Tin Woodman (18 page)

“If indeed
Tin Woodman’s
race built this, why would they need air?” asked Wellow.

“Perhaps they can operate in both. In space, certainly, they must have to generate some sort of inner atmosphere,” said Sauk.

Then the lasers licked out at the door. Evidently Coffer had reached Sauk’s conclusion independently. The twin beams slowly drilled a four-meter hole in the metal surface.

“Everyone have their jets on?” Kervatz asked. “Good. Check your oxygen. And once you’re outside the shuttle’s shielding, for God’s sake, don’t stop to gawk.” He stole a glance at the radiation meter on his left wrist. “This part of the station is cooler than the rest, but that’s not saying much. We’ve got four hours inside, with an hour’s safety margin. Remember that we have to get far outside the outer station before we’re in the clear.

“Move it!”

The shuttle’s pumps sucked the air from the cabin. The doors opened, and the five explorers jetted out, steering for the hole in the station’s skin. Mora was last. As she reached the interior of the airlock, Sauk was examining the inner door of the huge cylinder.

“The lock seals automatically when the outer door is punctured, of course,” he announced. “Call Coffer and see if she can focus the lasers on the inner door through the hole in the outer one.”

“You’ll kill anyone that might be inside!” protested Wellow.

“I don’t think there’s anyone in there. They’d have given us some sort of indication if so,” countered Sauk.

Kervatz established communication with Coffer and explained the situation. Coffer told them to flatten themselves against the airlock wall furthest from the puncture—several minutes later the shuttle’s laser flashed, drilling a hole smaller by half than the first one into the inner door. There was no explosion of escaping air.

“Not pressurized in there,” said Freitag.

“This place has been a ghost for a long time,” Mora returned. She could
sense
it. Now, drawn by curiosity, she took the lead. She jetted through the hole before its edges were completely cooled.

The interior of the station was different from anything she had imagined. As the others, one by one, followed her inside, they too were silent, stunned.

Sank finally broke that silence. “I thought it would be designed like a starship,” he said. “With enclosed levels, rooms . . .”

It was not. The greatest area of the sphere was one vast, open space. There was no appreciable gravity, strangely. Mora began to feel slightly ill. The dark void of space was unfathomable to her senses; the rift station had a sense of scale which space lacked. She felt as though she were high above a city, falling.

The walls were lined with tens of thousands of compartments, like small dwellings but open to the gaze of an outsider. On the far side they resembled a hive or skyscraper built by a mad architect who had never felt the deadening clumsiness of gravitation, nor known the human need for privacy. Lights blazed from many of these compartments, though Mora saw no movement in any.

Throughout the open space many objects drifted. Some were simpIe featureless geometric forms in bright colors; others resembled smaller versions of the wall structures. They moved freely about the station, their motion apparently random; yet no two collided as Mora watched.

“I hope someone left blueprints lying around here,” said Kervatz.

“I suppose you want them in English,” joked Freitag.

“Preferably.”

“Well, I’m no use to this mission,” Wellow announced. “This place has probably been deserted since before Earth’s last ice age. Even if the inhabitants had consumed food that we could use, I doubt there’s any chance we’ll find it intact.”

“Look at that one building near the center of the sphere,” said Freitag. “It hasn’t moved. I don’t think so, anyway.”

“How can you tell?” asked Kervaz.

“No, he’s right,” said Mora, “I’ve noticed it, too.”

“It could be a control center,” Sauk mused. “We might find what we’re looking for there.”

“Do you realize how far away that is?” Kervatz objected. “Over fifty kilometers! Just getting there and back on these jets would take over an hour. And we could easily get lost.”

“No,” Mora said. “If two people stay here at the opening, I think I could guide us back. There’s a limit to my Talent, but with so few of us here, I think I could sense my way toward someone pretty well.”

“You think. What if you’re wrong?” Kervatz demanded. The sudden babble of four voices all arguing into his radio seemed to be worse than any other fate Kervatz could imagine, “What the hell,” he relented. “Wellow, Freitag—you stay here. If we’re not back in two hours—no, scratch that. I expect you two to wait nobly for us until you rot in your suits. No reason
you
should get off easy.”

Mora, Kervatz, and Sauk set off for the central structure, steering themselves by visual judgment alone. This was not too difficult, since the lack of atmosphere caused even distant objects to stand clearly defined; but it did demand considerable concentration.

Distance had deceived them, however. When finally they reached the “control center” it was far larger than they had assumed, comprised of many open chambers and extending for hundreds of meters in all directions.

“We still need a map,” groaned Kervatz.

“Head for the center,” said Sauk, “It seems logical, considering the design of the station.”

“How?” asked Mora.

“Well, all the other free units actually orbit this thing. Everything is built around a point. It may even be . . . it may be that the station was built around a pre-selected point in space because it was necessary for the rift’s functioning.”

“May as well try.” Kervatz sighed.

The three of them moved into the control center.

“Captain, we have a problem,” Lieutenant Cushnam reported.

Coffer walked from her command monitors toward the sensor station. “What is it?”

“Since the exploration party entered the station’s core, radiation levels there have started to rise. It was minimal at first, but if it keeps increasing at its present rate . . .”

“Kervatz is in charge,” Coffer interrupted. “He’ll—no, better inform them anyway. Who knows what’s happening in there.” She turned to Garyve at the communications console. “Send a message to the—”

“Captain,” reported the communications officer. “I’m sorry, but our communication with them has just been jammed.”

Coffer pondered. “We must have hit some sort of burglar alarm.” She felt responsible—and lonely—as only a commander of others can feel. Her every decision affected the crew—and she hadn’t been doing very well, from the mutiny onward.

“Leana, why did they—
Tin Woodman’s
race—build the rift station?” Norlan asked Coffer.

“I don’t know,” she said. “What difference does it make now?”

“I—I was just wondering. You know, no living creature could survive constantly increasing radiation like that. What kind of station is so desperately important that it’s designed to kill its inhabitants to prevent take-over by an enemy?”

Coffer had no answer.

This room had to be the control chamber—Mora was certain of it.

It seemed to be patterned after something familiar—something Div had shown her in their brief, last-moment contact: an ovoid of soft, resilient material, warm pastel in color. There were resting structures which vaguely resembled chairs scattered around the room. Ranged in front of the chairs were what appeared to be instrument panels without keyboards or any other visible means of operation.

In the center of the room floated a dark, featureless globe only slightly larger than a human head. Mora rocketed toward it. She chinned her transmitter. “I’ve found the main control room, I think.” Kervatz and Sauk were close behind her, in the outer corridor. Not waiting for them to arrive, she reached out, instinctively, to touch the globe.

At her touch the globe seemed to grow. Her vision reeled; she seemed to fall forward toward the center of the thing. The outer world fell away, and on all her sensory levels she received a communication.

The history of
Tin Woodman’s
race passed before her like a filmed epic pageant.

And she understood . . .

. . . and then Mora found herself abruptly conscious, floating in the center of the rift station control system and clutching the dark globe. Kervatz’s voice crackled in her radio: “ . . . radiation in this place is rising. I should have noticed it earlier. We have to leave, now! For God’s sake—Sauk, see if you can pry her off that damned thing.”

“No!” Mora shouted as hands locked on her wrists, pulling her away from the globe. She pushed the man away and moved back to the globe. She held it tightly in her hands. Nothing. The globe remained dark, silent.

“Mora, please.” It was Kervatz again, his voice soothing now as he pleaded with her. “We don’t want to leave you here. We have to go or we’ll all die here.”

“Yes,” Mora said at last, releasing the now played-out globe. “Let’s get out of here.”

RIFT STATION EXPLORATORY REPORT

REPORT SYNOPSIS

EXCERPTS, RE: CONTROL ROOM, HISTORY STORAGE GLOBE

MORA ELBRUN, SOLE SOURCE

. . . here I shall attempt to place into words, for the benefit of the committee of researchers assigned to study the subject, a brief outline of the pertinent highlights perceived by me through the curious memory bank described above.

Although the experiences were not in words—images and extrasensory information, rather—later thought on the matter has crystallized the information into these basic truths:

Eons ago, in a distant galaxy now long extinct, there had existed a planet much like Earth, or Crysor. On this planet had evolved, in symbiotic fashion, not one but two sentient races: The Gom, huge elephantine creatures, and the Tuu, who resembled human beings in many ways. The symbiosis the two races evolved was necessary for survival. The alternative would have been constant warfare between creatures of unlike minds, decimating both populations. Having made this crucial twist in their development, the Gomtuu were able to avoid even such war as had been known on Earth, for when two linked but independent consciousnesses made every individual decision, the potential for excessive self-aggrandizement at the expense of others was severely limited.

In the earliest stages of Gomtuu civilization, the Gom willingly served as the beasts of burden; in turn the Tuu possessed the physical flexibility the Gom lacked. Theirs were the hands which built the Gomtuu cities, laying upon one another the great stones which the Gom would carry from the quarries. Intellectually, the two races came to specialize, so that neither was whole without the other. The Gom were philosophers, the Tuu, scientists, in a sense. The Gom perceived things holistically, they saw creation as a pattern. The Tuu were analytical, breaking all things down to their component parts for the sake of understanding.

The rise of a world-spanning, peaceful Gomtuu civilization was accomplished within but a few millennia, When finally they had turned their thoughts to the exploration of space, they were technologically and emotionally prepared to weld their symbiosis more tightly than ever: The Gom were developed, by genetic engineering, into space-going vessels in which their Tuu partners could live. The Gom were outfitted at full growth with their stardrives and what other mechanical parts were necessary to their function. They became cybernetic organisms.

The Gomtuu thus dispersed throughout their home galaxy, exploring and colonizing myriad worlds. The process wasn’t without accident, however. In one new star system which was colonized, a virulent disease was encountered. The disease was invariably fatal, but selective in its chosen hosts: it killed Gom. Within two generations the Tuu of this colony were alone.

Without exception the Tuu of this colony went, by Gomtuu standards, mad.

The rest of the Gomtuu were unaware that this had occurred. Inevitably their new freedom and closer meshings with one another had eroded their need for society. Each pairing of Com and Tuu so satisfied the emotional needs of its partners that the dispersal of the race became wider and sparser. Within a few thousand years the new colonies they had so boldly established became little more than hatchery worlds, where young Gom and Tuu were born, paired, and prepared for flight. No one noticed the disappearance of certain pairings.

But on that lost colony world, the insane remnants of the Tuu began to build their own society. They learned quickly to grope after what they wanted. They learned to kill one another for what they needed. Their brilliant analytical minds allowed them after long centuries to develop a scientific technology based on the dissection of corpses and the tearing apart of atoms. They stripped their planet, leveling mountains and diverting rivers.

The memory of the Gomtuu remained, as a belief in gods and demons. As the Tuu became more convinced that there was nothing their own ingenuity could not provide the answers to, the gods became to them only a particularly insidious form of demon.

The longing to return to space hung on also, as an irrational impulse among the Tuu. In time they did so, in bulky mechanical parodies of their ancestors’ partners.

Inevitably, when the Tuu encountered the Gomtuu, war raged between them. Gomtuu hatchery worlds were destroyed by the Tuu. In desperation the Gomtuu reconstructed what had happened, forced themselves to band together once more as a species, and made what for them was a near-unthinkable decision: they immolated the Tuu home world.

But they took action too late, for the Tuu had established themselves on thousands of the Gomtuu hatchery worlds. The war went on.

Finally, rather than continue a fight which they were not constitutionally capable of winning, the Gomtuu had constructed the rift station, with the intention of using it to disperse even more widely over the universe, and thus escape their enemies . . .

Acting Captain Coffer put Mora’s full report down and looked at the woman. “I find this very hard to believe. And that was the end of the recording—the construction of the rift station? You didn’t get any information at all on whether it’s safe—or even
possible—
to reenter the rift. From the sounds of it, if we don’t do it properly, we might end up in some
other
galaxy.”