Secret Histories 10: Dr. DOA (33 page)

“What’s holding that ladder in place?” Molly said dubiously.

“Looks to me like it’s been glued,” I said. “Maybe nothing else would take . . .”

“Glued? Are you kidding me?” Molly said loudly. “I’m not trusting myself to superglue!”

“It’s probably not any earthly glue,” I said.

“Is that supposed to reassure me?”

“Apparently not. Look, I’ll go first.”

“Damned right you will,” said Molly. “You’ve got armour. You’ll probably bounce.”

I climbed down the first few rungs, stopped, and bounced up and down a few times. “See? Perfectly safe.”

“This had better be worth it,” Molly growled. And scrambled down after me, light as a feather.

I went down two more levels, just to see if there was any difference, but it all appeared the same. Weird technology, disturbing sights, and enigmatic vistas. I looked over the edge again and couldn’t see any point in going farther. Just more and more levels, with no end in sight. And I didn’t want to get too far from the entry point, and our only way out. Molly peered into the depths.

“Do you suppose the engines are still down there? Somewhere?”

“I doubt even Black Heir has the expertise to safely remove an alien stardrive,” I said. “More likely it would sell the entire ship, after stripping it of everything it thought there was a market for, and then the engine would be part of the deal for the ship.”

“You sound like you’ve had some experience of this,” said Molly.

“My family has acquired its fair share of alien tech,” I said. “Our Armourers can’t invent everything we need. And we have to keep up with everyone else.”

I pulled armour out of my torc to make a face mask so I could use its augmented Sight to study the deepest parts of the ship. But something in the depths turned my gaze away, even when I tried infrared and ultraviolet. I sent the armour back into the torc. Molly punched my arm.

“Next time, give me some warning! That expressionless face freaks me out.”

“That’s sort of the point,” I said, rubbing my arm. “Any of your magics come back yet? Anything that might help?”

“No. Just a few tingles. I’ve been working it hard today. And stop asking me! You can’t hurry it. I’ll tell you when I’ve got something!”

“Don’t shout at me when I’m dying,” I said. “I feel very strongly that I should be excused shouting.”

“Okay,” said Molly. “You’re taking advantage now.”

We shared a smile.

I moved along the new level, looking closely at everything and keeping my hands to myself. Molly moved along with me, unusually quiet.

“There are gaps here,” she said finally. “In between the tech. What could make gaps like that?”

“Black Heir,” I said. “See the tool marks? Human tools. Things have been removed . . .”

“Salvage,” said Molly. “Buried treasure.”

“Black Heir’s people kept the existence of this ship to themselves,” I said, “because they didn’t want to share.”

“No wonder they didn’t want to sell the house.”

“But the Caretaker did talk about Black Heir being ready to blow it up . . . You think he knows about this?”

“He’s the Caretaker,” said Molly. “Who knows what he knows.”

We finally came to a row of tall transparent tubes, each one big enough to hold two or three people. It was full of a strange glow that seemed to swirl slowly, like a fog made of light. Looking directly at it was actually painful, but when I concentrated, I could just make out a dark form in each tube, half-concealed in the light. What I could see made me glad I couldn’t see more. They were all twice the size of anything human, ugly and distorted, without even a nod to human ideas of symmetry or aesthetics. Alien. Not of this earth. The fierce light seemed to curl protectively around the dark shapes.

“Damn,” said Molly. “Look at the teeth on that. Have you ever seen a species like this before? Aliens aren’t my field. I’ve always been more into demons.”

“I had noticed,” I said. “No, I’ve never seen anything like this. They look . . . seriously dangerous. But you never can tell, with aliens. Beauty is in the sense organs of the beholder.”

“Don’t get too close!” said Molly as I leaned in for a better look.

“It’s all right,” I said. “These are stasis tubes. To protect and preserve the bodies.”

“Bodies?” said Molly. “They’re dead? Are you sure?”

“I seem to feel it,” I said slowly. “Can’t you feel it?”

Molly shook her head uneasily. “Maybe.”

“Dead so long, they’re almost mummified, despite everything the tubes could do to preserve them,” I said. “The original crew. Killed in the crash, I would think.”

“Not by Black Heir?”

“No. The bodies have been here too long for that. The ship was here before the house.”

“So how did Black Heir’s people find out about the ship?” said Molly.

“Good question,” I said. “Someone must have told them. I’m going to have to talk to my family about this. It would appear someone has been keeping secrets from us, and we can’t have that. Secrets are our business, and we don’t like competitors.”

I knelt down to study the bottom of the tube. A ring of what might have been controls surrounded the base, but they were nothing I could understand.

“Careful, Eddie,” said Molly.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “It’s not like I could wake them up. They’ve been dead for a very long time.”

“I can’t believe I’m having to be the sensible one,” said Molly.

“You’ll get over it,” I said. I stood up again. “I think the crew members were in these tubes when the ship came down, to protect them, but there must have been a massive systems failure on impact. I don’t think they ever got to wake up. Those who weren’t killed outright by the crash just slept on until they died. And then the tubes preserved their bodies. They came all this way . . . just to die in their sleep without ever seeing where they’d arrived.”

“Is it possible your family does know about this ship?” Molly said carefully. “It oversees Black Heir; you said so yourself.”

“Maybe,” I said. “We have extensive files on all the alien species currently visiting this planet. More than you’d think. Aliens hang around the earth like winos outside a bar. And for much the same reasons . . . Just because I don’t recognise this particular species doesn’t mean no one in my family would. Specialist departments, remember? My family is responsible for overseeing most of the Pacts and Agreements that keep the various alien species from misbehaving while they’re here.”

“Hold it again,” said Molly. “Who set up these Pacts and Agreements in the first place?”

“The Organisation,” I said.

“Never heard of them,” said Molly.

“Not many have,” I said. “And that’s the way they like it. The Droods aren’t the only really secret agents. The point is, we’re supposed to be kept informed about all crash sites so we can keep an eye on them. Remember the group that Black Heir replaced, and what they got up to? If Black Heir’s people have been keeping all this to themselves, so they could be sure of exclusive salvage rights, they must have been pretty confident that no one else knew about it.”

A transparent tube slammed down from up above, so fast it seemed to just appear around Molly. Neither of us had time to react. Molly bounced off the inner wall, and then hammered on it with her fists, but she couldn’t break it. She spun round and round inside the tube, searching for weak spots, and then she dropped her hands and looked at me desperately. She raised her voice, and it came to me quite clearly.

“What is this, Eddie?”

“Black Heir must have left some security protocols in place here,” I said, trying hard to sound calm. “Something to protect its buried treasure from outsiders. We must have triggered it when we got too close to the tubes.”

“Well, why did it grab me and not you?”

“Because I’m a Drood.”

I got down on one knee and studied the controls round the base. They were the same as before, and they still didn’t make any sense.

“I don’t like to touch any of this, in case I make things worse,” I said finally.

“How could it be worse?” Molly said loudly. “I’m trapped in here! Just hit something!”

I tried everything, but nothing worked. The system was locked.

Molly swore flatly, and I looked up immediately. The swirling light I’d seen in the other tubes was rising slowly up inside Molly’s tube. It had already enveloped her ankles. She kicked out at the eerie glow, and her foot moved jerkily through it, as though encountering resistance. She cried out briefly, and I was quickly up on my feet again.

“Molly? Are you all right?”

“Eddie, my feet have gone numb. I can’t feel them. And the numbness is crawling up my legs, along with the light. Damn . . . I’m starting to feel tired. Drowsy.”

The tube was trying to preserve her. As it had failed to do with the alien crew. And there was no telling what effect the light would have on her human physiology. I armoured up, yelled for Molly to back away, and then hit the transparent wall with all my strength. My golden fist just skidded away, leaving the tube unmarked. I hit it again and again, putting all my strength into each blow, but I couldn’t even crack the material. I stood back again, breathing hard, and Molly looked at me with bleary eyes.

“Have you got anything on you that might help, Molly?” I said loudly.

It was clear she was being affected by the rising light. It was past her knees now, and still climbing. She patted vaguely at her sides with her hands, but couldn’t seem to make them work. As though she’d forgotten what they were, or what they were for. Her eyes kept closing, and she had to fight to force them open again.

I forced myself to be calm, so I could think. If my armour couldn’t do the job, what else did I have that might? The Armourer’s parting gifts. I reached through my armoured side and brought out the plastic boxes I’d been given. They looked very small in my golden palm. The neural inhibitor wasn’t any use, and neither was the truth inducer or the chemical nose. I put them back and searched through all my other pockets. And found a left-over portable door, from an old case. A simple black blob that could spread out to make an opening in anything. I slapped the black blob against the tube’s outer wall. If I could open up a hole big enough for Molly to step through . . . I let go of the blob and it just fell away, unable to get a hold on the alien material of the tube wall. I watched numbly as it fell to the floor.

Molly sank slowly to her knees, half disappearing into the swirling, rising light. She slumped forward against the tube, her face pressed against the inner wall. Her features were slack, her eyes closing. I knelt down facing her, and slammed my hands against the outside of the tube, desperate to get her attention.

“Molly!” I shouted. “The wristwatch! Remember the wristwatch the Armourer gave you! It’s a time compressor, speeding up the age of everything it touches . . . Molly! Put your watch against the tube and hit the damned button!”

She forced her eyes open, and looked at her left hand. She pressed the watch against the inner wall, and then her eyes closed again. I beat on the wall with both hands, shouting her name again and again. Her other hand rose slowly up out of the churning light, found the watch, and fumbled at it for an agonizingly long moment before she found the button, and held it down. Cracks immediately appeared in the tube wall, shooting off from her arm in all directions, splitting and branching. And still, the tube held. I stood up and hit the tube with all my armoured strength. The tube shattered into a hundred jagged pieces, and I reached in, grabbed Molly, and hauled her out of the wreckage.
The glowing light surged up, as though angry at being cheated of its prey. I backed quickly away, hugging Molly to me, and the light faded away and was gone, unable to maintain itself outside the tube.

I had to hold Molly up as her legs dangled uselessly. Her face rested against my golden chest, her eyes closed. I shook her hard, and said her name insistently until she frowned petulantly and tried to push me away with her weak arms.

“Leave me alone. I’m tired. Let me sleep.”

“We have to get out of here, Molly. Molly!” I armoured down so she could see my face. “Molly, please . . .”

Her eyes opened, and she looked at me for a long moment. “Eddie . . . ?”

She got her feet under her and stood up straight, shaking her head to clear it. I let go of her, ready to grab hold again if her strength appeared to be giving out. She looked back at the shattered tube, shuddered briefly, and then peered solemnly at her wristwatch.

“It seems . . . the new Armourer does good work.”

“Sometimes,” I said.

“Oh look; it’s stopped.”

“You can wind it later,” I said patiently. “We have to get out of here, Molly. God knows what other booby traps Black Heir might have put in place.”

“Bastards,” Molly said succinctly.

A painfully loud siren blasted into life, a sharp mechanical sound that went right through my head. Molly clapped both hands to her ears. The siren cut off, and then repeated itself briefly at regular intervals. Molly lowered her hands and glared about her.

“What the hell is that?”

“Sounds like a timer,” I said. “Oh hell, it’s a countdown. Remember what the Caretaker said, about Black Heir being ready to blow everything up? He meant the ship! Black Heir would rather see all of
this destroyed than risk it falling into someone else’s hands. Black Heir’s people always were dogs in the manger.”

“Have we got time to get out of here?” said Molly.

“What do you think?”

“Bastards! We have to find the bomb and shut it down!”

I looked around. The ship stretched away in every direction, back and forth and up and down. Miles and miles of alien tech, and the bomb could be anywhere.

“It can’t be part of the ship,” I said, “or it would have gone off when the ship crashed.”

“Not if it was an auto-destruct,” said Molly, “that the crew never got a chance to use.”

“So Black Heir found it and set its own timer in place so it could control it!” I said. “That means Earth technology, and I can track that!”

I armoured up again and concentrated. My senses are always sharper, clearer, when I’m in my armour. First, I tuned out the siren, and then I boosted my hearing, listening for the timer. And there it was, just three decks down. We were in with a chance. I yelled to Molly to follow me and ran for the nearest ladder. I scrambled down three levels and looked quickly about me. The Earth tech had been attached directly to the gleaming ship wall, sticking out like a sore thumb. I ran over to it and examined the simple mechanism at close range. Molly soon caught up, breathing hard.