Infinite Reef (4 page)

“Alex, are you okay?” Mary asked, sounding alarmed.

He glanced at the wing. “A clean hole, fist sized, in my left wing.” He looked back over his right shoulder in time to see more fireworks arcing into the air. “What’s going on? Are they tryin’ to shoot me down? Why the artillery?”

“It looks like fireworks,” said Mary. “They should have warned you.”

Alex’s wrist spoke to him again.
“Fireworks are illegal aboard
Goddard
.”

“Then it was anti-aircraft fire, I guess,” he muttered. Now at a safer altitude, he looked again at the ragged hole in
Merlin
’s wing. “I’m okay, I guess, Mary,” he offered. “It’s a good sized hole, but there’s a lot of wing left. She still handles okay.”

“
Captain Rose... your complaint has been noted. Security officers dispatched
.”

“Well,” said Alex, as he held
Merlin
in a slow climb. “I hope you hang the bastards.”

“
Captain Rose... hanging is an outlawed form of punishment
.”

Alex didn’t respond. He was beginning to find the computer’s comments annoying. The
Merlin
had climbed to the altitude where the other ultralights were flying. He counted four moving slowly in the breezes generated by the spin of the cylinder.

When Johnny had heard that Alex was planning to fly an ultralight, he had made a point of explaining the dynamics of the cylinder’s atmosphere. He’d mentioned that the engineers were concerned with the potential for storms within the cylinder. Some of them had even made plans for dealing with ‘tornado damage’. But the winds seemed mild, and so far Alex had encountered only human hazards. He glanced at the territory around him, now safely at a distance. He spotted two other ultralights. One was black and headed his way. “You’re right, Connie,” he said. “I should have read the manual a bit closer.”

“That’s a roger,” replied Tsu. “I see you now, Alex, headed toward me. Are you going to pull some stunt?”

“As soon as you get in range, Tsu,” Alex replied, trying to sound threatening.

Approaching the central column, Alex took
Merlin
into a slow roll. In the lower gravity the action was almost too easy.

Midway through the roll Alex noticed a gathering of lights on the peninsula that divided Lake Geneva. At first glance it looked like a crowd carrying torches.

While he was squinted at the dark landscape trying to make sense of what he saw, Tsu’s plane passed a few meters below. For a moment Tsu’s flashing dark eyes were looking up at him and he clearly had the impression of an obscene hand gesture.

For a craft driven by traditional propellers Tsu’s ultralight was fast. Alex was headed in the same direction as Tsu, so he applied full thrust and his neck creaked as his head hit the back of his seat cage. He overtook Connie in seconds, then cut back the power to match her speed. “What was that for, Tsu? Still worried about the bill?” He rolled the
Merlin
to see Connie in her own aerial cage.

Connie blinked. She pulled her aircraft away from his, gaining altitude as she banked into a turn. He waited for a response, but she didn’t say more. He watched as her ultralight faded into the darkness toward the Hub hangar opening. Alex scratched his head. A group of ultralights buzzed him, lights blazing in his eyes. “Watch it, boys,” he said. “It’s dark in here.

Are you trying to blind me?”

The central column’s lighting was now dim as moonlight, but it was early in the
Goddard’s
evening and the place was full of lights. “Sorry, sir,” said a voice on his intercom. “Security OP one and two. Normal patrol check.”

Alex watched dubiously as the two planes trained their lights on him. “Did I just say something about blinding me?” he protested.

“A black aircraft like that should be burning more than running lights, sir,” the voice replied. “Are your floods on?”

“I’m not landing,” Alex said tersely.

“Yes, you are. The laser concert is beginning in half an hour. That means no airstrip and blinding lasers.”

“Can’t hold up the show,” replied Alex, trying to sound congenial in spite of the spotlight in his eyes. “If you ... enforcers would take that floodlight off me I might be able to find my way back to hangar.”

Without a word the lights blinked out and the two ultralights sped away, burning ramjets like the
Merlin
. Alex looked around the great artificial sky one last time, and then aimed his plane toward the distant hub. Pushing the throttle forward he said, “Did you catch all that, Mary?” uncertain if she was still wearing her VR helmet.

“The darker it got the less I could see,” she said. “So I ordered a drink. Sitting in a bar wearing this silly helmet isn’t really my style. See you in the hangar.”

It wasn’t easy for Alex to picture Mary sitting crosslegged in a bar, sporting a bubble on her head, even though others at the bar were similarly plugged in to various aviators. He counted himself lucky she’d worn it this long. “Sorry you had to wear that headgear, my love,” he added, sounding sympathetic as possible. But the only answer was an earful of empty static.

3
Mary caught a look at herself in the mirror and sighed. Her white hair was now down to her shoulders. It looked great to Alex, but she ignored him when he said so. “Maybe I’ll just wear a hat,” she said.

“Dingers, Mary, your hair is perfect, even in the shower.” She shot him a dangerous look and retreated to the bathroom.

A moment later he heard her throw up. He knocked gently at the door. “Mary? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine!” Her reply was muffled and unconvincing.

“People don’t splaff when they’re fine, Mary.” She coughed a few times, then he heard her brushing her teeth. The commode flushed and the door opened. She stepped out looking unflapped but whiter than usual.

“Maybe it’s those implants,” suggested Alex, trying not to sound alarmed.

“Maybe it’s the food,” snapped Mary as she walked briskly into the hallway. He heard the front door open and close.

By the time he reached the front yard, she was already sprinting toward the lake. He left the yard and walked to the park across the way. He watched a gray squirrel up in the soft green light among the leaves. The animal saw him watching it and stopped, clinging to the underside of a large limb, its tail fluttering nervously. It began to make scolding sounds and hid from his gaze.

“Dingers,” said Alex, walking on. “Is it ME?”

There was a sweet smell in the air. Alex followed his nose to a row of bushes with white blossoms. He drank in the aroma for a moment before continuing his walk. This was the first time he had just strolled alone inside the great cylinder. He enjoyed the freedom of it. For months, it seemed, he had been on duty. This morning there was no meeting, no review of exploratory strategy. There was only the day. Or so he told himself.

Alex began to whistle the tune he’d heard during his flight and for a long while all he did was walk. He must have covered a kilometer, heading in a direction roughly parallel to Lake Geneva, when he came upon a row of greenhouses lining the edge of a large cultivated field. A road, a dark foam strip a few meters wide, paralleled the greenhouses and led directly to the lake. Thinking Mary might be there, he decided to follow it.

Finally he found himself sitting alone on a jetty gazing into the water. It was there that he realized that Mary had never left his mind. There was no way he could put her trials aside, even if she wanted him to.

“Maaary seee a doctorrr,” said a high voice from direction of the water.

Alex looked at the waves and noticed a line of bubbles approaching the shore. Soon the torpedo shaped shadow of a dolphin broke the surface near the place was sitting. “Hi ... I’ss Peeet,” it said. The animal was treading water, holding its head above the waves, as it looked Alex over. “I talked to Maaary,” it continued. “Sheee’sss a good swimmer ... for a perrson.

You a laaand lubberrr, Alexxx?” His speech was raspy and high pitched, but easily understood.

“I can swim.” Alex said defensively.

“Stilll ... yooo dooon’t.” The dolphin splashed its fin as if to punctuate his statement.

“So what?” Alex stood up so he could see better into the water, but the glare of the overhead light was still there, glittering all around the dolphin. “And what did you mean about Mary?”

“I said cleeearly enough.” The dolphin disappeared with a splash, then emerged and said. “Swimming, weee seee you better. Seee you insiiide.”

“What about Mary? Have you ... seen her?”

Suddenly another dolphin poked its head up beside the first. “Alexxx,” it said, examining Alex with a large friendly eye.

“Sid here.” The second dolphin was identical to the first, except its voice was lower in pitch.

“You both know my name. Have we met?” asked Alex, trying to act at ease.

“Of courssse,” said the dolphin, with what seemed to be a smile. “Everyone knows yooou and Maryyy. You were in waaater at the jettyyy.” The animal turned and pointed a flipper toward the other side of the lake. “Reeememberrr?”

“What isss a Sensorrr?” asked Pete. “Maryyy said she wasss one.”

“A cloned human. Specialized for deep space communication. What’s wrong with Mary?” Alex was growing impatient.

The dolphins were gazing back at him, but he found it impossible to see any expression in their faces, other than an enigmatic smile. The one named Sid looked at Pete and swam a few feet closer to Alex. When he reached shallow water he examined the shoreline, then looked at Alex again. “We e seee insiiide. Marrryy nott siiick, but sheee should seee a doctorrr. What wrong not forrr meee to saaay.”

Alex thought for a second. “Is it life threatening? Is it ... urgent?”

The dolphin approximated a laugh. “Not for meee to saaay.”

Alex frowned and looked in the direction of his house. It wasn’t visible at all. He guessed he’d walked a kilometer or so, maybe more, but he knew the network of tubeways could provide ready transport if he needed it.

Neither dolphin seemed too concerned about Mary, yet they were advocating that she see a physician. Sid leapt in the water and resurfaced quickly. Seeing it had Alex’s attention again, it spoke: “Caan I asssk yooou a quessstionn?”

Alex nodded. He had no idea if he should be running to a tubecar or playing diplomat with a dolphin. His only aim had been a brief walk.

“Whaaat dooo yooou think iss down therrre?” The dolphin said. “Onnn Bubbaaa.”

“It’s an old civilization. Stubbs suspects they’re beyond space travel.”

“Arrre they cliiickerrr mennn?”

“We saw spiders. Worms. Something like Jupiter’s reef ... with gas bags and all. But no clicks.” He remembered the pair of clicker men taken along on the rescue mission and felt somehow guilty that they had been lost. Alex looked at Sid. “No,” he said. “Not like the clicker men.”

In the sky to his left Alex saw a flash. Then a streak of yellow light, followed by a shower of debris. Something cut a straight line though the core of the cylinder, moving fast. Alex saw it smash into his side of the cylinder. Moments later he heard the crash and the roar of the impact.

“Dingers!” He began to run in the direction of the impact. His eyes were in the sky but his mind was on Mary, afraid that she was somewhere near the impact site.

4
Alex wasn’t really conscious of running. Nor did he ever look back to see the reactions of the dolphins to what had happened.

He could see that the core and its lights were still intact, and in its glow the debris left by the object did a curious dance. A cloud was forming at the core and debris rained down on both sides of the cylinder.

At first Alex thought it was a dinger, a slang expression for a spacer’s greatest fear – meteorites, but he knew that only a large meteor could penetrate the tough polyceramic hide of the
Goddard
and then plow through seven decks of polycarbonate web and aerogel matting. Anything that could get through all that should have destroyed the ship or at least caused major decompression. But neither had occurred.

Alex was growing exhausted. By the time he could see smoke rising from where the projectile had impacted, his gait had slowed to a trot. He asked his wrist monitor for a status check, but it was as dead as any ordinary bracelet. He considered using the tubeway system, but without his communicator he couldn’t call for a cab. All he could do was keep moving toward home and the safety of the bedroom pod. He wondered if Mary was already there.

It took several more minutes to reach a place where he could see where the projectile had landed. The crater lay in the park across from his house. Covering an area of a dozen meters or so, long slabs of material lay twisted off kilter, sloping down to a common point. At the center sat a pitch black sphere.

People were already milling about the edge of the crater, cautiously stepping over felled saplings and ruined shrubbery.

Blue suited security officers had arrived wearing helmets. Alex noticed that they were carrying weapons, but their job, it seemed, was merely to keep people away from the hole. Several vehicles appeared from the direction of the command center, full of personnel wearing the same headgear as the officers already at the site. They, too, carried weapons.

When Alex reached the crater, a tall officer walked over to him, reached into a pack, and pulled out a smaller version of the headgear he was wearing. “’re ’tis, Alex,” he said. “Put ’er on.” Though muffled by the headgear, Alex recognized the voice as Captain Wysor’s.

“Dingers, Cap’,” said Alex, still out of breath, “What’s the deal?”

“Save yer oxygen, Alex, an’ pu’ this on ya’ now,” insisted Wysor, his beard moving beneath the mask. “This might be an attack o’ some kin’.”

Alex took the gear and slipped it on over his head. To his surprise the helmet’s microelectronics approximated normal vision. A further ability, realized as soon as he looked at the Captain, was that it allowed him to see into the other helmets.

“This is amazing,” he said. “I can see your face, cap’. Does everyone have one of these?”

“Polarized int’ference glass ... only fo’ th’ crew, lad,” said Wysor, looking at the sky.