A Simple Truth (21 page)

Sharma carefully followed the instructions until he was holding the rod between the forefinger and thumb of his gloved hand.
Slowly and shakily he released his hold, ready to grasp it again quickly if it moved.  The rod began to fall further so he clasped it and gently withdrew as instructed.  Gradually the end came free and was pulled with great care from the surface.
Sharma held the rod and after a pause exhaled with relief.
There was no escape of gas or other fluid, the surface closed as if it had never been parted.  There was no need for more instructions, Sharma closely examined the area where the rod had entered and concluded that the closure was perfect.

"Unlock the cable Damian
,"
Sharma demanded with uncharacteristic impulsiveness, "I'm going closer to investigate
,"
adding
,
"if the director agrees
,"
as an afterthought.

Control agreed but reminded him to make a thorough chemical analysis of the surface material to check for potential corrosiveness before risking a touch with his glove.
Knight released the lock and gave Sharma the 'all clear' to proceed.  Very carefully he inched his body forwards, keeping his legs well clear and leading with his hands.

"Proceeding normally, one and a half metres to go... one metre..."

Suddenly he let out a startled cry and disappeared headlong into the sphere.  Knight was taken so completely by surprise that he was momentarily paralysed.  It seemed an age before his sluggish body obeyed his desperate command to lock the cable, but at last he managed to thrust himself towards the controls.  He leapt with such force that he bruised his head and left shoulder on a bulkhead but he had succeeded, the cable was firmly locked.
Fighting a rising sense of panic he
quickly manoeuvred himself
into the pilot's seat and set the controls for emergency lift
in order to get Sharma out as rapidly as possible
.  Soon the ferry was under way and with immense relief he saw Sharma swinging wildly at the end of the safety cable.

Quickly he instructed the computer to reel in the cable,
and then
transferred ship control to the computer.  He had to brace himself firmly as it performed the hair-raising feat of stabilising the vessel's motion while at the same time safeguarding Sharma who was extremely vulnerable at the end of his cable.  It was a task that Knight could not have handled manually but fortunately the computer was more than equal to the challenge.

As soon as Sharma was firmly held against the hull Knight clambered into his suit and with only the most cursory safety checks rushed out of the airlock to grab him and guide him back into the ferry.  He hurried through the entry routine and soon they were both safely back inside and out of their suits.
Sharma was predictably in an acute state of shock.  Knight gave him a thorough examination and suitable medication under the direction of a WSA doctor
,
and to the great relief of all found that he was unhurt.

Firmly strapped into a seat Sharma sat motionless as Knight gently returned the ferry to its former position and studied the sphere for any sign of a reaction to what had happened.  There was none.  The silver surface had resumed its former untouched
appearance;
there had been no visible change at all.

Knight and the WSA team waited patiently for Sharma to describe what had happened.  No-one wished to hurry him, but the suspense was acute.  Slowly he began to speak, somewhat incoherently at first, but then with more clarity as one by one he recalled the sequence of events.

13
   
A
liens

"Something pulled me down to the sphere
,
"
h
e began.  "I didn't know what was happening.  I remember my hands beginning to feel odd, like a sort of magnetic attraction towards the surface
;
then it moved quickly along my arms and body.  By the time I realised I was being pulled down there was no time to react.  I was being sucked with increasing force until my hands struck and plunged into the peculiar surface material.  I remember fearing that my suit might be damaged.  I tried to shield my head as best I could but instead of a hard impact or even a soft one I felt myself actually going through the surface."  At that point he paused as if reliving the fear and confusion that he must have felt at the time.

"It was like a liquid.  Well it was a liquid really, but very light and fluid, not viscous as you might expect.  I was pulled through very quickly and I remember my suit pressing against my body.  I felt sure I was about to be killed, I'd forgotten about the cable.  I imagined the liquid carried on right into the sphere.  Then suddenly the pressing sensation stopped, I had emerged on the inside.  My eyes had been tight shut but when I opened them I could see.  The light was not very bright and the filter in my helmet made it even darker.  I was still falling and started to brace myself for the impact when the cable locked.  I continued down as it stretched but soon reached the limit of extension then bounced back upwards.  If you hadn't locked the cable just then I would have been killed for certain.

"
The inner surface wasn't
smooth;
it seemed like a sort of honeycomb structure.  Then I was pulled back through the liquid and you know the rest."

"Was anything moving inside
?"
asked Knight.

"I don't think so, nothing caught my attention anyway."  And then in a sudden burst of zeal added, "We need to go down again and explore that inner surface more fully."

Knight began to feel weak in the knees.  He knew that Sharma would not be allowed down again, at least not so soon after such a shattering experience.  So it would be his turn.  Suddenly he felt much less inquisitive.

"Control here, suggest Knight makes the next investigation, and take a number four instrumentation package."

"Acknowledged
,
" answered
Knight, his fears confirmed.
Strangely the roles were now reversed.  Sharma, in a state of post-near-disaster euphoria became full of enthusiasm and suggested all kinds of checks and exploration hints, while Knight just wanted to get on with the job as quickly as possible.  He first made a thorough inspection of Sharma's suit to see if the liquid had done any
damage,
half hoping that it had, but found none.

"Ten metres to go
,"
advised Sharma.

"No change, proceeding normally
,"
replied Knight.  But inwardly he felt anything but normal.  In fact a deep sense of foreboding had taken hold of him.  This strange vessel with its own gravity and mysterious liquid skin was altogether too alien, a product of an overwhelmingly superior technology and a thing not to be tampered with.  Why did we have to try to pre-empt whatever the aliens had in mind?  His instincts warned him off strongly but there was no way out, other than a straight refusal to proceed.
 
And that was out, he knew that if he gave in to that temptation there was no way he could ever live with himself afterwards.
Just take things one step at a time Sharma had
counselled
,
and Knight was finding it not such bad advice after all.  He tried to control his racing imagination by filling his mind with the task immediately ahead, prohibiting thoughts of anything more.

He could feel the gravitational effect now, and forced himself to observe and report as objectively as possible.

"Gravitational field noticeable just under two metres from the surface, release cable more slowly now."

It was working, the more he involved himself in the current task the less room there was for anxiety.  He turned off his manoeuvring jets and allowed the sphere's own gravity to keep him stable.

"Touching surface now, continue at same rate."

The cable very gently controlled his descent.  He slowly became immersed in the surface liquid and found the sensation peculiar but not too unpleasant.

"Proceeding normally, continue
,"
said Knight.

"Acknowledged
,"
replied Sharma, "you're one metre into the skin now."  He could monitor the surface thickness accurately by the length of cable paid out.

Knight was blind as yet.  He had little sensation of movement and relied on his outstretched arms to tell him when they were out of the liquid.  Only then would he know that he was about to emerge.  Several times the knowledge of where he was and what he was doing welled up inside his mind and threatened to seize him with panic.  Several times he almost cried out to be pulled back to safety but somehow resisted.  Sharma's advice was sound but instinct was a powerful force to do battle with.

"Two metres into the surface, you're doing fine Damian, remember I'm right behind you
,"
called Sharma's reassuring voice.

"Thanks."  The contact helped more than Sharma would ever know.
It was quite literally Knight's lifeline, both physically and psychologically.

"Emerging now
,"
he proclaimed tensely, "stop after another metre."

Soon he felt himself clear of the liquid skin, only one more task and he could see what was to be seen.  Hurriedly he unclipped a tiny instrument from his suit and with trembling hands scanned the interior for harmful radiation.  The sensation was one of acute vulnerability hanging there helpless and blind, but he dare not reduce the intensity of his filter until this vital check had been made.  The check proved negative so he hastily returned the unit and fumbled with the filter control to restore his precious sense of sight.

Contrary to Sharma's report he found it quite bright inside.  He looked down fearfully, but the sight that met his eyes was so strange that he instantly felt that he was dreaming.  The reaction was completely automatic, as if something in the mind constantly monitors the inflow of information for credibility.
When the limit is reached a signal is triggered
that
says in effect 'this isn't real, don't take it seriously any more.'
Then Sharma's voice re-established a point of credibility and the sensation passed.

"Damian, everything OK?  We're waiting for some pictures."  Knight was supposed to pan the camera across the inner surface from his vantage point high up to give a permanent recording for future detailed analysis before proceeding further. 

But he was unable to reply.  He was totally absorbed in the scene below, fascinated, delighted, and afraid.  There, barely twenty metres away were the aliens, about a dozen, wandering over the inner surface quite unaware of the odd creature looking down at them.  They were apparently engaged in some routine task, their actions quiet and unhurried, almost mechanical.
Each appeared to be allocated a specific area and moved across it in a systematic fashion, pausing here and there to examine some part of the surface more closely.

"Damian acknowledge please
,"
came Sharma's insistent voice.
Knight hurriedly tried to turn the volume down, fearful that the aliens might hear, but the message had ended by the time he reached the control.

"Acknowledged
,"
he whispered, "there's a group of aliens directly below me, they are busy with some task and haven't noticed me yet, I'll hook-up the camera."

The guesses had all been wrong.  These creatures were neither monsters nor
gods;
they were neither terrifying nor repulsive.
They were somewhat similar in general appearance to kangaroos but smaller, with strong rear legs but no tail.  Their main peculiarity was in having three pairs of forelimbs, the front pair being used to assist in walking while the others were neatly tucked into their sides.  Their heads were merely continuations of their bodies, they had no discernible necks.
Knight had difficulty in making out their facial features as they were all looking down, conscious only of their work at the surface.  Their skin or whatever it was that covered their bodies was pale yellow, the colour of newly hatched chicks, and here and there were flecks of darker yellow, the whole appearance being really quite acceptable.

Knight was captivated by the scene, so much so the he failed to notice the radiation detector slipping slowly from the clip on his suit.  In his haste to adjust the helmet filter he had not secured the device properly.  He noticed it drop though.  It had gone about three metres when it caught his eye.  There was nothing he could do so he waited, cringing, breath held, all thought suspended.  It looked at first as though it might hit one of the creatures below, but fortunately it landed just off to one side, the resounding clatter echoing back and forth between the surfaces.  The little creatures all jumped up in the air as the device landed,
just
like startled children,
and
then stood quite still. 

Knight waited to be discovered, not daring to break the new silence, uncanny in its intensity.  Surprisingly none looked up, and slowly they resumed their work.  When the one nearest the device saw it, it picked it up, examined it with meticulous care, and then slowly began to turn its head upwards.  Two large black eyes swept the inner edge of the liquid surface until they were looking straight up at Knight.  The poor creature fell backwards in fright and some of its nearest colleagues turned to see what had caused the sudden alarm.  Then, like frightened rabbits they bounded away in gigantic leaps to an opening in the structure, jostling each other in their desperation to get through.