The wall framing the entrance had now become a ceiling, putting any chance of escape far out of their reach. The interface chair stuck out from what had been the floor, but had now become a wall. Kieran and Corso stood next to each other, panting heavily: only a few seconds had pa.s.sed since the gravity had flipped.
Corso could feel it beginning to shift again. His stomach churned with nausea as his senses grappled to cope with these sudden shifts. Now, the surface under them-until very recently itself a wall-slowly tilted towards the far corner.
Corso scrabbled at the wall underfoot, but it was hopeless. The material from which the derelict was constructed offered little purchase.
Random pieces of equipment began to slide at first slowly, then faster, into a far corner. The entrance still remained resolutely out of reach far above.
Corso became aware of a low hum, slowly building in pitch and volume, which rapidly became a bone-rattling vibration. A tiny part of his mind that remained calm speculated that they"d set off some kind of alarm.
The second flip, when it came, was as sudden and unexpected as the first. The wall on which they crouched suddenly became the top of a hollow cube, with the entrance to their right, but still far out of reach.
They fell, dropping like stones from one side of the room to the other.
Corso hit hard enough to stun him, but Kieran had less luck. He collided heavily with the interface chair, before tumbling on down to land next to Corso like a broken doll.
The entrance was still out of reach above their heads. Corso tried desperately to think of some way to get to it. . .
Things were emerging out of the walls, floor and ceiling, whose pale surfaces had begun to swirl. It was as if they had become transparent enough to reveal a liquid in different shades of cream flowing and ebbing beneath. were emerging out of the walls, floor and ceiling, whose pale surfaces had begun to swirl. It was as if they had become transparent enough to reveal a liquid in different shades of cream flowing and ebbing beneath.
Then the surface of the wall furthest above them began to warp, extruding long, curving spines that began to weave like time-lapse films of plants growing. These and other, unidentifiable, shapes, that Corso couldn"t help but interpret as malevolent.
Kieran coughed and shifted groggily, and then his eyes flickered open. He put a hand to his chest and winced.
"The next time the room starts shifting," Corso told him, "do exactly what I say."
"What do you mean?" Kieran stared at him.
"The first time the room flipped, it dropped us into that corner," Corso said, pointing upwards. "Then into this corner. It"s too early to really guess if there"s a pattern to the way it flips, but there"s a chance, if it happens again, it"ll land us this time on the same wall as the entrance."
They didn"t have to wait long to find out.
The intervening seconds pa.s.sed in silence amid an awful, growing tension. The surface on which they lay then began to ripple gently, and Corso choked back his urge to scream when he felt something tendril-like brush against the inside of his thigh.
Then their tools and equipment once again began to slip away...
The world tipped again, but in the direction Corso had hoped. As they tumbled downwards, Corso aimed himself towards the entrance, knowing the opening would remain out of reach, a few metres above them, if he didn"t make it - He landed hard, the impact knocking the wind out of him. But he had managed to get a grip on the jamb of the doorway, and clung on for all his life. After a few moments he managed to pull himself up and hook an arm fully over the edge, reaching down into the corridor beyond. The gel suits looked like they"d been glued into place, an affront to his already shattered sense of gravity.
A moment later an awful, lurching weight began to pull him back into the room, and he realized Kieran was hauling himself over his body to reach the entrance.
"Stay right where you are, Corso, and hold on tight," Kieran grunted.
The pain Corso felt was indescribable, and he felt his hold beginning to slip.
He glanced back down into the room and saw the walls, floor and ceiling had transformed into a ma.s.s of waving spines that made him think of sea anemones. He moaned, which became a grunt of pain as Kieran pulled himself right over him before falling back out into the corridor.
For a sickening moment Corso wondered if the other man was going to leave him there. But a moment later Kieran, now standing firmly upright in the corridor, grabbed his shoulders and heaved him out.
Corso felt his own weight shift as he fell into a normal-looking corridor that, until a moment ago, his senses had insisted was a vertical shaft. He gasped from the intense pain racking in his shoulders and chest, and Kieran didn"t look much better.
"We need to get out of here," Kieran gasped, "or we"re dead for sure."
"What about Lunden and-?"
"What about them?" Kieran snarled. "They"re soldiers. They know how to take care of themselves."
Low vibrations had begun to roll along the corridor. Corso glanced hastily back into the room and saw his tools in the grip of tendril-like spines. The room now resembled the digestive organs of some sea-going invertebrate, and his stomach somersaulted at the thought of being left in there even a few seconds more . . .
Kieran began to head off, clumsily treading on hard-copy data with his boots. Images of crystal arrays and interface algorithms flickered and spasmed on the hard-copies as they scattered underfoot.
Moving slowly, they made their way back to the original entrance. Behind them, the vibrations transformed into a deep, guttural roar, as if some creature older than human civilization had begun stalking them through the pa.s.sageways.
The derelict had finally given up its silence.
At first, it appeared to Dakota to be loudly radiating its presence to anyone or anything that cared to listen. But then it became rapidly clear that the signal was manifesting on an extremely obscure frequency not used by any of the known interstellar tachyon transceiver relays. She would never even have noticed it if her Ghost hadn"t been engaged in the process of monitoring the derelict across every conceivable transmission spectrum.
Even so, what was emerging was presumably highly encrypted, since it appeared to her Ghost as untranslatable gibberish. The resulting signal was of such low power and limited range it was hard to guess what it might be trying to communicate with.
Is there any way we can figure out what it"s saying, and who to? she asked of she asked of Piri Piri Alpha. Alpha.
Directional? You mean it"s deliberately aiming at something?The ship replied by displaying maps of the Nova Arctis system. Lines stabbed out from Theona and Dymas towards one of the inner planets: not Newfall but the system"s innermost world, a tiny ball of rock barely outside the corona of the sun it orbited. This planet was called Ikaria.
What the h.e.l.l was to be found there? there?
Two six-man squads were scrambled from the Agartha Agartha in response to the sudden breakdown in communications with the derelict, dropping down on tails of chemical fire to Theona"s icy surface in combat pods that spilled the pressure-suited figures inside on to the ice immediately adjacent to the surface base. in response to the sudden breakdown in communications with the derelict, dropping down on tails of chemical fire to Theona"s icy surface in combat pods that spilled the pressure-suited figures inside on to the ice immediately adjacent to the surface base.
By now less then twenty minutes had pa.s.sed since the loss of communications with the derelict.
Should have brought more than one sub, thought Gardner, standing back and watching the rescue operation being mounted from inside the ground base. But everything had been so rushed . . . they"d been working hard and fast, fearful that the Shoal might already be on to them, or if not yet, at least soon. There simply hadn"t been enough time to acquire all the resources they really needed. thought Gardner, standing back and watching the rescue operation being mounted from inside the ground base. But everything had been so rushed . . . they"d been working hard and fast, fearful that the Shoal might already be on to them, or if not yet, at least soon. There simply hadn"t been enough time to acquire all the resources they really needed.
Gardner could happily live without Kieran Mansell -a murderous, psychotic son of a b.i.t.c.h, if ever there was one-but Lucas Corso was indispensable. His specialist knowledge was the key to the derelict"s secrets. Leaving him down there with only Kieran to guard him seemed the sheerest blind folly.
Now, they had to wait for the squads to cycle through and get on board the sub. Then the long journey down again-and only then would they begin to glean any idea of what had happened.
This whole operation reeked of disorganized panic.
He glanced over at Senator Arbenz: a strutting, stiff-lipped, pumped-up little man; quite a ridiculous figure if Gardner hadn"t already been aware just how dangerous he could be. A few months ago the Freehold had been a defeated people on the verge of absolute retreat, but now they operated under the delusion they were the children of destiny, forged in war (or some such chauvinistic baloney Arbenz had spouted during one of his frequent rants) and destined to conquer the stars.
If the whole thing weren"t so pathetic, Gardner would have laughed. He needed the Freehold for now . . . but at some point something would have to be done. Leaving the transluminal drive in the hands of the Senator and his cronies was like placing a rocket launcher in the hands of a child. It was just asking for trouble.
Laden beneath their heavy vacuum-equipped combat gear, the troops entered the base, and began trudging through the network of clanging corridors and down to the submersible waiting for them in its pool. Along with the Senator, Gardner followed them.
"Something must have been triggered by whatever Corso fed into the derelict"s computer systems," Gardner muttered. "G.o.d knows what"s happening down there now. I said all along we didn"t have enough contingency plans in place for unexpected major setbacks."
Arbenz merely shot him an annoyed look; the tension between them had been growing. It was obvious to Gardner that the Senator simply wasn"t equipped to deal with even the notional concept of failure. For him only victory was possible.
"G.o.d indeed only knows what"s happening down there, Mr Gardner, but remember G.o.d is on our side."
"Or possibly the Uchidans and Bourdain know too, given the security leaks you"ve been neglecting to tell me about."
Gardner knew he was walking a dangerous edge, but he was finding it harder and harder to bite his tongue. He had already taken it upon himself to make coded queries to his a.s.sociates back home, about contracting a fleet to wrest control of the derelict from the Freehold.
But the partners were still too cautious, too scared of drawing attention to what was happening out here, and drawing yet more potential combatants into a risky war over an unpredictable prize. Convincing them otherwise was going to take time Gardner wasn"t sure he had.
"Don"t worry, Mr Gardner," Arbenz snarled, "you"ll get your share in the manufacturing and technology rights, once we acquire the drive. And I hope you"ll enjoy spending every last penny of it in h.e.l.l."
Gardner nodded, and kept his expression cool.
Corso and Kieran had almost reached the pa.s.sage connecting to the external airlock when the gravity flipped again.
It had happened another four times so far since they had escaped from the room containing the interface chair. At one point the gravity cut off completely, leaving them in freefall for several panicked seconds.
The worst part of it was they were back in the part of the derelict which had until now been deemed safe. Clearly that was a mistake, and whatever countermeasures the derelict was currently implementing remained effective throughout its structure.
Sheer luck had saved them from being dashed to pieces when a pa.s.sageway had flipped. The process was slow enough, they had time to react: unfortunately the pa.s.sageway was a long one, and had rapidly transformed into a deep vertical shaft even as they raced along it.
Kieran had pushed them both down against the floor so rather than falling straight down, they instead slid down at an increasing rate as the gravity shifted. They still managed to hit the far end of the pa.s.sageway with considerable force, and Corso blacked out for a couple of seconds. When he came to, Kieran was already hauling him by the shoulders towards the airlock and safety. From the way Kieran held himself and the expression on his face, Corso could see he"d been injured in some way.
After a couple of metres of this, Corso managed to stumble upright. A clanging sound reverberated from just ahead and he realized the submersible must have come back down and docked.
It was well ahead of schedule, so obviously somebody had figured out they were in trouble.
They rounded the last corner, almost collapsing on top of each other as the airlock door swung ponderously open. Several heavily armed Freeholder troops were stamping through it towards them, wearing combat armour too bulky to progress easily through the confined s.p.a.ces of the tunnel. Corso laughed weakly as the soldiers were forced to shuffle towards them sideways in single file.
"Get the h.e.l.l back!" Kieran yelled, waving at them to retreat.
Their faces were invisible behind their reinforced visors, but after a moment they started to shuffle back into the submersible.
The howling noise manifested itself once more from somewhere far around the curve of the pa.s.sageway, sounding like it was getting closer. It was impossible not to imagine some terrible, monstrous apparition stalking them through the derelict"s twisting interior s.p.a.ces.
Corso glanced up at the screen still roughly welded into an excision in the wall and noticed that the interior of the derelict was reshaping itself. Corridors and rooms disappeared from the map even as he watched, while others appeared that he was sure hadn"t previously existed.
In that same moment, Corso saw that Lunden and Ivanovich were gone. They would find no trace of their bodies now, as had been the case with anyone else who had disappeared into the derelict"s maw.
Kieran"s face turned pale and he slid to the ground, unconscious. Corso dropped down next to him and found the man still had a pulse, but his pupils were dilated and his breathing staccato and shaky. Corso didn"t feel that much better himself-sheer terror had helped him forget temporarily about the pain. One of the troops saw what had happened and headed back their way again, lifting Kieran up and leading the way back into the submersible.
He"d been so sure the derelict would accept his programming. He still couldn"t believe he"d overlooked anything. But would the Senator understand that when he demanded to know what had happened?
Twenty.
At first, when Dakota quietly entered the surgery, Corso had been staring down at a workscreen he held in both hands, a faraway look on his face. One shoulder was encased in a flexible med unit that kept his damaged tissues anaesthetized, while repairing the damage beneath at an accelerated rate.
Both Corso and Kieran Mansell had been brought back to the Hyperion Hyperion a few hours previous, since it apparently had better medical facilities than the base on Theona. a few hours previous, since it apparently had better medical facilities than the base on Theona.
Empty medical caskets were stacked up on either wall, in steel racks extending the full length of the medical facility. Udo was still encased inside one of these, but he was likely to be back out in a day or two. The external readings made it clear he"d been undergoing a slow and difficult recovery.
His brother Kieran was in better shape, but only just. He was in the intensive treatment bay, an adjustable palette with an autodoc suspended from the ceiling above his deeply sedated form. Its articulated arms were at the moment curled up and at rest, like some enormous metallic spider.
Dakota studied Kieran"s life-signs monitors and wondered what would happen if she smothered him with one of his own pillows. At the very least it would be a mercy killing.
Corso, on the other hand, was conscious and sitting up. His complexion was pale, as if the blood had been drained out of him.
She stared at him, full of nervous energy, until he finally looked up and became aware of her presence. He blinked in surprise as if he wasn"t sure her presence was a good or bad thing.
"How are you?" she asked.
He took a moment to think about this. "Been better."
"I heard about what happened, how the derelict attacked you. What went wrong?"
"Nothing." Corso shook his head, no longer looking at her, an abstract expression on his face. "That"s the whole problem."
Dakota went silent in blank incomprehension.
Corso elaborated. "I mean, I did everything right. What happened . . . shouldn"t have happened. It was like . . . sabotage." He shrugged. "I swear, it was like deliberate sabotage."
"Did you know the derelict sent a transmission the exact same moment we lost contact with you?"
Corso was clearly taken aback by this.
"The signal was very tightly focused, aimed towards the inner system," Dakota explained. She nodded at his workscreen. "Any ideas?"
Corso glanced down at the workscreen, clearly confused. "I don"t know anything about a transmission. They didn"t. . ."
He stared up at her dumbly.