STAR HOUNDS -- OMNIBUS (24 page)

“So what’s the deal, gentlemen?” she asked.

Captain Northern replied, “Shontill is trying to recall the design of the interior of this kind of ship. He says it’s different from what he was used to … similar to some kind of hangar ship where smaller ships were dry-docked and repaired, which means there’s some large hollow part of it. He’s very excited—this apparently could be one of the portals his people used to enter the other dimension.”

“No kidding. Well, let’s go get a look at it, shall we?” she said, gesturing for Captain Northern to lead on.

“No, I think that’s Shontill’s job.”

Shontill nodded. “Yes, come … my friends. This way.” The alien jerkily struck off down a corridor. If there had been air in the chamber, his steps would have wrung bell-like in the curving passageway.

They walked for some minutes in silence, concentrating on staying alert to any possible danger. Some of the walls were slanted at odd angles and marked with murals of twisting and spiraling colors like the disciplined graffiti on a subway. Other walls had unreadable hieroglyphics. “Ladies Room,” Laura wondered aloud as her gloved fingers traced the etched outline of a series of curlicue characters.

“Why?” asked Northern. “You have to go?”

They met a cut de sac.

“Hey,” said Laura. “I thought Mr. Wonderful here knew his way.”

Shontill grunted. “I … regret … I at times … forget. I am not what … I once was …. I grow weak … in my separation.”

A strange kind of melancholy suffused the alien’s words, and Laura remembered a few cryptic passages in Northern’s explanation about the alien’s past. He’d implied that Shontill seemed to be deteriorating in body and spirit, despite the special environmental chamber Dr. Mish had prepared to the creature’s exact specifications. “Definitely not in top shape,” Laura had said. “Needs a lady Frin’ral, huh?” To which Northern had smiled devilishly, cocked his head at her, and responded, “Oh yes, we males throughout the universe, we think we need power and money and glory, but all we truly desire is the love of a good woman!” Mockingly. To which Laura had snorted with playful disgust and backed away from any possible funny stuff from Northern’s hands.

Now, in the shivery strangeness of the alien ship, Laura found herself feeling sorry for the alien, wishing him well, hoping Shontill found what he was looking for, just as she wished to find what she was seeking.

We’re all looking for something, she thought.

Still, there wasn’t much room for sympathy or feeling or thought apart from total awareness—alertness to the possibility of danger concealed within these unwinding alien corridors.

Shontill managed to avoid any more cul de sacs. “Yes,” he said, stopping and peering about him with his great, weird eyes. “Yes …. I recognize … this sort of ship … and I … was right.”

Ratham Bey looked up from his sensor board. “Captain, the attilium readings are going off the edge of the red … and we’re picking up evidences of broad spectrums of radiation activity, indicating some sort of conversion process in the center of this ship.”

Rathem Bey would know—he was the science officer under Dr. Mish, and had been trained well in these matters. His brownish skin gleamed with a patina of sweat in the light from the others’ beams.

“Looks like we’re headed the right way, then, Shontill. Let me report back to Midshipman Naquist.”

“Captain,” returned Bey, “this kind of radiation won’t hurt us with these suits we’ve got on, but they do block comband signals of all kinds. That’s why the sensors were blocked, sir. We’ll just have to remain incommunicado while we’re this deep into the ship.”

“Goddammit,” said Captain Northern, “that doesn’t make me feel real good about this, I’ll tell you.”

“I did not … promise you … safety,” said Shontill. “Come. The entrance … to the central compartment … is this way.”

“Getting clay feet, Northern?” Laura teased. Laura was up for anything, primed by adrenaline and other things—the past and future phased away here. She was strictly Now time, filled with luminous excitement.

Just what was inside this chamber, kicking up all this fuss?

“I just gab a lot,” Northern mumbled. “Don’t listen to me. I’m really as brave and valiant as starship captains come.” Laura could see his head, bathed in shadow beneath the bubble, smile and wink at her.

They continued up an elevated passageway ending at what was clearly a door. A large, oval door which was locked.

Shontill examined it carefully, first attempting to open it by pushing an array of buttons in a coded pattern, then using physical force. Neither way worked.

“Can you get me some kind of analysis reading on this thing, Ratham?” Northern said.

“Instruments are all shot, sir.”

“Well, then,” the captain said. “There’s nothing for it but brute force.” He drew his hand weapon.

“Do you think that’s advisable, sir?” asked Bey.

“Well, what else are we supposed to do?” He turned to the alien. “Is there another possibility of getting in, Shontill?”

The alien said, “If this entrance … is this way … then so are … the others.”

“Should we blast?”

“If you do not … Captain Northern … then I fear … that I would be … obliged to borrow … your weapon … and do it … myself.”

“In that case, might as well do this right. Laura, get your gun out. I think these boltlike things here are hinges. We can blast these, and the door should come off.”

Suddenly Laura was not so gung-ho. She realized that she was afraid. She wanted to simply turn around and run from there as fast as she could but she contained the urge. “My intuition is acting up, sir, and what it’s telling me isn’t good.”

“Look, you fickle female,” said Northern. “You were allowed to come along on the condition that you obeyed orders. Now get out that gun!”

Laura flashed him a glare, muttering under her breath. She definitely had a bad feeling about this, but her sworn loyalty to Captain Northern and her continued curiosity made her obey.

“Right. Now Shontill and Bey—stand out of the way. This door is going to be off in two shakes of a lamb’s tail, and maybe we’re actually going to get to the bottom of this blasted ultra-dimension business. Dr. Mish will be so pleased.”

He’s strangely excited, Laura thought, and not acting as cool as usual. What was it about this dimension that got everyone so hot and bothered, from her little brother to Dr. Mish? Northern was definitely not acting in an advisable fashion. Now it was his turn to be obsessive-compulsive.

She set her weapon to max and aimed at the hinge Northern had indicated.

“Now!” Northern said, louder than necessary.

Twin spurts of energy blasted into the bolts, easily blowing them off, leaving holes where they had been. The door rocked, then settled on supports, creating a partial opening.

“You think another blast is necessary, Shontill?” asked Northern.

“No,” replied the alien.

They let the door cool for a moment, then Shontill easily ripped it off, allowing it to hang to One side like a flap of metallic skin.

The next room was partially obscured by a screen of sparkling haze. That the chamber was huge, cavernous, was easy to ascertain.

Then their eyes adjusted and Laura could make out that this was no mere repair dock. She couldn’t help but gasp.

“Well, folks,” said Captain Northern. “I do believe we’ve located something here.”

T
he strident colors of the scene before them were particularly shocking after the black and white of the slanting corridors. For a long moment, motionless and silent save for the rasping of their breathing, transmitted through the combands, they could only stare at the sight before them.

The scene was like something from Dante’s
Inferno
superimposed over his
Paradise
, filmed in Maxitech Depth Color. Only it wasn’t a movie, it was real: a huge portal, simultaneously a pit and entrance, ridged with boiling, curling gases, studded with rainbow helixes on its sides like cilia in an esophagus. Debris was caught on the thorny helixes, a mish-mash of cables, structural beams, and translucent film wavering languidly in an invisible current. The tunnel seemed to go on forever, sparkling and misty, crackling here and there with power surges. Something like stars glittered at the opposite end, alien yet somehow inviting. The whole thing seemed to throb with a coruscating energy, a patient slow maelstrom of mystery, awaiting victims.

“I have seen some weird things in my life,” said Captain Northern, “but none tops this!”

“Stand away!” said Shontill. “I go … I go!” He made toward the entryway to the portal.

“Wait a moment, Shontill,” said Northern, attempting to restrain him. “How do you know for sure this is what you’re looking for? You’re going to just dive on down there in your pressure suit? Let’s check this out a moment.”

Shontill stopped reluctantly, his large eyes gazing with almost human longing down into the abyss far deeper than the bottom of the starship.

Laura, meantime, still felt foreboding stirring deep inside her, tugging her away from the edge of the precipice even as something exterior pulled her toward it. “Damn, Northern, all I gotta say is that I really don’t like this!”

“Doesn’t look real inviting does it?” the captain said.

“What are you getting on your sensor board, Ratham?”

“So much data, it’s still working on it, sir,” said the lieutenant. “But so far we’re reading the edges almost solidly plated with attilium. For proper analysis we’re going to have to plug the recordings into our main computer when we get back.”

“Let me take a look at that thing,” Laura said, holding out her hands. “I’ve had sensor-board training and can read a lot of things before they start showing up.”

Northern nodded to the lieutenant, who gave up the device. Laura glanced at the liquid diamond displays, the graphic readouts were moving at a pace beyond normal vision. Almost immediately she detected the something amiss that her gut feeling had warned her about.

“Captain,” she cried. “We’ve got to get out of here!”

“What are you talking about?” a baffled Northern asked, and like a bit of punctuation, the first tremor hit.

The force knocked them all off balance, tearing them from their magnetic moorings. A rough swirl of bright orange and red flashed through the portal like a stylized flame—and Laura could feel a force like strong gravity sucking them toward the portal.

Ratham Bey, closest to the doorway, was yanked through.

“Help!” he called, eyes alive with terror as the invisible force dragged him into the pit.

Shontill reached for him, but it was too late. Whatever force had caught the lieutenant was stronger out near the middle of the portal. It dragged him down, screaming, with surprising quickness, until Bey was reduced to speck size, then simply winked away, his scream lingering in everyone’s ears.

“We’ve started some kind of chain reaction!” Laura managed to screech before the next tremor hit. Everything loose in the passageway fluttered as though struck by a gust of wind.

“I must go!” cried Shontill, surging toward the opening to follow Bey. But the door that they had blasted open suddenly rocked off its hinges and swept past them towards the portal. Its edge slammed Shontill hard, his harsh grunt echoing through Laura’s helmet as he floated upward, unconscious.

“Grab him before that force starts sucking again!” cried Northern. “I don’t want to lose him.”

Laura’s impulse was to ignore the order, to simply turn and rush back to the shuttle. All her danger signals, intuitive and otherwise, were up full. This place was not stable, to say the least! But instinct was reined in by her concern for Northern. What the hell was going on inside of her? she wondered.

“He wanted to take a dive, Northern!” she said. “Let him! We’ve got to get out of here and we don’t have time to fool with him! This place is going to blow!”

“You heard my order, dammit!” Northern growled angrily. “You grab one side and I’ll take the other!”

Laura opened her mouth to protest but realized there wasn’t time. She had to decide, and instantly she did, though the decision had nothing to do with instinct or intuition.

She took hold of one of Shontill’s limply dangling forward limbs, made sure of her magnetized footing, then started to move. Sweat beaded her forehead and she could see from the lights in Northern’s helmet that he was perspiring as well, his face ashen.

“Okay, Captain, but we’ve got to hurry or none of us is going to make it outta here!”

For once, Laura was grateful for the previously awkward weightlessness in the chamber. They’d never have been able to haul this limp monster back in any kind of gravity. Even now it was difficult to squeeze through the narrow portions of the passageway and still be mindful of their hurry.

As soon as they passed the comband interference barrier, Gemma Naquist’s static-riddled voice erupted in their headphones. “ … of there! Red alert! I’m reading threshold level energy interaction, indicative of disruptive potential. Captain Northern, dammit, do you read me? If you don’t already know it, this whole derelict is going to blow up. What did you do?”

“Prepare airlock for unconscious alien, Midshipman,” replied Northern. “Pull him in, and then Laura and I are next. We lost Bey.”

A moment of silence, then Naquist said, “Roger. Over.”

By this time, the passageways were vibrating intensely, filled with bits and pieces of the alien ship floating, detached, which Laura and Northern had to make their way through. Rasping breath sounded in Laura’s ears. She wasn’t sure if it was her own or Northern’s. Sweat stung her eyes as the temp-controller of the suit struggled to compensate.

A shrill keening interrupted further transmissions. Laura had to shut off communications to keep the noise from splitting her eardrums. No matter. She knew what they had to do.

It seemed a frustrating eternity, but finally the running lights of the shuttle shone through the darkness of the passageway. Laura and Northern navigated Shontill into the open airlock. Immediately, it closed.

“C’mon, c’mon, hurry!” Laura whispered tensely, and she could read the same urgency in Northern’s eyes.

A bit of debris clunked against Laura’s helmet. A glance behind her showed a barely visible stretch of hallway crumpling in upon itself. Even as she saw this, she noticed a tug of force, as though that awful place, that horrible portal, were tugging her back toward it.

Something to grab onto! She looked around, seeing nothing.

The door wasn’t open yet! Was Gemma having trouble hauling that goddamn alien through? She cursed the thing even as she grappled for a hold in the alien wall. Something was sticking out; she grabbed it. Northern was on the other side, holding onto an abutment.

Dammit, Gemma
! her mind screamed.
Hurry
!

The force grew stronger.

Finally, the airlock opened. There was a good four meters between it and her.

Laura took out her gun, thumbed it to low, steady power, and used it as a retrorocket. It was difficult, but she made it, grabbing hold of a handle to keep her in place then reholstering the weapon.

Northern followed her lead. By the time she grabbed him and helped him in, it was more than evident that the whole alien artifact was shaking apart.

The door cycled closed. Air rushed in. Before the process was complete, however, Northern tried his comband and found the jamming effect gone.

“Disengage and head back for the
Starbow
, full speed!” Northern ordered.

“Aye, aye, sir,” Naquist’s voice crackled over the channel. Almost immediately they were slammed against the side of the lock by the G-force from the thrust. Midshipman Naquist had been all ready for that particular command.

A green all-clear light flashed, and Northern pushed his way into the interior of the shuttle. Laura saw over his shoulder that Shontill, still unconscious, was haphazardly strapped into a grav-couch and Naquist was harnessed at the controls.

“What happened?” Naquist demanded immediately.

“Later,” Northern said breathlessly. “Just signal ahead and ready the docking bay, then as soon as we’ve boarded get the goddamn shield up and get away from this thing.”

“First Mate Thur is fully cognizant of the situation and is prepared to do just that, sir.”

“Good, let’s just hope that hellish thing gives us a chance to get back, if it’s really going to go up.”

“We must have tripped something,” Laura said, getting rid of her helmet, relishing the cool air of the shuttle’s interior. “Dunno if it was a trap or if we just goofed. Goddamn alien almost got us all killed.”

Northern explained briefly what they had found and also Ratham Bey’s fate. Just as he finished, Shontill awoke, raging. With no difficulty, he broke the straps then tore his helmet off. His face was swathed in a dark ugly purple. He looked out of control.

“Go back!” he screeched. “We must … go back!” Then the alien broke out into incomprehensible clickings and clatterings: its alien tongue.

The captain’s cool, though, had returned. Calmly, he lifted his gun and said in a clear, articulate voice, “Now, Shontill, my friend. Laura Shemzak and I just risked our lives to rescue you from certain death, but I have no compunction about blowing your head off if you act up anymore. You will stay put, and we will go back to the
Starbow
and put her into a place where it cannot be affected if your people’s vessel blows up.”

The sight of the gun seemed to calm Shontill immensely. At least he made no more threatening motions, gestures, or sounds.

“The way … will be … closed up,” the alien said hopelessly.

“If that’s the way it is, fella, that’s the way it is,” Laura said. “But we got a look at it, you’ve proved your point. No attilium in our bags, true, but we got a detailed set of recordings on the phenomenon, right here in this baby.” She tapped the portable sensor board. “And once we find my brother and he puts his head together with Dr. Mish, ain’t no way we’re not going to be able to get through to this Omega Space, or whatever you call it.”

Shontill slumped back motionless, his expression unreadable.

“Vu-plates don’t look good, Captain,” said Naquist.

Laura glanced at the full picture of the Frin’ral artifact floating like an angry metal thundercloud in the infinite sky. Traceries of lightninglike energy jagged around the ragged periphery like demon claws, ripping and tearing the hull to tatters. Debris orbited the ship closely, like hovering insects above a dead and rotting body.

Captain Northern turned to Naquist and she had an answer ready for him: “We’re going as fast as we can and I’ve got force screens up.”

Northern shook his head. “Those energies we saw … felt. Amazing. I don’t want to be anywhere close to that aperture when it seals up.”

“Two minutes to docking bay,” said Naquist.

“I can’t help but feel as though that portal was left like that … on purpose,” said Northern. “As though the Frin’ral knew that there would be people wanting to find their secret … and they wanted to deal with them.” He turned to Laura. “We should have listened to you, Laura. I’m sorry.”

Laura was taken aback by his apology. She should have learned by now, she thought, not to be surprised by anything Captain Tars Northern did. He was nothing if not erratic.

“I don’t know what it was, Captain. I can’t analyze it and I can’t say whether or not it’s going to show up on the sensor readings … but it felt real bad.”

“Noted. We’ll pay more attention to your intuitions in the future. I think I’m already putting more faith in them than I do in Dansen Jitt’s.”

Seconds later the docking bay had swallowed them up and they’d locked into the shuttle’s compartment.

Northern contacted the bridge immediately. “Get the hell out of here quick, Thur!”

“Antigrav engines at full, jump-stasis on line, and force screens up, sir. What happened?”

“We’ll tell you when we get up there.” He looked over at the alien. “Shontill, perhaps you’d like to go to your cabin. Anything you need we’ll be glad to supply.”

“I wish … to observe … what occurs,” said the alien. “I can promise … I will be … of no danger. I am resigned … to the ship’s fate.”

“Very well, then. Let’s head up.”

T
he crew were at their stations, efficiently making sure that the
Starbow
was heading out of harm’s way. As the shuttle exploration team arrived on the bridge, still in their pressure suits, grimy and sweaty and upset, they were met with the sight of the central vu-tank swelling with the Frin’ral derelict from which they had barely escaped with their lives.