Part 14 (1/2)
”I don't know, Park. Look at the left-hand side, there. See it? There's something different there, a dark spot.”
The image on the screen was still growing steadily larger and clearer as thes.h.i.+p neared rendezvous. It was difficult for Wolf and Green to suppress their impatience as the asteroid's milky surface slowly became more visible. Soon it was obvious that the dark spot was more than a patch of different reflectance, and there were other faint mottlings and markings on the smooth surface, tinged with a cloudy green.
”It's some kind of a pit, Bey.” Green hunched closer to the screen. ”Maybe a tunnel. See where it angles down into the surface? I don't remember anything like that in any of the descriptions of Pearl.”
Bey was nodding his head in satisfaction.
”It's not a natural formation. Somebody's been doing heavy engineering there.
See how sharp those edges are? I'll bet that was cut with a big materials laser. Park, there's no way that Capman-or anybody else-could have done all that without a lot of a.s.sistance and equipment. You know what that means?
Somebody in the USF has been helping him-and whoever it was has lots of resources to play with.”
The computer interrupted his final words with a soft whistle. The orbit match was complete. They stared hard at the nearby asteroid. From a distance of one kilometer, Pearl filled a quarter of the sky. The whole surface shone with a pale, satiny gleam. It was smooth and unbroken, without any irregularity except for the exact, circular hole thirty meters in diameter that showed its black disk near the left side of the image.
They studied it in silence for a few minutes. Finally Bey moved over to the computer console.
”It's no good, Park,” he said. ”We can't learn much from here. There's nothing to see on the surface. We have to get a look at the inside. I'll bet that tunnel runs right through to the interior. We'll need suits.”
”Both of us?”
”Unless you're willing to stay behind here. I know I didn't come all this way to watch. The computer has everything under control on the s.h.i.+p. I think it's safe enough to go in close and jump the gap wearing our suits. Take us in to fifty meters, and let's go.”
The two men, fully suited, drifted across from s.h.i.+p to surface. The gravity of Pearl was too small to be noticed. They hovered a few feet from the planetoid and looked at it more closely. It was clear why Pearl shone so softly. Through the many millennia since Loge's explosion, the impact of micrometeorites had pitted the surface, to develop a matte, frosted coaling that caught and diffused the light from the distant Sun. Pure white alternated with greenish clouds in a patchwork over the sphere. The two men drifted slowly toward the tunnel. Near the edge, Wolf shone a hand torch downward. Deep channels had been scored in the smooth gla.s.s by heavy equipment. The hole narrowed as it descended, ending about fifteen meters down in a smooth plate of black metal.
Wolf whistled to himself, the sound thin and eerie over the suit radios. ”That disposes of the idea that n.o.body's allowed to land on Pearl. Why would anybody put in an air lock down there if it's just an empty sh.e.l.l?” He looked down the steep-sided hole. ”Ready to go down, Park? All we need now is the White Rabbit.”
They floated together downward to the big portal, untagged the outer door, and went inside. Green took hold of the port, then hesitated for a moment.
”Should I close it, Bey? We don't know what we may be getting into. There could be anything inside.”
”I don't see that we have much choice. Either we go in or we go back. I'm expecting to find Capman behind the door and John La.r.s.en with him. If you want to stand guard outside, that's fine-but I'm going in.”
Green did not answer, but he pulled the outer door firmly shut and dogged it with the clamps. There was at once a hissing of air.
”Don't a.s.sume that it will be breathable,” warned Wolf as the inner door swung open. ”John should be here, and the atmosphere may be his idea of nice fresh air.”
Green snorted. ”Bey, give a USF man some credit. Anybody who grew up off-Earth would no more try and breathe untested air than want to live back down onEarth and breathe your soup. Look at the second display panel in the helmet inset. It's registering 6-S. That means it's safe to breathe and a little less than half Earth-normal for pressure. All the same, I'm going to keep my suit closed. I suggest you should do the same.”
The inner door was slowly irising open. A pale green light filtered into the lock from the interior of the planetoid. With the port open to its full thirty-meter diameter, the whole of the inside of Pearl became visible. In complete silence the two men drifted forward together, looking about them.
The inner wall of Pearl had a smooth, s.h.i.+ny finish that had been missing on the exterior. No meteorites had marred its perfection. The inner surface was a perfect globe, a little more than a mile in diameter. In the center of the vast, arching chamber, tethered to the wall by long, glittering struts and cables, hung two great metal structures. The nearer was itself another bright sphere of steel or aluminum. Bey, eyeing it thoughtfully, wondered at the source of the materials that had been used in its construction. Certainly they had not come from Pearl itself. Considering the energy needed to transport materials from the main system, it seemed certain that the ball must have been built from metals mined on one of the sister asteroids of the Egyptian Cl.u.s.ter. Bey estimated that the sphere was a hundred meters across. A long tubular cable led from the port where they had entered to another lock on the sphere's smooth face.
The second structure could only be a s.h.i.+p. That made no sense. Bey looked around him again. There appeared to be no way that the vessel, forty meters across at the widest point, could have reached the interior of Pearl-or, once there, could ever leave it. His eyes followed the guide cables that led from the s.h.i.+p to a slightly darker section of the inner wall, directly opposite to the point where they had entered. It had to be a concealed exit. Other cables, running to empty areas in the interior, hinted at the sometime presence of other s.h.i.+ps, moored to the inner surface in the same way.
The surface of Pearl, with its wall of translucent gla.s.s, provided an efficient conversion of incident solar radiation. The suit thermometers indicated an ambient temperature quite comfortable for human habitation. The inside was lit with the faint sunlight that had been transmitted through the outer walls and suffused about the interior. There were no shadows except those thrown by the torches that Wolf and Green were carrying.
At first Pearl seemed completely silent, a dead world. As their ears adjusted, Wolf and Green became aware of a deep, m.u.f.fled pulsing, felt more than heard, filling the interior. It came from the metal sphere at the center of the asteroid, regular and slow, like the working of air or nutrient circulators or the beating of a vast heart. Nowhere through the great s.p.a.ce of the central bubble was there any other sound or sign of life.
Park Green finally broke the spell. ”I'm beginning to think I don't know anything at all about the USF. There's no way this place can exist. That s.h.i.+p up there must be unregistered, and if Capman came here in it I can't even guess where he could have started out from. Not Tycho, that's for sure.”
Wolf grunted his agreement. His instincts told him that something was very wrong. He had come to Pearl convinced that he would find Capman and La.r.s.en there. If that were true, surely there should be some sign of their presence.
He looked again at the metal sphere ahead of them. Without speaking both men moved to the great hollow cable that led there from the entry port.
As they started along it, the sheer size of Pearl came home to Bey. The far wall looked close at hand, but the vaulted interior of the asteroid could easily have contained tens of millions of Earth dwelling units. They progressed along the cable until their entry lock behind them had shrunk to a small black dot. They both felt more comfortable when they had finally reached the sphere and entered the lock on its s.h.i.+ning face.
The first rooms were clearly living quarters. The furnis.h.i.+ngs were simple, but there was expensive automated equipment to handle all routine ch.o.r.es. Bey, seeing the food delivery system, realized how long it had been since they had eaten. He looked at Green.”What do you think, Park? a.s.suming that's in good working order, are you ready to risk the air in here?”
Green was looking hungrily at the dials of the robochef. He nodded. ”I think we're safe enough, as long as we don't go through any air locks. This area is a standard USF automat life support, with a few VIP luxuries thrown in. Take a good look at that menu. I'll bet you don't eat Uke that back on poor old Earth.”
Unsuited, they felt a good deal of the tension evaporate. There was still no sign of life, and by the time they were ready to continue their exploration, Bey had become convinced that the whole sphere was uninhabited. After the living quarters came three rooms crammed with monitors and control consoles, exactly like the general control room for a form-change lab-similar, and yet dissimilar. It was bigger than anything Bey had ever seen, bigger even than the research center facility at BEC.
”The tanks should be behind that wall,” he said, explaining to Park Green what they had found. ”But I don't think we'll find John there. Somewhere, I missed the point. I was sure I was right, then-”
He shrugged and looked about him. Four years earlier he had thought he knew what Capman was doing-only to find that he had been outthought every step of the way. It could happen twice. Capman had expected him to unravel the skein that led to Pearl. If necessary, John La.r.s.en could provide a little prompting, since it was clear that he had been in constant communication with Capman ever since the change to a Logian form. Once he knew that Bey was on the way, La.r.s.en had promptly disappeared.
It all sounded so logical-but so unlikely. Bey wasn't sure that he could explain to Park Green just how they had been guided here like a couple of puppets.
While Wolf stood there in silence, Green had been looking closely at the control panel.
”Bey, I know I'm no expert on this stuff, but look at the readouts. They all seem to be from one tank. Could all these be from one form-change station?”
Wolf came forward also. He studied the panels for a few seconds, his face puzzled. ”It looks like it, I admit. But there are far too many monitors for one subject. There have to be three hundred of them. I've never seen anything nearly as complicated for one experiment. I wonder if it could be ... ”
He stood, unwilling to state his own belief.
”You and your companion are quite correct, Mr. Wolf,” said the speaker grille above the console. ”This is indeed all one experiment.”
CHAPTER 21.
”Capman?” Wolf swung around swiftly to face the grille.
”No, I am not Robert Capman. I am an old friend of his. In fact”-there was a hint of amus.e.m.e.nt in the light, musical tone-”I could fairly say that I'm a very old friend. Welcome to Pearl. I have heard a great deal about you from both Robert Capman and John La.r.s.en.”
Green was looking around him in confusion. ”Where are you? The only way out of here looks as though it leads to the tanks.”
”Correct. I am in the tank area. It is quite safe for you to proceed through at the moment. I am maintaining the atmosphere at the same level as in the rest of Pearl.”
”Should we come through?” asked Wolf.
”Come through by all means, but be ready for a shock. You perhaps consider that you are past surprise, Mr. Wolf, but I am not sure that the same is true for Mr. Green.”
”But where are Capman and La.r.s.en?”
”Far from here. Mr. Wolf, the conversion of John La.r.s.en to an alien form was completely unexpected. It added a new dimension to an activity that was already vastly complex. But it also provided great benefits. Part of theexplanation of our activities is not mine to give, and you must hear it from Capman. Part, however, I can tell you. Come through into the tank.”