Текст книги "Storming Heaven"
Автор книги: David Mack
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He scrunched his brows. “Why the hell would we want to do that?”
A grimace made her lips thin and disappear, then she mustered a weak and unconvincing smile. “Because we were ordered to recover anything we found and bring it back for analysis.”
Ilucci raised his voice in anger as he turned and looked up toward the distant Terrell. “Nice of somebody to tell me!”
“Chief,” Terrell said, sounding diplomatic but not the least apologetic, “we were under strict secrecy protocols. This whole operation’s been on a need-to-know basis.”
The military clichй lit the fuse on Ilucci’s temper. “And why would I need to know, right? I mean, I’m only the goddamned chief engineer! Just the tool-pusher who has to figure out how to cut this thing free and turn it into cargo! Why tell me anything, right?”
Theriault sounded oddly chipper. “Chief, it might not be that bad—look.” He turned back toward her. She was pointing at an empty nook on one of the wheel’s spokes. “This might be where one of the Mirdonyae Artifacts came from. Which suggests . . .” She stepped forward, clutched the nearest crystal on the wheel with both hands, and pulled it free with ease. Stumbling backward, she was filled with innocent glee. “Easy peasy!”
He shouted, “What’s the matter with you? Are you crazy?” The impetuous redhead held out the artifact toward Ilucci. Staring at the glibly plucked forbidden fruit being proffered by the object of his unrequited affections, Ilucci thought of Adam in the Garden of Eden. He held up a hand and shook his head. “No, thanks. You keep it.”
“Suit yourself, Master Chief.” She turned to look in Terrell’s direction. “Commander? I can’t get a reading on these things. What do you want me to do next?”
The first officer and Sorak were both on the way down to regroup with Ilucci and Theriault. “Take that crystal back to the rover and find some way to pack it safely for the ride back,” Terrell said. “We’ll dump some of the ship’s cargo so we can use the empty crates to box up the other crystals. Master Chief, we’ll need both rovers to move them to the ship, so have your team get Ziggy ready to roll. We’ll come back with Threx, zh’Firro, Dastin, and Cahow.”
Ilucci stared at the huge wheel, its spokes clustered with artifacts. “This could take days.”
“I estimate it will take us four days and twenty-one hours,” Sorak said.
“Then we’d best get started,” Terrell said. “The sooner we finish, the sooner we leave.”
Ilucci plucked an artifact from its cradle, tucked it under his arm, and started walking back to the rover. He said nothing, but his gut told him this mission would not end well.
12
Captain Khatami jolted awake in her quarters at 0418, instantly aware that something was amiss. The drone of the Endeavour’s warp engines had pitched upward by an octave, and she had felt a subtle moment of disorientation as the ship’s inertial dampers lagged a few thousandths of a second behind the change. She threw aside her bedcovers and was crossing the room to her desk when the intraship comm split the silence with an electronic boatswain’s whistle, which was followed by the voice of the ship’s second officer and gamma shift commander, Lieutenant Commander Paul Norton. “Bridge to Captain Khatami.”
A jab of her thumb on the comm’s controls made it a two-way conversation. “Khatami here. Report.”
“That Tholian battle fleet we’ve been shadowing since it crossed the border just took off at high warp, destination unknown.”
For several days, the Endeavour had maintained a close watch on the Tholian fleet, which until that moment had followed a course parallel to their territory’s border, albeit a few dozen light-years outside it, through the unclaimed sectors of the Taurus Reach. Khatami didn’t know what the sudden change meant, but she suspected it would not be good news.
“Set a pursuit course, then wake up Stano and Klisiewicz. I’m on my way.” She closed the channel and dressed in a hurry without bothering to turn on the lights. In less than a minute she was out the door and squinting against the harsh light in the corridor while she pushed her unwashed sable hair out of her eyes and smoothed it with her hands. A pair of ensigns, one human and the other Vulcan, held the turbolift for her as they stepped out of it. She sprinted into the waiting lift, gripped its control handle, and guided it toward Deck 1.
The doors parted with a pneumatic hiss, and she strode onto the bridge, which was as busy with comm chatter and routine shipboard activity in the middle of the night shift as it was during the day. Norton, a very tall and gangly man whose bald, narrow head reminded Khatami of a Crenshaw melon, vacated the command chair as he noted Khatami’s entrance.
“The Tholians are still pulling away,” he said. “Warp seven and accelerating.”
Moving with a grace that came from practice, Khatami stepped past Norton, pivoted on her right foot, and spun herself onto her chair. “Helm, increase to warp eight.”
Ensign Sliney answered, “Warp eight, aye.” The engines’ whining pitched up another note as the rail-thin Irish helmsman tested their limits.
The turbolift door opened again, and from it emerged Commander Stano and Lieutenant Klisiewicz. The lieutenant relieved his gamma shift counterpart at the sensor post, while Stano situated herself on Khatami’s right, opposite Norton, who handed a data slate to the captain. “We’ve been monitoring their communications,” he said, “but they’ve maintained subspace radio silence. Not a peep in or out.”
Khatami wondered aloud, “So, what changed?”
“Whatever it was,” Stano chimed in, “it lit a fire under them. Wherever they’re headed, they’re in a hell of a hurry to get there.”
Klisiewicz backed away from the sensor hood and shook his head. “It just doesn’t make sense. The Tholians are isolationists and xenophobes. They’re almost never this bold.”
“Except when they’re on the warpath,” Stano said. “Remember Ravanar IV.” Her comment drew dour nods of remembrance from the other bridge officers. Three years had passed, but no one had forgotten the Tholians’ ambush and destruction of the U.S.S. Bombay.
“I just hope we’re not being suckered off our patrol route,” Norton said. “This battle group is only a fraction of the armada we detected massing at the border. Who knows what the rest of those ships are doing while we’re chasing these?”
Realizing that Norton’s concern was sensible, Khatami asked Klisiewicz, “What possible destinations lie within a week’s travel on the Tholians’ current heading?”
“Too many to know which one might be their target. At least two dozen colony planets—some of them ours, some the Klingons’, and a few independents.” He seemed befuddled. “I’d say warn them all, but I can’t see what that’ll do besides start a panic.”
Stano frowned. “I’d have to agree, Captain. Until we know what the Tholians are after, there’s not much point sounding the alarm. After all, the Taurus Reach is still mostly unclaimed space. They have as much right to haul ass through here at warp eight as we do.”
“Be that as it may,” Khatami said, “I still think it’s worth sending up a red flag. Log the Tholians’ current speed and heading, and send that data on a priority channel to Vanguard.”
Norton lowered his voice to ask, “What if that fleet attacks one of our colonies?”
Khatami clenched her left hand into a fist. “Then we’ll have to step in.”
“But, Captain, they outnumber us twelve to one.”
A rakish smile. “What? Are you worried it won’t be a fair fight?”
His eyes widened, and he cocked his head nervously. “A bit, yes.”
“So am I,” Khatami said, “but I won’t just wait around while they look for more ships to even the odds. If twelve is all they’ve got, that’s their problem.”
Unshaven and out of uniform, Xiong bolted from the turbolift, crossed the operations center at a quick step, and ignored the shocked protest of Nogura’s yeoman as he passed her and entered the admiral’s office without breaking stride. T’Prynn and Nogura turned away from the large tactical display on the wall to face Xiong as he joined them. “Admiral? You said it was an emergency.”
“It is.” Nogura motioned for Finneran to stand down. “Lock my door, Ensign.”
“Aye, sir,” Finneran replied as the door slid closed.
Glancing at the admiral’s icon-covered star map of the Taurus Reach, the nearly breathless Xiong asked, “What’s going on, sir?”
“The Tholians know about Eremar,” Nogura said in his sepulchral rasp.
Dread became a swirl of nausea in Xiong’s gut. He looked at T’Prynn. “Are we sure?”
The Vulcan woman pointed at a cluster of orange icons shaped like slender isosceles triangles. “The Endeavour is pursuing twelve Tholian warships on a heading that leads directly to Eremar. The battle group is proceeding at what we believe is their maximum warp factor. We need to assume the Tholians know about the Tkon artifacts.”
Xiong knew as well as T’Prynn and Nogura did that the Tholians were going to Eremar not to research the ancient artifacts but to obliterate them—and that they would not hesitate to destroy the Sagittarius and her crew in the process. He struggled to rein in his temper as he asked T’Prynn, “How did the Tholians find out about Eremar?”
“I suspect the Orion slave-mistress Neera sold the information to the Tholians after the Omari-Ekon left Vanguard, but before it met with its . . . unfortunate accident.”
The admiral looked puzzled. “I thought Reyes wiped that data from the Omari-Ekon’s databanks after he copied it.”
“He did. As I feared, Neera must have realized the data’s potential value and kept a secret backup. In retrospect, it’s regrettable that we didn’t impound her vessel, but Starfleet regulations and political considerations made that . . . impractical.”
Nogura grimaced. “The damage is done. So, what are we going to do about it?”
“We warn the Sagittarius,” Xiong said. “Then we send the Endeavour to help them.”
“It might not be that simple,” T’Prynn said.
“Why not?”
“If we’re mistaken about the Tholians’ destination, sending a warning to the Sagittarius might alert them to our operation, and instigate exactly the sort of incident we wish to prevent.”
Her icy detachment stoked Xiong’s anger. “I think that’s a risk we ought to take.” He pointed at a huge cluster of triangular orange icons massed along the border of the Tholian Assembly’s declared territory. “The Tholians are primed for a major offensive. I think the armada waiting at their border is meant as a warning. They’re telling us not to mess with the battle group they’ve sent to Eremar.” Waving his hand at the rest of the map, he added, “If they were planning to invade the Taurus Reach, they’d all have come across at once, right?” Neither T’Prynn nor Nogura answered, so he continued. “If that fleet’s not heading to Eremar, where the hell is it going?” Fed up, he folded his arms. “We need to move on this before it’s too late.”
The admiral’s aspect was grave. “Mister Xiong, I know how much you have invested in your research of the Shedai and now the Tkon artifacts, and you’ve made it clear to us more than once how vital it is to protect the unique alien antiquities—”
“Screw the artifacts,” Xiong snapped. “I’m talking about saving our people. If the relics have to burn to get our ship back in one piece, so be it.”
His outburst seemed to catch Nogura by surprise. It certainly had come as a shock to Xiong himself. Until that moment, he hadn’t realized how much guilt he’d harbored over the death of his surrogate big sister, Bridy Mac. In many ways, the crew of the Sagittarius were like a second family to Xiong, and he couldn’t bear the thought of losing any more of them—not in the name of science, security, or anything else.
He hung his head. “Sorry, sir. I guess I got a bit carried away there.”
“Perhaps,” Nogura said. “But that doesn’t mean you were wrong.” He looked at T’Prynn. “I think Mister Xiong’s point has merit. All the evidence says the Tholians are going to Eremar. At this point, I think we should assume our mission’s secrecy is fatally compromised.”
T’Prynn was silent for a moment, then her brows arched upward. “I concur. Given the facts in evidence, I suggest we direct the Endeavour to take any steps short of preemptive attack to enable the crew of the Sagittarius to abort their mission and escape. While the recovery of the Tkon artifacts should remain a mission objective, I believe it should now be considered secondary to the safe return of our ships and personnel.”
“Then we’re all in agreement,” the admiral said. “Time to bring our people home.” He walked to his desk as he added, “Lieutenant T’Prynn, get word to the Endeavour, and take every precaution to keep the contents of that message encrypted.”
“Aye, sir.” The Vulcan turned to leave, Nogura sat down in his chair, and Xiong stood alone in front of the star map, feeling as if he must have missed something.
“Hang on. What about warning the Sagittarius? That’s our first priority, right?”
Nogura’s face slackened, and with a look he delegated the task of answering Xiong to T’Prynn. “We have no means of warning the Sagittarius crew,” she said. “Even if they hadn’t been ordered to maintain subspace radio silence for the duration of their assignment, their flight plan indicates their destination lies inside the emission axis of a pulsar. Until they’re clear of that high-energy phenomenon, we will be unable to reach them via subspace radio.”
“In other words,” Xiong said, “they’re deaf, dumb, and blind, and they have no idea what’s about to hit them.”
T’Prynn averted her eyes from Xiong’s. “Correct.”
Too angry to respond, Xiong headed for the door and hoped his friends’ homecoming wouldn’t be in the form of a memorial service.
13
Vivid hues of patriotism coursed through the communal thoughtspace SubLink of the Tholian battle cruiser Toj’k Tholis, and its commanding officer, Tarskene [The Sallow] telepathically shared his own colors of confidence with his crew. As the leaders of the attack group that had been dispatched to rid the galaxy of a dangerous abomination, it was absolutely essential that he and his crew project unity and assurance to their caste-peers on the other ships of their fleet. At the moment of action, he could brook no hesitation, no dissent. All must act as one.
Brightening his mind-line to convey an aura of authority, he inquired of tactical officer Lostrene [The Sapphire], Range to target?
Lostrene momentarily attuned herself to the ship’s sensing units, then she responded, Six-point-three-one million and closing. She relayed to the SubLink a kaleidoscopic array of images she had witnessed through the ship’s systems—an irregular network of artificial objects in a stationary formation around the pulsar, and a connective web of energies linking them all to one node that lay directly in the path of the neutron star’s radiation emissions.
According to intelligence sold to the Tholian Assembly by the now-deceased Orion merchant-princess Neera, that central node was their target—the source of the mysterious artifact she and her people had bartered to Starfleet in exchange for temporary safe haven at Vanguard, and which the Starfleet scientists allegedly had used to snare and yoke a Shedai to their will—until, predictably, the entity escaped in a fury of blood and flames, destroying their engineering vessel Lovell in the process. There were unconfirmed reports that there might be another such artifact on Vanguard, but Tarskene could not concern himself with that just yet. Studying the reports that Lostrene had shared, it appeared that all the other details of Neera’s report had been confirmed by the sensing units, and this pleased him. It meant the victorious completion of his mission was imminent.
The tactical officer’s mind-line darkened with shades of concern. The Starfleet vessel Endeavour remains on an intercept course, she warned.
Ignore them, Tarskene commanded, overpowering Lostrene’s muted alarm with a flare of courage. Arm all weapons and stand by to lock them on target as soon as we are in range.
Disregarding the Starfleet heavy cruiser was a calculated risk. It had been trailing the fleet ever since they crossed the border but had not yet given any indication that it meant to attack. It was Tarskene’s belief that the Endeavour’s commander was merely playing a futile game, harassing the fleet in the hope of intimidating Tarskene into abandoning his mission. That was not an outcome he would permit. At any cost, the Tkon artifacts had to be destroyed. And if the Starfleet vessel attempted to interfere in any way, his orders were to destroy it with prejudice.
Another shadow dulled the perfection of the SubLink. Tarskene opened his mind-line and sought out the lone voice of discontent. He was surprised to find its source was his first officer, Kezthene [The Gray]. In their many cycles of service together, she had never before challenged one of his priority directives. Crimson and violet tainted Tarskene’s thought-colors, revealing his irritation with his second-in-command. He sequestered her thoughts with his inside a private SubLink so that their conflict would not agitate the rest of the crew. Why do you resist unity?
The first officer’s thoughts coruscated with confusion. We have insufficient information to justify this action, she protested. The Orion’s intelligence specified neither the nature of her discovery nor what use it might be to the Federation. A military response seems premature.
Irrelevant! Tarskene’s fury turned his thoughts black. We have our orders.
Kezthene summoned the image from the sensing units. The platforms orbiting the pulsar represent an unknown technology. They should be studied, not destroyed.
He flooded her mind with facets of his memory. Heated debates among the members of the Elite Political Caste on Tholia. Moments of conflict against the Klingon and Federation interlopers. Worlds shattered, turned into clouds of debris. The message of his psionic montage was clear: this mission’s importance was more than strategic, it was existential. My directive from the Ruling Conclave is to destroy the source of those artifacts before Starfleet acquires any more of them. Their meddling with the Old Ones must be brought to an end.
Defiant hues coursed through Kezthene’s mind-line. What if the Federation is using the artifacts as weapons against the Shedai? Should we not consider doing the same? We could at least try to capture one of the Tkon devices for analysis.
Absolutely not, Tarskene fumed. Those objects were made to imprison the Shedai, but no trap can hold the Old Ones forever. Such a risk must never be permitted on a Tholian world. For the good of the Great Castemoot, we must destroy those objects before the Federation’s deluded scientists make the mistake of using them. Infusing his mind-line with the brilliant luminance of the command caste, he asserted his absolute authority. Will you join the crew in harmony?
Kezthene’s aura flickered briefly, telegraphing her uncertainty, but then her mind-line resolved into a steady pale hue of compliance. I will attune myself with the others.
Tarskene released her from the private SubLink, and she was true to her pledge. She calmed her thought-colors and synchronized them with his own. Together they guided the ship’s communal thoughtspace to a uniform golden radiance. Firm and resolute, they were of one mind, one purpose. Within moments their harmony spread to the other ships of the fleet, and then Tarskene knew they all were ready to enact the will of the Ruling Conclave.
Lostrene quelled a pulsing alert from the sensing units. The Starfleet vessel is receiving a transmission from the starbase, she advised. I am unable to decrypt it.
It is of no consequence, Tarskene assured her, and the others as well. Charge all weapons to maximum, and let me know the moment we reach optimal firing distance from the target.
Khatami reeled in dismay from the news Admiral Nogura had just delivered to her over the encrypted subspace channel. “Are you saying the Sagittarius is on . . . whatever that thing is?”
“That is exactly what I am telling you,” the gravel-voiced flag officer said, his head magnified to epic proportions on the Endeavour’s bridge viewscreen. “Their mission to Eremar is of vital importance, and we need you to escort them to safety.”
Lieutenant Thorsen looked back from the forward console at Khatami. His gloomy mood told Khatami the situation hadn’t improved in the last thirty seconds. “That’s going to be difficult,” Khatami said. “All twelve Tholian ships are locking their weapons on the statite inside the pulsar’s emission axis. There’s no telling what’ll happen when they open fire.”
Nogura’s fierce presence seemed to jump through the screen. “You need to make them hold their fire until the Sagittarius is clear. After that, the Tholians can do as they like.”
“We’re not exactly in a position to dictate terms, and the Tholians don’t seem interested in talking, but I’ll do what I can. Khatami out.” She glanced at Estrada and made a throat-slashing gesture with her thumb. He took the cue and terminated the comm channel to Vanguard. “Yellow Alert! Hector, find a way to punch through the pulsar’s interference and get a warning to the Sagittarius.” Swiveling her chair to the right, she said to Stano, “Hail the Tholian fleet commander again. Tell him we’re demanding a parley.”
Tense seconds bled away while Estrada and Stano worked at adjacent consoles, trying to raise anyone involved in this fiasco on a comm channel. On the main viewscreen, the Tholian fleet fanned out into a formation optimized for group bombardment of the underside of the statite upon which sat the Sagittarius, unaware of and unprepared for the Tholians’ impending assault. Obeying a gut instinct that told her this situation was likely to degenerate quickly, Khatami shot another look at Thorsen. “Charge shields, arm phasers, and load all torpedo bays.”
He checked his readouts as he worked. “Ninety seconds to weapons range.”
Khatami looked back in hope at Estrada, who shook his head.
Then Stano turned, one hand cupped over the Feinberger transceiver in her ear, and nodded. “I have the Tholian fleet commander.”
“On-screen,” Khatami said. The ring of Tholian warships on the viewscreen blinked to a fiery red haze, within which she discerned the faint outline of a Tholian. The multilimbed, crystalline arthropod gesticulated with his forelimbs and screeched like a drill bit grinding against neutronium. The universal translator rendered the noise into Federation Standard on a quarter-second delay. “What is the meaning of this intrusion?” It was a testament to the translator’s superb programming that it preserved the tonal quality of the Tholian’s outrage.
“Tholian fleet commander, this is Captain Atish Khatami, commanding the Federation starship Endeavour. We request that all vessels in your fleet power down their weapons so that we may carry out a rescue operation.” It was an off-the-cuff lie, one for which she hadn’t rehearsed her bridge crew. She hoped they would be able to improvise and keep up. “Another Federation vessel has crashed on the statite your fleet is targeting, and we have orders to render immediate aid to that vessel and its crew.”
“Captain Khatami,” said the radiant, nearly transparent creature on the screen, “I am Commander Tarskene of the Toj’k Tholis. What is that ship doing on the statite?”
“They were conducting a spectral survey of the pulsar when they experienced a malfunction in their navigational system.”
Tarskene slowly rubbed his forelimbs together. It struck Khatami as a cogitative gesture. Then he lurched forward and loomed large on the screen. “I do not believe you, Captain. If your lost vessel had successfully transmitted a distress signal, we, too, would have received it. But given the disruption the pulsar causes to subspace signals—especially within its emission field—I think it is extremely unlikely you have had any contact with a vessel on the statite. That leads me to two possible conclusions. First: There is a vessel on the statite, and you know about it because you are an accomplice to whatever covert mission led it there. Second: There is no vessel on the statite, and you are attempting to delay the completion of our assignment so that you may gain access to the statite. In either case, our course is clear: We proceed as ordered.”
Khatami sprang from her chair and strode toward the view-screen, mimicking the Tholian’s aggressive posturing. “Commander Tarskene, I assure you, there is a Starfleet vessel stranded on that statite. In the interest of interstellar amity, I am begging you to order your fleet to stand down until we have completed our rescue operation.”
“Your petition is refused. If there is a Starfleet vessel on that statite, its destruction will be its just penalty for trespassing. Now I will advise you to stand down and withdraw, Captain. If you attempt to interfere in our mission, your ship will be destroyed.”
The transmission ended, and the viewscreen reverted to the image of the dartlike Tholian ships deployed in a ring, their tapered bows all aimed at the statite. Khatami shot a look at Stano, who said, “They’ve closed the channel, Captain.”
“Hector! Any luck hailing the Sagittarius?”
“Negative, Captain. I still can’t break through the pulsar’s interference.”
Her pulse throbbing in her temples and clenched fists, Khatami felt the situation spiraling out of control. Her ship was outnumbered twelve to one, which made any solution predicated on the use of force perilous at best. Complicating the matter was the contentious political situation between the Federation and the Tholian Assembly; any act of overt aggression could instigate a full-scale war between the two powers. But if she stood by and did nothing, the Sagittarius would be destroyed, along with its crew and whatever they had been sent to find. Worse, she would have to live with knowing she had been a witness to mass murder, and had done nothing to stop it.
If only I had another minute, she realized. We could jump into the statite’s shadow and have a chance of hailing the Sagittarius. But what if they aren’t ready to leave? How would we buy them more time? How do we convince Tarskene not to—
Before she could finish weighing her options, the Tholian fleet opened fire.
Easy does it, Terrell cautioned himself as he lowered a Tkon crystal into the padded packing crate mounted on the back of his rover, Ziggy. Detaching the crystals from their spokes inside “the Pit,” as Chief Ilucci had nicknamed it, and then carrying them up to the rovers wasn’t strenuous work, but it was slow and tedious, and for once Terrell was glad that even on a tiny ship like the Sagittarius, rank still had its occasional privileges. As the designated driver for Ziggy, he got to break the monotony by making regular runs back to the Sagittarius to drop off each filled container and replace it with an empty one. He was pleased to see that Ziggy’s latest crate was almost topped off.
Through the faceplates of their environmental suits, he had observed the anxiety etched on the crew’s faces. None of them liked visiting the Pit, and a few of them—Ilucci, zh’Firro, and Threx—had said outright that it made them nervous. If the sinister aura that infused the alien arena was having any ill effect on Sorak or Razka, however, they were masking it expertly.
Razka and Threx emerged from the gap in the Pit’s outer wall. Each of them clutched a single Tkon artifact in their gloved hands. The Saurian scout stowed his fragile cargo inside the container on Ziggy’s rear flatbed, then the hulking Denobulan did the same. As they trudged back inside, Lieutenants Theriault and zh’Firro passed them, cautiously ferrying two more artifacts to the rover.
A glance toward the Sagittarius confirmed that Ilucci was on his way back in Roxy, having completed the delivery of another fully packed crate of artifacts to the ship’s cargo hold. With an empty crate secured to Roxy’s flatbed and only Ilucci aboard, the tough little rover sped and bounced across the barren waste that separated the ship from the Pit. Terrell thought the bleak vista reminiscent of a salt flat, minus the warmth and homey charm.
Theriault and zh’Firro packed away their latest contributions to Ziggy’s hold, and Terrell made two more check marks on his data slate. That brought the total number of recovered artifacts to nearly fifty-five hundred. They had been working around the clock, six-person teams operating in four-hour shifts, for three days, yet they had harvested fewer than half the artifacts they’d found inside the Pit. The work would have gone faster had they been able to drive the rovers all the way down to the machine, and faster still had they been able to use the transporter, but since neither option was available, they had done the best they could.
While he watched Ilucci pull up and park Roxy, Terrell pondered ways to enable his people to haul more than one artifact at a time out of the Pit. Backpacks were a bit too cumbersome to add to their environmental suits, and trying to carry the orbs one-handed was too risky—they’d already dropped and damaged one due to careless handling. Terrell wondered if it might be practical to attach woven-net pouches to the ends of poles they could carry across their shoulders, or perhaps attach up to four pouches to a pole that would be carried by two people, thereby doubling their productivity. He was about to ask Ilucci if he could jury-rig one when the ground under their feet lurched violently, knocking both men off their feet.
Sprawled beside Terrell, Ilucci looked appropriately alarmed. “What the hell is that?”
“Feels like an earthquake,” Terrell said, even though the notion was ludicrous. The statite was an artificial construct; it couldn’t be geologically active. Could it?
Another jarring vibration rocked the statite, and the two rovers lurched several centimeters off the ground, as did Ilucci and Terrell. The surface continued to shake and heave as the rest of the landing party scrambled empty-handed out of the Pit. Terrell looked up, fearful that one of the inward-curving towers above the Pit might have started to collapse, but the alien arena seemed unaffected by the tremors. The stars above, however, began to shift . . . and then he realized the stars weren’t moving—the statite was. If it turned far enough to expose the landing party to the full force of the pulsar’s fury, they would all die instantly.
