Robots would have dismissed such data as unimpressive. Obviously, the fuel line had been patched. But that sort of work was common in the early days of the voyage, and much of it was accomplished without records being kept. And since there were no seams or signs of traffic—nothing here but a good strong wall—the robots had lingered for only a few microseconds, then continued their plunge.
But the lovers were intrigued.
They lingered for a full hour, making sensitive probes before returning to their cramped car for another round of clumsy sex. Then in the afterglow, one of them said, “Wait. I know what this is.”
“What’s what?” said his lover.
“It’s a hatch. A nice big hatch.”
The other man said. “And look, here’s my nice big penis!”
“No, listen to me,” said the first man. Then he was laughing, adding, “What is it, it’s a secret hatch. That’s why this hyperfiber looks wrong.”
“Okay. But we’d see the seams along the edge. Wouldn’t we?”
“Not if the hatch itself is small. And not if the seams are perfect.”
Which left his lover with another doubt. “How could the leech manage that sort of trickery?”
It would be a difficult task, yes. But they made more tests, finally sniffing out a nanoscopic flaw that intersected with approximately another twelve billion other flaws that created a hatch just large enough for a small cap-car to pass through. Perhaps. Armed with their fresh data, they returned to Pamir. The mission leader met them on the aerogel barge drifting in the middle of the hydrogen sea, surrounded by darkness and a perpetual chill, and with matching darkness, he listened to the engineers, then nodded, and quiedy told both men,’Thank you. On behalf of the Master and myself, thank you.”
The first engineer had to ask, “But what about the leech?”
“What about them?”
“We didn’t realize they had the means to build that sort of doorway, much less fool us for this long.”
“Yet fooled we were,” Pamir replied.
He stared out at the smooth, untroubled face of the hydrogen ocean, his thoughts turning back to Washen. If they had ever left her. Nobody else in his long life had been a better friend. In his gut, Pamir knew that Washen was waiting for him. She needed him, or she was dead. Either way, it was imperative that he find her, and with that thought burning inside him, he dismissed the two men and contacted the Master; and three minutes later, the engineers’ mission was officially terminated, handshakes and fat bonuses given along with warnings that no one else needed to learn anything more about this strange cold business.
What captains could build, captains could comprehend; and if it came to that, what they could build they could also break.
Thirty Submasters and high-grade regulars, most with engineering experience, were briefed in full and assembled inside an abandoned pumping complex above the secret doorway. Special scuttlebugs and smart-dust probes examined the area, then undertook an equally exhaustive search of every similar fuel fine. But there was only the one doorway, and every test confirmed that it was real, that it hadn’t been opened for at least several years, and to the limits of their technology, there were no watchdog sensors or any sort of booby trap lying in wait.
The Master decided on cautious research.
But six months later, with her captains still hiding inside that pumping complex, her patience dissolved into a frustrated boldness.
“Break open the hatch,” she roared.
Pamir was in the conference room, sitting behind a row of Submasters. Quietly, but not too quietly, he said, “Madam.” Then he sighed and added, “Maybe we’re narrowing your search a little too much.”
Faces turned.
But not the Master’s face. Her dark eyes remained buried in the holomaps and equipment lists and the expanse of her own hand, one great finger pointing to a minuscule, yet suddenly vital detail.
Without looking at him, she said, “Elaborate.”
Then she added, “Quickly, Captain Pamir.”
“Someone or something could have fallen out of the leech habitat,” he remarked, looking at everyone but the Master. “We should keep searching the fuel tank. And I still have that neutrino array in place. It was detecting a possible source… coming from somewhere below us, if the early data are true…”
One of the Submasters gave a rumbling cough, then reminded his superior, “The fuel tank has been searched. Nearly exhaustively, madam. And Pamir is talking about a piss of neutrinos too thin to have any value—”
Knowing the hazards, Pamir interrupted. “We should watch the doorway, and wait,” he argued. He was looking at the faces that were open enough to look back at him. Then he added, “If our captains are behind that door, then we’ll be showing them what we know. And like any game, you don’t want to give up your turn too soon.”
The Master took a moment, allowing his words to evaporate into the tense silence. Then she said, “Thank you.”
Pamir’s opinion had been crisply dismissed.
Speaking to more trusted captains, she ordered, “Keep yourselves and your ship safe. But as soon as physically possible, I want you to force the hatch. Please.”
Twenty-four hours later, hair charges of antimatter were set against the hidden hinges, then detonated.
The hatch shifted a nanoscopic distance, then jammed firmly in place.
The sophisticated equivalent of a prybar was deployed, and it gave a yank, then another, and that shiny gray plug of pure hyperfiber slid out slowly, then faster, tumbling down the fuel line for twenty kilometers, reaching a closed valve and slamming into an aerogel bed that caught it like a great hand, saving it for later studies.
Scuttlebugs, then high-ranking captains, descended on the gaping hole, all dressed in armor and bristling with weapons, the machines devoid of expectations while the humans assured themselves that they were ready for anything.
Behind the secret doorway, waiting for them, was nothing.
Cold iron-rich rock was mixed with splinters of hyperfiber. Which wasn’t exactly nothing. But as spidery limbs and gloved hands touched the stratum, a sturdy disappointment struck, the captains asking themselves, Is the hatch a decoy? Is it just a half-clever way to keep our eyes and minds pointed in the wrong direction?
But no, analysis showed that this was the topmost portion of a vertical tunnel, and if the tunnel kept plunging straight down, it would merge with one of the crushed access tunnels—ancient, enigmatic, and utterly useless.
Eleven days after Washen’s mysterious reappearance, an antimatter charge had destroyed the tunnel. Seismic records showed a bump and creak that had gone unnoticed among the ship’s usual bumps and creaks. But the damage looked obsessively thorough. The surrounding rock was pulverized, and treacherous. Rebuilding just the first few kilometers of the tunnel would take time and vast resources. “Do it,” the Master ordered.
But they didn’t need thirty captains for what three of them, plus a brigade of mining drones, could accomplish with the same ease.
Pamir asked permission to return to the fuel tank and continue his search.
“Refused,” the Master replied instantly, out of hand.
Then she told him, “You’ll remain with the digging team. And if you find a moment or two of free time, I can’t stop you from doing what you want.”
“Alone?” he asked.
And her golden face smiled as she told her most difficult captain, “I am sorry. My apologies. I thought that’s exactly how you like to do everything.”