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Sail the Sea of Stars - chapter 19

 
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PostPosted: Sat Dec 17, 2016 6:22 pm    Post subject: Sail the Sea of Stars - chapter 19 Reply with quote




CHAPTER 19

THE CANYON



"They sure look like plasma-fire impact points, but I'm scared to make assumptions. Could lightning have done this?" Bill said to Randy.

"I'm inclined to doubt it, but I wouldn't rule it out."

The stellascouts were slowly circling the wrecked starships, floating several feet off the ground, only fifty feet from the derelicts. Bill looked up at the boiling clouds. Lightning still haunted their dome-shaped underside. The Wax and the Wayne continued to hover like nervous dragonflies as they nosed around the battered hulks of the three ships. All three stellavoyagers were an unsalvageable mess. It seemed unlikely anyone inside could have survived.

Bill carefully eased the clear crystalsteel nose of the Wayne into a gaping hole in the hull of one of the stellavoyagers where the ship's bridge had been. Gazing out through the bubble-nosed canopy we saw that the console stations were totally destroyed. We didn't see any bodies, but we hadn't expected to. Crystalsteel does not vaporize easily . . . but flesh and bone does.

"Should we go in and search for survivors?" said Dancee, still standing behind me with her hand on my shoulder.

"Not yet," said Bill. "Not until we have some reason to believe there was anybody aboard when this happened." Bill backed the stellascout out of the hole and then waved his hand at the wreckage in general. "Some of the gunnery positions are undamaged. It makes me wonder."

The whole scene was positively ghostly; the weird dome of lightning-filled clouds, the wreckage of the ships, and absence of both Carrington's people and the Beltherians — it all added up to the unavoidable conclusion that the artifact was anything by deserted.

The Wax came floating around the wreckage to join us.

"We've been stood-up," said Randy. "I can't find a soul."

"Maybe they were invited to come in out of the storm," said Bill, his face showing no trace of humor.

"We wondered about that, too," said Randy. The Wax and the Wayne were hovering nose-to-nose a few feet apart, and we gazed across the gap at each other through the transparent canopies.

"Well . . . then let's go knock on a door," Bill suggested casually.

"Okay. Which door?"

"Ummm . . . let's try one of the doors at this smaller group of buildings. Agree?"

"Agreed. Well just look for one that has a door mat in front saying ‘welcome’ in an unknown language."

The stellascouts turned in unison and moved slowly towards the nearby group of buildings. Behind us I heard the rustle and clink of the combat crewmen checking their gear. I felt a strong urge to point out that fourteen combat crewmen could not possibly go up against an impregnable hurricane-making machine. But I knew we couldn't just leave without trying to find Dr. Carrington and his team. Furthermore, the Beltherians were supposed to be around here somewhere. If they had destroyed the stellavoyagers then where were they now? Inside the artifact? Starships and all?

Slowly, hesitantly, Bill and Randy sent the stellascouts drifting towards the smaller group of buildings nearby. They looked half-buried in the sand, but I wondered if perhaps they were supposed to look that way. The architecture was appealing and not particularly bizarre. Like the main complex, the buildings looked a bit dusty but unscarred by time. They were mostly made of the same blue-gray material as of the main complex, with areas of color added here and there for no apparent reason other than aesthetics. They did not seem to be the sort of buildings one would design to sit out in the desert. They were too appealing for their bleak surroundings. And too new-looking for me to believe they were ancient. A paradox.

The more I looked at them, the more I liked their design. There were about six main buildings, linked by what I guessed were enclosed walkways and connecting wings. Taken altogether, the group of buildings was about the size of a respectable shopping mall. The tallest structure was approximately ten stories high. The side which faced the super-complex, fifteen miles away, was one large window. The interior was dark, and I saw no movement.

Bill and Randy floated the stellascouts in among the complex, which was spread over several dozen acres. The plasma guns on the sides of both of the stellascouts whirred nervously back and forth on their swivel mounts as the combat crewmen manned the stellascouts’ two gunnery stations, one on each side,. A light breeze stirred the dust between the buildings, while just a few miles away across a colossal canyon, I saw the moving wall of blowing sand that marked the turbulent boundary of the storm’s eye. The air in the eye seemed to have become even clearer since our arrival, and I wondered if this calm center had been created a short time before we broke out of the storm.

Curiouser and curiouser.

The stellascouts drifted between the buildings, looking for a door to knock on, stirring up the dirt with their engines. Bill floated the Wayne up to the ten story picture window that faced the distant main complex. The stellascout's spotlights showed us rooms filled with a variety of seats, all facing blank walls (or wall-sized screens). We were able to look in on several different rooms, and in some of the rooms the seats were obviously designed for humans (or something similar). The seats in other rooms were alien in nature, with sizes that ranged from knee-high to six-feet tall.

"Whoa!" Randy's voice suddenly shouted in our headsets. The Wax came sliding into view from behind a building, moving backwards. A thin plasma bolt hit it from a source behind the building. It was followed quickly by two more. The bolts were obviously being fired from hand-held weapons, leaving glowing red hot spots on the stellascout’s canopy.

Suddenly the Wax's loudspeakers boomed out, "STOP! WE'RE FROM THE G.S.C. CANDLELIGHT! HOLD YOUR FIRE!"

Bill Jenkins didn't hang around just watching all this. He banked the Wayne hard away from the embattled Wax and took us zooming around the other side of the building. When we came around the last corner we found ourselves right behind two armed men who were facing the Wax.

"DROP YOUR GUNS!" said Bill's amplified voice. The two men whirled around to face the muzzles of our swivel-mounted plasma cannons. "ARE YOU FROM CARRINGTON'S GROUP?" Bill said quickly.

The two men nodded, looking wide-eyed and frightened..

"HEY, THAT’S GREAT! WE'RE ON YOUR SIDE," said Bill. He managed to give his voice a cordial tone when he said, "PLEASE LOWER YOUR GUNS."

The men complied, and a few seconds later both the stellascouts landed. As we scrambled out of the ships, the two men stood there looking apprehensive and unconvinced until one of them recognized Danceea as Dr. Carrington’s former lab assistant.

As Bill walked up to the men he said, "Why did you fire on use?"

"We thought you were Beltherians," said a man whose right arm was badly burned. The other man had a scorched leg. It made me queasy to look at the wounds.

"The Beltherians were here?" said Randy as he joined us.

"Who do you think wrecked our ships?" the man said with understandable frustration.

"Where is everybody else?" said Randy.

"Inside." He nodded towards the nearest building.

"Was anybody inside the ships when — "

"Yes," the man said quickly. "About a dozen crewmen. They're probably all dead, but we haven't had a chance to look. This storm . . . it came up so quickly. " He looked upward at the turmoil that still covered the sky from one horizon to the other. Lightning flashed and thundered rumbled repeatedly around us. I knew that his charred arm must hurt, and I wondered if he was suffering from shock. Cynthia Reed, one of the medical personnel, had moved up next to him and started treated the other man's leg while we talked.

"Where is Dr. Carrington?" I asked them.

"He's inside with the others." The question must have made him realize that we were conspicuously alone. He started looking up into the sky and out across the dessert. "Hey . . . where's your ship?"

"Above the storm," said Randy. "Is there anyone inside those buildings beside besides you folks?"

"You mean the native inhabitants?" The man shook his head. "No. Nobody but us. Come on."

He lead us around the corner of the nearest building to a place where a buried door had obviously been recently excavated. A fifteen-foot trench with a sloping bottom had been neatly dug, leading down to an open doorway. We followed the two men into a well-lit, spotlessly clean room. But the carpeted floor was littered with the bodies of injured members of Carrington's group. The wounded lay in rows, while the uninjured personnel hurried around attending to them. The medics from the Candlelight rushed to join the ones helping the wounded, most of whom were humans. Some of the victims were obviously dead.

The ceiling was just one big, soft light with a faintly bluish tint that was both pleasant and relaxing. I caught myself starring up at the ceiling, wondering how the room could be so well illuminated while the lights didn't seem especially bright.

The furniture had been pushed against the far wall to make room for the wounded. Only a small percentage of the chairs I could see were designed for humans.

Down a hallway to one side I saw other team members, both humans and non-humans, going in and out of doorways that presumably lead to rooms like the ones we'd seen through the ten-story window when we flew around the building. I wondered how many of the investigative team had been injured by the Beltherians’ attack. Perhaps every room in this building was filled with casualties.

Dr. Carrington came hurrying towards us between the rows of wounded. He looked vastly relieved to see me, but when he saw Danceea his expression was total shock.

“Danceea! What are you doing here?”

“I got drafted,” she said with a crooked smile. Carrington continued to look bewildered as he turned to me. "Mr. Newcastle! How did you get here so quickly?"

"Shortly after you departed, two months ago, the Alliance got wind of what the Beltherians were trying to do. They jammed your jinn wave communications so we couldn’t warn you that they were hot on you tail. We were ordered to get here as fast as possible."

Randy stepped up close to Carrington, almost between me and the doctor, a quick way to grab the rattle man’s attention. His expression was almost grim as he spoke in a low, commanding tone. "Please, Doctor . . . tell us what happened."

"Where's Captain North?" Carrington said.

"He’s aboard the Candlelight, which is above the storm. Now, please . . . just tell us what happened here."

Carrington looked stricken for a moment. He stared off at nothing in particular and began speaking slowly. "The storm. Yes, I suppose . . . that storm came up so quickly! It was unbelievable — "

Randy spoke like a father who wanted the truth from a troubled son. "Please, Doctor, start at the beginning."

"I'm . . . I'm sorry." Carrington made a visible effort to calm himself. I sympathized with him. His people lay all around him, dead or wounded, while his ships sat out on the desert looking like so much scrap metal. "Well," he began hesitantly, "we arrived about six hours ago and attempted to make contact with anyone who might be inside the complex. We received no response, so we tried to gain entrance to the main complex."

Bill had joined us, and he stood behind me. He inserted a question that we all wanted answered. "There was no storm when you arrived?"

"Not a trace," said Carrington. Murmurs of amazement rose from the Candlelight personnel. Carrington continued. "We had no luck at opening a huge set of doors we found in the main complex, nor could we open any of the smaller doors we located. We detected no energy usage within the main complex, but we did detect energy usage from this group of buildings, so we came here."

"How did you get inside?" said Bill.

"The door was open when we arrived."

Bill glanced around the room, noting its perfect condition. "The door . . . " he said in a skeptical tone, " . . . was just . . . open?"

"Yes. Everything appears to be perfectly maintained, but completely uninhabited."

"But who dug the trench to the door? It's obviously — "

"We don't know who did, but we know what did it. We followed vehicle tracks that lead from that excavated door to a small building nearby that also had an excavacted ramp, and inside we found a room full of maintenance robots, all currently inactive and completely unresponsive to anything we did. But several of them were obviously excavation mechanisms, and one was actually wet from being washed off after it had dug the trench!" The odd thought amused Carrington, and he smiled.

Randy chewed his lip for a moment and then offered a simple explanation. "Automated maintenance equipment."

"Fastidious automated maintenance equipment," Bill added primly. Nobody laughed. He looked disappointed.

"But who activated it to dig the trench?" Randy said. "I mean, why did it suddenly dig itself out of storage and unearth that particular door to this particular building?"

"Malfunction?" suggested Carrington. He was smiling knowingly, and I wonder why. "Due to age, perhaps?" He was waiting for somebody to contradict him.

Randy didn't notice Carrington's sly expression as he glanced around the pristine room. "The place sure doesn't look old. Dammit, this is full-fledged mystery. I feel like one of the Hardy Boys!"

"Yeah," agreed Bill. "And I feel like the other one!" He still got no laugh, and he looked disappointed again. But then he offered a comment obviously intended to be taken seriously. "Hey, wait a minute Brother Hardy! We’re missing the obvious. It was that welcome mat we were looking for.”

"Exactly!" said Carrington. His smile expanded. "The lights came on in this building when we stepped through the door. Other lights came on as we explored the building, but they didn't come in every room at once."

Everybody around me looked puzzled, but nobody spoke. So I asked the question we were all thinking. "Wait . . . I don't quit get it, Doctor."

Danceea spoke softly as she stood next to me. “It’s simple, sweetheart. They were dropping bread crumbs.”

Carrington gave his former assistant a look of approval as he said, "Exactly, Miss Aberron! We were being lead to a specific room down the corridor by the selectively activated lights. When we entered that room a wall-screen activated, and it displayed a simple graphic of the Candlelight."

Bill took a few seconds to digest that remark. Then he said, "Wait. Our ship?".

"Yes indeed. The graphic occupied one half of the wall-sized screen. The other half was occupied by a stylized representation of the main complex itself."

Everybody who surrounded Carrington ponder this new development, and nobody had a damn thing to say about the situation except me — who asked the obvious question.

"What happened then?"

Carrington's face turned chalky white as he thought about what had happened next. "At that moment the Beltherians arrived. Three large warships. Some of our people were outside, transferring equipment to these buildings. Somebody recognized the Beltherian ships and urged the others to take shelter. Most of them did. The wounded that you see here are the ones who were still outside when the Beltherians opened fire on our ships.

"They just started blasting? Right away?" said Randy.

"Practically. They claimed ownership of the artifact, and they ordered us to leave! Of all the brazen, witless — "

Randy held his hand up to halt the doctor. "Sir, we don't have time for the whole list. What happened then?"

Dr. Carrington was understandably angered by the memory of the Beltherian's attack, but he calmed himself and continued. “Well . . . our ships were sparsely manned. My people fought very bravely, but they were sadly out-gunned. The Beltherians opened fire the instant we refused to leave. I just can't understand it! What could the Beltherians hope to gain from this mad attack! Why would they — “

Bill Jenkins gently eased his way past me and stepped in closer to Carrington while he reached out to put his hand on Dr. Carrington’s shoulder. Bill’s kind gesture and gentle expression calmed Carrington, and he stopped speaking abruptly. In a soft voice, Bill said, "Think back, Doctor. This is important. Did they actually claim possession of the artifact in the name of the Beltherian government?"

Carrington looked at Bill for moment while he thought about the question. Then he said, "I don't really remember. I . . . I think so."

Randy realized where Billy was headed with this, and he said, "Is there anything in your database that would lead the Beltherian government to believe they could justify their claim on the artifact?"

Carrington looked puzzled. "My database? I don't understand."

Danceea had been standing close behind me, her hands on each side of my waist while she peeked over my shoulder at her kindly mentor, her faced filled with sympathy. When she realized why he was confused, so she spoke up quickly and said, “I’ll take that question, if you don’t mind.”

Everybody turned and looked at Danceea.

Still standing behind me, she stood on her tiptoes and looked at the doctor as she said, “We found out that the pirates who attacked the Rembrandt copied your database into their ship's computer, then they transmitted the data to a Beltherian settlement on a nearby planet. Several of us have been going over your data thoroughly, but we found nothing that might explain the Beltherians’ obsession with this place. What would tempt them to risk an Alliance military disciplinary action against them?"

"Well, nothing . . . specific . . . " said Carrington while he mentally reviewed his own database.

"What do you mean?"

“Just that the artifact can't be attributed to any known civilization in the galaxy, past or present. That one fact leads to many fascinating questions."

Randy was shaking his head. "I'd prefer a few fascinating answers. But never mind that for now. What happened after the Beltherians wrecked your ships?"

"They contacted us again and instructed us to come out and surrender. We refused and they came to take us, but the doors closed in their faces."

I was surprised when I saw the corners of Carrington's mouth turn up and a twinkle appear in his eyes. Randy continued to push for explanations. "None of your people closed it?"

"No. Furthermore, it opened again by itself just before you arrived. The Beltherians tried to blast that door with hand weapons, but they couldn't even mark it. During all of this, the storm began forming, and within ten minutes the winds must have exceeded one hundred miles an hour."

"They were blowing at three hundred miles an hour when the Candlelight tried to enter the storm," said Randy.

Carrington looked astounded. "That's . . . absolutely . . . "

"Yes, we know. What happened then?"

"Some of the wounded had helped each other inside before the Beltherians landed. We went out and got the rest while the Beltherian troops were coming out of their ships when they first landed. I guess they intended to just . . . slaughter us. But the wind and lightening was terrifying in its intensity, and we watched the Beltherian ships lift off. The blowing sand obscured them immediately. "

Bill Jenkins didn’t mince his words when he said, "Yes, Doctor, we know they came here to kill you all. And they still may. Those ships will have small, agile fighters like our stellascouts. Probably some troop carriers, too. Assuming the big ships weren't destroyed by the storm, the Beltherians will try to re-enter it by using the same trick we used. Which means we’re in for a re-match."

"And we'll be badly outnumbered if a few of the Beltherian ships get through," added Randy.

"Would they order any great number of their troops into a storm like this?" said Dr. Carrington. The idea seemed cruel and inhuman to this gentle man of science.

"Beltherians? Sure! The Beltherian government is risking a military disciplinary action from the Alliance just by coming here to lay claim to this . . . whatever it is. They must be convinced they can snatch something out of all this that will be worth the terrible price they'll pay. Maybe the top government leaders have already gone into hiding — "

"Or maybe they're aboard those ships!" Bill blurted out. "Hey, Randy, that actually makes sense! They'll just let their beloved home planet get clobbered by the Alliance, then they'll sneak back in with the stolen something-or-other to . . . uh . . . to . . . "

Randy understood what his friend was suggesting. "Right, to make maximum use of the Big Secret Weapon. We can fill in the blank later. You're right, Bill, it not only makes sense, it sounds very Beltherian.” Randy paused, took a deep breath, and let it out noisily. “Well, our immediate problem is what to do when the enemy returns in force. We're the proverbial sitting ducks."

"But they can't get in," said Carrington, who apparently had faith in his unseen benefactors. "The door — "

"Can not be completely impregnable," said Randy patiently. "Or it might not even close this time. Besides, the door is only one way in, and the Beltherians will blast this place off the planet before they'll give up."

"What about the Candlelight? Surely Captain North — "

"As long as this storm is blowing, we can forget about the dear old Candlelight. She's stuck up there in the sunshine, while we're down here at the mercy of Satan's little demons."

___________ * ___________ * ___________ * ___________


Meanwhile, aboard the dear old Candlelight:

"I'd say yes to your suggestion if the scanners were fully functional," said Captain North. "But the technicians tell me that there are portions of the bridge circuitry that are completely fused. It'll take several days to fix the damage the lightning did to us."

Captain North, Lieutenant Commander Sinclair, and Professor Hogarth from the ship's geology lab were standing at the back of the bridge area, studying a photomap of Nestria taken from high orbit by the automated probe that had first discovered the artifact. The photomap, displayed on one of the twenty-by-twenty-foot screens, was located on the extreme right-hand side of the bridge. It featured the artifact complex as a tiny glint on the vast desert.

"Captain," said Sinclair. "Could the stellascouts fly as spotters for us? The Candlelight's main computer can use their scans of the canyon walls in relation to the ship. Both the tracking officer's console and the navigator's console would be displaying the ship's position just as accurately as they normally would. One or two of the stellascouts could even blaze the trail ahead of us."

As Sinclair finished, Captain North was shaking his head slowly. "That's the part I don't like, Wade. If the stellascouts were to be picked off, we'd be blind down there."

"Hmmm. True. So . . . you think we shouldn't try it, sir?"

"I didn't say that. I just said I didn't like it." North turned to Freeman Answorth at the half-repaired tracking console. "Mr. Answorth? Anything to report?"

"No, sir," said Answorth without looking up from his display screens. "They're still circling on the far side."

The three Beltherian ships had emerged from the storm a half-hour earlier, and they were now maintaining a two-thousand mile distance between themselves and the Candlelight. Two of the Candlelight[‘s four remaining stellascouts were flying ahead of the galactic stellacruiser, using their scanning systems as substitutes for the ship's damaged electronic senses. Captain North turned back to Sinclair and Professor Hogarth.

"The Beltherians must be as badly damaged as we are. Otherwise they would be eager to take us on before our reinforcements arrived."

"Maybe they're expecting reinforcements, too" said Mr. Sinclair. He held the captain's gaze for a moment, wearing a look that implied things unsaid. North was silent for a moment and then he nodde.

"I know, Wade. If they are expecting reinforcements, then we would actually be better off inside the storm than out here. And since the Beltherian ships aren't leaving the area, they must not have gotten whatever it is they came for." Captain North's face looked tense and haggard as he debated acting on the oddball proposal that Professor Hogarth had come to him with. He had a hard look on his face as he fixed this pale-eyed gaze on the wiry little geologist.

"Just exactly how accurate is your information, Professor?"

"Extremely accurate . . . but not extremely detailed. The surface features of Nestria were recorded by the automated probe that first discovered it, but the probe did very little scanning beneath the planet's surface. All I can say is, the canyon could be wide enough throughout the entire section through which we need to pass."

"Could be?" North repeated, looking like he'd just swallowed a bug. "But if we encounter a bottleneck and have to turn back, we'll have wasted several hours, as well as being boxed into the most unenviable position in the history of the Stellafleet Division."

Lieutenant Commander Sinclair spoke hesitantly to Captain North. "Sir, when Admiral Simmons sent us here he knew we might be . . . well . . . "

"Go on, Wade. Say it."

"He knew we were a day ahead of everybody else, and he thought maybe we could do something now that couldn't be done later. He was gambling the loss of a starship against the potential advantage our early arrival might give us."

"Granted," said Captain North, pulling at his mustache for moment while he gazed down at the floor in front of his feet. Then he looked back up at Sinclair. "But I don't want to do something unwise that would cause us to lose our chance to be effective." He glanced out the huge bridge dome for a moment at the swirling storm many miles below. Finally he said, "Mr. Kellogg?"

"Aye, sir?" said the helmsman, seated with his back to the captain.

"Have you been listening to our discussion back here?"

"Yes, sir. I have."

"Good." Captain North paused a moment and then said quietly, "Sam, what do you think? Can it be done?"

Samual Kellogg turned and gave a sidelong glance at the image of the canyon on the big display screen to his right. He felt his wife pat her hand gently on his as it rested on the control yoke. A long, quiet moment passed on the bridge. Samuel Kellogg drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. Finally he answered the captain's question.

"Yes, sir."

Captain North smiled faintly beneath his busy mustache. He thought to himself, They'll remember us for this, but . . . as what? Heroes or fools?

"Captain!" called out Freeman Answorth. "The Beltherians are launching smaller ships! I've got a reading on six scouts and . . . two larger vessels. Probably troop carriers."

"Headed towards us?"

"No, sir. They're losing altitude fast, heading towards the storm's outer edge."

Captain North punched his right fist into left palm as he said, "Dammit, that tears it! The game is won or lost right here.” His jaw muscles flexed for a moment, then he said, “Okay, Mr. Kellogg, pick your entry point and head for that canyon at the best possible speed." The captain turned to Wade Sinclair and poked him in the chest with his finger. "I want you to brief the stellascout pilots about what we're about to try. And launch the other two stellascouts as soon as possible to serve as a rear guard for the Candlelight."

"Aye, sir," said Sinclair. "Uh . . . and Captain? The crew should be briefed," he added hesitantly. Captain North gave his first officer a weary smile.

"That's debatable, but I won't argue the point."

Captain North donned his headset while Sinclair walked down to Tony Thorn's station to brief the pilots of the stellascouts that would surround of the Candlelight. Captain North seated himself at the command chair and then paused for a moment with his finger poised over the button that would patch him into the PA system.

Heroes or fools? he thought to himself. Future history will have to decide.

He pushed the button.

“Attention, this is Captain North. We've just detected eight small craft being launched from the enemy ships. They're losing altitude and heading for the storm's perimeter. So, it looks like our hand has been forced. We're going to try to get to the artifact site by going down into a five-mile deep canyon which we hope will protect us from the storm. The canyon passes very near the artifact site, and we can enter the canyon at a point well outside the hurricane.”

North saw the bridge crew personnel turning around and staring at him with worried looks as he described the risky maneuver they were about to try.

“The clearance within the canyon is questionable at some points, and the stellascouts will be flying both fore and aft to substitute their scanning systems for our own, which are still inoperative. Our only real concern at this point is that the smaller enemy ships that are flying through the storm will get to the artifact well ahead of us."

Captain North slowly peeled the headset off and then gazed out at the lightning-filled clouds as he considered the monumental lie he had just told his crew. There were actually several very real concerns that he had not mentioned, like the possibility that the Beltherian starships would follow them down into the canyon. If that happened then the Candlelight[‘s best move would be to find a narrow bottleneck in the canyon, a bottleneck that could be defended by one ship against three others.

Problem: A five-mile deep bottleneck would be no bottleneck at all, because the enemy could pass through it above or below the Candlelight and attack it from behind.

Alternative: Run from any pursuing ships and then leave the canyon when it came out from under the storm on the far side. This idea left a pretty sour taste in the captain's mouth, especially since he knew he would actually do it rather than uselessly sacrifice both his ship and his crew.

The Candlelight soared across the storm at Mach 2. Gumjaw made a bee-line for the canyon, and he reduced the altitude gradually so the ship would be beyond the area of intense lightning when it finally grazed the outer edge of the storm.

Just before it reached the clouds, four stellascouts arrowed out from the front of he engine pods on the Candlelight[‘s long, slender wings. They dropped back to trail the Candlelight as she lead he way towards the canyon.

Standing on the walkway at the back of the bridge, Captain North heard a mumbled comment from one his personnel on the slanted area below him. “What are those guys up to now?” Freeman Answorth, seated at the tracking console, was hunched over his console, studying his display intently.

"You tell me," said Captain North in a quite voice. Answorth looked up, surprised that he'd been overheard.

"Sir, the Beltherian ships are . . . withdrawing," he said hesitantly.

North pondered the comment a moment before he replied. "You don't sound too sure. What's wrong?"

Answorth was still gazing at his display, but a grin began to spread across his face.

"Captain, it's possible that the enemy is pulling back because they think

we're going to attack them. They're heading away from us at Mach 2." Now it was the captain's turn to grin as he realized what was happening.

"The storm must have damaged them pretty badly. Maybe even worse than us. They have no way of knowing that we tried to enter the storm, or that we were damaged by the attempt. They've already sent about half their stellascouts into the storm, and now they think we're going to attack with an undamaged stellacruiser and the rest of our own stellascouts. Blast it all, I would attack if we weren't so disabled ourselves."

"Maybe they won't see us go into the canyon," said the executive officer, standing next to North.

"Possibly. Mr. Answorth? Are they headed for high orbit or just across the planet?"

"Uh . . .across the planet. They must want to get below the horizon."

"Perfect," said North. "Mr. Kellogg, how much longer until we can enter the canyon?"

"We'll be directly over it in a few seconds, sir."

"Good. Get us down into that canyon, pronto."

"Aye, sir."

With typical flamboyance, Gumjaw banked the ship all the way up onto one wing and let it drop down through the clouds. The ship fell sideways through the pearly mist. The four stellascouts broke formation and formed a single line directly behind the ship.

The observers decks were quickly filling up with people who wanted to see the canyon. Many of them had brought their cameras, possibly to prove to their grandchildren that they had lived through such a maneuver. It was an optimistic gesture.

The Candlelight fell through the cloud layer, and the land became visible below. The canyon was directly beneath the ship. The sides of the abyss seemed perfectly sheer, plunging straight down for five miles to a bottom that was little more than a vanishing point between the two converging cliffs.

Though the ship was falling sideways, the artificial gravity worked it's magic and made it seem as if the planet was cockeyed. When the people on the observers decks got their first look at the canyon, they actually applauded. What other reaction could there be to such a breathtaking sight?

Slowly Gumjaw brought the Candlelight[‘s prow up as he pulled the ship out of its sideways dive. As they neared the canyon he lined the stellacruiser up to enter it dead center. Two of the stellascouts came gliding around either side of the ship's tall central structure to position themselves in front of the stellacruiser. At the point where the Candlelight entered the canyon, the walls were more than three miles apart. The starship dropped down into the stone alley with a generous amount of clearance on both sides. The bottom was only dimly visible, three miles below.






Though the people on the observers decks babbled excitedly, and the bridge crew were quietly exchanging remarks, Captain North was silent and still. Calmly he watched Samuel Kellogg from behind as the helmsman chewed his ever-present gum with a slow, mechanical cadence. Beth Kellogg gazed at the telemetry being transmitted to the Candlelight from the stellascouts, speaking softly to her unmoving husband, providing him with the data he needed.

High above them, the parallel edges of the canyon dwindled with distance, turning the cloudy sky into a jagged band, framed by rock. Gumjaw was gradually leveling the ship as they reached a depth in the canyon of more than three miles. The light from the narrow band of overcast sky was dim. The sheer, rocky walls floated by on either side. The two stellascouts that flew in front of the ship had positioned themselves the same distance apart as the width of the stellacruiser's long, slender wing-like lateral projections, giving Gumjaw a clear visual reference which showed him the distance between the ship’s wings and the cliffs on each side.

Gumjaw's face was a tight mask of total concentration. He was beginning to realize that there was something oddly claustrophobic about a canyon that could swallow a starship. He was used to the unimaginable vastness of space, and to the great speed required to cross it. This slow, precarious passage through a crack in a dead planet was unnerving.

The situation was beginning to affect the captain in the same manner. North was torn between his wish to get the Candlelight to the artifact site quickly and his concern for the ship's safety. He knew to be silent and trust the helmsman to do his job, but it was not easy to be passive while his ship was three miles underground, moving through a dim alley that was . . . getting smaller?

North leaned forward to peer into the gloom, just as Gumjaw spoke.

"I'm gonna need a computer simulation," the helmsman said quietly. Beth busied her skilled hands on the navigation console. Seconds later, all the twenty-by-twenty-foot screens rolled out from both sides of the bridge to form one huge wrap-around display. The instant the screens linked up they presented a bright, light-enhanced depiction of the canyon ahead. The scanning systems of the stellascouts were transmitting their data to the Candlelight‘s main computer, which then built this realistic image of what the canyon would look like if the light were ideal.

Captain North tensed unconsciously when he saw the approaching bottleneck. Oddly enough it was formed by an inward tilt of both the canyon walls. Overhead, the jagged band of visible sky was growing more narrow.

"Take her down, Mr. Kellogg," ordered North, and Gumjaw obeyed reluctantly. The ship lost altitude as he eased the control yoke forward. The stellascouts had anticipated the maneuver and were already descending. The computer-built image on the big display screens showed the canyon widening as they reach a depth of four miles.

"We're coming into the storm region, sir," said Beth.

Overhead, the sky had darkened drastically, and the dust was drifting down in increasing amounts. Within minutes the ship was surrounded by almost total darkness, and Gumjaw was completely dependent on the computer-enhanced image.

"It's getting more narrow again, Sam," said Beth.

"I know."

Gumjaw was peering at the display screen with glassy-eyed intensity as they approached another bottleneck. The walls were pinched together uniformly from the canyon's floor below to the planet's surface high above. Gumjaw brought the ship to a dead half.

"What now, honey?" Beth said softly.

"The stellascouts could go on through and find out if it widens out again."

Beth glanced back at Captain North, who silently nodded. Beth spoke into her headset, and moments later the stellascouts banked in towards each other and lead the way into the constriction.

Moment later, Beth reported that the canyon was much wider in about two miles. Gumjaw,

Ahead of the ship, the walls of the canyon seemed frighteningly close together. As they converged on the stellacruiser, Gumjaw twisted the control yoke, and the ship slowly rotated up onto its left wing. On the bridge, the canyon appeared to turn sideways, a dizzying sight despite the influence of the ship's artificial gravity. Everybody on the bridge and observers decks reflexively gripped the consoles and guard rails. The maneuvering thrusters on the lower sides of the two tilted engine pods flared in the darkness as they held the ship aloft in its sideways position. Gumjaw's fingers crawled across the control yoke switches, making fine adjustments.

As the canyon walls squeezed in around them, Beth did some quick work at her keyboard, causing two sets of numbers to be superimposed on the big display screens. They represented the distance in meters between the Candlelight and each of the canyon walls.

Suddenly the computer put a bright green outline around an outcropping of rock that barred their way. As the two leading stellascouts slowly ducked beneath it, Gumjaw adjusted the maneuvering thrusters so that the stellacruiser dropped for several hundred meters and slid beneath the projecting mass of stone. As soon as they were past it, the canyon widened. Gumjaw brought the ship back to a horizontal position, then he drew a deep lungful of air and blew it out slowly. Behind him Captain North did exactly the same thing, in unison. A drop of sweat clung to the captain's mustache like dew on a summer lawn.

Several people on the observers decks began applauding, and the rest picked it up. Without moving his head, Samual Kellogg reached up and tipped his hat briefly, then he glanced over at his wife. Her smile was pure Mono Lisa.

"Show off," she said softly. Captain North, however, was a bit less pleased with the situation.

"At this rate it'll take us half the day to get there," said North.

"If it stays wide like this, I can push the speed up a bit, sir," said the helmsman.

"Do it. But don't rake the wings off, Mr. Kellogg."

Gumjaw bumped the throttle up, and the stellacruiser accelerated to a hundred fifty miles an hour. The increased speed required quicker reactions from the helmsman. The winding, irregular canyon not only zig-zagged back and forth, its walls sometimes leaned at odd angles and were not parallel. Thus the helmsman had to vary the altitude as be banked and turned. Without the agile stellascouts blazing the trail ahead and giving Gumjaw advance warnings about the canyon’s shape and size, he could never have maintained the speed.

Their progress through the planetary crack became a rolling, curving series of graceful banks, dips, and climbs. The narrowest gaps had to be navigated sideways. Sometimes the canyon seemed to close over their heads, sealing the ship off from the world above. Other times it widened out until the walls were over forty miles apart. The falling dust that sifted down from the storm above made naked-eye viewing impossible, even if the light had been brighter. The volume of falling dust increased as the canyon wandered further into the full force of the storm.

Suddenly the bridge dome rang with the impact of falling rocks. On the surface above, the hurricane winds were stripping loose rocks from the floor of the plain and the tops of the buttes. Hundreds of them were raining down into the canyon and bouncing off the Candlelight[‘s hull.

Beth Kellogg lunged forward and danced her slender fingers across the navigation console. Gumjaw slowed the ship to half its former speed. The bang-bong-boom of falling rocks continued to pepper the hull. Captain North grew impatient with the delay.

"What's wrong?"

Beth didn't answer, still working at her console. So, her husband answered for her.

"We can only use shields one and two, and even then Beth has to tell the computer to shape the shields so that they won't try to deflect the canyons wall."

As he spoke, Beth finished her instructions to the computer. The rattle of falling rocks diminished and then ceased, but the ship started vibrating strangely. Gumjaw spoke to his wife while he wrestled with the trembling control yoke.

"The shields are dragging the canyon wall."

"They're dragging the air, too," said Beth as her hands talked to the computer through her console. "Lousy aerodynamics," she muttered. "I have to find a shape for the shields that will also protect the stellascouts."

Captain North, seated behind Kellogg, silently watched the young woman struggle with the unique problem. He noticed that most of the bridge crew had turned around to watch the navigator as her fingers waltz around her console. Beth paused for a moment and spoke rapidly into her headset. She was talking to the pilots of the stellascouts. The vibration lessoned, but it had not stopped. Beth listened to her headset for a moment

and then hissed with frustration as she started typing again. There was another brief flurry of falling rocks that rattled off the hull while the shape of the shields was experimentally altered.

Finally Beth paused to listen to another report from the stellascouts, and her face lit up with a sunny smile. The vibration of the ship had ceased, and so had the noisy rain of rocks. Beth leaned back in her chair and turned her glittering eyes towards her husband.

"Show off," said Samual Kellogg. Beth chuckled smugly. The helmsman eased the throttle forward, accelerating the starship to one hundred fifty again. Long minutes passed as the Candlelight banked and turned, surrounded by her stellascout escorts, following the winding crack in the planet's body. The helmsman kept up a running conversation with the leading stellascouts, discussing the shape and width of the canyon ahead.

Gumjaw startled everybody when he suddenly yanked the throttle back and then applied enough reverse thrust to halt the huge stellacruiser within seconds. The Candlelight slid up right behind the leading stellascouts, whose forward progress had suddenly been blocked by a narrow, tightly zig-zagging section of the canyon. The other two stellascouts went sailing by on each side of the ship before they were able to halt themselves. They had barely avoided colliding with the stellacruiser when it had stopped so unexpectedly.

Captain North thumbed a switch on the armrest of the command chair and then spoke to the pilots of the stellascouts.

"Spread out and find us a way through. Scout One and Two, check higher up. Three and four, try lower down."

The stellascouts glided away, disappearing around the first bend in the canyon, looking for a way through the Z-shaped bottleneck. Even the vertical shape of the canyon walls leaned left and right, offering no apparent way to slip the huge starship through.

The crowds on both observers decks were leaning dangerously far over the rails in their efforts to hear the captain's side of his conversation with the stellascout pilots. The four smaller aircraft were flying up and down the crooked stone alley, looking for any way through which the G.S.C. Candlelight could pass.

The minutes crawled by without regard for tense nerves and impatient men. The Candlelight hovered in the darkness, many miles beneath the surface of a dead world, far from the light of the bright, warm, sea of stars.

_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)
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