The Deep Dark Well Read online

  “And nothing has evolved in the thousands of years to take the large predator slot?”

  “The robotic custodians would not allow it,” said the computer.

  Pandi tensed at this last statement. Her experiences with robots had not gone well in general. She made sure the selector on her rifle was set to burst fire, shape charge ammo.

  “There is nothing to fear,” said the computer. “The custodial robots are harmless.”

  Pandi wasn’t sure, but she had to relax sometime, and fatigue was eating at her. She walked carefully into the forest, not content to sleep on the edge, where anything entering the chamber would be sure to find her.

  After she had hiked a couple of kilometers through the thick canopy she found what she was looking for. A small clearing with good overhead cover. A pool of spring water occupied the center of the clearing. The temperature was cool, in contrast to the rest of the hot and steamy jungle, probably mitigated by the effect of the spring.

  “I need to get some sleep,” she said, looking at the soft, moss covered ground. “Make sure to wake me if anything dangerous approaches.”

  “Of course.”

  Pandi lay on the ground, leaving her helmet on to use the padding as a pillow. She glanced around her, still a little nervous about trusting herself to anything having to do with this station. But within seconds nervousness left her, as the cool surroundings of the glade calmed her, and sleep took her into its grasp.

  * * *

  Gerasi stared at the face of the creature revealed in the transmission from the station. It looked mostly human, but different in some ways. Disproportioned. The head was too big, the bald dome too smooth. A hand gestured, a hand with too many fingers.

  “Genetic engineering,” he spat, the rest of the bridge crew looking up with fearful eyes. Genetic engineering was against the dictates of the God who had made the human race perfect as it was. Genenging was the work of the Satan, and all creatures of Satan were to be destroyed.

  “Please, help me,” said the creature in perfect Galactic Standard. “Please, I have been alone so long.”

  The eyes of the creature shone with pure fear, the voice quivered with anxiety. Either the creature really was terrified, or it was one hell of an actor. And of course everyone knew the minions of the devil were actors extraordinaire.

  “The systems of the station are breaking down,” continued the voice of the creature. “Barbarians are at the gate. It is so good to see some civilized creatures again.”

  “Is he assuming we mean him no harm because of our technology level?” asked the captain.

  “If he assumes we mean no harm,” answered the admiral. “If it isn’t a trick.”

  “Please, hurry,” continued the being. “I need assistance with the station systems.”

  The creature continued with its transmission, while Gerasi sat his chair. If it was telling the truth the station was open before them. It would be simple to take it and begin to unravel its secrets. If it was lying, then he might be leading his squadron into a trap.

  “Contact Dolphin and Tiger Shark,” he ordered. “Get them moving toward the station. And tell them to be on the watch for treachery.”

  Chapter 11

  We have found the remains of a thousand civilizations out among the stars. Civilizations that grew from the minds of sentient creatures no longer extant. Civilizations rise and fall, but the cycles of any sentient species seem to have a built in limit. All we know is that no sentient species has so far proven eternal, and most last less than a million years.

  Report of the Galactic Archeological Survey

  Two huge shapes pulled away from the squadron, heading toward the Donut at one gee acceleration. Vengeance watched them through the wormhole viewer he had opened. Real time viewing through the small aperture, only the edge distorted by the gravitational lensing.

  “Damn,” he cursed. He had hoped that all of them would have come forward into his trap. He wouldn’t have destroyed them all, only a quarter of them. The others he would have allowed to run back to the safety of the perimeter, to quiver in their suits at the close call they had escaped, not knowing he could destroy them all. But only when they had gotten within two billion kilometers, the optimal range of the graviton beam for the purpose he proposed.

  Vengeance could pull them into range, using the attractive power of the beam, but he could only pull four at a time, as that was all the large projectors he had powered up and in alignment at this time. The rest would back out of range of the attractor beam, gaining enough velocity to escape.

  So he would wait. Wait for the ships to come closer, and possibly the others to follow.

  * * *

  Admiral Miklas Gerasi kept a close watch on the two warships he had sent ahead. They were on the center of the tactical display. Screens throughout the bridge were linked into the views sent back by the ships. Data constantly streamed back to the flagship’s computers. Communications personnel were in constant touch with all departments of the scouting ships.

  They should be able to take care of themselves. All of the ships of the squadron were of the same design. The only difference between the flag and the rest were the extra communications and computer resources needed to command a complete squadron. As far as he knew his squadron was as powerful as the combined fleets of all the powers within the system.

  They should be able to take care of themselves. And if he were sure of that he wouldn’t have sent them ahead as scouts. He didn’t know what defenses the station contained. Possibly none. Possibly enough to defeat the combined resources of the Nation of Humanity and all of its enemies.

  “Range, ten million kilometers and increasing,” said the navigation officer. He had been ordered to give their location every million kilometers inwards, even though the displays showed the numbers.

  Already thirty-three light seconds inbound. Thirty three seconds before they would know if anything happened to the two ships. Over a minute for a round trip transmission between the scouts and the rest of the squadron.

  Gerasi felt the sweat bead on his forehead. He knew the bridge was kept at a very comfortable temperature. But he hated being out of immediate contact with members of his command. When he had been a ship’s captain he hadn’t that worry. All of his command was always a nanosecond away. As commodore there had been some concern, but normally his division of two or three capital ships had stuck together. But as admiral, he had to detach units to beyond the reach of his command all the time. It was just that this situation was different from patrolling the reaches of the Nation, where you could always get support within a couple of hours at most. Here there was no support. His task force was it.

  He chuckled to himself as a thought crossed his mind. When he was a captain he relished the idea of being out of the range of his squadron commander. Even as a commodore he was still the king only when his division was separated from the rest of the fleet. Commodore Elishas must be worried about moving out of support range of the squadron, but still fired up about being on her own.

  “Sir,” interrupted the science officer. “Gravimetric sensors show several anomalies ahead.”

  “What kind of anomalies?”

  “Unknown. But some kind of severe fluctuations in the gravity field of space.”

  “A point source of mass?” asked the captain. “Or the artificial gravity of a ship?”

  “Could be a point source,” agreed the science officer. “Neutronium or such. It would have to be a monster of a ship to give those kind of readings.”

  “Nav sensors show nothing besides our ships,” said the navigation officer.

  “Transmit data to Commodore Elishas,” ordered the admiral. “Keep a tight analysis on those fluctuations.”

  Just another thing to worry about. It probably meant nothing. After all, the space around a black hole was supposed to be alive with bizarre phenomenon. But it didn’t feel right.

  * * *

  The huge cylinder rotated into place. The wormho
le com link made the distance between it and its control center meaningless. The wormhole sensor link made the distance between it and its target meaningless. The unit powered up, energy flowing along the millions of kilometers of power cables within the cylinder. Gathering at the conversion chambers. Power spiked to maximum, as the beam of gravitons, the messenger particles of gravity, streamed through the expanding wormhole sensor link. Target, the Nation of Humanity battle cruiser Dolphin.

  * * *

  The engineering crew of the Dolphin were about their normal business. Basically their business was to be there when automated systems malfunctioned. Or when damage occurred during battle that needed to be repaired quickly. Currently all fusion generators were on line, powered up to three quarters full. All that was needed for alert status. It was always good policy to keep a reserve. The matter/antimatter generators were off line at this time. That much energy was only needed when the space destroying drive was on line.

  Crewmen and women were dressed in their battle gear, hard composite armor panels over environment suits, proof against most of the types of hard radiation one might find in a space battle. Helmets were for the most part detached, hooked to belts or set on stands near duty stations. Everything was running smoothly and efficiently. Inertialess drives were tuned perfectly, energy storage packs at full charge. Cooling systems were damping the heat of fusion reactors to the radiators on the skin of the ship.

  Everything was running smoothly and efficiently, until disaster struck without warning. The first inkling the engineers had that something was wrong was when objects sitting on shelves or workstations began to slide and fall to the floor. Within moments these same objects were flying through the air, followed by helmets and other heavier objects. Then the crew had to grab onto whatever was at hand, or be pulled across the floor toward a gravity source much greater than that generated by the ship’s artificial field.

  The central fusion center was hit the worst, and the first. The large room was sucked free of atmosphere, a roaring wind pulled into the high center of the chamber. Crew grabbed for helmets, then quickly for holds to keep from being pulled along with the air. The environmental systems struggled to dump enough air into the room to keep it stable. Not enough, not nearly fast enough.

  Here objects were swept into the point, to disappear in a flash of light. To disappear from sight, but not from the Universe. A helmet swept in, obliterated in an instant. A crewman was pulled in, his screams over the intercom squelched at the instant of his contact with the point, though it took a moment for the gory mess of a disrupted body to be pulled in as well.

  Survivors belted themselves to whatever was available, using the safety straps provided on their environmental suits. These were the witnesses to the next phase of the destruction. Braces pulled loose in silence from the nearest fusion reactor, crumpling like tin foil as they struck the point source, to disappear. The closest crew followed, belts tearing, or bodies and suits coming apart under the inexorable pull of gravity. Only those furthest from the source were to survive, for now, though the pain of tidal forces brought screams of agony over the ship’s intercoms.

  Matter was squeezed together by the terrific concentration of gravity. Even compressed beyond the resistance of the electron shells. Charges flowed from protons, turning all into a mass of neutrons swathed in a thin shell of electron liquid. Gravity increased as more gravitons entered the mix, informing time and space of the existence of mass that didn’t really exist.

  The point source began to move, forward, pulling in more and more matter, as it crushed its way through the bulkhead to the next compartment.

  * * *

  “Commodore,” yelled the engineering liaison from his station. “We are under attack.”

  “From what?” asked Elishas. She was still trying to puzzle the data on the anomalies sent from the flagship. And there had been no warning of any kind of attack.

  “We don’t know,” answered the officer. “But it’s tearing the engine rooms apart.”

  “On screen,” she ordered. Immediately an image formed, of a distortion of glowing air, swinging swiftly through the antimatter reactor room. Objects flew in blurs into the object, ripped from their places. A cooling pipe tore loose as they watched, to disappear in a flash.

  “If it ruptures one of the antimatter storage tanks,” said the hushed voice of the navigator.

  Yes, thought Elishas. If it ruptured an antimatter storage tank the Dolphin would be reduced to a great number of small particles moving from the center of the explosion with great speed. Then the point was through the next bulkhead and moving forward. The bridge crew breathed a sigh of relief. A short-lived sigh.

  “It’s coming forward,” cried the science officer, echoing the thoughts of others.

  The ball of neutronium was indeed coming forward, growing more massive with each traverse of a chamber, pulling crew and equipment into its embrace. The ship shuddered from the assault as bulkheads began to buckle. The view screens followed its progress. To the relief of the commodore it stopped, in the exact center of the ship. Already a thousand tons of matter had been compressed. A small proportion of the ship, to be sure, but still a threat.

  Billions of kilometers away the graviton beam was switched off. Instantly the source of gravity that had pulled the thousand tons of matter into a microscopic neutronium sphere disappeared. Matter could not exist in such a concentration without sufficient force pulling it together. There were still sufficient charges within the ball to generate the natural repulsive forces of like charged matter.

  Within a nanosecond of the removal of force the ball exploded outward, particles reaching an appreciable fraction of the speed of light. This explosion in itself would have destroyed the vessel beyond recognition. The rupturing of the antimatter storage tanks, followed closely by the destruction of the negative matter pods, assured that little in the way of matter was left to clog the lanes of space.

  * * *

  Dolphin flared as a brilliant light on the view holo, followed an instant later by the form of the Tiger Shark. Bridge crew covered their eyes instinctively, though the display would never reproduce light powerful enough to damage eyesight.

  “What happened?” demanded the admiral, his mouth dropping open at the spectacle of the complete destruction of two of his vessels. No warhead he knew of could have destroyed them so quickly, or approached so invisibly.

  “Should we move the squadron back?” asked the captain nervously.

  “Yes,” said Gerasi, his voice hushed. “At flank speed.”

  “Helmsman,” yelled the captain, “full speed astern. Transmit orders to the rest of the squadron to do the same.”

  “Stop us when we are another billion kilometers out,” ordered the admiral.

  “You don’t intend to run from this display of power?” asked the captain incredulously.

  “We don’t even know what it was,” answered Gerasi, strength creeping back into his voice.

  “The gravitation anomaly spiked just before the destruction of the two vessels,” said the wide-eyed science officer. “Ejecta consisted of neutrons, gamma particles and microscopic particles of matter. It will take some time to completely analyze the remains from this distance.”

  “We sure as hell are not going to get any closer to that thing until we figure out what happened,” said Gerasi. And what then. He couldn’t go back to the home system empty handed, especially with the loss of two capital ships. But what good to sacrifice all the vessels. All the crews.

  “Transmission coming through,” said the com officer.

  “Put it on,” ordered the admiral.

  The creature appeared on the holo. No longer looking frightened. Its voice no longer trembling with fear.

  “How did you like my little pyrotechnic display?” it asked, a smile cracking its narrow face.

  “You were responsible for this?” yelled Admiral Miklas Gerasi, waving a fist at the holo. Of course the creature would not be able to respond
for over an hour round trip transmission. He couldn’t wait till he had the creature in his grasp, able to communicate by means of voice and pain, instantaneously.

  “Of course I was responsible for this,” said the creature. “Oh, don’t look so shocked, my dear admiral.”

  “You, have instantaneous communications?”

  “Of course,” it replied. “Only primitives such as yourselves do not.

  “I had hoped that all of your little ships would have stepped into my parlor. Then I would not have to worry about watching your vessels, filled with semi intelligent monkeys capering about their controls. Now you have been warned. Stay away from the Donut. If you approach closer than two billion kilometers you will never again see the stars of your home. Bring this warning back to the men who sent you. This is my space, and mine alone, and I do not intend to share it with any half evolved protohumans.”

  “And what name shall I give my Patriarch, when he asks who gave this ultimatum to an admiral of his fleet?”

  “Tell him Vengeance gave the ultimatum. Tell him Vengeance awaits whatever he might send to test my resolve.”

  The holo went blank before Gerasi could reply. The admiral stared into the display of stars that took its place for a moment.

  “Halt the squadron,” he ordered.

  “You don’t mean you believe him about the two billion kilometer limit?” asked the captain with a shaking voice. “The crew will not like being so close.”

  “He would have destroyed us already if he meant to,” said the admiral. “Besides, who commands here? The crew, or me?

  “I want an analysis on the remains of the two vessels he destroyed,” said Gerasi, as he left his seat and headed for his day cabin. “Keep me informed.”

  * * *

  Vengeance’s head hurt, an aching, throbbing pain, as it always did after so much time awake. He held his head in his hands, trying to will the pain away, but knowing that the pain would not recede until he lay down. And lying down meant oblivion, at least for a time.