The Salvagers (20 page)

             
"That's what they told me before the warship disappeared. In so many words, anyway. Whatever goes through the anomaly stops existing."

             
"Either way, that's why we refer to the foothold as a weapon. That's how they've always used it—to kill people. Except once: the initial contact on the
Cape Hatteras
. They seem to have manipulated Captain Nelson and then possibly tried to bring him through without killing him. That raised an important question at the time. If they could bring us there, could they come here with an invasion fleet? Could they use the foothold to destroy our defenses and conquer us?"

             
"But they haven't done that. Could that mean they are peaceful? Did we make them angry?"

             
"We don't have the answer to that, Captain Hunter."

             
"But you said that there was contact. What happened when your clean-up crew disappeared? Why did they fill the
Cape Hatteras
's
engineering room with ice?"

             
"We think that the density of our matter changes the equation for the foothold. Density somehow changes the properties of the anomaly on the other side. It could be that while we think there is no interaction in our universe between gravity, there may be an interaction on the other side that we aren't aware of. That's why this facility was built. We were to answer that question and find a way to use the anomaly against them. But I have to be honest. It's been decades, and we have little to show for it."

             
"Where do the crystals figure into this?"

             
"Having matter around isn't enough to form the anomaly. If it were, we'd see them everywhere as a normal part of the universe. There must be a special kind of matter, and that's where the crystals come in."

             
"You found out what they do?"

             
"Not precisely, and I'm still not certain they mean anything. But I'm confident that we can find out the answer here. I've already had them brought to one of the labs."

             
I wasn't comfortable in that station, and I had a mounting suspicion that I might not have the freedom to leave it. I decided to test my gut feeling.

             
"And why am I here? Let's be frank: you don't need me. I would be just as useful sitting on the
Amaranth Sun
."

             
"The reason should be clear, Captain Hunter."

             
"What do you mean?"

             
"You're the only person since Nelson to whom they've spoken to instead of outright killing."

Chapter 24
    
Day 316

              "December 23, 2259. I am Lieutenant Philip Marquez, Staff Mining Operations Specialist on the UNAG Vessel
Cape Hatteras
. I am recording this log in the event that we are not able to return home. We have been sending messages to Captain Nelson for hours, but he does not respond. I have been joined by two more members of the crew. They very nearly crashed. Something has changed. Gravity is different somehow. We feel heavier, and the transport pods register that they cannot take off from the asteroid. I worry that Nelson has been incapacitated or that the
Cape Hatteras
has been destroyed. Something is very wrong with this place."

             
Westmoreland was kind enough to allow me access to a communications station to contact my fleet, so long as I agreed to oversight by his assistant. That man listened to every word I said with unnervingly close attention. His piercing and unflinching gaze made a normal conversation impossible, along with the fact that he was holding a kill switch to end my transmission the moment I let something sensitive slip.

             
Janet had received word from Ed Iron. The owners of the salvor had disavowed any knowledge of Keating's plan, though they did admit they were paying him poorly. Ed was furious. He had been under the impression that everyone would receive a proper cut, ensuring that no one had a motive to try anything underhanded. He took the expensive step of purchasing the
Hyperion
outright to avoid any entanglements that might have required the ship to return to Earth to pick up a new crew.

             
He had given day-to-day operational command of the
Hyperion
to my ex-wife after she told him about her plan to resurrect the derelict's engines. He loved the idea, but he was very concerned about the time we were spending at Titan. He was on a schedule and needed to get that antique ship home to coincide with the grand opening of the hotel.
U
nveiling the
Cape Hatteras
was to be a publicity stunt, and along with exhibiting the gold it would be the ultimate two-for-one.

             
My ex-wife as a captain! I knew her head would swell to epic proportions as a skipper with a nearly equal footing with me. I figured that she'd make herself a stubborn pain in my side just for the fun of it, but I was also aware that she was eminently qualified. I could live with Ed's decision. I was still the commander of the overall operation and of my little
Amaranth Sun
. That's all I had ever wanted to be.

             
On my ship things were going well. Although it had been two days since I last spoke to them, much to my surprise Neil and Stacey hadn't fought at all. Kurt had come up with a new recipe for tarpotch cheese dip, and the
Amaranth Sun
was running as though she had been built yesterday.

             
On Titan I hadn't done much of anything in those two days except cool my heels in that room. I hadn't even seen Westmoreland, just his nameless assistant. I'd tried to call him Dr. Lyman, but he looked at me mystified before realizing that I was reading his name tag. He said that the coat belonged to another scientist and that Lyman wasn't his real name. But he would never reveal what his name actually was. When I finally did see Westmoreland in person, he seemed bothered.

             
"You act as though you have something serious on your mind," I observed as he walked into my quarters, rubbing his forehead.

             
"Well, it's just the stresses of running this station. Your problem isn't the only thing we're working on."

             
"I'd love to hear about some of that."

             
"Need to know only," he said. "I didn't mind giving you bits and pieces that the Captain of the
Portsmouth
wouldn't, but here it's an entirely different situation. I'm more accountable and very closely watched."

             
"I understand how you feel. I have investors who watch me. I just hope that you can figure out how to get rid of the anomaly. Have you had any luck?"

             
"We're working on it," he responded. "We've got some theories and a few leads, but nothing of significance to report yet. But there's no reason to keep you cooped up in here, Cam. I apologize for not thinking of you sooner."

             
"It's alright. I've enjoyed my time in this room looking at the walls. Can I walk around the station?"

             
"Not really, sorry, but you're welcome to suit up and explore Titan if you wish. It's a fascinating moon; there's no other place like it. We've got a shed full of skimmerloons if you'd like to take one out for a ride."

             
"Skimmerloons?"

             
"Our name for the best mode of travel on Titan. It's a cross between a sort of hot-air balloon and a rocket sled. The engines were designed specifically for Titan. They won't work anywhere else in the solar system."

             
"Sounds interesting, a specially designed engine just for Titan. I might do that if I get cabin fever, but for now I'd rather not take the risk. Going through that lock is something I'd like to do as seldom as possible." I wondered whether the song-and-dance about the death of his predecessor was intended to scare me and keep me from wanting to go outside. If so, it had worked.

             
"I can't blame you," Westmoreland said. "I always wonder when I'll be on the losing end of the statistics. I pass through it at least three times a week. But the offer’s there for you anyway. Just ask my assistant, and he can escort you to the lock and show you the skimmerloon shed."

             
"What is his name anyway?"

             
"Who?" Westmoreland asked.

             
"Your assistant?"

             
"Oh!" he said with a chuckle. "We're supposed to use code names here. Most of us call him Dr. Lyman."

             
"He seemed surprised when I called him that."

             
"He's odd like that."

             
"Is your name really Westmoreland?" I asked.

             
"Usually," he said as he opened the door, before pausing to say something else. "Cam, I can't say much yet, but I'll tell you one thing. The crystals are interacting with some of our experiments."

             
He walked out and shut the door before I had a chance to press for more information. I spent most of the rest of that day reading some of the books that filled the shelves in my room. I'd hoped some of them might shed light on some of the things that go on here, but they essentially fell into two categories: manuals about living on Titan, and books so technical that I had no idea what they were about. I tried for a little while to make some sense of a ten-volume set full of equations and tables, but I gave up and contented myself with the colonization manuals.

             
One I found particularly interesting. It was a survival manual detailing what you should do if you got lost on Titan. That wouldn't have been hard. Visibility was typically very low, and if you wandered more than a few hundred feet from a settlement, you might not be able to find it again. I had read that visibility dropped to ten feet during really bad weather, but sometimes it would inexplicably clear and you could see for some distance.

             
The author of the book had formulated a methodology for surviving days in that environment with only an intravenous sustenance backpack. He was so convincing, and covered so many contingencies, that I thought he must have lived on his own out there for an extended period of time and tried everything himself. The only thing that would kill you, no matter what, was the cold. If you weren't wearing a long-term exposure suit, you would freeze to death well before you starved.

             
He even had a plan if your pack failed and you ran out of water. It showed how to identify which rocks were the water ice. Then you were to slip one under the face mask very quickly, wait a certain amount of time for it to warm up to nearly the melting point, and then manipulate it with your tongue against the glass mask and into your mouth—though it wasn't recommended to do that for very long with all the ammonia and hydrocarbon contamination. I was just getting into a chapter about setting a broken leg by yourself, which also seemed to come from personal experience, when the door slid open again. It was Lyman.

             
"Someone is here to see you. A Captain Janet Allison. She transferred down on an unauthorized transport pod, and we found her banging on the atmospheric lock door. You should warn her that we're technically supposed to shoot intruders."

             
"I'll tell her. Please send her in." I wasn't used to my ex-wife’s new title or reversion to her maiden name, nor had I seen anyone carrying weapons. I guessed that the latter was just more misinformation.

             
"Of course, but I'll have to stay here and monitor the conversation," Lyman said.

             
Janet came through the door looking very angry. I cringed out of habit, though I didn't intend to.

             
"What are you cringing for?" she asked.

             
"You must be in a bad mood," I said.

             
"You always were a bit of a coward."

             
"I've salvaged some of the most dangerous wrecks in the solar system. I am not a coward. You're just mean sometimes."

             
"I've polished that act over the years, but I'm not here to oppress you, Cam. I came to check on you. They weren't telling us much up there, and the crew got worried. Of course, I was more concerned with a malfunctioning toilet on my ship, but I didn't want any of the others to take the risk of barging in down here."

             
"I'm surprised they let you in," I observed.

             
"Are you really?"

             
"Well, I guess not." If anyone could bully their way into a place, it was she. "I can't say much because it’s all classified. Just studying something we found on the
Cape Hatteras
."

             
"I assume you're referring to Captain Nelson's crystals."

             
"Yes." I half expected Lyman to pull a gun. Instead, he shot a dagger glance with those damned eyes of his. They reminded me of the dark windows of the
Cape Hatteras
when we first found it.

             
"Your son is very worried. You told him more than you told me, didn't you?"

             
"Just his overactive imagination. Don't worry. We'll get past this and be on our way to make Ed Iron happy with his gold and his ship."

             
"Speaking of which," said Janet, "Ed asked us to check the assay of the gold as a precaution. He said that the thieves might have replaced it with coated lead and moved the haul onto a third ship without our knowing. I thought that was a little paranoid and unlikely, but he mentioned that you've fallen for that trick before."

             
She was referring not to a salvage but to something I'd bought. I'd run into an old shipmate on Mars once who said he had a small unrecorded treasure from an unmanned transport pod that had hit an asteroid and embedded itself in its side. It was carrying a consignment of gold coins, and he just wanted to sell them for whatever the melt price was. I bought the whole lot. I figured that they could always be taken back to Earth and sold as shipwreck salvage coins to collectors. Every single one of them was a fake.

             
"I deny every word of it."

             
"Yeah, well anyway, we drilled through one of the bars to make sure it was solid, and then we assayed the dust. Everything's fine. It's pure gold. But we also measured the weights in the gravity ring on my ship. The bars are heavier by several grams than their markings indicate. The
Cape Hatteras
mission must have taken faulty measurements."

             
"I wouldn't be surprised.  You can't just weigh something in space when there's no gravity. You have to use other methods such as measuring volume. That introduces unreliability. Our measurements could be off just as easily if the
Hyperion
's
gravity ring were rotating just a little too fast. Either way, I won't complain if we've got more gold than we thought."

              "Neither will I. The crew thought it would be nice to use the leftover gold dust to make a gift for you. Neil made the mold and cast it, and Ed Iron composed the inscription himself," she said.  She handed me a gorgeous pendant in the shape of the
Cape Hatteras
. On the bottom was written: "To Captain Camden Hunter. The haul! With love from Ed and your crew."