The Mothership (19 page)

“You mean trust you, not them?” she said,
nodding towards the soldiers.

“I don’t want to destroy what’s up ahead.”

“And they do?”

“Not yet, but the military destroy what
they don’t understand. Not me. Anything I don’t understand is potentially
useful information.”

“Which you steal for Uncle Sam?”

He shrugged evasively. “Your husband’s
chances of survival are better if we capture, rather than destroy, that ship.”
Markus’ eyes narrowed. “If you tell Beckman about this,” he said holding up the
transceiver, “He’ll take it.”

She bit her lip uncertainly, yet sensed he
was being strangely honest with her. “You know my price.”

Markus nodded. “I’ll do everything in my
power to see your husband is returned to you unharmed.” He paused in thought.
“How well do you know this terrain?”

“Not as good as the aborigines, but I can
find my way around.”

“Could you lead me out of here, if I had to
get out alone?”

“Where would you want to go?”

“South.”

“There’s nothing down there for hundreds of
kilometers.”

“We wouldn’t have to go far, no more than a
hundred clicks.” He lifted his transceiver. “I can call in a ride, once we
reach the . . .” he paused uncertainly, “Numwar Road?”

“Numbulwar Road,” she corrected. “It’s not
much of a road, but I can find it. The question is, why should I? How does that
help my husband?”

“Leave that to me.”

She pulled the straps on her backpack
forward, adjusting the weight. “All right Mr Markus, your little secret’s safe
with me. For now.”

His face showed the barest hint of relief.
“You better get back, before they miss you.”

Laura hesitated, giving him a curious look.

“I’ll be along in a minute,” he reassured
her.

Laura turned, and picked her way back
through the trees. Before she had reached where the others were gathered, an
incoming message appeared on the transceiver’s LCD screen:

Vehicle origin unknown.

Orbital activity nil.

Recovery remains viable.

Markus pocketed his transceiver and started
back toward towards the soldiers, deep in thought. The assessment team at
Langley believed the alien vehicle’s design did not belong to any of the
civilizations in regular contact with Earth, and deep space tracking stations
worldwide had been unable to locate any craft arriving in orbit to render
assistance. It suggested the downed ship was far from home and its location may
even be unknown to those who built it. Markus could barely contain his
excitement as he realized the magnitude of the opportunity almost within reach.

This could be the holy grail!

* * * *

The team hiked
deeper into the forest for three hours, then they began to feel a strange
prickling force choke the air. Their hairs stood up on end and the radios began
to hiss with static. The electrostatic effect strengthened rapidly, silencing
the birds, ending the interminable thrumming of the insects, and paralyzing
every animal with fear. It was as if a switch had been thrown and the forest
fell deathly silent.

Beckman called a halt to watch the sky and
listen to the eerie silence. Several of the team shuddered involuntarily from
the tickling effect of the static force on their skin.

Nuke scanned the tree tops apprehensively.
He bumped into Steamer, then jumped as a spark of electricity arced between
them. “Ow!” Nuke declared, rubbing his arm. “You zapped me!”

Tucker winked at Steamer, then hovered a
finger at the back of Nuke’s neck, beneath his helmet. He watched curiously as
the tiny flash of energy flicked from his finger into Nuke’s neck.

Nuke spun around slapping at his neck like
it was a mosquito bight. “What’s wrong with you, man?”

Tucker chuckled as Beckman turned to Dr
McInness. “Doc?”

The scientist stared at the clear blue sky
curiously, then shrugged. “It’s an enormous build up of static electricity, but
I have no idea what’s causing it.”

Markus ran his hand over the hairs on his
arm, fascinated by how rigidly they stood to attention. Beside him, Laura
combed her fingers through her short red hair, finding the moment the hair
cleared her hand, it shot back up again.

“Anyone see anything?” Beckman asked.

Vamp whispered to Xeno, “I don’t see
anything, but I’m itching all over.”

“You should get the boy scientist to
scratch that itch for you.”

“That could work,” Vamp said with mock
seriousness.

A shattering thunder clap rumbled over the
land from far away, then in an instant, the static charge vanished.

Laura found her hair was suddenly flat and
lifeless. “This gives new meaning to having a bad hair day!”

Tucker aimed his finger at the back of
Nuke’s neck again, disappointed when nothing happened. “It’s gone.”

Nuke saw what Tucker was doing and backed
away warily, gesturing with his middle finger.

“No, it hasn’t!” Laura exclaimed, pointing
up through the trees at the eastern sky.

They turned as one to see a translucent
curtain rise into the air, blurring the sky as it climbed. Slowly it arched
over their heads as it angled toward a point high in the sky. The curtain rose
like a curved wall from one end of the horizon to the other, turning the bright
blue tropical sky into a shimmering, soft blue white blur. It became
increasingly dome shaped as it rose on all sides toward a rapidly shrinking
central hole far above the ground. The blue sky, visible through the circle at
the summit, shrank to nothing, then a white flash burst from the apex and rolled
down the sides in a single stabilizing wave. The harsh tropical sunlight was
gone, replaced by a gentle milky light that cast soft shadows across the forest
floor.

“What the hell?” Timer muttered.

“Now that’s shock and awe, man!” Nuke
declared.

Beckman turned to Dr McInness. “Still think
those towers are just weather balloons?”

Dr McInness glanced at Beckman uncertainly,
then returned his gaze to the shimmering energy curtain.

“What is it?” Laura asked.

Beckman realized the entire team was
watching him, hanging on his response, except for Markus who had already drawn
his own conclusion. When he spoke, he pitched his voice loud enough for them
all to hear.

“It’s not a crash landing, it’s a
bridgehead.”

Nemza’ri finished
her third protein pack, feeling her strength slowly returning. She normally
wouldn’t consume cloned protoplasm, but she was desperate. She’d found the
tasteless, colorless nutrient in the emergency rations of an escape pod. The
pod could sustain twenty of her kind for a thousand hours, and while it could
land, it had limited in-atmosphere flight capability. The tiny lifeboat was
undamaged, but its power supply had inexplicably failed, forcing her to
manually crank open its hatch. It never occurred to her that in those first desperate
hours, the Command Nexus had drained the power reserves of more than three
thousand escape pods to stay alive. The gamble had bought enough time to repair
one of the secondary power plants, providing a trickle of energy sufficient to
revive the ship and restore limited maneuvering control.

Her hunger satisfied, she discarded the
empty rectangular container and stared at the pod’s small command terminal
wondering if there was any way to activate it. She’d pinged it several times
with her biosonar and tried to manually activate its proximity sensor, but the
glossy black surface had remained inert. She hoped if she could activate the
terminal, she could call for help via its direct data link to the ship.

Nemza’ri activated a memory implant which
projected the escape pod’s technical specifications into her mind. The pod was
little more than a life support system with sub light propulsion, but it was
equipped with a basic repair kit stored on its lower level. She decided to
recover it and climbed down through a crawl space in complete darkness,
searching for it with her biosonar. The cramped metal walls reflected her
pings, blurring her sonic vision, but with the help of the tech specs, she
quickly located the kit.

She returned to the habitation level where
the open hatch let in enough light from the corridor to see by. Nemza’ri found
the kit contained no spare energy cells, but it did hold a pair of cylindrical
power transceivers. In the scramble to board life pods, some would be
overcrowded, while others would be undermanned. The transceivers compensated
for this, by allowing a swarm of escape pods to share power while under way.

She placed the first power transceiver
close to one of the escape pod’s energy conduits, then climbed out into the
corridor with the backup transceiver, and positioned it beside the nearest
emergency light. The transceiver automatically tapped into the light’s energy
source and retransmitted power to the transceiver in the escape pod. It was
enough to bring the pod’s control terminal to life. Nemza’ri plunged one of her
hands into the terminal, instantly registering a link between it and the
synapses of her central nervous system. The synaptic link allowed the implants
in her brain to meld perfectly with the terminal, making her part of the escape
pod, and through its docking link, part of the ship.

With a wave of relief, she sent her crew
designation to the ship and summoned assistance, then waited as seconds passed
without response. The Command Nexus and its myriad sub foci could hold billions
of conversations simultaneously without taxing its powers. It should have
responded instantly. The fact that it didn’t was puzzling. She then tried a crew
only emergency channel, this time receiving a response, but not the one she
expected. It told her that because she lacked command rank, she was not
authorized to communicate directly with the Command Nexus. It was the wrong
response, which was impossible, because the ship never made such mistakes!

She tried the emergency channel again,
wondering if she’d made an error. This time the response was sharper, informing
her that because she’d ignored the first directive, her crew status had been
suspended pending a fitness evaluation, and she was ordered to report
immediately to Urban 4432 for a full biodiagnostic.

She stood alone in the shadows of the
escape pod, stunned. Now she knew something was wrong. Urban 4432 was an
orbital city thousands of light years away!

How could the Command Nexus give such a
patently illogical order?

She triggered another memory implant,
searching through millions of Command Nexus protocols for an explanation, but
there was none. A simple thought appeared in her mind, a thought that filled
her with dread, and a sense of hopelessness. Yet, it was the only possible
explanation. For a moment, she refused to believe it, but her lightning fast
mind, working in perfect harmony with her cerebral implants, eliminated every
other possibility. Nemza’ri knew it was true, the worst disaster imaginable.

The ship had lost its mind!

Bill steered his
half cabin fishing boat past an outcrop of bleached rocks jutting into the
river from the mangroves. The big V6 outboard was on full throttle, keeping the
boat planing high and fast through the murky waters. Its wake rolled onto the
muddy banks, occasionally disturbing the crocodiles lying in wait there. Behind
the wheel, Bill looked up at the strange shimmering curtain that towered in
front of them. Behind him, his three companions stared in silence, more
confused than afraid.

The fishing boat rounded a gentle bend,
bringing the base of the translucent wall into view. The energy curtain sliced
across the water like a dam, causing the river to break its banks and inundate
the surrounding trees. Beyond the curtain’s oscillating energy waves, the
forest and sky appeared as a shifting green mirage beneath a blur of blue.

Bill throttled back until the engine was
idling, letting the boat drift fifty meters from where the curtain blocked the
river.

“I bet whoever put that there didn’t have a
permit!” Wal declared indignantly.

Bill pointed to a dirty brown smear beyond
the energy curtain. “That’s the bloody river bed! It’s dry!”

Slab’s eyes followed the curtain up and
over their heads to where the dome peaked far up in the western sky. He tried
to gauge how high it was, but struggled to gain perspective against the
monotonous blur that enclosed the sky. He spotted a small black dot circling slowly
to the southwest, an eagle or falcon hunting its prey. The bird was hundreds of
meters in the air, yet the top of the dome soared high above it. “It must be
ten kilometers high!”

“A lot more than that, I reckon. Twenty or
thirty kilometers, at least,” Cracker guessed as he pulled a battered pair of
binoculars from a locker and scanned the base of the curtain from north to
south. “Someone’s bulldozed a bloody road through there! And there’s some kind
of light pole over near the trees.”