Drifter's Run (24 page)

Parallel lines of blue light stuttered out toward the other ship as Cap fired his weapon. His voice was tinged with panic. "Fire! Fire! Fire!"

Lando cut power to Cap's weapons turret with the flip of a switch. "Hold it, Cap. This thing's weird, but not necessarily hostile."

The control room was suddenly full of greenish light. "What the hell?"

The external vid cams were flickering on and off but Lando could still see enough to understand what was going on. The blob was directly overhead and sliding the length of
Junk
's hull. As it moved, the greenish light moved with it, and passed through solid durasteel as if it weren't even there. Two seconds later and it was gone.

"Very interesting," Cy said calmly. "I don't know about the rest of the ship, but at present the drive room is full of greenish light. I have the feeling we're being scanned."

The engineer's calm appraisal helped Lando understand what his eyes had already seen. "I think Cy's right, and not only that, but did you see those energy beams? They didn't even scratch that ship! It's as if they were neutralized somehow."

"Or simply absorbed," Cy added calmly. "The green light just disappeared."

"Look! The bloblike thing is connected to some sort of tether!" The voice was Dee's.

Lando looked and sure enough, the protoplasm was connected to some sort of a long green tether, which was pulling it toward the ship. He noticed that as the blob moved farther away his instruments began to clear.

Lando flipped the center bow cam to high mag and scanned the other ship's hull. He gave the others a running narration of what he saw.

"I'm using high mag. I see a weird hull. There's no surface installations like you'd see on one of our ships. Lots of blobs though, each fastened to the ship with a green tether, and all of 'em green."

"Still no contact?" Cap inquired, his voice a bit shaky.

Dee gave a snort of derision. "Still no contact? Come on, Cap, you've gotta be kidding! Lando gives 'em a call and they send a green blob to ram your ship? How much contact do you want?"

"I think Dee's right," Cy said thoughtfully. "The blob was a response to Pik's attempt at communication. Now it's waiting to see what we'll do next."

"It? Why 'it'? Why not 'them'?" The question was Dee's but Lando wondered too.

"Maybe it
is
'them,'" the cyborg responded, "but I don't think so. That's a very advanced construct. It has already demonstrated a level of technological sophistication beyond anything I've ever seen or heard of. If the owners were aboard they'd be telling us what to do… or simply swatting us like flies."

"Maybe," Dee said doubtfully. "That's what
we'd
do. But
they
might react in a completely different manner."

There was a long period of silence while everyone took it in. Cy was at least partially right. Regardless of whether the owners were aboard or not, the ship represented an unheard of level of scientific achievement, and that could have implications for the entire human race.

That was their first thought. Their second was less altruistic. Given that the drifter was loaded with advanced technology, and given that the owners might be somewhere else, what was the ship worth?

"I'm going aboard." The voice belonged to Cy and carried so much conviction that no one even thought to argue with him.

"Me too." Sorenson's voice seemed to gain strength as he spoke.

"First we'll find out if anyone's aboard, then assuming they aren't, we'll take control of the ship. I'll take a look at the controls while Cy checks the power plant. Just think! That power plant's been running for who knows how long! Maybe hundreds of years!"

"Maybe thousands," Cy added, but Cap ignored him.

"Whatever. The main thing is to take control, establish full salvage rights, and get the ship out of here in one piece."

"I wanta go too," Melissa said. "Can I, Daddy? Can I please?"

"No you can't," Cap replied sternly. "You'll stay here. Watch her, Lando, and depressurize the bay. Who knows what kind of atmosphere we'll find aboard that ship. I'll suit-up and meet Cy at the tender."

There was an angry click as Melissa dropped off the intercom. Lando was sympathetic, but knew Cap was right, and in her heart of hearts Melissa knew it too. He touched a button. "Hey, Della."

"Yeah?"

"Take Cap's position in the top turret. I'll delegate sensor control to you. Ignore the drifter and keep your eyes peeled for bad guys. What with the tender outside, and a major tow to deal with, our buns are hanging in the breeze."

"Speak for yourself," Dee replied primly. "My buns are right where they belong. Besides, the only breeze around here comes off the intercom."

Lando grinned and leaned back in his chair. His eyes went to the alien drifter. The halo of greenish light seemed to fluctuate slightly, as though the ship were alive, and breathing ever so slightly.

The alien ship filled Cy with a sense of wonder. As they came closer it filled the tender's view screens with luminescent light. Strangely enough the electronic interference they'd experienced farther out had largely disappeared. The drifter was long, longer than the
Star of Empire
had been, and twice as big around.

The big green blobs clung to its hull like fungi feeding on a dead log. Every now and then one would suddenly expand and soar outward trailing a tendril of greenish light. Meanwhile others returned and took their places along the ship's outer surface.

At first Cy assumed the greenish tethers were used to reel the blobs in, but then he realized he was wrong, and that the tendrils became shorter. It seemed as though the connective stuff was reabsorbed into the ship's hull when it wasn't needed.

Plastic hull material? Some sort of new force field? The possibilities made Cy's brain spin.

For his part Cap was less concerned about the how and why of the drifter's operation and more occupied with the pragmatics of taking possession. The rest could wait till later.

Sorenson licked dry lips. God what he wouldn't give for a drink right now. He usually kept a bottle stashed inside the first-aid kit but someone had found and removed it. Melissa probably. Never mind, the bottle was gone, and he'd have to get along without it.

The first problem was already behind them. For better or worse the drifter and/or its occupants had allowed them to approach. Sorenson had half expected to die, but not seeing a way around it, he had forced himself to take the chance. Now they were only a thousand feet away and still alive.

Okay, time to tackle the second problem, getting aboard. Cap put the tender into a tight turn and slid down the vessel's-port side.

Well, he assumed it was the port side, but come to think of it there was no way to tell bow from stern. Maybe its owners didn't think in terms of "front" and "back," maybe they went everywhere sideways, or who knows? But surely they had a way to enter and leave the ship.

They completed another entire length of the ship without sign of a hatch or other opening. Cap made another tight turn. It had to be there.

"Keep your pickups peeled, Cy, we need a way to get aboard."

Cy was silent for a moment. "Try telling
it
that." He'd debated whether to say "them" or "it" and settled on the latter. Cy wasn't sure why, but the engineer in him felt they were dealing with complicated machinery rather than sentient minds.

Cap gave him a "what the hell are you thinking" look, but stabbed a button and spoke into the comset anyway. "This is Captain Sorenson of the vessel
Junk,
requesting permission to come aboard."

The response was immediate and frightening. One of the green blobs burst up from the drifter's hull to enclose the tender and pull it down. Cap started to apply more power but Cy stopped him.

"Hold it, Cap! You asked for permission to come aboard, and that's what you got!"

Cap put the drive on standby and forced his hands away from the controls. Cy was right. Somehow the alien ship had understood and obeyed him.

Greenish light flooded the cabin. Cap looked at Cy. "What is it? Some sort of telepathy?"

Cy spun left and right as if shaking his head. "No, not in the normal sense anyhow, because the only time it reacts is when you use the comset. Unless you put your words into electronic form it can't understand."

Cap looked at the now blank view screens and shook his head in amazement. "Really? But how could it understand Terran?"

Cy bobbed slightly. "Beats me. Let's try something else. Pik will be worried. Tell him we're okay."

Cap touched a button and spoke into the comset. "Tender to
Junk,
don't worry, Lando, we're okay. You read me?"

Nothing but static.

Cy squirted himself forward. "The blob is blocking our signal. Now ask it to relay our signal and see what happens."

Cap activated the comset. "This is Captain Sorenson. Please relay the following signal to my ship. Tender to
Junk,
can you read me, Lando?"

Lando's voice boomed in over the comset. "Loud and clear, Cap… you gave us quite a scare. What the hell's going on?"

Cap was just coming to the end of his explanation when the blob disappeared. Cy was the first to notice. "Look, Cap! We're inside the ship!"

Cap looked up at the view screens and saw Cy was correct. The tender had come to rest in a large open area. There were things around them but only dimly seen.

"You still read me, Lando?"

"Crystal clear."

"Good. The blob thing pulled us inside the ship."

"How? We didn't see a hatch or anything."

"I don't know," Cap answered, "but we're here."

He glanced at the board. "Believe it or not my instruments show a breathable atmosphere. I'm going out for a look around."

"Be careful, Daddy!"

Sorenson felt a lump form in his throat. "Don't worry, Mel… I'll wear my suit just in case. I'll talk to you in a little bit."

Lando sat up straight. "Did you see that?"

"I sure did," Dee replied emphatically. "The drifter used one of those green blobs to move an asteroid."

"Well, to fend one off anyway," Lando suggested. "I'll bet it pushes them away on a regular basis. That's how it made the big open space."

"Sure," Dee agreed. "Now we know
how.
The question is
why.
"

The rain made a drumming noise on Cy's metal casing. Good thing he was waterproof. The rain, like the strange foliage to either side, seemed to confirm a complete self-maintaining biosphere.

Unlike humans and many other aliens, the drifter's architects preferred a natural environment. Natural for
them
that is. The lighter-than-Terran gravity, alien plants, and slightly humid air seemed strange to Cy.

The cyborg had traveled quite a ways by now. He'd seen deserts, grasslands, and even a miniature forest of double-trunked trees. Trees that seemed to have special significance.

Here and there, tucked away among the trees, Cy found dozens of nest beds. That's what he called them anyway and the name seemed to fit. They were depressions really, long indentations in the ground that were padded with spongy stuff and covered with brightly colored blankets.

What were they? Crew quarters? That's the way it seemed but Cy couldn't be sure.

There were plenty of paths, narrow winding affairs mostly, which served as highways for a variety of small animals. There were birds too, and small insects, but no sign of sentient beings.

Missing was any sign of the pipes, duct work, electric conduit, fiber optic cable, and other installations that characterized the interior of most ships.

At one point Cy had paused to scrape the mosslike growth from the inside of the hull. After extruding a sophisticated electrode, he found the hull material was not only conductive, but heavily laden with all sorts of electronic activity.

Somewhere aboard ship an extremely sophisticated artificial intelligence was using the hull to route electronic signals throughout the vessel. He couldn't prove it but thought power was distributed the same way.

Thanks to the special hull material the aliens had been able to dispense with the need for wire, cable, and conduit. It was wonderful, incredible, and absolutely beautiful.

In fact the more Cy saw, the more he knew the ship was a technological treasure trove, a turning point for any society that owned it. Assuming they could bring the ship out of the belt he and his crew mates would never have to work again.

Why then did he feel a hollowness in his nonexistent gut? A growing fear that things wouldn't be that simple? He pushed the feeling aside.

The biosphere came to an end and funneled itself into a sizable lock. From the high overhead and location of various fittings Cy deduced that its designers were most likely tall and skinny.

The ship seemed to sense Cy's presence and know exactly what to do. The lock cycled closed, then open. Cy came out to find himself floating in the middle of an engineer's dream.

Here were the technological underpinnings of everything he'd seen so far. Here were power plants that never broke down. Here were racks full of mysterious components, lights that signified things unknown, and a control area like none he'd seen before.

It consisted of ten black globes. Each globe sat on a white pedestal and helped make a perfect circle. From the chairs located directly in front of the globes Cy deduced they were positions of some kind.

Squirting himself over to the nearest position Cy extended a cautious pincer. Much to his surprise it went right through the globe's seemingly solid surface.

There was a brief moment of disorientation followed by the knowledge that he was somewhere else. Somewhere inside a bio-control system, sampling the ship's atmosphere, and balancing evaporation against rainfall.

Cy jerked his pincer back and the sensation was gone. Holy Sol! What a ship! You could climb inside the controls!

Cy raced to the next black globe, and the next, finding and identifying controls for the power plants, the green blobs, and the ship itself. Lando would love it! A ship he could fly from the inside out! Assuming they could figure things out, of course. Cy went to work.