Heaven's War (33 page)

And now here…wherever this was. Some godforsaken hollowed-out planetoid pushing itself out of the solar system back home. He wondered how far they’d traveled in these few days. Keanu would still be visible from Earth with the naked eye, even if its trajectory was due solar south. Someone in New Zealand or Chile, or Byrd Station, South Pole, would have a good view.

Keanu could probably keep accelerating for a long time—hell, centuries, maybe, meaning it could reach some fraction of the speed of light. But so far…hell, they weren’t even as far from Earth as the planet Mars!

Zack and Makali were in front, like lead mutts on a dog sled. Williams was in the rear, probably because of age and an inability to keep from stopping every few dozen steps just to take in the view. Well, what the hell; he had been imagining shit like this for fifty years. Dale guessed that it was okay for him to take it in.

Especially knowing that he wasn’t going to live any longer than Dale.

He looped close to Valya and asked her, in his below-average Russian,
how she was doing. He had detected growing tension back at the
Brahma
site, along with real reluctance to press forward.

“How do you think?” she growled. Okay, obviously still some tension.

“I wish I could cheer you up,” he said.

“What would you do?” she said. “Sing me a song? Tell me a joke?”

“It worked before.”

“You had many charming techniques that worked before. We are in different circumstances.”

“Copy that.”

He let her mush on ahead of him and fell back with Williams. “Is it everything you dreamed it would be?” he asked.

“Less and more,” Williams said. “Even though I wrote it a few times, I surely never thought I’d be doing a traverse across an alien starship.”

“Funny how dreams come true.”

“Or nightmares.”

“That would be the ‘less’ business.”

“I keep telling myself that I also imagined and published miraculous escapes for my heroes. So if I have the true predictive vision…”

“Here’s hoping.”

Dale noticed that for all his bravado, Williams was actually limping a bit. Before he could ask, however, he heard a shout from Makali.

“Oh my God, look at that!”

Though still better than a NASA EVA garment, the skinsuit’s biggest drawback was limited field of view. The cowl-like hood was fairly rigid; in order to look up or sideways, you had to turn your body. You had almost no peripheral vision.

And the view forward wasn’t glasslike, either. You were looking through a filmy fabric about a centimeter in front of each eyeball.

Which was why Dale pressed forward, asking, “Can you see Mt. St. Helens already?” Zack had said “ten to fifteen kilometers,” which Dale took to mean “fifteen or more.” They could not have gone halfway yet.

“It’s not the vent,” Makali said, completely unnecessarily by that time, since Zack and Valya and Williams and Dale could all see what she’d found.

It appeared to be another spacecraft.

At least six stories tall—taller than
Brahma
before the accident—it was a rounded cylinder like a big fat bullet, or something out of an old Jules Verne novel. There were bumps and protruding blisters on the skin, which appeared to be metallic.

“Look at the pitting on this thing,” Zack said. “It must be really, really old.”

“How do you know it wasn’t designed that way?” Makali said.
Of course,
Dale thought,
be argumentative
.

“Just a hunch,” Zack said. “And no landing legs. And I believe it
was
designed that way.” The vehicle rested perfectly upright but lacked legs or any obvious landing aids. It rested on material that reminded Dale of a collapsed balloon.

“It must have crunched down on that skirt,” Makali said. She was close enough to toe the material, which was bleached an ugly white. “Hard.”

“Petrified,” Williams said. “More fuel for the argument that this is really, really old.”

“Whom did it belong to?” Valya asked. “Who landed it here?”

“Nobody from Earth,” Dale said. “And with that kind of landing, I get the impression this was a one-way trip.”

“Both
Brahma
and
Venture
had ascent motors inside them,” Makali said.

Dale couldn’t decide which annoyed him more, the fact that exospecialist Makali Pillay would presume to argue matters of spacecraft engineering with him, or just that she kept talking, period. “And both were modular,” he said, knowing he should not engage the woman. “With obvious separation lines. I’m looking at this baby, and it all seems to be one big piece.”

“—With an open hatch on this side,” Wade Williams said.

The hatch was a thick plug that opened downward rather than to the side, creating a platform for occupants going EVA.

And at least ten meters off the ground, preventing any of them from seeing inside the opening…or from reaching it.

“This gives me some idea of who it belongs to,” Zack said. “Look at the proportions of the Temple…the Architect was twice as tall as a human being.”

Dale could hear Wade Williams sputtering. “Surely the Architects are more advanced than this thing. They launched the vesicles, for God’s sake. This vehicle looks as though it could have been built by China, now!”

“Well,” Makali said, “whoever built it, a ladder would have been nice.”

“Shame on the Architects for not realizing you’d be coming along and wanting to go aboard,” Dale said. He had decided he might as well declare war on Pillay in the hopes of getting her to shut up. Otherwise he would be provoked to violence.

Zack ignored the exchange. “They probably had a rope ladder of some kind—”

“—A thousand years ago,” Williams finished. “Even something metal would have gone brittle in that time, baked and frozen a few million times. It must have eventually blown away like dust.”

“This is all quite fascinating, I’m sure,” Valya said. “But since we can’t go aboard, we should press on to this vent, since I believe it represents our only hope for survival. Or am I overstating matters?” For a non-native English speaker, Valya had perfect pitch when it came to sarcasm. Dale had always enjoyed it, at least on the few occasions when it was directed at someone other than him.

“Oh, I think we can go aboard,” Zack said.

“Zack, how?” Makali said. She was almost sputtering.

“Because in this gravity, we can throw him ten meters,” Dale said. They were all experiencing low gravity. But apparently not all of them were thinking of its potential advantages. Not even the famous exospecialist. “Or, really, you could throw me ten meters. You’re mission commander, Zack. I’m expendable.”

Zack considered this for a moment. “I guess, if you count Keanu as one, I’ve already been first to enter an alien spacecraft. It’s someone else’s turn.”

“Not the exospecialist?” Makali said.

“After me,” Dale said. He gestured to Zack. “May I?”

In Keanu surface gravity, it was a simple matter for Dale to step into Zack’s hands, which were clenched waist-high, steadying himself with a hand on Zack’s head. “Okay, I’m just going to propel you.”

“That should do it. Look out below if I miss.”

“You might not hit the ground for a minute. I’ll have time to duck.”

“Or catch you,” Williams said.

“Remember,” Makali said, “you still have to get
down
.”

“
Then
you can catch me,” Dale told her.

It took only one toss. Dale’s flight up the side of the alien ship reminded him most of a roller coaster ascent; it seemed to have the same speed.

Which gave him plenty of time to reach for the hatch while not smacking his head on it. “It’s bigger than it looks from down there,” he said, holding on. He glanced down at Zack and the others once, then resolved not to do that again.

The trickiest maneuver was getting on top of the hatch. Fortunately, the plug itself had layers and notches in it, sufficient to allow him to take a grip. Once secured, he swung his feet to the side of the vehicle, then Spider-Man-walked his way up.

He actually had to climb over the rim of the hatch. How tall were these guys?

There was an airlock of sorts—or, rather, a large chamber with a hatch on its inner bulkhead. The chamber was as featureless as a sewer pipe, and, stained and corroded, not much better looking. He wondered how much of that was due to age, and how much was in the original design.

Beyond the inner hatch was simply darkness…a metallic deck and a high ceiling. With no light but what came through the hatch, which was itself in shadow, there was nothing to see: no equipment, no tools, not even an access ladder or hatch to an upper deck.

The interior confirmed Dale’s impression of the exterior; it was like an Egyptian tomb in there.

He turned and almost jumped out of his skinsuit.

Makali Pillay was standing just inside the outer hatchway. “Makali, what are you doing up here?”

“You said, ‘after me.’”

“I meant on the order of days or weeks.” He stepped aside. “Well, take a look. You’re not going to find anything.”

She said nothing, merely slipping past him into the big, empty deck.

Which left Dale with that rarest of things in any space excursion…time to enjoy the view.
Especially since this might be my last beautiful vista.

It wasn’t much…a white surface that could just as easily have served as the parking lot for an interplanetary sports arena. Around its edges lay dirty snow and ice, and rock, all of which looked exactly like equivalent surfaces on every comet or asteroid humans had ever photographed.

There were low hills, more rock than snow, on the horizon—which was freakishly close. As he scanned from one heading to another, Dale noted the change from rock to snow and ice, and—

“Hey,” he said to the others. “I can see Mt. St. Helens!”

“Great!” Zack said. “How far?”

“Wow, hard to tell—maybe five clicks, might be less.”

If he took the bearing directly out the hatch as zero degrees, the next vent lay at forty. He pointed in that direction, and was rewarded by the sight of Zack Stewart repositioning Valya and Williams in that direction. (He must have found that the shiny white surface repelled marks.)

See, Stewart?
Dale thought.
I could have been useful on a long-duration space flight. I could have finished my tour on ISS. You stupid son of a bitch.

Makali emerged. “What took you so long?

She pointed upward. “I got up to the next floor.”

“Deck. And I didn’t see any access.”

“It was sort of a tube against the wall.”

“Bulkhead.”

“You can stop that any time,” she said. “Especially since you didn’t find any whatever-you-call-it.”

“Whatever. What was on the upper floor?

“I’m sure it was the…the flight deck, okay? But it was just scraped and messed up, mostly open pipes, as if it had been stripped.” She thought for a moment. “It looked a little like the inside of
Brahma
.”

“Hey, you two!” Zack was calling from the base of the spacecraft. “Let’s go!”

The jumps down—Makali first, followed by Dale—were easy, with one exception: They both landed on two feet like parachutists, then bounced at least two meters in the air like trampoliners, before coming to rest again…this time like tumblers.

“Suits okay?” Zack said, sounding worried.

“So far,” Dale said. Zack was already turning away, with Makali following him, rushing out ahead of Valya and Williams, leading the march toward Mt. St. Helens Vent.

Dale found himself bringing up the rear with Williams, who was moving slowly. “How are you doing, friend?”

“Not good. I’ve had a kind of stitch in my side the last mile or so.” God bless him, he was a metric refusenik. “I’m finding it rather difficult to breathe. And my vision…it’s like there’s a blue-colored overlay on everything now.”

Now that Williams had mentioned it, Dale realized he was seeing the same thing. “How blue, exactly? I’m getting a kind of sky-blue tinge—”

“Dodger blue.”

They were talking quietly, walking within a meter of each other. Dale had no idea who had heard what. “Hey, everyone! Have you noticed any changes to your suit, and vision?”

Zack stopped to let everyone catch up. “Now that you mention it,” he said, “I’m seeing some blue sky in my vision. I thought it was the skinsuit reacting to all the brightness.”

“Mine is darker,” Valya announced.

“How are you feeling?” Dale asked her.

“Steps are beginning to be hard work.”

“Are you still feeling the pinpricks?”

She seemed surprised by the question. “No.”