Ship of Fools (31 page)

The engines came to life on the shuttle, bright orange flaring on monitor one.

“We’re on!”
Masters said.

The shuttle engines erupted, orange turning almost white and blue. The shuttle’s speed increased, slowly at first, then faster and faster.

“Number three!”
Cardenas shouted.

“Wait, Jimmy,” Maxine said.

Another sphere was forming. Just before it reached full size, Maxine turned to Jimmy.

“Release!” Maxine ordered.

Jimmy triggered the launch pad release; there was a slight jolt, then we dropped through the open doors.

The sphere detached. We drifted out from the
Argonos
. The sphere shot away from the alien ship, again headed toward the shuttle. We weren’t in its path, but we were much larger than the shuttle, and I knew what Maxine was thinking. And hoping.

“Ten-second burn on the engines, then shut them down. Shut down
everything
!”

We lurched with the sudden acceleration, but almost immediately it stopped. Then all the lights went out, and the cabin was on batteries. Even the monitors were down, but now we were outside the
Argonos
and we could see the sphere coming.

What Maxine hoped for occurred. The sphere changed course and headed for us. Ten seconds later, it struck.

Like Masters said, there was no concussion. Silver glitter penetrated the harvester, a shower moving through us, tingling like electricity. A few moments later, it all faded away.

“Power up, Jimmy.”

Lights and life support came up first, the monitors came to life, then he refired the engines. The vibration as they came to life was incredibly comforting.

“Lock down transmissions and go!”
Nikos ordered.

“Yes, Captain.”

“Lock down now!”

“Good luck, Captain.” Maxine nodded to Jimmy, and he locked down the transmission. “Kick them, Jimmy.”

The seats locked into place, the vibration became a roar, and I was crushed back in my seat as we blasted away.

W
E
were massive, barely maneuverable, and we accelerated slowly, the engines roaring. Jimmy angled us away from the ship, but not much; the quickest way to put distance between us and the alien starship was running the length of the
Argonos
.

The shuttle was still accelerating, growing smaller on the monitor as it left the
Argonos
behind. From the pilot’s cabin we could see its bright tail flaring, a tiny circle of fire against the black sky, like a comet blazing away.

As he’d promised, Nikos left the command channel open, and now his voice came over it.

“Engage drive engines,”
he said.

We were nearing the rear of the
Argonos
, the drive engines coming into view—black and red and massive, the metal surfaces pocked and streaked and scoured by the detritus of space. They began to glow and shudder.

“We’re too damn close,” Maxine said.

“Got it,” Jimmy said.

The harvester was slow to respond, slow to change direction. The engines seemed to strain, becoming unbalanced under Jimmy’s commands; the entire structure of the harvester appeared ready to give. But the
Argonos
began to
fall away from us just as we were approaching the drive engines now building up their energies.

“Number four!”
Cardenas called out.
“No, no, it’s . . . something different this time, I don’t know . . .”

The alien ship was aglow, the silvery skin encasing it; everything seemed to be warping, distorting. Then suddenly a mass swelled up from the ship; it quickly differentiated into twenty or thirty spheres which burst forth like a star exploding.

“Shut it down, Jimmy! Everything, dammit!”

Jimmy’s fingers danced across the console, cutting the engines and power. We were moving fairly quickly now.

“Full acceleration,”
ordered Nikos.

The spatial distortion from the
Argonos
drive engines reached us just before the first of the spheres. The harvester rolled and swayed, metal buckling. Nausea drove into my belly as I lost my sense of balance.

“Hang on,” said Maxine. “Just hang on.”

A sphere burst through us, followed a few seconds later by two more bursts. I felt electrified, and the sweat that broke out all over my skin seemed to burn, a frozen, charged, and invisible searing.

“Captain,”
Cardenas said,
“A dozen objects have just launched from the alien ship.”

“Bring up the Metzenbauer Field.”

There was a long silence. We were flying mute and almost blind, the engines still down.

“Maxine?” Jimmy asked.

“Don’t do anything,” she said. “Let them think we’re dead.”

We still had plenty of speed, though, and the two ships were receding from us; even faster now, I realized, because the
Argonos
was accelerating, though with the combined mass of the two ships they would be gaining velocity slowly at first. I swiveled my seat around, but we were at an odd angle, and I could only see parts of the
Argonos
and the alien ship.

“I’ll be damned,”
Cardenas said.
“The Field stopped all of them, whatever they were.”

“Jump coordinates set?”
Nikos asked.

“They’re locked in, Captain. Nothing’s changed.”

“How long until we’ve got the velocity?”

“Checking now.”

A long, tense silence.
“We can do it in thirty-seven minutes if we maintain full acceleration.”

“Do it, then.”

“Captain.”
Someone else’s voice. One of the crew?

“Yes, Kirilen.”

“I think they’re bringing up their own drive engines. We’re picking up massive field distortions from the far side of their hull. Not the same kind we produce, but it could be their drives.”

No response from Nikos. Cardenas finally said,
“Shit,”
in a voice little more than a whisper.

“What is it?” Pär asked.

Jimmy shook his head. “If they get their drive engines up, and if they’re on the far side, they can counteract the acceleration of the
Argonos
. They might be able to prevent the
Argonos
from gaining enough velocity to make the jump. Or delay it long enough to attack in some other way. Something.”

“Amar,” Maxine asked, “how are the batteries?”

“Full reserve,” she said. “We’ve got hours.”

“Okay, bring the monitors back up.”

In addition to the bad angle, the two ships were getting smaller and smaller so we could hardly make anything out. The monitors came up, and Amar brought in the transmissions from the
Argonos
. The harvester’s cameras, even at full magnification, didn’t show much more than we could see with our own eyes, but the
Argonos
cameras were still transmitting clear signals.

The alien ship looked dead again, although the view was slightly obscured now by the Metzenbauer Field. But the
Argonos
was definitely alive, the drive engines ablaze with blue and white fire, surrounded by a corona of distortion.

“The trailing probe was launched,” Amar said quietly, as if we had to be careful even with the transmission locked out. Maybe we needed to be; what did we know?

We looked at the monitor screen dedicated to the trailing
probe’s video transmissions—we had a perfect view of the two ships, filling the monitor. The probe was trailing the
Argonos
, but far off to the side, so the images weren’t washed out by the drive engines.

“Anything yet, Kirilen?”
Nikos, again.

“No, sir. The field distortions persist, but there seems to be no acceleration, no thrust of any kind in any direction. Maybe it’s not a drive.”

I could hear Nikos sigh over the channel.
“It may not be a drive,”
he said,
“but it’s got to be something.”

“Twenty-nine minutes,”
Cardenas said.

Silence for a minute, maybe two. Maybe even longer. Time was distending, becoming impossible to gauge. There was nothing to do, nothing to say. But the
Argonos
engines continued to burn.

“Captain.”
It was Cardenas.
“Do you see that?”

No immediate response, then,
“Yes. What . . . ?”

“Look at that,” Pär whispered, pointing at the monitor.

“Amar, bring that over to monitor one.”

The video from the probe was switched over to the largest monitor, and now we could better see what was happening. There seemed to be a fracture forming in the alien ship, the gap flaring with a pale blue light. Then another fracture appeared on the other side so they were flanking the
Argonos
.

A booming sound came over the command channel, but no voices. Then Kirilen’s voice, panicky.
“Something’s coming out . . . !”

Then we could see it, a dark, curling extension emerging from the alien ship. It appeared to be a massive cable of some kind, extending, lengthening; then it whipped around like the tentacle of a monstrous ocean beast. There was a brilliant flash as it penetrated the Metzenbauer Field and wrapped itself across the hull of the
Argonos
, another
boom
sounding, this one louder and more violent.

Alarms blared over the command channel.

“The Field’s down!”
Kirilen shouted.
“And we’ve got hull breaches!”

There was another
boom
like the first; then a second
cable or tentacle emerged from the other crack in the alien ship, whipping through space before it struck the
Argonos
and wrapped itself across the hull, overlapping the first.

Leviathan
, I thought, wondering if the bishop was watching this, if he knew what was happening. If he did, I’m sure he was convinced that damnation was coming for him.

“More hull breaches, Captain.”

“Shut off the alarms, damn it! And how are the engines?”

The alarms ceased abruptly. Then another came on for a moment before it, too, was shut down.

“Engines are fine,”
Cardenas reported.
“The Field is down and won’t come back up, but the engines are completely undisturbed. We’re still accelerating.”

Two more
booms
sounded, and two more of the cables emerged from the alien ship, slamming across the
Argonos
hull. No alarms sounded this time, but Kirilen announced there were more hull breaches.

“Time?”
Nikos asked.

“Fifteen minutes,”
Cardenas replied.

The
Argonos
now looked like prey in the clutches of its predator. There were no more booming sounds, no more cables. There was no change at all for longer than I could stand.

“Captain?”
It was the bishop.

“Get off this channel, Bernard. We don’t have time for this.”

“We have all the time in the universe, Captain. Don’t you understand what’s happening to us? Don’t you understand . . . ?”

He was cut off in midsentence.
“Thank God he’s not here in the bridge,”
Nikos said.

“We’ve got movement,”
Kirilen broke in.

“What the hell do you mean, movement?”

“Inside the ship. I’m trying to pick up something on video. It’s in several areas, near the hull breaches.”

“You sure it’s not our own people?”

“No, I’m not sure, but there shouldn’t be anyone near those areas.”

A tense quiet followed. More seconds, then minutes stretching out. It was agonizing being unable to do anything, unable to help.

“Damn, most of the security cameras are dead around there, probably damaged during the breaches.”

“That’s all right,”
Nikos said.
“Just keep trying.”

“I am . . . wait. Here. Here’s something. The light’s not good, though . . .”
His voice trailed away, and there was more quiet.

“My God,”
Kirilen whispered.
“Look at that thing . . .”

I looked from one monitor to another, just as the others were doing, but we had no interior shots. Whatever video Kirilen had picked up wasn’t being transmitted.

“What do you think happened?”
Nikos asked. His voice remained calm.

“Boarded through the cable,”
Cardenas answered.

“How close is the nearest hull breach to us?”

“Let me see . . .”
Kirilen said, his voice still shaky.
“Seven levels and eight sectors. I can’t get any video at that breach, but sensors are picking up some kind of movement there.”

“Engines?”
Nikos asked again.

“No change, Captain. Acceleration steady.”

“Time?”

“Nine minutes.”

“Good, then it doesn’t matter, whatever they are. There’s no way they can reach us in time to stop the jump.”

“But, Captain. Look at it!”

I squirmed in my chair, both wishing I could see what Kirilen was talking about, and glad I couldn’t. Glad we couldn’t really know what they would soon be facing.

“It doesn’t matter,”
Nikos repeated.
“Besides, we’ve prepared, haven’t we?”

There was a slight pause, before Kirilen spoke again.
“Sorry, Captain.”
The panic was gone, and he sounded composed.

On monitor one, nothing had changed. The two ships were locked together, and the drive engines continued to
burn fiercely. But other than that, there was no movement on either ship.

We watched and waited in silence. Those on the
Argonos
were silent as well, except for Cardenas calling out the time every two minutes. Finally, it was time.

“One minute,”
she said.

“Coordinates locked in?”

“Locked in.”

“Start jump sequence.”

“Jump sequence started.”

“Good luck, everyone,”
Nikos said.
“Lock down transmissions.”

“Locking down.”

The command channel went dead. So did all the video transmissions we’d been receiving except for the one from the probe, which remained on monitor one. We all stared at it, waiting. Waiting.

I had never seen a jump from outside the ship, of course. None of us had. None of us knew what to expect.

The universe opened up and turned itself inside out.

A ring of distortion formed around the
Argonos
. Space seemed to twist; even the shape of the two ships appeared to bend and flow, as if becoming unstable. Starlight curved around the ring so that the stars became like liquid mercury, elongated arcs that slowly spiraled. The starlight stretched out, took on an almost reddish hue in places, blue in others.

As the ring grew, it separated from the two ships, like a hole opening. In the gap between the ring and the ships was . . . nothing.

Black. A deep black that was darker than night. No stars.

An abyss. A true void. Discontinuity.

The curved starlight began to spin faster now, a whirlpool of colors bending and stretching with a ghostly sheen.

The harvester shuddered slightly, and I felt a queasiness rolling through my belly again.

“What is that?”

“I think we’ve been caught by the space distortions,” Maxine said.

“We’re decelerating,” Jimmy announced.

The ring continued to grow, the vortex of starlight swirling still faster now.

“I’m not sure,” Jimmy said, “but I think it might be pulling us in.”

“We’re too far,” Maxine said. “It’ll be over long before we reach them.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m not sure.”

“Then let’s start up the engines!”

“Let it go, Jimmy.”

I looked away from the monitor and out of the cabin. Maxine was right, I decided. Everything looked close on the monitor, but now I could barely make out the growing, swirling ring far behind us. I turned back to the monitor to watch.

A cocoon of glistening white energy had begun to form around the
Argonos
. As the shimmering strands of light spun around the ship, they flowed forward and began to enclose the alien ship as well.