The lights of the power suit were adequate to illuminate the sides of the shaft as Pops and Rick continued their descent. The hole remained twelve meters in diameter, more or less, as far down as they could see, and the walls were rough-hewn out of the cometary ices.
They had only gone down five meters when they encountered the first side tunnel. By the time they had gone down a hundred meters, they had seen dozens, going off in all directions, ranging in size from three meters across to less than one.
The two hovered in front of one cross-tunnel and Pops directed a spotlight inside.
"I think that's a door," Rick said. There was a hinge mechanism visible on the side.
"It's probably the outer door to an airlock," Pops said. "Since there isn't an interior door to go along with the one laying on the surface, that means that this tunnel had to be open to vacuum when the outer door was opened. So unless these critters are really off the wall, they must have airlocks in each of these cross-tunnels. We do that ourselves in asteroid installations, but it's for emergencies. We always have one big one at the top of the tunnel. I wonder why they don't?"
The two continued down. More than 150 meters below the surface they came to a cross-tunnel much wider than the shaft they'd come down in, and set down on a closed door much like the one on the surface.
"Well, we can go in deeper by opening this door, or we can see where this big corridor leads," Pops said.
"Open the door? How?" Rick asked. "It's probably locked and the mechanism isn't powered."
"No, but my suit is," Pops replied.
"Oh."
"But I don't see any reason for going deeper. We're ignorant of the damn comet so we might just as well try the easy route. Sothis way or that way?" he asked, pointing to their two options.
"To the right," Rick said.
It was easier for Pops to use his suit jets and carry Rick than to walk in the trivial gravity with gripfields. They had just started off when they got a call from the ship.
"What are you guys doing?" Bob asked. "I gather you haven't seen any Phinons."
"Not yet," Rick said. "These tunnels give me the feeling that I'm in some kind of abandoned mine."
"Reminds me of looking through a microcamera while it threads through an ant colony," Pops added. "A dead ant colony, though. I don't think anyone's been living here in a good long time."
As they proceeded through the big tunnel, they noted that the sides were dotted with many doors, identical except for diameter. They were ready to pick one at random when the tunnel ended in a hemisphere, also dotted with doors, all of them closed except for one, standing open like an invitation.
Without comment, they went through.
Just inside was a second door, opened inward. "Told you they were airlocks," Pops said.
The door led into a large chamber, one side roughly a hemisphere, and the other flattened, but entirely covered with peculiar shallow depressions, clearly paired, each pair outlining an elongated figure eight.
"What do you make of that, Rick?" Pops asked.
"Beats me," Rick said. "But have you noticed that since we've entered the comet, other than the doors, we haven't seen anything like what you'd find in, say, an abandoned human asteroid colony?"
"Like what?"
"Like the Phinon equivalent of walnut paneling on the walls, or cheap carpeting, or broken furniture in the corner not worth salvaging. We might just as well be in that ant hill you mentioned."
"There are light fixtures on the ceiling," Pops said. "At least, that's what I assume those tubes are for." Rick looked in the direction Pops was pointing.
"Okay, an ant hill with electric light," Rick said.
At the end of the chamber was a single door. It was closed. Like with all the doors they'd seen, on one side was a triangular knob. Pops turned it clockwise and it wouldn't budge. A counterclockwise twist and slight tug and the door opened. Unlike the entry to the chamber, this door was not part of an airlock. They went through, on foot this time since the door was too narrow to fly through together, and Pops shone the searchlight around.
"Ah. Technology," he said.
"Judas Priest," Rick whispered softly.
As Pops moved the beam around, now and then a brilliant reflection of blue or green or diamond white would come back from the huge and baffling array of oddly twisted and contorted instrument panels. "Indicator lights," Rick surmised about the reflections.
To the two humans, it was all a confused mess.
"Lieutenant?" Pops said, calling the ship. There was no answer. "Lieutenant? Where are you, Bob?"
"Bob?" Rick called himself.
"Right here," came back, and Rick found that he'd been holding his breath. "Sorry. I was in back running a statistical package on the structure of the tunnels. I'm up in the bubble again," Bob said.
"Just wanted to make sure you're recording this on the ship, too," Pops said. "We've found something interesting."
"Flash me what you're seeing through your cameras."
"Okay," Pops said. "I'm panning around this room. Now, you're our expert on Phinon technology, Rick. What do you make of all this crap?"
"I'd guess it's some kind of control center. But God only knows what it's supposed to control. Zoom in on one of the panels." Pops complied, and Rick continued. "That's pretty typical. Indicator lights, always circular, dials and knobs, but nothing ever calibrated. Or at least not in any way that we could figure out. I guess whichever Phinons operate these panels are just supposed to know how much to turn the knobs given whatever situation. And none of the lights are red. We think the Phinons might see in a spectrum that extends farther into the UV than ours, but not as low into the red. But that's just speculation."
"But every single control uncalibrated?" Pops asked. "Ye gods, there're millions of them in here. Bob, I'm going to pan around this room and get it all recorded. Hey, there's a table over there with some, uh, things on it." Pops went to the table. "Any ideas on this stuff, Rick?"
"None of it looks familiar. Looks like plumber's cultch," Rick told him.
" `Cultch'?" Pops repeated, the question obvious.
" `Good junk,' " Rick translated.
"We'll take some of these pieces with us on our way back out," Pops said. "I'm done recording by the way. There's another door at the end of this room, Bob. Closed, but maybe not locked."
The door came open with no trouble at all, and Pops and Rick found themselves in another long tunnel, openings without doors lining its length, oriented in all possible directions. The tunnel curved away at the limit of their searchlight. They went down the tunnel and stuck their heads into each room. All the rooms were small chambers, empty, roughly of sixty cubic meters' volume, though the actual linear dimensions differed for each.
"What do you make of this tunnel, Pops?" Rick asked.
"Storage areas? Phinon apartments? Beats the hell out of me. But we seem to be heading in a less and less interesting direction."
Pops turned his searchlight directly ahead again and now they'd come far enough to see the end. "Another door," he said. "Let's try that one, and if it turns out to be a loser, we'll try another direction."
"Okay."
Pops opened the door, they went through, and stood there in stunned silence, just looking around. Finally, Pops said, "Well, we wanted interesting. This fits the bill."
"I saw a picture like this once," Rick said. "It was of the dead they found in the Nazi death camps after the Second World War. Bodies stacked like cordwood. Of course, they weren't Phinon bodies."
Stacked all around them in nearly every possible place were bound bundles of dead Phinons. The bodies were entirely desiccated, but it was unclear to them whether or not they had gotten that way from their exposure to vacuum, or if they'd been dried out before being stacked and strapped together.
"So, you've found the Phinon graveyard." It was Bob. Pops and Rick had almost forgotten that he was watching through the video link. "I'd love to try to figure out what their views are of the afterlife from this display."
"You'd think you'd get a creepier feeling from looking at something like this," Rick said. "But, hell, Phinons use hydraulics. If you didn't know they'd been alive you'd think you were looking at bundles of used parts from an earth-moving-machine junkyard. It's all knobs on the ends of steel struts and pistons and tubes."
"That may be, but their physiology is fascinating. I've been studying that stuff Chris gave us from the bio group. The steel of their bones isn't particularly high grade, but it's still steel. Some of their tendons are actually like strands of steel cable, and others are just plain steel rods. But that hydraulic fluid they use is really interesting stuff. It's a little more viscous than pancake syrup usually, but it looks like the Phinons can release some kind of hormone into it and it suddenly turns rock solid. That would pretty much give it an unbreakable grip."
"This is all very interesting," Pops said. "But what do you want us to do? I'm beginning to think we're not going to find much more on this comet than this."
"I agree with Pops," Rick said. "This comet is as riddled with tunnels as it could be. It's probably been mined out, so to speak. The refinery on the surface is probably just extracting what volatiles are left that are worth using."
"Okay," Bob said. "But we'll have to see some more comets to know if this one is remotely unique or not. Guys, cut a couple of those dead bodies loose and bring them back to the ship. Oh, and get the bodies from different stacks, preferably two stacks way far apart. It might make a difference. Then come on back up. I'll be station keeping right above the hole."
Rick stepped aside from the display and showed the results of the most recent neutrino scan to the others. "Same sort of thing," he said. "That makes an even dozen."
Pops inspected the screen and asked, "Any variation in the network of tunnels?"
"Yes, but very slight. At every comet we've visited, the web of tunnels always has exactly eight main tunnels that come out at the surface, and each tunnel supports a web work that intersects with the others at exactly one point deep in the interior, and that one connects to the hangar hole." The "hangar hole" was a sixty-five-meter-wide shaft they'd found at each comet bored deep into the core. Their best guess was that the Phinon ships landed inside since there wasn't any evidence of landing facilities on the surface of the bodies. "And all of these comets are abandoned except for those little refineries."
In the past three days the Hyperlight had visited twelve cometary bodies through this local cluster, crossing several light-hours in the process. They had yet to find any Phinons other than the stacks of dead ones.
"I say we try a different cluster," Bob said. "Maybe we'll have better luck there."
"I've been thinking," Pops said, "about why we haven't had any Phinons come to find us yet. Maybe they can't track ships in hyperspace at all. At least, not over any great distance."
"That doesn't make sense," Rick said. "Even though we can't do it, we do have a pretty good theory for how to build a hyper-radar. We just haven't had time to do one. So they must have Oh, I see what you mean. It might be another one of those things they missed."
"Could be," Bob said. "But I'm not going to count on it. Any idea how they found Michaels the first time in OEV 1?"
"Well, they had a year or so to watch a high energy jet heading out from Sol for the halo. They could have seen it coming with a decent telescope," Pops replied.
"We might as well get going," Bob said, heading forward to the pilot's bubble. He hated to admit this to himself, but he was actively bored. Rick could enjoy looking at negative results from investigating the comets, and even though he'd descended with Pops to some of the comets, all the suspense had been gone after the first drop. For most of this trip, Bob had been steering the ship and commanding two other men to do that which those same men had to tell him was the best thing to do.
He took his seat, checked the navigation data, then said, "Hyperdrive in one minute. ETA a little under two hours." He lined the Hyperlight up and watched the rainbow dazzle of the stars during the now routine transition.
An hour later the general quarters klaxon sounded.
"Holy shit!" Bob exclaimed, coming instantly out of a light doze in the pilot's seat.
Ordinary Dykdar works in hyperspace, as long as it's only looking for something else that's in hyperspace. Two of those somethings were suddenly to starboard of the Hyperlight, two million kilometers away but closing the distance rapidly.
Bob immediately dropped them to sublight.
"What the hell is going on?" Pops said as he joined Bob up front.
"Two ships, in hyperspace. They gotta be Phinons. I went sublight. Now I'm scanning with Dykdar to see if they're going to come out with me." If one ship drops out of hyperspace one second before another, when both are sublight they'll be at least 24 light-seconds apart. Thus, Bob and Pops waited for Dykdar echoes to return to the ship.
"I'll get the weapons ready," Pops said. "Shields are at full."
Bob called back to the middeck. "Hey, Rick! Strap in. I may have to push this bitch to the limit!" He didn't wait for an acknowledgment, and realized he was running at a million RPM right now.
He felt a hand on his shoulder. "Settle down, soldier," Pops said. "This is supposed to be fun. And I have some scores to settle."
Bob smiled at the comment. "There. We have a return."
"Yeah. And they're scanning us, too. Once they have us fixed they're going to go hyper and pop out right next to us, I bet. That's what I'd do." Dogfighting strategy with hyperdrive capability had been the prime topic of conversation among "in the know" military pilots ever since the Phinons showed up.
Sure enough, two blazing streaks appeared ahead of the Hyperlight, at the end of which were Phinon spaceships. Now sublight, they were coming in fast. Bob turned the Hyperlight to starboard and down at 90 gees.
"Those ships are identical to the ones that pounded Slingshot," Pops said.
"Yeah. The `eight man' model. They've turned to follow us," Bob said. "And one of them is coming right smack up our ass. One hundred klicks and closing."
Pops looked at him. "You're kidding? Are they that stupid?"
Bob shrugged. "We'll know in a second." Bob turned on the reaction drive. If they hadn't already been using the Dykstra-Hague impellers, the ship would have shot off at 45 gravities. As it was, the relativistic particles from the drive slammed into the shields of the pursuing Phinon, turning the ship into a glowing pearl that died within seconds.
"Okay. As dogfighters, Phinons are assholes," Pops said.
"I guess it's been a little while since they last used reaction drives," Bob added. "And there goes the other one." The tail of the remaining Phinon ship began to glow and waver, the signature of the coming transition to hyperspace. "But this time it ain't getting away!" Bob said, and as the Phinon ship streaked away, the Hyperlight made a streak of her own.
After transition, Pops read the scanners. "Great timing! He's only thirty-two kiloklicks ahead of us."
"Okay. I've got him in line. Reaction engines up and blasting, Pops. We're closing. Their ship isn't going to be able to add delta v under hyperdrive," Bob said. "But we're going to have to shed ours before we try our next rendezvous with a comet."
"Either of you guys care to tell me what the hell is going on?" Rick called from the middeck. Pops told him. "What's to keep it from dropping out of hyperspace so you overshoot?" Rick wondered.
"Nothing," Bob replied. "But I don't think they'll do that. Doesn't seem to be in their natures."
"I think you're right," Rick said. "Remember Michaels' experience. Even though he pursued one that could have fired at him, it didn't bother. Fight or flight."
"And that girl at the Deepguard base, Nikki Le. She pursued a Phinon, too, and all it cared about was getting away," Pops put in.
The Hyperlight was closing rapidly. They were less than five thousand kilometers behind when the shields went milky. "Holy shit!" Bob exclaimed while the ship performed an automatic corkscrewing-to-port evasive maneuver. "God damn! What was that?"
The shields cleared but then clouded over again as a fusillade of explosions went off across the sky, like a bomb barrage in a fireworks display, though none of them was close enough to cause real harm. Then the scanners returned to showing a fleeing Phinon ship and the Hyperlight resumed the pursuit.
"Got it," Pops said, reading from the tactical display. "First he nailed us with an X-ray laser. Helluva powerful one, too! If he'd waited another few seconds until we were closer he might have fried us. After that it looks like he dropped his whole bomb load and set it off. He threw the kitchen sink at us, more or less. I guess its fight and flight when they're in a ship. At least if they're pursued."
"How many bombs?" Bob asked.
"Sixteen," Pops said.
"If the other wrecked ships Intelligence has examined are typical, then he doesn't have any bombs left," Rick said. "Do you have a figure for me on that X-ray blast?" Pops gave him a number. "I'd doubt he could let us have it with another shot like the first. That one should have consumed his laser."
"Good. We're within range, Pops. You have the most personal stake in this. KKV or laser or particle beam?" Bob asked.
"Particle beam," Pops said. "It's the closest thing we have to a sword."
"Kill him at your discretion, old man."
"Thank you, Commander." Pops reached over to hit the fire button of the particle cannon. Before his finger could touch it, the Phinon ship self-destructed.
Pops looked at the expanding cloud on the screen. "Shit. Vengeance denied," he said softly.
"Guess I'll kill some kinetic energy," Bob said, shrugging. Then: "Y'know, what we just did was worth violating orders all by itself. Now we know how inept Phinons are at ship-to-ship combat. Take away their hyperdrive and reactionless engines, and even with their better weapons, the Patrol could have taken them on without Dykstra's help."
Those words Bob would remember, and be embarrassed by, for the rest of his life.
"We still don't know if they found us by design or by accident," Rick said. They had dropped out of hyperspace half a million kilometers away from their next comet and were looking for Phinon activity. "Those ships might just have been heading in our direction."
Pops, who was the one doing the watching at the moment while the other two sat at the table, suddenly said, "We have a live one!" The others wasted no time in joining him in front of the screen.
"See? Right there. Two ships came out about nine kiloklicks away from the cometary body. They're almost to it now." Pops cranked up the magnification even higher and picked up the dark circle of the hangar hole. As they watched, the two Phinon ships flew inside.
Now it's going to get interesting, Bob thought.