The Deep Dark Well (5 page)

The helmet's heads up
display indicated that the air was breathable, and of a very comfortable
temperature.  Gravity seemed about Earth normal, and she didn't feel the
characteristic unsteadiness of a spinning structure, so she thought it had to
be a planet.  Then she thought of the wonderful technology of the gates, and a
natural feeling artificial gravity no longer seemed so far fetched.

Pandora Latham sat on
one of the benches, near a large planter of strange purple flowers, and cracked
the seal of her helmet.  Fresh, sweetly fragrant air greeted her olfactory
sense, as she shook the sweat out of her hair and reveled in what felt like a
cool breeze on her face. 
I'll live
, she thought, since whatever this
place was seemed to be fully functioning, even the miniature gardens perfectly
tended. 
If the natives are friendly.

The tears caught her
off guard, pouring freely down her cheeks well before the images manifested
themselves in her mind.  The images of her crew mates.  Morrison, her lover,
not the best she had ever had, but his practiced and gentle touch would be
missed, as would his dry British wit.  McIntyre, the efficient but
unimaginative engineer.  Chavis, the good-natured man from her neighboring
state of Mississippi.  Even Zhokov, the lecher, who had turned out to be a
kindred spirit at the end.  All gone, gone before their time, on the edge of
the greatest adventure possible.  By what right did she have to be the only one
to make it through?  She continued to sob like a little girl for a long time,
oblivious to the world around her. 

*    *    *

Watcher awoke as the
alarms sounded, ringing from the walls of his quarters and through the bones of
his head.  It had been a long time since he had heard this kind of klaxon; the
steady whooping that meant something had come through one of the
Donut’s
many gates.  And since most of them were long since sealed with a barrier that could
not be traversed, and almost all of the rest were inactive, it wouldn't take
long to locate the gate, and with it the origin of the intruder.

His tall, muscular form
leapt from the bed and he walked toward the center of the large, tapestry-hung
room.

"Computer,"
he said. "Project a hologram of the security system in the center of the
room."

Instantly the great
artificial intelligence complied, a multicolored panel of lights and view
screens appearing in the center of the room. 
It had even been more convenient
,
thought Watcher,
when I could simply think the display into the visual
centers of my mind
.  But that would mean opening the inner recesses of his
brain to the computer, and
he
might be waiting for any chance
he
might get to invade and conquer the mind of
his
greatest enemy.

Views were given of
dozens of open and unblocked gates, all leading to destinations he had assumed
were unoccupied. Recognition numbers appeared underneath.  A couple had numbers
he did not recognize, his total recall realizing that these must have been
opened by the computer at random since last he had checked. 
Well
, he
thought,
the power has to go somewhere, and I can always shut the gates down
anytime I need to
.  One gate caught his eye immediately, its view screen
box blinking to attract his attention. 
The gate to the lost ship.
  But
that one had gone through a dimension of subspace, where time ran in another
direction than the four-space humankind was most familiar with.  It should be
thousands, maybe even tens of thousands, of years in the past. And the gate was
no longer open.

"Computer,"
he said quickly in his melodic voice, "what came through gate number
1,347,902?"

A screen blinked into
existence in the center of the panel and expanded quickly until it formed a
four-meter square that occupied most of the panel.  A space suited figure came
through the open gate.  A bulky, white and red suit such as he had never seen,
with a spout of material coming from the large backpack that looked
suspiciously like a chemical thruster. 
It looks very old
, he thought. 
Very old and of very low technology.  He continued to watch as the opening of
the wormhole revealed a vision of white-hot hell.  He almost cringed along with
the figure in the forefront of the screen, and then the wormhole was gone, the
figure collapsed on the floor.

Watcher observed the
figure looking around the room, still unable to tell what kind of being it
was.  Probably human from the shape of the suit.  But very unrevealing of age
or sex.  Then the figure walked in a shuffle over to one of the benches and sat
down, the hands going up to the helmet seal.

"Computer,"
he ordered. "Focus on the helmet."

The helmet grew on the
screen, as the five fingered hands pulled and twisted at the seal.  To his
surprise the computer followed the helmet as it was taken off and placed on the
bench.

"Computer,"
he shouted, realizing that he shouldn't have been so literal with the enormous
idiot savant, "bring the focus to its face."

His breath caught in
his throat as the picture resolved on the virtual screen. 
She's beautiful
,
he thought, remembering that he had a fully functional glandular system no
matter the advanced complexity of his brain.  Not one for the scrap heaps after
all, like all the other intruders.

Long hair the color of
fire, skin almost as pale as watchers own, but covered with a constellation of
freckles.  Full lips, with laugh lines around mouth and eyes, although they
were now curved into sobbing agony.  Husky voice crying softly.  And the eyes. 
His own pink orbs stared into deep blue pools, tear streaked and surrounded by
the red of sorrow. 

"I have a match on
the spacesuit," said the computer, breaking his lustful concentration.

"Report," he
ordered.

"Late Twenty-first
century commercial deep space explorer," said the computer.  "High
probability of occupation as Kuiper Belt or Ort Cloud explorer."

"From Sol,"
exclaimed Watcher, "before the race expanded out of the System."

"Affirmative,"
agreed the computer.

"She must be
preserved," Watcher stated.  "Control panel front."

“She is not currently
in your territory,” said the computer.

“Do we have a local
gate open in that region?”

“Negative.  All local
gates to that territory have long been sealed.”

“How fast can we get
some agents there by tram?”

“Approximately distance
770,000 kilometers along the arc,” replied the computer.  “Eight hours travel
time.”

Damn
, thought Watcher.  It
had always been intended for people to go from one part of the station to
another by gate, instantaneous travel.  The tram system had been built for
short-range transport, and emergencies.  But that was all he had at the current
moment.

The virtual screen
closed to a meter square as the virtual panel expanded in front of Watcher. 
Six fingered hands of more than human dexterity flew over the virtual touch
panel, sending commands to
Donut
components to execute his orders faster
than he could have sent by voice alone.  The last virtual button pushed, he
stepped back and sat on his soft bed, looking at the newly expanded screens
that ranged the room, observing his mechanical minions as they hurried to
fulfill his wishes. 
Soon
, he thought,
and I will have company, real
live company for the first time in ages
.  Visitors used to come frequently,
in millennia past, but Watcher had felt more in the way of fear for his safety
in those days than loneliness.  Time had changed the magnitude of the feelings,
and he had to admit that the woman fascinated him, a beauty from the days
before humankind stretched its hands to the stars.

*    *    *

An hour of crying got
it out her system, at least enough where she could function.  Pandi looked
around once again, taking in her surroundings with her mind now set on
survival.  She meant to land on her feet, no matter where she landed.  And the
wonders there must be to behold.  She felt almost like a child given the keys
to the toy store.

What about the
employees of the store?
she thought.  Were there any?  And where were they?  They
might not like her poking her nose around, the unsupervised primitive.  This
place had an uninhabited feel about it, but there was no use in taking chances.

How much of her suit
and equipment to keep?  She didn’t relish the thought of trying to move around
in a one gee field wearing the heavy space suit.  She also didn’t relish the
thought of leaving behind anything that might make a difference in her
survival.

Pandi stripped from the
heavy survival suit, unbuckling buckles and unzipping zippers.  She took quick
stock of the utility of her undergarment.  It was of tough synthetics, and the
black fabric would keep her reasonably comfortable in most environments.  It
covered her limbs and torso, and the built in stockings covered her feet.  She
took off the gloves, thinking they might be more of a hindrance. 

The outer belt of the
suit was adjusted quickly to fit her slim waist, and the holsters and magazine
pouches were a comfortable weight.  The water bottle came easily out of a
zipper pouch of the suit, and would serve well as a canteen until something
better was found.  She inventoried the med and repair kits, and anything not of
use was left behind.  The useful contents she put in the holding pouch that had
been attached to the suit’s backpack unit.

She separated the boots
of the suit from its legs and fitted them on her feet.  A few steps showed that
they would serve to protect her feet, and she liked the thought of keeping the
extras built into the boots with her.  The helmet was the last thing she was
determined to keep, not wanting to leave behind its sensors, lights and
electronics.  And she could use it to carry things as well.

On last thought she
detached the backpack unit, unbuckling it from its mounts and attaching the
straps.  The O2 bottles went to the floor, until all she had left was the
propulsion unit and the fuel cells.  The straps went over her shoulders as she
adjusted it for comfort, folding the control arms back into the unit.

She stowed the rest of
the suit under the bench.  No use leaving the thing out where any passerby
could see it.  Jacking rounds into the chambers of the pistols, she holstered
them again and prepared to explore. 
Where to?
she thought.  So many
choices.

The entrances to the
low buildings, the ones with the look of subway stations?
  That is where she
thought most of the people who came through here would go. 
Why not?
 
She walked into the entrance and down the steps.

*    *    *

The flagship
Orca
shut down its space warping engines as it came to a rest in relativistic space
once again.  Space was no longer being destroyed to the front of the massive
warship, nor created to the rear, the space cycling drive offline for the first
time in weeks.  Within seconds a dozen more huge vessels slid into place in a
distant circle around the flagship, negative matter pylons using magnetic
tractor beams to pull the thin shielding of anti-gravity generating material
back into the dual storage bottles. 

The huge vessels sat
motionless in space, seven burning stars to its front, the nearest, an M5 red
dwarf, over eighty billion kilometers off the port bows.  Weapons systems were
off line, the leaders expecting no threat so far out of the Supersystem, as
antimatter conversion engines powered down from the immense energy requirements
that had been provided for the warping of space.

"Admiral,"
said the captain of the
Orca
to his superior, both men still moving
stiffly from the effects of the cryotanks all had emerged from just before the
transition to relativistic space, "Nav Computer indicates target dead
ahead at two hundred and twenty-four billion kilometers."

"Coordinates?"
asked the tall, cadaverous man in the highly decorated uniform, strutting the
Admiral's walk to the rear of the bridge.  "Of course," he said with
an evil looking smile, "Galactic Standard Coordinates 0 mark 0 mark 0. 
The center of everything."

"Yes, sir,"
agreed the thickly built Captain, Valari Midas, as the screen expanded the view
of the object at the center of the system.  The ultra-thin ribbon appeared to
be in orbit about nothing from here, though both men knew that an object denser
than thousands of stars sat in the center of the ribbon.

The white haired man on
the Admiral's walk stared at the ribbon in the distance, the target of this
mission that had been so costly to their worlds.  His brown eyes squinted and
attempted to bring the object into even greater focus, trying to make out
details from so far across the matter filled system of multiple stars in orbit
around the hole.

"A great number of
systems, indeed, sir," said the captain.  "Each star with at least
one terrestrial planet, some with over a half dozen."

"Plus the worlds
of the dirty methane breathers," said Admiral Miklas Gerasi.  "At
least a dozen of those, as well as the filth who live on the couple of hot
planets.  We will make this system ours, Captain, after we have secured the
'Donut’
and its star spanning technology.  Then we shall bring the purifying flame of
the Nation of Humanity to these fallen worlds."