Horizon Storms - Kevin J. Anderson [232]
Exasperated, Sullivan said, “All those dead warglobes, and any Solar Navy ships we can find, are each like the Titanic. You defeated the aliens here on Qronha 3. Aren’t you proud of that? Wouldn’t your rememberers like to see what’s left, if only to include it in the Saga of Seven Suns? Wouldn’t your Adar Zan’nh be interested? It might score you some points with him.”
“I do not need to earn any advantage with the Adar.”
The screens flickered, and Sullivan saw a brief shape, a glint, and then a shadow. The explorer pod changed directions and moved in. Tabitha’s voice came over his communicator. “We’ve got something, Sullivan.”
He tapped an acknowledgment, still waiting for Hroa’x to understand what he was saying. “Okay, I can see I’m not getting through. Look, we’re doing this on our own initiative, Hroa’x. Our cloud harvester is operating at full capacity, and the crew doesn’t have much to do except check the monitors and switch out ekti tanks when they’re full. We planned this project in our spare time. It seemed like a good use of our off hours.”
“My crew can always find work to do,” Hroa’x said.
Sullivan couldn’t conceive what all these Ildirans did to keep themselves busy. “Ah yes, work expands to occupy the number of people available.” He chuckled, but the chief skyminer found no humor in the comment. “Look, there’s no downside here. We aren’t asking you to participate, so there’s no risk or cost at all to you—but I intend to share with you all the images we take. Why not? We’re good neighbors, and I thought the Ildiran Empire would find them useful. Any military information has ramifications for our skymining activities—for defense and preparation, if nothing else.”
Hroa’x finally gave a stiff nod, to indicate that this was an acceptable reason for the odd investigation.
On the screen, the perfectly geometrical shapes of two looming warglobes drifted into view as the explorer drone centered in. The immense spheres studded with triangular protrusions looked like electron micrographs of pollen spores. One sphere was cracked open from a giant explosion, no doubt the impact of a Solar Navy warliner; it hung dark and quiet, like an empty shell made of blackened diamond. The second warglobe appeared intact, but just as dead.
Seeing the awesome images, Hroa’x stiffened, finally impressed and uneasy. The Ildiran workers muttered in both fear and surprise.
“No energy sources detected, Sullivan,” Tabitha said. “Those warglobes are at ambient temperature, not emanating in any frequency band.”
“Keep looking…but be careful.”
“I’m going inside the broken one,” Tabitha said. “Yes, I’ll do it carefully, Sullivan. Don’t have a stroke.”
The view from the explorer drone swerved around as it approached the open wound in the dead hydrogue sphere.
“Exercise caution. Extreme caution.”
“I already promised you that. They’re dead, Sullivan.”
Sullivan had been excited to see if he could find these wrecks, but now he didn’t want to provoke any response. What if something had survived? Lydia would have scolded him for not letting sleeping dogs lie. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all.
The explorer drone cruised through the wide-open wreckage, puttering along serpentine corridors and upside-down geometries, doors that were in the wrong places, cubes and pyramids connected with troughs that looked like circuit lines. It was all utterly incomprehensible to him.
“We’re recording these images for our next dispatch back to the Hansa,” Tabitha said.
“Make sure the Ildirans have full access to this data as well.”
“I don’t suppose they’ll share the research expenses?” she said snidely, as if she had forgotten Hroa’x and the others were listening.
“This is a gesture of our good faith. What helps us against the hydrogues helps everyone.”
“Whatever you say.”
As Tabitha took images for the better part of an hour, the wondrous strangeness built up to a surfeit of incomprehension. Hansa scientists and EDF experts would scrutinize every second of footage, but Sullivan couldn’t stare forever. Hroa’x already looked anxious to get