ELEVEN
The four of them went: Morrisey, Iarrey, Bourne, and Nike. Surrounded by a swarm of robots and probes, they moved down gravitational belts into the corridor. The plan was simple. They were going to search the alien craft meticulously, chamber after chamber, leaving a chain of robots to extend their transmitters’ range and blocking open all the doors they encountered. Annataly, who had remained on the Nomad’s bridge, controlled the probes and supplied reconnaissance information.
Thanks to the robots they had an accurate virtual map of the three next chambers in front of them. That gave them an adequate margin of safety. Morrisey may have been hotheaded, but he also had something of an obsession with safety. Losing a hand in an accident had taught him to be cautious.
They descended into the lower part of the turret, searching one vehicle on each level. However, they did not find anything that might have helped them even with an approximate identification of the creatures who had built the ship. They only managed to confirm that all the seats were of the same size and shape, meaning the Aliens—whatever they’d looked like—had belonged to one species.
“Clones-of-bitches,” Morrisey muttered after they had left the last capsule. “Sterile clones-of-bitches.”
The interior seemed impeccably squeaky-clean. In vehicles piloted by human beings there were always lots of objects reminding people of their families and homes. Not here, though. The inside of the capsules looked as if they had only just rolled off the assembly line.
“Perhaps they didn’t feel the need to decorate their ship,” Iarrey offered. “Or maybe they took everything with them when they left …”
“I don’t give a fuck either way,” the captain replied, flying after the robots toward the lock leading straight on board.
Nike projected a hologram of the next chamber. It wasn’t very big, and from it emerged two identical corridors with elliptical cross section. The one on the left ended in armored bulkhead, and the one on the right led to something that resembled a berth deck. The glowing “fungi” were all over the walls, so the four men didn’t have to switch on their lights and could save their suits’ energy. Morrisey hesitated momentarily before he pointed to the right-hand corridor. He always took the easy way out, according to Annataly. That was fine with them—the lesser the risk, the greater the chances for a peaceful retirement.
When they passed a fork, the captain stopped suddenly.
“Annataly!”
“Yes, sir?” the navigator asked, a tad surprised by this unexpected call.
“Send …”—he quickly counted the machines accompanying them—“five robots and twenty probes to investigate the other corridor. And keep me in the loop.”
“Roger that,” she barked, and some of their machines turned back as if by magic.
The captain resumed walking when the robots were out of sight, then stopped in front of the next door and ordered it to be opened. The membrane furled as soon as one of the robots touched it. After it had closed behind them again, Iarrey ran his glove over its rough surface. A second later the door opened once more.
“Incredible,” whispered Heraclesteban in solemn awe, positioning a robot so that the membrane could not close.
“Alien,” Morrisey shrugged, clearly not impressed.
He looked down the corridor, which was bending sharply. The probes’ cameras had scanned every inch of it a long while before. Nike projected a hologram of the corridor right in front of the captain’s visor. From the readings it appeared that the corridor most probably ran around the hull and in that section had just one side door, the one through which they had entered.
“Right or left?” Bourne asked.
The corridor looked identical in both directions.
“Right,” the captain replied.
They covered four more similar sections, from which they could reach further docks. For the moment they only registered the presence of side chambers, presuming them all to be identical, which was later confirmed when the returning probes fed new data into the computers.
In the fifth section they finally reached a side membrane, apparently leading to the ship’s central part. However, it would not open automatically in spite of their considerable efforts. In the meantime Morrisey sent some robots to the farther sections of the corridor, in order to check whether there were any other similar membranes ahead. He could do it because Annataly’d already redirected the probes, which up till then had been—ineffectively—trying to force the bulkhead blocking the way at the first fork.
Having nothing else to do, the crew members sat down with their backs against the curved wall and watched further pieces of the 3D puzzle appear on Nike’s holopad. In less than fifteen minutes the robots checked the corridor’s remaining sections and found out that it indeed was a ring closed off at the opposite end by a heavy bulkhead, very similar to the one they hadn’t been able to open. Clearly, the only way onboard the alien ship was through the membrane they were all sitting idly at.
“Hell,” Iarrey murmured, when the holoimage was complete.
“Hell,” Bourne repeated. “And so our adventure on the alien ship comes to an end.”
Nike reached out to switch off the device, but Morrisey clutched his wrist.
“Gentlemen, do you really want to give up?” he asked. “We’re sitting in the corridor of the first alien ship Humankind has ever encountered, and we aren’t going to find out what’s behind that fucking door?”
“The first we’ve ever heard of,” Iarrey corrected him.
“What do you mean?” the captain demanded.
“I mean, we can’t be sure it’s the first alien ship encountered by Humankind,” Iarrey replied calmly.
“I don’t quite follow,” said the commanding officer.
Bourne and Nike also looked confused.
“Just because we’ve never heard of the discovery of alien vessels, doesn’t mean there’s never been any contact. Can any of you swear High Command doesn’t cover up findings like that?”
“What the fuck—” Bourne began, but the captain silenced him with a gesture.
“Do you have any proof for what you say?” he asked.
“Do you recall what happened to the Vagabond?” Iarrey parried the captain’s question.
Everybody went silent. Nike glanced at the crew members uncomprehendingly.
“I don’t.”
Morrisey put a gloved finger to his visor, indicating that Nike should remain silent. Bourne lowered his head.
“The Vagabond,” Heraclesteban explained, “was the Nomad’s sister ship. Years ago we were investigating the Oscar Sector. They were clearing up trash in the O2A7 System; we were doing the same in O2A6. Then we were supposed to move on to O2A8 together. Linden completed his work sooner than us. He reported that he would fly off to set the stage, and later sent information that he had two clear readings and was waiting for us. We had one more L-point to collapse. It was really dangerous there during the war. We finished a day later and were just preparing to jump when we received orders to return to base at once.
“And when we came back we found out that the Vagabond had flown straight into an unmarked minefield and the Fleet was blocking the O2E8 until further notice. Two weeks later we received new maps of the system and cleared up the mess. But there was only one reading this time.”
Morrisey nodded his head; Iarrey clenched his fists.
“One fucking reading, get it?” Bourne said. “Linden had reported two, and that guy was accurate down to a click in cases like those. I served with him for three seasons, so I know what I’m talking about.”
“Perhaps the Fleet sorted it out by themselves,” Nike suggested, “and neutralized the minefields at the same time.”
“Son …” Iarrey pulled Nike toward himself until their visors were almost touching. “They send us to do that kind of work, and I assure you no one from the Corps cleaned out that system. I know every lousy skipper and every crate in Federation service. That aside, Linden didn’t sail into a minefield; he spoke to us after taking his bearings, and while it’s possible to hit a mine and not be able to react, it only happens when you’re leaving hyperspace. Tadam said they had to take some additional readings because something wasn’t right … I’ve always thought that the other L-point was some kind of trick, and that the Vagabond sailed off to its death because of an amazingly interesting wreck they wanted to check out before we arrived.”
“Clone-of-a-bitch!” Morrisey swore. “Either we’re letting our imagination run away with us, or High Command really is trying to cover up contacts with Aliens. Which means that if we report—”
“Bang and we’re six feet under,” Bourne said, snapping his fingers.
“There’s no over or under in space …” Heraclesteban muttered.
“Who gives a shit,” the lieutenant snapped. “With an extra hole between my eyes I won’t much care!”
“So what do we do?” Nike asked.
“What do we do?” repeated Morrisey with indignation. “We blow this safe open.” To the comlink he said, “Annataly, send a ripper to the other bulkhead, will you? Try to get through.”
“But what about—”
He didn’t let her finish.
“Honey, it looks like we’re not gonna become famous, at least not this time.”