Ship of Strangers

CHAPTER SIX

Module Five lifted a short distance into the air, dipped its nose slightly and whined away to the north in a cloud of brown dust.

Targett watched it vanish, and was mildly surprised at the speed with which all sign of the vehicle’s existence was lost in the alien panorama. He took a deep breath of the suit’s plastic-smelling air. It was early afternoon and he had about six hours of daylight in hand—ample time to reach the group of metal objects which lay due east at a distance of some ten kilometres. He began to trudge towards the hills, scarcely able to credit the turn of events which had snatched him from the boredom of a routine survey and set him down alone in the middle of a prehistoric landscape.

Horta VII’s atmosphere contained no trace of oxygen and the planet had never known any indigenous life, yet Targett found he was unable to keep his eyes from scanning the sand underfoot for shells and insects. Intellectually he could accept that he was traversing a dead world, but on the instinctive and emotional level his consciousness simply rejected the concept. He walked as quickly as he could, going ankle-deep in the fine sand, feeling a little selfconscious each time the holstered ultralaser pistol bumped against his thigh.

“I know you don’t need it,” Surgenor had said patiently, “but it’s standard EVA equipment and if you don’t wear it you don’t leave the vehicle.”

The planet’s gravity was close to 1.5G, and by the time Targett neared the hills he was sweating freely in spite of the suit’s cooling system. He unbuckled the pistol—which seemed to have maliciously quadrupled its weight—and slung it over his shoulder. The ground was becoming increasingly stony and on reaching the hills he found they were composed largely of naked basaltic rock. He sat down on a smooth outcropping, glad of the chance to rest his legs. When he had sipped some cold water from the tube that nuzzled against his left cheek, he decided to check on his location.

“Aesop,” he said, “how far am I from the objects?”

“The nearest is nine hundred and twelve metres east of your present position,” Aesop replied without hesitation, drawing on the data continuously fed to him by his own sensors and those in the six converging survey modules.

“Thanks.”

Targett scanned the slope ahead of him. It formed an ill-defined ridge a short distance away. From there he should be able to see the objects, provided they were not buried under the accumulated dust of seventy centuries.

“How are you making out, Mike?” The voice was Surgenor’s.

“No problems.” Targett was about to add that he was beginning to understand the difference between looking at images and toiling his way through the actual terrain when it dawned on him that Surgenor had maintained a long radio silence with the deliberate intention of making him feel cut off. No doubt the big man had Targett’s interests at heart, but Targett was not going to reveal that he knew he had been too casual and brash about the exploit.

“It’s good to get some exercise,” he said. “I’m enjoying the walk. How about you?”

“I’ve got decisions to make,” Surgenor said comfortably. “I’ll be back at the Sarafand in less than three hours, and the question is whether to eat a pack meal now or wait for a proper steak dinner on board. What would you do, Mike?”

“That’s one of those tricky decisions you have to sort out for yourself.” Targett kept his voice level with an effort. This was Surgenor’s way of reminding him that by waiting a few hours he could have done his investigating in comfort and on a full stomach. As it was, he was going to spend an uncomfortable night with nothing to keep him going but water and surrogate. Another disconcerting aspect of his situation was that an alien world seemed a hundred times more alien to a man who was on his own.

“You’re right—it isn’t fair for me to load my problems on to you,” Surgenor said. “Maybe I’ll do things the hard way and try to eat both meals.”

“You’re breaking my heart, Dave. See you around.” Targett rose to his feet with a new determination to make his private expedition worth while. He moved up the slope, being careful not to slip on the loose surface stones and dust which cascaded around his ankles at every step. Beyond the ridge the ground levelled out for more than a kilometre before rising sharply to the rocky spine of the hills. The small plateau was bounded to the north and south by tumbled palisades of boulders, almost as if it had been cleared by bulldozers.

And scattered across the level ground—in random groupings—were hundreds of slim black cylinders, the nearest only a few dozen paces from Targett. They were about seven metres in length and tapered at each end, with controlled curvatures which spoke of aerodynamic efficiency. Targett’s breathing quickened in a way which had nothing to do with his exertions as it came to him that the alien objects certainly were not discarded canisters, as Surgenor had suggested.

He took the miniature television camera from his belt, plugged it into the suit’s powerpack for a few seconds to charge its cells, and aimed it at the nearest cylinders.

“Aesop,” he said, “I’ve made visual contact.”

“I’m getting a moderately good picture, Michael,” Aesop replied.

“I’ll go closer.”

“Do not move,” Aesop commanded sharply.

Targett froze in the act of taking a step forward. “What’s the matter?”

“Perhaps nothing, Michael.” Aesop was speaking at his normal tempo again. “The picture I’m receiving from you would suggest that the surfaces of the objects are free of dust. Is this correct?”

“I guess it is.” Targett examined the shining black cylinders, ruefully wondering how he had failed to appreciate their condition. They might have been scattered across the plateau only that morning.

“You guess? Does some visual defect prevent you from being positive?”

“Don’t be funny, Aesop—I’m positive. Does it mean that the objects have been dumped here recently?”

“Improbable. Has there been any accretion of dust in the vicinity of each object?”

Targett narrowed his eyes into the brilliantly reflected sunlight and saw that the cylinders were lying in cradles of accumulated dust, the upper edges of which were a few centimetres clear of the black metal. He described what he could see.

“Repellant fields,” Aesop said. “Still effective after a possible seven thousand years. It is not necessary for you to study these objects any further, Michael. As soon as the planetary survey has been completed I shall bring the Sarafand to your location for the purpose of a full investigation. You will now retrace your steps to the foot of the hill and wait there for the ship to arrive.”

“What was the point of me walking all the way out here if I’m not going to do anything?” Targett demanded. He thought briefly about the possible consequences of disobeying a direct order from Aesop—official reprimands, loss of pay, suspension from duties—then came to a decision.

“In view of the circumstances, I have no intention of cooling my heels for four or five hours.” Targett made his voice firm, although he was uncertain of how good Aesop was at interpreting inflexions. “I’m going to take a closer look at these things.”

“I will permit that, provided you continue to supply uninterrupted television coverage.”

Targett almost pointed out that, with thousands of kilometres separating them, the computer had no way of imposing its will on him, but he suppressed his irritation. During his months in the Service he had managed to swallow the fact that his crewmates sometimes addressed the ship’s computer as “Captain’ and obeyed its every instruction as though a three-star general was standing over them in person. The idea of being remotely controlled like a puppet was more than a little irksome, but there was no point in blowing up about it just when something of genuine interest had come along to break the monotonous routine.

“Setting off now,” Targett said. He crossed the level ground, keeping the camera trained ahead, and as he walked something about the general appearance of the cylinders began to disturb him. They looked like military supplies. Torpedoes, perhaps.

The same thought must have occurred to Aesop. “Michael, have you made a polyrad check of the area?”

“Yes.” Targett had not, but he held up his left wrist as he spoke, examined the suit’s polyrad dial and saw it was registering nothing unusual. He moved the dial into camera view for a second, giving proof there were no nuclear warheads in the area.

“Clean as a whistle. Do these things look like torpedoes to you, Aesop?”

“They could be anything. Proceed carefully.”

Targett, who had been proceeding anyway, clamped his mouth shut and tried to put Aesop out of his mind. He approached the nearest cylinder, marvelling at its gleaming electrostatic freshness.

“Hold the camera one metre from the object,” Aesop said intrusively. “Walk slowly around it and return to your starting point.”

“Yes, sir,” Targett muttered, moving crab-wise around the cylinder. One end of it tapered almost to a point, culminating in a one-centimetre circular hole which reminded him of the muzzle of a rifle. A ring of black glass, practically indistinguishable from the surrounding metal, was located a handsbreadth back from the point. The other end of the cylinder was more rounded and was covered with similar holes rather like those on a pepper shaker. In the object’s mid-section were several plates set flush with the surface and secured by screws which might have been made on Earth except that their slots were Y-shaped. There were no markings of any kind.

As he completed the circuit Targett was once again stirred by the sheer wonder of the experience of being so close to an artifact from a vanished civilization. He made a guilty resolution to obtain a souvenir and smuggle it on to the ship if the opportunity presented itself. Better still, he thought, a boxful of parts would fetch a good price from a dealer in…’

‘Thank you, Michael,” Aesop said. “I have recorded details of the object’s exterior—now see if you can remove the plates from the centre section.”

“Right.”

Targett was mildly surprised at Aesop’s instruction, but he set the camera down where it could cover his actions and unsheathed his knife.

“Just a minute, Mike,” Surgenor’s voice cut in, unexpectedly loud and clear in spite of hundreds of kilometres which now lay between Targett and Module Five. “You mentioned torpedoes a minute ago. What do those things actually look like?”

“Dave,” Targett said wearily, “why don’t you go back to your pack meal?”

“I’ve got indigestion—now tell me what you’ve got there.”

Targett described the cylinders quickly and with a growing feeling of exasperation. His projected stroll down the centuries, among the relics of a long-gone extraterrestrial culture, was somehow getting him more tangled than ever in the petty restrictions of the present.

“Do you mind if I get on with the job?” he concluded.

“I don’t think you should touch those things, Mike.”

“Why not? They look like torpedoes—but if there was any chance of one of them blowing up Aesop would have warned me off.”

“Would he?” Surgenor’s voice was hard. “Don’t forget that Aesop is a computer…’

“You don’t need to tell me that—you’re one of the people who personalize him.”

“…and therefore thinks in a very logical manner. Didn’t you notice his sudden change in attitude just now? At first he wanted you to stay clear of the objects—now he’s telling you to take one apart.”

“Which proves he thinks it’s safe,” Targett said.

“Which proves he thinks it could be dangerous, you bonehead. Listen, Mike, this little jaunt of yours has turned out rather different from what any of us expected and, since you were the one who volunteered to go out on the limb, Aesop is quite prepared to let you saw it off behind you.”

Targett shook his head, although there was nobody there to see him. “If Aesop thought there was any risk he would order me away from here.”

“Let’s ask him,” Surgenor snapped. “Aesop, why did you instruct Mike to remove the casing from one of those cylinders?”

“To permit inspection of its interior,” Aesop replied.

Surgenor sighed audibly. “Sorry. What was the reasoning behind your permitting Mike to proceed with this investigation alone instead of waiting for the arrival of the customary two modules or the entire ship?”

“The objects in question resemble torpedoes or missiles or bombs,” Aesop replied without hesitation, “but the complete absence of electrical or mechanical interfaces on their surfaces suggests that they may be self-contained automatic devices. Their contamination repellant systems are still active, so there is a possibility that other systems are either active or capable of being activated. If the objects prove to be robot weapons it is obviously better that they be examined by one man rather than by four or twelve—especially as that man has refused a direct order to leave the area and therefore has limited the Cartographical Service’s legal responsibilities and obligations.”

“QED,” Surgenor commented drily. “There you are, Mike. Captain Aesop firmly believes in pursuing the greatest good of the greatest number. And in this case you’re the smallest number.”

“I cannot risk the ship,” Aesop said.

“He can’t risk the ship, Mike. Now that you know the score, you are entitled to refuse to chance going near those objects until a team arrives with full probe instrumentation.”

“I don’t think there’s any risk worth mentioning,” Targett said steadily. “Besides, everything Aesop said makes sense to me—it’s only reasonable to play the odds. I’m going ahead.”

The Y-slots in the screws holding the mid-section plates did not provide a good purchase for his knife, but the crews proved to be spring-loaded and turned easily when depressed. He lifted the first plate off carefully, exposing a mass of components and circuitry, much of which appeared to be duplicated and arranged symmetrically about a flat central spine. The wires and conduits were drab and without colour coding, but looked fresh enough to have been installed weeks and not millennia earlier.

Targett, who had no engineering background beyond what he had picked up in the CS course, suddenly felt a profound respect for the long-departed beings who had created the cylinders. Within five minutes he had stripped off all the curved plates and laid them in a row beside the cylinder body. An inspection of the complex interior told him nothing about the object’s function, but the mechanism in the sharper end had the hard uncompromising lines he associated with machine guns.

“Again hold the camera one metre from the object and move along its entire length,” Aesop instructed. “Then return with the camera held in such a way as to give me close-ups of the interior compartments.”

Targett did as he had been told, pausing at what he had come to regard as the rear end. “How’s that? This looks like an engine section, but the metal looks queer—a bit crumbly.”

“That would be caused by nitrogen absorption associated with…’ Aesop stopped speaking in mid-sentence, a strangely human mannerism which caused Targett to prick his ears.

“Aesop?”

“Here is an instruction you must obey instantly.” Aesop’s voice was preternaturally sharp. “Scan your surroundings. If you see a rock formation that would give protection against machine rifle fire—go to it immediately!”

“But what’s the matter?” Targett glanced around the shimmering plateau.

“Don’t ask questions,” Surgenor’s voice cut in. “Do as Aesop says, Mike—run for cover!”

“But…’

Targett’s voice faded as his peripheral vision picked up a sudden movement. He turned towards it and saw that—in the centre of the plateau—one of the hundreds of cylinders had reared its sharp end at an angle into the air and was swaying, slowly, menacingly, like a cobra hypnotizing its intended victim.