Farthest Reef (20 page)

“Computer, can I hear what’s being said? In tactical, I mean?”

Almost as soon as he requested it, three voices could be heard chattering about Wolsey-Pasteur objects and Oort theory. One of them mentioned checking an equation and they all fell silent.

“Okay … I have them,” said one of the voices, a female. Suddenly a number of blue green objects appeared in the center of the screen, so many that Alex couldn’t count them all. The task was all the more difficult since the objects brightened and dimmed. And they were small.

“Four real threats,” said Mary, studying the display that domed above them.

“The computer predicts four,” echoed one of the voices in the control room.

“One probable,” added Mary.

“Are there any probable?” asked the voice of the Captain.

“One … maybe, sir,” said an anonymous male voice.

“That one!” Mary pointed to the center of the cluster.

Mary had her coveralls unzipped and hanging half off. Usually she regarded clothing as superfluous. Her underwear of choice was usually nothing. Alex was surprised to see white lace loosely covering her breasts. “You’re plain spooky sometimes, my love,” he said, kissing her bare shoulder.

Mary smiled and gazed into Alex’s blue eyes. She stroked a lock of his sandy hair lovingly. “It’ll miss us by seven kilometers,” she said. “Assuming they don’t change our trajectory.” Mary breathed the last words in his ear.

“Are you sure?”

“Of course not.”

Alex blinked and stared into Mary’s perfect blue-gray eyes. “Dingers, Mary,” he said. “You had me convinced.” He started to sit up but she pulled him close. “Oh no, you don’t,” she said. “No more worry. If we’re going out we may as well do it having sex.”

Alex laughed. He knew she was right. What good did worrying do? Mary’s lips were warm and soft as they enfolded him. He closed his eyes as the next tactical rendering painted the objects a bit larger on the dome over their head. Inky slept at the foot of the bed, safely out of range of their flailing limbs.

5
When Alex next opened his eyes, the object Mary had spoken of was visible, and passing the ship. Mary was asleep on top of him, her white hair obscuring his view. He twisted his neck to see better. He gently rolled Mary over and settled back to watch the show. The discussion that was ensuing may have been historic, but Alex had missed most of it. Captain Wysor and Professor Stubbs, who had been about to undergo his long awaited heart regeneration procedure when the alarm went off, were arguing whether to put
Goddard
through a jump maneuver that would take them out of danger, but cause them to overshoot their destination by at least a light year.

The ship was headed toward a nest of comets, Oort objects, that ring the fringes of most star systems. Alex knew that out here in the coldest regions of space, they aren’t pretty snowballs with long gassy tails, but moonlets of jagged black ice and rock. “No soft landings there,” he thought, remembering photos he’d seen of them. This nest of virgin comets, as Stubbs was calling them, occupied a huge area of space. The big ones could easily be avoided by simply altering course slightly. What frightened him and
Goddard’s
tactical staff, from what he was hearing, was a related threat. Out there, lit only by the dim light of the distant red dwarf, lurked swarms of cometary debris, particles ranging from a mote of dust to pieces bigger than a house. None of them would be easy to detect until it was too late.

As he listened to the senior staff debate their course of action, Alex debated himself as to whether he should wake Mary, sleeping blissfully beside him, to tell her the situation. He was, after all, fairly sure the
Goddard
would hit something. But he knew Mary was right about the ship’s hull. Polyceramic shielding was rated as ten thousand times stronger than steel. It was considered invulnerable. The warmth of her nearness comforted him and he relaxed. Gradually, as his eyes grew tired watching the dancing dots in the artificial cosmos, he fell asleep, missing Stubbs’ general announcement that they would “tough it out.”

When he awoke the dome over their bed had lifted and artificial daylight streamed in through their panoramic bedroom window. “I don’t even know if we jumped,” said Alex, squinting at the light. He got up and reflexively headed for the food panel.

A minute later he was drinking coffee standing at the window, watching the world outside. Mary stepped from the shower, wearing a blue bathrobe, and joined him. “I guess we made it,” she said. “Or do you think it was a drill?”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” said Alex, smiling bemusedly. “No. Not likely. I heard some pretty serious bla-bla while you were asleep. Stubbs hasn’t had his surgery yet. In fact he was about to when the alarm sounded. I bet they’re operating on him now.”

“We haven’t visited the hospital decks,” said Mary. “We could visit him.”

Alex nodded. “First things first,” he said. “Computer. What is the ship’s status?”

“
Can you be more specific
?”

“Are we in danger?”

“
Our flight status is normal.
”

“What is the condition of Commander Stubbs?”

“
Resting after surgery
.”

After getting a few details about Stubbs’ location, Alex and Mary agreed to visit the hospital, but their visit proved to be brief since Stubbs had experienced a small seizure. Ned Binder was standing next to the Commander’s pod when they arrived. To Alex’s surprise, Sciarra and Howarth were there as well. Stubbs’ assistant was very much at ease and smiling. “The Professor is doing fine,” Ned said calmly, “but they’re allowing no visitors. For a while, at least.”

Howarth and Sciarra were examining the details of Stubbs’ pod, one of many stacked in a row. Alex recognized them immediately as cryo-pods that also served as survival modules in the event of a disaster. He found it reassuring to see so many.

Looking at them seemed to make Mary uncomfortable. “This is a morgue,” she whispered.

Ned heard her and smiled. “Call it what you will, but it’s a hospital at the moment, Mary.”

“A rose by any other name,” she answered, turning to face Tony. “You were in the control room during the crisis, yes?”

Tony nodded. “Watching radar, mostly. Targeting for the Weapons boys.”

“What weapons?” Mary seemed alarmed.

“A particle gun on the nose,” offered Matt Howarth.

“Really?” said Alex, looking at Mary with a raised eyebrow.

“The power train has more than one use … much like these cryo-pods,” said Ned, eyeing Mary cheerfully.

“How reassuring,” said Mary skeptically.

“By the way, Matt,” Alex said. “How are the clicks holding up?”

Howarth was on his knees examining the tubes that connected the pods. “Fine.”

“Any special behavior?”

“Special?” Matt pried his head out of the notch and looked up at him. “Like what?”

“A song and dance, maybe?” Tony smirked impishly.

Alex smiled mirthlessly. “Shall I ask again?”

Howarth got to his feet. “You might ask Jeanne, Alex,” he said. “She spends more time with the beasties than anyone.” Alex’s steely gaze forced him to continue. “But I have noticed that they seem to be orienting themselves strangely lately. It’s odd, actually. But their biocycles are the same as always. The maintenance system is working fine and, as far as I can tell, they seem to be thriving.”

“Good,” said Alex. “But …?”

“They are listing at five and a half degrees. We don’t know why.”

“We altered our course by that much,” said Tony. “When did they start … leaning?”

“After the mid course jump.”

“You think that they’re still oriented to the solar system?” said Alex.

“Possibly.” Matt smiled. “Be nice if we could ask ’em, wouldn’t it?” He gave Mary an odd look.

“Well,” said Ned Binder. “This is very interesting. But I’m afraid I have some administering to do.”

“Before we all leave, one more question,” said Alex. “How close did we come to jumping during the emergency?”

“Nobody wanted to do that,” answered Ned. “We took a couple of minor hits, nothing substantial. Although we did sustain some repairable hull damage.”

When he and Mary reached their cab Alex decided he wanted to see the clicks again, to have another look at them. Matt joined them for the ride to the research deck. The cab was bigger the others Alex and Mary had used; large enough for four, two opposite each other. In the close quarters of the cab Howarth seemed to relax. “I have to say, Alex, that your interest in the clicks borders on obsession.”

“Is that a problem?” Alex never liked personal questions, but in this matter he felt he had nothing to hide.

“Only for you, I would guess,” quipped Matt with a laugh. “It’s up to you, of course, but I’d be lying if I said I understood.”

“I’m curious about them, same as you. Only you get paid to study ’em.”

“Fair enough.” They were quiet for a while watching the lights of the tubeway streak by. Midway through the trip he suddenly looked at Alex and said: “You know, I’ve always envied you.”

“You wanted to visit the reef. Not tend a zoo,” offered Mary. “Isn’t that so?”

Matt looked surprised. “Well … yes. Exactly.”

“You’ll get down there, Matt,” said Alex. “But touring a virtual reef is better than risking the dangers of the real thing. Tony almost got … ”

“You can say that because you’ve been there,” interrupted Matt. “Watching from orbit was frustrating most of the time. The communications were crap … intermittent, at best. The camera was pointed at things we didn’t want to see, or cut off our view at all the wrong times.”

Alex nodded. “I see what you mean.”

6
As Matt had told them, the clicks were indeed listing slightly in their enclosure. Other than that, they seemed to be normal, but Alex was quick to remind himself that none of them knew what ‘normal’ was for a click. They could be dying slowly for all anyone knew.

“They seem fine,” he said. “But …”

As Alex approached the glass one of the clicks immediately began moving toward him. Its unfurled wings flattened as it hit the glass with a soft thump. He took a step backward and watched wide-eyed as the clicker man fell into the black fluff that littered the floor. It recovered quickly and rose up again. There it hovered, seemingly regarding Alex with its faceless knob of a head.

“Dingers,” he said, looking at Mary. “What was that about?”

“Scanned you, I think.” Mary didn’t take her eyes off the creature. “I heard a burst of radio static when it moved.” She looked Alex over. “I assume you felt nothing?”

Alex shook his head. “Not that I recall.”

“They can recognize us, I think,” said Jeanne Warren, who had just entered the room. “Matt doesn’t believe me.”

“I believe you think so,” said Howarth, grinning broadly. “But I’m not convinced.”

The statement clearly annoyed Warren, who was tying up her long brown hair. She gave Matt a brief but sinister glare, then looked at Alex and Mary. “He thinks I don’t read the numbers I record for him all day,” she said, smiling politely.

The click moved slowly toward them again and stopped in the center of the enclosure, quivering. Suddenly its head exploded, and it dropped to the floor in a ruined heap. The action was punctuated by a shower of yellow liquid that hit the glass right in front of Alex.

Warren ran from the room holding her mouth while everyone else stared at the cell in shock and disbelief. “What happened?” breathed Matt.

“It exploded,” said Alex, turning away from the mess on the glass. “Did you record it?”

Matt stood stunned, staring at the place where the fallen click lay amid the fluff at the floor of the cage. Then he looked at the other one. “Look at it. Like nothing happened,” he said in an accusatory tone.

Mary smiled slightly. “As Alex said, I hope you recorded it. You might have some explaining to do, when Stubbs finds out.”

“It’s automatic,” said Matt.

Alex was surprised that Mary didn’t seem more revolted by what she’d seen. Rather than running, as Warren had, Mary actually moved closer to the glass to inspect the mustard colored debris that now clung to it. “Look at this stuff, Alex.”

Everyone moved toward the glass except Matt, who was frozen in place, staring at the other clicker man. “What I’m saying is, it’s just sitting there like nothing happened. It just lost its friend … brother … whatever.”

Alex was speechless. He joined Mary at the glass while keeping his eye on the other click. When he moved, it moved, and soon the click was hovering perhaps a meter in front of them. “Don’t you go exploding, too,” said Alex.

Mary pointed to a droplet clinging to the glass. “There’s little dark specks lodged in them.”

“Guts,” Alex muttered. His mouth was dry and he felt slightly sick to his stomach. “Yeah, Mary. Let’s get a real close look at the guts.”

“It don’t think it’s guts,” she said. “There’s radio static coming from it. Very weak.”

Hearing that, Matt rushed to Mary’s side. “Where? What?” he said. “Warren!” he bellowed. “Get back in here!”

7
The news went all over the ship instantly, bringing Stubbs’ assistant and a small staff to the Biolab. Alex and Mary were still there when they arrived. Few questions were asked of anyone. Instead, Ned Binder ordered a review of the surveillance recordings. Alex and Mary stood silently near the glass wall watching the remaining clicker man floating listlessly inside the tank. It took only a few moments for Jeanne Warren to program the replay. The scene flickered to life on a screen opposite the click’s cell. Alex noticed the click begin to move toward the glass as soon as the screen lit up.

When he had seen the replay of the exploding click at least three times, and another time in slow motion, Ned shook his head and looked at Alex. “I understand this behavior is a new one to you as well?”

Alex shook his head and looked at Mary. “Tell Ned about the radio.”

Mary raised an eyebrow. “I heard … I still can, in fact, hear radio static.”

“Coming from the click?” Ned cocked his head as he stared at the remaining clicker man. The creature was still hovering near the glass. “This guy here?”