Spindrift (39 page)

JANUARY 8, 2291—SPINDRIFT

W
hen the hatch closed behind him, Ramirez was caught by surprise. He'd just entered the airlock when Harker started to say something—“
Hey, get out of there, we need to…
”—yet as he turned to respond, he felt a sudden jolt…

And then the room began to fall.

The descent was so swift, so unexpected, that he lost his balance. Pitching forward, Ramirez barely had time to throw up his hands before he hit the floor. There was a red-hot jab in his left wrist; he yelped and rolled over on his side.

“
Jared!
” Harker's voice in his headset, fading with each passing moment. “
Jared, can you hear me?
”

“I hear you!” he yelled. “I'm going down!” Clutching his sprained wrist, he struggled to his knees. For the first time, he saw that the hatch had shut. Perhaps he'd tripped a hidden sensor, or maybe the weight of his body on the floor was the reason. Whatever the cause, the result was just the same.

“Ted!” he yelled. “Can you hear me?”

Nothing within his headset save for static. Yet the room was far from silent. He became aware of a low rumble that seemed to come from all around him. At the same time, it seemed as if he could see a little more clearly—within the metal walls, whorl-shaped patterns of light were slowly glowing to life—even as his faceplate began to fog over. As the rumble grew louder, he raised his right hand to his faceplate; his fingertips left transparent streaks across the surface.

The airlock also served as an elevator, pressurizing as it descended. And that wasn't all. Flecks of black dust began to rise from his overgarment; as if caught within a miniature dust devil, they spiraled upward toward the ceiling. Electrostatic scrubbers, just like those at Dolland. Whenever this thing finally came to a halt, his suit would be thoroughly decontaminated…

So when was the ride going to end? Ramirez climbed to his feet. The roar gradually subsided; as it did, his faceplate became clear, save for a few smudged fingerprints. The compartment was pressurized, yet he could still feel a vibration beneath the soles of his boots. He was still going down…but how much farther? And how deep had he descended already? A few hundred meters? A few thousand? He had no way of knowing.

Ramirez was a lifelong atheist. His adherence to religious beliefs ceased about the same time his mind's eye opened to the enormity of the universe; there was no way any deity could be responsible for everything science had demonstrated was the result of natural forces. Despite his disdain for the supernatural, though, he found himself praying:
Oh, God, please get me out of this one. I don't want to die down here alone…

And then the elevator stopped. Its arrival came as a quick, violent thump that threw him against the wall. He winced as pain shot through his left arm again. Nothing broken, but he'd need to see Jones once he returned to
Galileo
.

If
he returned, that is…but the abrupt halt seemed enough like an answered prayer that he was able to entertain such a notion, if only for a second.
All right, I'm down
, he thought.
Now let's see if I can get out of…

A hollow rasp from behind him. Turning around, Ramirez watched as the pie wedges of the airlock's aft hatch—forgotten until that moment—slowly retracted into their slots. Light from within the compartment fanned out across a tiled floor, dimly illuminating a wall about two meters away.

Ramirez took a deep breath. Then, having no other place left to go, he stepped into the unknown.

 

He found himself in a tunnel, black as a moonless night and seemingly without end. When he turned to the left, his helmet lamps revealed only a long, cylindrical passageway, apparently excavated from solid rock, that appeared to go on forever. Turning to the right, he saw much the same thing. A barrel ceiling rose a half meter above his head; like the walls, it was seg mented as a series of rings, with veinlike grooves forming horizontal patterns between them.

The darkness seemed to swallow the light from his helmet lamps. When he took a few steps, though, the grooves within the walls glowed to life, casting strange shadows across the floor. Looking down, he saw that it was comprised of a mosaic of randomly shaped plates, much like the ramp he'd descended from the outer hatch.

Ramirez realized that he could hear his own footfalls; apparently the tunnel was pressurized. He winced as he raised his left arm; after a minute of fumbling with the buttons on the wrist control unit, he managed to access the suit's atmospheric analysis system. Translucent figures appeared on his heads-up display, revealing the composition of the air around him. As he'd suspected, it was largely oxygen—why else would carbon dioxide be vented from Spindrift's interior?—but there was also a higher than normal concentration of nitrogen, along with trace amounts of argon, helium, and selenium. And the pressure was only 235.6 millibars, rarefied by Earth standards. He might be able to breathe…but only until decompression sickness killed him as surely as it would a deep-sea diver who had risen to surface too quickly. Best to leave his helmet shut.

Hearing a rasping sound, he looked around to see the hatch close behind him. Another faint rumble; he hoped the sound meant that the compartment was ascending. Perhaps Harker and Cruz had figured out how to operate the control panel that he'd unwisely ignored before venturing into the airlock. If so, it wouldn't be long before they came down to find him.

And if not…

He glanced at the heads-up again. A little more than six hours of air left in his suit. He'd either be rescued well before then, or he'd die down here alone, surrounded by an alien darkness. Despite his fear, Ramirez found himself vaguely amused by the prospect. If that happened, then at least he'd be following the footsteps of many great explorers.
Here lies the body of Jared Ramirez, discoverer of the first alien starship, only to perish in the name of science…

“Hell with
that
,” he muttered. Common sense dictated that he should wait for the others to come to the rescue, but he wasn't inclined simply to stand around like an idiot. The tunnel had to lead somewhere; if he was going to die in this place, then he might as well satisfy his own curiosity.

Since there seemed to be no difference between the ends of the tunnel, he chose to go to the left. Before he went that way, he opened the cargo pockets of his overgarment and rummaged through them until he found a lightstick and a socket-wrench set. He broke the lightstick and placed it on the floor directly in front of the hatch, then carefully arranged the wrench and two of its heads beside the stick so that they formed a crude arrow pointing in the direction he'd decided to take. Not only that, but the stick would also serve as a beacon to lead him back to his starting point.

“Better than bread crumbs,” he said aloud, trying to assuage his nerves. Then he ventured down the tunnel.

Although the floor was level, its uneven surface made walking difficult; several times, his toe caught the raised edge of a plate, causing him to stumble. Apparently this suited Spindrift's inhabitants, but it made the going tough for a biped like himself. He'd walked less than ten meters before he realized that the walls within his immediate vicinity were emitting a weak, blood-hued radiance. When he turned to look back, though, he saw the section of the tunnel he'd left behind had gone dark once again; only the soft glow of his lightstick was visible. Whoever had built Spindrift evidently kept energy conservation in mind…and yet, the newfound awareness that some mechanism existed that was capable of tracking his movements, footstep by footstep, sent a chill down his spine. One way or another, his intrusion had not gone unobserved.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” he said softly, turning to continue down the tunnel. “Marco…Polo. Marco…Polo…”

Silence, save for the soft hiss of his regulator, the dull tread of his boots upon the floor. Ramirez continued onward, moving his head back and forth so that the twin beams of his helmet lamps could sweep across the walls. Ring sections of the corridor lit up as he entered them, went dark again as soon as he passed through. As before, he was unable to discern an end to the tunnel; it seemed to stretch before him as a limitless passageway. Indeed, he had no idea in which direction he was…

“Stupid!” he said aloud, scolding himself. “Of course you do!” Ramirez stopped to check his heads-up once more. There, in the upper right corner of his visor: the translucent circle of the suit's direction finder, depicting the compass point in which he'd been heading. Its red arrow showed that he was going almost exactly due north.

Seeing this, everything began to make sense. The carbon dioxide emissions
Galileo
had detected from orbit all lay within a central line of longitude, stretching north to south. Since he now understood that one of those emissions came from a hatch leading underground, then it only stood to reason that this tunnel would lead to…

Another vent? That would be the most logical conclusion. Yet if that were so, then the next vent would be…how far away? A hundred and fifty kilometers. A long march, even for someone with four legs.

No. It only stood to reason that there had to be more there than merely a planetwide tunnel connecting one vent to another. They couldn't have been so lucky to have discovered, out of the eight vents
Galileo
mapped from orbit, the only one that also contained a hatch leading underground. Yet why hadn't he found anything else, at least within this immediate area? Perhaps if he'd gone south instead…

Stop second-guessing yourself
, he thought, shaking his head.
Go a little farther. If you don't find anything, you can always turn back. And besides, it wouldn't be a good idea to wander too far from the airlock. The others may arrive any minute.

Or so he hoped. For years, Ramirez had found himself anxious to rejoin the human race. Through all his life, he'd hoped to discover someone better than his own kind. And now that he was on the verge…

So he continued down the tunnel, periodically looking back to make sure that he hadn't lost sight of his beacon. The lightstick had become a dim glimmer in the distance when he noticed that the wall to his right had begun to slope outward. The section he'd just entered became illuminated; that was when he found another passageway, its entrance formed by a funnel-like mouth leading to another tunnel that branched off to the east.

Once again, he was struck by the almost organic design of the place. Save for the random-shaped plates of the floors and ramps, along with the pie-wedge segments of the hatches, he'd seen no right angles; everything else was rounded off and curved, almost biomimetic. He peered down the new passageway. It didn't seem to go very far; the beams of his helmet lamps settled upon its end, less than ten meters away, where another hatch was set within its wall.

Ramirez hesitated. In his haste to explore the tunnel, he hadn't checked his suit's pedometer. Looking back at the distant lightstick, he estimated that it was little more than a hundred meters from where he was standing. Surely Harker and Cruz would be able to find him if they followed his marker…but why take a chance? He broke open another stick, and within his pockets he found a suit-patch kit and a couple of spare batteries. He was reluctant to leave them behind, yet his curiosity was greater than his need to take precautions; he arranged them on the tunnel floor so that they pointed toward the branch, then he entered the new passageway.

Its walls began to glow as soon as he passed the intersection. Now he could see the hatch more clearly. Like the others before, it was cut into four wedges, each with their own finger-hole lockplates. On the wall to the right was a chevron-shaped panel, with four recessed buttons. Another airlock? That didn't make sense; why put a second one so close to the first?

The new hatch had to lead somewhere else entirely. He was fresh out of bread crumbs, though, and his luck was running thin. Nonetheless, he had to know where it went.

“If it's another airlock,” Ramirez murmured to himself, “you are not stepping inside.” As he'd done before, he pressed the two top buttons, then the two lower ones.

He wasn't surprised when the flanges slid open, again with the muted, unoiled grind of ancient machinery. This time, though, the ambient light from the walls caught dust motes escaping from the interior, suspended in the air for a moment before slowly settling to the floor. Positive air pressure, he realized. Like a vault door being opened for the first time in ages. Feeling his heart hammering within his chest, he stepped away from the panel. Despite his earlier caution, he found himself compelled to approach the door…

“
Jared! Do you copy?
”

Harker's voice within his headset. Ramirez closed his eyes. Despite the relief he felt at having been found, for a moment he was tempted not to respond. The mystery was no longer his and his alone.

“Roger,” he said, “loud and clear.” He tried to force some levity. “What took you so long?”