The Salvagers (17 page)

             
"Nothing can do that except by adding more matter," I said.

             
"Or by adding dark matter."

             
It seemed like a good time to drop a bombshell. "We believe there are missing documents from the initial disaster investigation that we weren't able to access. We know they existed. There are references to another set of documents in what we've got. What are they?"

             
Westmoreland glanced at the Captain, deferring to his knowledge on that subject. I lost hope of getting a real answer.

             
"We have them, or at least something that might fit the description of what you're talking about. But they're unrevealing, and you'd need security clearance to see them anyway," the Captain said.

             
"I think I have clearance enough already."

             
"Not that kind of clearance. I haven't even seen them entirely. I doubt that Dr. Westmoreland has read them without some parts redacted."

             
"He's right, Cam," said Westmoreland. "I haven't seen much of them, but I can tell you that what I have seen isn't relevant to what we're doing here."

             
I was intrigued even more. What was so important in those documents that I couldn't see them? I thought it must be some kind of physical description of the aliens or the content of another message from them. Or maybe it was incriminating evidence of the cover-up.

             
"Were the aliens hostile from the beginning?"

             
"Yes," the Captain said, cutting off Westmoreland before he could say anything. "They are inherently hostile."

             
The Captain took over the conversation from Westmoreland, but as much as he might have liked me to believe that he had more information—information is power—I don't think he did. I believed him when he said that he hadn't seen all of the classified documents, but I couldn't be sure about Westmoreland. He always seemed to be marginally on my side, at least when he was giving me information.

             
One thing was clear: it was surprisingly easy to get them to allow me to board the derelict with them. I'm not certain I needed to worry about trying to get myself included. I think they intended to have me along from the beginning. In hindsight I guess it was just more evidence of my expendability. It may even have been worse than that. I am tempted to believe to this day that if I'd had an accident, or been deliberately killed, they would have had a free hand to do as they wished with the
Cape Hatteras
. I never found out if that was part of their intentions.

             
As we turned to leave the bridge, I noticed that the poor lieutenant had been hovering behind me during the entire conversation and must have been ready to interject some minor detail that he knew from his own clearance level and passed out. Westmoreland and the Captain seemed not to notice him floating there. A moment later two men came onto the bridge with a body bag to collect him. He wasn't unconscious; his implant had killed him.

Chapter 21     Boarding Party

              "December 22, 2259. 1700 hours. Log of Captain John Andrew Nelson, Commanding Officer, UNAG Mining Vessel
Cape Hatteras
. It has been 24 hours since I last heard from Galon and Marquez. I have dispatched Hunter and Goreman to the surface to search for them. The ship is experiencing a strange and unexplainable acceleration toward the surface of the asteroid. I have stayed behind to mind the ship and monitor this phenomenon."

              Unlike the case with my exploration of the
Victorious
, this time I was given a boarding party. I shouldn't say "given": I was just an advisor who knew the terrain. Other than that I was at the bottom of the ladder. My companions were four very gung-ho UNAG marines loaded with every kind of weapon man had yet devised. They had guns that shot old-fashioned bullets and lasers that could zero in on whatever they thought worthy of killing and incinerate it in fraction of a second. They could fire a grenade and blow a building sky high without the blast’s even slightly straying in their direction. All of it was utterly useless against the anomaly. I warned them before we left that their weapons might merely annoy whatever was on the other side, but they maintained that they were following standard procedure and that they would treat the mission like any other.

             
I didn't get anywhere by arguing, so that was how the initial team was set up—except that they didn't give me a gun. I can't tell you how much that worried me. I wasn't concerned about fighting the anomaly; I knew that was impossible. I was worried about those marines and their guns when all I had in my hand was a portable welding torch. After seeing that dead lieutenant, my paranoia index had risen considerably. They could choose their moment, shoot me, and call it friendly fire, and I'd have no way to fight back except with the flame from that welder. I therefore intended to watch their every move very carefully.

             
At the time when the
Victorious
crew disappeared, the warship had been in the process of adjusting its position relative to the derelict, so its thrusters were firing. With the crew gone, there was no one left to shut them down. That caused the ship to list away from the derelict until the pressurized and flexible docking tunnel they had strung between them ruptured and tore in half. The mishap set off the
Cape Hatteras
's
automatic air-pressure sensor, something we didn't even know had electrical power, causing the ship to shut its own airlock doors to keep its atmosphere from being sucked out. Expecting that 200-year-old network of safety features to work together flawlessly was like going into a barn and expecting a dead horse to pull a wagon. It was inconceivable that it would still work, yet it did. It also had locked us out.

             
The only way to get onboard was either to cut a new hole or to take the welds out from our first entry point. We chose the welds because that option seemed easier. The airtight bulkheads on either side of the corridor were closed, courtesy of those marooned scientists who had hoped that shutting doors might keep the anomaly at bay. Once we gained access, we reasoned that all we'd need to do would be to seal ourselves back inside and make certain that the joint was airtight. Then we would empty a few tanks of pressurized air to fill the corridor. There were at least ten of those stored in the corridor by the engineers. Once we did that, it would be safe to open the bulkheads and take off our helmets. The marines wanted their ears and eyes free from the restraint. If the ring showed up, we'd have to leave through the airlock anyway, so they said we'd have plenty of time to put our helmets back on during the cycle. I didn't believe a word of it, but I went along with the plan.

             
I was able to cut into the ship with surprisingly little trouble. I simply made a small hole in one of the weld joints and moved out of its way. The air escaped fast enough to cut most of the rest of the bead loose.

             
The real problem I had was in sealing it shut and closing us in. My son might be a great welder, but I am not, so it took me a lot longer to close up the ship than it should have. None of the jarheads knew what to do, and by the time I had finished they were impatient and cranky. When I finally was done, they released the air from the tanks and opened the bulkhead door. We all took off our helmets at the same time. It was at this point that I expected they'd shoot me and get down to Westmoreland's work, whatever that
really
was.

             
"Where do we begin?" I asked, hoping that one of them had some kind of knowledge about what exactly we were looking for.

             
"Odd movement," Sergeant Chen replied. He produced a handheld device that could have only come from Titan.

             
"One of Dr. Westmoreland's toys?"

             
"Bingo, genius. We're supposed to move through the ship with this thing and look for any kind of deviation in the readings. It's your junkyard. Where should we go?"

             
"I'd suggest engineering. That's where the thing was when we first came onboard. After that I'm told it moved around the ship. We'd have to ask the scientists on the
Hyperion
about specifics."

             
I knew they'd check the entire ship anyway. I still wanted to try to get some of my specialists onboard if I could, if for no other reason than to serve as a deterrent against foul play, but they ignored my suggestion. We moved through the corridors slowly, Chen waving his detector back and forth. I noticed the pitch of his voice rising about halfway down the enclosed promenade. I remembered that we'd equalized the pressure in the redundant rooms with helium. Obviously one of them had leaked when I depressurized the corridor.

             
We passed through the cavernous cargo hold. The last few bars of gold had been moved to the
Hyperion
during the evacuation, and now it was just an open space with nothing in it but a few pieces of leftover mining equipment. The prospectors on 974-Bernhard had reused the original drilling platform from the mission. I remember marveling at it on my earlier visit because it was a tangible piece of the legend. My feelings were so different then. Despite the fact that I was standing on the famous wreck, I couldn't wait until this adventure was over. I wanted the ship safely in lunar orbit as a museum and the gold in the bank. I also wanted to forget that the anomaly had ever existed.

             
We made our way to the engine room, where I paused to examine the door. I wanted to make absolutely certain that there were no flickers of glowing blue light. There wasn't a trace. The engineering section was brightly illuminated with normal lighting, and a few of the panels were giving figures for the reactor we had repaired. It didn't seem like the room of dread it had been.

             
We moved from room to room through the engineering compartment. Chen seemed disappointed: his needle didn't so much as move a tenth of a millimeter. We then moved through the corridors again, stopping at each sealed door on the ship and trying to find something. By the end of our tour we were joking that we wished the damned anomaly would show up and take someone so we'd know whether the detector was working. So much helium had leaked into the atmosphere that we were all talking funny by that stage, and the air seemed as thin as that on a mountain top. It was not a problem, though. The atmospheric controls of the ship had been repaired by the marooned engineers, and it would be only a few hours more before the scrubbers and pumps returned the air to normal.

             
The last room we checked was Captain Nelson's quarters. I'd never been in there. Sanjay had inspected it briefly but left it pristine to ensure that his colleagues could methodically record later everything that was in it. I had deferred to them, but I admit that I'd always wanted to take a look. This was where Nelson had lived and spent his nights while running the
Cape Hatteras,
much as I did on my own ship, mulling over the day's activities and wondering what to do next.

             
At last I'd finally get a look. It was a disappointment. There were no secret handwritten journals, no cache of information about what had happened to him. He seems to have lived simply, though I guess that's no surprise—I did too. There was just one thing of interest in the room: his desk was covered with geological samples. I assumed that they were the rocks Westmoreland wanted, so I collected them up before stopping for a moment to examine one. They were crystals, black as coal and extremely heavy for their size. They had a sheen like cut onyx but were soft and seemed as though they might crumble if I applied too much pressure. I'd never seen anything like them before. They didn't register on the meter at all, but I assumed that Westmoreland would want to see them. I shrugged and put them in a box.

             
After a full eight hours on that ship, five tired men returned to the
Portsmouth
. It was nearly a full day since the
Victorious
had disappeared, and the mood onboard had improved. The crew was acting calmer and less confused, and the command structure seemed to be working again.

             
I had a quiet dinner with the Captain and Westmoreland. There wasn't much to say. We had found nothing with the detector, and there wasn't anything we could have done about it if we had. Westmoreland then broke the silence like an exploding fuel tank.

             
"We should tow the
Cape Hatteras
to Titan," he said. He knew full well that I'd go ballistic.

             
"I'd sooner cut off my own foot!" I exclaimed. "Why don't we just tow it to Earth? That's where I was going with it anyway, and that's where all your admirals and scientists are."

             
"My laboratory isn't on Earth. If we're going to learn about the foothold, we'll need my full equipment and resources."

             
"The foothold? Now there's a loaded word. I get the feeling you've been studying this phenomenon for a while."

             
He sighed before glancing at me. "Yes, as had my predecessors. We've been studying the anomaly for many years, Captain Hunter, longer than you've been alive. Officially it's called Project Halcyon."

             
"I thought you said we barely knew anything about it."

             
"That's true. We don't understand much at all, considering the time that's been spent on the project."

             
Surprisingly, the Captain wasn't interfering in the conversation. He was simply staring blankly at a light fixture.

             
"Captain, how are my ships?" I asked, just to make sure he was alright.

             
"I've ordered them to take a position nearby but not too close. Your
Hyperion
has full engine power restored. I have to be clear, though: distance may not offer safety from the anomaly. In the event something else happens, it would be better if they were close to my weapons but still far enough away in case the anomaly comes back. That's assuming the
Portsmouth
will be the next target."

             
"I'm sure you'll also want to keep your weapons locked on my derelict and my fleet," I said. "Don't think I didn't notice that."

             
"That too," he said, still looking at the fixture.

             
"Why the paranoia? We aren't going to do anything," I said, as he redirected his gaze toward me.

             
"You've got a lot of gold on that ship, Mr. Hunter. You've already had a mutiny and two theft attempts. I'd have thought you would appreciate the free security that a Poseidon cruiser can provide. When all is said and done, I may even escort you back to Earth. For free."

             
I hadn't thought of it like that. I felt a little embarrassed, so I changed the subject.

             
"Dr. Westmoreland, you said that the crew were found on the asteroid. What had they been doing?"

             
"They had taken shelter in a cave. It had collapsed by the time the UNAG fact-finding mission reached them, but they dug it out, recovered the bodies, and then sealed the cavern again."

             
"How did they seal it?"

             
"Bombardment from orbit, as I recall."

             
"Why seal it? Why not leave it as it was?"

             
"Same reason you'd seal an abandoned well. If anyone went back there, like those prospectors who were working the asteroid, they didn't want anyone hurt if they ever ventured to the stony side of Walton's Rock."

             
He appeared a little uncomfortable. I wondered whether I had struck a nerve.

             
"There was something in there, wasn't there?"