Claws That Catch

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Eventually the Marines reached the point of full spread. At that point, the diameter of the “tree” was nearly six kilometers and the small unit of Marines could cover hardly any of the surface. However, it didn’t seem to matter. One spot was as good as any. Everywhere it was just color and points.

“All units, hold position,” Berg ordered as they approached the edge of the tree. “Gunny, the Flies tried this out so call me an old maid, but I’m not taking the whole platoon into the direct light of this sun until I’m sure it’s clear. Send a point.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

“All clear, sir,” Sergeant Champion said. “The sun’s sort of… Well, it’s not too bright. And no hazardous rads. Levels are nominal as hell.”

Stars put out more than heat. The solar wind was composed of mostly protons, some alpha particles, and even a few electrons as masses of particles swept out from the fusion of hydrogen into helium and helium into still more massive particles. Radiation in space was always a hazard and this close to a blue star they should have been sleeted with the equivalent of several hundred thousand chest X-rays.

Instead, the retrans from the sergeant’s particle detectors said that the only generator in the area was the massive Tum-Tum Tree. The shield was absorbing or reflecting all the hazardous radiation from the nearby star. That had been one of Berg’s main concerns. The Cheerick suits had particle detectors, but to say the least even Colonel Che-chee was no expert at reading them. The lieutenant had been more worried about radiation than the possible heat.

Berg advanced the platoon up the slope and into the light of the sun then tuned his sensors on the surface of Gunny Juda’s suit to get a reading. The surface temperature of the suit in the shade had been minus one hundred and fifty-seven degrees Celsius. As it entered the light from the super-hot star, which should have kicked it up to over a thousand degrees celsius in an instant, it climbed to eighty-three degrees and stuck there. Hot, but the suit’s chillers could handle it easily.

When he came in sight of the sun he could see why the responses had been so varied. The sun looked extremely hot and bright. But there was an edge to it, like the watery sunshine of an ever-so-slightly overcast winter day that mentally translated as nonthreatening. And the actual power-input levels, inside the shield, were about the same as the suits experienced from Sol in Earth orbit.

The view from the top of the spread was spectacular, the sweeping rear side dropping to the “trunk.” Berg got a sudden moment of vertigo and realized this must be what a spider felt like on a real Christmas tree. A very, very, very small spider. More like a mite.

“Slow and easy down the back side,” Berg ordered. “Maintain one hundred meters from the tree and proceed to the joining of the trunk.”

“Sir,” Lance Corporal Fuller said, “we’re losing contact with the Blade.”

Fuller was the designated platoon RTO. With the compliment of Marines on the Blade being so small and the commo being so integrated, the position was a secondary one for the Charlie Team cannoneer. All it really meant was that he was carrying a long-range laser transmitter tuned to communicate with the Blade. But while the system was line-of-sight…

“Put in a retrans box,” Gunny Juda growled before Berg could open his mouth.

“We need to hold up while he does that,” the LT pointed out. “Platoon, hold position.”

The retrans box was the size of a Vietnam era radio but had interplanetary range. Fuller pulled it off his armor and then looked at the edge of the tree.

“Gunny, there’s no place to affix it,” the RTO pointed out.

“Time to find out how miraculous space tape really is,” the gunny replied. “You do have a roll with you, don’t you, Lance Corporal?”

“Uh…”

“Here,” Berg said with a sigh, reaching into the cargo hatch on the back of his suit. “Use mine.”

Space tape once again proved its miraculous nature by sticking to the surface of whatever the tree was made of. Fuller extended the transmission wand and the receptor mirror and backed his board away from the edge.

“All done, sir.”

“Let’s move,” Berg said. “Platoon, continue approach to the trunk.”

As they got closer, particle emissions climbed sharply. But there still was nothing of a hazardous nature. The closest to it was a sharp spike in neutrinos, but neutrinos were so small, fast and slippery that until the Adar came along the only way to detect them was with massive quantities of a special solvent in undergound tanks. The rest was stuff that had even less effect. But it proved that something very strange was going on in the interior of the massive artifact.

“Anybody see anything like an opening?” Berg asked as they approached the face of the trunk. The trunk itself was just under nine football fields in diameter, bigger around than the largest stadium on Earth. The Marines were dwarfed by the massive construction of the tree.

“Negative here, sir,” Staff Sergeant Carr commented.

“Negative, sir,” Sergeant Champion replied.

“Nada, sir,” Sergeant Eduardo Bae finished.

“Okay, let’s head down the trunk to the end,” Berg said. “Maintain separation, et cetera.”

The major particle output seemed to come from the joining of the main tree to the trunk and fell off, sharply, as they headed to the very “bottom” of the tree. Reaching the end, Berg didn’t even pause the platoon, just sent them in a swoop to the very underside.

In that configuration, the shadows of the boards could be seen sweeping across the luminescent underside of the construction and it was the shadows, as much as anything, that pin-pointed a change in the surface of the thing.

“Sir…” Gunny Juda said. “Did you see…”

For just a moment as one of the shadows swept over the surface a line was revealed.

“Platoon, halt,” Berg said. “Let’s back up and see if we can get that again.”

By maneuvering the boards around it was eventually possible to get the same effect, showing a thin line and a slight change in surface texture on one portion of the underside.

“Gunny, send a point team.”

“Even if there’s a door there,” Corporal Sam Dupras complained, “I don’t see no controls.”

The Alpha team lance corporal rifleman was from Pladgette Parrish, Louisiana, and it showed in a thick Cajun accent.

“We just have to find the door,” Staff Sergeant Carr replied as the threesome closed on the line. “So can it.”

“I don’t know if that’s a door or just some sort of — ” Lance Corporal Robert Rucker started to say just as an the material of the surface dilated away, revealing an opening that was wide and deep enough to take all three boards. In fact, it looked as if it was tailored to take the threesome. Alas, with the flickering walls, the smooth, curved sides and the shadows of the boards, it looked not unlike a toothless mouth. “Urk.”

“Lieutenant Bergstresser,” Staff Sergeant Carr said. “We appear to have found a door.”

“Openings occur, apparently automatically, whenever someone approaches one of those lines, sir,” Berg said over the laser link to the ship. “We’ve traced the outline of the full area. It’s more than seven hundred meters wide, sir. Most of the bottom appears to open. It’s possible this thing is some sort of space dock.”

“Fascinating,” Lady Che-chee said, leading her dragonfly forward, then backing away as a tailored opening appeared. “And you haven’t entered?”

“We don’t have orders to, ma’am,” Eric replied. “In fact, we have orders not to.”

“Dragonflight, Second Platoon, this is CIC,” the ship’s CO said. “Dragonflight, maintain station. Marines, send one, repeat one member of your unit into one of the openings. Have him enter then attempt to exit and report.”

“Just opens right back up, sir…” Lance Corporal Kaijahano said. “I don’t know what happens if I go forward, though. Want me to find out?”

Kaijahano took a deep breath, then mentally sent his grav-board forward towards the inner wall of the compartment. As he did, his O₂ sensor began blinking, indicating rising exterior oxygen levels and he felt himself pulled sideways from artificial gravity. Since he could see no vents in the smooth walls of the alien airlock, he hadn’t a clue where the O₂ was coming from. But by the time his board just about touched the wall, the O₂ pressure was actually higher than safe for humans. By the same token, the gravity was only about 80% earth normal. Lighter even than the artificial gravity of the Blade. He twisted his board to align and continued forward, slower than a walk.

Just before the board touched, the inner wall dilated to reveal a glowing tunnel that curved to the right. That would be to the closer wall of the tree from his current position. He wasn’t sure what that meant, but this was as far as he was supposed to go. He backed up and the door closed. Backing up more and the oxygen level dropped precipitously to death pressure, the outer door opened and he was back in space.

“Sir, all I gotta say is that whoever designed this thing knew what they were doing…”

“How are your consumables, Lieutenant?” Captain Zanella asked.

“We’re all at better then seventy percent, sir,” Berg replied. “If we’re not surveying the surface, we’ve got plenty. And I’ve been considering Dancer’s report from the airlock. That level of O₂ pressure is dangerous for humans, but our suit systems can back it down easily enough. If that’s what the whole structure is like on the inside, sir, we can stay in there indefinitely from an air perspective. Well, as long as our scrubbers and power hold out, but that’s weeks, sir. Heck, we can actually resupply on Class O.”

“The problem, Lieutenant, is that you’re out of communication with the ship while anyone is in there,” the Marine CO replied. “We’re considering it on this end. Hold your position until you have further orders…”

“…send them in and have them look around,” Bill said. “Two-Gun’s smart and cautious. He’s the best guy I could think of to lead this.”

“The problem is that I’m feeling more and more like a monkey in a reactor compartment,” Captain Prael replied. “We’re pushing buttons and we have no clue what they do.”

“Sir, we were sent out to find technology,” Weaver argued. “This is technology beyond anything we expected. We need to find out what it is, what it does and if possible how to control it. Better yet, how to move it. As it is, it’s right in the region we can expect the Dreen to occupy in the next five years. The one thing I can guarantee is that Space Command does not want this thing, whatever it is, falling into Dreen hands.”

“Do you have any idea what it is or what it does?” the CO asked.

“No, sir, but we’ve barely scratched the surface!”

“I have to agree to that,” Prael said, frowning. “Captain Zanella, you’ve been mostly quiet during this debate.”

“I hate the idea of possibly losing a platoon, sir,” the Marine said. “But that’s what we’re here for, to check things out. There’s no reason for us to be on the ship if we’re not going to do our jobs. If you want my vote, sir, I vote for going in. Carefully. Send one team in, have them recon forward. If there is no negative effect, then send in the rest of the platoon. Give them a specified time frame to investigate. If they don’t report back? Then we have a problem.”

“Shiny, Captain,” Prael said. “That sounds like a plan.”

“This is as far as we got in the time we had, sir,” Staff Sergeant Carr said.

The tube had turned to the right in a long, smooth curve. Based on inertial guidance, they had to be near the edge of the trunk. However, Berg could see a second curve, back to the left, up ahead.

“Good job, Staff Sergeant,” the lieutenant said. “Gunny, rotate the point.”

“Whoa!” Corporal Shingleton gasped from his position fifty meters in the lead. There was another sharp turn there and whatever the corporal had seen had stopped him in what had been a smooth approach.

“Report, Corporal,” Sergeant Bae snapped. “ ‘Whoa’ is not a useful comment.”

“It’s… Sergeant, you gotta see this!”

“Now… that’s something.”

The corridor ended in a massive cavern which must have taken up most of the width of the trunk. There was still a walkway, though, a shimmering ribbon of nearly transluscent material that arched upwards towards the ceiling and followed the right-hand side of the immense enclosure.

Far below Berg could see more walkways and semi-transparent extensions out into the opening, like wings extending from the walls. There were dozens of them, some small, some very large. It took him about ten seconds to realize he was looking at…

“That is one hell of a space dock,” Gunny Juda said, awe in his voice. “You could park a dozen Blades in this thing at once, sir.”

“Yeah, Gunny,” Berg said, trying for a stable and serious tone. “But this is probably less than five percent of the total area of the tree. Most of the trunk, yeah, but not most of the tree. This thing’s not purely a space dock.”

Oh, grapp this, he thought. He knew that he was supposed to let other people take the risks but he just had to try this for himself.

Stepping gingerly off his board he tested the firmness of the tunnel floor first. Solid as a rock.

“Sir, what are you doing?” Gunny Juda asked over the command circuit.

“Having fun, Gunny,” Berg replied, walking forward to the opening. He balanced on one foot, not the easiest thing to do in a Wyvern, and carefully tapped the semi-transparent bridge. Seemed solid. “Get ready to catch me.”

“Sir, I can do that,” Staff Sergeant Carr said.

“Got it, Staff Sergeant,” Berg replied, stepping fully onto the bridge.

The view was more than terrifying. It was better than eight hundred meters straight down to the curved “bottom” of the tree. But he wasn’t about to let that stop him.

“I’m wondering if these people really used this thing,” Berg said, walking forwards. “I mean, this is one long damned…”

“Sir, slow down!” Gunny Juda snapped.

Berg stopped and turned around and was surprised to find that in just a few short strides he had separated from the platoon by nearly a hundred meters. He hadn’t noticed any effect of acceleration as you’d get from a moving sidewalk and the walls were so far away there was no perspective for speed.

“Now that’s interesting,” Berg said, starting to walk back. Going in that direction, it was apparent that just a few steps accelerated him to much faster than running, but he slowed automatically as he approached the opening. He paused there and looked at the edge of the narrow platform. He squatted down and extended his claw outward towards the edge. It hit a barrier and he nodded. “Thought so.”

“What’s that, sir?” Gunny Juda said.

“No handrails, Gunny,” Berg said. “That meant either a race that was suicidal or something we couldn’t see. There’s a force field there. You can’t fall off this thing.”

A few experiments determined that, in fact, the entire tunnel had the same system, which seemed to be a side-shoot of a reactionless drive system. The surface of the tunnel and the bridge moved under the foot just as a slidewalk would, but had some type of stabilization field that mitigated all the normal effects. The slowing as he’d approached the tunnel entry, moreover, was an effect of the crowding at the entrance. With no one blocking the entry, a user continued through at a rate of nearly thirty miles per hour, while walking at a normal pace. Users moving at different speeds, one a slow walk, one a fast walk, moved at relatively different speeds on the speedwalk. And the one time that two Wyverns collided at a relative speed of nearly fifteen miles per hour, there was no indication of contact, no clang of metal hammering on metal, no bruising, no flailed chests; the field eliminated the effects of inertial energy entirely.

“Sir, we’re getting on for time,” Gunny Juda said. “Damnit, Donder, get your ass back here!”

“Incoming, Gunny!” the lance corporal said from near the top of the bridge. He got the Wyvern up to a max-speed run and the gathered Marines at the opening flinched as he came in like a rocket. But just before he got to the gaggle he screeched to a slow walk as if he’d hit a brick wall. “YES!” he shouted, holding both claws overhead in victory. “One hundred and twenty miles per hour in a WYVERN suit! That has to be some kind of record!”

“God damnit…”

“Try Cupid, Gunny,” Kaijanho said with a sigh. “You haven’t used that one in a while…”

“God damnit, Comet!”

“That one’s actually appropriate. Can I keep it?”

“I’m not taking the ship in there,” Captain Prael said, shaking his head. “Not going to happen.”

The dragonflies had been admitted through a large airlock directly into the cavern. They had landed on the platforms, checked them out with interest and then returned. They had also determined that whereas the whole cavern was not pressurized, the platforms were, invisible force fields holding the air in but somehow letting the dragonflies and their riders through. The size of the field was large enough, on one of the medium-sized platforms, to cover the whole Blade.

“Well, sir, what we’ve found so far is the parking garage,” Weaver said. “And I’d say that’s exactly what this is, sir. It’s the parking garage for whatever the Tree really is. It might be a repair dock, but so far we’ve seen no signs of that. Just stuff for moving people. I’m starting to rethink my suggestion that this is a weapon. There is no sign of control of entry.”

“So what is it?” the CO asked.

“Short of doing a thorough survey, sir, I’m not sure we can find out,” Weaver told him.

“Suggestions?” Prael asked, looking around at the group. “Anyone?”

Berg wasn’t really happy being at a contentious meeting with the CO of the Blade. He was, by far and away, the most junior officer on the ship and as such he kept his mouth shut.

“Is it still your intent to go get Hexosehr advisers, sir?” Captain Zanella asked.

“Yes,” Prael replied. “This is too big and too advanced for little old us to figure out.”

“That will take at least two weeks, sir,” Captain Zanella pointed out. “A period during which there should be little or no threat to the ship and nothing to investigate.”

“You’re suggesting I leave the Marines,” the CO said.

“Sir, while you are gone we can be surveying the structure,” the Marine said. “By the time you get back we could have found a control room or something similar for the Hexosehr to investigate. If we just go with you, we’ll have to do it when we come back and we’ll have lost two weeks.”

“Not to mention two more weeks with the Marines cooped up on the ship,” Bill said, keeping in mind some of the more unpleasant incidents on the last two voyages. He frowned in thought for a moment and then continued. “Frankly, CO, we probably should leave a larger group. Call it a prize crew if you will. While there are no indications that we can comprehend anything about this technology, a few technical people would be in order. We’re going to need to set up a full base station for the Marines, anyway. The Marines are going to require some logistical support.”

“This all assumes I’m going to leave the Marines,” the CO pointed out but nodded. “Which actually is a good idea, Captain Zanella. And the logistical support is on point. While the Marines could probably survive for two weeks without it, they are going to need a base station, which means leaving some mechanics and electricians at the least. XO, come up with a plan and have it on my desk by end of shift.”

“Yes, sir,” Bill said with a sigh.

“Damn,” the CO muttered. “If we have to offload, I’m going to have to take the ship into the docking bay.”

“Approaching force field in ten seconds,” the pilot said.

“Reduce approach speed to one meter per second,” the CO said. “Let’s take this nice and slow.”

“One meter per second, aye,” the pilot said, reducing their forward velocity. “Fourteen seconds… Ship entering field…”

“XO?” the damage control talker said. “Forward torpedo room is reporting odd effects… really odd effects…”

“Conn, Damage Control,” Bill said automatically. “Reporting odd effects from forward.”

“Define odd effects,” the CO responded just as the damage control center entered the field.

“That is a good question, Captain Prael,” Weaver responded, taking the meerschaum pipe out of his mouth for a moment and stroking his Van Dyke beard. “Precisely defining it, however, is much more difficult.” Weaver looked at his pipe and, despite being a violent non-smoker, stuck it in his mouth and puffed. “I suspect… (puff, puff) that what we are experiencing… (puff) is an induced (puff, puff) hallucination…”

The damage control section was still the same, a mass of readouts on conditions throughout the ship, five seamen and petty officers to handle communications and orders and four steel bulkheads. But at the same time, it was… different. Bill knew the reporting system like the back of his hand and looking at it now he still understood it. But all the controls and readouts had changed, becoming much more garishly colored, with formerly muted reporting screens now being covered in blinking green lights and yellow arrows. The whole room had changed, becoming darker and more sharp edged at the same time, as if it were seen through some sort of odd lens. The petty officers were wearing ornate uniforms, including brim caps, that he recognized as wrong and yet correct at the same time. The seamen manning the consoles had shrunk in size to be almost childlike and simian at the same time.

What really bothered him, though, was that much as he could recognize there was a major, even catastrophic, change going on on the ship, the most he could muster was a quiet sense of academic interest.

He also found a tweed, patch-elbow jacket and a turtleneck sweater, clothing he wouldn’t normally wear in a million years, to be oddly comfortable.

“Mr. Weaver to the Wardroom!” the CO barked over the 1MC. “On the double triple-time! We have a level nine emergency! Set Condition One throughout the ship! All hands! All hands! Man Your Battle Stations! Report Undue Effects! Report! Report!”