Infinite Reef (29 page)

There was no tubecar at the station, just an open port. The thing advanced into the tubeway and slowly vanished into the darkness.

Ned Binder stood near the Commander, nervously tugging at a button on his green coveralls. “I hope you know what you’re doing, Commander.”

“Sorry to disappoint you, Ned,” answered Johnny. “The ball’s in their court, now.”

“Begging to differ, sir,” said Ned. “How will we ever get home if we’ve been contaminated?”

“I understand your concerns, Mr. Binder.” Johnny patted Ned on the shoulder. “We’ll just have to see how this plays out.”

Ned shook his head doubtfully, but didn’t protest further. One of the staff nearby them raised his hand to get the Commander’s attention.

Johnny smiled affably. “Yes?”

“We’ve got a magnetic signature in tubeway A, sir,” said the man. “It’s moving toward the cylinder.”

“I expected as much,” replied Johnny. “So far so good.”

“It knows what it’s doing,” Mary said quietly.

“And where it’s going,” added Alex. “Maybe when the first sphere penetrated the ship it mapped the interior.”

“Possibly,” replied Mary, sitting down on the sofa again. “When I sprinted past it I sensed that it was absorbing energy.”

Alex seated himself next to her. “Well, we all knew that. It was ice cold. I still wish you hadn’t done it stark naked.”

Mary smiled. “You’ll never let me forget that, will you?”

“Well, I’m sure most of the guys aboard the ship won’t forget. I wonder how many vids of it are circulating.”

“Jeeps, I never thought of that.” Mary blushed.

Someone began shouting to the Commander from the far side of the control room. “It’s moving toward the cylinder, sir.

Tubeway junction 4! Ten KPH!”

“Are there cameras there?” the Commander asked.

“Only on the cars, sir,” offered Ned.

Alex turned to Mary. “Isn’t 4 AA the one that leads from the shuttle bay to the command deck?”

She shrugged her graceful shoulders. “You’re the pilot.”

Captain Wysor called out to the Commander, answering Alex’s question. “Tha’ tube’s the one ’t ’eads ’ere, Johnny. I’m thinkin’ i’s comin’ ta meet us.”

“Dingers,” muttered Alex. “I wonder if we should have had
Diver’s
guns ...”

Mary put up her hand. “No violence, Alex. Don’t even think it.”

4
After that things happened fast. Mere seconds after the Captain spoke, a detachment of security officers appeared from the side doors and took up positions at the entrance leading to the main tubeway. They waited like statues, particle and pulser weapons at the ready.

Alex remembered seeing them appear just as suddenly before. He wondered where, exactly, their ready room was located. Mary answered before he could speak. “They’re underneath us, watching the com all the time,” she whispered.

“How do you ...?”

She registered surprise at his question. “I could hear them, of course.”

The troops were kids, really, decked out in polyceramic suits. Alex wondered what they were thinking. Had they been yearning all along for action on some distant planet? Did they see the universe as an infinite battlefield full of countless foes?

More than that, he wondered if their actions might cause the Lalandians to fear or even hate us.

Mary sighed. “You were one of those cadets yourself, Alex. Have you forgotten so soon?”

“I never wanted to be a soldier.”

“I would have chosen the word mercenary,” she stated tactfully.

“Chain of command, sir?” shouted one of the soldiers.

Johnny seemed to have been well briefed on what the soldier meant. “Captain Wysor,” the Commander shouted back.

“then, executive officer Ned Bloom.” He pointed to his assistant, standing nearby.

For a moment Professor John Baltadonis seemed like an emperor before his court, Alex thought. Oddly enough, the Commander’s next words echoed those very thoughts.

Johnny’s eyes came to rest on Mary Seventeen, still seated next to Alex on the lounge sofa. “Make sure you protect Mary Seventeen,” he added.

Alex was stunned by the Commander’s statement, and what Johnny said next stunned him even more. “I would have to mandate, of course, that Captain Rose should be always at her side.”

Applause filled the room, and Alex blushed. “Um ... does this qualify us for a pension?”

Johnny laughed. “After this mission we’ll all qualify for pensions, no doubt.”

“I don’t know what this is, Commander.” Ned Binder’s words sounded ominous. “We have two signals sir. No, it’s one.

Magnetic signatures.” Ned was obviously getting mixed signals, either from his own instruments or from frightened assistants. He looked at Johnny painfully. “Magnetic traces are pulsing all over the ship.”

A female science officer rose at her console nearby. Ned’s expression changed from confusion to hope when he saw her stand. “Yes?”

She was wearing a virtual helmet, which she removed when he acknowledged her. “Quantum sparks, sir,” she said.

“Reflections. Our polyceramic plating is causing them, I think.”

“Echoes, do you mean?”

“Yes,” she answered, smiling nervously.

“Then where is the sphere?” demanded Johnny.

A security officer at the door provided the answer. “It’s comin’ up the stairs, sir.”

The room rang with the insect buzz of weapons charging as the officers turned to face the door.

Sitting helplessly in the lounge was making Alex more nervous with each passing minute. Mary felt his unease and stiffened in her seat. Together they rose and began moving toward the door to see what was happening outside.

Master Control had never been constructed for defense. Everyone knew that. It could keep out angry crewmen well enough, but defending against a superior technology had never been anticipated.

When Alex and Mary reached the glass door they spotted the alien globe gliding smoothly into view at the top of the tubeway entrance. It seemed smaller than the one that had penetrated the cylinder, somehow less dark, perhaps even transparent. “Does anyone have binocs?” Alex asked, standing close behind the security team. One of them pushed him back gently. “You better stand back, Captain Rose. You’re not armed.”

Alex frowned. “Pay attention to that sphere, officer. Not me.”

A hundred meters away, the sphere had arrived on the inner landscape of the cylinder. It moved at walking speed, perhaps a meter off the ground.

“We have a magnetic vortex,” said a familiar voice. Tony Sciarra and Norma had entered the room from a side stairway.

Tony carried a pistol of a style Alex had never seen. He held it up to Alex, showing it off. It looked like something hammered out by monkeys, but Mary recognized it instantly.

“Where’d you get a Colt Peacemaker?” she asked.

Tony looked surprised. “How do you know that, Mary?”

“Movies,” said Mary. “American westerns ... John Wayne?”

“It was my dad’s,” offered Norma. “I gave it to Tony.”

Sciarra smiled appreciatively at Norma. “She brought it along as a souvenir of her dad. And she had some bullets. I thought it might prove useful.”

The security guards glanced at the thing and snickered. “What makes ya’ think an antique’ll be of any use?”

Tony smiled confidently. “The Lalandians have seen our energy weapons, but they haven’t seen this one. Call it backup.”

The guard shrugged and looked back at the alien. “Whatever.”

Johnny stood up. “Tony, I appreciate the thought, but I’ll thank you to put that weapon away. There’s no reason to think the Lalandians mean us any harm. Let’s treat it as a guest until we have reason to think otherwise.”

“I still wish I could get a better look at that thing,” said Alex.

A nearby security officer took off his helmet and handed it to him. “You can use my helmet, sir. Just flip th’ visor. Smack it if it don’t kick in.”

Alex smiled and put on the helmet. He’d worn one like it before on patrol over Io. The telescopic visor worked fine, snapping handily into place with a flick of his practiced fingers. At first, because the optics were set to full magnification, the sphere was hard to find. Soon he located the sphere cruising along the pathway that led directly to master control, but it suddenly turned the left and moved across the lawn toward the lake.

The lighting from the central column was at its twilight setting and a pink glow filled the cylinder. Because the cylinder had cooled, a haze had formed above the landscape. Alex could see swirls of condensation surrounding the sphere as it moved. He flicked a tab on the visor to switch it to a thermal image, hoping to see more detail of the thing as it moved into the shadows of a grove of trees. In infrared everything appeared to be the same color as the sphere. “It’s not hot,” he observed, “but it isn’t cold, either.”

Alex raised his visor and looked around for Johnny, finding him still at his post. “It isn’t coming this way, Johnny,” he said. “What now?”

“We invited the Lalandian inside. Let’s let him explore.”

Mary frowned. “Perhaps we should go outside, so it can see us.”

“Agreed,” answered Johnny. “But let me lead the group.”

He turned to Ned. “Stay at the helm, Ned. Captain Wysor, you and the staff will remain here. Alex, Mary, and the security team will go outside.” He joined the group at the door. The soldiers watched dubiously as their Commander walked past them. “It’s very important that we don’t hand over command and control to the aliens,” Johnny added. “I want another team brought here to guard it.”

Ned Binder nodded and began giving orders as the Commander and his entourage exited into the artificial twilight. In the distance the sphere had come to rest, hovering near the spot where the original sphere had impacted after punching through the hull. It hung in midair a half meter from the ground, like an iridescent black soap bubble.

Johnny stopped and motioned for Alex and Mary to join him. Spotting Tony among the security officers, he beckoned to him. “That little announcement inside wasn’t just talk,” he whispered to Alex and Mary. “And I’m not playing favorites when I admit I’ve come to realize you two are very important, to me and to our mission. Right now I have everything I ever wanted. I’m about to come face to face with an alien species ... an intelligent one, at that ... but honestly, I’m utterly at a loss.”

Alex almost laughed, but Johnny’s expression forbade it. “I’ve already promised myself that I won’t act without your advice,” added the Commander. “I need you both, more than you know. Stay at my side.”

Mary’s smiled and nodded as she listened to Johnny, but she never took her eyes from the sphere in the distance. Alex might have enjoyed Johnny’s sudden camaraderie if the circumstances weren’t so bizarre. “Don’t worry, Commander,” he offered. “We’ll be here.”

The Commander nodded approvingly and turned to Tony. “Tony, I need you, too. I need that cynicism you’re so good at expressing. You, my friend, are my devil’s advocate.”

Tony nodded. “Thanks, I guess.” He smiled slightly.

“Are you still packing that antique?” asked Johnny as he gave Tony’s coverall pockets a critical eye.

“I’m keeping it tucked away, sir,” he answered almost defensively, patting a bulge near his stomach. “I’d like to hold on to it, if you don’t mind.”

“That’s fine. But please do keep it tucked away.”

5
The Professor instructed everyone to follow him as he walked toward the place where the Lalandian sphere sat waiting.

When they got within about ten meters of the sphere, he stopped and raised a hand, bringing the group to a halt behind him.

“I’m assuming it can see us,” he muttered as he surveyed the site.

Still wearing the helmet, Alex was now close enough to see that the sphere was slowly turning. It appeared to be a black glass ball with something dark inside, and the something seemed to be moving.

The damage the original sphere had done to the landscape had been repaired long ago, and there was nothing to mark the site. Yet the alien had moved unerringly to that exact spot and stayed there. Alex assumed it had chosen the spot as a reference point. The
Goddard’s
experts had long ago concluded that the original sphere had been a probe. As Alex examined this sphere he recalled that every effort to penetrate the original sphere had been fruitless. But this one was different.

Johnny surveyed his companions. “I have an idea,” he said. “Let’s have the loudspeakers play that music again. Those Lalandian tunes. That might show ’em we’re all on the same page.”

“On the same page?” said Tony. “Is that where we are?”

Johnny gave Tony an understanding grin. “I hope so.”

Using her sensor’s abilities, Mary relayed the Commander’s request to command and control. A moment later she touched Johnny’s shoulder and whispered, “They should begin playing the music shortly.”

When
Ode to Joy
began, Johnny smiled. The music was being played by
Goddard’s
orchestra. Alex was surprised at the Commander’s grin. He thought Johnny wanted the music played to them by the aliens. He touched the Commander’s shoulder. “Shouldn’t we play the recording we made of the Lalandian transmissions?” he whispered.

Still eyeing the sphere for changes, Johnny scratched his chin. “I don’t think it matters. Either way they’ll get the message, Alex. Don’t you think?”

“It’s changing position,” said Mary, pointing at the sphere.

“What is? I see no movement?” Johnny squinted into the shadows.

Alex had seen the movement but dismissed it as reflections. The central column had dimmed as the spotlights turned on.

They were playing across the surface, distributing just enough light to sustain the vegetation, and the moving floodlights made it impossible to judge movement. He considered asking the Commander to have them stopped, but he realized that was no easy matter. To his surprise he heard Johnny use his wrist communicator to order one of the spotlights on the core column to remain fixed on the site. And to his greater surprise, the order was implemented almost immediately.

Alex looked up and watched the other floodlights reset themselves and begin a new cycle that avoided the spot where the sphere still sat, bathed in a pool of light.