The Forever Hero (11 page)

Fluorescent lines on the clay marked the landing area.

Gerswin lined up the cargo skitter, sluggish with the weight of the technical team stuffed into the passenger section and with the effect of the higher altitude, on the rough square between the hills and below the target mountain.

As the nose came up, he began twisting more and more power to the thrusters, bleeding off airspeed as the skitter wallowed downward. Theoretically, the skitter had more than enough power, but the currents swirling around the hills to the north and south of the landing site had left him the choice of an approach into the wind—with the mountain blocking any wave-off—or with the downwind approach with a steeper descent angle, but room for error. Gerswin had chosen the downwind approach. At least that way he could break it off without plowing into the mountains.

He didn't expect any ground cushion, and there wasn't any as the skitter mushed down and thumped onto the ever-present purpled
clay well within the landing box that had been outlined by the advance team.

“Perdry!” he called. “Too much gusting here. Make them sit tight until I fold the blades and shut down.”

The pilot knew the major would complain, at least to himself, but the last thing Gerswin wanted was some eager beaver tech, running out after the greatest find of the old technology, getting himself bisected by a rotor caught in the uneven gusts.

His fingers moved through the retraction sequence quickly but evenly.

“Blade retraction complete,” he announced. “Clear to disembark.”

As Perdry let down the ramp, Gerswin methodically continued through the shutdown checklist, matching his actions against the lightlist on the console.

By the time he had secured the cockpit, the entire technical team had disappeared over the rise, and he and Perdry were left with the skitter. The cargo, except for a few light cases, also remained, untouched.

Gerswin frowned. Was there any reason why he couldn't see what all the enthusiasm was about?

“Perdry?”

“Yes, Lieutenant?”

“I'm going to walk up there and take a look. When I come back, you can. Think one of us ought to stay with the bird.”

“Fine with me, Lieutenant. They're going to be here awhile. A long while. Besides, I saw it.”

“Why do you think they'll be here awhile?”

“They left all their gear just to take a look. And what they're looking at isn't an easy orbit break.”

Gerswin inclined his head quizzically.

“Big doors, like huge portals into the mountainside. They're carving away the lock with the lasers, but so far nothing touches the metal. Never will, I'll bet.”

Gerswin closed the canopy, swung himself down from the high steps in the fusilage, and jumped the last meter to the hard clay.

“See you later, Lieutenant,” called Perdry. His long legs dangled from the side of the ramp where he sat staring up at the few patches of grass between the rocks, mostly on the higher parts of the hillside that was mainly red sandstone.

Gerswin took the pathway toward the ridgetop nearly at a trot, ab
sently noting the lack of grubushes and the signs of coyotes or rats, and wondering why. Grubushes and rats existed in the worst of areas. But he did not smell a high level of landpoisons.

At the top of the ridge, he stopped and looked. Scarcely fifty meters below, the technical team was gathered around a portable screen. Fifty meters beyond them—

Massive! That was the first word for the metal portals that hulked above the chunks of fused stone that had already been carved away from the black metal. With the darkness of the metal that reflected no light, they could have been the proverbial Gates to Hades, looming as they did out of the mountainside that rose another thousand meters above them.

As he began down the gentle slope, a number of incongruities stood out.

For one, the stone chunks that had been carved away by the Imperial tech team's lasers were the same glassy texture all the way through. Second, the last thirty meters before the gates were not clay, but the same blackish and glossy stone that had been carved from the area surrounding the gates. Third, the gates were sealed, not merely closed. Two half-meter wide black metal beams, seamless, crossed the entire front of the gates, including the thin line that marked the break between the two.

Gerswin moved silently downward until he could hear the discussion, but not so closely that he seemed to be eavesdropping. Only the first set of Imperial physicians had noted, right after his initial capture, his exceptional hearing and actual reflex speed, and he had done his best since to insure that both were overlooked. Recent examinations indicated only very good physical abilities.

“….some sort of nuclear bonding. Anything that could break the bond would probably destroy most of this mountain range.”

“Why not bring in an accelerator?”

“Darden, do you happen to have one stashed in orbit? Or do you have the fifty million creds it would take to get one here and assemble it?”

“So a frontal approach can't work.”

“Why don't we bore parallel until there isn't any shielding and come in from the side?”

“Do you have any guarantee that they didn't surround the entire complex with that black metal shielding?”

“Look at it. It had to be added later. Along with the beams. It's just plated over everything, even over the joint between the two
doors. There's no break at all. Besides, if they could have shielded the whole thing with a nuclear bond, why build it under a mountain?”

“Any other ideas?”

The conversation lapsed for a moment, except for a few mumbles Gerswin could not hear clearly enough to understand.

“Then we'll try Peelsley's idea. Take the number one laser bore and probe the sides. Take the most promising, and see if we can find a weak spot.”

Gerswin watched as the cart was wheeled up to the rock next to the right-hand door and connected to the pulse accumulators, which were, in turn, connected to the portable generator.

The pilot shrugged and walked back to the skitter.

Perdry was still propped against the frame of the open ramp door, legs dangling down. He was eating from a ration pack.

“Got another pack here, Lieutenant. Want some?”

“Wouldn't mind at all. Techs have their own.”

The crewman leaned back to reach behind himself and brought forward the square pack. Field issue, cold but edible, and about half protein, half carbohydrate.

Gerswin found himself wolfing the ration, metallic overtaste and all.

“Lieutenant?”

“Ummmm.” Gerswin had to swallow before he could answer.

“What are those things?”

“Don't know. Look like the Gates to Hades. Expect there's a lot hidden here on Old Earth, if you knew where to look.”

“Is it true that they could do things that the Empire still hasn't figured out?”

“Could be,” the pilot mumbled while gulping down the last of the cakebread. “There's a sphere in the weapons museum at the Academy that hasn't been broken with any weapon or tool short of a tachead.

“Maybe not that. Nobody's tried. Say it was pre-Federation, Old Earth make, just before the collapse. About the size of a ball.” He sketched a circle in the air with his right hand. “Weighs nearly as much as a corvette. Mass? Who knows? Doesn't seem to follow the laws we know. Takes special supports.”

“Old Earth built it?”

“Who knows?” Gerswin shrugged. “It was found on an Old Earth installation, somewhere…”

Perdry tucked his legs up and braced them on the ramp edge.

“Could we build doors like those in the mountain?”

“Doors wouldn't be a problem,” he answered deliberately, recalling the conversation he had overheard, “but the black metal they sealed them with…I don't think so.”

“If they could do that, why did they let everything fall apart?”

Good question, thought Gerswin the devilkid. “Have to feed people, and something went wrong. Not enough food, not enough power, not enough time. Riots, fighting, starvation…”

“So we really don't know?”

“Not really.”

Gerswin crumpled the recyclable container and put it into the bin built into the cargo door. Ducking back out, he stepped onto the ramp and stretched.

“Think I'll go back and see how they're doing. Unless you want to.”

“No thanks, Lieutenant. Those big portals freeze me cold. Take your time.”

Gerswin dropped off the cargo ramp and began the trek back up the hillside.

By the time Gerswin reached the technical team, the laser had disappeared into the deepening bore. Still visible were the two techs in self-contained suits.

A light rain of vaporized rock was dropping onto the clay/rock apron outside the tunnel, while the other techs and officers clustered around the portable screen.

Gerswin caught a motion out of the corner of his eye and drop-turned, but recovered when he realized it was one of the three sentries on the surrounding ridgetops.

A single tech, hands on hips, stood several paces away from the group that monopolized the planning screen. Gerswin forced himself to amble up slowly.

“How does it look?”

“It may take a while longer, Lieutenant. They slapped that black stuff and the beams over the whole thing. Then they covered it with rock and fused the rock solid. It looks like they did it to guard a tunnel into the mountain. They had to have done it in a hurry. The laser should get past the shielding before long. I'll bet it's less then five meters back.”

Gerswin nodded, then asked, “Have you ever seen anything like this before?”

“No. I don't think anyone else has, either, if you can believe how excited the commander was. He sent off a message torp as soon as we
got a good cube of the exterior. I'll bet he shows up as soon as we can get inside.”

The pilot shook his head slowly, hoping the commander and commandant did not arrive with another complete entourage.

“You're right, Lieutenant. You're right.”

While Gerswin wasn't exactly sure what he was right about, he decided to stay close to the tech, since the commander, assuming that distinguished officer did arrive, might not question anyone presumed with the technical party, but might well instruct Gerswin to stay with the skitter if he went back to the landing area.

The tech shivered in the rising chill of the afternoon wind, drawing his jacket tighter as the light dimmed.

Overhead the swirling gray clouds seemed a shade darker than usual, but Gerswin had already checked the meteorological situation. There were no landspouts in the area. Even had there been, few if any went beyond the first line of hills, and the gates were well beyond the first foothills.

The area seemed strangely quiet, and Gerswin and the tech looked up. The rain of recongealed stone had stopped, as had the hissing of the laser.

The pilot and the technician watched as the laser and the accumulator cart slowly backed from the tunnel bore, guided by the two suited techs.

The shorter suited figure, whose gray shiny suit did nothing to conceal her physical endowments, raised a clenched fist overhead and shook it.

“I guess the commander will miss the opening of the show, Lieutenant. Why don't you come along?”

The man grinned.

Gerswin repressed his own grin.

“I'd like to, thank you.”

“It will be a bit, until the tunnel cools and we're sure there's decent air inside. They'll have to check for background radiation inside as well.”

“Background radiation?”

“You couldn't prove it by me, but the only way I know to get the front of a mountain turned into solid glass is with a nuclear device.”

“But there's no radiation outside, is there?”

“No. That just means they used a clean burst.”

Gerswin took the time surveying the hillside, the clouds, and the massive gates themselves, still standing there in unshining black, as if
Old Earth's ancients had been led to Hades and the gates barred behind them.

The gray of the clouds lightened and the wind dropped to a mere breeze.

Another equipment cart was trundled into the laser bore, where it remained for a time before being withdrawn. Another data bloc was taken from the cart and inserted into the portable screen console.

Whatever the results, they appeared satisfactory, from what Gerswin could see from all the heads nodding.

Major Hylton, the tall officer directing the operation, led the first group into the laser bore, less than two meters high.

The technician nodded at Gerswin, and the two trooped with the second group, just a few meters behind the major. Nearly half the party had to stoop.

After roughly eight meters, the tunnel veered to the left and broke into a dimly lit space. One by one, the officers and technicians, and, finally, the former devilkid, stepped through the ragged opening into a larger passage ten meters wide and more than five meters high.

Twin strips of glowing panels built flush into the ceiling lit the unadorned passage, unless the light blue, fist-sized, square tiles which walled the sides of the corridor could be considered decoration.

Looking to the left, Gerswin could see only a set of three meter high doors, black metal finished and also apparently welded shut. There was no indication of the giant gates which stood on the far side.

He turned back and looked at the corridor before the party.

The passage sloped downward gradually for another fifty meters to end in still another set of doors. The massive endurasteel doors, each three meters high and two meters wide, hung open, sitting intact on twin hinges each longer than Gerswin's arm.

The pilot sniffed. The air had but the slightest tinge of age to it, and Gerswin could feel the hint of a breeze coming from the open doors.

“Why didn't they lock those as well?” asked Major Hylton.

“Maybe they figured anyone who could break the exterior bonds could break these as well.”