The Dying Light (7 page)

2

IND
Ana Vereine

‘955.01.19 EN

0805

The main screen was empty.

Roche stared at it for a few moments, expecting it to suddenly clear and fill with...
what
? She had no idea what she expected to see out there. She had no idea where the Box had even taken them.

When it became apparent that the screen wasn’t about to change, she swiveled around to check the others on the bridge. Cane had freed himself from his restraint harness and was assisting Maii back into her seat, their movements in the unnatural silence oddly loud and unreal. When he stepped away from her, Roche saw that the girl’s head was bleeding slightly from her fall. Haid, the hand of his new arm resting on a touch pad, was still staring quizzically at the view that Roche had just turned from.

Then it struck her: the drive was no longer audible. But the
Ana Vereine
hadn’t completed its slow-jump. It had just... stopped.

“Uri,” she asked, her voice booming in the quiet. “What’s going on?”

The holographic projector in the center of the bridge flickered. Kajic’s image appeared through the static, the light brown skin and black hair of his old body looking as composed as always. His expression was serious, but not concerned.

“Minor damage,” said the ex-captain. “We weathered the stress well.”

“How long until we can see where we are?”

“My sensors are gathering some unusual data. The Box is checking to see if the irregularities are due to instrument malfunction. When its diagnosis is complete, vision will be restored.”

“I have partial telemetry readings,” said Haid from the weapons console. After a moment he reported: “No targets. No sign of the point-source, either. We must have left them all behind when we jumped.”

“We did jump, then?” Roche asked Kajic.

“Well, we certainly entered hyperspace,” said Kajic.

“But have we
left
it?”

“I didn’t think an open-ended jump was possible,” Haid said.

Kajic’s image shrugged. “You’ll have to ask the Box. I just did as it told me.”

Roche put her palm on the arm-link of her chair, intending to access the raw data herself, but changed her mind before she did so. Better to remain distant for a moment rather than dive in headfirst. She needed to maintain a measure of objectivity if a quick decision was required.

“There appears to be a planet nearby,” said Kajic. “That much I can tell you. A medium-sized gas giant if its mass reading is accurate.”

“Try cross-referencing it with the navigation records of Palasian System,” said Roche. “A match would at least confirm where we are.”

Kajic dissolved in a burst of static that lasted a few heartbeats. When he re-formed, he said: “There’s a ninety-nine percent chance the planet is Voloras, the outermost planet of Palasian System. If so, that places us well inside the cometary shell and the third dark-body halo.”

Roche searched her memory for what she knew about the system. “Wasn’t there a refueling base around Voloras?”

“Guhr Outpost,” confirmed Kajic.

“Any signals?”

“Apart from some strong crackles on the hydrogen band,” said Haid, “we aren’t getting a thing on any frequency.”

“Try elsewhere,” Roche said. “This far out, we should be able to pick up hyperspace transmissions.”

“Already tried,” said Haid. “Nothing; not even the beacon of the local anchor point.”

“That can’t be right.” Roche frowned. “We’re near the N’Kor border, and the Kesh have warning stations every few light-years—”

“I’m telling you, Morgan,” said Haid, glancing over his shoulder. “There’s nothing there.”

“How could
all
of those beacons be blocked?” Roche could feel her confusion gradually developing into frustration. “Uri,
could
it be instrument failure?”

Before Kajic could reply, the Box cut in:

“It
is
possible, Morgan. And the fact that it has happened confirms my hypothesis quite neatly.” At that moment, the main screen cleared. “Welcome to Palasian System.”

Roche studied the screen. Initially she saw nothing but darkness—not even stars. Then the view changed, and a single red speck slid into view. Increased magnification made the speck a bright circle. The image was too fuzzy to make out any detail, but there was no mistaking what it was: against the unnaturally black background, one solitary sun burned.

“It can’t be,” she muttered, standing. “Hintubet is a calcium star—”

“And should be on the green side of yellow,” the Box interrupted. “I am aware of that fact, Morgan. The difficulty in reconciling the emission spectrum of this star and that which Hintubet’s
should
be was the main reason I delayed giving you this information. Now that I have had time to collate the data and to extrapolate from historical records, I believe I can say with certainty that this
is
Hintubet, albeit with a wildly altered photosphere.”

“The star has changed?” asked Haid.
“
How?
”

“The precise method is unknown at the moment; the archives lack specifics in that regard, although the general principles are clear. Until we dispatch probes to study Hintubet in more detail, we are limited to the data we can scavenge from this distance.”

“Which isn’t enough,” said Roche. She faced Kajic. “Uri, I want high-speed drones launched to the sun and any planetary bodies we can find.” She turned back to the screen. “Speaking of which, any sign of Voloras?”

The red star shrank and slid out of view. Seconds later, the crescent of a large planet appeared, red-tinged due to the sun’s baleful light. The image of the planet came to rest in the center of the screen, its dense atmosphere swirled with gray bands.

“I have dispatched a probe,” said Kajic. “The base line is already large enough for us to detect four moons.”

“Voloras has five,” said Roche.

“The fifth may be occluded,” said Kajic. “The sizes of the four we can see match COE records.”

“How long until the probe can get a decent look at the base?”

“One hour and fifty minutes. Guhr Outpost is on the missing moon.”

Roche nodded. “Until then, we can’t afford to take anything for granted. Give us a heading that will take us by Voloras, with the option to use it as a gravity-whip if we decide not to stop. Leave a drone behind to relay the data from the probes. I want the ship camouflaged, too, just in case someone saw us arrive and is waiting for us there.”

Kajic’s image winked out as he went to work.

Roche slumped back into her chair with a sigh and rubbed at her temples. They appeared to be in Palasian System, just as the Box had promised they would be. But it wasn’t quite what she had expected: no hyperspace transmissions, a profoundly altered primary, and no stars in sight.

The first and last details suggested that the system had indeed been encapsulated within some sort of barrier. But what? She knew of no process that could hide an entire system from view
and
account for the warped space outside.

Or did she? The change in the sun’s appearance did ring a faint bell. A name she had heard back in her days on the moon of Bodh Gaya, when she had been studying for her Armada exams, returned to her...

“Asha’s Gauntlet,” she said aloud.

“I’m impressed, Morgan,” said the Box. “I didn’t think you would work it out so—”

“We’re picking up a transmission!” Haid broke in.

“Where?” Roche swiveled to face him, automatically linking with the weapons system. If life remained in the system, the chances were good that it belonged to the Sol Wunderkind. And if he was signaling them, then he knew where they were.

“It’s not directed at us.” Haid was skimming through the various diagnostic tools that enabled him to enhance a weak signal. “It’s a wide-beam microwave from in-system. I’m picking up echoes off several objects near the source; the slight delays should give us a fair triangulation.”

Roche let herself relax slightly. The signal must have been sent some time ago, given the distance at light-speed to the inner system.

“What about the content of the transmission?” she said.

“It’s in some sort of cipher,” Haid told her, then shook his head. “Haven’t broken it yet, which isn’t a good sign. They either crack immediately or take forever.”

“Box, have a go at it,” she said. Haid’s refinement of the signal’s source proceeded while she watched. The area containing a probable location of the transmitter gradually narrowed on a diagnostic display, until a single point flashed once and turned green.

“Got it,” Haid said.

Roche overlaid a navigation chart. “It’s the same distance from the primary as Jagabis would have been. And Jagabis has moons.”

Haid nodded. “That’d give us the echoes.”

“Uri, do we have confirmation of a planet in this area?”

Kajic’s image returned at the mention of his name. “Not yet. It’s off to one side of Hintubet, and I haven’t searched that area in any detail yet. Now that I’m looking, it shouldn’t take long to find—” He stopped, smiled. “In fact, there it is. Give me a little longer and I’ll be able to estimate its mass.”

“It
has
to be Jagabis,” Roche said. “Someone’s alive there.”

“The signal could be a beacon,” Haid suggested.

“In cipher? Unlikely,” said Roche. “Besides, Jagabis was the innermost gas giant in the system. If I remember correctly, the main spaceport and colony were on one of its moons.”

“Correct,” said the Box. “The moon is called Aro, the colony Emptage City.”

“Right,” said Roche. “So if there are survivors, that’s the first place to look.”

“I can get us there in two days,” said Kajic. “Faster if we flyby Voloras.”

Roche nodded. “Plot a course, but don’t do anything definite until we decipher the message.”

Cane stirred, speaking for the first time since their arrival. “It could be a warning,” he said. “Or a trap.”

Roche looked over at him. “For whom? It couldn’t be us. We weren’t even here when that message was transmitted.”

“True,” Cane said. “But I find it disturbing nonetheless. The impression I get is that someone is still fighting.”

“That’s a good sign,” said Roche. “That there’s the slightest resistance left in the system is something of a miracle.”

“Which is precisely what bothers me.” The bridge’s light glowed in his unblinking eyes. “I would never have been so careless as to leave any survivors.”

Roche met his calm expression uneasily, his words reminding her of the ruthlessness of the adversary they were hunting—and of Cane’s ancestry.

“It’s worth checking, at least,” she said after a moment. Then, turning from Cane, turning from the thought, she said: “Have you sent a probe, Uri?”

“I have dispatched five so far,” Kajic reported. “Three are under way to Hintubet, Voloras, and Jagabis; the other two are heading to Cartha’s Planet, the innermost world, and Cemenid, the largest. There are four planets outstanding: Herensung, Gatamin, Kukumat and Murukan.”

“The last two being the double world?” Roche asked.

“That’s right. There are also some sizable rocks in the dark body halos that might be worth exploring, but they’re not a priority at the moment. I’ll let you know when we have the system mapped.”

“Okay.” Roche visualized the bulletlike probes crossing the system under accelerations that not even the
Ana Vereine’s
protective fields could negate, thereby traversing the empty space more quickly than they could ever hope to. Even so, it would be hours before they started getting any data. At light-speed, the lag across the system was appreciable.

“That transmission just ended,” said Haid.

“Box?” Roche said. “How’s the deciphering coming along?”

“Completed,” said the AI. “However, the translation is proving difficult. It appears to be in a language with which I am unfamiliar.”

“Show me.”

Several lines of standard alphanumeric script flowed across the screen. Roche studied it for a moment before admitting that she too was stumped. “It’s definitely a language, not another cipher?”

“Without sufficient text to analyze, I am unable to do more than guess.”

“Fair enough. Keep guessing, then, Box, and let me know if you come up with anything.”

“Certainly.”

“Uri, how long until the Voloras flyby?”

“One hour and thirty-seven minutes.”

Roche sat back with a weary sigh, running a hand through her cropped hair. She was already impatient with the delay in obtaining information. Being trapped in this system without any idea of what was going on or even where the clone warrior might be filled her with anxiety.

“I don’t suppose there’s any way you could hurry things along?” she said wryly.

“Not unless you know some way to circumvent the barriers of light-speed, Morgan,” said Kajic.

Roche smiled tiredly.

“There is,” said Cane.

Roche looked over to him. “What?”

“Thought is not constrained by the physical laws of the universe,” said Cane.

Roche sat forward with a start.
Maii!
If the girl could contact the minds of the people behind the transmission, Roche would have the data she needed immediately.

Only then did she realize that the reave had neither moved nor spoken since shortly after the
Ana Vereine
had arrived in Palasian System. Roche turned to see what the problem was.

The Surin girl sat motionless on the edge of her seat with her hands clasped together in her lap. A thin line of blood had trickled down from the gash on her forehead, staining red the white material of her blindfold.

“Maii? Are you all right?”

There was no response.

Roche moved over to the reave, squatting down in front of her to examine the small lesion on the girl’s forehead. It seemed to Roche to be nothing more than a superficial cut, and yet...

“Maii?” Still no reply. She touched the girl’s shoulders and tried again: “Maii, can you—?”

Startled, Maii jumped back in her seat, pushing Roche’s hand away.

Roche fought to restrain the reave’s flailing arms.
It’s Morgan!>

After a moment, the girl’s panic subsided and her breathing eased.