The Shadow and Night (54 page)

Vero turned to the captain. “I suppose the message is, well—authentic?”

“Authentic? That's an odd way of putting it. Charlie?” The captain turned stiffly to Officer Frand who gestured his bewilderment with a shrug and an opening of his hands.

“Captain, gentlemen,” he said, “all I can say is that it came in just now by one of the backup communications links. One of the old laser systems. Out to the Gate Station and then bounced on to us. It's hard to verify. I mean, we take these things on trust. But—” He turned a perplexed gaze to the captain. “Why wouldn't it be authentic?”

“Don't ask me, Charlie.” She looked bewildered. “Why are these men not Sabourin and Diekens? This is beyond me. But it looked and sounded like Captain Lewitz to me.”

“Two minutes to burn-point, Captain,” came a quiet voice from the console to the right. Merral glanced at the wallscreen to see that they were now nearly face-on to the hexagon and that in the bottom right corner, one set of digits had just counted down below 120.

“Helm Officer,” the captain responded crisply, “proceed as scheduled.”

Then her brown eyes turned back to Vero and Merral, shifting from one to the other in careful scrutiny. “Naturally, I immediately tried to contact her. I also instigated a check on the Gate and have asked Gate Control for a full update.”

With a quick gesture of a finger she summoned a slight young man with cropped brown hair from a console at a lower level. He bounded up energetically toward them with an active datasheet in his hand. Then she lifted an inquiring eyebrow at Officer Frand, who had been checking an adjacent console screen with another officer.

“Captain,” Frand said, “still no response from her diary. It's apparently switched off. But it's the Lord's Day and meeting time, so there's no surprise there.”

“Yes. Except if she did try and call us.” Captain Bennett turned her troubled face to the man who had just arrived. Merral noticed a neat yellow hexagon badge on his blue overalls.

“Gateman Lessis,” Captain Bennett said in an urgent way. “review the Gate systems. In view of this message.”

The Gateman turned to her, his back straight. “Captain, I report that the Gate seems normal.” The tone was intelligent, confident, and unruffled. “I have reviewed all our data and that from Gate Control. All readings are within normal limits.”

Merral had the impression of a man with a sharp mind, thorough training, and total mastery of his field. He would, he told himself, have expected nothing less.

“Thank you, Mikhael. Please stay for a moment. So you see, gentlemen, I have a real problem. I know Perena slightly but there is not enough evidence for me to abort. Indeed
no
evidence. If we return to Gate Station it will be at least six hours before we can reenter the Gate. That will throw up a lot of problems for connections.” Captain Bennett turned pensive eyes first on Merral and then on Vero. “Do either of you have any new data?”

“Captain,” Merral appealed, “I need to talk to my friend here. For a moment only.”

The captain flicked a glance at the screen. The image now was of a fully symmetrical hexagon, and in the corner of the screen the seconds counter now stood at ninety seconds.

“You have just over a minute,” she said politely, and turned to peer at the Gateman's datasheet.

Merral and Vero took a step back and faced each other.

“Vero, is it a trick?” Merral asked, searching to see any indication in his friend's eyes as to whether they should trust the message.

“It must be. . . . Surely it's a trick to stop us from leaving?”

Merral forced himself to think. He was aware that he was tired, aware that it was a complex matter, aware that the seconds were ticking away, but also aware that he had to make a right decision. It sounded like Perena, but now he did not automatically believe anything on a screen. And to be summoned back now?
Lord, grant wisdom and overrule if we get it wrong.

A sudden revelation struck him.
Supposing I look at the problem the other way about, as with an inverse logic? Think like a sentinel. Put myself in the shoes of the intruders. If I wanted to stop this ship, would I have done it this way?

“No!” he blurted out, suddenly certain. “It's a genuine message. The intruders would have faked a direct message to the captain. To do it this way makes no sense.”

“Right.” Vero blinked nervously. “Yes, I back you.”

They turned to face the captain, who was looking expectantly at them.

“It's a real threat,” Merral said with as much urgency as he could muster. “Believe me. It's unparalleled, but it's real.”

Behind her he could see the screen saying there were twenty seconds left. The captain's cool, unflustered eyes flicked to Vero.

“Yes,” Vero added, “a genuine warning of genuine peril. Please return to Gate Station.”

Captain Bennett bit her lip and glanced at the screen. “Gateman Lessis, you are completely happy with the Gate status?” Her face stared at him, as if seeking the slightest hint of doubt.

The Gateman paused, blinked, glanced at his datasheet, and returned the stare with wide, confident eyes. “Captain, all the information I have suggests no hint of anything untoward.” He glanced at the image as more words tumbled out. “If I may say, the last significant Gate problem was a generation ago and half the Assembly away. That was only a Class One failure and automatically fixed within hours. The Gate's reputation for reliability is well merited, Captain. As you know. There are at least two levels of duplicate safety mechanisms on every system.”

The seconds scrolled down to zero.

The captain looked at the screen, shook her head, and then gestured to the man at the console to her right.

“Helm Officer,” she ordered, “initiate burn.”

19

M
erral stared at the wallscreen as the figure of
00:00
was replaced abruptly by
15:25
and a new countdown started immediately. Captain Bennett turned around to face Merral and Vero with a face that bore an uneasy expression. “My apologies,” she sighed. “But under standing orders I had no choice. Now”—her tone acquired an inflexible edge—“I need you off the bridge, please. Acceleration will be building up in the passenger area. But I will need a full explanation at Bannermene Gate Station.”

“Yes, of course,” Merral answered, trying to suppress feelings of frustration and alarm. “But I still think there is a risk. Can we still abort?”

“I'd rather not,” she said, shaking her head. “Composer Class ships aren't built for maneuvers at speed.”

The look on her face seemed to Merral to say as strongly as possible that the interview was over.
So that is that,
he thought despondently.

“Gateman Lessis,” she ordered, “you can return to your station.” But as the man started to move away, Vero stretched out his hand to block him. “Don't rule anything out,” he said in a voice so low that Merral barely caught his words.

“Captain,” Vero inquired in a voice that was both firm and gentle, “that image on the screen is a simulation. Can we look at the Gate directly?” Merral looked up at his friend, surprised at the determination on his face.

She frowned. “Optically? Yes, we have a scope linked to it. But the navigation simulation mode is much more appropriate.”

“Of course,” came the polite response. “But can we see the Gate? On screen? For just a minute?”

Captain Bennett stroked a bronzed cheek. “Give them two minutes, Gateman, and then send them back down. It's too late after that anyway.” She smiled distantly at them and then turned back to her console.

As she sat down, Mikhael Lessis touched the datasheet and the image changed to one of a black, star-strewn sky in which a blurry graphite gray mass hung. It shuddered slightly, came into focus, and then slowly expanded to fill the screen.

“We are still over a thousand kilometers away, so there is some vibration.” The Gateman's voice was matter-of-fact.

Merral stared at the smooth metal surfaces, trying to grasp the size of the structure. Only the tiny yellow marks on its dully gleaming surface that indicated the access points for visiting service vessels gave any idea of the vastness of the construction. He could see the sutures between the segments where, long ago, the Gate had been put together, and the brilliant green lights, now rapidly flashing to signify their imminent entry. Then he stared wonderingly into the still, eerie blackness at the heart of the hexagon. There was something awesome about the structure, with its palpable size and its aura of vast age.
If we had idolatry,
Merral thought, in a strange mental aside,
men and women might worship such a thing.

“Seems all right to me,” commented the Gateman, looking at Vero. “You see, Gates
never
fail. Because we can't have them fail, we don't allow them to fail.” The tone was of total cool confidence. “That's what Gate engineering is about. Perfect reliability.”

Merral found his attitude exasperating, but reminded himself that this young man had seen neither the falsified images of Maya Knella nor the horrid monstrosities they had met at Carson's Sill.
This man believes that the impossible does not happen. We know now that it can.

Vero nodded thoughtfully. “Of course, only God is perfectly reliable,” he answered as he scrutinized the immense mass of metal.

“I was meaning in human terms,” came the defensive response.

Merral couldn't see Vero's expression, as it was fixed on the screen, but he knew that he had found nothing untoward.

Vero, biting his lip, gestured at the image. “I'd like to look at each segment. Please, one by one. Just briefly.” There seemed to be an unshaken determination in his voice, and despite his own dejection, Merral felt admiration for his friend's attitude in the face of defeat. He felt he could only hope that Perena—if the message had indeed come from her—was somehow wrong.

The Gateman shrugged. “One,” he said in a flat tone and tapped the datasheet.

The screen filled with a smooth, almost glassy, gray surface broken by a few minor debris impact marks and faded yellow and red markings and lettering. The thought occurred to Merral that there was less aging than he would expect for a three-thousand-year-old structure.

“Two.”

Another surface appeared at a different orientation, but with similar features. Merral realized they were going clockwise.

“Three.”

The image switched again, but other than the angle and subtle differences of marking, it might have been the same segment as the previous two.

“Four.”

Now the alignment of the segment was back to that of the first one.
Nothing again,
thought Merral with a mounting feeling of inevitability.
Nor will there be on the rest. It looks as if, for good or evil, we are going through the Gate.
The numbers on the bottom of the screen showed him that that would now be in under twelve minutes.

He began to wonder how easy it was going to be to return to his seat in the crew section with the acceleration now building up below them.

Captain Bennett was turning toward them with a frown. Their time was up.

“Five.” Another segment, exactly the same. Just like—

A fine line of intense electric blue light writhed round the edge of the image.

“Stop!” Vero's shout turned all eyes to the screen.

Merral was aware of the Gateman staring open-mouthed and of Captain Bennett turning round sharply to the image.

Another line of iridescent blue arced crazily over the smooth, still, and ancient surface of the Gate. Merral felt that there was somehow something shocking about it, as if he was seeing an act of violation or even desecration.

There was a rising murmuring around the control room.

“Gateman!” snapped Captain Bennett, rising stiff-backed from her seat, apparently transfixed by the image. “Did you see that?”

“Yes . . . Captain.” The Gateman's tone was one of utter stupefaction. Merral observed in a strange, detached way that he was seeing yet another person realize that the boundary between the possible and the impossible was now being penetrated.

The Gateman continued to gape at the screen as more lines of blue curved round the surface. “There's another. And
another.
It's some sort of electrical discharge. . . .”

“So it seems,” returned the captain almost brusquely. “Can you assure me it's harmless, Gateman?”

“Harmless? I have no data on that. . . . I really don't know, Captain.” His eyes flicked nervously down to his datasheet. “But the Gate signals indicate plainly that it has no malfunctions.” The confidence was oozing away now.

“My eyes, Gateman, tell me otherwise.” Captain Bennett's voice was icy and determined. “Helm Officer, take us clear of the Gate. Minimum deviation. Mr. Lessis here will want some detailed images as we fly past, I'm sure. Say about a hundred kilometers away to be safe. And then plot us a course back to the Gate Station.”