Redemption Protocol (Contact) (43 page)

She found herself back in the cavern, re-inhabiting her body and senses. She looked down. Her hand had broken contact with the plinth.

She breathed with relief as she examined the record of her vitals over the last few seconds. Nothing stood out. She checked that her external monitors were recording faithfully – she didn’t want some alien virus to slip in while she wandered around the virtual library.

She re-entered the carousel. She was two levels above the difficulty of the gate entrance when she found the constituent symbol that Touvenay had suggested was a ship’s energy system. The symbol had a low power level associated with it. She felt relaxed and confident as she accessed it.

Her horizon shifted and information on a type of energy system materialized in her abstract domain. Power curves, system relationships, propulsion mechanics and energy equations flooded into her awareness. Principles, conceptual diagrams and component overviews spread before her. She understood that she wasn’t seeing the design of a ship – she was seeing the general design principles for an energy system of that type. It was engrossing – enthralling even – and she found herself not just accessing the information but trying to understand it.

It felt like the next instant that the access sequence blazed fiercely at her.

She’d neglected the sequence. She was terribly behind.

The sequence shone so brightly that its intensity hurt. She was terrified. This was not the harmless feeling of the index puzzle. She felt like daggers were being driven through her being. As the intensity grew, the pain got worse. She tried to focus on the sequence and manipulate the equations.

She substituted a term, saw a solution, focused on it and tried to move forward. Nothing. The sequence was like ice now, ice with an edge, cold and sharp. It cut her mind. The pain distracted her.

She realized she’d missed a term; she had tried to substitute too quickly and made a mistake. The intensity was overwhelming. Her mind was splitting, the sequences rising up and enveloping her. Brilliant fury raged across her horizon. She couldn't do it. She desperately tried to escape but the sequence blocked her. The light grew and cut and burned. She was in trouble. She was trapped.

The brightness. It was too much.

 78. 

Havoc led his group down the pyramid's lengthy entrance hall. He prowled forward, paranoid and alert, while his microdrones communicated images and mapping of what lay ahead.

Their suit lights threw illuminating beams across their monumental surroundings. The arched passageway soared overhead, dwarfing their party like ants in a cathedral. The obelisks towered over them, carved in a cacophony of abstract shapes. Some of the obelisks had features that suggested effigies of living beings. Havoc wondered if they would spring into life like the guardians outside. He was sure everyone was wondering the same thing. The fact that the obelisks glowed dimly in his vision because they were a slightly higher temperature than their surroundings only added to his paranoia. They had passed ninety six of the massive statues – forty eight down each side. It didn't bear thinking about.

The passageway constricted as he advanced past the last of the obelisks. Ahead of him the passage dropped down a steep ramp, ran horizontal for a while, then climbed back up again. Beyond the lowered section was a fork in the passageway that marked the end of the colossal entrance hall.

Havoc stopped close to the top of the ramp. On the left hand wall was a glinting panel of burnished obsidian. The panel was similar in size, if not in exact appearance, to the access panel by the gate at the Colosseum. He knew from his microdrone feeds that there was no equivalent panel on the other side of the lowered section. Charles and Kemensky wandered over to inspect it. Havoc pointed at the panel as he looked down the corridor.

“Don't touch the panel, ok?”

Charles shrugged.

“Ok.”

“I mean it.”

Charles pointed at the lowered section.

“Maybe they fill it with liquid and wash their feet. You know, as a religious procedure, like a foot bath.”

Havoc nodded slowly as he looked around. Eight microdrones had flown through this area without any problems. Still, he felt cautious.

He took a couple of steps down the steeply sloping ramp, looking across the lowered section to the far side. He turned his head sideways.

“I need a brave volunteer to––”

Havoc saw Kemensky swipe his hand in front of the obsidian panel with his all round sensing. Kemensky was the kind of pedant who would argue that swiping his hand in front of the panel meant he hadn't actually touched it. Havoc had bigger problems. An enormous problem, in fact. He was two paces down the steep ramp when the sky fell in. More specifically, the roof.

The ceiling that had been twenty meters above him was now only sixteen meters away. Given its rate of descent, in three hundred milliseconds – less than the time it takes a standard human to blink – it would collide with the floor.

Havoc’s suit could withstand many things, but a block massing a hundred thousand tonnes wasn't one of them.

 79. 

“Has anyone told you you're very good looking?”

Weaver looked up at Darkwood. She could hear a woman’s voice. Whoever the woman was, Weaver thought, she was really embarrassing herself.

“You have beautiful eyes.”

It dawned on Weaver that it was her. She jerked up, her cheeks burning. A wave of nausea hit her. Darkwood caught her nicely as she dropped back to the floor.

“Evelyn, you're in the library under the Colosseum. You've had a bit of an accident. Can you hear me?”

Weaver felt her face turning scarlet.

“Sorry. About the eyes, I mean.”

“You were knocked out while you were accessing the plinth.”

“Not that they aren't–– The plinth?”

“Lie down for as long as you want to.”

Weaver felt clarity returning.

“I'm ok, I think.”

She sat up slowly. Someone had re-suited her hand. There was a dull ache from the freeze injury that Havoc had dressed. Havoc. He had gorgeous eyes. She gave herself a mental slap. What the hell was wrong with her?

Beyond the concerned faces around her was the section of curved wall that together with the plinth that she’d accessed comprised the stack she’d been working on. An image was projected onto the wall. The image looked familiar.

Touvenay gestured at the image. He looked impressed.

“You got a lot of information. It's certainly useful.”

Fournier leaned forward, his voice rasping.

“These equations suggest something extraordinary.”

“A possible step change in energy generation,” Kemensky said.

Darkwood extended his hand.

“Would you like to get up?”

Weaver took Darkwood’s hand and he effortlessly pulled her upright.

“Thanks.”

Touvenay rewound the video projected onto the wall. Weaver realized that Touvenay was projecting a recording of what had appeared while she was accessing the stack. Touvenay paused at an image of some three dimensional mapping and pointed at a glowing cluster of symbols within it.

“You navigated via a symbol analogous to the ship’s energy system to this mapping. The cluster of symbols here suggests a store of energy systems, seven large and seven small, in this shaft. The associated information even describes dimensions and energy outputs. I’ve cross referenced the geospatial topology to our surface survey and we’ve got a clear match.”

Darkwood’s face lit up.

“You think you know where it is?”

“Precisely. We could try and recover the energy systems from the shaft.”

“Shaft?” Weaver said.

Touvenay projected their mapping of the surface of Plash onto the wall.

“There's a deep shaft south east of here. The mapping you accessed suggests that set into the side of the shaft, four kilometers down, is a series of tunnels and hangars and located within these are the energy systems.”

Kemensky whistled softly.

“Alien technology.”

Fournier smiled at Weaver.

“Well done.”

Darkwood smiled at her too. He was startlingly attractive.

“Yes, well done. Are you alright now?”

And considerate too, she thought.

“Yes, thank you.”

“You should probably visit the medstation,” Fournier said.

Darkwood nodded.

“Definitely.”

Weaver realized that her nose was trickling blood. Her eyes hurt a little. When she checked her vitals she realized she'd sustained some minor damage, resembling light burns, to the tissues
in her brain.

Darkwood gestured toward the plinth.

“We're going to have to leave shortly. Do you mind if I...?”

Weaver shook her head, understanding Darkwood’s desire to make the most of their time here.

“No, please.”

Weaver tasted the blood in her mouth. The power levels she’d accessed had been pathetically low. The consequences of failing to access anything higher looked serious. Deadly serious.

“Be careful, Lucius.”

Darkwood smiled and nodded.

Weaver watched the curving wall as Darkwood accessed the plinth. It was fascinating, but she felt a pang that someone else was getting the rush of access instead of her.

She was jealous.

 80. 

A viper can initiate a bite and return to its starting position in five hundred milliseconds. It moves faster than a standard human eye can follow. That was longer than Havoc had to escape the falling roof.

He dived for safety.

He cleared the edge of the roof. There was an explosive thunderclap as the ceiling hit the floor. The boom echoed up and down the entrance hall.

He rolled onto his back and lay there. That had been too close to call.

“I might just lie here for a minute.”

Kemensky looked down at his hand, horrified.

“Gosh. Sorry.”

“That was the fastest I've ever seen anyone move,” Tomas said.

Havoc breathed out.

“Same here.”

“Ever. In my life,” Tomas said.

Kemensky stared at his hand as if it somehow had a mind of its own.

“It just...”

Charles shook his head at Kemensky.

“Idiot.”

Havoc glanced at Charles. The hypocrisy was overwhelming. Tomas frowned at the collapsed corridor.

“Seriously, that was the fastest I've ever see anyone move.”

Havoc’s reaction time had been unusually fast. He wasn't complaining.

“Seriously, same here.”

Kemensky waved his hand in front of the panel. Nothing happened. Kemensky persisted and after a minute as he swiped upward the roof ascended as quickly as it’d fallen.

Havoc stood up.

“You two. Move away from the wall.”

Havoc waited until Kemensky and Charles were clear.

“Nobody move.”

Havoc jogged down the ramp, across the lowered section of corridor and up the other side. He passed the flattened remnants of two of his microdrones on the way. What the hell was this place?

He turned and waved for the others to join him. They jogged across together. No one wanted to be last and they accelerated as they advanced. Their unacknowledged race ended in a sprint up the final ramp before they bundled to a stop in front of him.

He shook his head.

“A foot bath, eh?”

 81. 

Tyburn sat in the mission control hab of the
Intrepid
, reviewing the findings being relayed from the surface. He examined Touvenay’s discovery of the possible location of fourteen alien energy systems.

Whittenhorn and Yamamoto stood nearby, studying a holo of the other ships taking up station off Plash. Ekker sat in the corner with his face expressionless and his eyes vacant. God only knew what was going on in Ekker’s mind – Tyburn didn't need, or want, to know.

Ekker blinked into awareness as Tyburn cast to him.

> Inform our colleagues about Touvenay's discovery.

> You mean at the shaft?

> Exactly.

> Do I say they're energy systems, weapons, ship drives...?

> All of the above.

> Numbers?

> Not all fourteen. Say... five. We'll give some to the ORC, that'll be our side of the bargain.