Investigator Frost looked across at the Captain. “Sensors all report negative. There are no life signs registering anywhere within their range.”
“I didn’t think there would be,” said Silence, staring unblinkingly out at the storm. “Odin, how long till we touch down?”
“Twelve minutes and forty seconds, Captain.” said the AI promptly, “Assuming nothing interferes with my flight plan.”
“Get us down fast, Odin,” the Captain ordered. “Marines, stand ready. Something’s coming.”
And then the pinnace lurched suddenly to one side, the slender craft thrown violently off course as though some giant hand had reached out from nowhere and swatted it. The ship bucked and heaved as the AI fought to keep it from crashing into the tightly packed trees. Dark shapes loomed up out of the boiling storm clouds, huge and threatening.
“Odin, raise the force screen,” said Silence, his voice calm and steady, though his hands were closed into white-knuckled fists. “Marines, pick your targets carefully. Investigator, what do you see?”
“Still nothing, Captain. Sensors are adamant there’s nothing out there.”
“Same here,” said Stasiak urgently. “There’s nothing to aim at!”
The pinnace shuddered as something impossibly huge pounded against the force screen, again and again. Silence watched tensely as his displays showed mounting pressure building up against the screen from all sides at once. Glowing trees whipped past faster than ever as the AI sent the pinnace racing through the metallic forest, heading for the landing field. But despite the pinnace’s increasing speed, the dark presences stayed with them, battering at the force screen with vicious determination. Silence scowled, and licked his dry lips.
“Marines, lay down a field of fire on both sides. Random selection of targets. Do it now.”
The marines’ replies were lost in the thunder of the disrupter cannon, and blinding energy leapt out from the pinnace, striking through the screen and shattering the metal trees. Great metallic shards flew like shrapnel. And still the unliving presences pressed close around the screen, the pressure rising impossibly moment by moment.
“Our guns are useless now until the energy crystals recharge,” said the Investigator quietly. “And the force screen isn’t going to last long enough for us to reach the landing field. It’s taking more and more of the ship’s power just to maintain the screen, and we don’t have that much power to spare. Not if we ever want to get off this planet again. What’s out there, Captain? Why don’t they show up on our sensors?”
Silence looked at her. “Because they’re dead, Investigator. Because they’re dead. Odin, time to touch down?”
“Ten minutes, twenty-two seconds, Captain.”
“When I give you the word, drop the force screen and channel the extra power to the engines. Do whatever you have to, Odin, but get us down. If we survive the landing, we can always recharge the ship’s batteries at Base Thirteen. Marines, stand ready to fire again, on my order.”
“But there’s nothing out there!” said Stasiak. “There’s nothing to aim at!”
“Keep the noise down, Lew,” said Ripper calmly. “Ours not to reason why, remember? Just do what the nice officer says. At least he seems to have some idea of what we’re up against.”
Stasiak sniffed mutinously. “They’re not paying me enough for this.”
Silence glared out at the storm, then looked back at the Investigator. “Anything on the sensors?”
“Negative, Captain. No life signs of any description. As far as the instruments are concerned, we’re alone up here.” The Investigator looked at him with cold, hard eyes. “You were expecting this, weren’t you, Captain? That’s why you came down with us. You know what’s out there.”
“Yes,” said Silence. “I know.”
“Guns are powering up, sir,” said Ripper. “Ready to fire again soon. Just find us a target.”
“Stand by, marines. Esper, talk to me. What do you see out there? Esper!”
They were huge and awful and they filled her mind, blazing like the sun. Too strange to measure, too vast to comprehend, they gathered in the storm like ancient vengeful gods, striking at the pinnace with thunder and lightning. Diana Vertue struggled to maintain her own sense of identity in all that rage and fury, but her human mind was a small and insignificant thing in the midst of such intense, bitter hatred. She retreated behind the safety of her mental shields, fighting to keep out the inhuman thoughts that roared and howled in the storm outside the ship. One by one her defensive barriers slammed into place, and suddenly she was back in the pinnace again, and Captain Silence was shouting at her.
“It’s alive,” she said dully, her mind feeling slow and awkward now that it was working only on the human level again. “The storm’s alive, and it hates us.”
“Have you made contact with it?” asked Silence. “Could you communicate with it?”
“Communicate with what?” said the Investigator sharply. “If there was anything alive out there, the sensors would show it!”
“They’re too big,” said Diana Vertue. “Huge. Vast. I’ve never felt such hate.”
“Try,” said Silence. “This is why I brought you with us; to talk to … what’s out there.”
“No,” said Diana, tears burning in her eyes. “Please. Don’t make me … the hate hurts so much …”
“Do it! That’s an order!”
And Diana threw her mind up and out again, into the storm. Espers always obeyed orders. Their training saw to that. Those who couldn’t or wouldn’t learn didn’t live to reach an adult’s estate. The storm raged. Immense, dark thoughts were all around her, and she knew she survived only because she was too small for them to notice. She also knew that in a slow, creeping way, they were beginning to realise that someone was watching them.
Silence watched the young esper’s face, contorted by the horror of what her blind eyes were seeing, and wouldn’t let himself look away. If she died or lost her mind, it would be his responsibility. He’d known the risks when he insisted on her as part of his team. A thin line of saliva ran slowly from the corner of her mouth, and she began to moan softly. Silence still wouldn’t look away.
“Marines, lay down a covering fire, random selection, as before. Odin, lower the force screen. Hang on to your seats, everyone. The ride’s about to get a bit bumpy.”
There was a deafening roar, slamming against the mind as much as the ears, as the dark shapes pressed forward, no longer held back by the force screen. The disrupter cannon blazed through the storm, and could not touch them. The pinnace shuddered and lurched from side to side, tossed like a leaf in a hurricane. Metallic trees a dozen feet thick leapt out of the clouds and slammed against the pinnace sides, but the ship’s hull had been designed to withstand disrupter cannon and low-level atomics, and they held easily against the battering. The thunder of the pinnace’s engines rose and fell as the AI fought desperately to keep the ship on course. The Captain accessed the instrumentsdirectly, and bit his lip as he saw they were still more than four minutes from Base Thirteen and the landing pads.
The pinnace’s nose dropped sharply, as though some immense weight had settled upon it. There was a screech of rending metal, and the port bulkhead tore like paper. Jagged rents surged down the wall, grouped together like giant claw marks. Something pounded against the outer hull, and great dents and bulges appeared in the cabin roof.
“There’s nothing out there!” screamed Stasiak, beating blindly with his fists against his chair’s armrests. “There’s nothing out there! The instruments say so!”
Ripper’s head swayed back and forth, his mouth forming soundless denials. The Investigator glared about her at the fury of the storm, her hand clutching at the gun on her hip. Things were moving in the storm, dark and indistinct and impossibly huge. The whole frame of the pinnace groaned as the roof bulged inwards, forced down by some massive, intolerable weight.
“We’re losing pressure, Captain,” said the AI quietly in S
ilence’s ear. “The ship’s integrity has been breached beyond my ability to compensate. I am no longer confident of being able to reach the landing field. Do I have your permission to attempt an emergency landing?”
“No,” said Silence through his implant. “Not yet.”
“We have to put down before we fall apart!” said the Investigator.
Silence looked at her sharply. He hadn’t known she had access to the command channel. “Not yet,” he said firmly. “Esper, talk to them, dammit. Make them hear you!”
Diana Vertue dropped what remained of her mental shields and stood naked and defenceless before the alien presences. They rushed forward and swept over her. The pinnace punched through the last of the clouds and burst out into clear air. The metal trees swept toward and around the ship at dizzying speed. Vicious barbed spikes snapped past them, seeming only inches away from tearing the pinnace open like a gutted fish. And then the trees too fell away, and they were flying over a vast open clearing, above a smooth and level plain, towards Base Thirteen and the landing pads.
“It’s stopped,” said the Investigator quietly. “Listen. It’s stopped.”
Silence looked slowly around him. The pounding on the outer hull had ceased, and there was no trace anywhere of the dark, threatening presences. Faint creakings filled the pinnace as the ship’s battered frame tried to repair itself. The two marines dropped out of fire control and looked blankly around them, seeing the damage for the first time. Ripper turned to the Captain for answers, but Silence waved for him to be quiet, and got out of his seat to kneel beside the esper, who was sitting slumped on the floor, head bowed. She looked up slowly as she sensed his presence.
“They’re gone, Captain. They just … left.”
“What did you see?” said Silence, keeping his voice calm with an effort.
“Faces. Gargoyle faces, all planes and angles. Teeth and jagged claws. I don’t know. I don’t think any of it was real. It couldn’t have been. There were so many faces, and nothing in them but rage and hatred. I was sure they were going to kill me, but when I dropped my shields they just looked at me … and left. I don’t know why.”
“But you do, Silence,” said the Investigator. “Don’t you?”
“Please return to your seats,” said the AI. “I am preparing to land the pinnace.”
Silence helped the esper to her feet and got her seated before returning to his own station. The Investigator scowled at his back for a moment, and then studiously ignored him. The marines looked at each other and said nothing, though their expressions spoke volumes.
“I have tried to contact Base Thirteen,” said the AI, “but there is no response. The force screen around the Base is still in operation, and there is no sign of life or movement anywhere within range of my sensors. I am therefore assuming it is safe to land, unless you wish to countermand me, Captain.”
“No, Odin. Set us down as close to the Base as you can. Then put your sensors on full alert, and maintain all weapons systems at battle status, until I tell you otherwise.”
“Understood, Captain.”
The pinnace slowed to a halt a dozen yards from the shimmering force screen enclosing Base Thirteen, and settled gently onto the landing pad. Silence stared intently at the simulation covering the inner bulkheads, and for the first time was struck by the sheer size of the vast open space covered by the pads. The landing field had originally been intended to accommodate the massive starfreighters that built and established the Empire’s Base. Silence had been the Captain of one of those ships, and he could still remember the constant flow of traffic around Base Thirteen as the ships came thundering in from all over the Empire. Huge silver ships had covered the landing pads for as far as the eye could see, like so many huge abstract sculptures. And now they were gone, and the pinnace stood alone on the pads, dwarfed by the size of the clearing and the towering trees that surrounded it.
He withdrew from the sensors, and the scene vanished, replaced by featureless steel walls. Silence turned in his chair and nodded abruptly to his team. “I know you’ve all got a lot of questions, but you’re going to have to bear with me for a while. The situation here is very complicated, and the rough ride we had on our way down is just the beginning. I take it no one’s been badly injured? Good. Odin, damage reports.”
“Nothing significant, Captain, but it’ll be several hoursbefore the ship can lift off again. It’s the hull breach that worries me most. There’s a limit to what I can do without access to a stardock’s facilities.”
Silence nodded slowly. “Worst-case scenario?”
“If I can’t repair the hull, we’re not going anywhere, Captain. You could, of course, always call down another pinnace from the Darkwind, but there’s no guarantee it would arrive here in any better condition than us.”
“Wait a minute,” said Stasiak. “You mean we’re stranded here?”
“Ease off,” said Ripper quickly. “That was a worse-case scenario. Things aren’t that bad. Yet.”
“I have some questions of my own, Captain,” said the Investigator coldly. “This planet is officially listed as a scorched world. Nothing is supposed to live here anymore. But something was trying to kill us in that storm, even if our sensors couldn’t pick it up. And you knew what it was. You recognised it. I represent the Empire in all matters concerning alien species, and I demand an explanation. What was that in the storm?”
“The Ashrai,” said Silence.
“But they’re dead. Extinct.”
“Yes. I know. I told you the situation was complicated.”
“So what the hell was knocking the crap out of us on the way down?” said Stasiak. “Ghosts?”
Silence smiled slightly. “Perhaps. If ever a planet was haunted by its past, Unseeli is.” He hesitated, then looked quickly from one face to another. “Did any of you … feel anything, sense anything, on the way down?”
“Yeah,” growled Stasiak. “I felt sure we were all going to be killed.”
Ripper shrugged. The Investigator scowled for a moment, and then shook her head. Silence looked at the esper. “What about you, Diana? What did you sense?”
The young esper studied her hands, which were clasped tightly together in her lap. “They could have killed us all. Our force screen couldn’t keep them out, and our guns couldn’t hurt them. But at the last moment they looked at me and turned away. I don’t know why. Do you know why, Captain?”
“Yes,” said Silence. “Because you’re innocent.” He raised a hand to forestall any further comments or questions. “All right, pay attention. This mission was put together in something of a hurry, so you haven’t had much in the way of a briefing. That’s at least partly because no one really knows what’s going on here. And partly because I wanted you to come to this with open minds.
“Ten years ago, the Empire discovered that Unseeli was rich in important metals, and started mining operations. The main indigenous species, the Ashrai, objected strongly. They rose in rebellion against the Empire, aided by a traitor from within the Service, a man who turned against his own kind. The Empire troops were vastly outnumbered, and no match for the sheer ferocity of the Ashrai, even with their superior Empire weaponry. But they couldn’t afford to lose. The metals were too important. So they retreated offworld, called in the starcruisers, and scorched the whole damn planet from pole to pole. The metal trees survived unharmed. Nothing else did. Mining resumed soon after.
“But that’s not all of the story. The trees are not just trees. They cover ninety per cent of the planet’s surface, and are one hundred per cent metal. They contain no organic matter at all, but they are quite definitively alive. These trees were grown, not sculpted. Their roots draw metals from deep within the planet, isolating the heavy metals and storing them within their trunks. We don’t know how they do this. There is reason to believe the trees were genetically engineered. Certainly it strains credulity that something so amazingly useful could have evolved entirely by chance. Especially when you consider t
hat the particular heavy metals these trees store are ideally suited for powering a stardrive. Given the scarcity of such metals, you can understand why the Empire was prepared to do absolutely anything to ensure that the mining of Unseeli’s unique forest could continue uninterrupted.”
“Hold it,” said Frost. “Are you saying the Ashrai created these trees?”
“No,” said Silence. “Their civilisation was never that advanced. In fact, the original Investigating team uncovered evidence that suggested the Ashrai actually evolved long after the trees had first been planted. Which gives you some idea of how long these trees have been here.”
“But if the Ashrai didn’t genegineer the trees,” said Ripper slowly, “who did?”
“Good question,” said Silence. “Whoever it was, let’s hope they don’t come back to find out who’s been messing with their garden. Now then, where was I? Ah yes. There are twenty substations on Unseeli, overseeing the automated mining machinery as it destroys the forest’s roots so that the trees can be easily felled and harvested. Base Thirteen oversees all the other substations, and is the only manned station on the planet. Its personnel spend most of their time sitting around waiting for something to go wrong so they can go out and fix it. They last communicated with the Empire four days ago. We haven’t been able to get a word out of them since. At present, the situation is merely annoying, if a little disturbing. But if it continues, and the supply of metals slows as the mining machinery breaks down, the Empire could be in serious trouble. I’m afraid we’ve all become just a little too dependent on Unseeli’s riches. Any questions so far?”
“Yes,” said Ripper. “What are you doing here, Captain? It’s not usual for a ship’s Captain to expose himself to danger like this.”
“This is not a usual situation,” said Silence. “And I have … personal reasons for being here. Which I don’t intend to discuss at this time.”
“All right,” said Frost. “Let’s talk about Base Thirteen instead. A force screen is the last refuge for a base under attack. What could possibly have threatened them so much, scared them so badly, that they had to retreat behind a force screen to feel safe?”