The Nexus Colony (33 page)

The group moved cautiously toward the nodules. “I’ve seen these before,” Grimes whispered out loud to himself, but his voice became acoustically amplified like every other sound.

“You’ve seen
these
?
”
Almshouse responded, astonished. “
Where?”

“Not
these
,” Grimes replied. “What I mean is, the shape. I’ve seen this shape before. I know what it is.”

“What
is
it then,” Abbott asked, positioning himself alongside the squatting Grimes, who was making a close visual inspection of the strange objects.

“Don’t touch it,” Almshouse admonished.

“I’m pretty sure they call it a
Torus Bubble
,” Grimes replied. “Somebody did a dissertation on the subject at one of the symposiums I attended last year. You know, NSF stuff and all that.”

“He’s right, Marsh,” Lisk responded. “I’ve seen mathematical computer models of that shape. Never knew what it was called.”

“What for? What’s the purpose?”

“Like Al said,” Grimes responded. “It’s mostly mathematical. As I recall, it works off the premise that a sphere is the most practical shape to enclose a given volume utilizing the least possible surface area. A matter of efficiency. I believe the Greeks thought it up. Probably Archimedes. Anyway…the
Torus Bubble
is a mathematical model devised to show that its structure was even more efficient that a single sphere.”

“Actually,” Lisk interjected, “it’s two spheres stuck together. One squeezed inside the other.”

“Interesting part of it is,” Grimes continued, “this shape doesn’t occur naturally anywhere in nature.”

“What’s even more interesting,” Lisk added, “as I recall, the computers showed that it wasn’t the most efficient shape after all to enclose a volume.”

Grimes looked up at him. “I wasn’t aware of that.”

“Actually, it was the good old-fashioned
double-bubble
,” Lisk said, then knelt himself next to Grimes. “Or so we think. Maybe
they
know something we don’t.”

“The two of you have lost me,” Abbott said.

“A
double-bubble
is easy to create,” Grimes said. “Remember when you were a kid blowing bubbles with those little plastic hoops or wands or whatever they were?”

“Yeah. sure.”

“You made lots of
double-bubbles
. Remember?”

Abbott waited for a further explanation. “So what’s the point?” he asked, looking at both of them.

“The point is, Marsh,” Lisk said, standing up. “Our visitor friends are utilizing a mathematical configuration that doesn’t occur naturally. And it’s not the most efficient one.”

“At least from the human perspective,” Grimes replied, himself standing up.

“Yeah. That’s true,” Lisk replied. “Food for thought, though. Maybe our damn computers are wrong.”

“It still doesn’t explain what in God’s name they’re for,” Almshouse said.

Grimes shrugged his shoulders. “Who knows? They obviously contain something of great importance or there wouldn’t be so many of them lying around.”

“What could they contain?” Ruger asked.

“Maybe their air,” Abbott replied. “Maybe they’re storage modules for their environment.”

“Maybe,” Lisk said. “I think our people were dickering around with the shape suggesting that it was perfect for minimizing the weight of double fuel tanks in rockets.”

“I don’t think that’s what they’re being used for here,” Abbott replied, moving around slowly carefully studying the great quantity of the strange nodules scattered randomly throughout this area of the chamber.

“Can we take some back?” Grimes asked.

“Yeah,” Abbott responded over his shoulder. “We will. On the way out. But let’s not touch anything just yet. Not until we’re sure what it is we’re dealing with.”

Ruger laughed nervously. “And just when in the hell is
that
going to be?”

Ruger’s remark went ignored. They heard Prall call out from a short distance away. “Better come and take a look at this, Abbott.”

Prall had found two of them in close proximity to each other. At first they looked as if they were merely featureless pits in the floor, and if they had been anywhere else but here, they would appear to be nothing more than small empty concrete swimming pools.

“How deep would you say?” Abbott asked, peering over the edge.

Prall estimated, “Ten feet at most.”

The pits were rectangular, about eight feet by ten feet, and off center in mathematical relation to each other. One was at about a thirty degree angle to the other. The walls were smooth like polished rock, unobtrusive, very drab.

“Shine the light down there,” Abbott said.

When the darkened pit was illuminated by the carbide lamp, it revealed an open doorway that they hadn’t seen from above. Almshouse repositioned himself to shine the light directly into the opening, but the beam was absorbed into the blackness.

“See anything at all?” Abbott asked.

“No. Nothing.”

“Not from up here,” Prall responded, standing next to Almshouse to see if he could observe anything.

Ruger and Grimes had been inspecting the other pit area. “This one’s the same,” Ruger said. “There’s another opening at the bottom.”

“The two connected?” Abbott asked.

“No,” Ruger replied. “Looks like this opening is going off in another direction. That way.” He pointed.

“That’s assuming they’re straight through,” Lisk said.

“They must have been filled with liquid at one time,” Almshouse suggested. “Maybe their water supply.”

“Could be,” Abbott responded.

“Want me to go down and take a look?” Prall asked.

Abbott contemplated for a moment, and everyone remained silent awaiting his response. Abbott peered around the chamber. The rest of the internal structure which they hadn’t yet examined closely appeared to look much the same—intestine-like conduits, gray-green ooze, and thousands of the strange purplish nodules.

Slowly Abbott nodded affirmative. “All right,” he replied. “But lets just make a quick recon.”

Lisk was already retrieving the nylon rope from the gear pack. Prall quickly secured it around his waist. Abbott and Ruger both simultaneously looked around for something to guide the rope against for leverage to lower Prall into the pit. There was nothing secured to the floor in proximity to the opening.

“Guess we’ll just have to lower him over the edge,” Ruger said.

“I can drop down,” Prall said, peering over the edge. “You’ll just have to haul me back up.” Abbott nodded affirmative.

Almshouse and Grimes kept the light beams trained on the area where Prall landed feet first, then Grimes tossed the one lamp down to him. Overhead, the ambient lighting didn’t alter with occupancy of the pit. The sound of his striking the floor sent an echo reverberating through the pit area.

“Anything goes wrong,” Abbott ordered, “we pull him out of there as fast as we can.” Prall attached the line.

Cautiously, Prall stepped toward the dark opening, weapon trained ahead in one hand, carbide lamp in the other. The beam shined into the blackness. Prall moved to the edge of the opening and stopped, waving the beam back and forth, all around the perimeter of the jamb. There was a deathly silence inside.

Abbott was growing impatient. He called down, “What’s there, Prall? What do you see?”

There was another moment of silence before Prall responded. “Nothing. There’s absolutely nothing here. It’s a tunnel. Looks like it goes in a long way. Same walls. Same floor. About five feet clearance all around.”

“Same dimensions as the doorway back there,” Lisk muttered.

“How far can you see in?”

“Twenty feet maybe,” Prall replied. “Want me to go in?”

Again, there was a moment of precautionary silence as Abbott contemplated. “Yeah,” he responded. “Be careful.”

“You crazy, Abbott?” Ruger protested in a low voice. “You’ve no idea what’s in there.”

“We had no idea what was in
here
, either,” he replied calmly.

Prall called up from the pit, obviously several yards inside the tunnel. “The tunnel lit up inside. I don’t see any light source.” A moment’s silence. “I’m twenty feet in,” Prall responded again, the pitch of his voice now lower due to the increased distance. “Still nothing. I don't need the lamp.”

Abbott turned to Lisk and asked, “How much on that reel?”

“Two hundred feet,” Lisk replied. “It’s marked at ten foot intervals.”

In silence they watched as the cord continued to reel out. Prall was now out of voice range and had ceased talking. Grimes and Almshouse were positioned on the floor to get a straight angle into the opening. They watched as the lighting diminished behind him the deeper Prall moved into the interior of the tunnel. It was now dark again in the pit. The cord continued reeling out at the same slow pace.

Several minutes passed before the cord stopped, then went limp. They waited for a few moments. “Pull it taut. Get his attention.”

Lisk pulled. The unthinkable happened. The cord was unattached. “Jesus…” Abbott cursed, angrily at first, then changing his facial expression to one of grave concern.

Abbott and Lisk looked at each other. “How much left?” Abbott asked.

“He’s in about a hundred and a quarter.”

“Stay by the line,” Abbott ordered, slinging his weapon over his shoulder and positioning himself along the pit edge to drop down. Ruger started to protest, but Abbott was down before he knew it.

Almshouse tossed down the other carbide lamp. “Just in case.”

“Hold it!” Ruger shouted, and everyone stopped, including Abbott who was about to enter the tunnel.

“Wait,” Ruger said. “You can’t go in there alone.”

“You stay put, Ruger,” Abbott ordered.

But before Abbott could say anything more, Ruger had plunged over the edge, dropping to floor with a loud
thud.
“You don't order me to do
anything
anymore, Abbott,” Ruger responded.

Fuck you then, Ruger
, Abbott said to himself.
Let our visitor friends deal with you, too.

“Just one request,” Ruger said, smiling nervously. “You go first.”

There was no time to argue now. Abbott looked up at Lisk. “Don't reel the cord back just in case we have to drag somebody out. If you don’t hear from me in fifteen minutes, get the hell out of here, Al. You know what you have to do.”

“Check,” Lisk replied.

“Let’s go, Ruger,” Abbott ordered.

Cautiously, they entered the portal. As anticipated, the tunnel was bathed in a low, soft lighting. Like in the chamber above, they couldn’t detect from where it was emanating. It illuminated a new area about every twenty feet, turning off behind them as they moved further into the interior.

It was difficult moving through the tunnel. The five foot overhead clearance was obviously not engineered to accommodate the human frame. Both men were over six feet tall, and it was uncomfortable moving in a semi-crouched position.

Abbott followed the orange cord lying limply along the center of the floor. He had been counting the black ten-foot interval marks. Five…six…seven…they were at least seventy feet inside the tunnel. Each time a new area was lighted, it gave off only enough light to illuminate the immediate area. Ahead there was still pitch blackness.

“Notice something different?” Ruger whispered, breaking the silence of the past few minutes.

Abbott stopped. “Yeah. This whole place.”

“No. I mean our sounds aren’t echoing anymore. The walls seem to be absorbing our voices.”

“You’re right,” Abbott replied. Abbott switched on the lamp to see how the lighting reacted. It diminished rapidly, compensating for the lamp. It made the lighting condition worse. He switched it back off, and the lighting returned to its former low level intensity.

They moved forward again in silence. Abbott kept counting. Eight…nine…At the hundred foot mark, Abbott began calling, softly at first, “Prall…Prall…” but there was no response. And then, at the one hundred seventy foot mark, they came to the end of the tunnel. A portal opened up into another identical pit. The end of the cord lay outside the portal in the center of the pit area. Crouching just inside the entranceway, Abbott pulled it toward him. He inspected the end closely.

“Cut?” Ruger whispered.

“No,” Abbott whispered back. “Untied,” showing the end to Ruger. Abbott tossed the end back inside the tunnel.

Cautiously, silently, Abbott moved into the center of the pit, standing up and stretching his aching back. The walls in this pit were not as high, only about seven feet. There was no sign of Prall. Abbott turned around and kept to whispering, “It’s a passageway.”

“Yeah,” Ruger nodded agreement. That had to be the primary purpose. “And my guess is there might be a whole lot more of them if we look long enough.”

Abbott hadn’t noticed at first, but there were two other openings along the wall to his right. The opposite wall had none. “Might as well take a look,” Ruger said, nervously.

“Yeah,” Abbott replied, tossing his weapon to Ruger. “Don’t be afraid to use it. You know how?”

I’m not
, Ruger thought, remembering he still had the two handguns hidden in his pocket pouch.

“Prall!” Abbott called loudly. “You up there, Prall?” he said, leaping to grab the edge of the top of the pit wall. Abbott pulled himself easily up to the surface, where he hung by his elbows peering into the dark chamber. This place had the same awful smell as the other antechamber, as if something had recently been slaughtered and the inner organs were left to lie around rotting. Both of them involuntarily gagged back the effects of the smell.

Ruger switched on the lamp and shone it upward at Abbott, then directly overhead. The blackness, as expected, absorbed the beam. “What’s there, Abbott?’ he asked, his heart pounding.

Abbott hoisted himself to the surface, then reached back down for the weapon. Ruger pulled himself up the wall and stood next to Abbott. The lighting had activated. There was no doubt. They were inside another similar domed structure. Two more rectangular pits were nearby, both positioned at odd angles to each other. Abbott shined the lamp into each pit. All three were identical. Seven foot walls, three openings, each one off in a different direction.