Transmat World: Chapter 24
Approaching Forward Spoke Seven of Harbinger, 15 degrees above the centerline of the equator, 7:15 P.M., Monday, December 6, 2145 A.D.
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“Over one million miles per hour,” said Enrique.
“And you thought your moon suit was fast,” said Vince.
“Everything is relative. We’ve caught up with the rotation and then some.” said Enrique.
“The drone is stashed away,” said Julie.
See Lurchin’ was inside the outer diameter of the Rim and getting close to a spoke that arced from the Rim to the Forward Cylinder. They crossed the 600,000-mile mirrored plain that formed one side of the Rim. The last 1200 miles was the atmospheric retaining wall, just100 miles thick holding back an ocean of air dwarfing Earth’s atmosphere by a factor of millions. Vistas of the terraformed Rim basin came into view as they moved past the top of that wall. The crew watched a terminator line creep across the landscape. It swept over a dividing wall that marched into the distance across the width of the Rim. At their elevation, the dividing wall appeared as a line drawn with a pen dipped in silver ink. Only when they zoomed in could they determine its enormous height, soaring above the landscape over a thousand miles.
“Good fences make good neighbors, eh?” said Enrique, referring to the walls.
Along the length of the Rim, four huge rectangles of light projected through the Membrane onto the Rim. They covered the Rim wall-to-wall and stretched into the distance before disappearing behind the curve of the Membrane. In the other direction were four more. Each rectangle of light covered an area more than 300,000 times the surface of the Earth.
“It is odd. We saw just one craft,” said Julie. “There should be hundreds if this place is inhabited.”
“Perhaps their ideas of habitation are quite different from ours,” said Ernesto.
“Maybe it’s a fallen civilization with few remaining inhabitants,” said Maria.
“One of those spiny things just fell off the ship,” said Furboten.
“Holy crap, Vince, look at that!” said Enrique. “It’s moving way too fast to be falling.”
“It’s under its own volition. Seems we acquired a spy or had a stowaway,” said Vince.
“It’s not using thrusters so it must be using artificial gravity, which means it is from here, not from Earth,” said Julie.
“A shape-shifting, gravity-propelled thing from this alien system snuck past our 360-degree video feeds and attached itself to our ship in deep space while we were going over a million miles per hour?” said Vince. “I don’t think so. It is much more likely some entity from this world traveled to Earth and cleverly navigated our security system there, hitching a ride disguised as part of the ship.”
“It is looking more and more like the theory Porfirio and I have about the Hit is correct. It was not an accident,” said Ernesto.
“Makes me wonder about what happened to Kleopatra,” said Vince.
“Some activity ahead,” said Enrique, pointing to the inside surface of the giant spoke. It was far away but coming up fast.
They all looked where he pointed. They seemed near to grazing the inside surface of the giant structure, a mere five miles distance.
“Boss, it looks like a commotion,” said Enrique.
“Fireworks and balloons. It could be a celebration,” said Julie.
“I’m going with commotion.” Enrique magnified that portion of the image.
Explosions were taking place everywhere and stasis fields like so many silver Christmas tree balls were popping into existence in mid-vacuum.
Enrique was slowing and turning See Lurchin’ away from the ruckus, but they were going 30,000 miles per hour relative to the spoke. Stopping was not an option. They would be lucky to skirt the fracas.
“Okay, Boss, I know we’re close to a bunch of stuff and going real fast. It may be one of those times when we should just take a chance and jump out of this situation,” said Enrique. “I can put us 50 million klicks to port at the touch of a button.”
A wire the diameter of a pencil lead but two hundred yards long swam through the vacuum near Spoke Seven with its brethren. Stasis mines. A nest of disturbed water moccasins, they writhed toward their victims. The strikemechs had spread stasis mines and backed away from the missiles flowering from a hole in Spoke Seven. Each end of the wire connected to a small gravity generator, computer, and radar system. This particular stasis mine was near the edge of the seeded area and tracked See Lurchin’, forming a loop around its projected path.
“Vince, we have incoming!” said Enrique, voice edgy and loud. “Missile at four o’clock! Ten thousand yards, closing fast!”
“Okay, Enrique. Push the — “
A new stasis field blossomed into existence, floating with the others, its surface reflecting the struggle between strikemechs and the Free Machine Action Committee’s platoon of freedom-fighting robot. Some fired weapons. Most dived straight down the wall of the spoke as fast as their gravity generators would allow before slowing down for atmosphere.
It was a one-in-a-billion shot, even for a computer. A few tips of See Lurchin’s urchin-like spines cut off by the enveloping stasis field fell ever faster in the vacuum, chasing the fleeing freemechs.
