To The Stars (The Harry Irons Trilogy) (27 page)

She had only seconds before the thing reached her. There was nowhere to run without being seen, so she stood transfixed by the approaching terror.

A soft hiss came from very near. Kathleen squinted in the dark to make out a beckoning hand. It reached from the ground as if a corpse was trying to dig its way out of a grave.

She stared as it waved to her. The hissing sound came again. Steeling herself, she inched closer to the hole in the ground and looked down. Again the hand emerged from the darkness. It was the boy's hand. He had found a hole, a cave, and was now hiding within. Frantically, he waved for Kathleen to crawl inside.

Kathleen had no choice. She crawled inside the small cave. Arai moved deeper inside, giving her more room. Overhead, she heard the creature as it walked over the area. She moved deeper into the cave as a shadow fell over the entrance.

A blinding light shined into the hole followed by a long metallic shaft that stabbed into the entrance mere inches from Kathleen's face. She clapped both hands over her own mouth to keep from screaming. The shaft withdrew and then came thrusting down again at a slightly different angle, this time a little farther away. After a few more stabbing thrusts, the creature showed no more interest and went away.

For a long time, the Bedoran boy and the young woman sat in the hole without moving, listening for the creature. Kathleen wondered if it was not waiting for them, just outside. If so, how long would it wait? For that matter, what was it? And what did it want? Kathleen didn't think she wanted to know. So she waited.

Time passed. Occasionally, she was sure she heard something moving overhead, but whatever it was, it never tried to get her and the boy out of their hiding place. Kathleen was tired, dirty, and beginning to wonder if she would make it out of the situation alive. The boy slept peacefully through it all.

Light seeped into the hole and Kathleen realized she had dozed off. She started to press herself deeper into the hole then saw that the light was not artificial, it was sunlight. They had managed to survive into the morning.

Arai's eyes popped open. He wordlessly looked at Kathleen, then motioned for her to move a little to one side. She did so and the boy crawled past her. Moving slowly and deliberately, he got to his feet and peeked out. With the light, Kathleen was able to better see where she was. The hole was curiously regular. Whether it was made by erosion or by other means she couldn't tell. It was more of a small cave than just a hole in the ground, but it appeared to have caved in at the deep end. Kathleen noted that the dirt was freshly dug which ruled out erosion as the source. Arai motioned to her and she turned her attention back to the opening.

She moved into the light and crouched at the bottom of the hole. The boy stood beside her, making no move to climb out. Kathleen stood until her eyes were at ground level.

It was another beautiful day on Mia Culpa. Sunlight streamed down among the massive branches and illuminated the forest. A short distance away, Kathleen could see a small pre-fab building, obviously too sophisticated to be attributed to construction by the aborigines. There was no movement and no sign of the creatures she had seen the previous evening.

Arai, with help from Kathleen, shimmied out of the hole. Using his tail, he reached down and took Kathleen by the hand. With relatively little effort, she was lifted out. Once again, Kathleen marveled at the strength of the little fellow.

He looked at Kathleen and she could almost swear he smiled. She had no idea if a smile among the primitives meant the same thing as a smile among humans, but in any case, it didn't appear to be a hostile expression.

Outside the cave at last, the Earth woman took a quick look about. There was no activity around the low building that sat in the small clearing. It was oddly constructed. There were no windows and, at least from the side Kathleen could see, no doors either. She couldn't imagine what it was used for, much less who or what had built it.

Arai wanted to leave the area, to go in the opposite direction away from the building. Kathleen hesitated. There was no movement, nothing to indicate the presence of the strange creatures. She took a step toward the building. Arai made a whining sound. Kathleen looked back. The boy looked at her and waved his tail frantically, and then, with a pointing digit, indicated that he wanted to go the other way.

Kathleen wanted to check out the building. If there was another intelligence on Mia Culpa, an intelligence capable of building sophisticated structures, perhaps whoever had built it would help her contact the members of her crew aboard the Magellan. It was a long shot and she knew it, but at the moment it seemed to be her only shot. The mysterious creatures she had seen the night before were nowhere to be seen. For all she knew, they were gone.

She urged the boy to accompany her. Stubbornly, he refused. But he didn't go away either. He moved to the closest tree and climbed up into the lower branches. From his perch he watched Kathleen as she stepped toward the clearing.

The structure wasn't as large as she originally thought. It was circular and low with a portion of its roof flattened out. On the flat part was something that looked familiar, like a solar heat collector. Although the design was one she'd never seen before, the collector was a popular source of energy for people on Earth and had been for nearly two centuries. Nothing special about that. She circled the building.

The opposite side was a mirror image of the first side. It was perhaps thirty feet by forty-five with seamless walls that showed no sign of windows or doors. Its purpose was not readily apparent.

Kathleen approached the structure warily. It looked to be built from a molded material because its surface was perfectly smooth. At one end the grass was trampled as if someone had walked up to it. The trail led back into the trees, in the direction of the larger clearing.

Kathleen looked to the tree in which the boy sat. If she hadn't known exactly where he was, she couldn't have spotted him. He sat on his perch and watched her with great interest. He saw her look at him and he twitched his tail in response. Kathleen waved back and felt silly doing so.

The sun beat down on her exposed body. She thought about going back into the forest where it was cool, but decided to take a closer look at the building first.

Passing out of view of the boy, she approached the building. Two feet from the wall, she felt a tingling sensation. She stretched out her hand and felt pricks of electricity. A force field.

She peered forward. It looked as though a tiny, vertical seam had formed in the few seconds that she stood there. Fascinated, she leaned even closer. In the next moment, before Kathleen could react, the seam opened and a pair of smooth, massive arms reached out and pulled her into the building. The seam resealed itself in seconds.

*

In the trees facing the opposite side of the building the young Bedoran sat and watched. When the female didn't show herself he moved to another branch in order to get a better angle. He was surprised to see she wasn't there and couldn't imagine where she had gone. He twisted his neck, as a bird might, and looked all around. She was nowhere in sight.

In his experience, he had never encountered a building of any kind. Nothing more than a few rocks piled on top of one another. So the structure itself was fairly imposing for the young Bedoran. The idea that Kathleen had gone inside didn't even cross his mind. It was perplexing.

Well, he reasoned, the first virtue of the hunter is patience. With that, he settled back and made himself comfortable.

Chapter 23

"The alien shuttle is returning to the surface," said Bonner.

"Keep a track on it," said Fagen, "see if you can determine where it lands." Fagen turned to Blane. "How are you doing, Bart?"

"I'm okay."

"Not going to go crazy on us again, are you?"

"I said I'm alright."

"Okay, okay. Are you ready with your analysis of the alien probe?"

"I suppose. There's not much to tell. It was a two-way pulse that sought out our computer circuitry and strolled through. It bypassed our software security without a pause. I don't understand how it did it, but it was able to access any file it wanted. The transfer of data was done at an amazing rate. The good news is I was able to access the alien computer, if that's what it was."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, the data pathways are unlike anything we have. They seem to be based on a neural network, which is no surprise, but it's certainly not a human neural network. It's not that it's just extraordinarily fast, the connections allow for simultaneous transactions. That's where it differs from our own neural-based networks. Understand, I only got a glimpse of the processing power. What I saw, what I felt, well, it was weird. It was as if I was hooked up to something alive. And it was aware of me."

"Are you saying the alien computer is alive?"

"Uh, well, it sure seemed to have those characteristics. There was definitely some sort of embedded consciousness."

"What is its purpose? Curiosity? Exploration?"

"No, definitely not that. I think it was assessing any threat we might offer."

"Were you able to discern its conclusions?"

"Yeah, sure. It doesn't believe we offer any kind of threat."

"So what is it going to do?"

"About us?" Blane asked.

Fagen nodded.

"Nothing. Ignore us."

Fagen stared, unblinking, as if he was having trouble hearing what Blane said. "Ignore... us?"

"We're no threat, therefore of no interest."

*

While Blane continued to discuss the alien computer with Fagen, in the ship's galley, Nadine and Harry talked over a lunch of dried fruits and juice. Nadine was angry.

"What are we doing here? We've got the data. Why don't we just leave? I mean, what's it going to take? Two people are dead already..."

Harry interrupted. "We don't know if Kathleen is dead."

"Well, she might as well be. Bonner says using the shuttle again is risky."

"But not impossible."

"Yes, well, I think we should cut our losses and get out of here."

"But Nadine," Harry protested, "there's an advanced species out there. Something we've never seen before. This is a golden opportunity."

"Yeah. A golden opportunity to get us all killed."

"We don't know that."

"I thought we did. Wasn't Doris attacked?"

"Yes, that's true. But I was there and I'm not willing to pass judgment until I can at least review the video record."

"Well, you can forget about that."

"What do you mean?"

"Fagen told me the diskette was damaged. It was useless."

Harry was shocked. "He didn't tell me."

"That's what he said, Harry."

Harry sat back in his chair. As far as he knew there had been no damage to the diskette. Why hadn't Fagen told him? Harry felt the uneasiness creeping back.

Parker stuck his head in the open galley hatch.

"Would you two join me on the bridge? I have some news critical to the mission that I'd like to share with everyone."

"What is it?" Nadine asked.

"I'd prefer to tell everyone at once, if you don't mind."

Nadine frowned. "All right. Now?"

"Yes," the doctor replied. He backed out of the hatch. Nadine, with a sigh, rose and followed.

Harry popped another dried peach into his mouth and followed Nadine up to the bridge. When they arrived, everyone but Bonner was there.

Fagen looked at Parker. "What did you want to say, doctor?"

Parker asked where the systems engineer was.

"In the hanger bay taking another look at the shuttle."

"I'd like him to hear this as well."

"All right." Over the intercom, Fagen asked Bonner to join them on the bridge. Minutes later, the engineer floated through the bridge access hatch.

"What's up?"

"The doc wants to tell us something. How's the shuttle look?"

"Better than I thought at first. I mean it's not like it just got out of the garage or anything, but I don't think it's as bad as I first thought."

"You mean we can use it?"

Bonner sighed. "If we have to. It'll hold together. Still, we need to be careful, keep an eye on the patches I've made, and be careful not to put unnecessary stress on the engines."

"That's good news," said Fagen. He turned to the doctor. "Now, what did you want to tell us?"

"Yes, well, as you know, I've been studying the characteristics of the native life forms, at least those we've encountered so far. I think we can safely assume that the alien ship is not from the planet."

Everyone nodded their heads in agreement. That wasn't news. There was no technology on the surface, no sign of advanced culture other than the primitives, and they certainly didn't have the capability of building space
ships.

Parker continued. "The genetic makeup of the samples I gathered on the surface indicate that all the life forms have undergone millions of years of natural selection. That's where the problem arises."