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FORTY-SIX Hinges of Hell

"More like a space station than a spaceship. No exhaust ports, no nozzles, no engines."

Horatio Gutierrez strode from the forest margin where he'd been all but invisible in the darkness. Looking worn and tired to his son, he stepped into the blue-white circle of the hissing Coleman. Behind him loomed the shadowy forms of Sebastiano and Ortiz.

"As far as we can tell, anyway." He glanced at the small crowd gathered about the furrow. "What's in the hole—and why do I have a feeling you haven't all turned out to welcome homecoming spacemen?"

"Dear me!" Aelbraugh Pritsch squawked. "Back already! If you'd let me know, General, I might have arranged transportation for you and your—"

"It was a nice evening for a walk." Gutierrez grinned wearily. "We left our ships upstairs," he lifted a thumb, "parked on the outer surface ready to be lowered. The rest of our crews stayed behind in your area to have dinner on Mister Thoggosh. You can arrange transport for them, if you like. Some of them may not be walking too well before long."

Aelbraugh Pritsch glanced at his employer for confirmation and received it via implant. "I'll do that, General. Would anyone care to return with me now?"

Scutigera, too large for any flying machine available, excused himself anyway, saying he'd intended to go back to his quarters before now. Llessure Knarrfic and the scorpionoid guards accepted the offer of a ride. Sam, too, declared that he had a personal errand and disappeared into the woods.

Wise had begun to weave on his crutches. Sweat trickled down the side of his neck although the night was cool. Rosalind ordered him to bed and took him that way under escort.

Marna declared that she wanted to look to the shuttles' life-support systems before they were powered down. Alvarez volunteered to go along as an extra pair of hands, but not before he gave Betal and Jones detailed instructions in preparing the wild pigs for the meal he planned tomorrow.

Owen, conferring with Ortega and Valerian, decided there wasn't any point in repeating the plow experiment until Guillermo found an area nearby where the soil lay deeper over whatever 5023 Eris was made of. The first two said good night. The latter stayed to continue the discussion. The machinist ambled off to put his winch away.

Danny noticed that Empleado wasn't around any more, having vanished without a word, which seemed appropriate for the KGB.

Ortiz and Sebastiano excused themselves to try out the showers with which the tents had come equipped and, before retiring, check on members of their crews who hadn't gone on the capture mission. As spacecraft captains under the tutelage of Gutierrez, each took new responsibilities seriously.

Danny could see that his father needed rest, too, but knew he wouldn't take it until his own duties were discharged. That included discussing Mister Thoggosh's revelation, and it was to this that the former general steered the conversation as he led the handful who remained to the tent that was still lighted.

"So if it's a Predecessor ship, why is it still here in orbit around the sun?" He went to a table, poured coffee, and found a chair. Eichra Oren, Pulaski, Guillermo, Dlee Raftan Saon, and Danny followed his example. "Why didn't it disappear a long time ago to wherever they went?"

Mister Thoggosh abandoned any final pretense of helplessness out of the water, since he couldn't drag his massive shell across the tent floor without pulling rumples in the fabric. Looking like a misshapen spider, he took advantage of the low gravity to rise up on the tips of his tentacles and step delicately into the center of the room, where he settled.

"We've no significant argument, sir—"

"Although," Raftan interjected, "I meant to ask the general where the exhaust ports or rocket nozzles of one of his culture's nineteenth-century Yankee clipper ships were to be found."

"We're in agreement that the place is artificial," Mister Thoggosh went on. "And knowing as little as we do of the Predecessors' impressive accomplishments, who's to say there aren't any engines?"

Eichra Oren nodded, looking to Pulaski for support, perhaps because she was the closest thing they had to an archaeologist. "Given their technology, they might turn out to be the size of a walnut."

Raftan agreed. "Mister Thoggosh, I suspect that your assistant, were he here, might hold that since 5023 Eris floats freely in space, circling a sun rather than a planet or moon, it must by definition be a spaceship, because—"

"I must be getting tired, Doctor," the general interrupted, "you've lost me."

Mister Thoggosh lifted a resigned limb. "In this context, the distinction between space station and a spaceship is pointless. We argue to no purpose, as is often the case where fresh facts fail to present themselves, and I, too, am a trifle fatigued." He glanced, wistfully, Danny thought, at the coffee pot. "To any extent I care, I hope it's the latter. The idea of a spaceship the size of a world, even a small world, rather strikes my fancy."

"The idea of owning the Death Star would appeal to you," Eichra Oren suggested. "And machinery powerful enough to move a world—even a small world like this one—would be extremely valuable."

Mister Thoggosh shrugged. "Well, I only hope it isn't a defective spaceship."

"What?" That from several present.

"The general said it, himself. Why is it still here? What if, at the last moment, it was abandoned as flawed?"

Raftan nodded. "It certainly betrays every manifestation of abandonment, even to having acquired an outer coating of natural asteroidal material."

"Not substantial enough to suit my ag people." Gutierrez paused as if in thought, then grimaced with resignation and asked his son for a cigarette.

Danny leaned toward his father to light it, then lit one of his own. "Sir, all this carbonaceous chondrite might be meant to disguise the true nature of 5023 Eris from casual observers."

His father agreed. "It would also be cheap protection from radiation and meteorites—except that this place doesn't seem to need it. It would be like covering a tank with a protective coating of Silly Putty."

"Or, as Raftan suggests, it might be the inevitable effect of ages spent orbiting among real asteroids," Mister Thoggosh argued, "since they're seventy percent carbonaceous chondrite. The inference can be taken either way. It's just another question no one knows the answer to."

"With no way of finding out," Danny added.

"On the contrary, Lieutenant. Eichra Oren, show them what we brought. They're what you'd call `hardcopy' from the neutrino scan. I'd like to have your experts, in addition to those among my party, examine them."

The Antarctican unrolled a great sheaf of what appeared to be photographs, printed on some sort of heavy white plastic rather than paper. In them, the asteroid occupied the entire frame. The canopy was invisible, as was the jungle. The Elders' buildings—and in one picture certain features of the human camp—seemed transparent, ghostlike. The asteroidal layering, whatever its origin and purpose, formed a kind of second skin underneath which the impermeable core of 5023 Eris lay flawless and unbroken. The humans took turns peering at the photos, searching for a clue to the mysteries the asteroid continued to generate.

"Well, here's a small apparent flaw." It was Guillermo, pointing to a section of the asteroid's otherwise armored hull. Four feet away, Danny couldn't see the feature he referred to. Mister Thoggosh slid forward.

"I see what you mean. If you'll excuse me . . ."

Guillermo backed away, watching. The nautiloid placed a slender tentacle-tip on the map where the captain's finger had been. The image on the plastic sheet swelled and acquired more detail. "I quite agree, Captain. It might be a small meteor crater, but there should be a great many more of them if it is. It looks to me as if it might well turn out, upon examination, to be a large, well-buried door. Or perhaps that's only wishful thinking on my part. What do you say, General?"

Gutierrez leaned over the map, then compared it with several of the other documents. "Looks like it's about five meters below the natural carbonaceous chondrite surface—and, wouldn't you know it, on almost the opposite side of the asteroid from here."

"So it is," replied Mister Thoggosh, beginning to sound excited. "Now to rush my weary and exasperated drilling crews to the site. Here at last is something they can get their teeth into. Will you be joining us, sir? I'll call for another electrostat."

Gutierrez sighed. "Call for two. I'll bring Danny along as my aide. Our physician and machinist should come." He looked up at Toya, as usual of late, standing as close as she could to Eichra Oren. "Also our resident paleontologist. And I suppose I'd better invite Arthur and Sgt. Jones or there'll be hell to pay." He turned to Guillermo. "Hector, in the absence of the late Dr. Kamanov, you're our chief geologist. Go round up whatever you need, notify the people I just named, those who aren't handy already, and get back here five minutes ago."

Guillermo grinned. "Yes, sir!"

"General," there was concern in Mister Thoggosh's voice, "you're in need of sleep. It will take hours to dig that far. Rest and join us later."

Gutierrez stood up straight and stretched. "Thanks, Mister Thoggosh, I'll sleep in the aerocraft. At this point, it couldn't keep me awake if it flew around this world upside down and backwards!"

* * *

For once, to everyone's amazement, everything worked.

Placing Sebastiano in charge of the camp, the general got his much-needed in-flight nap and more opportunity to rest once they'd arrived at the broad green meadow on the dayside of 5023 Eris corresponding to the small feature the sharp-eyed Guillermo had discovered on the neutrino map.

At Rosalind's suggestion, they'd detoured into the treetops above the nautiloid settlement to retrieve half a dozen spacesuits from the shuttles. If the asteroid were hollow as they had come to believe, she argued, and artificial, then hundreds of millions of years of corrosion would long since have removed any breathable oxygen from whatever atmosphere still lingered after seeping into space, molecule by molecule.

Mister Thoggosh ordered a pit dug, five meters deep and thirty in diameter. Looking more like recoilless artillery or giant bazookas than industrial equipment, his mining machinery—which had proven useless against the obstinate material of the asteroid itself—hissed and roared on its supporting framework amidst unbearable brilliance, clearing soft soil off the impenetrable substrate in a matter of minutes, almost vaporizing it, and somehow compressing it into glassy bricks which were used to support the sloping sides of the excavation.

In due course, they found a huge triangular hatch with rounded sides and corners—"trochoidal," someone called it—ten meters on a side. After their earlier troubles, it wasn't even locked. Instead, despite its being a meter thick and composed of the same material as the rest of 5023 Eris, it lifted on counterbalancing pivots. An unlit chamber of unknown dimensions and contents awaited. Not knowing what to expect, nervous explorers, human and otherwise, suited up and prepared to descend into the cavernous interior.

The initial party would consist of Gutierrez and his son, Owen, Rosalind, Pulaski, and Eichra Oren in a borrowed NASA suit. Mister Thoggosh had ordered light, transparent gear manufactured to fit the humans (and a canine suit, as well), and the next explorers would be more comfortable, but no one wanted to wait until this new equipment was available. Tl*m*nch*l, two others of his species, and Nannel Rab, the spiderlike chief project engineer, completed the group, wearing spacesuits of their own. Given the density of the surface material, communication with those remaining behind would have to be by wire, trailed behind them. Several individuals, not just humans, pointed out the similarity between this situation and that of old-time "hardsuit" deep-sea divers.

Representing Mister Thoggosh, Eichra Oren was the first to duck beneath the uptilted corner and drop a full ten meters to the floor of the triangular chamber. One by one, he was followed by the others, the giant spider squeezing through last. The human popped up again to deliver a distressing report to Mister Thoggosh and Sam (who was already upset at being left behind) while hanging onto the edge by his fingertips.

"It's an idiot-proof airlock," he told them, pushing a gloved thumb over his shoulder toward the point, beyond the massive pivot, where the large counterbalancing end of the triangular hatch tilted downward. "And guess who the idiots are. The next door below swings into this chamber, and right now it's blocked by this one. It won't move a centimeter until this hatch is closed and out of the way."

"Ingenious," his employer answered. "Which means that if you go on, we'll lose contact with you."

Gutierrez joined Eichra Oren. Hanging there, the would-be explorers looked like oddly dressed swimmers chatting poolside with friends. "That's about the size of it. Corporal Owen says this slab fits to a ten-thousandth. I don't know if he meant millimeters or inches, but it'll shear any wire we try to leave behind."

"Or jam on it," Sam offered, "and we'll never get you out."

Eichra Oren grinned inside his visor. "Now there's a cheerful thought. I don't see that we have any choice about it, though. We're as well prepared as it's possible to be, and the sooner we get on with it, the better. Watch your fingers when the lid comes down."

With that, he let go of the edge. The general dropped beside him. They strode across the chamber to their waiting comrades. Danny and Corporal Owen stretched themselves and leaped to give the rear edge of the hatch cover a shove. It would be meters beyond their reach once it was back in place, but the single push was all it needed. It pivoted and settled with a thump, plunging them all into darkness.

Several light beams sprang into existence. With the interfering upper hatch out of the way, the inner hatch swung aside as if it had been made of balsa wood and had been used just the day before, instead of millions—perhaps even billions—of years ago.

 

 

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