Mindbridge (20 page)

Several small tentacles sprouted from under the crest, ending in various arrangements of fingers, hooks, and suckers. Some of them changed form as they watched.

Most of the body was a waxy, off-white color (the eyes were amber); the thorax was translucent, revealing dark pulsing shadows of organs. In the back were two slits that might have been excretory, genitals, or watch pockets.

They were too odd-looking to be disgusting or terrifying.

One of the L’vrai came in pushing a cart that hovered wheelless over the floor. It had two tiers of shiny metal instruments. He squatted down by the probe and the others watched as he fiddled with the machine.

Most of what he did was out of the camera’s range. But after a few minutes of what looked like a parody of “scalpel. . . sponge. . . retractors.. .” he managed to disconnect or short out the power source, and the picture went dark.

Sampson spun the tape ahead; there was nothing more to it.

“That’s it,” he said. “What would you like to see again?”

“Run it back to where they took the probe off the outside of the ship,” Tania said. “We’ll look at the whole thing again. And again. And get everybody who’s not on some vital duty to come study it.

“Jacque, Carol, you better go get some sleep. Get pills; sleep for a couple of days if you can.”

Carol nodded. “Ten-day jump?”

“We can’t take a chance on a shorter one, not on such a small target. So it’ll probably be ten days without sleep.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll be along. I want to go through the tape once more and then set up the jump parameters with Eliot.” She patted Carol on the shoulder. “I don’t need as much sleep as you youngsters.”

“Youngsters,” Jacque said. “See you later, Mom. Don’t stay up too late.”

They went by the medical building to get sleeping pills and tell the woman in charge how they needed to modify the pharmaceutical systems in their GPEM suits. She said she could set up the personnel recorder to monitor the level of fatigue poisons in their blood, and compensate with small doses of joy juice. It would be a strain, though. They’d pay a big price when they got back-narcolepsy alternating with paranoiac insomnia. And old-fashioned cold turkey.

That’s all right, they said. Cross that bridge, etc.

They went to the transients’ longhouse, pushed two of the narrow beds together, and unfolded privacy screens around them.

Undressed, Jacque stretched out on the bed and stared at the ceiling. Carol nestled up next to him. He scratched her back listlessly.

“Ten days,” Jacque said. “We aren’t going to make it.”

“Don’t talk that way.”

“God knows what those monsters can come up with in ten days.”

“It doesn’t do any good to worry about it.”

“Riley didn’t say anything about ten days.”

“He couldn’t have known. We had a chance to say no.”

“Sure. But it gets to me. I don’t feel like dying this particular-“

“Stop it!”

“Sorry. Thinking aloud. We have the magnets, we might be all right.”

“We will,” she whispered. She rolled over and pulled him to her and held him fiercely. “We will.”

It is 22 January 2054 and John Riley enters the conference room and says hello to the five people seated around the seminar table. He passes each one of them a single sheet of paper:

Mission Chronology:

PHASE I:

24 Jan. Passive courier to Groombridge 1618. He will remain on Groombridge for 21 days, obtaining two bridges, detoxified by Thanos volunteer. Without touching the bridges himself, he will bring them back to Tamers Lefavre and Herrick.

PHASE II:

14 Feb. Tamer Jeeves’s team to Tau Ceti, 21 days.

PHASE III-A:

Date and duration to be set by Jeeves, Tau Ceti controller. LMT from Tau Ceti to Sirius: Jeeves, Lefavre (with bridge), and Wachal. Priorities: Gather information, survive, attempt to communicate, engage L’vrai in combat. Return with artifacts or prisoner if possible.

PHASE III-B:

Date and duration to be set by Hasenfel, Tau Ceti controller. If Jeeves, Lefavre, and Wachal do not return, Hasenfel and Herrick attempt the same mission (Herrick with bridge).

PHASE IV:

17 Feb. Research team to Tau Ceti, 12 days.

PHASE V: Repeat Phase III as often as practical.

PHASE VI:

7 Mar. Slingshot translation to Earth.

Tania scratches her head. “Doesn’t tell us much, really.”

“I know,” says Riley. “All we can say for sure is that the Tau Ceti crystal is working. We got a note yesterday on a slingshot from a Sixty-one Cygni resupply mission, said they’d gotten a probe from Tau Ceti. We want to get you there as soon as possible.”

“May I ask . . . why us?”

“Well, the logic is clear. I know you aren’t the most experienced team available, not by a wide margin. But you do have Wachal,” he nods at her, “who has encountered the L’vrai on their own territory before, and Lefavre,” again, “who is more sensitive to the Groom-bridge Effect than any other Tamer. And besides, he’s bridged with the L’vrai before.”

“That’s true,” Jacque says, “but my experience there would indicate you want somebody who’s not sensitive to the Effect. Not the other way around. They’re powerful.”

“This has been taken into account,” Riley says. “This is why Tamer Herrick is holding the second bridge. She is relatively insensitive to the Effect, and Tamer Hasenfel is even less sensitive. If necessary, the bridge can be exposed to multiple contacts among the Tau Ceti personnel before Hasenfel touches it. So we are capable of a wide spectrum of sensitivity.”

“In case it bums out my brain on the first try,” Jacque says flatly.

“I wouldn’t put it so extremely. We admit the possibility-even a high probability-of psychological damage. But the Psych Group assures me that such damage would be reversible. And therapy would begin immediately; Dr. Sweeney himself will be on the Phase IV research team.”

“Therapy as part of debriefing,” Jacque says.

Riley exhales through his nose, twice, and says, “I can understand your apprehension, Lefavre. But one is a Tamer or one is not. You may refuse any mission.”

“In a sense.”

“In an absolute sense. All you have to do is say no.”

Jacque chuckles lightly. “And miss seeing Sirius? Not on your life, Mr. Riley. No sir, not for the world.”

“That’s the spirit, Lefavre.” Riley looks around the table. “Now that goes for everyone. I don’t deny that this is a perilous mission. If you want out, now’s the time. No trouble to make replacements at this stage.”

Nobody says anything. Riley stands up. “Well, I’ve got to move on. Tomorrow you’ll go down to the Krupp factory and be fitted with modified GPEM’s, magnetic ones like Tamer Wachal used on Achernar.

Thank you. You’re a good team.”

The door sighs shut behind him. After a respectful interval of silence, Tamer Jacque Lefavre delivers his opinion:

“Shit. Oh, shit.”

Tania went first. A ten-day jump to Sirius took enough power to almost completely drain the crystal’s fuel cells. Jacque and Carol had to wait forty-five minutes while they recharged.

“Wonder if we’ll find one another,” Jacque said, standing by the crystal watching Sampson watch a dial.

“That’s up to Tania.” She had the floater.

“You can take your positions now,” Sampson said. “About two minutes.” Vivian and Gus raised their hands in a good-luck gesture. They were the only spectators-standing by GPEM-suited, in case something went wrong.

After two minutes the control room suddenly disappeared and Jacque floundered in total darkness. “Carol!”

She had been standing on his shoulders. “I’m here, Jacque . . . floating somewhere.”

His retinas were adjusting to the darkness. A few stars were visible. Sheepishly he remembered he’d set his optical circuits for the bright control room. He twisted the knob that controlled the sensitivity all the way to the left: stars grew bright all around him and, under his feet, the shiny black hull of a L’vrai ship.

Carol’s helmet appeared above his head; then her shoulders. She was moving out of the spaceship’s shadow, into the light from Sirius.

“I see you now. Are your boots on?” Their boots had magnetic soles.

“Yes, but I guess I’m too far away. Turn on your lights, give me something to aim at.”

Jacque did and Carol rotated slowly around, then threw him a line and he hauled her in.

“Go see what the other side looks like?” Jacque said.

“Just a second.” She wound the slender cable into a tight coil and slid it back into her thigh pocket. “Get anything from Tania?”

“No, not yet.”

“That’s not good.” Tania could be as much as a million kilometers away, much too far to travel on the floater in ten days. Or she might be on the other side of the ship.

They walked around to the other side. Sirius was a bright dot the size of a pinhead; its dwarf companion, a faint point almost lost in the glare.

“Jacque?” Tania’s voice was soft and blurred with static. “Carol? Do you read me?”

They both answered at once. “Wait,” Tania said. “Give me a time reading; see how far away you are.”

Jacque watched the digits shining just above his faceplate display. “Coming up on 11:14 . . . mark.”

“Damn,” she said. “Second and a half, that’s a good half-million kilometers. Looks like we work alone.”

“Guess so,” Jacque said. “Where are you,” Carol said, “are you on a ship?”

Three-second lag. “No, you’re on a ship?”

“On the outside of one, yeah,” Jacque said. “You found a planet, an asteroid?”

“A rock, anyhow. Maybe two kilometers long.”

“Will you just stay there,” Carol asked, “or go off looking for trouble?”

“I’ve been looking for ships. Don’t want to take off without a-wait. Think I see one. Like a dim star but elongated. A short little line of light.”

“That would be starlight reflected off the-“

“It wasn’t there before, I’m sure of it. They’re coming after me . . . Yes, it’s getting closer.”

Jacque felt a vibration in his boots just as Carol said “Behind you!”

A man-sized black spidery machine, like the first artifact the probe had encountered, came clicking across the hull toward him. “Get around to the other side,” Jacque said. “Then turn on your magnet. I’ll do the same here.”

Tania’s voice whispered, “Trouble?”

“We’ll see.” The machine didn’t appear to have any weapons. It approached Jacque and extended a pincered arm. He took one step forward, turned on his magnet . . .

And slammed chest-first to the hull, pinning the machine underneath him. It squirmed like a live thing, then emitted a shower of sparks-Jacque’s short hair tingled with the static electricity-and lay still.

“It’s a machine,” Jacque said; “I crushed it. Are you standing upright?”

No answer. “Carol! Are you standing upright?”

“Jacque,” Tania said, “if she’s on the other side of the ship, she can’t hear you. Line-of-sight transmission.”

Jacque felt his face warm. “That’s right. Say, how are you doing, is it still coming closer?”

“Yes. Not very fast. I think I’ll play with it a little bit. See how maneuverable it is.”

Jacque turned off his magnet. “I’m going to go check on Carol. Good luck.”

“Same to you.” He stood up and was surrounded by a cloud of floating metal fragments. Most of the machine lay flattened out, stuck to the hull by weak residual magnetism.

In the center of the wreck a bluish mass had oozed out and dried in the vacuum: the remnants of a L’vrai brain.

He walked around to where Carol was standing. From the crash of static in his ears, he knew that her suit was magnetized.

“What happened?” she shouted.

“Fell on top of it and crushed it. It’s a machine with a L’vrai brain attached.”

“Have to be careful walking.”

“Forgot. Turned it on with one foot in the air.”

“Vacuum,” she corrected. “We better do the back-to-back. There’ll be more.”

“Okay.” He backed up against her and thumbed the switch that magnetized his suit. They clicked together; the suits had been set up with opposite polarity so they could operate this way.

Nothing happened. After a half hour: “Carol, they aren’t going to come to us while we’re magnetized. Not after what happened to the last one.”

“I guess not.”

“Want to switch them off and go exploring?”

“No, wait. They must know where we are. They might be waiting right under our feet. Zap us as soon as we turn off the field.”

“Wait like this for ten days?” Actually, the prospect wasn’t unappealing to Jacque. At least they were relatively invulnerable.