Day of the Dragonstar (31 page)

“How did your chess game go, Commander Jashad?” the pilot asked as Jashad entered the cabin.

“The drunken fool lost again. He is becoming quite boring. I am no longer amused. Perhaps we should kill him.”

“You should do it quickly. We are approaching rendezvous.”

Jashad sauntered confidently up and examined the readout screens. “All is prepared?”

“Yes. I don’t think they have a chance. We are too well-organized.”

“Excellent. But we cannot afford swelled heads until our mission has been accomplished. I will remain here until we dock, according to plan.”

“And Captain Welsh?”

“He is much too drunk to worry about. Besides, we may well have the opportunity to put him to use.”

* * *

Colors still parading across her vision, Mikaela forced her attention away from the alien mural to where Jakes and his two men were examining the side of the wall. .

“It’s . . . it’s
incredible,”
she said. “I can see so many things in it. I could just study this . . . forever. This is what
taught
the saurians! But this just doesn’t jive with—”

“Right. We’ll figure that out later,” Jakes said. “Right now, though, I want to get through to the control section.”

“You and your goddam FTL drive! You’re obsessed, man!”

Thesaurus had directed them, emphasizing that there was nothing to harm them past the curtain. Leaving the saurian behind, putting on their special hoods, they had stepped into the chamber. Immediately, as though detecting their presence, the wall to their left had come . . .
alive!

Or so it seemed. Holographs—a tank shielded by some clear substance—filled with wonder. Mikaela wasn’t quite sure what it was, exactly.

“That’s right.” Jakes said flatly as his men used their equipment to examine the wall. “I’ve a few theories about what such a drive would look like—call it a hobby, if you like. I’ve even got engineering diagrams. There would have to be some kind of field generator, I theorize—”

“Doctor!” Morton said in an excited tone. “I just tapped this bit of wall. And a panel opened! There’s a lever inside.”

“Thesaurus didn’t mention anything about any lever!” Jakes said.

“I don’t believe he’s looked. Or maybe . . .”

“Maybe what?”

“Maybe he wasn’t intended to
find
it.”

“Well, I guess there’s nothing else to do but pull it,” Jakes said, unable to hide his eagerness. “Pull away, Morton. Let’s see what happens.”

Morton pulled. Nothing happened.

“Just goes to show you that levers don’t necessarily mean—” said Jakes.

He was interrupted by the sound and sight of a doorway opening in the wall. Beyond was darkness, here and! there streaked by traceries of phosphorescense-like light.

“Don’t go in,” Jakes said, visibly forcing himself not to rush through the opening. “Sommers. Check it with your sensors.”

Sommers worked a few controls, scrutinized the results on his machine. “No traps, as far as I can tell.”

“Check again. We don’t want another repeat of the Snipe incident. Especially since its
our
lives at stake.”

Sommers obeyed. “Nothing bad but radiation.”

“Excellent. I’ll go first.” Jakes squared his shoulders. He stepped through the newly opened portal. “Morton, hand me your flashlight, would you?”

The instrument was transferred.

“Me next, please?” Mikaela requested.

“Certainly,” said Jakes, turning the flashlight on. “I—”

All around, lights glimmered on, providing spooky multicolored illumination to their surroundings.

Jakes caught his breath. “My God. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen.”

“Why’d the lights come on? You hit a switch or somethin’, Doc?” asked Morton.

“Just his presence did it, I think,” Mikaela returned. She stepped through and realized just what Jakes was talking about.

There were shapes here . . . shapes and geometrical forms here she had never seen, blending together in impossible ways. It was all like something from an Escher print—only in three dimensions.

The lights crept up to either side of the cylinder. In the distance, Mikaela could make out the gigantic end of the cylinder—not smooth, but bulbed and dented with forms of machines modeled after an Alice-in-Wonderland mushroom garden.

Jakes blinked at all this through his specially treated visor. “I never quite expected anything, like
this.
Up there, though”—he pointed to the aft end of the cylinder—“something seems to be missing. I can see I’m going to have my hands full investigating—”

Suddenly there was a loud snapping sound. A gigantic flashbulb seemed to explode in their eyes.

When they recovered, they saw that one of the machines had blown itself apart like a burst poppy.

“What was
that?”
Morton had just stepped through the portal.

“God knows,” Jake said. “We’ll have to put our sensors to it. It was something triggered by our entrance, there’s no question about that. Later, though. Right now I want to find that starship drive.”

“Right now,
I
just want to
stare,”
Mikaela said.

“I can’t blame you,” said Jakes.

“I hope you can tell what these machines are, because I certainly haven’t the faintest.”

“That’s what I’m here for.”

Some meters away, something caught Mikaela’s eye. Something slowly coming alive with particolored light, like some neon sculpture crossed with a thousand lavalamps. This, blended with holographs like shivering ghosts caught in some trap.

“That—” Mikaela said. “It looks like the thing in the other room. I
have
to go and—”

A form stumbled through their number, walked several meters ahead of them, and then halted. Reptilian eyes looked all around, taking in the wonderful sights. Arms reached out as though to grasp everything it could get.

“It’s Thesaurus!” Mikaela said. “He
knows
he shouldn’t be in here! It might kill him!” She moved toward the saurian, but Jakes stopped her.

“The damage is already done, Lindstrom. Thesaurus knows what’s he’s doing.”

“He’s
killing
himself, that’s what he’s doing,” Mikaela said.

“No. He’s already done that. It was all just a matter of time. It was his price for knowledge.”

“But he could have waited till tomorrow for his special suit!” Tears had come to Mikaela’s eyes.

Thesaurus was staggering ahead, touching surfaces, cringing with either pain or pleasure—or perhaps both.

“Tomorrow? He might have died
tonight,
Mikaela. There’s no telling with radiation poisoning. No. I know exactly how he feels. He wanted to see it
now.”

“I can’t take it,” Mikaela said, breaking away from Jakes’s restraint. She ran up to Thesaurus, who was staring up, eyes gleaming. “Thesaurus,” she said. “You have to get back. It’s not good—”

Thesaurus turned and looked at her. A guttural click and hissing emerged from his mouth, but it was gentle, not hostile at all.

She pointed back. Thesaurus said, “Yessss,” and began to walk back.

Halfway back, the creature keeled over, and lay still. “Jakes! Morton! Sommers! Help me get him
out
of here!”

The men came running. Together, they carted the unconscious saurian through the two portals, back into the temple chambers.

They laid him down on his mat, where he breathed shallowly.

“That dose of radiation really did it to him this time,” Morton said.

“Maybe he could feel something coming on anyway /’ Jakes commented. “That’s why he figured he couldn’t spare the time.”

Sommers said, “God. Coopersmith and Kemp are gonna be some kind of pissed. We shoulda watched this thing!”

Angry, Mikaela turned to them. “Would you loudmouths shut up and get on the radio to Thalberg. She might actually be able to
do
something!”

Thesaurus spasmed. His eyes shot wide. The saurian grew rigid. Then relaxed.

“I think . . .” Mikaela said. “I think he’s dead.”

“Oh, that’s just great,” Morton said.

“Certainly it puts a pall on things,” Jakes said. “But it’s not as if we killed him. He’s been killing himself for years. But he was the first . . . the first Saurian to see the Other Side in physical form. And that is what he wanted, I’m sure. Come on, Mikaela. You can’t do a thing. We need you in there.”

Mikaela wiped away her tears and nodded.

“ARE YOU CERTAIN
it’s on intersect?” asked Phineas as he spoke to his second-in-command by radio.

“Yes, Colonel. Commander Fratz has been tracking it since the scanners first picked it up. At first he thought we might just be passing through shipping lanes, but there’s no denying it now. It’s coming in for an intersect.” Marshall looked up from the headquarters intercom at Commander Bracken and Ross Canter, one of the flight engineers, who had volunteered to remain as part of the skeleton crew at base camp.

“It’s possible that Copernicus has diverted it from its course to investigate our radio silence,” said Kemp. “How’s the work going on the communications problem?”

“No luck, so far, sir.”

What’s the ETA on that ore-ship?”

“At present velocity I would estimate within the hour,” said Marshall, watching Commander Bracken nod his confirmation.

“I want you to keep me informed on the status of that ship, Captain. Secure the main entry hatch and alert your men to be ready for anything. I’m coming back to the camp by ’thopter as soon as possible. Carry on . . . Kemp out.”

The intercom radio clicked off and Marshall looked over to the two men in headquarters office. “You two heard the man . . . what do you think?”

Bracken shook his head. “I don’t like it, Captain. I can’t put my finger on it, but something doesn’t feel right to me.”

“I think we should just play it by ear,” said Canter. “The Colonel has no way of knowing what’s going on. I, for one, think it’s quite natural to assume that Copernicus has sent that ore-ship out here to investigate. I don’t think we have anything to worry about.”

Marshall nodded slowly. “Well, I hope you’re right, Canter. We can’t afford any mess-ups at this stage of the game.”

“Captain, I’m supposed to be relieving Fratz on the
Goddard
bridge. I think I’d better get going,” said Bracken.

“I’ll go with you,” said Canter. “See if I can help the crew that’s working in the service module.”

Marshall nodded and sat down behind his work-table. “All right, keep me informed. I don’t want Kemp calling back here and me not having anything to tell him.”

Canter and Bracken chuckled at the small joke, and left the room. They walked to the entry hatch, and descended down the ladder to the airlock, where they suited up for EVA to the
Goddard.
Once on board the ship, Bracken headed for the bridge and Canter made his way down the main corridor to the service module. The ship was deserted aside from two of Jakes’s men working on the damaged communications equipment and Bracken at the Command console.
It’s going to be easier than I figured,
he thought, as he paused outside the entrance to the Module. Taking over the base camp would be a simple matter with the bulk of the
Goddard
crew at the end of the cylinder, but Canter realized that controlling the base camp would be of little help to them. If Jakes succeeded in gaining access to the control section of the
Dragonstar,
Kemp would be in the driver’s seat, quite literally.

Canter needed a contingency plan. He only had an hour or so before the ore-ship rendezvous, so he would be forced to work quickly.

Walking back to the airlock, Canter climbed into his EVA suit, and radioed Bracken on the bridge. “Commander, this is Doctor Canter . . . I’m getting an unstable reading on one of the outriggers. I’m taking one of the work-scooters down to the aft end and check it out.”

“Okay, Doctor,” said Bracken. “Be careful out there . . . I don’t have anybody to back you up if you get yourself in a jam.”

“Affirmative, Commander. I’ll check in by intercom if I find anything interesting.”

Canter flicked off his helmet-mike and cycled the airlock. With the shining expanse of the alien ship below him, he coasted over to one of the work-scooters—little more than a frame, cockpit, and naked engine—and climbed aboard. Accelerating away from the
Goddard-Heinlein,
Canter headed down the length of the immense cylinder toward the stem. From Jakes’s most recent reports, the saurian wall was located approximately forty klicks from the engines. He would have to estimate distances since he did not have the time to get a precise location. He would also be limited to placement of an entry hatch in the side of the cylinder.

That, in fact, was the key to his plan—there would
have
to be another entry hatch near the aft-end . . .

The little scooter picked up speed and he was topping four hundred KPH when he started to decelerate, finally slowing to a crawl, and dropping his altitude to ten meters above the surface of the hull. He had the sensation of flying in a hovercraft across a vast desert plain.

It was difficult to believe that you were actually flying across the surface of a
ship.
Without instruments to give him a precise amount of distance covered, Canter was forced to guesstimate when he was within forty kilometers of the end of the cylinder, where he began scanning the surface for the distinctive markings that indicated an outerhull airlock.

Ten minutes later he found one, somewhat smaller than the one the IASA was using. He was not sure of its exact position, but it would have to do, since he was running out of time. Using the razer-torch on the scooter’s tool-rack, he burned through the plate which housed the lock’s manual override panel then carefully opened the outerlock door. To mark its location, he took an electronic work-flare from the scooter’s rack and, attached it magnetically to the hull by the Iock. Its Iow-frequency beeper would serve as a beacon to anyone trying to Iocate the Iock.

As he climbed back aboard the scooter, he checked his chronometer—less than twenty minutes before the ore-ship would arrive, at the latest. He would have to hurry. He fired the scooter’s engine, headed back toward the
Goddard-Heinlein
link-up, and radioed in to Bracken.

“Commander, this is Doctor Canter . . . I’ve located the problem on one of the impulse engines. I can rectify, but I will be tied up for about another hour or so. Do you have any problem with that time-table?”

“Affirmative, Doctor. ETA with the ore-ship is coming up soon. I don’t know if you should be out there while all that’s going on.”

“I don’t
want
to be out here, Commander, but if I don’t get this engine stabilized, it’s going to fail sooner or later. I’d rather save us the trouble of course-correcting for the loss of directional thrust when it goes . . .”

“All right, Doctor. I guess you know what you’re doing, but be careful. Bracken out.”

Canter smiled as the radio went dead. The scooter accelerated until he was at top speed. He held it there for a few minutes, before reversing thrust and slowing down for rendezvous.

The minutes ticked past. As he approached the
Goddard’
s airlock, he could see the ungainly configuration of the ore-ship closing in on their position. Dwarfed by the size of the
Dragonstar,
the approaching vessel looked like a flying insect, hovering with wings blurred into invisibility. It had already pulled alongside the
Goddard-Heinlein,
but Canter could see no external activity as of yet.

He switched frequencies, tuning in on the base camp intercom. Someone was talking, and Canter eavesdropped.

“ . . . like they’re close-approaching for docking,” said Bracken. “I’ve tried reaching them on the intercom but I’m getting no response . . .”

“They must know we’re having a communications problem,” said Marshall. “Probably don’t have their own equipment tuned to our specific frequency. Proceed with docking, Commander .. , .”

Canter slowed his scooter as he approached the ships. The ore-ship was nestling in beside the
Goddard,
lining up its docking collar with the Deep-Space cruiser. He watched as the two ships became joined, siamese-twin-like, at the waists, and listened on the intercom.

“Ore-ship docking completed,” said Bracken. “Their airlock is recycling. We should know what’s going on in a minute . . . Stand by, Captain . . .”

After securing the scooter to the hull, Canter drifted across to the open-lock of the
Goddard,
on the opposite side of the fuselage from the docking collar. He cycled the lock, stepped inside, and pulled off his EVA helmet, hoping that someone on the boarding crew would recognize him. This was no time to get himself shot.

The main corridor was silent as he entered. Then he heard footsteps to his left. Looking up, he saw a crowd of men wearing olive-green jumpsuits, LS-helmets, and visors, and carrying weapons. The man in the lead turned and raised his rifle to his waist, aiming it. Canter threw himself against the wall, raised his arms in the bulky EVA suit, and started screaming to identify himself.

The lead man hesitated for a moment, and two others joined him, walking slowly up the corridor, their guns trained on him.

“It’s Canter! . . . Rassim! I’m
Rassim!”
He felt a knot growing in his throat, and he feared that soon no words would come. They were going to shoot him, he was certain.

The lead man stopped, gestured him to move into the center of the corridor with the barrel of his weapon. “Rassim
who?”
he said softly.

“Pierre . . . Pierre Rassim! I’m with the
Jiha!”

The leader lifted his visor. He was olive-skinned and wore a neatly trimmed, full-face beard. He smiled ironically. “Why are you here, Rassim?”

At first, Canter did not understand the question, but suddenly, the correct answer came to him: “I’m here for Ahmad Nesrudah . . .”

The leader’s shoulders dropped perceptibly as he relaxed his grip on his rifle. “All right,” he said to the other men. “It’s all right,” he said to the other men. The, turning back to Canter, he said, “What’s the situation here?”

“One man on the bridge. Two back this way in the service module. They won’t be any problem. Nobody on board the smaller ship, and one man inside the entry hatch on a security post. There are only four men at the base camp, Everyone else, including Kemp, is at the other end of the alien ship.” Briefly Canter explained the situation, and told the commando leader about the beacon at the aft-end, which marked the entry hatch.

“You suggest that we take the men in through there?”

“That’s where they can control this ship, don’t you see that?”

“What about these . . . lizard-men? Will they be a problem?”

Canter shook his head. “I don’t think so . . . from what I understand, they have no technology to speak of. Listen, you’ll only need a handful of men to secure the base camp; I can contact their headquarters and tell them that IASA people are coming aboard, and they won’t suspect a thing. You take the rest of your men down to the other end of the
Dragonstar,
follow the signal from the beacon, and enter the same way as you were briefed on this entry. You should come up inside the saurian civilization. I’m sure you can take it from there.”

The leader grabbed Canter by the front of his EVA suit and pushed him against the wall. “This was not in the briefing . . . it sounds crazy to me!”

“No!, listen . . . no one expected them to move the base camp! We had no idea that they would have access to the control section of the ship! We’ve
got
to change our plans, or this whole thing is a waste of time. Now, you’ve got to take out the man on the, bridge so that I can use the intercom . . . !”

The commando leader was going to speak again, but he changed his mind. He released Canter and returned to his lieutenants, whom he briefed quickly. Twelve men remained on board the
Goddard
while the others were ushered back into the on ship by their bearded leader.

“This way,” said Canter, leading a lieutenant and six men toward the bridge. The other six went back toward the service module
.

Bracken did not even have a chance to turn around before he caught two bursts of fire. He fell from the chair in a heap, and Canter took his place, flipping on the intercom. “Captain Marshall, this is Doctor Canter . . .”

“What is it, Doctor? Where’s Bracken?”

“We’ve got Doctor Kolenkhov and some of the Copernicus Staff on board, Captain. They hitched a ride on the ore-ship, to investigate our radio silence. They request permission to enter the
Dragonstar .
. .”

“Doctor Kolenkhov? You’re kidding! Where’s Bracken?”

“He’s down at the airlock preparing to escort them through the entry hatch.”

There was a pause before Marshall replied. “Why didn’t Bracken notify me of all this?”

“He was kind of taken by surprise, Captain. I can’t really blame him.” Canter paused, forced a chuckle from his dry throat. “I mean, if you’ve ever met Doctor Kolenkhov, I think you’d understand . . .”

Marshall paused, then replied. “Hmm, yes, I’ve heard stories about him . . . supposed to be quite a character. All right, Doctor, tell Bracken I’Il be expecting him. Marshall out.”

Canter turned and nodded to the commando lieutenant, who turned and led his men from the bridge to the airlock, where Canter passed out EVA gear to the half-dozen men. As they suited up, the other six commandos arrived and began pulling on their own suits.