Divergence

CHAPTER 8

Louis Nenda’s ship was undamaged. Inside and out, every piece of equipment was in working order. The main drive showed signs of overload, but it still tested at close to full power.

“I’m sure that overload happened while they were in orbit around Quake,” Darya said. “I told you, I saw them putting in every bit of thrust they had to try and get away from that silver sphere.”

“Yeah. But you also said they were accelerated away by the sphere at hundreds of gees, enough to flatten everything.” Hans Rebka waved an arm at the orderly interior. “Nothing flat here that I can see.”

“Which is not difficult to explain.” Kallik was crouched down on the floor by the Have-It-All’s hatch, sniffing and clicking to herself. “If the ship were to be accelerated by gravity or any other form of body force, neither it nor its occupants would be harmed. They would feel as though they moved in free-fall, no matter how high the acceleration appeared to an outside observer.”

“Which should mean that if the ship is undamaged, so are Louis Nenda and Atvar H’sial.” Rebka was inspecting the main control panel. “And the engines haven’t been powered down. They’re on standby, ready to fly this minute. Which leaves us with one question.” He stared at Darya and shrugged. “Where the devil are they?”

They had searched the Have-It-All from side to side and top to bottom. There was ample evidence that Atvar H’sial and Louis Nenda had been there. But there was no sign of them, and no suits were missing from the lockers.

“Master Nenda was certainly here,” Kallik said, “more than three days ago, and less than one week.”

“How do you know?”

“I can smell him. In his quarters, at the controls, and here near the hatch. J’merlia, if he were here, could place the time more accurately. He has a finer sense of smell.”

“I don’t see how that would help us. Not even if J’merlia could smell it to the millisecond.” Rebka was walking moodily around the big cabin, examining the decorated wall panels and running his fingers across the luxurious fittings. “Darya, I know you said that the sphere that carried this ship away was silver at first, then it turned to black—”

“Turned to nothing, I said. It was like a hole in space.”

“All right, turned to nothing. But couldn’t it have changed again? One odd thing about this place — wha’d’ya call it, Glister? — is that it’s a perfect sphere. Spherical planetoids don’t occur in nature. Hasn’t it occurred to you that it may be the same sphere, the one that you saw?”

“Of course I’ve had that thought. I had it before we even landed. But it only leaves a bigger mystery. Something sent a beam from near Gargantua, at Summertide, and the sphere that I saw ascended it. If this sphere was my sphere, what sent the signal?”

“All right, so maybe this isn’t your sphere.” Rebka seemed amused by her proprietary tone. “I’ll drop that, and ask you again: Where are they?”

“Give me a minute. I may have a logical answer; whether or not you like it is another matter.” Darya sat down on one of Nenda’s comfortable couches to organize her thoughts. As she did so she surveyed her surroundings, comparing them with the familiar, stripped-down, and spartan fixtures of the Dreamboat.

The contrast was great. The whole inside of Nenda’s starship was filled with alien devices and manufacturing techniques. The technology used here had been perfected long before by the Zardalu, before their thousand-world empire had collapsed, and been picked up piecemeal after that collapse to become the common property of the mix of species that now made up the Zardalu Communion.

But even more than it spoke of alien technology, the Have-It-All proclaimed another message: that of wealth.

Darya had never seen such opulence — and she was from a rich world. If Louis Nenda was a criminal, as everyone seemed to think, then crime certainly paid.

In one other area, her first view of the interior of Nenda’s ship was forcing a change in Darya’s thinking. She had first met Kallik on Opal and on Quake, and had seen her then as a callously treated under-being, little better than a shackled and servile pet of the Karelian human, Louis Nenda. But Kallik’s quarters on the Have-It-All were as good as Nenda’s own, and far better than anyone enjoyed in the worlds of the Phemus Circle. Kallik had her own study, equipped with powerful computers and scientific instruments. She had her own sleeping area, decorated with choice and expensive examples of Hymenopt art.

Even villains deserved justice. Darya filed that thought away for future reference. Nenda might act the monster — might be a monster — but his generous private treatment of Kallik was at variance with his public image. Nenda had certainly been crude, lecherous, coarse, and boorish with Darya. But was that the real Louis Nenda, or was it a pose?

“Well?” Hans Rebka was staring at her impatiently. Darya came back to the present with a jerk and realized that her thoughts had strayed off in a quite unexpected and inappropriate direction.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Point one: Nenda and Atvar H’sial were alive when the ship got here. Kallik is sure of that. Point two: There are no suits missing. Point Three: The air on the surface of this planetoid is breathable. Point four — not proved, but a good working assumption: This planetoid is hollow. Point five — another working hypothesis: The inside of Glister contains the same sort of air as there is on the surface. Put them together: if Louis Nenda and Atvar H’sial are still alive — or even if they’re dead — we know where they can be found.” She pointed at the floor.

“Inside Glister.” Rebka was frowning. “That’s what I decided, too, while you were sitting there daydreaming. I don’t much like that idea.”

“I never said you would.”

“It gives us another problem.”

“I know. To see if we’re right, we have to get inside. And we haven’t seen any sign of an opening or a hatch.”

“On the descent, we certainly didn’t.” Rebka sat down in the control chair. “But that’s not surprising — we had other things on our minds. There could be ways in just a hundred meters away, or there could be openings around the other side that we’ve never seen.”

“And we won’t find them sitting here.” Darya stood up. She was full of an irrational energy. “You know what? I want to find Nenda and Atvar H’sial, and spit in their eye for trying to kill us on Quake. But even if they didn’t exist, I’d want to find a way to the interior. And so would you. You pretend you’re not interested in Builder artifacts, but you’re the man who was all ready to risk a descent into Paradox, before you were sent to Dobelle. And this is an artifact. I’ve studied all twelve hundred and thirty-six of them, and I’m sure of it. Come on, let’s take a look outside.” Darya placed her hand on the control that would move her suit from full open to closed mode, then paused. “The air out there is supposed to be breathable. I might as well test it a little. Keep your eye on me.”

She headed for the lock, expecting to hear Rebka’s voice ordering her to stop. Instead he said in an amused tone, “I swear, if it isn’t one of you wanting to run off and do something crazy, it’s the other. Wait for me.”

“And me,” Kallik said.

“And don’t worry about the air,” Rebka added. “After the analysis was finished and came out positive I put my suit on partial transparency. Glister’s atmosphere is fine.”

“And you call me crazy.” Darya stepped through into the lock.

In the time they had been inside Nenda’s ship, Glister had made a quarter-turn on its axis. Gargantua was visible as a half-disk, while Mandel and Amaranth were hidden behind the planetoid. Darya emerged to an overhead dazzle of orbiting fragments and a cold, orange twilight. The air was odorless, tasteless, and chilly in her nose and lungs. Her breath showed as a puff of white fog when she exhaled.

What now?

Darya stared around at the featureless horizon. She began to walk forward, moving across Glister in the direction away from the Dreamboat. As she went she scanned the surface ahead. It had not occurred to her before, but without light from Mandel, visibility was going to be much reduced. Even using the image intensifiers in her suit she could not see details more than fifty meters away.

Darya slowed her pace. Kallik was a lightning calculator, but the Hymenopt was fifty meters behind and Darya would have to work it out for herself. A little more than a kilometer in radius. So the surface area of Glister was a bit less than seventeen square kilometers. And she could see things clearly for at most fifty meters in each direction. Assume that they split up and found an efficient way of covering the whole area. Then each of them would have to walk over fifty kilometers to be sure of finding whatever might be there.

Not good enough. And she should have thought it through before she left the ship. Darya waited for Rebka and Kallik to catch up with her.

“I’ve changed my mind.” She outlined the problem. “It will take us too long. I think we ought to go back inside and use Nenda’s ship; he doesn’t need it at the moment. And we should do a low-orbit traverse of Glister, a few hundred meters up, and use every sensor on board to explore the surface. Anything odd that we find — cracks, openings, hatches, markings, whatever — we’ll have the ship’s computer make a note of it, and then later we take a closer look ourselves. On foot. Can you fly the Have-It-All, Hans? If not, we can go back and use the Dreamboat. Though I’m sure the equipment there isn’t as good.”

“It isn’t. As you saw, Nenda travels first-class. I can fly his ship. And I bet that Kallik can fly it at least as well as me.”

“I have flown it often, on both planetary and stellar missions,” the Hymenopt concurred.

“So let’s go back inside.” Darya was turning toward the ship when she noticed an odd effect on the horizon behind Hans Rebka. It was as though she were suffering slight vertical double vision, with a thin brighter layer added above the sphere’s original curved boundary. As she watched, the region thickened and solidified; faint sparkles appeared within it as random points of light. Part of Glister looked the way it had when she first saw it, from far out in space. Darya halted for a closer inspection.

Increased intensity added color. The cloud became a gauzy orange patch, lying close to Glister’s uniform horizon, and extended over more than a quarter of the circle. As Darya watched the nimbus grew in size. The twinkle of interior lights became brighter.

“Hans!” She pointed. “Look there. Did you see anything like that before, when you were out on the surface?”

He stared, and at once took her arm to begin pulling her toward the Have-It-All.

“We sure didn’t. Come on. And hurry.”

“What is it?”

“Damned if I know. I’ve never seen anything like it in my life. I think maybe me and Kallik weren’t too smart when we banged on the surface to learn more about the interior structure. Bit like knocking on the door to say, hey, we’ve arrived.” He was still holding her arm. “Come on, both of you, get moving. I prefer to watch that thing, whatever it is, from inside the ship — with the shields up. Close your suit completely, just in case. And don’t look back.”

Darya at once felt an irresistible urge to look behind her. The orange shimmer was bigger, spreading more than a third of the way across the horizon and perceptibly closer. Kallik had not moved, but that did not mean she would be left behind. When she decided to travel, the Hymenopt’s eight wiry legs could carry her a hundred meters in a couple of seconds.

“It has a discrete structure.” Kallik’s calm voice came through Darya’s suit phone. “The points of light are reflections of incident radiation from Gargantua on individual small components, each no more than a few centimeters across. Their angles change constantly, which is why they sparkle like that. To appear as bright as they are, those components must be almost perfect reflectors. I can see no sort of connection between the parts.”

The leading edge of the cloud was within twenty meters of the Hymenopt when Kallik finally turned. The thin black legs became a blur, and a second later she was by Darya’s side. “I concur with Captain Rebka. This is a phenomenon outside my experience.”

“Outside anyone’s.” The Have-It-All was only forty meters away. Darya could not resist looking back again. The cloud was not gaining. They could crowd inside the airlock and have it closed before the twinkling fog arrived. With the ship on standby, there was a good chance they could even take off from Glister before the leading edge touched the hull.

“Ahead!” Kallik spoke at the same moment as Hans Rebka began to swear.

Darya turned. A gauzy light was in front of them, rising like a sparkling vapor up through Glister’s impervious surface. It thickened and spread as she watched, forming a tenuous barrier between them and the starship.

Rebka jerked to a halt, and they stared around them. The cloud behind was still moving forward. It had become opaque, and its edges were spreading wider. In a few more seconds its borders would meet with those of the fog ahead, to encircle the three completely.

Kallik was already moving forward. Rebka shouted at her. “Kallik! Come back. That is an order.”

“Ck-ck.” The Hymenopt kept moving. “With apologies, Captain Rebka, it is an order I cannot obey. I must not risk the life of a human when perhaps that can be avoided. I will report my experiences for as long as I am able.”

Kallik was entering the cloud. It swirled up around her thin legs and tubby body. She was quickly reduced to a sparkling outline of light.

“I am not able to see the structure of individual components.” The voice was as calm as ever. “They appear to be unconnected, and each one is different and has independent mobility. They have a definite crystalline nature. In their appearance I am reminded of water-snowflakes — there is the same diversity of form and fractal structure. I feel them pressing against my suit, but there is no sensation beyond simple external pressure. And now… they are within my suit — despite the fact that it is set for full opacity! Apparently they penetrate our protective materials as easily as they move through the planetoid’s surface. I question whether a ship’s shields can offer any obstacle or protection.

“The flakes are now in contact with my thorax and abdomen. They are touching me, sensing me, as though in examination of my structure. They are inside me, I feel them. Their temperature is difficult to estimate, but it cannot be extreme. I feel no discomfort.”

Kallik had vanished from sight. Her voice briefly faded, then came back to full strength. “Can you hear me, Captain Rebka? Please reply if you can.”

“Loud and clear, Kallik. Keep talking.”

“I will do so. I have now taken seven paces into the cloud, and it is tenuous but quite opaque. I can no longer see the sky or the surface of the planetoid. I also register a power drain from my suit, but so far I am able to compensate. Eleven paces. There is minor resistance to my forward progress, although not enough to impede my movements. The surface beneath my feet feels unchanged. I am having no trouble breathing, thinking, or moving my limbs.

“Eighteen paces. The resistance to my motion has lessened. Visibility is improving, and already I can see the outline of Master Nenda’s ship ahead of me. Twenty-two paces. I can see the stars again. Most of the cloud is behind me. I am standing on the surface of the planetoid, and I appear to be physically unaffected by my passage through it. Twenty-seven paces. I am totally clear.

“Captain Rebka, I humbly suggest that both of you proceed through the cloud at once and join me here. I will prepare the Have-It-All’s lock for multiple entries and the controls for takeoff. Can you still hear me?”

“I hear you. We’re on our way, we’ll see you in a couple of minutes.” Hans Rebka was pulling at Darya’s arm again, but she needed no urging. Together they stepped into the sparkling orange glow. Darya began to count steps.

At seven paces the view around her faded. The stars overhead clouded and dissolved. She saw delicate crystals, hundreds of them, a handbreadth from her face. She heard Rebka’s voice: “Seven paces, Kallik. We’re almost a third of the way.”

Eleven steps. Small points of pressure were being applied directly to her body, within her body. Like Kallik, Darya could not say if their touch was hot or cold. She felt that the crystals were touching her innermost self, measuring her, evaluating her. She found herself holding her breath, reluctant to inhale the cloud of crystals. She plowed on. There was a definite resistance to her forward motion, almost like walking underwater.

“Fourteen paces,” said a gargling and distorted voice. That was Rebka, and he sounded as if he were underwater.

Eighteen steps. According to Kallik, she should start to see something more than the sparkling mist. Darya peered ahead of her. She could see only foggy points of light. Resistance to her progress was increasing.

It was not supposed to happen this way!

She struggled to force herself ahead, but the surface beneath her feet afforded less traction. She felt it becoming spongy, giving beneath her weight.

She wanted to sink to her knees, lean forward, and explore that insubstantial ground with her hands. But instead of releasing her, the sparkling points of light were holding her more and more tightly. She could barely move her arms and legs.

“Darya?” She heard Hans Rebka’s voice faintly in her suit phone. It was the thinnest thread of sound, miles and miles away, the signal full of static.

She made a final effort to push herself forward. Her limbs would not move. She was fully conscious but fixed in position, as firmly as a fly in amber.

Keep your head! she told herself. Don’t let yourself get panicky.

“Hans!” She tried to call to him, struggling to keep the fear from her voice. That concern was unnecessary, for no sound came from her throat. And now no sound was reaching her ears, not even the faint static that was always present with suit phones. The touch of the crystals on her body was fading, but still she could not move. The sparkling mist had given way to an absolute blackness.

“Hans!” It was a soundless scream. Fear had taken over. “Hans!”

She listened, and she waited.

Nothing. No sound, no sight, no touch. No sensations of any kind. Not even pain.

Was this the way that life was to end, in universal darkness? Had the death that she had escaped so closely on Quake followed her to claim her here?

Darya waited. And waited.

She had a sudden vision of a personal hell that lay beyond death itself: to be held fully conscious, for eternity, unable to move, see, speak, hear, or feel.

Kallik had walked unscathed through the crystal fog. She had no reason to think that Darya Lang and Hans Rebka would fare any differently.

She heard his voice say, “Seven paces, Kallik. We’re almost a third of the way.” That was satisfactory. She listened for the next progress report, at twelve or fourteen steps.

It did not come when she expected; but before there was time to be alarmed, the barrier of sparkling mist in front of her changed, to form a series of swirling vortices that were sucked back into the hard surface. She waited, eagerly watching for the other two to appear out of the wreaths of fog.

The mist thinned. No familiar human outlines emerged. In another few seconds the fog had vanished completely. The surface ahead of Kallik was bare.

She ran forward, at a speed that only those who threatened a Hymenopt with deadly violence would ever see. Two seconds and a hundred and fifty meters later she stopped. Given the snail’s pace of human movement, there was no way that Hans Rebka and Darya Lang could have traveled so far in the time available.

Kallik reared up to her full height and employed every eye in her head.

She saw Gargantua, looming on the horizon. She saw Louis Nenda’s ship, and beyond it the Summer Dreamboat, almost hidden by the tight curvature of the planetoid.

And that was all.

Kallik stood alone on the barren surface of Glister.