Event Horizon (Hellgate) (102 page)

“Organic, isn’t it?” Dario murmured. “It reminds you of the way memory is stored holographically in their AIs, don’t you think, Mark?”

“It does. It’s … beautiful,” Mark said slowly. “It’s as if the interior wasn’t designed but just
happened
, spontaneously.”

“But there’s no pattern to any of it.” Travers’s right gauntlet indicated a section of the graphic that seemed as random as the scatter of pebbles on a beach. “How do they find their way around, through 2500 cubic
kilometers
of this?”

“You mean, humans couldn’t find their way,” Jazinsky cautioned. “Welcome to their world, Neil. We knew they’d be different. Their minds are … alien. Surprise.”

“Echo location?” Vidal suggested. “Maybe the patterns of these chambers and vessels give off different sound signatures. They might ‘see’ the returning sound-picture in a hundred different shades or pseudo-colors. If they’re sensitive enough, they might be able to perceive signals right into the lower radio bands.”

“Or scent location,” Marin added. “Like wolves tracking prey, they follow a spoor – or the way ants follow pheromone trails.”

“Alien.” Rusch’s voice was hushed. “Humans and Resalq turn out to be more similar than we realized. We both see with eyes, hear with eardrums, breathe with lungs – respire the same gases, need the same basic nutrition. Damnit, Harrison … I’m not so sure you can even communicate with these people. ‘Talk’ will certainly be the wrong word, even if we can figure out how to exchange coherent information.”

He turned back from the flatscreen where he had been reviewing a chemical analysis of the internal environment. “I’m sure of nothing, Lex, except that we have to try. I came here wondering if I could stop an all-out war, avoid having to wreak havoc, perhaps
eliminate
a great many sentient beings in order to win survival for our kind, our worlds. I was ready for a fight, face to face, looking down the barrel of a gun! The truth is, I was ready for a legal argument – to be told
why
we’re so evil, extermination is too good for us. I’ve been framing answering arguments, making cases, since we launched out of Hellgate. But this …” He sighed over the comm. “There’s no way to talk, and we haven’t – yet – seen a creature to talk to.”

Mark stirred restlessly. “Lai’a, we need an entry point. Can you locate the computer core?”

“I can make informed speculation,” it warned.

“Best guess,” Shapiro invited. “Get us as close as you can to the core. I don’t suppose you’ve seen anything remotely resembling a docking port, a hangar, a hatchway?”

“Nothing, General.” Lai’a paused. “The liquid inside the platform is very pure by comparison with that outside, though levels of calcium, sodium, silicone, carbon, copper, magnesium and sulphur are far higher than would be tolerable to Resalq or humans. Visibility will be good. Chemical signatures throughout the platform suggest it is illuminated via bioluminescence. It will be lit, but not bright. Carrying lights suitable to Resalq and human vision will be advisable.

“Temperatures across the interior range from 3
^o
C to 17
^o
C; pressures are comparable to water at the 50 meter depth. Life forms abound within, many static – plants with a biomass equivalent to trees such as elm or Jupiter spruce, and which are almost certainly used to cycle and refresh the aqueous environment to support the animal forms.

“Discrete machinery is in operation across the platform; heat blooms suggest generators; pulse signatures suggest convection fans and pumps. However, a small fraction of such machinery is operating, by comparison with what I would have predicted as necessary to maintain this environment. It is likely the water-filtering ‘trees’ and bioluminescent lights have replaced machinery which has ceased to function.

“The platform is entirely pressurized – I will take care to cause no change in this pressure while intruding a docking tube into the likeliest point of entry. Drones will cap the aperture upon your exit, leaving a valve to permit traffic in both directions, pending your return.

“I can detect no evidence of automata coming online,” Lai’a finished. “However, I recommend a backup of gundrones.”

“How far to the computer core?” Shapiro wondered.

“If my speculation is correct,” Lai’a said in a musing tone, “just less than 1500 meters. I have charted the most direct route; your nav feed will be updated. Much of the machinery in operation across the platform functions within sealed chambers, which you must detour around. Some chambers enclose vacuum; others are filled with inert gases at ambient pressures. Take extreme care when investigating machinery. Malfunction will surely result from the flooding of vessels which must remain dry. The viability of the whole platform could be compromised. I am deploying drones to extend a docking tube, and cutting has commenced on the Zunshu hull.”

Mark’s voice cracked like a whip. “Reaction? They
have
to know we’re cutting though! The AI –?”

“No reaction, Doctor,” Lai’a told him, “which is curious indeed. As I have reported before, the AI appears to be dormant, save for periods of activity measuring between 0.5 seconds to 2.5 seconds.”

“Hiding,” Travers whispered.

“Or intermittent,” Dario added. “Malfunctioning.” He took a sharp breath. “What chance, Lai’a, their AI is just … on the fritz?”

“Information remains insufficient to speculate, Doctor,” Lai’a said, “though malfunction is far from impossible.”

“Life forms,” Marin wondered. “This is the Zunshu home? Then they’re
in
there! They have to know we’re here – they
must
know we’re cutting a way in! Where are they?”

“You mean, why aren’t they targeting us with every cannon they can bring to bear?” Shapiro rasped.

“Life forms abound,” Lai’a repeated. “Harmonics from the cutting equipment are carrying clearly through the liquid environment. Our presence is no secret, and an estimated five thousand life forms are rapidly exiting the immediate area.”

“Running away?” Travers demanded.

“As in, women and children first … or vulnerable domestics and juveniles, or whatever the local equivalent is.” Vidal was watching a thermoscan where colored swatches, looking almost like amoeba, raced through the graphical plot of the platform. “But … you see this, Harrison? If we’re watching the civilian population taking off fast – and that’s predictable – the guard ought to be forming up to protect the retreat, yes?”

Shapiro made doubtful noises. “In human understanding, yes. But nothing here is familiar.” He watched the thermal image for several moments. “They’re leaving no one behind.”

“Doesn’t mean we won’t walk into a regiment of automata,” Travers warned.

“They ought to be activating right now.” Dario was running the thermal data again, in greater detail. “Automata are machines with a big, fat power cell sitting in the chest cavity. They run
hot
, at least equivalent to human body temperature. We’d be seeing heat signatures if they were there.”

“There’s … nothing,” Marin said, at risk of redundancy, and shivered. “This is too weird. Mark, you have the feeling we’re walking into a very big, very nasty trap?”

“I don’t know.” Mark hesitated. “If they were inclined to suicide to take us with them, with some kind of doomsday bomb, they’d have done it as soon as we started to cut our way in. Why would you wait, and put your civilians through fear, horror, panic, when the end’s always going to be the same? You wouldn’t. So …”

“So they run away,” Travers said slowly. “All of them.”

“Hiding – like the AI.” Rusch made a sound of pure frustration. “They’re not going to talk, Harrison. And I don’t think they’re going to fight – they did that in orbit, and on the edge of the system. They gave us a whipping that cost us two lives and two grievously injured, punched holes in Lai’a and took our ordnance down to critical levels. If we’d arrived in this system with any ordinary ship, they’d have reduced us to scrap metal.
That
was the fight. This? There’s nothing here but people – and I use the term loosely! – who just pick up and run, like a disorganized civilian population full of the young, the old, the infirm. No automata. No defenses.” She paused. “Help me here – is anyone making sense of this? There’s no rhyme or reason in
anything
we’re seeing.”

“Unless,” Travers said grimly, “the Zunshu left this planet.”

But Mark made negative gestures. “They wouldn’t abandon it and then leave it defended like the jewel in the crown. As Lex said, we paid dearly to get through those defenses. No, Neil – she’s quite right, nothing we’re seeing makes sense. But you can be sure, this
is
the Zunshu home. They might be elsewhere too, on a hundred other colony worlds, but this is
home
. The extravagant defense zones tell us so.”

“And we can pinpoint the colonies,” Shapiro added, “when we interrogate the AI. We might have to track the Zunshu from system to system, but do I believe we’ve seen the worst they can throw at us. How long till the boarding tube is established, Lai’a?”

“Ten minutes,” Lai’a estimated. “Please enter the jump bay at your earliest convenience. It will be flooded to match pressure, temperature and salinity factors native to the platform interior.”

As it spoke, Fargo and Fujioka, Rabelais and Queneau appeared. As Travers and Marin, Vidal and Shapiro, Kulich and the Sherratts stepped out to make space in the confines of the physics lab, they took station. In the chemistry lab opposite, Leon and Roy, Rodman, Inosanto and Perlman gathered to watch the threedee. Grant would be monitoring the datastream from the Infirmary, and if Hubler was half coherent by now, he might be watching.

Jon Kim should have been there, touching gloves with Shapiro as he passed by. Tonio Teniko should have been standing back in the shadows, watching Vaurien with those hot, dark eyes. Marin felt their absence keenly, and knew Travers did also, since Neil asked,

“Lai’a, how’s Richard doing?”

“Neural grafting has commenced,” Lai’a told him. “Bone welding is complete. Edema in the limbs is under nano dispersal. Captain Vaurien is in deep shock. Cardiac and pulmonary function are severely irregular. Hepatic and renal function appear compromised. Doctor Grant is assisting, and
nanotherapy
is under design. Adequate brain chemistry has been restored. Captain Vaurien remains on pervasive life support pending corrective procedures; a cryogen tank is on standby.”

“I had to ask,” Travers muttered.

“If you hadn’t, I would have,” Jazinsky said in a rasping voice as the service lift went down fast.

The jump bay was opposite armoury. Travers and Vidal had already been down here, setting out the full weapons array, and Dario swore as he saw the ordnance they would load into the receivers and mounts on each hardsuit. He and his
equero
had never been soldiers – neither had Jazinsky, but she had served long enough with a commercial salvage crew to be no stranger to the hardware. To Travers, Marin, Vidal and Shapiro, it was all grimly familiar. Six gundrones – the size of oil barrels, roughly spherical, gunmetal blue, armored and armed more heavily than any of the suits –idled between the armory and the jump bay.

“You may take station in the jump bay at your convenience,” Lai’a said over the quiet loop. “The entry point is secured; the boarding tube is in place. I detect no response from the occupants of the platform.”

Shapiro was clipping a small Chiyoda rotary to his forearm. Three pulse weapons were already mounted on his left shoulder, and a maglev-fed grenade projector on the right forearm. “Life signs in proximity to the boarding tube?”

“Many plants; many small creatures. No life readings corresponding to defense formations or ambushes.” Lai’a paused. “The AI has activated … and shut down again. Time online: 1.9 seconds.”

“Fluttering,” Dario growled as he finished with his weapons. “On and offline – intermittent. Damnit, I need Tor.”

“Not yet having Tor,” Midani Kulich said with bleak determination, “having me, getting good deal … me had became soldier.
I
became. In days of war, Resalq and Zunshu. I was being good fighter.”

“Very good fighter,” Dario sighed. “I remember Kjorin, when we opened the stasis chamber and you and Emil came tumbling out.” He had checked every weapon, and swore lividly. “All right, Mark – let’s just get this
done
.”