Battle Cruiser (10 page)

-13-

I wanted to question Yamada about it as soon as she was done with the autopsy. But the woman looked the worse for wear. She came back to the ship and went straight to the showers. She exited after several minutes and moved into the molecular cleansing booth, which used ultraviolet light and tickling micro vibrations to tease loose and kill all pathogens.

At last, a little sweaty and breathing hard, she came to the bridge to make her report. Seeing her state of mind, Rumbold eased out of his chair and let her slide into it.

“Human, sir,” she said. “A rock rat, as we figured, judging by the elevated radiation levels in his bone marrow. Lots of heavy metals too—he doesn’t have any implants, so he must have been taking pills to clear his blood for a long time.”

I nodded patiently. All this I’d surmised just by looking at him.

“Cause of death is harder to determine,” she went on. “But I think it was blunt trauma.”

Frowning, I tried to envision how this could happen in space on a low-gravity object. “Someone beat him to death? Were there skull fractures? Was his visor intact?”

“That’s the thing…his visor’s blast shield was rolled shut. Rock rats face a lot of radiation out here, and they often have full metal shielding around their heads. Otherwise, they can get dementia over time.”

“Okay, so how did he die of blunt trauma if he wasn’t hit on the head?”

“His helmet was dented, but it held up. The rest of his body was only protected by a relatively thin spacer’s suit. He was pummeled to death. It was as if he’d been hit by a thousand rocks—or one hammer hundreds of times. Most of his ribs were broken, as were all four of his limbs.”

I winced, envisioning such a death. It didn’t sound pleasant.

“If he was murdered,” I mused, “it sounds like his murderer was enraged and wanted him to suffer. It would have been much easier just to shoot the poor guy.”

“Yes—but I don’t think it was murder. I think it was something else. You see, all the injuries appear to have come from the direction of the object—from deeper down in the hole.”

We made eye contact as I absorbed what she was saying.

“You mean he was down there and something—or someone—fired a massive number of rocks at him?”

“I think so.”

“Hard to envision. It might have been a drilling accident.”

“Maybe, sir. What are we going to do now?”

Rumbold had maintained his silence up until this point, but I could see by the look on his face he wanted to join into the discussion.

“What is it, Chief?” I asked.

“Let’s just wait here. I’ve got an update from
Altair
. They’re only a few million miles out, and they’ll be here in the morning. They’ve already begun braking hard. Singh must be really pushing those engines. There’ll be hell to pay when he gets back to Araminta Station and has to explain his reckless use of fuel to the quartermaster!”

He laughed, but the sound turned into a cough and died. I was staring out a porthole. Frost rimed the glass, and the light outside was a bluish-white.

“He’s speeding out here,” I said with sudden certainty, “to make sure he’s on hand if we discover anything unexpected.”

“What, sir?” Rumbold asked, bewildered.

“I don’t know, but it’s the only thing that makes sense,” I explained. “Singh doesn’t love us, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Hardly. He hates us, more like.”

“Yes. So why is he hurrying out to help us now? He wanted to leave us out here as punishment. But now he’s changed his mind. He probably got around to reading those reports I sent him. I think he figured out that we’ve found something interesting and he wants in on the find.”

Rumbold’s eyes bugged at me. “I can tell you’ve got something in mind, sir. Something I’m not going to like.”

“We’re going out again, Rumbold. Let’s find out why rock rats, smugglers and even our brave Captain Singh are so interested in this discovery.”

There was less grumbling than before as we prepared to exit the ship again. I thought the rest of the crew might be growing curious as well.

Yamada was an exception, however. She clearly needed a break. The unexpected autopsy duty had taken its toll on her.

“Yamada,” I said, “you’re in charge of the ship in our absence. Rumbold, Weaver, follow me.”

Rumbold made a gargling sound. There were no intelligible words in his response, so I ignored it.

Within the hour we were back out on the ice again, plowing through the snow. Fortunately, the snow only fell lightly here. About a centimeter a day, as far as I could determine. Following our trail to the site was easy.

Along the way, I had a thought. Radioing Yamada, I asked her opinion on the matter.

“This is another mystery,” I said. “There isn’t enough precipitation on this rock to dust over the hole we found, not in a thousand years. How did it fill in?”

“Someone must have done it deliberately,” she answered back. “Either that, or there was some kind of impact that kicked up the snow and it settled down again since the miner died.”

“Yes, those are the only two answers that have occurred to me.” I thanked her and disconnected.

Rumbold hung back when we reached the lip of the hole. He stared from a safe distance. With a blade or a gun, the man was a stalwart companion. But he didn’t like holes on alien worlds.

I spent several minutes pacing around the location while Weaver kept beaming, melting snow in the hole. It was soon ten meters deep—then fifteen.

Several things occurred to me during the interval while he worked. One was the surprising lack of equipment. This hole was perfectly round and somewhat conical. It sank down into the ground as if laser-cut—which I expected it had been. But, where was the laser that had done the cutting? And for that matter, where was the dead man’s ship?

“It seems he was left behind,” I said after I explained these discrepancies to my crewmen. “Something big burned this hole, then retreated after he was killed.”

“Either that, or they dumped him into the hole after beating him to death,” Weaver offered. “Have you ever been to a rock rat cantina, Skipper?”

“Can’t say that I have.”

“They’re like stray dogs—worse than that. They pack up to do jobs, but they’re as likely to shank any man they don’t get along with as share their loot with him.”

I had my doubts about his statement, but I didn’t argue. The rock rats were mean and almost lawless, but they had their own code of honor. They couldn’t have survived in space for so long without it.

After another few minutes, we were down to the bottom of the hole. I examined the steaming walls and the blackened floor. It was rough and pitted.

“That’s a different material,” Weaver said of the bottom. “They sealed it.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve seen things like this,” he said, rappelling down the side some fifteen meters to the bottom. “This is a plug. A mix of polymers meant to seal a ship’s hull. They burned their way down this far, and they sealed the bottom. How strange. Do you want me to burn through it, sir?”

I stared down at him. There he was, aiming his laser drill at the dark, dimpled surface at the bottom of the hole.

“No,” I said.

“Why not? We came this far. I doubt it’s very thick.”

“Because,” I said calmly, “I think if you burn through that plug, you’ll die.”

He stared at me uncomprehendingly, but when I tossed down a line, he climbed out quickly enough.

When he’d rejoined me at the top, I explained my thinking.

“This object we’re standing on—it isn’t a comet,” I said.

“Well, I kind of figured that much. It’s too dense for that. Must be from out-system…maybe.”

“What I mean is,” I said, kneeling and rapping my gauntlets on the edge of the hole. The material didn’t crumble. It was so uniform, so dense. It reminded me of concrete more than anything else. “What I mean is this entire thing is artificial. It’s a construct.”

The two men gaped at me as if I’d gone insane.

Rumbold laughed first, uncertainly. “Are you having us on, sir? There’s never been a ship this large. It’s almost as big as Araminta Station!”

“Almost,” I agreed, “I looked it up. Think of it: we’re standing on a ship. A ship a kilometer long and nearly half that in thickness. The snow is just frosting on top, coating the external hull.”

“If it’s a ship,” Weaver demanded, “why cover the hull in snow?”

“Maybe they wanted to be invisible. Just one more cold rock in the sky. Or maybe, the ship is dead and collected ice over the years as it drifted. I think that explanation is more likely.”

“Hold on, sir!” Rumbold said. “What makes you so sure it’s a ship at all?”

I pointed upward. The two men gaped at the stars, but they didn’t get it.

“Remember the tubes? Thousands of them. They orbit this ship—but where did they come from?”

“I don’t know,” Rumbold said.

“Well, I think I do. The rock rats came out here, and they found this gap and they cut their way through the hull. When they managed to break in at last, an explosive decompression occurred. Whatever chamber they cut into was full of those tubes. They came pouring out into space, and then they orbited this gigantic craft.”

“What proof do—”

“Remember the body?” I asked. “That man was probably using a laser drill like yours, Weaver, but bigger. He cut into the ship, and the rush of tubes pummeled him to death.”

The two men stared at one another, then at me. They stopped talking.

“But a
ship
, sir?” Rumbold said. “How can it be? Earth’s never built anything so large. Not even the colony vessels were this size.”

“You’re right about the old ships,” I said. “I looked them up last night. Some were quite large—but never this big.”

The two men stared into the dark hold. Frost sifted down the sides of it, and the refrozen liquids formed glassy runnels everywhere.

“What do we do next?” Rumbold asked.

That was the question I was wrestling with. Part of me wanted to burn through that plug, to see what the rock rats had sealed up inside this vessel. What had they found in there? What had they wanted to keep from escaping?

But I passed on that idea as soon as it occurred to me. I didn’t have the resources to explore a ship this large. I wasn’t even sure if Weaver’s drill was up to the task of breaking through. I didn’t want to start something I couldn’t finish.

“I’m going to find out what kind of people brought this ship here to our star system,” I said.

“How can we do that?”

I pointed upward again. “These tubes—they contain their young. We’ll take a tiny sample and test it. Maybe from several tubes. Then we’ll know who sent out this ship—if not their intentions.”

With that, we gathered our things and retreated from the edge of the hole. We made our way back to the ship, and I ordered Yamada to carefully open the tube that Jimmy had collected.

Ensign Yamada’s face was drawn, and her eyes were red-rimmed, but she nodded and went to work immediately.

-14-

Yamada worked quickly and never took a break. I appreciated her dedication.

“Well,” she said a few hours later, “I ran the tests twice, and I’m still confused.”

“What’s the trouble?”

“The samples…I took a few cells from each of the three tubes. The first sample came from the tube Jimmy captured in space. The crew found two more of them in the vicinity of the ship using metal detectors while you were gone.”

“Excellent,” I said. “Three samples should be conclusive.”

“They are…to a point. The samples are all human embryos, as expected. But that’s not all: they appear to be the
same
human embryo.”

I stared at her for a moment. “Are you saying these are illegal clones?”‘

“Yes. One hundred percent matches. The phenotypes, every dichotomous trait—it all matches for all three samples. There’s no mistake.”

“Hmm. Perhaps that’s why they’re out here, hidden? Full clones would be destroyed if detected by Earth authorities.”

“Right,” she said, “but I don’t think that’s what’s going on here. These clones are not from Earth, Captain.”

She had my full attention at this point. I could tell Rumbold was listening intently as well, while trying to pretend he wasn’t.

“Explain,” I said.

“I projected the growth of the clones to adulthood. The program took a while, but the data is conclusive. All of these women, if implanted in a growth chamber, would become large, muscular and obviously built for a different biosphere.”

“How are they different?”

“Well, for one, these unborn women are highly resistant to radiation—that has to be engineered in. They’re also powerfully built. I’ll show you the computer projections.”

“Did you say women?”

“Yes sir. All the clones are female.”

She tossed a file to my screen, and my computer caught it. I examined the displayed image of an unusually large human female. She was Asiatic in appearance. Her face wasn’t unattractive, but her body was built with thicker musculature than normal. I could tell the bones under those heavy limbs were quite solid.

“She looks dense,” I said. “Powerful.”

“That’s probably true. If I had to guess, I’d say these women would weigh fifty percent more than a typical earth female of the same height—and that’s without an ounce of fat on them.”

It was a lot to digest. I wasn’t sure where to begin. Female clones built like weight-lifters? Who would engineer such people much less manufacture thousands of them?

“Good work, Yamada,” I said, studying the image. “I want you to capture ten more samples and test them all.”

“Is that really—?”

“Yes, I believe it is. When Captain Singh arrives, I want no arguments. We’re going to do our homework. No one aboard
Altair
will deride us for our mistakes, because there won’t be any. When I tell Singh I’ve found a ship full of hulking clones, I want to be certain that I am correct.”

“I understand. I’m on it, sir.”

“Have Weaver help with the collection duty,” I suggested. “He’ll love it.”

She moved off, calling to Weaver. I soon heard a gust of complaints from him. I smiled bemusedly.

Rumbold’s red face loomed close. “Sir? Did I hear rightly?
Clones
, sir? From a heavy gravity world?”

“It would seem so.”

“How could they make it through? The wormholes have been shut down for so long... They must be Betas. To think that they could really be here…”

“Betas?”

“Oh, that’s right. You’re probably too young to remember. I doubt they even bother to tell kids about the various colony worlds these days. Just putting real history in a history text might be considered subversive. But you look them up. Betas settled on a world that was twice the size of Earth. The gravity was supposed to be crushing, but they reengineered themselves to take the load. These clones—I bet they come from Beta or some other world that’s similar.”

Intrigued, I began searching our onboard intranet for details on the colony worlds. There wasn’t much other than a listing for
Colonists, Beta Cygnus
.

It seemed that they’d settled on a planet less than eighty lightyears from Earth. The world was hospitable in every way: it was warm, wet and gently irradiated by a golden sun. The only trouble was Beta Cygnus was too big. The gravity was crushing. The colonists had worked on the problem for years, but it wasn’t known if they’d ever come up with a solution. When solar flares knocked down our transportation network, we lost our only way to contact the colonies.

These embryos were proof to me that they had solved it.

“One riddle down, many more to go,” I said aloud to myself.

“Excuse me, Skipper?”

“Rumbold, if the Betas solved their genetics problem and came up with a person who found their new planet comfortable, wouldn’t it make sense to manufacture a large number of copies of that person?”

“I—I guess it might, sir. But the thought is a strange one for us.”

“Yes,” I agreed, “and there may be many more surprises to follow.”

“What do you mean, exactly?”

“If one ship made it here, we have to assume more will come. We’ll learn more about them when they do.”

“Everything will change…” he said thoughtfully.

“Yes, I would suspect we’re facing a series of cultural shocks. We have to expect plenty of cultural deviations if we’re going to reunite with our lost colonies. Think about it: when the Betas were severed from our society, cloning was in its infancy, and Rejuv was a brand new product. They’ve gone their own way since then. They know nothing of our laws, our proscriptions.”

Rumbold shifted in his seat and leaned closer to me. His breath was laced with stale coffee, but I was used to it and didn’t twitch away.

“Are you really that certain, Captain,” he said in a loud whisper, “that we’ve discovered colonists out here? Embryonic or otherwise?”

“Yes, that’s my conclusion,” I said. “But that’s not the puzzle that’s bothering me. What I want to know is
how
these tubes got here.”

“You know what the boys in the aft section are saying about that, don’t you?” he said, eyes rolling side to side to see who might be listening.

The ship was buzzing with equipment and Weaver was making a great deal of noise while Yamada helped him suit up. That distraction gave us excellent cover. Not for the first time, I wished I had a private stateroom aboard
Cutlass
.

“Tell me,” I said.

“They think this ship is dangerous.”

“I would say it’s a harmless derelict,” I said.

Rumbold waved a stubby finger at me. “No sir,” he said. “That’s not necessarily so. There are things about the past…well, things only old men like me know about anymore.”

Giving him a puzzled look, I was about to probe for more details when my console lit up. A large contact had been detected by on our long-range sensors.

“It’s
Altair
, sir,” Rumbold said. “It has to be.”

“Excellent. I’ve prepared my report. Transmit it to Singh now.”

Rumbold eyed me dubiously. “Are you sure you haven’t put anything in there you might come to regret later?”

“No,” I said firmly. “The truth can’t be regretted. The truth simply
is
—and it’s my duty to report it as accurately as possible.”

Rumbold started a booming laugh that ended in another coughing fit before he transmitted my file.

I glanced at him in annoyance. People often asked me to edit my findings and opinions, but it was my belief that doing so would be shirking my duty. I hadn’t become a Star Guard officer to be in the business of blurring lines and covering up facts. If I’d wanted that, I could have studied at my father’s side in politics.

Singh didn’t contact me right away. Perhaps he was reading my report. But when he did finally open a channel, it was blinking yellow. That indicated it was both private and urgent.

I donned my mind-link and took the call privately.

“Are you out of your head, Sparhawk?” he demanded.

“If you read my report, sir, I believe you’ll find it to be quite rational.”

Singh stared at me. He wasn’t using his eyes to see me—not exactly—and I wasn’t using my eyes to see him. Instead, our optical nerves were receiving a signal that fooled our brains into believing we were seeing one another. The effect was somewhat dream-like, and I often saw background imagery that was less than distinct. It was as if the man I was talking to lived in a world of swirling mists. Even parts of his body blurred and the flesh ran at times. It was an oddity of the technology that everyone got used to eventually.

“I’m going to go over this with my techs,” he assured me. “If you made a mistake—or worse, if you embellished something to make a case for yourself—”

“That’s not in my character, Captain.”

“No,” he said thoughtfully. “I don’t suppose that it is. That’s a pity, because I was really hoping things wouldn’t turn out like this.”

Frowning, I cocked my head and studied him. “I’m not sure that I understand—”

“Good-bye, Sparhawk,” he said. “I salute you for service well-rendered. I’m sure I’ll be asked to say a few words at some ceremony when I get home. And I assure you that I’ll make you shine like an angel with wings of gold.”

My mind went cold. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing—what I thought I was hearing—in my commander’s voice.

“Captain Singh,” I said sternly. “Don’t do anything that you’ll regret.”

He laughed. “I regret everything—but it’s too late now.”

The connection broke, and I slumped back into my seat. A sudden disconnection of a mind-link was a stunning event. It felt as if I’d just been startled awake in the middle of a dream.

Looking around me, I realized it wasn’t a dream. It was a nightmare.

Weaver was already outside the ship, and Yamada was just climbing into the airlock. Most of the others were suited up, but they weren’t wearing helmets. I had to get them out of here.

“All hands!” I shouted. “Prepare to abandon ship. Suit-up immediately. Seal your partner’s suit, this is an emergency!”

Upon hearing my announcement, the crew around me froze for a split-second before they went into furious activity. They dropped whatever they were doing and scrambled to obey my orders. They hadn’t survived as veteran spacers for so many decades without responding quickly when an emergency was announced. No one even asked the nature of the trouble—they just
moved
.

In the hard vacuum that makes up the vast majority of our universe, hesitation can kill. They all knew this, and they hastened to seal themselves up in their suits. They probably were planning on asking me questions—but not right now. Later, when the unknown emergency had passed, that would be soon enough.

After slamming my own helmet onto my head, I turned to Rumbold. “Chief, topside shields up, full power!”

“Shields, sir?”

“Do it!”

He hastened to obey. The generators whined, protesting the sudden increase in power demands. Relays clacked all over the ship, and the running lights downshifted into a deep red. We were bathed in a world that was suddenly the color of blood.

“Warm the engines. We might have time.”

“Time for—?”

He could not finish the question. The first bolt stabbed down from the starry sky. An iridium beam of particles could slice apart a tiny ship like
Cutlass
like shears cutting through paper. Our hastily deployed shield deflected it—barely.

Outside the ship, light and radiation were dispersed with violence. I recalled that Weaver was still out there, and Yamada had been in the airlock only moments prior to the blast.

“Weaver?” I called, flicking at my screen which had dimmed and gone out, but then came back a moment later.

“He’s…he’s dead, sir,” Yamada said in my ear. “I can see him outside. He’s been burned to a crisp. What hit us, sir? Was it one of these damned clones?”

“No,” I said. “It was Singh. He called down a strike from
Altair
.”

Gasps and cries of rage and dismay swept the crew.

“Fire our missile, Rumbold,” I ordered. “Override the safety locks. Target
Altair
.”

“But sir, it won’t even get to her!”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“But…we can’t fire on our own ship! That’s a Guard vessel up there!”

“I know. Fire the missile, then turn all power to our shields. It will take time for them to cycle up the particle-bolt again. While they focus on destroying the missile and our heavily shielded pinnace, we’ll have time to escape.”

“Escape? Escape to where?”

“To wherever these clones came from. Where else?”

Rumbold looked at me as if I were mad, but with a trembling hand, he reached out to his board.