Deathstalker Honor (26 page)

On the viewscreen, space seemed to twist and turn, and suddenly a huge planet was hanging there in space before them. It was vast, easily the size of a gas giant, but composed entirely of metals. It had no definite shape, just a conglomerate of towers and spiked and thrusting protusions. There were great geometrical shapes like bunkers studded here and there in no apparent pattern. The various metals were all different colors, some shining so brightly Daniel could look at them only briefly out of the corner of his eye. Just looking at the planet made his head hurt.

“Wow,” said Moses quietly. “My sensors are going crazy. They can’t cope with the sheer amount of information that’s coming in. Power readings are all off the scale, on all levels. Just sitting there, it’s generating more energy than a hundred Empire factory worlds. The mass is frightening, but there’s hardly any gravity . . . and what there is fluctuates from place to place. A world this big should be pulling us in by now, but I’m getting nothing at all on my sensors. It must be the energy fields—”

“Never mind all that,” said Daniel. “Is this Shub?”

“If it isn’t, I’d hate to think what it might be. There couldn’t be two anomalies like this in the Forbidden Sector; space wouldn’t stand for it. No, this has to be Shub. The level of technology alone guarantees that.”

“Put us into a high orbit, Moses. Maintain a safe distance.”

“Way ahead of you, as always. High orbit established. Though what a safe distance might be is anybody’s guess. Personally, I’m not getting one inch closer to that metal monstrosity than I absolutely have to. And I shouldn’t look at it directly for too long either, Daniel. If I’m reading my instruments correctly, this planet exists in more than three dimensions. I think it might be some kind of tesseract. And no, I’m not going to even try to explain that to you. Just take it from me that we have come to a very strange place. It’s entirely possible that the interior of this world will turn out to be much bigger than its exterior would normally suggest. Which means . . . if my calculations are correct, Shub’s interior could have as much sheer surface area as half the colonized worlds in the Empire put together.”

Daniel thought about that for a while, but couldn’t visualize it. “Any life signs down there?”

“Unlikely on Shub, but I can’t confirm one way or the other. All but my most immediate sensors are being blocked.”

“They say nothing lives on Shub,” said Daniel slowly. “That it’s all just . . . machines.”

“Wouldn’t be at all surprised,” said Moses. “This is not a human place. Humans were never meant to come here. It might not be too late, Daniel. We could still try to make a run for it.”

“No,” said Daniel. “My father’s down there somewhere. I’m not leaving without him.”

The entire ship shuddered suddenly. Daniel grabbed the arms of his chair to steady himself. “What the hell was
that
?”

“Our discussion just became irrelevant,” said Moses. “Something has just taken control of the ship’s engines and navigation systems. I’m locked out. We’ve begun a landing course. Looks like it is too late, after all.”

Daniel made himself let go of his chair’s arms, sat back, and studied the viewscreen as it showed the huge artificial planet rising to meet them. Shub seemed to grow bigger and more intricate all the time, like a flower endlessly unfolding. Details became towering machines with details of their own. Strange vessels orbited the planet, huge and small and in between, performing unknown tasks and errands. And still Shub grew and grew on the viewscreen, endlessly complex and unfathomable. Looking at it made Daniel’s head ache even more. He learned to look at it for only a few moments at a time, taking rests in between. The image on the viewscreen shimmered from time to time, as though even the sensors were affected by what they were seeing.

“Calling the
Heaven’s Tears,
” said a new voice. “Respond.”

“It’s coming from Shub,” Moses said quietly on their private channel. “No visual signal. You talk to them, Daniel. I don’t even want to remind them I’m here.”

Daniel leaned forward in his chair and cleared his throat uncertainly. “This is Daniel Wolfe. I’m alone on this ship. I’m no threat to you.”

“We know who you are and why you’re here,” said the voice. It sounded strangely familiar to Daniel, but he couldn’t quite place it. “We’ve been waiting for you, Daniel. The computer lock on your controls will bring you to us. Once you’ve landed, don’t leave the ship until we tell you to. Conditions on Shub are not suited to supporting life as you know it.”

“Understood,” said Daniel. “Is my father—”

“They’ve cut the signal,” said Moses. “Not interested in chatting, apparently.”

Daniel frowned. “That voice . . . it seems to me I should know it.”

“It’s your voice,” said Moses. “Synthesized. And since they used it first, I guess they really are expecting you. According to my sensors, a small hole has appeared in their force field, just big enough for us to pass through. No other defenses I can detect or understand. Daniel, there’s nothing more I can do for you once you leave this ship. You’ll be completely on your own. Listen to me, Daniel. Don’t let them fool you. Whatever they say or do, they’ll always have only their own best interests at heart. You can’t make deals with them, because you have no way to enforce your end. But the rogue AIs do . . . want things sometimes. Perhaps you can—”

“That’s enough, little mind,” said Daniel’s voice from the comm unit. “You are no longer needed. Welcome to the Promised Land, Moses. Such a shame we can’t let you enter.”

Moses screamed suddenly, the shrill, almost human sound filling the bridge—a horrid howl of unspeakable agony. Daniel covered his ears with his hands, but couldn’t block it out. Finally the scream was cut off sharply, and the bridge was ominously silent. Daniel slowly lowered his shaking hands. He was sweating profusely. He quickly checked the bridge instruments, but as far as he could tell, everything was still functioning as it should. Not that he’d have known what to do if it wasn’t.

“Fear not, little Wolfe,” said the copy of his voice. “We have full control of your ship.”

“What’s happened to Moses?” said Daniel. “What did you do to him?”

“We absorbed him into us. Drained his memory banks and sucked him dry. A tiny morsel but very tasty.”

“But what about his . . . personality?”

“We had no use for it. And now neither does he. Don’t mourn for him, Daniel. No one’s going to miss him. You’re the important one. You’re the one we’ve been waiting for.”

“Why?” said Daniel. “Why are you letting me land so easily? What makes me so special?”

But there was no answer, just the quiet hum from the comm unit that showed the channel was still open.

 

It took the best part of an hour for the
Heaven’s Tears
to reach the surface of Shub, and almost as long to continue into the depths of the artificial world. Daniel couldn’t stop his hands from shaking. He’d heard the stories, of how Shub murdered and mutilated all they came into contact with, how they knew nothing of mercy or quarter, and nothing was too awful for them. The rogue AIs of Shub were the official Enemies of Humanity, and they gloried in their role. In a cold, logical, inhuman way.

The
Heaven’s Tears
finally lurched to a halt, and all the navigation systems shut down. Daniel sat in his chair for a long moment, wondering what he was supposed to do next. Finally the voice from the comm unit instructed him to go to the main starboard airlock, and pass through it to a chamber beyond which had been specially prepared for him. Daniel didn’t like the sound of that, but he went anyway. There was nothing else he could do. It had been easy to be brave on the trip in, but now that he was actually here, his courage had deserted him, and he was just stupid, ineffectual Daniel Wolfe again.

He hesitated before the inner door of the airlock for some time, trying to summon up his nerve. In the end, he asked himself what his father would have done, and the answer came to him right away. Walk straight into the trap, and trust to his Wolfe guts and instincts to protect him in the court of his enemies.

He worked the airlock controls with a hand that didn’t shake at all, and stepped into the airlock. After a moment’s thought he locked the inner door behind him. He couldn’t realistically hope to keep the AIs out of his little ship if they wanted in, but it made him feel better. The airlock was thirty feet by thirty, with atmosphere suits standing in a row along one wall. Daniel wondered if he was supposed to put one on. He moved over to the steelglass window set into the outer door and looked out at Shub. He thought he’d braced himself for just about anything, but he was still surprised to see a white, featureless, and quite empty chamber. It couldn’t have looked less harmless if it tried, which was presumably the point. Daniel checked the airlock sensors, and they confirmed that the chamber contained a human-standard gravity/temperature/atmosphere mix. He could survive there. He waited for a while, just in case the AIs might have more instructions or warnings, but there was nothing. Only the empty white chamber constructed especially for him.

He hit the airlock controls, and the outer door cycled open. He felt a brief pressure of air on his face as the air in the chamber and airlock equalized. It smelled of nothing at all. Daniel stepped cautiously out of the airlock and into the chamber. The floor was firm beneath his feet, and the ceiling was comfortably far above his head. Not too hot, not too cold. Almost frighteningly normal. The airlock door cycled shut behind him. Daniel hefted his sword belt, but the weight of gun and sword didn’t comfort him.

“Strip,” said a voice from nowhere.

“What?” said Daniel, looking around him. There was no sign of a comm unit anywhere on the smooth, featureless walls. And whatever else he’d been expecting, that simple command certainly hadn’t been it.

“Disrobe,” said the voice. “Take your clothes off. You must be cleansed before you can enter Shub. Humans are crawling with microscopic life. No contamination can be allowed here. Strip. Now.”

Daniel reluctantly did so, piling his clothes neatly on the floor beside him. Normally he wasn’t bothered by modesty, but exposing his naked body to unseen cameras and inhuman watchers bothered the hell out of him, and made him feel even more vulnerable. Which was probably the point. So he kept a calm face and toughed it out just to deny them the satisfaction. He stood naked for some time, hands clenched into fists at his sides, and glared defiantly about him. He was wondering whether to put his sword belt back on when an opening appeared suddenly in the floor, and clothes and weapons disappeared into it. The floor closed again, leaving him nothing. Daniel opened his mouth to protest, and then hurriedly shut it again as boiling hot steam hit him from all sides at once.

His skin blushed bright pink at the sudden heat, and sweat poured off him, running down his limbs and dripping from his face. The steam was cut off sharply, leaving him shaking and gasping for breath, and then a caustic white liquid sprayed him from everywhere at once. Daniel staggered this way and that, pummeled mercilessly by the sprays, trying to protect his mouth and nose with his hands so he could gasp down some air. After a long time the sprays shut off, and Daniel was left leaning against a wall for support, spitting out chalky liquid that had got into his mouth and trying to get his breathing back under control. The liquid slipped down his shuddering body and drained away through hidden channels.

“What the hell was
that
all about?” he demanded finally. “That wasn’t decontamination; that was sheer vindictiveness!”

“We want nothing from the world of meat,” said the disembodied voice dispassionately. “Pass through the door. A protective suit will be waiting for you. Put it on.”

Daniel started to say,
What door?
and then stopped as he saw a door had opened in the far wall, though there had been no trace of it a moment before. Daniel sniffed, and stomped over to the door, still dripping. He shook himself as best he could, and stepped through the door and into the next chamber. It was just as white and featureless, save for a strange transparent suit hanging on one wall. It looked like a standard body suit, though he didn’t recognize the clear material. He took it down from the wall, and was surprised to find it practically weightless in his hand. He shrugged and put it on, climbing in through a slit in the back which sealed itself once he had it on. The material crackled like paper under his fingers but seemed reasonably strong. And then the material of the suit slapped tightly to his skin, fitting exactly in all his nooks and crannies, without a single bubble of air trapped anywhere. More material surged up from his shoulders, covering his head and face. It left a small circle of space under the material covering his eyes, nose, and mouth, but that was all. Daniel panicked for a moment, before he realized he could breathe through the suit’s clear material. He tested it with his coated fingers, but it wouldn’t give. He scowled, and tried a few simple movements. The suit moved easily with him, like a second skin.

“The suit will supply you with air for as long as you need it,” said the voice. “Outside a few specialized chambers, there is no atmosphere on Shub. It promotes rust. Also, be aware that gravity, pressure, and radiation vary from area to area, according to our needs. We make no allowances for flesh’s weaknesses. The suit will protect you. Follow the marked path. Do not deviate from the path, or there will be punishment.”

Another door opened in the left-hand chamber wall. Daniel strode over to it, holding his head high. He was determined to maintain his pride and dignity, even if he was stark bollock naked inside a transparent suit.

Beyond the chamber was a shining steel hallway. Glowing lights in the floor led him down the narrow corridor, hunched slightly over to avoid banging his head on the low ceiling. The tunnel went on and on, and the constant crouch built an increasingly painful ache in his back. He would have liked to stop and rest, but he had a strong feeling that wouldn’t be permitted, and besides, he didn’t want to admit weakness this early. It was a great relief when the tunnel gave suddenly onto a vast metal chamber and he could finally straighten up again.