BLESSINGS FAREWELL
He reclosed the box and stood for a dark moment before he spoke. “Why did they make this?”
“More important,” Dayan replied, “how?”
“Hm?”
“We don’t know what else they did. If we can get in at all, we may cause terrible things. Like if we can’t shut the lock valves, the air inside will escape.”
A wind bearing corpses, as winter winds blow withered leaves?
“You are right,” Nansen said. “Perhaps the next port is accessible.”
They started off, to the hub and across to the spoke they wanted. The wheel gyred in silence and cold.
They arrived. “This lock looks intact,” Dayan said. “We can deal with it.”
Can we deal with what’s behind it? wondered Nansen.
He pressed the plate for entry. Nothing stirred. “Circuits dead,” he declared. “Don’t stop to probe, Hanny.” He leaned his muscles against the emergency manual truck. Gears worked; the valve swung ponderously aside. “Hold,” he said. He couldn’t make Envoy out among the stars, but his suit had sufficient broadcast power. “We’re about to go in,” he announced. “We’ll be cut off from contact for a while.”
“How . . . how long shall we wait before dispatching . . . reinforcements?” Alanndoch asked.
“Wrong word,” Nansen replied. “Whatever we find inside, it won’t be hostile.” Or so I pray. “The enemy is around us.” The universe, our enemy and our glory. “Give us twenty-four hours. After that, proceed at discretion, but remember always, your first duty is to bring our ship home.”
“Luck be with you, Captain, Scientist.”
“Thank you.” Nansen switched off and beckoned to Dayan. They entered the chamber.
As Nansen spun the valve shut and lost sight of the sky, blackness closed in. Dayan turned her flashbeam on. In vacuum it threw a puddle of light on the side opposite. Reflections diffused dimly into gloom. Nansen saw her as a bulk of shadow and a few vague glimmers.
He closed the valve. No air gushed in. The pump wasn’t working, either. Groping, he found the command plate for the inner valve and pushed it. As he expected, the servo did nothing. If there was an atmosphere beyond, it pressed on this exit with tonnes of force.
Despair tasted like iron. “Living people would have made repairs,” he rasped.
“Not necessarily,” Dayan said. “Tinkering with embedded circuits, using inadequate tools, could well make matters worse. If ever they had reason to go outside, they could, more slowly, by the backups. Maybe the hydraulics here aren’t jammed. People could maintain those.”
Nansen tried. The truck resisted his hands. He marshaled his strength and heaved. It was as if he were trying to pull his bones apart. Then the truck turned. A faint thread of light appeared before him. Through his helmet he heard the first whistle of inrushing air. The truck turned more and more easily.
Vision hazed. “Frost!” Dayan cried. “Ice on our lenses!” Water vapor. The breath of life.
They trod into hollowness. Standing on the platform, as their suit exteriors warmed and the rime smoked off, they saw a great shaft stretching emptily upward and upward. Its fluorescence was more chilling than the tomb darkness of the lock chamber. On one side a railcar track converged away into the distance, on the other side a ladder with occasional rest stops. That was a long climb.
“Air.” Dayan’s voice shook. “I’ll crack my helmet and smell it.”
“No, don’t,” Nansen ordered, “Not till we know what it’s like” — pressure, composition, corruption.
“Right. My testing kit —”
“We won’t stop for that yet. We’ll have a look first.” What we find may make everything else, our whole journey, irrelevant. “Come.”
The railcar rested inert. He sighed and sought the ladder. As they descended the hundreds of meters, their weight rose toward Earth normal and their burdens grew heavy.
Mute, side by side, they debarked at the top and went through a bare room into a passageway.
Greenness! Plants in handmade boxes stood as far as they could see, leafing, blooming, fruiting, blanketing trellises, vaulting the overhead, rose, lily, violet, bamboo, pumpkin, dwarf juniper, trumpet vine, grapevine, things that Earth never knew, a riot of life.
“Life —” Dayan reached, trembling, humbly, to touch a flower.