Andromeda Day and the Black Hole (4 page)

Andi now walked through the center room and
bedroom to the closet and proceeded to get dressed for the forthcoming journey.
She chose a nondescript dark blue top and trousers, firm boots, and a warm navy
jacket, as the temperature reading on the bridge had said it was only ten
degrees Celsius on the surface of the continent they were heading for. She took
a bag and put in it her Wordbox, on which she made corrections and additions to
the interpreter clip, her sonar gun, which had enough power to stun, although
not to kill, and some chocolate in case she got hungry. She lifted the strap
over her head, putting the bag on her hip. Then she went to meet Deneb outside
his quarters.

When he came out he was dressed much the
same as her, although his suit was dark green, and his jacket was black. He
pulled a black hat down over and almost hiding his hair, and then winked at her
before grabbing her hand and pulling her along the corridor to the elevators
once again.

“Ready for adventure?” he asked, going into
the pod and requesting the cargo bay.

“I suppose so.” Andi sighed inwardly. Should
she tell him that she had a bad feeling about this trip? Possibly not, or he
definitely wouldn’t let her go with him. She thought about what Merak had said,
that she couldn’t think or feel things properly because she had a metal brain
and heart. She wondered about this as the elevator sank slowly through the
floors. What was it in one’s body that gave you feelings? Was it something
other than electrical impulses and muscle contractions, which she still had,
albeit triggered by metal rather than organic organs? Or was it something more
than that, something that resided in a human heart, which she no longer possessed?

“Are you all right?” Deneb frowned,
touching her hair lightly.

“I’m fine.” She shrugged off his hand,
deciding not to tell him about her forebodings. It wouldn’t make any difference
anyway. Whether it was to their victory or to their doom, they were going to
Thoume, and there was nothing she could do about it.

The elevator descended slowly through the
upper cube to the middle section. Actually there was no real ‘up’ or ‘down’ on
the ship, as the computer-controlled gravity which operated through the floors
meant that a person could be standing ‘upright’ on the top cube while another
person stood ‘upside-down’ on the bottom. The lack of old-fashioned rocket
thrusters after the invention of the Anti-Matter Drive also meant that the ship
had no real forward or aft and could as easily fly ‘sideways’ as ‘forwards’. However,
Andi liked to think of the bridge as being at the top of the Antiquarian, and
considered a trip to the cargo bay as a descent through the ship.

The elevator passed through the main
section doors into the middle levels, and she and Deneb admired the view of the
exhibits as they descended the floors in companionable silence. They were both
extremely proud of their museum, and although the middle section was under the
control of Ioto, the museum curator, they both took a walk through it together
every morning, just enjoying being amongst the artifacts.

There was a great variety of exhibits. The
Earth section was the largest, naturally, and the eclectic collection ranged
from Old-Time prehistoric African tools fresh from the cradle of mankind,
through medieval Crusader swords supposedly held by Saladin himself, to
full-size Terracotta Warriors from China that Deneb had somehow ‘acquired’. There
were also objects that had played a part in the exploration of space, such as
one of the cups used by the astronauts on the Apollo 11 mission to the moon,
and a complete suit worn by Spica as her spaceship passed through the Kuiper
Belt, past Neptune’s orbit. Deneb was especially proud of the exhibit that
described Earth’s first colony on Mars, including a handwritten diary by one of
the original colonists—Andi didn’t like to think how he had come by that
valuable artifact.

But there were also a great many items from
other species and cultures throughout the Galaxy. He was most fond of the
exhibit illustrating the first alien species that Earth people had encountered,
on a planet circling the nearest star to our Sun, Proxima Centauri. The artifacts
there included household objects and weapons of that slightly more primitive
society, as well as a whole skeleton curled in the fetal position inside their
distinctive elaborate circular coffins, complete with fantastic jewelry and
precious metal artifacts. The dignified Proximian generals had donated them so
that others in the Galaxy would know how wealthy and important they were.

Andi, however, was most proud of the
Kachinas art exhibit. The people of that planet had learned how to project and
record their emotions, and had given Andi and Deneb a breathtaking collection
of pieces of glass displaying the swirls and colorful patterns of their
innermost thoughts. These glass pictures were hung from rafters in one section
of the museum, and Andi spent hours there, staring up at the swirling designs
and trying to imagine which emotion they depicted.

In all it was a wonderful collection, Andi
thought as the elevator slid past the levels, most of which were darkened until
the museum opened to visitors, and it was a wonderful place to exhibit them. She
didn’t know which was most awe-inspiring: the thousands of artifacts, or the
array of white and colored stars that wheeled above the museum’s transparent
roof like fireworks.

Gradually the elevator descended into the
bottom cube, through the hotter, smellier engineering sections, until
eventually it arrived at the cargo bay. When the elevator doors slid back, Andi
and Deneb crossed the large floor to where the
Sparrowhawk
waited
impatiently to take flight. The Waiter had already contacted the cargo
technician to inform him of their impending departure, and he’d started the
Anti-Matter Drive of the small flight shuttle. The
Sparrowhawk
vibrated
impatiently on the tiled surface, eager to stretch its wings.

They settled themselves on board and then
Deneb navigated the shuttle carefully out of the
Antiquarian
where it
dropped into space like the bird after which it was named. He turned it around skillfully
and then headed down towards the planet.

Andi looked at the LCD screen in front of
her as the shuttle passed through the cloud layer and Thoume became visible. She
could see clearly the devastation that had been wrought on two of the
continents, which were presumably fighting each other. “What sort of weapons
are they using?” she asked Deneb, who was carefully inputting co-ordinates for
landing.

“Well they’re post-industrial and have warp
capabilities, according to the Coalition notes. But they don’t appear to be
using atomic weapons. Thank goodness. That really would put an end to trade.”

“And millions of lives,” she reminded him.

“Well, of course, that as well.”

She knew that he wasn’t really heartless—he
was single-minded, that was all. She watched him fondly as he worked on the
controls, thinking how handsome he looked, and how proud of him she was. “Am I
more like you or like Mum?” she asked suddenly.

He looked up at her, surprised. Andi rarely
asked questions about her mother, as she knew that thinking about her upset
him, but suddenly it seemed important for her to know.

Deneb said nothing for a moment, studying
her thoughtfully. His lips had a pinched, painful look about them. Then his
gaze fell back to the control panel and he continued to input the figures. “She
was dark-haired,” he said eventually. Andi waited a moment, but he clearly
wasn’t going to elaborate.

“I know that,” she said wryly. “I’ve seen a
laser print. I mean character-wise.”

Deneb’s fingers paused on the keys. “You
are very like her,” he said. He looked up then at the LCD, but Andi knew that
he wasn’t seeing the view of Thoume before him. He was seeing her mother. She recognized
the sad look that came over him, the faraway gaze in his eyes, the way his jaw
tightened, as if he was angry. He glanced over at her then, and a glint
appeared in his eye. “She was a pain in the neck too. Always trying to stop me
doing things.”

Andi laughed, pleased she hadn’t upset him
too much. “In this case I’m glad I’m like her. You need someone to keep an eye
on you or you’d be getting yourself into all sorts of trouble.”

He grinned at her, then checked the
controls as the
Sparrowhawk
beeped that they had reached the targeted
area.

Andi looked at the LCD and saw that Deneb
was setting them down some miles behind the war front, just outside a town that
had clearly taken some damage. “Where are we?”

“The Plions said there are two main races
on this continent: the Ruvalians, and the Hoshaens. They said we should steer
well clear of the Hoshaens in the east, and make sure all our contact is with
the Ruvalians in the west. The Ruvalians are the people who own the land where
the Indigo Quartz runs in veins through the rock only meters below the surface,
whereas on the east of the continent it’s much deeper, several kilometers
underground. The Hoshaens are the people in the east who are trying to take
over the Ruvalian land.”

“How are they doing?”

“The Ruvalians are holding at the moment,
but the Plions said it’s not going to be long before they’re overrun. I’m
setting us down just outside the city wall of the main Ruvalian capital.”

As soon as the
Sparrowhawk
had
settled and the Anti-Matter Drive was taken offline, Deneb was out of his seat.
“Now remember,” he warned her, “no fancy business. Do as I do, and be careful.”

“Yes, Dad.” She was determined not to give
him cause to refuse her a trip again. Together they exited the shuttle, and
stepped down into a field of a bright yellow plant that looked like extra-large
sweetcorn cobs, the earth beneath sucking at their boots as they walked across
it.

“Let’s go for the gate in the wall there,”
Deneb said.

“Will they let us in? What if they think
we’re Hoshaens or something?”

“Trust me,” said Deneb. “It’ll be okay.”

He marched over to the gate, Andi following
behind him, and rapped loudly on a small shutter at head height. Immediately it
slid to one side and he found himself looking down the barrel of a laser rifle.

“Hey, hey,” he yelled, “friends! Tell them
Andi!”

Andi rolled her eyes and ran up next to
him. “We come in peace,” she said in Ruvalian. She had managed to put together
a basic language pattern from the few words that the Plions had known.

The gun disappeared from the slit and a
pair of eyes replaced it. Andi started—the skin of the Ruvalian sentry glowed a
warm grass-green, and his eyes were the dark green of river water.

“It’s the phosphorus in the soil,” murmured
Deneb. “It’s unusually high. It must be what makes them that color.”

The face disappeared and there was the
sound of latches being pulled, and then suddenly the gate opened and the rifle
appeared again, this time in the hands of the Ruvalian whose eyes had shone
through the gap. He was tall, almost as tall as Deneb, and painfully thin, his
elbows sharp beneath his dark brown jacket, his trousers bunched at his waist
where they had been belted.

“Come with me,” the interpreter said in Andi’s
ear as the sentry spoke, and the rifle twitched to show them which way they
should walk. Deneb followed obediently, raising his hands to show that he held
no weapons as they entered the city walls. Andi found herself fingering the
pocket of her bag, wishing she were holding her sonar pistol in her hand, but
she raised her hands slowly as the rifle twitched again.

“You’re going to get us killed one day,”
she hissed to Deneb as they began to walk away from the city wall. They were in
a street lined on either side by low round-roofed houses built of a light colored
brick. Andi stared at them silently as they walked. The glass in the windows of
the houses was mostly broken, and there were gaping holes in the walls. Huge
caverns yawned in the middle of the roads, marked out by bits of red tape that
flapped forlornly in the wind. Debris lay scattered where it had fallen,
perhaps to make it difficult for Hoshaen vehicles to maneuver when they came.
The streets were empty, however, and Andi wondered if the city was deserted
apart from their guard. It must be. How could anyone live in a place like this?

They turned a corner, and Andi gasped at
the sight before them. They were in a large, open space, perhaps once a
marketplace, although there were no traders now, no hawkers touting their
wares, or people buying food. Now, the flagstones were covered with line upon
line of bodies. Their faces were obscured with white sheets, but here and there
Andi could see an arm or a leg poking out, and they were all green. Here the
Ruvalians laid out their casualties of the war, unable to find the time or the
space to bury them. Deneb dropped his raised arms to hold Andi’s hand and she
clutched it, grateful that the guard didn’t complain. Never had she seen so
many dead in one place.

“What’s that sharp smell?” she whispered.
“Like iron?”

“It’s blood,” Deneb said.

“Oh.” Nausea rose in her throat, and she
had to fight to stop it overwhelming her.

The sentry walked past the bodies as if he
hadn’t even seen them, heading for the large civic building in front of them. Andi
saw him step over one of the corpses to cross the square, puzzled that he
didn’t seem to flinch. The war must have been going on for a long time, she
thought, for him to appear so blasé about the amount of dead.