Chapter 25: Discovery.

The white spot of the cutting laser crawled slowly across the black and rust surface of the vault door. As it moved, the spot left a river of molten metal behind, a river that dripped from the deep cut onto the concrete floor. The spot was cutting along a circular path centered on a pilot hole. The small bore had been cut through into the cavern beyond, and then a camera and light source inserted. The camera showed a large hemispherical cavern receding into dark. The volume illuminated by the light was filled with ancient equipment and massive machines, with more extending into darkness. Whatever hazard might exist beyond the door was not obvious. Everything appeared quiet. Atmosphere samples showed no detectable poisons, toxins, or contaminants.

Arthur Linder crouched over the drill's control panel, guiding its movements. The rest of the ground party stood well back and watched the operation from behind darkened lenses. Eventually the incandescent plume that marked the laser spot ceased. The interior camera had detected the first laser light within the cavern and had automatically cut power to the drill. They would now have to slice slowly through the last few centimeters of metal to prevent the laser from damaging the cavern's contents.

Everything went black for Lars as the spot disappeared. He lifted his goggles and rubbed his eyes to remove the green afterimage.

"How long to finish the job?" he asked Linder.

The scientist's shrug was expansive as he stretched aching back muscles. Three hours crouched over the drill had left him stiff. "Another hour, I'd say."

"Want me to spell you?"

"Think you can stay in the groove?"

"I think so."

"Then have at it, and thanks."

Sands took Linder's place at the control panel and lined up the crosshairs on the sighting screen. The vault door was a meter-thick sandwich of alternating soft and hard metals. The plug they had cut was two meters in diameter. It would have long since sagged under its own weight except for the wedges they'd driven into the lower cutting channel for support.

Lars's own back ached before he finally finished cutting away the last metal holding the circular plug in place. His success was signaled by a hollowclunk that could be felt through the soles of their feet as the heavy plug settled a few millimeters. Sands shut down the laser and made sure that its safety interlocks were engaged.

Park Eald, the computer specialist, strode forward while the cut metal still glowed a dull red. He pulled the camera from the pilot hole and inserted an oversize eyebolt. He then used a two-meter long metal barto screw the bolt into place. After it was well seated, he carefully threaded maxi-filament line through the eye, then snaked it down the tunnel to where a winch had been anchored to bedrock. He energized the winch, and then stood back with the rest of the onlookers while the mechanism took up the slack.

The filament line drew taut, and then all progress seemed to halt for a few seconds until there was a loud screech of metal against metal. They watched as the circular plug began to slowly extrude from the hole.

When the plug had been pulled back three quarters of a meter, it overbalanced and crashed to the floor.

The roar echoed the length of the tunnel as everyone waded through a cloud of choking dust to cluster around the still glowing hole. Close to the cutting face, there was a strong smell of ozone. Paolo Renzi sent a beam into the cavern beyond the vault door, playing its spot across the same machinery they had photographed with the camera. Beyond the vault door, machines that had once been the hope of humanity patiently awaited the return of their masters.

Three days later, Paulo Renzi made an announcement at dinner. The evening meal was a formal affair for the team, a time when they discussed the day's progress. In the early days, the meal had been marked by jokes. No longer. The endless labor was beginning to take its toll on everyone.

"I've found a data base with technical details of the energy screen experiments," Renzi announced without fanfare as he peeled back the cover on an emergency ration and made a face at what he found inside.

"How complete?" Linder asked. The geologist had dark bags under his eyes. At Renzi's announcement, he seemed to momentarily forget his fatigue.

"Hard to tell. We'll have to do a complete catalog check, then organize the data into some sort of intelligible structure."

"Yet you believe it is what we came after?"

"I do," Renzi replied. He paused to bite the end off a nutrition bar, and then chewed it slowly before continuing. "Though I've only scanned the summary, I can already give you a fair explanation of the basic science of energy screens. It seems that our ancestors discovered a unique solution to the space tensor equations."

"And forgot it again?" Professor LeBlanc exclaimed. Unlike the rest of them, he showed few signs of strain after nearly two weeks on the ground. "How is that possible?"

"It wasn't so much forgotten as downgraded," Renzi explained. "We use the space tensor equations for many of our own technologies. They are essential to the operation of neutrino detectors, for instance.

What the scientists here attempted to do was to apply them on a much more massive scale than anyone ever thought possible."

Sands listened as the scientists lapsed into their arcane lingo and Renzi explained the mathematical principles behind what the ancients had done. He gathered that they had managed to turn an infinitesimally thin shell of the space-time in upon itself. The result was a closed surface through which neither matter nor energy could pass. As the expedition leader spoke, Sands envisioned what a cloud city equipped with an energy screen would be like.

If the screen were flickered fast enough, light would pass, but gas molecules would not have enough time to traverse the boundary of the screen. In effect, the screen would replace the city's gasbag. As heconsidered the implications, Sands realized that he had been thinking too parochially. Rather than build a cityinside a screen, one could suspend it below in the manner of an ancient terrestrial balloon. All atmosphere could be pumped from the giant silver sphere, leaving a vacuum filled shell to provide the ultimate in lifting power.

With such a screen, there would be no practical limit to how large a city might grow. Sands pictured cities hundreds of kilometers in diameter floating serenely among the clouds, equipped with defensive energy screens to be turned on at the first sign of danger. Such cities would fear neither their neighbors nor the weather.

Sands sat with his back against the wall and chewed listlessly on a nutrition bar while he listened to the scientists' excited chatter. He was only dimly aware when Kimber entered the dining hall and sought him out.

"Captain McCarver is on the comm. He wants to speak to you."

"What about?"

"He didn't say."

Kimber led him to the office they had converted into a comm center. Sands sat down in front of a screen that displayed the features ofVixen 's captain. He was frowning.

"Ah, there you are, Sands!"

"What's up, Captain?"

McCarver frowned even more. "Perhaps nothing. I just got a call from the Yerban flagship."

"What did they want?" Sands asked. The Yerbans were sponsoring the most elaborate of the current archaeological expeditions. Their ground party was excavating the ruins of both Athens and Rome.

"I need to discuss that in person. I have sent Forbes down to fetch you back. He'll be there in an hour."

"The sun has already set topside," Sands reminded him. "Wouldn't it be better to wait until morning?"

"No."

"Very well, Captain. We'll fire up the landing beacon and I'll be ready when the boat arrives."

"Do you have to go?" Kimber asked after McCarver had signed off.

"'Fraid so. Don't worry, I'll be back tomorrow or the next day."

"I'll miss you."

He took her in his arms and kissed her. "I'll miss you, too." With that, she accompanied him to where they had laid out their sleeping bags side by side and helped him into the environment suit he had shed less than an hour earlier.

"What's so important that we couldn't discuss it on the comm?" Sands asked. He was in the chamber just insideVixen 's midships airlock. It felt odd to be back in zero gravity after so much time at one gee.

After Earth's oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere, he was not sure he liked the normal sound of his voice. Hehad never noticed before how much he tended to squeak.

Captain McCarver was helping him out of his suit. "The Yerban expedition detected a ship decelerating to take up parking orbit, then lost it when it disappeared behind the planet."

"Did it land?"

"Possible. More likely, it transferred to a different orbit and turned off its beacon. Space is a big place and it's easy to hide if you want to."

"What ship was it?"

"That is what they were interested in. Since we were the last to arrive, they thought it might be part of our expedition. I told them it didn't belong to us."

Sands frowned. A mystery ship that had not communicated during its approach and had then disappeared ... he could think of only one possibility. Since McCarver had been unwilling to discuss it on an open comm channel, he had obviously come to the same conclusion.

"It's the Northern Alliance, of course."

McCarver nodded. "That is the way I would vote."

"Damn it, Titania was supposed to report when they launched!" Sands exclaimed, thinking about the agent Arvin Taggart had planted in the Cloudcroft Museum. They had assumed the lack of news meant the Alliance expedition was still being organized.

"They were more clever than we gave them credit for. It's easy enough to disguise a spaceship's true destination."

"How?"

"Any number of ways. The most straightforward is to send a ship drifting out along Saturn's orbit a few million kilometers before diving for the inner system. With luck, Sky Watch will never notice the drive flare."

"If itis the Alliance," Sands mused, "then they may attackVixen . What can we do to protect this ship?"

"Depends on the attack," McCarver replied. "We don't stand a chance against missiles. Maybe we could repel boarders, maybe not. If you want to be completely safe, I recommend that we break orbit and head for home."

"The timing's lousy!" Sands said. He went on to explain Renzi's discovery.

"Even so, all nonessential personnel should be returned to the ship immediately. That will allow us to evacuate the planet quickly if we have to. Remember, the landing boat only carries three passengers."

Sands mulled the problem over, then nodded. "Point well taken. I think we'd better talk to Renzi about this."

"You'll be wanting to head back down in the morning then."

"No, it would take too long. We'll just have to chance eavesdroppers."

"Right," McCarver said. He led Sands forward to the communications compartment. As they floatedinside, Lars pulled himself into the operator's seat and strapped down. He keyed the signal that would bring the ground party's communicator-on-duty running.

"Hello, my love," Kimber said, smiling out of the screen at him.

"You should have gone off duty hours ago!"

"I had nothing better to do. Besides, I was hoping you would call."

"Where is Professor Renzi?"

"In the vault. He and the others are poring over the data he found."

"Get him."

"Right," she said, turning away from the camera. It was at that moment that the scene shivered as something shook the camera mount. An instant later, a loudwhump! issued from the bulkhead-mounted speaker. Kimber snapped her head around to look at something behind her, but out of camera range.

Other voices were yelling in the background. Suddenly, wild eyed, Kimber turned back to face the camera. "Help, we are under attack. I repeat, we are under..."

Suddenly, the screen went black.

Chapter 26: Disaster.

"We've got to get down there!"

McCarver shook his head. "You'll have to wait at least four hours."

"For God's sake, why?" Sands asked.

"It's the middle of the night, remember?"

"Forbes can put down in the dark. He proved that a couple of hours ago."

"He had the beacon and a well lighted landing pad. You will have neither. The boat is not equipped for a night landing in the wilderness. You'll just have to wait for dawn."

"Damn it, they could all be dead by dawn!"

"They may already be dead," the captain replied coldly. "Neither you nor I can do anything to help them until the sun comes up. All we can do is lose more people in a foolish attempt at action."

Sands growled, yet admitted to himself that McCarver was right. When that screen went dark, a chill wind had begun whistling through his soul. It was still blowing. If he were to be of any help to Kimber at all, he would have to ignore his emotions.

The chronometer slowed to a crawl as they planned their strategy and waited for dawn. There would only be three of them going down to the planet. McCarver and his chief engineer would stay aboard to maneuver the ship in the event the Alliance vessel attempted to rendezvous withVixen . That left only the freighter's apprentice third mate to go down to the planet with Sands and Forbes. The apprentice third mate was also the captain's younger brother.James McCarver arrived in the airlock anteroom suited up and cradling a riot gun in the crook of his arm.

He carried two more of the weapons slung over his shoulder. The weapons were from the space freighter's small armory, and had been reloaded with explosive armor piercing rounds. Sands did not ask the captain how it was that a spaceship carried such guns. He was merely happy they were available.

Whether they would be any use against Alliance Marines was something Lars had no desire to find out.

"Take care of him," the captain said, referring to his brother. "He's just about all the family I have in the world."

"I'll bring him back safe and sound, Captain."