"I broke my conditioning," said Carrion. "But then, I was always involved, with one species or another. When you've spent half your life learning to move your mind in alien ways, it becomes hard to think in wholly human terms anymore."
Frost shrugged. "Empathy's a useful tool, but that's all. Aliens are for killing. I've found something interesting. Come and take a look."
She led him into a small compartment off the main chamber, through an opening so low they had to crawl through on hands and knees. The compartment was filled with spiky cystalline machinery that flowed seamlessly into the walls and floor. The ceiling was just high enough to let them stand upright, and suffused everything with a dull red glow that was disturbingly organic. The floor was uneven, solid ridges rising like bones to press against their boots in undulating rhythms. Everywhere, high-tech instruments blended into organic constructs, living and unliving components functioning side by side, as though the ship had been grown as much as made.
"This appears to be the control centre," said Frost. "Or one of them, anyway. I've traced a whole series of power lines that converge here, but I can't be sure until I can get some of my equipment down from the Darkwind."
"Have you identified the main power source?"
Frost shook her head angrily. "I can't even find the hyperdrive. By any reasonable standards this thing shouldn't even fly, let alone jump across the stars."
Carrion nodded, his eyes vague and far away. "Perhaps I can find the drive for you."
A breeze from nowhere ruffled his cloak, and Frost's hackles rose as strange lights glowed suddenly in the instruments around them. There was a feeling of pressure on the air, of something imminent and unstoppable. A hatch shot open in the wall beside her, and slammed shut again like metal jaws. Instruments extended and reshaped themselves in subtle ways, and far off in the distance Frost thought she could hear something howling in anger and agony, as though the decaying ship had been somehow stirred to horrid life again. Carrion was smiling, and it was not a pleasant smile, his dark eyes fixed on something only he could see. Frost's hand drifted casually closer to the holstered gun at her side. At that moment, the outlaw seemed every bit as alien and as dangerous as the ship they were investigating. A loud juddering sound vibrated through the floor, rattling their teeth and shaking their heads, and then the floor opened up in the centre and a great tower of steel and diamond rose up into the chamber, shining so brightly they had to turn their heads away. Deep in the tunnels the howling died away, and a sudden silence filled the chamber as the alien machinery grew still. Carrion and Frost slowly turned back to look at the tower, shielding their eyes with their arms.
"I didn't know you were a polter," said Frost.
"I would have thought it'd be in my file."
"Your file's Restricted."
"It would be," said Carrion.
They peered more closely at the structure before them, as their eyes adjusted to the glare. The tower was an intricate latticework of metals, complex and mysterious, surrounding a brilliant cluster of glowing crystals. There was meaning and purpose in its structure, but none of it human.
"What is it?" whispered Frost, impressed despite herself.
Carrion smiled slowly. "Judging by the remaining power flow, this is the ship's hyperdrive. Even if it does look nothing like ours. The Empire uses crystal technology in its computers; apparently these aliens found other uses for it."
CHAPTER SIX
Inside Base Thirteen
Diana sat slumped in her seat in the pinnace, and wondered why she still didn't feel safe. It had come on her suddenly, as they were walking back through the metallic forest to the landing field. Without any specific cause that she could name, the esper had suddenly been convinced that they were being watched, by something huge and awful and dangerous. Her stomach lurched, and sweat sprang out on her face. She managed to keep from crying out, but the feeling of imminent danger persisted, even though she couldn't see or hear anything to justify it. Nothing moved in the mists among the trees, and the only sounds were the quiet voices and footsteps of the people with her. Diana raised her esp and threw it out, scanning for anything near or approaching the group. Nothing had changed. The trees blazed in her mind like exclamation points of light, but there was no trace of any other living thing in the forest. She cast her net wider, till her mind fell over Base Thirteen and she saw something looking back at her.
It was huge and dark, filling the Base, and it looked at her with hungry eyes. There were voices screaming in the background, human voice, full of anguish and horror. There was a blood-red feeling of menace, of danger close and deadly, and then it was all gone, as suddenly as if she'd imagined it. She focused her esp on the Base, but there was nothing there now. If there ever had been.
She hadn't told the others what she'd sensed. She had no proof, and it had all happened so fast she wasn't sure she trusted it herself. It had the hot, hazy feeling of a fever dream, its very vagueness part of what was so horrifying. So she stayed silent, all the way back to the pinnace, and once she was aboard she curled up in her seat like a dog in its box, and tried to put it out of her mind. Only that was somehow worse, so she instructed the AI to patch in an exterior view through her comm implant. The steel bulkheads seemed to become transparent as the computer broadcast a real-time view of what its sensors were picking up. There was nothing but the landing pads and the trees and the curling mists, the two marines standing guard, and the Base, waiting inside its impenetrable force screen. She should have felt safe and secure, protected by the pinnace and its weaponry, but somehow she only felt more visible, more vulnerable. The pinnace was the only ship on the pads, and seemed to her a conspicuous target, small and defenceless against the size of the landing field and the endless forest that surrounded it. She kept a careful watch in every direction, unable to settle but unwilling to raise her esp again for fear of drawing the watcher's attention back to her.
The more she put off telling anyone, the more it seemed to her nothing but an attack of nerves, a product of her own fear and insecurity. She tried to recapture some of the enthusiasm she'd felt about contacting the new alien species from the crashed ship, and that helped her push back the fear a little. It was just nerves, exacerbated by the waiting and the tension. She'd be all right, when the time came to finally enter the Base. But in the meantime she kept her eyes open and her mind damped down, just in case.
The marines had felt something of it too. They'd been jumpy all the way back to the pinnace, and had seemed almost relieved when Silence ordered them to stand guard outside the ship. Silence, on the other hand, seemed strangely calm and relaxed, despite the beating he'd taken on his way to meet Carrion. He still wouldn't talk about that. He sat stoically as the ship's med unit stuck him with half-a-dozen needles, and then adjusted his uniform so that it provided more support for his ribs. And now he sat comfortably in his seat, half-reclining, talking calmly with the AI about the memory crystal Diana had found in the alien ship. Odin had swallowed the crystal some time back, but apparently the AI was having to create a whole new series of diagnostics just to access the damned thing. Diana smiled briefly. If she'd known it was going to be this much trouble, she'd have used her esp on the crystal and accessed the memories directly. Only that would have meant raising her esp again, and she wasn't ready to do that, not just yet.
Silence scowled at the comm panels before him. Given time, the AI should be able to make the crystal do everything but sit up and beg, but they didn't have that much time. The Empire wanted the mining machinery working again, and it wanted it now. If the Captain couldn't deliver, they'd send someone to replace him. And that really would be the end of his career. Silence sighed, and winced at the discomfort in his ribs. The alien ship held the answer to what had happened in Base Thirteen, he was sure of it. One or more of the aliens had entered the Base, there'd been a conflict of some kind, and the force screen had gone up. Simple as that. But just in case it wasn't, he wanted the information in the alien mem
ory crystal before he tried to break into the Base. Going into a potentially dangerous situation without a thorough briefing was never wise, and that went double here; with ghosts on the one hand and strange new aliens on the other, this had all the makings of a really messy disaster.
"Captain," said a quiet voice behind him, "I need to talk to you."
"Not just now, esper, I'm busy."
"You're supposed to be resting."
"I'll rest later, when I've got time. I'm just waiting for Carrion and Frost to return, and then we're going into Base Thirteen to scare up some answers."
"Captain . . . if there are aliens inside the Base, we shouldn't be going in aggressively, looking for trouble. We should at least try to make contact with them. They could be peaceful. This could all be the result of some ghastly mistake or misunderstanding."
Silence turned round in his seat and looked patiently at the young esper. "This is all new to you, Diana, but the Empire has a set procedure when it comes to handling first contacts. And the first and main part of that procedure calls for the Investigator to decide how we handle it. She's the expert."
"An expert at killing."
"Yes. The Empire doesn't like the idea of competition, so its attitude toward aliens is really quite straightforward. They're either friendly, in which case they become part of the Empire, whether they want to or not, or they're unfriendly, in which case they get stepped on. Hard."
"Like the Ashrai?" said Diana.
"Yes, esper. Like the Ashrai. I knew where my responsibilities lay, even then. Look, if I can see a way to sort this out without bloodshed, I'll take it. I don't believe in putting my people at risk unnecessarily. But I can't be optimistic about this. The most likely scenario is that one or more of the aliens have entered the Base and killed all the personnel."
"You can't know that."
"That's right, I can't. But that's how I have to play it. If whatever is in there is willing to talk, I'll listen, but they've made no move to contact us so far. Have you been able to pick up anything?"
"Just . . . impressions. Nothing I can be sure of. Because of my own fears, I could be misinterpreting the little I am getting. Couldn't we at least wait till the AI's cracked the memory crystal? It could hold all the answers we need."
"Esper, I'm running out of time and patience. I'll wait for Carrion and Frost to get back here, but then we have to go, ready or not."
The esper's jaw muscles worked for a moment, but when she spoke, her voice was calm and measured. "I'd like to try something, Captain. I want permission to go into the Base on my own, once you've got us through the screen, and attempt to make contact with my esp. They might not see one person as a threat."
"My orders are quite specific," Silence replied. "I'm to discover what happened inside Base Thirteen, and take whatever action is necessary to re-establish the Base and restore mining operations. Everything else is of secondary importance. There were one hundred and twenty-seven men and women in that Base. We've heard nothing from them since the screen went up. The odds are they're all dead. If they are, then whatever killed them has to die. The Empire can't afford to be seen as weak."
"Please, Captain. Listen to me—" Diana hesitated, torn between her need to explain what she was feeling, and the knowledge that she couldn't prove any of it. "There's more to this than whatever came out of the crashed ship. I've felt things, on my way down in the pinnace, and later on . . . there's something incredibly powerful on this planet, Captain, and I don't think it's the aliens."
"You're right." said Silence. "It's the Ashrai."
Diana chose her words carefully. "But they're all dead, Captain. You saw to that."
"They may be dead," said Silence, "but they sleep lightly."
"I could still use my esp to contact the aliens," Diana said doggedly.
"No," said Silence. "The situation's complicated enough as it is."
"So you'll leave it to the Investigator? The killer?"
"You say that as though it's an insult. She'd see it as a compliment. Investigators are the end result of the Empire's search for the perfect warrior. They started out working with the augmented men, the Wampyr and the Wolflings. That got out of hand with Haden, and the cyborg rebellion. So instead they created a breed of warrior that wasn't reliant on tech implants; a race of killers trained from childhood to be the best at everything. Strong, fast, intelligent, ruthless. And trained, most of all, to outthink beings that don't think as we do. Frost is in charge of all alien contacts, and she will make whatever decisions are necessary. She's the expert. If you have anything further to say, take it up with her."
"Would she listen to me?"
"I don't know. Maybe. She understands the value of an esper."
"Perhaps I should talk to Carrion. He used to be an Investigator too, didn't he?"
"Yes," said Silence. "Yes, he was, once."
Diana could feel his pain even with her shields up, and she had to look away for a moment. Through the transparent bulkhead she saw Carrion and Frost walk out of the mists and head towards the two marines, who apparently hadn't heard them coming and were a bit upset about it. Silence followed her gaze, saw Carrion, and looked away.
"You knew Carrion from before," said Diana. "What was he like, before he was a traitor?"
"He was my friend," said Silence, and then he turned and left the cabin. Diana stood where she was for a moment, to give him some distance, and then she followed him out.
Outside the pinnace, everyone stood and looked at everyone else as though they were all waiting for someone else to start. Finally Silence nodded curtly to Carrion and Frost. They were standing close together, and they stood in the same pose and moved in the same ways, like brother and sister. As though they had more in common with each other than they could ever have with anyone else. Silence knew he'd have to keep an eye on that. He couldn't risk losing Frost the way he'd lost Carrion.
"Any trace of the alien crew?" he asked the pair.
"None," said Frost. "And their ship's dead. It's an interesting ship. The technology's like nothing I've ever seen before."
Silence looked at Carrion. "Could the crew have fled into the forest?"
"No, Captain. I'd have known."
"And that just leaves the Base," said Ripper. "Surprise, surprise."
"Tell me about the ship's technology," said Silence. "You said something earlier about a new kind of hyperdrive."
"There was extensive use of living tissue alongside mechanical," said Frost. "Essentially, the ship was one great cybernetic unit, incredibly complex. And if the hyperdrive is what we think it is, it's far beyond anything the Empire has."
There was a tense pause, as though they all had something to say but no one wanted to be the first to say it. There were certain things it was wise never to say aloud, particularly when an Empire AI was listening. Their loyalty was programmed into them, and they tended to have very strict ideas about what constituted treason, or a threat to the Empire's security. Silence looked thoughtfully at Carrion.
"The aliens must be inside the Base."
"Agreed, Captain."
"And you're going to get us through the force screen."
"No, Captain."
Silence stared at him, and the tension between the two men all but crackled on the air. The two marines moved their hands slightly so that they were both covering the traitor with their guns.
"I can break through the screen," said Carrion, "but you're in no condition to enter the Base."
"I'd have to agree," said Frost. "A Captain has no business exposing himself to unnecessary risks. That's standard procedure."
"There's nothing standard about this mission," said Silence tightly. "I'm in charge here, and I'll make whatever decisions have to be made. To do that I need to be there, on the spot, as and when conditions change. And I've a feeling they could change pretty damned fast once we get inside the Base. I'm fit enough, and that's all that matters. I'm sure the marines are more than capable of seeing that nothing
happens to me."
"Right," growled Stasiak, looking pointedly at Carrion. The outlaw ignored him. He looked over at Base Thirteen, hidden behind its shimmering opalescent screen, and if there was any expression in his face, none of them could read it.
"Let's go," he said calmly. "The sooner we begin, the sooner we'll be finished. And God have mercy on those who die here."
He started off towards the Base, and after a moment, Silence and Frost followed him. The others brought up the rear. Stasiak looked at Ripper.
"Cheerful bastard, isn't he?"
"What did you expect?" said Ripper. "He used to be an Investigator."
They stood together before Base Thirteen, and the glowing pearly screen stared back at them, mute and enigmatic. Silence studied it sourly. It was as though the screen were mocking him. Anything could be happening behind that impenetrable field of energy. Anything at all. Anyone else would have had to suffer its smug indifference, but he had an ace up his sleeve. He had Carrion. Silence looked at the outlaw. He was still standing beside Frost, so close their shoulders touched. They looked as though they should always be together, connected by a shared past and secrets too terrible to reveal to anyone else. Silence felt oddly jealous. Carrion used to be his friend. But that was years ago, when they were different people, and Silence was honest enough to admit that he would only have felt uncomfortable if Carrion had chosen to stand with him.
The marines were standing off a little to one side, their guns in their hands, keeping an unobtrusive eye on Carrion. To their way of thinking, he was the biggest threat to the party at this point, so they'd watch him till something better came along. Marines were great ones for sticking to the problem at hand, and letting officers worry about the future. The esper was ignoring them all and scowling at the screen, as though she could force her esp past it to see what lay beyond. Unfortunately, she wasn't that powerful. That was why Silence needed Carrion.
He looked at the outlaw, and sighed quietly to himself. He couldn't put it off any longer. It was time for the moment of truth, and let the chips fall where they may. He activated his comm implant.