Dillow had
other things on her mind. 'Come with me, Craggy. Please.'
Finding The
Hill, where the ashes of loved ones were scattered to mix with the
soft grey sand of Moon, wasn't straight forward with all the
landmarks gone. They found it eventually. As per custom, each
picked up a handful of sand and threw it down the Hill.
'For Hank?'
asked Cragg.
'For Hank. And
all the others who died on Moon.
Cragg threw his
handful of sand. 'For my son, Leo and all the others.'
They stood and
let their thoughts be with their loved ones lost. Above them, the
Blue World, oddly still beautiful. Neither said anything, but
looking at the cold planet, they wondered if anyone had survived
the war. Mars had had no communication from Earth for years.
'Think it will
ever recover, Craggy?'
Cragg sighed,
feeling his eyes water. 'Not in my lifetime, and sadly, not even in
yours. Maybe one day. Come on. Back to the ship.'
They walked
slowly back to the huge ship, leaving footprints, perhaps Man's
last, in the soft grey sand. 'I could get very cross with you for
banning beer, Fawn.'
'You'll make up
for it, I've no doubt.'
As they
approached the pointy end, a constant stream of steel lengths were
being strapped up tighter than a drum. Each section had already
been itemised to play a part in new buildings on Mars. Somehow, it
was fitting.
'Black hole?'
said Mars Commander Anton Forbes.
'In a rather
generic way,' said Berry. 'Felix and I think it is a manufactured
and specifically controlled version of a black hole. Light
disappears into it, but solid objects such as the roboprobe,
strangely, can be retrieved.'
'It doesn't
seem like my idea of a black hole. Could a human be similarly
retrieved like the probe?'
Hellicoyle
said, 'We did briefly consider throwing Peggy Cramer into it, sort
of like a sacrifice to some scary unknown god of black holes. We
still could...'
'Hardly a
frivolous matter, Felix,' snapped Forbes. 'Was any harm done to the
roboprobe?'
Berry said,
'Nothing obvious. But that was tough materials, not flesh and
blood. The hole would only have to put the slightest breach into a
suit and it would be game over.'
'Not
volunteering, I take it?'
Hellicoyle
said, 'Commander Forbes. We have families to consider.'
It was a fair
point, Forbes realised. 'We can hardly work the mine with a black
hole of any description slap bang in the middle of it. Felix, Raz.
Whatever this thing is, we need resolution and we need it fast. See
what you can come up with.'
* * *
The geologists
on Phobos resolved their dilemma. Carl Richter secured himself to a
safety line.
'You don't have
to do this,' said Chris Crossman.
'We could throw
a rookie in there?' The two rookies gave a strange backward shuffle
at the unattractive suggestion, causing Richter to chuckle. 'No
volunteers? No? One way of getting into the history books,' said
Richter with a playful thump to Crossman's arm. 'Hopefully, I'll
still be around to read it.'
They all wished
Richter good luck, apart from Morgan, fast asleep in the freighter.
Richter took hold of the very solid edge of the tunnel and eased
himself inside. The others watched him crawl along to the end. His
right arm vanished into the blackness, followed by his head and
shoulders and finally he gave a disconcerting wave of his left hand
before that too, could not be seen. Crossman gave a tentative tug
on the safety line and was relieved to feel Richter was still
“hooked”.
Richter could
see or feel nothing of his surroundings. He moved, forwards he
thought, not floating as if in zero gravity, but it felt more like
he was wading through very thick air. He experienced a change to
his sensations. It seemed only a few yards into the hole. He also
felt Crossman tugging on the safety line. It was difficult to be
sure, but Richter had the impression he could see things slightly
less black. As he moved along the light became more evident and
suddenly he was certain. He could see light at the end of the
tunnel.
The loading of
Big Bird was getting done at incredible speed. The packers and
loaders overlapped with the construction crew, either taking things
apart, numbering each length of girder, while Jay Moore supervised
where each piece fitted in the scheme of things in each storage
section of the ship, using extra webbing and buckles. Each buckle
stamped identification number was duly itemised with a note as to
its place in the securing of the load. Nothing was left to
chance.
It took just
ten and a half gruelling days and nights, with even Amethyst and
Rocky lending a hand at times. Jay Moore made a point of doing a
final inspection with Fawn Dillow. This load was going nowhere but
Mars.
'I think we'll
sleep all the way home,' said Moore.
'Well deserved
if you do,' said Cragg.
Both crews were
allowed time to clean up, change into clean clothes and have a well
earned feed. A final headcount and it was Dillow doing the launch.
The original use of the launch ramp had been to take the strain off
the thrusters when taking off with a heavy load. Modifications had
made that redundant. Without any last long looks back at either
Moon or Earth, Dillow soon had the ship at close to maximum speed,
twin blue thrusters blasting through the heavens. Forty three Old
Earth days would see it in orbit around Mars.
'That wasn't so
bad now, was it, Roswell?' Cragg asked.
'Easy for you
to say, Craggy. I never ached so much in my life.'
'A month of
rest and recreation and your body will forgive you. You young
things bounce back quicker than I ever would.'
'Thanks for
getting my head together, Craggy. I don't think I could have done
it without you encouraging me.'
'Rubbish. It
was all you. You just needed a little more self confidence.'
'I'm okay, now.
Hey. I wanted to ask you something. That story you told about that
dead freighter pilot. Was that true?'
Cragg laughed.
'I'll leave you guessing on that. You like my stories?'
'I'd like to
hear more. I think we all would. You should record them. Put them
on the computer.'
'We'll
see.'
Rocky kept an
eye on the ship for the first couple of days, Dillow preferring to
let the computers do the boring bits, but she unashamedly “hugged”
the ship. One or two of the youngsters joined her, trying to feel
the ship the way Dillow did. They even compared what they thought
was going on with the ship. One thing they were in general
agreement about was that the ship, all things considered, was
reasonably happy.
Cragg continued
looking after many of the domestic duties, not really minding being
took for granted. Everybody had worked incredibly hard, so the
least he could do was take care of some of the menial jobs.
Some of the
time he just napped, dreaming of Misty and beer. His tallish
stories were an almost daily event, and even Rocky, Dillow and
Amethyst enjoyed hearing them again. He kept his embellishments a
little shy of being totally unbelievable. Ten days in, everyone
knew him as Craggy and he couldn't have been happier about it.
It also amused
him to see a few romantic relationships developing, even though
that made him miss Misty even more. He vowed this was definitely
his last flight. He was going to be Mars bound from now on.
Carl Richter
was floating in the inky blackness; the safety line followed him in
a slack loop. Around him, were what looked like discs of circular
light. He counted a dozen at least, at different distances from
him. He looked behind him and he could see the tunnel he had
crawled along, and he realised it looked like one of the circles of
light, only closer. Those must also be tunnels, he decided.
Using a
“swimming” motion, he moved towards the nearest tunnel and finally
reached it. He climbed into that next tunnel with the safety line
still attached to his belt. Something was hurting his eyes, forcing
him to lower his sun visor. Down on his hands and knees to get
through the smooth walled tunnel, he bumped into what had hurt his
eyes.
'An argon lamp?
Christopher. You have to be wrong about men mining here on Phobos.
This lamp is from Mars or Earth, and that's for sure.'
The tunnel was
brightly lit up by his helmet light, but he could see no end in
sight. It took half an hour of uncomfortable crawling along to
finally come to the end of the narrow tunnel. He had the surprise
of his life when as he was climbing out, to see a surprised Felix
Hellicoyle and Raz Berry, suited up and about to climb in.
Hellicoyle
said, 'Carl? I thought you were on Phobos with Christopher
Crossman?'
'I am. This
isn't Phobos?'
'This is Mars,'
said a confused Berry. 'Carl. How did you get here?'
Richter pointed
up the tunnel. 'I came this way. From Phobos.'
'Carl,' said
Berry. 'How long did it take for you to get here from Phobos?'
'Forty five
minutes at the most.'
Hellicoyle
asked, 'You had no problem getting through the black hole?'
'Black hole? It
was
very dark, I suppose.'
'Jump on the
buggy, Carl,' said Berry. 'Commanders Forbes and Potts need to hear
this.'
* * *
Forbes and
Potts looked at Richter as if he were some kind of freak. Potts was
about to put a call through to Chris Crossman, when a worried
Crossman called him first.
'Commander
Potts. We have lost one of our men in a hole on Phobos. It's all my
fault, Sir.'
'Would that be
Carl Richter, by any chance?'
'How did...I
don't understand?'
Potts said,
'Neither do we as yet, but I assure you, Carl is alive and well, in
my office.'
Crossman was
unable to speak for a moment. 'He can't be. I was talking to him
just an hour ago, before he went into a sort of tunnel. I had him
on a safety line, but it went slack and he never came back.'
'Chris,' said
Richter. 'I am safe here on Mars.'
'I am so
relieved. If you don't mind, we'll return on the freighter. See you
in a few hours.'
All mining was
suspended while the strange tunnel, chamber and artefact were
investigated. Mars's top scientific minds were set on the problem
but there were as many opinions as there were scientists. It was a
black hole. No way was it a black hole. The hole itself was a
natural phenomenon. The hole was man made. The hole couldn't
possibly be man made.
It's a
sophisticated way to space travel without the need for ships. It
was the result of some sort of space time continuum anomaly. It was
highly dangerous and should be avoided at all costs. It is
obviously safe because a human passed through it unharmed. It was
to be thoroughly explored. It was...a gift from God.
Forbes and
Potts gave up with most of them.
To Hellicoyle
and Berry, Forbes said, 'If you are up to it, we would like it if
you two will head the investigation into all this. You can call on
all departments as and when thought necessary. What do you
say?'
'We'll give it
a go,' said Hellicoyle. 'Actually, we were thinking, just for a
working title, we could name it the Hellicoyle Berry
phenomenon.'
'Oh?' bristled
Berry. 'Why not the Berry Hellicoyle phenomenon? That would be
alphabetical.'
Forbes and
Potts looked at each other, and rolled their eyes.
Potts said,
'Debate that elsewhere, if you don't mind, but don't come to
blows.'
'We'll carry on
in the lab, then,' said Berry, casting suspicious looks at his
esteemed colleague.
With the
geologists still bickering on their way out, Potts said, 'Damn
typical. They have no idea what it is, but they want it named after
them.'
Forbes said,
'I've a feeling we haven't even scratched the surface of all this
yet.'
'At least when
that steel gets here, we'll have plenty of muscle to throw at it
with the miners not working. It should be here in another two
weeks. Are you okay? You look ruffled by something?'
Forbes paced
the floor. 'It's just all these unanswered questions. But there's
no doubt in my mind, we are dealing with something produced by an
intelligent species, way ahead of our technology. And they could
have been far more advanced than we are now, thousands of years
ago. Doesn't that scare you a little bit?'
Potts had to
agree. 'It does, to a degree. But something that opens a door we
can walk through to another planet, albeit little Phobos, I don't
know about you, but I find it quite exciting.'
'Let's move on,
hey, Felix? I for one am relieved that if it is a kind of black
hole, it isn't the dangerous kind. I think we should go in that
hole.'
'Both of
us?'
'Of course?
You're not afraid, are you?'
Hellicoyle
said, 'Just being sensibly cautious. At least until we know what we
are dealing with.'
'Fair enough.
Come on. Suit up.'
'Now?'
'Come on.'
At the end of
the small tunnel at the point where it all went totally black, they
stopped for another look. Nothing seemed to have changed.
'Feel,' said
Berry. 'We have to go by feel.'
'That's how
Carl had to do it. Hey. Isn't this his safety line?'
'It must be.
Surely it can't reach all the way to Phobos?'
Hellicoyle
shrugged. 'Leave that line. Here's yours, secured this end, like
mine. Ready?'