Event Horizon (Hellgate) (86 page)

It had already cataloged this sky, Travers realized. He followed Marin to the ’chef, let Curtis hand him a green tea with lime and mint over crushed ice, and dropped his voice to a murmur.

“This stuff makes me wonder if I have any brains left in my skull at all, or if Fleet beat them to pulp and I just never noticed.”

“Study.” Marin was restless, ill at ease, eyes wide, dark, in Ops’s companionable dimness where the brightest lights issued from screens, instrument surfaces and the navigation tank itself. “I had to do science, because as a kid I wanted carrier command. Even if you don’t enter Fleet on the science ticket, like Alexis, you need the basic credentials before they’ll let you through the door at officer school. For mere mortals, the only way to
reach
that door is to study hard during your rookie year and sit the exams for officer candidacy. If,” he added acidly, “you survive places like
Malteppe
, and the crewdeck high-jinx that made a basket case of Teniko.”

“You’d have done it,” Travers guessed. “It’s in your nature to do what you set out to. If you’d still wanted it, you’d have come back after the
Argos
. As a survivor, you’d have been fast-tracked into a command corps. Damn, you’d have been an XO by now, on pace to get your own ship. Me? I’d still have been a master sergeant. Nowhere else to go, once you’re king of the hill on the crewdeck. Damn, we might’ve been on the same ship.”

“So long,” Marin breathed, “as it wasn’t the
Shanghai
or the
London
.” He finished his tea in one draught and called, “Anything, Alexis?”

But her head was shaking. “Not yet. Lai’a?”

“The deep scan platform is still working. No matches.”

“Bloody hell,” Rabelais said for the second time. “We must be further out than we thought.” He and Queneau were standing close together, content to watch as Rusch frowned over astronomical images, Vidal tried to make sense of the navigational feed, and Vaurien busied himself with ship data. Lai’a would have done it all, but humans needed to be busy; and with nothing to do, Rabelais was anxious.

A shape moved at the armordoors. A low, husky voice called quietly, “Permission to enter your hallowed territory.”

Vaurien did not even glance his way. “So long as you mind your manners. Pull up a chair, do what you do.” He did not have to say the words – Travers heard them anyway, and so must Teniko:
and stay the hell out of my way
.

He came in like a shadow, rolled a chair up to Tech 8, the most distant workstation, and deliberately tapped keys to pull up the data rather than addressing Lai’a or Joss. Marin glanced at him, and then at Vaurien; Richard’s head shook minutely, setting the whole question aside.

“Mechanically, we’re in excellent shape,” he said in a taut voice, as if for want of something to say. “All three drives are purring. Sublight engines are online, the transspace drive is dormant, the Weimanns are optimal. There’s a drone gang working on Number 3 reactor, routine maintenance; the drone fabrication shop is working, replacing eight units that were fried, making trivial adjustments to the hyper-Weimann while we were in transspace. We’re good. Barb?”

“It’s lucky I worked on my thumb twiddling skills,” she told him, “because Lai’a doesn’t need a human crew. You know we’re passengers, Richard. We’re along as guests.”

“Honored and welcome guests, Doctor Jazinsky,” Lai’a amended. “The presence of Resalq and human mission specialists on this expedition is not merely welcome, but highly beneficial. Each day I learn a great deal from continued interaction. Also, I am extremely aware of the hazards of confronting Zunshu mechanisms about which we remain ignorant. Should I fail to perform to requirement, I will urge Resalq or human participation.”

The statement was forthright, honest. Travers could almost hear Mark Sherratt in the AI’s intonation, its choice of words, and sure enough, when he angled a look at Teniko he saw a sneer on the misshapen face. Teniko had only contempt for the Resalq AI, perhaps for any AI which seemed to mimic life, consciousness, awareness. And for the engineers who designed such self-aware machines? Travers glanced at Mark, Dario, and Tor now. The Sherratts were studiously ignoring Teniko, but Tor Sereccio had seen the look on his face and was fuming. Only Dario’s hand on his arm restrained him.

“Object match,” Lai’a announced. “Taurus 465, class-B quasar, on the edge of normal deep scan resolution. Standby.”

“On the
edge
of resolution?” Rusch echoed in a tone of sheer disbelief.

“This is quite correct, Colonel, and I appreciate your astonishment.” Lai’a paused, then, “Object match.
Eridani
119, the black hole.”

“A monster x-ray source that lights up the whole sky in that band,” Rusch said quietly. “You know it, Barb?”

“I should. I wrote a paper on it when I was doing Physics 401.” Jazinsky was watching the same datastream. “I’m recognizing the signature off it, but it’s so faint.” She spoke in a hushed whisper. “Richard, we’re one hell of a lot further out than we predicted. The gravity tide between Orion 359 and the
Gojin
Drift must transit some kind of deformation in transspace. For want of a better word, an old fashioned shortcut. We haven’t seen this before. Lai’a, were you aware of any ruck in transspace?”

“Not during transspace flight. Immediately upon entry to the driftway adjacent to the
Gojin
gravity well I took readings which appeared anomalous,” Lai’a said coolly. “Further readings proved these anomalies to be accurate. Little information regarding the transspace distortion is available at this moment; analysis is incomplete. Would you care to review it?”

“Yeah, I would. Let me have it at Tech 1,” Jazinsky said hoarsely.

The flatscreen had brightened when Lai’a added, “Object match: Draco 884, the pulsar.”

“Three for three,” Jazinsky whispered. “You can calculate our position from those. All right, Lai’a, where the hell are we? Put it in the tank.”

Travers’s mouth was dry as he watched the starfield rotating in the navtank, constellation lines forming up – tiny with distance, punctuated by icons marking the position of the known objects and, by inference, Hellgate itself. Their home gate.

“Oh, my gods.” Rusch’s voice was barely audible.

“Tell me,” Travers invited. “We’re not all astronomers.”

Taking a deep breath, Jazinsky straightened from the workstation and pulled both hands through the white-blonde hair, raking it back from her face, which was pale in the instrument lights. “From any reference point we understand, we’re in the constellation the Resalq call
Lornala
– I believe it means Scimitar. An observer on Velcastra would say we’re roughly in line-of-sight with the blue giant,
Lornala
182, which is comparable to Orion 359, in terms of sheer distance from home. It’s a speck in Velcastra’s sky, not even visible against city lights. But we’re about forty-five
thousand
light years on the far side of
Lornala
182.”

At first the words refused to make sense to Travers. They rolled around in his mind’s ear while he blinked at Marin, Vidal, Vaurien, waiting for perspective to hit him. When it did, his body raced from cold to hot and back to cold in as many seconds.

It was Jon Kim who said in a small voice, “Does somebody want to tell me what all that means?”

The Ops room was silent until Vaurien said in a curiously calm tone, “Lai’a, if you were unable to insert back into transspace, how long would it take you, at long-term sustainable speeds, to return to the Deep Sky?”

“Approximately twelve years,” Lai’a said without hesitation, “assuming no mechanical issues. On a flight of such duration, however, technical difficulty is inevitable. An estimate of fifteen years would be more reliable, and twenty would not be unreasonable.”

“Shit,” Vidal muttered as Travers’s heart performed a double-thump and the pulse drummed in his ears.

“Drop a comm beacon, Lai’a,” Vaurien said in the same measured voice which perhaps only Travers and Jazinsky knew was a mask for feelings too turbulent to be acknowledged. “It can’t do us any harm here. And speaking of comm, you got anything on the highband?”

“The sky is noisy across a wide comm spectrum, Captain Vaurien,” Lai’a reported. “The Zunshu bands are highly active. I have pinpointed eight probes in this region. Two local to the
Gojin
Drift came online when they registered my engine signature. They are passive monitoring devices of an unfamiliar type, and transmitting at this moment. The language is
not
the same as that used by the core AI of the Kjorin stasis chamber. The gist of the data in transmission is unknown, but is likely a report of an unknown vessel of a technology previously not seen in this region, plus coordinates. Should we linger here, we could expect to be assaulted.”

“We’re not staying,” Vaurien said icily.

“In addition,” Lai’a went on, “several comm bands below those used by the Zunshu are busy with undirected transmission consistent with public broadcast. I have been recording since I exited the Drift. The microwave signal uses unfamiliar signal encryption and compression; the origin is alien. Analysis has begun. When reliable data is available, would you like me to stream it to your quarters, Doctor Jazinsky?”

“You read my mind,” she muttered.

“And mine.” Mark paused. “The public broadcast you’re receiving … do you have direction on it?”

“At least eight star systems,” Lai’a told him, “suggesting a homeworld and seven colonies.”

“
None
of which,” Dario said hoarsely, “seem to have been hit by the Zunshu – or they wouldn’t be transmitting. They’d be obliterated.”

“The source systems are quite distant,” Lai’a added. “It is important to remember, these signals have been en route for
decades
. The originating worlds might easily have been obliterated long ago. Four other stars in much closer proximity to the
Gojin
Drift are entirely compatible with those of the transmitting worlds. These are anomalously silent; none is broadcasting on any band, even basic radio. It is entirely possible these worlds are razed. Would you care to cruise them, Captain Vaurien, Doctor Sherratt?”

For a long moment Vaurien hesitated, looking from Mark to Barb and the Sherratts. “How long, Lai’a?”

“Six days to circuit three of the four.”

“Too long.” Mark lifted a brow at Dario and Tor, and both nodded. Mark frowned into the tank, where data scrolled far faster than Travers could hope to follow it, even if he had understood the content. At last Mark said musingly, “If the signals you’ve been recording
are
public broadcast, and you’ve captured a wide enough sampling of them, when you’ve cracked the data encryption, there’s a good chance the answers will be there. A documentary, educational and fictional programming. You might find references to lost frontier worlds, or a war with the Zunshu, perhaps ongoing hostilities.”

“If it’s a war, these people could be winning,” Queneau muttered.

“Are they?” Jazinsky was less sure. “The Deep Sky is just as bright with the same kind of comm traffic, Jo. We just haven’t lost major worlds yet, but until we seeded the swarms to guard the exit-lanes out of Hellgate, we could have lost them any day. You want to call that winning?”

“Maybe,” Queneau was frowning at the Resalq. “We’re doing better than the ancients did.”

“A hell of a lot better,” Tor agreed acidly. “We got shit beaten out of us, and we never did
squat
to hurt the Zunshu.” He was restless, edgy, impatient. “Mark, if we’re not going to go look for ruins, we need to get out of here.”

As disagreeable as Tor’s tone might have been, he was right. Mark sighed heavily. “The people local to this area might be at war, as we are; they may be in the process of annihilation, as the Resalq were, so long ago. Lai’a, have you detected any sign of gravity weapons, swarms, such as we laid down around Hellgate?”

“None,” Lai’a said promptly. “They were my priority, upon exit from the event, and before leaving the Drift. If Resalq and humans are able to seed minefields into the exit lanes, equally advanced alien species would theoretically do the same. They would also post marker beacons to alert friendly traffic. I have detected no such beacons, and have identified no such minefields.”