C c macapp, p.17
C C MacApp, page 17
John frowned at the receiver grille. "I don't understand."
"This shaft we are in, John Braysen, runs through the middle of a greater shaft. And the outer surface of that greater shaft radiates light, warmth, and minor other energies to the living segments of the Vivarium. The segments are flat cylinders, stacked side by side, with the sun shaft along their axes—the 'sunlight' varying for different segments. Do you visualize it?—"
John tried. "Vaguely." He frowned at instruments. "But there's no heat outside this ship!"
"No, John Braysen, the insulation between shafts is too good. Also in that space between is much of the Vivarium's automatic maintenance machinery, including mobile repair units, motionless until some need activates them. There, too, are the converters, with immense supplies of fuel wire. And also in this space are the null machinery and the apparatus involved with travel through time. Also, here Vez will find the artifacts that will make him so happy." He made the sound equivalent to a chuckle. "I must hurry on, John Braysen, but in a moment you will pick up a radio beam from one side of the inner shaft. I have stationed a ship there to operate for you the lock into the segment where your females are. I suggest you descend from the inner hatch of that lock cautiously—the gravity conditions and ground arrangements inside are peculiar. Nor do you want to frighten your females."
Chapter Twenty-Two
THERE WAS a long passageway, none too roomy for the small ship, with various side locks which must lead into the space between the inner and outer shafts. Then another airlock, and they emerged into the living segment.
It was not until they'd moved a few miles away from the hub that John could see the whole enormous segment in its proper perspective.
The two flat walls, immense disks of metal, were thirty-plus miles apart. The hub, running between the centers of the two walls, was like a long tube (if something a half-mile or more thick could be called a "tube"). Only the very short fraction of it at one end, whence they'd emerged, was dark all the way around. For the rest of the thirty miles, one side of the "tube" was blindingly radiant. That was the "sun." The side unlit at this moment permitted a sort of "night."
The "land" covered the entire circular wall of what was simply an immense flat cylinder eighty-odd miles across, with the hub running along its axis. It covered that curve from one flat "end" to the other, and all around the vast circle. Against the ends, it was piled up in mountains. In the middle were the lowlands—and an "ocean" into which rivers drained, and which stretched continuously, though not with constant width, clear around the cylinder's curved wall. Meadows bordered that ocean. Between the meadows and the foothills, brushland and forest were intermingled. The grass was a normal enough shade of green, and so were some of the trees; but other trees, and most of the brush, were various hues of yellow or orange.
Wasn't that snow topping the highest peaks along the nearer wall? It certainly was! So the "hub" provided seasons, as well as day and night.
His pulse was a thunder in his temples now. He let the ship speed laterally and around the great curve of land. They were down to within ten miles of the land now, and instruments were registering the artificial gravity. He punched hasty calculations on the computer. They said that at ground level the gravity would be close to one gee. With clumsy hands he directed the ship's telescope toward the spot where (the Omniarch claimed) the women and girl children had been set down nearly ten years ago.
He saw nothing. Of course, he told himself, they could have migrated far around the curve by now.
He glanced at other viewscreens. This far from the hub, he could see most of the opposite curve of land. There was no essential difference from this one.
Fred Coulter came to stand beside him. "There was supposed to be a creek. And a grove of trees just where the creek ran onto the meadow."
"I've got the place pinpointed," John said tersely. The anxiety was a pain in his lungs and his stomach, a trembling of every muscle. He strained his eyes at the magnified view of the spot. Nothing; and "day" was beginning to fade here. Lower…
Fred Coulter grabbed his shoulder. "There! A—a tepee!"
John saw it. And his hands could hardly program the ship down.
His compact pistol dangling from his hand—in case there were dangerous beasts prowling the vicinity—John walked across the meadow. The grass smelled like Earth grass, but the clumpy bushes along the creek were an odd saffron color. A strange tinkling noise seemed to come from those bushes. Fred Coulter, at his shoulder, muttered something. Several yards behind them were all but one of the other men.
They reached the edge of the grove of trees and stopped, peering at the collection of huts and tents a few yards into the shade. The place seemed deserted. John's nerves twinged harder. He swallowed hard. Space; for a little dron … He took a deep breath and tried to call out, "Hello?" Only a feeble sound emerged. The second try was better. "HELLO!"
From somewhere fifty yards or so into the thicket came a muffled scream. Then a single, frightened, soprano call, "Hello?"
Suddenly he and the other men were shouting, weeping, running, stumbling into one another. John dropped his pistol somewhere. The screaming and crying of many feminine voices made a clamor just beyond a screen of trees. They were coming this way.
The first woman burst into sight…
And, abruptly, strangely, all the noise was gone. Two groups stood utterly still, staring at each other. John's chest ached so that he wondered if he were having a heart attack.
Then from somewhere in the group of women came a small, incredulous, desperately hopeful voice. "Fred?"
Coulter let out his breath in a sob, drew it in again, almost strangling on it. "Eloise?" he choked out unbelievingly.
The woman clawed and shoved her way out of the crowd. Fred made an incoherent sound and ran to meet her. They collided; nearly fell; grabbed at each other and managed to keep their feet, hugging each other as hard as they could, babbling meaningless sounds.
Everyone just stood watching for a moment. No other woman, not one of the men, moved. But suddenly everyone in both groups was racked with uncontrollable sobs.
Chapter Twenty-Three
FERRYING the women out took four hours. During most of it, John stayed at Bertha's control console, anxiously watching for blips that might be Vul scouts breaking out of null. There were plenty of telltale blips on the long-range detectors, and they told of a mighty search pattern. One way or another, the Vuls had narrowed things down to this general region of space.
But on the last ferrying trip—a superfluous one, perhaps, to pick up a few personal belongings left behind by the women—John went himself, taking four men and the rather young woman named Lisa Duval who was currently "First" of the pathetic little feminine colony. She was a girl of medium height, lithe, with Latin skin and features, who said little but whose dark eyes took in everything. They moved through the long central shaft and into the segment.
When they'd found the few missing items—a rag doll, an old pitted mirror that had come from Earth, a few worn garments—Lisa paused, looking around the deserted camp. There was moisture in her eyes. John realized that here she'd grown from childhood to young womanhood. It wasn't surprising that she was just a little sad at leaving forever.
Then suddenly she turned on him with a hint of defiance in her eye. "I know we shouldn't delay, but there's someone I must say good-bye to!"
He gaped at her. "You mean—one of you's been hiding, unwilling to go? And you didn't tell us?"
She shook her head vigorously. "Not a human. Come along, if you like." She met his look squarely.
He knew he must be scowling. "Well, let's hurry it up!"
They followed a trail that led up the creek past a big clump of the saffron-colored bushes ("tinklebushes"; well named) into a grove of trees like Terran poplars, as he remembered them, around the base of a low hill, to the very edge of the creek.
A fat, gray-furred creature that must weigh over fifty pounds suddenly moved toward them from beside a burrow opening. He got the impression that it must have been sitting there staring down the path. He glanced in surprise at the hillside. There were odd little structures—it seemed that the hill was honeycombed with burrows and that most of the entrances had little shacklike shelters, of interwoven twigs and branches, over them.
Now that he saw it closer, the animal made John think of a very large, very fat beaver. He put a hand nervously to his pistol pocket as it waddled urgently toward them. It had big, strong, chisel-shaped teeth…
He let out his breath in a sigh of relief and surprise as it spoke in understandable English. "Lee-sa! I was afraid you not come, say good-bye!"
Lisa went forward, all soft girlishness, and dropped to her knees. The creature squatted on its haunches, seeming to become a ball of fur, and extended a paw. Lisa touched the paw, as if in ritual. "I couldn't," she said. "Though we are in a terrible hurry, and I cannot stay long."
The creature actually shed two round tears. "Miss you we, Tall Furless One, Tall Good Neighbor."
Lisa seemed to be crying a little too. "We shall miss you too, Good Neighbors. Will you say good-bye for me to your husband, and to your two brave sons, and all of the clan?"
"Do that I, Tall Neighbor. So happy we, your males have come." The fat creature turned a moist pair of eyes on John. "Go you all away now, forever?"
"We must, Gentle Neighbor. We shall never forget all the favors you have done us. And we shall wish the wish of Good Fortune for you every night and morning."
The fat creature squirmed a little. "You were best neighbors, too—you guarded us from the Large Beasts." She sighed. "What do we now? Husband mine try make weapons, like you had. But our hands—our paws—not right."
Lisa said, "There are other beings—strong, wise ones—coming into the place now. They will not let the Large Beasts harm you."
The creature looked doubtful. "They big? They have meat fangs, eat us?"
Lisa turned a troubled look to John. He said gruffly, "The Chelki are civilized. And they're vegetarian."
Lisa got slowly to her feet. "We must go now, old friend and generous neighbor."
The beast stared up at her and produced two more tears. "Good-bye. Please—call I you by secret name? Husband mine say, silly, because you not our kind."
Lisa said muffledly, "Of course you may."
The creature said, "Good-bye, Fairest of the Clan."
Lisa was crying quietly as they hurried away. John looked back once. The fat creature still squatted there, staring after them sadly.
The situation that developed immediately aboard Bertha was unexpected and surprising. John couldn't explain it logically, but he felt, along with the others, that it was right. Vez and his handful of Hohdan specialists, now part of Bertha's complement, tended to grin about it.
Fred and Eloise Coulter had a living compartment to themselves. All the other men, though, and all the women, somehow shrank from the notion of pairing off and setting up housekeeping. The women wanted to continue living together as a group—in their own section of Bertha—and the men felt the same. Not that there weren't clandestine liaisons (a few of which, embarrassingly interrupted, became shipwide jokes), but the overall attitude was one of reverence between the sexes. Maybe it existed because both groups had lived celibate so long. Or maybe it was some deeper sense of responsibility, some fierce dedication to the future of the species.
At any rate, there were almost no problems of competition, even though the men outnumbered the women by nearly two to one.
The Chelki ingress into the Vivarium was almost complete. Still the Vul search pattern had not scored its inevitable bull's-eye. John and Vez Do Han spent much of their time pacing the big Control Room impatiently. When they occasionally met face to face, each would scowl and reverse course.
Finally Vez broke this pattern. He planted his feet firmly and stared John in the eye. "Comrade, there is an item we must discuss."
John sighed and stopped pacing. "You mean, how long are we going to stay here guarding the Vivarium after the Chelki are all settled in?"
"Precisely. You have your females, and I have most of the artifacts I can haul. Our agreement with each other is definite. Our agreement with the Omniarch is vague. Must we defer our own affairs indefinitely while he putters around about his study of the Vivarium's machinery?"
John swallowed. The dron thirst was a constant distress. "I hope not indefinitely! But our bargain with him implies at least a short period of grace for him to work in."
Vez looked impatient "Yes, yes. But how long would you say a short period should be?"
John said, "I don't know. But I'm not willing to put the prod to him right now—when I know he's not even taking time to eat or sleep!"
Vez made an annoyed fist-open gesture of agreement "Do not put me in the position of hangman! I am not suggesting we null away ten doleks from now. But how long is long enough?"
John pushed down his own impatience. "Do not put me in the position of answer machine, with everything programmed in! I will tell you what—though I hate to waste his time, I'm going to radio him right now and put the question to him!"
Vez scowled as if he didn't like that answer, either.
There was no video hookup with the inside of the Vivarium, so they couldn't see the Omniarch's face, but his voice was very tired, "I can understand your impatience. But I can offer no salve for it. There are encouraging results here, but not yet adequate ones. The situation is this: I am almost sure I can operate the time-leap machinery now. However, we have found damage in various parts of the Vivarium—not damage from space debris, but something that went wrong internally, a long time ago. I did not find it when I was here before. There is even a hole in the wall between the segment where your females were and the next—possibly they can describe it to you. I do not know whether other damage, closer to the machinery, will affect a time-leap. You will recall that so far I have held back, and later advanced, the Vivarium a matter of only a few minutes. This time I must take it many thousands of years—only thus can I hope that the Vuls will have forgotten their rage." The voice hesitated wearily. "We are working very hard, trying to trace all the damage and analyze, if we can, its effect on the machinery. I ask this of you: give me at the very least ten more hours, will you do that?"
John glanced at Vez. Vez irritably made the fist-opening gesture. John told the Omniarch, "We will. And good luck."
The watch for enemy blips resumed. The Vul search pattern, as seen by Bertha's long-range senses, didn't appear to be coming any closer. Two hours went by, then another. John began to hope that, for some reason, the Vuls were rejecting this precise part of space.
And then the klaxon suddenly began bleating.
John jerked a glance at the mass-detector globe. Gods of space! The region around the center was a mass of strong blips! He darted a look at data screens. One thousand and four hundred plus… One thousand and six hundred plus… Never, except for the vast gathering of fugitive Chelki in seized ships, had he seen a fraction of a fleet like this. And these were all fighting ships! He punched studs, stared briefly at screens, punched other, studs. Voices were shouting on the intercom now, in English and Hohdan—and yes, in Chelki, for the few combat vessels manned by the Omniarch's people had stayed outside the Vivarium to form a pitifully thin cordon around it, close in. He couldn't ask much of them except to stay where they were. He shot a look at Vez and listened for a moment to the orders Vez was snarling to the Hohdan ships. They were simple, and couldn't be anything else: charge for null, stand by for combat, and wait orders from Luna.
Luis Damiano's voice cut into the babble. "Commodore, do you have time to talk to the Omniarch?"
John hesitated a split second. "Yes—put him on!"
There was a bad substratum of static. He strained to make out the words. "John Braysen and Vez Do Han, we have seen the arrival of Vul fleets. We cannot ask you to fight an armada like this. Only a few minutes I ask—ten or fifteen, if you can provide as much. We have decided we must risk using the machinery I spoke of. If it works properly, the Vivarium will vanish from your sensors. Then, friends and allies, you may depart with our bottomless gratitude. If it does not—well, I cannot ask you to stay longer in any case. Fifteen minutes maximum. Do you agree?"
John looked at Vez. The Hohdan's face held an odd expression—perhaps Vez felt the way John did: determined to provide the fifteen minutes, unable to consider staying any longer than that, but unwilling even then to desert the gallant Chelki. Vez made the fist-open gesture.
John said tersely into the radio, "Fifteen minutes. Good luck."
Then he turned back to what few preparations he could make for a ludicrously feeble delaying action. But before he could transmit more than a couple of words, a smooth but violently amplified voice—a Vulmotean voice—blasted from the common-band receiver. "Vez Do Han?" it blared. "Please reply if you are anywhere in that laughable paltriness of ships."
Vez started, blinked, then grinned fiercely at John and made the fist-open gesture. John, as surprised as the Hohdan, understood Vez's meaning: if they want to parley, fine! Vez flicked a switch and leaned toward his pickup grille. "This is Vez Do Han. Who calls me, and why?"
Something between a chuckle and a purr came from the receiver grille. "My name is Bulvenorg. Until recently I was Second Senior Prime of the Vulmotean Defense Perimeter. Now I have been somewhat elevated, for a task the objectives of which you can doubtless guess. How do you like my little gathering, Hohdan? By the way, we met once, at a conference which made small alterations in the treaty between our two empires. I understand that you now occupy a position analogous to my recent one."
Vez, face haughtily calm, said, "I remember you well, Bulvenorg. Neither of us made much of a mark upon that conference. But we have a second chance here, eh? By the way, I too have a special mission at the moment. Oh—as to your gathering of ships—it is undeniably impressive, by former standards. I almost regret having to tell you that the values of battle have changed somewhat. I should actually regret having to prove that to you in a blunt way."
