On Qronha 3, the Ildiran and human skyminers maintained their uneasy truce, but Sullivan Gold wanted to cement their ties. They were colleagues, after all, not competitors. They should help each other out. They had a common enemy and a common goal. There was no reason at all to be aloof. Lydia would have scolded him for not being a good neighbor, for not taking over a gift of food or inviting the Ildiran miners for drinks. But he doubted Hroa’x would be interested in socializing.
However, when Sullivan undertook a brash project that he thought the Ildiran skymine chief might find interesting, he decided to shuttle over to the big Ildiran skyfactory. It was the sort of thing good neighbors did, in a spirit of cooperation and mutual need. He approached unannounced, and the Ildirans did not receive him with any particular warmth, but at least they didn’t warn him off. He usually handled this sort of situation with persistent friendliness.
Sullivan landed on one of the breezy decks high above the gas giant’s clouds. Stepping out, he stared at the immense complex. The Ildirans did everything on an overblown scale, with bulky equipment and inefficient ekti reactors and ten times as many people as the work required. Ildiran personnel were everywhere—not just miners and reactor operators, but their families, support staff, maintenance technicians, and innumerable others. He would love to send a team over just to tinker with their machinery, pump it up a little, improve it . . . but he supposed that would be in bad form.
By now his lead engineer, Tabitha Huck, had already launched her unmanned explorer drone; since it would take almost an hour to descend to the appropriate depth, he should have enough time to talk to the reticent Hroa’x.
Sullivan wandered around inside the huge skyfactory complex. Apparently Ildirans weren’t overly concerned with external security; none of them paid him much attention, until he stopped one to ask for directions. It was a woman, bulky and broad-shouldered, her features just a bit too alien to be attractive to him. “Please tell me how to find your chief skyminer Hroa’x. We’re old friends.” She looked at Sullivan as if assessing whether to answer his question, then pointed up a steep metal stairway.
Inside a humid and noisy chamber, Hroa’x was inspecting the pumps and compressors that throbbed like the slow heartbeat of a sleeping giant. The skyminer looked at his human counterpart. His eyes were heavy-lidded with lack of interest. “I do not have time to give you a tour today, Sullivan Gold. Your business here will have to wait.”
Sullivan conjured up his most winning smile, which had never failed to tip negotiations in his favor. Though the chief skyminer had not raised his voice, Sullivan needed to shout above the din. “Oh? Even if it’s an emergency?”
“Is it?”
Sullivan shuffled his feet. “Not really, but I’m sure it’s something you’ll want to see. Trust me!”
The small communicator at his hip chimed. “We’re in position, Sullivan,” Tabitha Huck said. “Shouldn’t be long until we close in on those anomalies.”
Sullivan gestured to his Ildiran counterpart. “That’s even faster than I expected. Come on, Hroa’x. I’ll explain on the way up to your control center.”
The Ildiran miner grudgingly led the way to a high tower nexus where dozens of Ildiran technicians and crewmembers operated monitors and the long, trailing sensor-whiskers of the big facility.
“After looking at the logs, we estimated the depth at which your Adar Kori’nh encountered the hydrogues. Considering that forty-nine warliners sacrificed themselves, we assumed there might still be some wreckage that had descended to an equilibrium depth in the vicinity. Our first wave of tiny scanners found several floating density anomalies, and so today my lead engineer sent down an unmanned explorer drone capable of providing real-time imagery.” His eyes sparkled. “We might even be able to see the wrecked warglobes. Wouldn’t that be something?”
Hroa’x turned to him. “Why would you wish to do that? You are a skyminer, not a military officer or a rememberer.”
Sullivan worked with one of the Ildiran technicians to adjust their screens to the appropriate band. When they began to receive the explorer drone’s signals, the screen showed only swirls of clouds and vapors, barely distinguishable from random static. “Your military commander sacrificed himself and a lot of battleships to drive the hydrogues from Qronha 3. It was . . . a historically significant event. We can witness part of it here.”
“I am not a rememberer. It is not my task.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever met anybody as single-minded as you.” Sullivan tried a different approach. “On Earth, about five centuries ago, we built a fabulous luxury ship called the Titanic, which was considered the greatest passenger vessel of all time. But it sank in a supposedly unreachable portion of our oceans. Because the Titanic was such an intriguing icon, lots of explorers made risky descents into the depths just so they could see the wreck. The ship grew into a cultural fascination, and finally it became a memorial.”
The skyminer’s expression did not change. “I fail to see any relevance to our situation.”
Exasperated, Sullivan said, “All those dead warglobes, and any Solar Navy ships we can find, are each like the Titanic. You defeated the aliens here on Qronha 3. Aren’t you proud of that? Wouldn’t your rememberers like to see what’s left, if only to include it in the Saga of Seven Suns? Wouldn’t your Adar Zan’nh be interested? It might score you some points with him.”
“I do not need to earn any advantage with the Adar.”
The screens flickered, and Sullivan saw a brief shape, a glint, and then a shadow. The explorer pod changed directions and moved in. Tabitha’s voice came over his communicator. “We’ve got something, Sullivan.”
He tapped an acknowledgment, still waiting for Hroa’x to understand what he was saying. “Okay, I can see I’m not getting through. Look, we’re doing this on our own initiative, Hroa’x. Our cloud harvester is operating at full capacity, and the crew doesn’t have much to do except check the monitors and switch out ekti tanks when they’re full. We planned this project in our spare time. It seemed like a good use of our off hours.”
“My crew can always find work to do,” Hroa’x said.
Sullivan couldn’t conceive what all these Ildirans did to keep themselves busy. “Ah yes, work expands to occupy the number of people available.” He chuckled, but the chief skyminer found no humor in the comment. “Look, there’s no downside here. We aren’t asking you to participate, so there’s no risk or cost at all to you—but I intend to share with you all the images we take. Why not? We’re good neighbors, and I thought the Ildiran Empire would find them useful. Any military information has ramifications for our skymining activities—for defense and preparation, if nothing else.”
Hroa’x finally gave a stiff nod, to indicate that this was an acceptable reason for the odd investigation.
On the screen, the perfectly geometrical shapes of two looming warglobes drifted into view as the explorer drone centered in. The immense spheres studded with triangular protrusions looked like electron micrographs of pollen spores. One sphere was cracked open from a giant explosion, no doubt the impact of a Solar Navy warliner; it hung dark and quiet, like an empty shell made of blackened diamond. The second warglobe appeared intact, but just as dead.
Seeing the awesome images, Hroa’x stiffened, finally impressed and uneasy. The Ildiran workers muttered in both fear and surprise.
“No energy sources detected, Sullivan,” Tabitha said. “Those warglobes are at ambient temperature, not emanating in any frequency band.”
“Keep looking . . . but be careful.”
“I’m going inside the broken one,” Tabitha said. “Yes, I’ll do it carefully, Sullivan. Don’t have a stroke.”
The view from the explorer drone swerved around as it approached the open wound in the dead hydrogue sphere.
“Exercise caution. Extreme caution.”
“I already promised you that. They’re dead, Sullivan.”
Sullivan had been excited to see if he could find these wrecks, but now he didn’t want to provoke any response. What if something had survived? Lydia would have scolded him for not letting sleeping dogs lie. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all.
The explorer drone cruised through the wide-open wreckage, puttering along serpentine corridors and upside-down geometries, doors that were in the wrong places, cubes and pyramids connected with troughs that looked like circuit lines. It was all utterly incomprehensible to him.
“We’re recording these images for our next dispatch back to the Hansa,” Tabitha said.
“Make sure the Ildirans have full access to this data as well.”
“I don’t suppose they’ll share the research expenses?” she said snidely, as if she had forgotten Hroa’x and the others were listening.
“This is a gesture of our good faith. What helps us against the hydrogues helps everyone.”
“Whatever you say.”
As Tabitha took images for the better part of an hour, the wondrous strangeness built up to a surfeit of incomprehension. Hansa scientists and EDF experts would scrutinize every second of footage, but Sullivan couldn’t stare forever. Hroa’x already looked anxious to get back to the work routine that called him like an alcoholic’s obsession for a drink.
Tabitha’s explorer finally retreated, following her recorded path back out of the dark wreckage into open space, then began to cruise closer to the less-damaged hydrogue sphere. Its outer surface was stained, as if from a blast of heat, but the shell had not cracked or shattered.
“Hey, I’ve got an idea. I’m going to ping it with an active probe pulse. A lot of pieces inside might still be intact, and it’ll be a valuable addition to our scans. So far, everything’s been completely innocuous.”
“Don’t press your luck, Tabitha. Passive observation is one thing, but I don’t want to stir up—”
She had already sent out her signals, playing a deep scan over the outside of the dormant warglobe. A return spike suddenly and unexpectedly came across the broadband sensor channel. “Whoa, that’s quite a reflection!” Tabitha said. Then the signal came again, louder, and modulated twice. “And . . . uh, that’s not my probe pulse.”
A glimmer of light awakened like a tiny match being lit at the center of the darkened warglobe. Sparkles shot like phosphorescent plankton through the shell, wavering in the depths.
“She has disturbed it,” Hroa’x said, his voice gruff. “This is very ill-advised.”
“Enough, Tabitha! Cease your probe scans.” As the warglobe continued to brighten, Sullivan reached a decision. “Trigger complete shutdown . . . uh, as quietly as possible. Get rid of the explorer drone before that drogue becomes aware of it. I don’t want it tracking us back up here.”
“But we’re still getting good telemetry. Don’t you want to see what happens?”
“I’m already afraid of what might happen. Trigger it, Tabitha. Now. Complete shutdown. Make it into a dead rock.”
There was a burst of light and then the screen images went blank.
“If the hydrogues are not truly vanquished here,” Hroa’x said, “then they may return. That one surviving craft could summon other warglobes.”
“Sorry about that.” Sullivan slowly shook his head. “Our work just got a hell of a lot more dangerous.”
The Ildiran skyminer turned to look at him. “Perhaps you humans should abandon your cloud-harvesting facility and go home.”
Sullivan’s heart was still pounding with alarm. “Are you going to leave?”
“I have a mission to complete. I will stay.”
“Then our facility stays, too.” Even so, he decided to tell his crew to keep their bags packed and their eyes open. “We’ll just be more careful from now on.”
“Caution may not be sufficient,” Hroa’x said.
“No, but it’s better than giving up too soon.”
The miner kithman nodded, as if he finally could understand the human’s attitude. “Very well, Sullivan Gold. But if you will excuse me, I have significant work to accomplish, especially now that our time may be limited—thanks to you.”