The Deep Dark Well (3 page)

"Very human,"
said Zhokov, running a deep radar scanner over the woman's form, "and dead
a long long time.  Looks like a lot of them ran into this room during the
attack."

"But why
here?" said Pandi, looking at the staring eyes of the woman, her mouth open
in the scream that had emptied her lungs into the decompression that struck the
room.  First unconsciousness and then death from asphyxiation, followed by
freezing as the temperature in the dead ship dropped.  "Why not run to the
escape pods?"

"Panic, maybe,"
said Chavis.  "Kind of like people running into the center of a burning
building seeking a way out."

"Hell, we don't
know enough about this vessel to even guess," said Zhokov.  "This may
have been the main interchange on the path to the escape pods.  Or maybe the
people didn't have enough time to react."

"And maybe some of
the not people," said Chavis, shining his helmet light on a floating body
that was not what one could call anthropoid.  Thick muscular legs filled the
creature's coveralls, a thick stubby tail thrusting out to the rear.  Reddish
brown fur covered the exposed parts of the creature.

"It looks like a
kangaroo," said Chavis, pulling a sampler tube from his belt pouch as he
approached the creature.

“No, not really a
kangaroo," said Pandi, moving in on the creature from the other side.  The
arms were much bigger, ending in hands with three triple jointed fingers and a
triple jointed 'thumb', obviously the appendage of a tool-using creature. 
Shoulders broader than a kangaroo, much flatter face, cat like eyes.  Facial
hair, a goatee underneath the chin, whiskers sticking out of the side of the
nose, again like a cat. Cat like ears surrounded by a fine mane of black hair
that flowed down the back of the head.

"Not an herbivore,
either," said Chavis, the amateur biologist of the group, sticking a probe
into the creature's open mouth.  "These plates must be the animal's teeth,
and those are the teeth of a carnivore, or at least an omnivore."

"Not an
animal," said Pandi, looking at the broad brow of the creature. 
"Unless you consider us animals."

"But of course, my
beautiful creature," said Zhokov with a leer thrown in her direction. 
"It seems as if we have made first contact with an alien
intelligence."  He laughed at the end of that statement for a moment. 
"But he doesn't seem to be in a mood to communicate."

Space again rippled
around them as they fought with station keeping thrusters to maintain their
positions and not be forced into a collision with walls or each other.  The
alien was not so fortunate, as it was moved through the room toward the nearest
wall, striking its head against its solidity with a silent mist of ice crystals
as its skin and skull shattered.  The shaking stopped as suddenly as it had
started.  The shaken explorers went quickly to their find to assess the damage.

"No brain like
I've ever heard of," said Chavis, looking at the now exposed organ. 
"It isn't separated through the middle."

"Convoluted like
ours, though," said Zhokov.

"
Niven
to
exploration team," sounded Morrison's voice over the com link. 
"Status report, if you would please.  Are you OK?"

"We're fine,
Captain," said Zhokov.  “A OK, and no damage."

"We've found an
alien, sir," said Pandi excitedly. 
First discovery of an
extraterrestrial intelligence
, she thought, looking again at the frozen
body, sure that there would be more around the ship.  Her name would go into
the history books after all.  No one cared how many Kuiper objects you
prospected, but a truly alien life form.

"What kind of
alien?" asked the captain, as Pandi zoomed in with her suit camera,
boosting the signal.  "My good god," he exclaimed, "what in the
world."

"Worth the trip,
huh?" said Pandi.

"Worth the
trip," he agreed, "but we may have to cut this one short."

"Because of a
little shaking?" she asked, trying to hide her own fear in the face of
this opportunity that might never come again.

"It might be more
than that," said the captain.

"That's
right," said Engineer McIntyre over the com link.  "Doppler laser
indicates the distances between us and the other ship are expanding and
contracting along with those shudders.  We think that's why we felt the shaking
through the vacuum.  Space itself was vibrating with the force, whatever it
was."

"This thing came
back through time," said Pandi under her breath.

"What was that,
Ms. Latham?" said the captain.

"It's just, it's
just that this ship," she said, "built according to what we would
consider a graceful form, manned by humans. It has to be from some other
space-time."

"Creatures that
appear to be human," said Zhokov, "maybe the product of convergent
evolution."

"Oh come on,
Zhokov," said Pandi in exasperation.  "What do you think the odds are
that something exactly like us, down to the structure of every bone and muscle,
would evolve someplace else?"

"Maybe God made
intelligent creatures alike," said Chavis.

"And what about
our not-kangaroo man?"

"This is a very
interesting discussion," said Morrison, "but the question at hand is
how much danger we are in.  McIntyre would like to get you all back to the ship
and accel out of here."

"Not away from a
find like this," said Zhokov.  "Please, sir.  Something like this may
never come along again, and we can't allow the secrets of this ship to leave
human space."

"You suggesting we
try to use the
Niven
to slow its velocity, maybe put it in orbit around
Sol."

"Maybe, sir,"
said Zhokov.  "But at least let us find the power plant on the ship, and
see just what wonders we may be passing up."

"OK, Zhokov,"
agreed the captain, over the disapproving hiss of his chief engineer, "go
ahead on for another fifteen minutes, while we decide what to do about this
thing."

"You're risking
our lives, captain," said McIntyre.  "They must come out now."

"Shut up, Mr.
McIntyre," said the captain in a loud voice.  "We are in the business
to take risks, and I agree with Mr. Zhokov.  This may be the most important
find in the history of the human race."

"Thank you,
sir," said Zhokov. "We'll try and hurry up and find something that we
can't pass up."

"Thanks,
captain," said Pandi, her voice full of devotion to the man who would
allow her to continue to pursue her dream. 
No
, she thought,
I'm not
in love with the man
.  But she was very fond of him, which might be all she
had to offer anyone.

"Which way should
we go?" asked Chavis.

"That way,"
said Zhokov, pointing to the stern most central passage from the room,
"assuming that the engine is in the stern of the ship."

"Sounds like a
reasonable assumption to me," said Pandi, looking at Zhokov with more
respect.  Another man helping her to achieve her dream, a famous explorer into
the unknown. "Lead on."

*    *    *

Even the interior of a
familiar ship could become disorienting in a zero gee environment.  The only
cue that told Pandi and her team that up was up and down was down was the carpet
on the floor of the long corridor they found themselves shuffling down, and the
dead light strips along the ceiling.  An occasional door opened to the right
and left, but they knew the target they wanted had to be in the direction they
were traveling.  Then the wide corridor began to slope up.

"Damn engine room
shouldn't be more than a couple of hundred meters from here," said Zhokov,
looking around for an egress from the path they were committed to.

"And how will we
know what the engine room looks like?" asked Chavis.  "This thing is
how many thousands of years ahead of us?"

"It should be a
room with lots of huge machines in it, maybe a reactor or two," said
Pandi.

"What
reactor?" said Zhokov.  "Maybe they found the zero point vacuum
energy."

"They would still
need some kind of equipment to process and convert the energy to a useful
form," said Chavis.

"And just what
would that look like?" said Pandi, swinging her light beam along the
seemingly endless corridor to her front.

"Who the hell
knows," answered Zhokov, moving ahead, his light penetrating the
pitch-blackness.  "But maybe it’s behind that half opened door."

Ahead, at the end of
the corridor, lay a large double portal, at least four meters across, one side
locked in closed position, the other half open, leaving a meter of opening
through which darkness still reigned.  Smatterings of different scripts were
plastered on the open portals, some with a Sanskrit or hieroglyphic look. 
Others like lettering systems that looked somewhat modern, but still not
familiar, along with signs of universal intent.

"That looks like a
warning to me," said Pandi, looking at the round circle with a line
bisecting it, the figure of a man and a woman within the circle.  "No
admittance."

"What do you think
they kept in there?" asked Chavis.  "Their green, slimy flesh eating
monsters."

"Well, they're
frozen dead green slimy monsters," said Zhokov, "if that's what they
were.  Whatever it is, it's probably not too dangerous now.  Why don't we have
a look?"

The large room was empty
of equipment and furniture, though not totally empty.  The single construct in
the room grabbed their attention immediately, and held it unwaveringly.  A
large rectangle was suspended in the center of the room, a rectangle of some
shimmering substance, like water held in a tunnel.  The eye beheld the
rectangle, but the brain refused to comprehend, as if this were made of matter
or space or something that the mind was not able to grasp.  Colors seemed to
run along the watery substance, but not colors that they could describe.  A
slightly smaller rectangle of some dark substance sat within the opening of the
rectangular tunnel, for their minds gave it a depth that seemed to go forever. 
Another slightly larger rectangle sat outside the opening, a rectangle that
shimmered with some kind of energy, what they couldn't say, suspended by
mirrored cables from the ceiling and floor of the chamber.

"What the hell is
it?" asked Chavis, his natural instincts pulling him back from such an
unnatural object.

"I'm betting it's
a wormhole," said Pandi, her own instincts moving her toward the unknown,
and this was as unknown as it got.

"A wormhole?"
asked Zhokov, moving up beside Pandi.  "I thought wormholes only existed
within a heavy gravity field."

"They can exist in
a heavy gravity field," she answered.  "But it may be possible to
create one, or open up a microscopic natural wormhole, with enough
energy."

"
Niven
,"
called Zhokov over the com link. "
Niven
, can you see this."

"We sure
can," said Morrison, "though our pickup doesn't seem to be giving us
a clear picture of it."

"It may be giving
you as clear a picture as is possible," said Pandi.  "You may have to
see it with your own eyes to really get the full effect."

"A wormhole?"
said Morrison.  "Are you sure?"

"From the shape I
would say something like a Visser Wormhole," said Pandi, "though not
exactly."

"What do you mean
not exactly?" asked Morrison over the link.

"A Visser Wormhole
should be square," she said, "and held open by exotic matter, which
may be the dark rectangle holding this one open, balanced by the ring of
regular matter on the outside."

"I thought
Wormholes were unstable," said McIntyre over the link.

"Morris-Thorne
Wormholes are, spherical wormholes," she said. "Visser Wormholes can
be very stable, and safe to traverse.  But this seems to be a new
geometry."

The ship shuddered yet
again and the explorers with it.  Pandi shook her head, trying to clear the
pain that shot through it, maybe an effect of the compression of time-space
within her body, her very nervous system.  Yelling came over the com link as
the more fragile
Niven
was also shaken.  Then, as suddenly as it
started, it stopped.

 "God
dammit," said Zhokov.  "That was the strongest one yet."

"Damn right,"
yelled Morrison in return.  "You are to get out of there immediately. 
That is an order."

"At a guess,"
said Pandi, excitement straining her voice, "this seems to be the source
of the distortion.  This may be the most important single find in the history
of the human race."

"I don't care,
Pandora," said Morrison.  "Get the hell out of there, now.  All of
you.  We need to get out of this space before those distortions take us
out."

"But the
wormhole?" said Pandi.

"How can you be
sure it's really a wormhole?" asked Morrison.  "Be reasonable.  If we
know it’s possible, we can make one of our own eventually."