The Salvagers (21 page)

             
"Thanks! It's beautiful," I said, holding the pendant up and admiring its detail.

             
"It's not from me. The best I'd have given you is a checklist to make that bucket you command safer for space travel. I have a son living on that thing."

             
"The
Amaranth Sun
is not a bucket. It was a great ship of exploration before I acquired it. Do you know who owned that ship before me? Guiscard Van der Boort."

             
"The guy who was eaten by a shark?"

             
"Well, yes, but he's more famous for his exploration of the Kuiper Belt. He mapped something like thirty percent of the rocks out there. He discovered more minor planets than any other person in history, and he was the first to see the Eye of Minerva!"

             
"I just remember how he died. You've got my son on a ship formerly owned by a man who wasn't smart enough to get out of a tank full of sharks to eat a roast beef sandwich."

             
"He was a great marine biologist too!"

             
"And lazy. Really, just climb out of the tank to eat lunch," Janet jibed.

             
"You're hopeless. No sense of adventure or greatness."

             
"Oh, and I'm sitting on Earth right now knitting a sweater to send to my son."

             
"I didn't mean that," I said.

             
"I know you didn't. I've got to get back. Listen, take care of yourself here and return to your bucket as soon as you can. I don't like this facility. The military won't tell us anything about it. When I looked in the databases to investigate, all I found was that the damned place doesn't exist. The only thing that's supposed to be on this moon is the Propulsion Institute and a few peripheral science stations. I'd have never have found it if I hadn't triangulated its location from your transmission."

             
"That took work and foresight. I'm touched that you care."

             
"I don't want any interruptions in my alimony payments."

             
After Dr. Allison and Lyman left, loneliness returned. There was only one advantage to being in that room: I slept well. I must have slumbered for twelve hours that night. The odd thing was that I don't remember a single dream during my entire time on Titan, except that is for one. I remember standing on Titan with no suit; there was no wind or anything, just orange fog. In front of me I saw a black cloud vaguely forming into the shape of a man, but I somehow could tell that he was experiencing great difficulty in forming fully. When I popped half awake, it struck me as very profound and unnatural, but that feeling quickly faded as I awoke fully and dismissed it as just a very strange dream.

             
The next morning, when someone finally came to my quarters, it was Westmoreland. "Cam," he said without preamble, "we've got something."

             
I sat up in bed. "What?" I asked, still a little groggy.

             
"We know what the crystals are reacting to. It's the gravity here."

             
"Here?"

             
"Yes, there was no gravity on that derelict. But when we brought them here, they began to grow. Microscopically slow at first, but it's beginning to progress faster."

             
"Faster doesn't sound good. How fast?"

             
"Exponentially, and we think we have discovered why. The orbit of Titan is slightly elliptical like a squashed circle. At one point in its orbit it's further out from Saturn, but then it gets a little closer. We're halfway to the closest point. The added gravity of Titan and Saturn itself seems to be driving the crystals to grow."

             
"How? What's the mechanism?"

             
"We don't know. But one thing is clear: there could be some kind of critical mass involved. If the crystals multiply to become a certain amount, does the equation change? Does that allow the foothold to form? Or is there more to it? We just haven't got the answers yet."

             
"What makes you think there would be a critical mass?"

             
"They reached a certain point this morning while you were sleeping. It was a ratio: twice the size that they were before we brought them here. At that exact point, they began to emit blue light," he said.

             
"The same blue light as in the
Cape Hatteras
's
cargo hold?"

             
"Yes, but it's very weak. You can barely see it; however, it's getting steadily brighter. That's all we know, Cam. I'll keep you posted, but I may be able to bring you in to see them within a day or two."

             
"Do you think the crystals will shrink if we get them off this moon?"

             
"I don't know yet, but that may be important. There's something about these crystals, Cam. They hold some kind of key, but I don't know what that is. It's maddening. I can hardly stop studying them and leave them long enough to speak with you. I'll return for you in a day or two at most."

             
Westmoreland abruptly left. His words chilled me to the bone.

Chapter 25     Day 318

             
"December 24, 2259. Lieutenant Philip Marquez, Staff Mining Operations Specialist on the UNAG Vessel
Cape Hatteras
. The heaviness is unbearable. I can move only my arms. It is impossible to stand. The cavern is beginning to collapse around us. Gravity is so much stronger. We cannot move; there is no way out. Immediate rescue required. Captain Nelson, why won't you respond?"

              I received a cryptic message from Westmoreland at lunchtime the next day. I had just been sitting down to a chicken sandwich dropped off by a very untalkative Lyman. He didn't seem to know me. Shortly afterwards he came back and handed me a messenger pad. He was in a hurry to get away from me, apologizing by citing other pressing duties. I surmised that Westmoreland must have been tightly limiting contact with me.

             
"My assistant will bring you to Lab 24b in one hour. We think you'll be useful," the pad said in yellow electronic handwriting.

             
There was one recurrent pattern in my dealings with Westmoreland: being useful always meant being exposed to danger. He had mentioned having me try to talk to what I now thought of as the Dark Matter Beings, and I was prepared to do that, but I didn't like it. After all, the last thing they had said to me was that I was going to stop existing, though they had also suggested that I run. That didn't seem hostile on its face; it seemed more like a warning. But there is also such a thing as a dumb move, and trying to talk to them felt like one.

             
I didn't think I had any choice anyway. My quarters were effectively a prison cell. They let me have contact with my ships but not without supervision. They'd allow me go outside, but the hostile environment would eventually force me back into the fold. I could probably even have returned to my ships and left the Saturn system, except that there was a giant warship parked off the
Amaranth Sun
's
starboard bow, not to mention an anomaly that was still loose and ready to kill. I was trapped, and they knew it.

             
When the hour was up, no one had come for me. I waited another ten minutes before I decided to go out the door on my own. It was the first time I had tried to leave the room. I was surprised to find that it had been unlocked the whole time. In hindsight that's just the kind of thing Westmoreland would do: tell me I couldn't leave to cover himself, but then leave the door unlocked so I could meddle. I found no guards outside.

             
I tried the door across from mine. It was unmarked and also had no locks. As the door slid open, it revealed itself to be a storage room full of lab coats. Every one of them was marked "Dr. Lyman."

             
I walked down the hall and saw Westmoreland standing in the central hub. He seemed surprised and glanced at the clock on his pad, causing me to wonder whether he'd simply lost track of time. He motioned for me to sit down at the meeting table that occupied the center of the hub.

             
"Titan orbits just under once every fifteen days," he said. "We're nearing its closest point to Saturn. It's just a few hours away, and something else has happened. It's what I was afraid of, Cam. The crystals seem to have reached the critical mass I spoke of, and we are no longer seeing just the blue radiation. We're also seeing footholds."

             
"Footholds! How many?" I was thinking I might be ready to take that skimmerloon trip and get out of the laboratory for a while.

             
"Thousands, but they're very tiny. They can only be observed with the aid of an imaging scanner. The largest one we've seen was about a tenth of a millimeter. They don't seem to be dangerous at that size."

             
He showed me a series of microscope images on a pad. The anomalies all appeared identical to the full-sized model that destroyed the warship.

             
"For now they're confined inside the crystals. We're not certain why. There isn't any reason we can think of that would restrict them to anything specific. It seems to be that crystalline matter contains them, at least until they have enough available energy to escape. Or they may require a catalyst."

             
"Is that why the engineering section of the
Cape Hatteras
was flooded with water so that it would freeze into ice and hold the anomaly?"

             
"Very perceptive. Yes. The expedition hoped that confining the anomaly inside ice might keep it bottled up indefinitely and possibly even weaken it. We think it did, at least to some extent, but there seem be other phenomena involved. We think that whatever is on the other side can communicate through the gateway, even if it is confined. That's how it put you to sleep and affected your dreams."

             
That seemed to make sense. The anomaly didn't kill Roberts until we'd melted the ice, but it was affecting Sanjay and me well before then.

             
"So how does the anomaly gather energy and escape?" I asked.

             
"We're not certain yet. With the microscopic rings appearing, we think that whatever was speaking to you might be able to do it again now. That must be how they established contact with Nelson—by somehow manipulating the gravity of 974-Bernhard to increase the power and size of the crystals he had on the
Cape Hatteras
."

             
"How do you increase the gravity of an asteroid without adding more rock to make it bigger?"

             
"That's not the only way you can do it. All you have to do is to add something else that possesses gravity. Add dark matter to the asteroid, and you will increase its gravitational pull."

             
"Well, when do I try to speak to them? I'll talk to the crystals all day long, but that doesn't mean they'll answer."

             
"We should start now, but I want you to know that the risk is very high. We don't have a good understanding of this."

             
"You were never worried about the risks to me before. I must be very special now. You can't find anyone else that the crystals will talk to, can you?"

             
"It's shown no reaction to anyone except you."

             
Westmoreland led me to Lab 24b. It was set up much like the one we'd visited when I first arrived, but the equipment was powered up. Dr. Lyman was in the room working with what appeared to be some kind of a fusion reactor connected to a chamber. I guessed that it was some kind of attempt to contain a ring with other kinds of energy, but I wasn't certain I'd want to bet on its working. On the far table were the crystals. They were easily ten times the size they were when I last saw them, and the blue radiation was unmistakably bright.

             
Westmoreland motioned for Lyman to leave the room.

             
"Doctor," I asked, "why is there a room full of lab coats with Lyman's name on them?"

             
"Let's just say that the Propulsion Institute's belief that there are only two
people
at this station isn't entirely inaccurate. But now to the matter at hand. Walk toward the crystals, and let's see how they react."

             
When I walked nearer to the crystals, they instantly flared. The blue radiation rose in intensity until it was so bright that it became difficult to look at. The heightened glow was followed by some kind of reaction that caused sparks to emanate from most of the machinery in the room.

             
"Step back!" Westmoreland yelled, and I quickly did.

             
The crystals dimmed somewhat, but not quite to their former level. They had gained some kind of energy from me.

             
"Well, Captain Hunter, it seems they still like you."

             
"Should I speak to them?"

             
"Might as well try."

             
"Greetings from Earth!" I yelled from across the room, waiting for a response. There was none.

             
"Try again," Westmoreland suggested.

             
"Earth sends a friendly hello to the dark-matter universe." The crystals still seemed unimpressed.

             
"I don't think this is working, Doctor. Those things looked as though they were going to explode when I got close to them."

             
"Stay here for a while in the hub. I want to take more readings before we try anything else."

             
I waited at the conference table for what seemed like most of the rest of the day. A strong feeling of anticipation had filled me and made the time pass slowly. In reality it was barely past four in the afternoon when Westmoreland reappeared. He was holding a sample of the crystal.

             
"Cam, I want you to stand at the other end of the hub."

             
I stood up and walked to the far wall. He approached me slowly. The closer he got, the brighter the crystal became.

             
"We think this sample is still well below the critical mass," he said as he drew closer.

             
"Be ready to throw that thing across the room if this goes badly," I said. I’ll admit that I was frightened out of my wits.

             
As Westmoreland inched closer, the crystal grew brighter and brighter. When he got about three feet from me, the blue glow began to detach from the crystal and form a weak transparent ring around the rock. There was no black hole as with the full-power anomaly, but I could sense that it was getting close to breaking through. Westmoreland slowly handed the crystal to me. I held it in my palm, which became encircled by the blue light. My hand felt as though it were being lightly shocked with waves of electricity.

             
"Cam, this small crystal is growing as we speak. I believe the main group in the lab will achieve the critical mass needed to open the foothold within a few days. But there's a mystery: unless they've shrunk over the years, the mass in that room is much larger than it was on the
Cape Hatteras
. And there's something else. You are the catalyst. But now the question is why they are responsive to you and not me. You've got some kind of connection to them that I can't explain. I'd like to try the lab experiment again," he said as I set the crystal on the conference table.

             
"Do you have a working theory on how gravity is making them grow?"

             
"I do. I think the presence of gravity is allowing a molecule to form that incorporates not only normal matter but dark matter as well. Think of it as a hybrid molecule. It's a normal crystal here, but it has a counterpart in their universe that creates a molecule existing in both universes at once. The growth derives from more and more dark matter attaching itself to the crystal lattice in a organized way. We think it's robbing the table and the air of the atomic building blocks it needs to grow in our universe. It's consuming the table. But we don't know why certain people would be the catalyst for the energy release. Why they needed you or Nelson, and killed all the others, is very unclear."

             
We stepped into the lab again, and I started walking closer to the mass of crystals. They hadn't lost their accumulated glow; they were still blindingly bright.

             
"The energy hasn't dropped, has it, Doctor?"

             
"No. It appears to be cumulative. The more they are around you, the more energy they build, and then they seem to retain it, at least for a while."

             
I moved closer in baby steps. I was within five feet of them when I began to feel the same strange sense of intoxication that I had felt on the warship and the
Cape Hatteras
. My vision seemed to have multiple blind spots; my sense of direction went awry; and I felt very sleepy. I fell forward as I lapsed into semi-consciousness, inadvertently getting closer to the crystals very quickly. They blazed momentarily, and I could see the the weak version of the ring flare out, the center darkening and expanding fast like molasses poured on a table. It was opening, I thought, prompting me to stagger to the other side of the room.

             
"Cam, get out! You need to leave the station!" Westmoreland screamed. I struggled to focus on opening the door. I looked back to see whether he was following me, but he wasn't. Instead, he was walking toward the crystal mass.

             
"Westmoreland! We've got to get out of here,"I shouted.

             
"I've got to save them, Cam. They’re important!"

             
"Don't do it! Come on," I yelled.

             
I watched Westmoreland approach the anomaly. His body contorted and then slowly disintegrated as he was drawn into the vortex. Soon all that was left was the anomaly floating in the center of the room and sucking everything into it. Even the mass of crystals was being dragged slowly toward it.