The Depths of Time by Roger MacBride Allen

Author:Roger MacBride Allen [Allen, Roger MacBride]
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Science Fiction
Publisher: Chron of Solace
Published: 2010-09-30T04:14:28.453000+00:00

CHAPTER FOURTEEN Jonah and Pandora

Anton Koffield watched and listened as an alert tone sounded and lines of text appeared on the Cruzeiro do Sul’s pilot station’s display.

POWER-OFF ALL ATTITUDE CONTROL, ALL PROPULSION SYSTEMS. EXTEND SHIP LANDING GEAR. WILL NOT PROCEED UNTIL COMPLIANCE DETECTION.

The syntax was a little odd, but the intent was clear enough. SCO Station didn’t want powered ships flying around inside itself.

Anton Koffield looked to Norla Chandray, and nodded at her unspoken question. She let out a worried sigh and flipped the appropriate switches.

COMPLIANCE DETECTION. PT SYSTEM NOW WILL TRANSPORT TO SHIP BAY GAMMA TWO (G2). MAINTAIN PASSIVE STATE.

Interesting. There had been no noticeable shift in language or context when Second Officer Chandray had been talking with the human controllers. Why would an automatic system use such strange phrasing?

Koffield looked at Chandray again. The woman did not much like the thought of powering down her ship. Well, he could not blame her. Even under normal circumstances, no pilot liked to cede control of her craft—and these were far from normal circumstances.

The PT Arm folded back on itself, pulling the Cruzeiro do Sul toward the station. Koffield peered into the station’s central access tunnel and saw their PT Arm’s carrier car starting to roll forward, hauling the arm and the Cruzeiro along. There was a creak and a groan from the docking system’s load-bearing structure as it took up the towing stress. Then the ship started moving slowly forward toward the station.

Koffield checked his recorders again and confirmed they were working, then concentrated on seeing everything, noting everything, that he possibly could.

The carrier car moved steadily forward, the PT Arm and the ship trailing along behind. It was hard not to imagine the open end of the central access tunnel as a giant mouth swallowing them up, and the tunnel itself as a gullet of some monstrous beast. Jonah being swallowed by the whale. Well, Jonah had come out of it all right. Perhaps they would be equally lucky.

The Cruzeiro passed out of sunlight into the shadow of the station, then entered the station’s access tunnel. Without taking his eyes off the tunnel, Koffield removed his bright-tracking glasses and handed them to Chandray. She removed hers and put both pairs back in their storage compartment.

Koffield’s attention was focused on the interior of Solace Central Orbital Station. The place had doubled in size in the last century. That in and of itself was not remarkable. It was the way that time and use had made their mark that told him what he needed to know, and that gave him reason for alarm.

They passed by a loading bay that was stripped down to its structural members, wall panels pulled out more or less at random, and some of the structural hardware missing as well. What looked very much like the same type of wall panels had been used to add an extra repair bay in a nearby yard. A beat-up old orbital tug in that repair bay was half-disassembled, but whether it was being taken apart or being put back together was impossible to tell.

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