Dirge - Alan Dean Foster [65]
The two investigating repair craft were soon close enough to the alien vessel for their integral manipulative armature to reach out and touch it, should the pilots wish to do so.
“How the emission is?” FortyDaughter inquired.
“Unchanged still,” came the reply from the starship. “No reaction from the subject craft?”
“Nothing,” TwelveSon reported. “No movement, no lights internal or external visible are.” Carefully he edged his ship along the length of the silent vessel. Within the repair craft all was hushed. “A lock I have maybe found. Sealed it is.” Plaintively he inquired, “Can return to ship now maybe?”
“No. Families further information wish. Conclusiveness is sought.”
“Conclusiveness points to nothing living here,” Twelve-Son’s copilot murmured. “Automatic emission only there is. Not even signal we are sure it is. Energy release from broken equipment or failed instrumentation could well be. Let the humans further probe.” Tilting his round, heavily furred head back, he surveyed their grim surroundings. “Unpleasant this place is. Dead ship in a dying orbit above a dead moon.”
“Conclusiveness sought is.” The directive from the starship was tranquil but unrelenting. “Search lock external release for. Try.”
“Not even certain builder-owners of ship oxygen breathe.” Grumbling, FortyDaughter maneuvered the manipulative arms of her craft into position above the possible lock door that TwelveSon had located. Unfortunately, there were indications of exactly the sort of controls they were looking for. Unfortunately, these responded to the pilot’s gentle, precise handling. The lock or seal slid into its retaining wall, revealing a small alcove beyond. Both pilots maneuvered their ships close enough to shine lights within. They were unable to ascertain the identity of the instrumentation and internal engineering. Both dreaded the directives that reached them subsequently.
“Enter and explore. The source of the emission try to establish.”
“I here will remain to keep watch,” TwelveSon immediately offered.
“No,” argued FortyDaughter. “You better at such exploration than we are. You enter, watch we will keep.”
The dispute was settled from the ship. “TwelveSon and ThirtyOneSon enter will. FortyDaughter watch will keep. Care to be taken.”
“Care to be taken.” Muttering, TwelveSon released himself from his restraints, disconnected himself from the repair craft, and prepared to follow his copilot into the repair craft’s tiny lock.
It was a cramped space whose confines made donning a suit for outside work more difficult than it ought to have been. Normally, such suits would be put on in one of the much larger main locks on board the starship. When they had dropped away, no one had anticipated any reason why they might have to make use of pressure suits. It took some scrambling, but after dancing awkwardly around each other for a while, both pilots were suitably outfitted.
They exchanged a brief but intense clinch before turning and opening the door to the outside. Gravity barely strong enough to keep the alien vessel from drifting off into space allowed them to float gently down to its curved metal skin. Ahead, the open alien lock loomed. Above and behind them, they could see the concerned faces of FortyDaughter and her companion anxiously following their progress through the viewport of their hovering repair craft.
The sooner they completed their examination, the faster they could return to the warm embrace of the starship. TwelveSon led the way forward. Memories of the empty, shattered world below rose unbidden into his consciousness. Something had utterly annihilated the population of a seemingly benign world. Admittedly, the six hundred thousand who had perished had been aliens, but they had been intelligent and warm-blooded like the Unop-Patha. Whatever had ruthlessly slaughtered them might not be discriminatory in its taste for extermination. True, the ship they were about to board was