The Rosetta Codex (25 page)

“Well,” said Myrok a bit later when they'd gathered in the bridge, “we
think
it's the gate.”

There wasn't much to see at first. They were still days away from reaching it, and all that appeared on the wall screen, even magnified by the ship's telescopes, was a vaguely hexagonal shape surrounded by a glistening halo.

“That thing is impossible,” Myrok said.

Captain Bol-Terra nodded his agreement, tugged at his ear, but didn't speak.

“What do you mean?” Sidonie asked.

“It's not orbiting the star. No orbit, no angular momentum, it's just holding a static position approximately thirty-three million kilometers away. The mass of the star
should have sucked that thing in as soon as it got there.”

“I don't understand,” Cale said. “Couldn't it have some kind of propulsion to keep it in position?”

Myrok shook his head. “It could, but it doesn't. It would need acceleration, maybe not much because of its small mass, but some. And we can't pick up any traces of propulsion, no indication of any kind that an engine is firing. We do, on the other hand, get impossible mass readings from the thing. Fluctuating around a quantity you might expect from an object of its size, but rising to nearly as high as a small planet and going all the way down to zero.” He shrugged. “At least that's what we think we're reading. And before you ask, no, we have no idea what could produce those kinds of fluctuations, or what they mean, or if they have anything to do with the gate being able to maintain its position.”

“So what do we do now?” Cicero asked.

Myrok and Captain Bol-Terra looked at Cale with raised eyebrows.

“Nothing,” Cale said. “Approach, and see what happens as we get closer.” He paused, looking around the cabin. “Unless someone has another idea or suggestion.”

No one did.

 

Myrok led Cale silently through the ship to one of the cargo holds, this one now empty like all the others, and shut the door behind them. They stood on a narrow platform of grillwork and looked out over the dark and empty hold lit only by a few firefly lights that barely kept complete
darkness at bay. The walls were covered with huge bundles of meshed cable, long coils of rope, collapsed metal bands.

“I think we've got a serious problem,” Myrok told Cale in a low voice, as if someone might hear him even in this empty room. Cale waited, and Myrok went on. “A few hours ago a message pod was launched from the ship.”

“What's a message pod?”

“A miniature rocket, in essence. Nothing but a small conventional engine for initial thrust, a scaled-down Barlis drive to make a [jump], and a transmitter. The closest thing we have to interstellar communication. They contain recorded messages, and they have specific [jump] coordinates programmed to take them to their destination system. Once they remerge into real space, they begin transmitting their message.”

“And someone launched one from this ship?”

Myrok nodded and breathed deeply. “I only discovered it by accident. Then I did some system searching and found that there'd been another launch several days ago, soon after we made the first [jump].”

“What does it mean?” Cale asked.

“I was hoping
you
might have some idea,” Myrok answered.

Cale didn't reply for some time, his gaze sweeping the darkness and faint lights of the cargo hold as if some answer lay within the shadows. “There's no way to learn what the messages were, is there?”

“No, but I can guess. So could you.”

Cale looked at him. His stomach tightened and he felt
a halting flutter in his chest. He was afraid to voice his thoughts.

“This star's coordinates,” Myrok finally said. “That would be the first message. Maybe confirmation in the second, or confirmation of the gate's existence. Something like that.” He paused, looking steadily at Cale. “I'm thinking you might at least have some idea who the messages are for. Who is being informed of where we are. Maybe even what we're doing, although
I
don't even know that.” He gave Cale a half-smile.

“The Sarakheen,” Cale said.

“Aww, shit,” Myrok said with a sweeping turn of his head, nearly closing his eyes. “Are we going to have those freaks on our asses, then?”

“Probably.”

Myrok made a choking laugh. “Well, you warned us. You told us there would be a lot of risks.” He looked at Cale. “Are the Sarakheen looking for this gate, too?”

Cale shook his head. “No. They want the codex, the book. Not for the star chart. For the text.”

“What's in it? The secret of eternal life?” He laughed again.

“They don't want what it says. They want what it can do.” He told Myrok about the four different languages, including one of the Jaaprana, and the Sarakheen's belief that the codex would allow them to translate all the alien manuscripts they'd acquired over the decades.

“And what are
we
doing with the book and the gate?” Myrok asked.

“I'm taking the codex through the gate. I'm taking it to them, to the Jaaprana.”

“I thought they were all dead.”

“As far as I know, they are.”

Myrok shook his head slowly. “You're as crazy as the Sarakheen.”

“Maybe,” Cale replied.

They remained silent for a time, both leaning on the platform rail and regarding the empty hold.

“Someone on this ship is working for them,” Myrok declared.

“Yes.”

“Can't believe it's one of the crew.” He turned to Cale. “One of your friends?”

Cale reluctantly nodded. “Could be.” He'd been considering that possibility, and couldn't reject it.

“I don't think we should tell anyone about the message pods,” Myrok said. “I'll do some more digging. I might be able to figure out who's burning us.”

“Any way to estimate how long before the Sarakheen get here, if that's who the messages were for?”

“Not a chance,” Myrok answered. “Too many variables, no way to even guess. Two days, two months. Two years, if we're lucky, but I know we're not.”

“No,” Cale agreed, “we're not.”

 

Cale told Sidonie about the message pods while they sat in her cabin, drinking hyslip tea. She got up from her cot, paced the cabin several times, then sat back down, staring into her cup.

“They'll be coming after us,” she said at last, looking up at him.

“They
are
coming after us,” he corrected. “They're on their way.”

“And Blackburn with them.”

Cale shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not. He doesn't worry me.”

“It doesn't really change anything, though, does it? There's nothing we can do about it.”

“No.”

Sidonie sighed heavily. “It would help to know who sent the messages. Might make a difference what we do from now on, when we reach the gate.” She paused looking at him. “Who we take with us when we go through.”

“Yes, but we might never know.”

She gave him a hard, wry smile. “Oh, we'll find out, eventually. Maybe when it's too late, but we'll find out.” Then, “Have you considered the possibility that it's me?”

“No.”

Her smile disappeared. “You shouldn't be so trusting, Cale.”

 

Cale slept poorly now. Anticipation, he supposed. Anxiety . . . doubt . . . fear . . . He took to wandering the ship's corridors in the dim blue illumination of shipboard night, exploring the distant reaches of the ship, the cabins and passages and holds he'd never before seen. One night, in the dining cabin, he encountered Harlock standing before the cabin's single window, though it was covered by the exterior panel so Harlock could not see a thing.

“Harlock, you want me to open that for you?”

Harlock slowly turned his head until he faced Cale, expression vacant.

“You can hear us, can't you?” Cale said. “Do you understand? Do you understand any of what we say?”

Harlock's expression didn't change, but his attention remained fixed on Cale, as if he were waiting for him to say the right words, and that when he did, Harlock would reply, would speak to him as though he'd been speaking all his life.

“I wish I knew what you were thinking,” Cale said. “Something's going on in that mind of yours, something worth understanding.”

Harlock remained silent, eyes blinking infrequently, watching Cale. Cale stepped forward and reached past him to activate the exterior panel, which slid aside so that the star-filled night appeared through the clear glass, silver against black.

Harlock looked out the window for a moment, then turned and ambled off, no longer interested in the window now that it was open, no longer interested in Cale.

 

Five days later they maneuvered into position some two hundred kilometers from the gate, aligned as the codex instructed so that the gate was centered in the disk of the sun. Surprisingly, they discovered they had settled into what Captain Bol-Terra called a “gravity trough,” which meant that once they'd positioned themselves before the gate, they, too, required no more energy to avoid being drawn toward the gate or the sun behind it.

On the bridge's main view screen, six metallic satellites formed a hexagon against the reddish silver of the sun. A faint haze of luminescent particles surrounded the satellites, flickering and flowing between them.

“That's a gate?” Aliazar said. “I don't understand.”

The haze brightened and the particles coruscated with heightened intensity.

“What . . . ?” Aliazar began.

The gate opened like some great and monstrous yet mechanical eye.

The six satellites spread slowly outward from the center, and the luminous particles coalesced into silvered ribbons linking the metal orbs even as they moved farther away from one another.

The sun darkened, or rather a new and solid darkness manifested within the gate, filling in the space between the satellites and the ribbons of force, a deep and utter blackness so complete it blotted out the sun, obliterated the star that all knew shone directly behind the opened gate, that all knew should have shone
through
the open gate. A blackness absolute like the path of banishment from this universe.

Around the gate, the sky appeared warped and slightly out of focus. Starlight lengthened and distorted and took on a sense of movement against the deep blue and black of interstellar space.

Just as unexpectedly as it had opened, the gate closed. The silvered ribbons of force twisted and became seemingly taut, and the satellites drew inward once more toward one another until they were as before. The ribbons fragmented, then dissolved, reverting to the insubstantial haze of glowing particles—the gate hung dormant, a luminous hexagon with the sun shining behind it once again.

“We're supposed to go through that?” Aliazar said.

“You insisted on coming,” Cale replied with a smile. “Remember?”

“No,” said Aliazar.

“Aliazar has a point,” Cicero put in. “I wonder myself what you have in mind.”

“I'm not sure, to be honest,” Cale said. “But I never intended to go in blindly. We'll send probes through first, see what happens. After that . . .” He finished with a shrug. “The plan is to go through in a lander, not the entire ship. We'll have plenty of time to think about it.”

Cicero smiled halfheartedly. “The less we think about it the better.”

 

“Worried?” Sidonie asked. They were alone on the bridge, looking at the cluster of satellites on the view screen.

“Not yet,” Cale answered.

“I am.”

Cale put his arm around her and felt the tension shivering through her.

“I'm supposed to be comforting
you,
” she said.

“That's silly.”

“No it's not, Cale.”

He breathed deeply once and nodded. “You're right, it's not.” He silently regarded the shining formation that was a gate to some other place, perhaps some other time. “You'll go with me?”

“Of course. Being scared won't stop me.”

“I wouldn't mind if you stayed,” he said. “I might even . . .”

“No,” was all she said.

“Who else do you think will go?” Cale asked.

“Aliazar and Harlock.”

“Not Cicero?”

Sidonie shook her head. “Before we left Lagrima I would have said ‘yes,' but he seems to have aged, lost interest somehow. I don't know. I just don't think so.”

He wasn't sure why he'd asked the question. It didn't seem to matter anymore, even though he still didn't know what waited for him . . . for
them.
He felt very much alone. He knew he would have felt even more alone without Sidonie, but he no longer thought the presence of others would make much difference. This was
his
task, his commission, and in the end it was his alone.

 

The first probe emerged from the bay doors and floated away from the ship. Oblong and shiny and sprouting antennae, the probe wobbled slightly until the attitude rockets
fired, tiny silent bursts of flame, and it stabilized. They watched from the bridge as a few more brief ignitions appeared and the shining metal probe headed directly toward the gate.

As the probe neared, the gate opened as before, the satellites dispersed uniformly, the haze of particles once again coalescing and forming the more substantial ribbons of light and force between the satellites and in turn engendering that deep and yawning blackness within their boundaries.

Readouts and tracking graphs lit up one of the smaller view screens off to the side, displaying the data being transmitted to them by the probe. The gate seemed to welcome the probe, laying itself open and shining brightly though at the same time it had once again blotted out all signs of the sun behind it.

The probe flew directly toward the center of the gate, the center of that black emptiness. For a long time there was no change but for the diminishing appearance of the probe as it moved farther from them and nearer to the gate; even the displays on the view screen pulsed with regularity.

Everything stopped for a moment, the readouts froze, all motion seemed to cease as the probe reached the gate and encountered the darkness. Cale's breath, too, stopped, long enough for him to wonder if his heart had ceased to beat before the readouts came back to life with a burst of color and then immediately died, darkening completely as the blackness swallowed the probe.

 

“We've got another problem,” Myrok said to Cale later that day.

Cale had been lying down in his cabin, trying to sleep but unable to slow his thoughts enough to do more than fitfully doze. He sat on his cot and regarded Myrok with exhaustion.

“We get a transmission from the probe?” Cale said.

“No, nothing. Not even a hint of a signal. It's gone for good.” Myrok shook his head. “We have visitors. Less than fifty million kilometers away and headed straight for us.”

“Shit.”

Myrok nodded. “Looks like you were right about who the message pods were bound for. The propulsion signature indicates it's a Sarakheen starship.”

“How long before they get here?”

“That ship's damn fast. Five days, maybe four.”

Cale sat in silence for a time, staring at the floor and thinking. He looked up at Myrok.

“No more probes,” he finally said. “Probably wouldn't learn anything useful, anyway.”

“You're going through the gate?” Myrok said.

“No choice,” Cale replied. “Never really was. But we can't put it off any longer. I've got to go before the Sarakheen get here. I've got to go
now
.”

 

Cale and Sidonie sat side by side in the lander's two pilot seats, Sidonie running through the systems checks with him, reviewing the controls, trying to teach him as much as possible so he could assist her or take over if necessary.

“I told Myrok and Bol-Terra to get as far away from the gate as possible once we leave,” Cale said, “but I don't think they'll go anywhere.”

Sidonie smiled. “Better for us, isn't it?”

“I suppose. I worry about what the Sarakheen might do to them.”

“Likely nothing,” she said. “They want the codex, and they'll know it's gone with us.”

“You're probably right.”

The ship's intercom snapped, and Myrok's voice sounded inside the lander.

“You there, Cale? Sidonie?”

Sidonie switched on the mikes. “We're here.”

“So are the Sarakheen,” Myrok said, voice tight yet controlled. “They made two tertiary [jumps], both a lot more directed than we could ever manage. I don't know how the hell they did it, but they did, and now they're less than a day away.”

 

The lander moved slowly and carefully toward the open gate with minimal thrust, little more than a controlled drift, the view screens swelling with that dark blank emptiness where the sun should have been. The satellites and ribbons of force and the stars still visible at the edges of the screens were incredibly bright against that hole in the universe that was the darkness looming before them.

Captain Bol-Terra's voice came through the com system, clear and distinct.
“How's everyone doing? You look good from here, right on course.”

“We're fine,” Sidonie replied. “So far nothing unexpected.”

Cale looked around the lander cabin, glancing briefly at each of his companions, everyone in shock suits but with their Metzen Fields deactivated. All were silent and motionless,
gazes fixed on the view screens. Only Harlock appeared relaxed, though he, too, watched the screens with surprising intensity.

Cale felt a soft bump and turned back to the view screens. Nothing had changed, and he looked at Sidonie. She attended to the instrument panels, making slight adjustments.

“What was that?” Cale asked.

“Don't know. We've got some resistance. The probe never ran into any, but we've sure got it, and we're not moving forward anymore. I'm increasing the thrust.”

The lander's vibration became more noticeable, but the sense of forward progress returned, the gate growing larger on the screens.

“What's happening there?”
Bol-Terra asked.
“We're picking up ignitions from you, and gravitational fluctuations from around the gate.”

“A field of some kind is giving us resistance . . . maybe gravitational from what you're saying. But we're countering it.” As she spoke, though, she increased the thrust again.

Cale watched her, resisting the urge to talk, to interrupt her, and he was grateful that the others in the lander remained silent. There wasn't anything they could offer her.

Sidonie increased the thrust again only to have the resistance do the same. It was not quite a standoff, however, for they continued to move closer and closer to the gate, though their progress was barely noticeable. Sidonie ignited the two emergency boosters, and the lander shook with the added force.

“Maybe you should abort,”
Bol-Terra suggested. His voice carried more concern and urgency than the words did, while at the same time the transmission began to falter.

“Not a chance,” Sidonie said. “We're pushing through, and we're doing it now. What's the status on the Sarakheen ship?”

“Ten hours out,”
Myrok responded.
“That's assuming deceleration. It's . . . occurred to m . . . that . . . might decide to foll . . . through the gate. If they do they . . . just maintain . . . tion . . . a few hours . . .”

The front screens were now completely filled with the blackness, no hint of light. The engines roared at full thrust and the lander shook, and though it felt as if they were held immobile, the side screens and the tracking graphs showed their painfully slow but steady progress forward. Sidonie glanced at Cale and shrugged, trembling hands on the controls. There was nothing more to do.

“. . . losing you.”
Bol-Terra's voice was now barely audible, distorted and broken.
“. . . luck . . .”

The nose of the lander broke the plane of the gate and the black emptiness before them seemed to ripple with a lighter or darker blackness . . . perhaps a different
kind
of blackness . . . something not exactly seen but rather felt or otherwise sensed. Harlock cried out, a loud and desperate wail. The lander pitched and shuddered, and Cale felt it was on the verge of coming apart. The resistance disappeared altogether and the lander hurtled forward.