with Captain Longbow. We extend our welcome to you and offer you the
use of our ship, facilities and transport back to our current base, which is at
Cygnus 5. We can also take your scout ship, if you wish. There is sufficient
space available in the primary hangar on
Basalt.
You will also be glad
to know that this is an engineer’s frigate. I would not be surprised if we were
able to facilitate repairs to your craft too. I am sure that we can come to
some arrangement regarding costs?’

‘Our thanks, Lotus: We accept. We
have sufficient capability to transport ourselves to
Basalt.’

Marko, with his attending combat
drones, moved out through the large, segmented hatchway and climbed back into
the waiting lander, leaving behind a pair of analytical drones to continue
investigations of the artefact. As they watched, the elegant Gjomvik craft
lifted a metre from the deck of the artefact. Twin small, sleek manoeuvring
thrusters folded out from its waisted midsection, gently pushing it out of the
hatchway and towards
Basalt.
No contamination of any kind had been found
on the drones or on Marko the previous day, but the AI still insisted that all
of them, including Veg’s machine, be checked. When the craft was several
hundred metres from
Basalt,
four of the large engineering drones emerged
from the main vehicle hangar towing a carbon nanotube envelope, which they slid
over the craft, sealing and pressurising it while Lotus conducted the tests.

Marko was dead tired again, so
Harry took over his duties while the younger man headed straight for bed. As
his suit peeled itself off him and stored itself, he could hear, through his comms
link, Harry talking with Veg about the weapons they still had on board their
ship. Marko \yas surprised that they had so few left. Then again, he thought,
they had probably used up most of them against the urchin.

The urchins gave Marko the
absolute creeps. They were very large space-going scavengers and predators,
enormously tough, well camouflaged and capable of sailing the solar winds
between the stars in large breeder groups. They were masters of using the
gravity of the gas giants to generate speed by folding themselves down into a
tight ball. They could slowly climb back into space by deploying their wings to
ride the jet streams back out into space. Their favourite prey were the
balloon-like creatures that existed in the upper atmospheres of some gas
giants. Debate had raged for years, trying to decide if they were intelligent
or not. No one had come up with a clear answer. Every time they were found,
those attempting communication were attacked and, usually, consumed.
Administration and Gjomvik policies were to stay as far away from them as
possible — or destroy them, if they could not be avoided.

Marko’s breakfast was a delicious
omelette, complete with a filling of roughly chopped fried onions, bacon,
apples and tomatoes. Jan made it for him while he was starting with a couple of
slices of toast.

‘So fill me in, what’s been
happening?’ he asked, between bits of omelette.

Jan smiled at him, ‘Not really a
lot since we saw you yesterday. Lotus is still ploughing through as much of the
library as she can. Fritz and the monitor are with them. The boss has set the
astronomical drones in a 7000-kilometre-diameter pattern around us, to see if
the urchins are still here, and give us warning if they are. Harry and Veg are
looking over their craft and Stephine is in the hydroponic unit talking to the
flowers. I could turn gay for that one. She really is gorgeous.’

‘You! Gay! Now that would be
interesting.’

She smiled at him again as he
wondered just what she was. Too many questions and not a helluva lot of
answers, he thought. Still, he was glad she was around; he smiled to himself,
realising that she had become a close friend.

‘Marko, when you are able could
you come up to the bridge please?’ the captain asked through the comms link.

‘Ten minutes, boss.’