What Price the Stars? Part 6

“This is an unprecedented disaster,” Rosencrantz grumbled as the party tromped down Inscrutable’s ramp.

“Please keep quiet. You’re ruining the mood,” replied Alexi.

The professor complied, but he did not cease to glare at the guards arrayed in gleaming black powered armor. They flanked a red carpet that led from the foot of the ramp to a yawning opening in the wall of the gargantuan hangar bay.

The foundry was like no space station that Michael had ever visited. The hull was made of a translucent golden matrix which was neither metal nor plastic, but something in between. While the deck was solid enough to bear the weight of the travelers and their ship, currents and eddies of light and color flowed beneath their feet. Strange shapes and lights moved far below, lazily navigating the depths of presumably solid matter.

The armed guards were mundane by comparison, but terrifying. Each man wore a parti-colored cockade secured to his helmet by a clasp of crossed keys. Michael knew the symbol well. These were men of the long-lost Pervinco Legion, the mailed fist of the church during the Little Dark Age. A thousand years ago, they had annihilated the Cybercaliphate to the last braintank before sacking Old Asia. The Legion vanished with the rise of the Second Soviet, and everyone agreed that it was a good thing.

This is not going to go over well back home, Michael thought. Rosencrantz was acting like a child, but he was a good barometer of public sentiment. The winner was going to need a damned good PR department.

Led by Jørgen, the group approached the opening. Large enough to admit a brace of Skymaster spaceliners, the lintel above it was a single slab of...something. Its face was alive with movement. A swarm of immense eyes coalesced and focused on them. Michael’s feet moved slower and slower, as if they had a mind of their own. Li and Rosencrantz also drew up short, gaping in awe at the haunted door.

Alexi noticed that the men were no longer following. “What’s wrong?” she demanded.

Rosencrantz pointed at the mobile, interested eyes of the lintel. “That. What is it?”

Alexi shrugged. “It’s a nanotech decoration of some kind, I guess.”

“We cannot be sure of that,” Li said.

“It seems rather more...intelligent...than a mere decoration,” Rosencrantz stammered.

Alexi parked her fists on her hips and laughed. “Such bravery! You rail against Luddites, but you won’t pass a door because it frightens you? But please don’t let me encourage you. If you remain out here, it’ll be that much easier for me to win.”

Stung into action, Michael hurried to join her. Li and Rosencrantz were right on his heels. He caught up with Alexi and Jørgen in time to overhear a snatch of whispered conversation.

“...but what is it, anyway?” asked Alexi.

“It is called The Watcher, for obvious reasons.”

“But what does it do?”

“It watches, Lapooshka.”

Michael chuckled to himself. For all of Alexi’s shameless flirting, Jørgen was as glib with her as he was with anyone else.

They passed the door without incident, but the twisting, queerly organic passage beyond it brought no more comfort. It seemed to Michael that they were spelunking the entrails of some gigantic beast. Nevertheless, Jørgen led confidently through the branching pathways. Michael was impressed, until he noticed that Jørgen was following a black line painted on the floor.

“The first time I came here there was no clue. It was touch and go for a while,” Jørgen said, as if he was reading his thoughts.

“Didn’t the church provide you with a guide?” Michael asked.

“There was no church here then.” Jorgen replied.

The alimentary corridor ended at a stout door of human make. Jørgen opened it, and the party dutifully trooped through. They gasped in unison.

They stood inside a dimly lit cavity big enough to house a small continent. Distance and gloom smeared the details of the walls and ceiling into abstract greyness. The floor was featureless, and smooth as glass. It was interrupted by random, waist–high lumps of opaque amber glass and, in the distance, an isolated cluster of boxy portable buildings. Lit by a few glinting floodlights, these were almost swallowed up by the vast expanse, like a sand castle on an empty beach.

“There is Wrightstown. We are late. Follow me,” Jørgen said. He struck off toward the buildings at a brisk clip.

“What is this room?” Michael called, puffing to keep up.

“It is the Hall of Receiving,” Jørgen replied. “The Himalayas would fit inside with room to spare.”

“What is received here? Asteroids?” puffed Alexi.

“Your guess is as good as mine. No one knows.”

Winded at last, Rosencrantz staggered to a halt. He leaned heavily on a shapeless mass of golden glass. “Mister Pangloss, slow down!” he wheezed angrily. “I’ve heard enough of your cryptic talk for a lifetime. You make a mystery out of everything, even this room. Surely the miserable church knows what they use it for?”

“Why should they? They didn’t build the foundry,” Jørgen said.

“Who did, then?”

Jørgen pointed at the block beneath the professor’s hands. “Perhaps you should ask him.” he said, a wily twinkle in his eye.

Rosencrantz peered down into the murky glass. Suddenly he backpedaled away, nearly felling Li on the process. “What is it?” he screeched.

The contestants rushed to look. At first, there was nothing. The dark glass was filled with currents of living shadow. But when a colorless eddy swept just beneath the surface, the occupant was briefly revealed. It was not human. Huge eyes with pinpoint pupils stared up from a narrow, fishlike head. At the point where the creature’s long neck joined its torso there was a ragged tear that nearly bisected its torso. A mass of shredded flesh protruded from it. Whatever this thing was, it had died a violent death.

A flow of honey–color obscured the ghastly vision. The contestants looked up to find Jørgen grinning at them. “Unfortunately, he’s not very talkative,” he said.

“Is it an alien?” asked Alexi, a quaver in her voice. Until now, no one had found the slightest evidence of intelligent life elsewhere in the galaxy.

“It is a Grig. The Grig built the foundry a billion years ago. They called it the Watchtower of the Byways. Here, they conjured forth the engines that enabled them to leap from world to world. They are long dead, and the foundry is mine.”

Though he hung back as far as he might from the entombed Grig, Rosencrantz had recovered a little of his courage. “A hyperdrive. A surviving church. Alien life. These things are galaxy-shaking. Why have you kept them secret?” he demanded.

“Because you were not yet ready to know. A criminal must serve his sentence before he can be released. Mankind’s long imprisonment will soon end, and a universe full of unforeseen miracles beckons to him. But with freedom comes a terrible responsibility. Though the cell door is open, the lock is not broken, and the hand that wields the key is stronger than ever. What is loosed today may be bound tomorrow, and the sentence meted out to the recidivist will be harsh beyond reckoning.”

Rosencrantz was indignant. “You speak as if you are all humanity’s judge and jailer!”

Jørgen nodded solemnly. “I am,” he said.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8